By now, you already know the story of the JFK assassination. Everyone does.

On November 2, 1963, the nation wept when our beloved president John F. Kennedy was killed by a lone assassin named Thomas Arthur Vallee in Chicago, Illinois. The president was in Chicago to attend the Army – Air Force football game at Soldier Field, and Vallee assassinated JFK just as he was arriving to —

Hold up, what?!? That’s not what happened.

But it almost did.

Few know that a mere three weeks before he was killed in Dallas, JFK was almost assassinated while he was in Chicago to attend a football game at Soldier Field.

It’s a tale full of mysteries, questions, and bizarre links to some of the major events of the 1960s.

Here’s the story of the Chicago assassination that nearly took JFK’s life.

ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT

It all began on October 30, 1963, when an informant who identified himself as “Lee” called the FBI and told them four snipers were in Chicago to assassinate JFK during his trip to Soldier Field that coming weekend.

Incredibly, some have suspected that this “Lee” who’d revealed the assassination plot was none other than…Lee Harvey Oswald! After all, there has long been evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald was a paid FBI informant.

*Did Lee Harvey Oswald tip off the FBI about the Chicago plot? (AP, 1963)*

Based on the tip from “Lee,” a frantic citywide manhunt for these four assassins ensued, led by the Secret Service. They eventually turned up an employee at a boarding house on Clark and Division who’d reported that two men with rifles, scopes, and sketches of the President’s route were in one of her rooms.

The Secret Service brought in the two men and interrogated them, but both men refused to reveal anything and their identities are still unknown to this day.

THOMAS ARTHUR VALLEE

On November 1, the day before JFK was to arrive in Chicago, the Secret Service received another tip that a man named Thomas Arthur Vallee had threatened to kill Kennedy in Chicago. They searched Vallee’s home when he was absent and found an M1 rifle, a carbine rifle, and twenty-five hundred rounds of ammunition.

The Secret Service, short-staffed, asked the Chicago Police for help in locating Vallee and bringing him in as soon as possible.

The Chicago Police assigned the task of finding Vallee to two officers: Daniel Groth and Peter Schurla (remember those names). They quickly found him at his listed address of 1725 West Wilson Ave and started following him.

*Vallee’s fleabag apartment was at 1725 West Wilson*

So…thus far in Chicago, on the day before the President was to arrive, we have:

Two men with scopes, rifles, and a map of the Presidential route who’d been brought in
Another man who’d supposedly threatened to kill Kennedy who had rifles and twenty-five hundred rounds of ammunition in his apartment
Two other supposed assassins who were still on the loose, their identities unknown

Something was clearly going on.

SHADY COPS

Let’s take a quick look at Daniel Groth and Peter Schurla, the two Chicago cops assigned to finding Thomas Arthur Vallee after an anonymous tip fingered him as an assassination threat.

The tip about Vallee came in on November 1 and the officers located Vallee almost instantly — but instead of arresting the would-be assassin, the officers tailed him overnight and into the next morning. Finally, at 10:10 A.M. on Saturday, November 2, barely two hours before Kennedy was scheduled to arrive in Chicago, they arrested Vallee.

This raises one obvious question: If Vallee was such a threat to assassinate the President, why did the officers tail Vallee for nearly half a day instead of arresting or even questioning him immediately?

Many who’ve studied the Chicago plot believe there’s a sinister answer to that question: Groth and Schurla’s true mission wasn’t to arrest Vallee and stop the assassination. Instead, they were assigned to shadow Vallee and essentially serve as chaperones and protect him until the assassination was finished.

If Vallee was going to a be an Oswald-esque scapegoat, the assassination plot would only be successful if he was free — so the officers were there to ensure that he remained on the streets until Kennedy arrived.

It’s an incredible claim but the timeline supports it. The official announcement that Kennedy was canceling his trip to Chicago came at 10:15 A.M., which meant Kennedy’s inner circle would’ve made the decision to cancel at least 10-15 minutes before they announced it to the public, around 10 A.M.

Groth and Schurla, after tailing Vallee for an evening and a morning, suddenly arrested him at 10:10 A.M. In other words, they followed Vallee around for almost half a day and only arrested him AFTER it was decided that Kennedy wouldn’t be coming to Chicago.

Some believe that once it was clear that Kennedy was no longer coming to Chicago, the officers’ mission changed from chaperoning Vallee to getting him off the street after Kennedy’s trip was cancelled.

Further supporting this is that Groth and Schurla were some shady ass dudes. Six years after the JFK incident in Chicago, Groth became a household name when he led the raid on the apartment belonging to Black Panthers Fred Hampton and Mark Clark that left both men dead. It’s a well-known case that was really nothing less than a massacre of the two Civil Rights leaders. Groth’s team kicked in the apartment door and fired over 90 bullets, gravely injuring four other Panthers in addition to the Clark and Hampton deaths.

The Murder of Fred Hampton (1971)
https://vimeo.com/434141029?embedded=true&source=vimeo_logo&owner=87004973

In a 1983 lawsuit, Groth acknowledged that his team of officers had carried out the assault on Hampton and Clark at the specific request of the FBI.

Northeastern Illinois University professor Dan Stern researched Daniel Groth’s background and discovered that Groth had taken several lengthy “training leaves” from the Chicago Police Department to Washington, D.C. Stern believed that “the CIA and the Chicago police were very tight,” and while Groth was a member of the Chicago Police, he probably worked under cover for the CIA.

When a journalist confronted Groth and asked him point-blank “Are you CIA?” Groth just shrugged it off. Researcher Sherman Skolnick even filed a lawsuit against Groth, alleging that Groth had connections to intelligence agencies and was a key figure in an aborted plot to kill the President in Chicago.

There were about 10,000 Chicago cops at the time. And of all those cops, the same guy…

Led the raid on Hampton and Clark
Was assigned to tail Thomas Arthur Vallee
Often left Chicago to go to Washington DC for “training leaves”

Is that merely a coincidence? Probably not.

ABRAHAM BOLDEN

This incredible story would have never been known were it not for one person: Abraham Bolden.

He was the first black secret service agent assigned to Presidential protection, personally appointed by JFK. He eventually resigned from presidential duty to work in the Secret Service office in Chicago and was one of the agents who helped thwart the Chicago plot.

After the JFK assassination in Dallas, Bolden attempted to contact J. Lee Rankin of the Warren Commission to inform him about the Chicago plot and the two unidentified assassins who’d been picked up — perhaps these assassins had played a part in the Dallas plot, too?

*J. Lee Rankin, General Counsel of the Warren Commission*

Big mistake. Bolden’s testimony about the assassination plot in Chicago would’ve pretty much destroyed the Warren Commission’s attempts to portray the Dallas shooting as a one-time, lone nut event. After contacting the Warren Commission, Bolden was arrested, charged with accepting a bribe, and sentenced to six years in prison.

Someone clearly didn’t want him talking.

Bolden claimed he’d been framed, and he’s most likely right — he had been convicted on the word of two known counterfeiters. One of the counterfeiters, Joseph Spagnoli, later admitted in court that he had lied when testifying against Bolden at the request of Prosecutor Richard Skiles.

Bolden spent almost four years in federal prison and the Warren Commission mentioned nothing about the Chicago plot in their report on the Dallas assassination.

In 2008, Bolden published his biography The Echo from Dealey Plaza, in which he told his side of his unfortunate, unjust story.

A change.org petition to pardon Bolden was established in 2021.

VALLEE/OSWALD SIMILARITIES

There were a remarkable number of similarities between the career of Lee Harvey Oswald and Thomas Arthur Vallee’s account of his own career:

Both were former Marines who joined at around the same time.
Both had served at Marine bases in Japan (Oswald at Atsugi, Vallee at Camp Otsu). The CIA was rumored to have a strong presence at both bases, making them prime recruiting stations.
Both had extremist political views and had been involved with anti–Castro Cubans: Oswald in New Orleans, Vallee at a training camp at Levittown on Long Island, New York.
Both had recently started working at premises that overlooked the routes of presidential parades: Oswald at the Texas School Book Depository on Elm Street in Dallas, Vallee at IPP Litho–Plate at 625 West Jackson Boulevard in Chicago.
Both owned rifles and were basically loners.
They even resembled each other physically.

Like Oswald, parts of Vallee’s life were filled with mysterious connections to government agencies. When he was arrested by Chicago police, Vallee was driving a Ford Falcon with New York plates 31-10RF. When an NBC Chicago reporter named Luke Christopher Hester ran the plates, the results came back: the license plates were ‘frozen’ and information about the registration for Vallee’s car was restricted to U.S. Intelligence agencies.

So why was this supposed assassin driving a car with government-protected plates on it?

*Official FBI report on the license plate on Vallee’s car being ‘frozen’ by the FBI.*

JFK’s route in Chicago, too, was similar to the route in Dallas. In Chicago, he was to take the Northwest Expressway (later renamed the Kennedy Expressway) to downtown. He’d then take the Jackson Street exit, where his limousine would be forced to slow to practically a standstill as it made a 90-degree turn. This exit was in a warehouse district near the IPP Litho–Plate building where Vallee worked.

*The IPP Litho Plate building was almost as infamous as the Texas School Box Depository. It’s now an apartment complex.*

As in Dallas, the Jackson Street exit offered an unobstructed view of Kennedy’s car, which would be ideal if multiple shooters were involved.

Large crowds were present to greet the President in both cities…and they would of course panic if a shooting took place, allowing the assassins to escape unnoticed.

Perhaps most interestingly, mysterious suspects were arrested and let go in both cities — the two unidentified assassins in Chicago, the infamous Three Tramps in Dallas.

SAIGON CONNECTION

Hours before Kennedy’s scheduled trip to Chicago, possibly the most significant event in the Vietnam War occurred when Ngo Dinh Diem, the ruler of South Vietnam, and his close confidant brother Ngo Dinh Nhu were assassinated in a CIA-backed coup.

Some believe that the Diem brothers’ assassination occurring at the same time as JFK’s Chicago trip was no coincidence: there was supposed to be a dramatic trifecta of killings, the Diem brothers and Kennedy simultaneously, to eliminate opposition to the Vietnam War and throw the conflict into true chaos.

*President Kennedy was not pleased with the Diem brothers’ assassination.* *JFK and the Unspeakable, p. 211*

The Gemstone File, a popular underground document that circulated around the nation at the time, wrote about the Kennedy and Diem assassination trifecta:

"The hit on JFK was planned in true Mafia style: a dramatic triple execution, together with the two brothers, Diem and Nhu, in Vietnam. Diem and Nhu got theirs, as scheduled, via Onassis's Captain Nung. The third brother, Cardinal Thuc, avoided his death because he was at the Vatican visiting the Pope. Jack avoided his-at the Chicago football stadium-that day. Nhu's wife, Madame Nhu, bitterly remarked, "Whatever has happened in Vietnam will see its counterpart in the United States."
One of the assassination team (Tom Vallee, a double for Oswald), in Chicago for rehearsals for the hit, was picked up in a car, with a rifle, with 2 other team members, and quickly released by the Chicago police; the arrest record was fudged over.
Three weeks later, Onassis's back-up plan went into effect: JFK was assassinated in Dallas-like Chicago, a "safe Mafia murder town."

IN CLOSING

The failed Chicago plot is more than some interesting sidenote in JFK assassination lore. The existence of the Chicago plot destroys the notion that Lee Harvey Oswald was some lone nut who acted on his own. If there was a separate plot to kill JFK a mere three weeks before his assassination in Dallas, it’s pretty clear there was some sort of coordinated effort to eliminate him.

Had it not been for a few twists of fate, Chicago may have gone down in history as the site of JFK’s assassination. And Thomas Arthur Vallee, not Lee Harvey Oswald, would be remembered as the most famous assassin (or patsy?) in American history.

JFK Chicago Assassination

ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT

THOMAS ARTHUR VALLEE

SHADY COPS

ABRAHAM BOLDEN

VALLEE/OSWALD SIMILARITIES

SAIGON CONNECTION

IN CLOSING

FURTHER READING

It’s not hidden history. It’s right out in the open.

You just have to look for it.

JFK Chicago Assassination

ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT

THOMAS ARTHUR VALLEE

SHADY COPS

ABRAHAM BOLDEN

VALLEE/OSWALD SIMILARITIES

SAIGON CONNECTION

IN CLOSING

FURTHER READING

The Ghost of Flight 401

It’s not hidden history. It’s right out in the open.

You just have to look for it.