Anatomy of a Threat

   The following is a detailed chronology, using many recently-released documents, demonstrating the Secret Service's pre-November 22 knowledge of mortal threats to President Kennedy's life, as well as my major discovery of a covert monitor of these threats put in place during the short days and weeks before the assassination. This chronology further strains the credibility of the notion that one man, Lee Harvey Oswald, "got lucky" during the very same time that the agency assigned to protect his alleged victim were on the look-out for OTHER threats on JFK's life.

 NOVEMBER 1963:

11/1: South Vietnam's president Diem is assassinated in a CIA-backed coup.

11/2: JFK's trip to Chicago, IL was cancelled at the last minute due to mortal threats against his life: apart from Thomas Arthur Vallee, Thomas Mosely, and Homer Echevarria, inluding a team of four Cuban gunman, 2 of whom eluded surveillance and escaped.

Former agents Sam Kinney, Bill Greer, and James Griffiths told the HSCA that this trip was cancelled at the last minute---the excuses were varied: JFK had a cold [the Cuban Missile Crisis alibi], Diem's death [refuted by Salinger, by the way], Thomas Arthur Vallee arrest, and others. Joseph Noonan, a Chicago office agent, told the HSCA that he "participated directly in surveillance involving TOM MOSELY and HOMER ECHEVARRIA....he and [the] other agents were uneasy that the Cubans might have some ties to the CIA...a little later they received a call from Headquarters to DROP EVERYTHING ON MOSELY AND ECHEVARRIA AND SEND ALL MEMOS, FILES, AND THEIR NOTEBOOKS TO WASHINGTON AND NOT TO DISCUSS THE CASE WITH ANYONE"
(emphasis added).

 11/8 to 11/9: Kennedy's first, low profile trip to New York City.

A VERY IMPORTANT POINT TO KEEP IN MIND: THERE WERE NO PRS SPECIAL AGENTS---THOSE ADMINISTRATIVE AGENTS THAT MONITOR THREATS TO THE PRESIDENT---ON THIS TRIP OR ON ANY PREVIOUS TRIP IN 1963.

ALSO on 11/9: Miami, FL---FBI informant Willie Somersett tapes conversation with Joseph Milteer about plans to kill JFK (JFK to visit Miami on 11/18/63). This is known by the Secret Service BEFORE Dallas, as SAIC Bouck told me AND as Secret Service records reveal!

11/10: PRS agent Glen Bennett was "temporarily assigned to the White House Detail" on this date.

IMPORTANT INTERLUDE REGARDING PRS AGENT GLEN BENNETT: Although Bennett told the HSCA that he "was not on the Florida trip [11/18/63]", the Secret Service shift reports for that trip AND the Survey Reports'" not only state he WAS indeed on this trip, but he RODE IN THE FOLLOW-UP CAR! Miami WHD advance agent Bert DeFreese told the HSCA that "in 1963 it was rare for a PRS agent from Washington to accompany an advance agent in to the field, and that no PRS agent accompanied [him] on this trip"9, yet Bennett was with De Freese in Miami AND in Houston on 11/21/63 (!) Bennett further told the HSCA that he "was detailed from PRS to the White House Detail for the Dallas trip [11/22/63]. This was because there was a manpower pull for the Dallas trip", a statement NOT backed up by the recently-released shift reports, courtesy of the ARRB. Furthermore, Sam Kinney told me that Bennett was making his FIRST trip on 11/22/63 which, while "corroborated" by Bennett's aforementioned statement to the HSCA, is ALSO obviously contradicted by the above-mentioned shift reports and Survey reports for the Florida trip of 11/18/63 AND, if that wasn't enough, Bennett was on the SECOND New York, NY trip JFK made (11/14-11/15/63)!

To review: 11/1---Diem assasinated; 11/2--JFK's Chicago trip cancelled at the last minute due to threats; 11/8---start of JFK's FIRST NY trip [no PRS agent on this trip, as there appears to have been NONE on any prior trip---a rarity, according to DeFreese]; 11/9----Milteer threat in Miami 11/10---Bennett temporarily assigned to WHD from PRS... 11/11: SAIC of PRS Robert Bouck was notified about JFK's upcoming SECOND trip to NY, NY for 11/14-11/15/63--- BENNETT WAS THEN DISPATCHED TO JFK'S PRESIDENTIAL SUITE AT THE CARLYLE HOTEL, PRIOR TO KENNEDY'S ARRIVAL, "to conduct a technical survey" (NOT done on any prior trips in Nov., inc. the FIRST NY trip, trips from October, September, or any other known to this author; coinciding with Bennett's temporary assignment, his denials to the HSCA, and everything above in toto, there is something going on here---the timing is everything);

11/13: Army code breaker Eugene Dinkin, who had foreknowledge of a threat and attempted to warn officials, is taken into custody by Army officials and hospitalized (a Secret Service agent even interviews him) 11

11/14-11/15: the aforementioned SECOND NY, NY trip (shift leader Art Godfrey, the advance agent on BOTH NY trips---he actually stayed IN NY between both trips---did NOT know the reason why JFK made the FIRST NY
trip or its purpose, although he was much aware of the second trip) [this is also the trip where much is made, after the fact, of so-called security lapses invoked by JFK].

11/18: JFK's Florida trip: Miami advance agent DeFreese admitted to the HSCA that "a threat did surface in connection with the Miami trip...there was an active threat against the President which the Secret Service was aware in November 1963 in the period immediately prior to JFK's trip to Miami made by a GROUP OF PEOPLE" (emphasis added). In addition to this threat info., and seperate from the 11/9 Milteer threat, a CO2 PRS file, released to the HSCA on 5/3/78 and available only recently reveals yet another threat subject: John Warrington. Kinney told me of an unspecified "organized crime" threat related to this same trip. [this is also the trip where, despite numerous films, photos, and interviews to the contrary, JFK allegedly ordered the agents off the rear of his limo, cited as causing peril in Dallas on 11/22/63 from such diverse people as William Manchester and current Secret Service Director Lewis Merletti!]

11/21-11/22: Texas trip (U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson and Senator William Fulbright warn JFK not to go to Dallas)---

11/21: DNC advance man Marty Underwood gets "all sorts of rumors", 18 hours before the assassination, that Kennedy was to be killed in Dallas. Marty even conveys this to JFK, who tells him, "Marty, you worry about me too much" (indeed, JFK told San Antonio Congressman Henry Gonzalez, "Henry, the Secret Service told me they took care of everything. There's nothing to worry about"); Advance agent Winston Lawson wrote in his report that " Agent Bennett was REMINDED that he would work Presidential follow-up car on the movement" .

11/22: While SA Bennett rides in the Secret Service follow-up car, scanning the people lining the streets, President Kennedy is brutally cut down right in front of him.

AFTER the assassination: Bennett's observations---via his allegedly contemporaneous handwritten notes from 11/22/63---were used by Chief Rowley to buttress the notion that Kennedy was struck in the back from the
REAR, in spite of the films/ photos that appear to depict Bennett looking away from JFK, a point made by Lifton, Evica, Newcomb, and several others before me. But this is almost ancillary to the major point made herein:

WAS PRS AGENT GLEN BENNETT MONITORING MORTAL THREATS TO JFK'S LIFE, MADE IN THE MONTH OF NOVEMBER, AND WAS THIS COVERED UP AFTERWARDS? IS THIS THE REASON FOR THE CONFLICTING ACCOUNTS--AND THE TIMING---OF BENNETT'S PARTICIPATION IN THE SECOND NY TRIP, THE FLORIDA TRIP, AND THE TEXAS TRIP? DID BENNETT RIDE IN THE FOLLOW-UP CAR ON THESE TRIPS FOR THIS PURPOSE? I BELIEVE SO. WHILE GLEN BENNETT IS STILL ALIVE, HE SHOULD BE GRANTED IMMUNITY AND GIVEN A CHANCE TO TELL THE TRUTH.

 

 References:

 1 Author interviews with former Secret Service agents Abraham Bolden and Maurice Martineau.

2 RIF#'s 180-10104-10331; 180-10087-10191;180-10099-10491;
180-10078-10493; 180-10082-10453; 154-10001-10174: Secret
Service shift report.

3 Interviews with the advance agent, ATSAIC/ Shift Leader Art Godfrey, 1996
and 1997; see also RIF#'s 154-10001-10134 and 154-10001-10133:
Secret Service shift reports.

4 CD 1347, p. 119.

5 Palamara, The Third Alternative; RIF# 154-10001-10120; 18 H 783.

6 RIF#180-10082-10452.

7 RIF#154-10001-10064.

8 RIF#'s 154-10002-10421 and 10422.

9 RIF#180-10083-10419.

10 RIF#154-10002-10419.

11 See Dick Russell's The Man Who Knew Too Much and Noel Twyman's Bloody Treason.

12 RIF#'s 180-10118-10041 and 10033.

13 Author's interview with Marty Underwood.

14 17 H 631---emphasis added.

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