Episode 209 The Secret Service Question Part 20 The Chicago Plot

JFK The Enduring Secret

Episode 209 is the twentieth in a series covering the Secret Service and possible involvement in the coverup, or the actual plot itself to assassinate President Kennedy. Today's episode covers the plot to kill the president in Chicago on November 2nd, 1963. just twenty days before his actual assassination in Dallas. President Kennedy was scheduled to attend the Army Airforce Game in Chicago. Several days prior to his arrival, the FBI phoned the secret service Chicago office and apprised them that there was a plot afoot that deployed paramilitary gunman to kill the president. And that they were likely to be aiming at the president as he exited the expressway close to stadium. The clue was provided by a man with the first name of Lee. Shortly after a landlady came across rifles with scopes in one of four rooms that she had rented to four men, she concluded it was suspicious and informed the authorities. The head of the local secret service knew it was the plot that he had been forewarned about by the FBI. For reasons that are still, to this day, not completely clear, the FBI chose to "turf" the case entirely over to the secret service. They did so despite the fact that the secret service had minimal personnel in the Chicago office, consisting only of eight agents at the time. After a surveillance snafu, only two of the four men were identified and taken into custody for questioning. The other two men known to the landlady, were never identified or found. Meanwhile, through an unidentified tip, the authorities became aware of an ex-Marine that turned out to be a perfect patsy. Thomas Arthur Valley. His credentials looked surprisingly like Oswalds...both were marines, both served in the marines in japan at bases there, and both bases were CIA fortresses. With a history of far right leanings and connections to the John Birch society and later shown to have trained with anti-Castro Cubans, Valley had a sketchy mental health background. No doubt that he would have been considered a lone nut. A perfect patsy. He had recently taken a job in a manufacturing concern located in a multi-story building along the motorcade route, close to a point in the road where the president's limousine would come to the end of the expressway and stop, and then make a 90 degree turn. Eerily similar to the Dealey Plaza scenario. Details of the Chicago plot were sealed up by the secret service and apparently not made available to the planners in Miami, Tampa and the Texas trips including Dallas. It was many years later before the plots were revealed generally. Was there more to the story. Why were these details withheld from planners in Dallas?
Even as early as 1964, rumors and serious concerns over the lone gunman theory and the evidence that might contravene it, were becoming a major concern for the government and the commission. Conspiracy theories were contrary to the government's stated narrative from the very beginning. This real-life story is more fascinating than fiction. No matter whether you are a serious researcher or a casual student, you will enjoy the fact filled narrative and story as we relive one of the most shocking moments in American History. An event that changed the nation and changed the world forever.