44 Years After JFK's Death, New Assassination Plot Revealed

Nov. 22, 2007 — -- A former Secret Service agent has told WLS-TV there was a plot to kill President Kennedy in Chicago three weeks before he was assassinated in Dallas.

Kennedy was murdered on Nov. 22, 1963. Today is the 44th anniversary of JFK's assassination.

Lee Harvey Oswald would never have had the chance to kill Kennedy in Dallas, had an assassination plot in Chicago succeeded three weeks earlier, a plot that has been mentioned over the years.

Kennedy was due to arrive in Chicago the morning of Nov. 2 to attend the Army-Air Force football game at Soldier Field and ride in a parade. Newspapers had even printed JFK's detailed travel plan from O'Hare airport to the Loop.

Although police were preparing to line the motorcade route, Secret Service officials in Chicago were deeply troubled about the visit because of two secret threats.

Right-wing radical and Kennedy denouncer Thomas Vallee had arranged to be off work for JFK's visit; Vallee, an expert marksman, was arrested with an M1 rifle, a handgun and 3,000 rounds of ammo. But then there was the phone call to federal agents from a motel manager concerning what she'd seen in a room rented by two Cuban nationals.

"Had seen lying on the bed several automatic rifles with telescopic sights, with an outline of the route that President Kennedy was supposed to take in Chicago that would bring him past that building," said former Secret Service agent Abraham Bolden.

Bolden, 72, of Chicago, was a young agent in 1963. After a few years as an Illinois state trooper, Bolden joined he Secret Service and was invited by Kennedy onto the prestigious White House detail. He was the first black agent assigned to protect a president.

Bolden recalled how agents bungled surveillance of those two suspected Cuban hit men. They disappeared and were never identified.

"No one was sent to the room to fingerprint it or get an ID. The case was lost and that was the end of it," Bolden said.