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Vince Palamara's Epic Failure, Part Two

Writer's picture: Fred LitwinFred Litwin

Updated: Oct 22, 2024

Vince Palamara's new book, The Plot to Kill President Kennedy in Chicago and other Traces of Conspiracy Leading to the Assassination of JFK, is an epic failure. Despite the enticing title, Palamara does not provide any evidence of a plot in Chicago in November 1963.



I now want to turn my attention to Chapter Seven: The Chicago Plot (page 201 in the Kindle edition)

On 11/1/63 South Vietnam’s President Ngo Diem is assassinated in a CIA backed coup.197

Right at the start of the chapter, Palamara gets it wrong. It was not just a CIA-backed coup. It was a coup supported by President Kennedy. Here is an excerpt from Fredrik Logevall's book, Choosing War: (pages 63 - 64 in the Kindle edition)

At the White House, too, the Diem-Nhu team’s intransigence added to the sense that a coup was urgently needed. But what if the coup failed? Just as they had done in the last week of August, Kennedy and his lieutenants in October spent much time debating the implications of a takeover attempt that did not succeed. They were convinced that a failed coup would be disastrous for America’s image abroad and would almost certainly bring about the very thing that a coup was intended to prevent: an ejection of the United States from South Vietnam by the Diem regime. This fear of failure and its implications were the dominant theme in the hundreds of pages of cable traffic sent by Washington to the embassy in Saigon in the last half of October. It was a fear bluntly articulated by Robert Kennedy at a top level meeting on 29 October. “If the coup fails,” he warned those around him, “Diem throws us out.”
At the same time, no one in the Kennedy inner circle was prepared to alter course. As always, their concern was pragmatic, not ethical—not whether the United States had any business getting involved in the overthrow of a foreign government, but whether that overthrow would work.
The administration pressed forward with the “selective pressures” policy, and it continued to promise the coup plotters that a new government could count on full U.S. support. At home, officials emphasized that the one- thousand-man withdrawal plan was conditional on success in the war and that it marked no change in American policy. They publicly repeated the president’s line that “what helps win the war we support, what interferes with the war effort we oppose.” Finally, Kennedy made one decision that plainly revealed that, whatever his reservations about a coup, he was determined to get rid of the Ngos: he left in the hands of Lodge—whose anti-Diem views had been unambiguously clear since he set foot in Saigon in August—the final decision on whether to try to call off or delay the coup. Lodge did neither. By the end of the day on 1 November, a new regime had taken power in Saigon. Its first order of business was to make absolutely certain that the old one could never return.

Palamara continues:


The very next day, 11/2/63, JFK’s trip to Chicago, Illinois is canceled at the last minute due to threats against his life: apart from subjects Thomas Arthur Vallee, Thomas Mosely, and Homer Echevarria, there was a team of four Cuban gunmen, two of whom eluded surveillance and escaped. Former Secret Service agents Sam Kinney, Bill Greer, Robert Kollar, J. Lloyd Stocks, Gary McLeod, Robert J. Motto, Edward Tucker, David Grant, James Griffiths, Abraham Bolden, and Chicago SAIC Maurice Martineau told the HSCA that this trip was cancelled at the last minute – the excuses were varied: JFK had a cold (a repeat of the Cuban Missile Crisis alibi that turned out to be a false pretense), Diem’s death (refuted by Salinger), the Thomas Arthur Vallee arrest, and others. When the author asked former agent Walt Coughlin why the trip was cancelled, he responded, “I have not a clue!”


Note that the supposed plot was uncovered on October 30th, some three days before JFK's visit. Here is an excerpt from Black's article "The Plot to Kill JFK in Chicago" from the Chicago Independent:

A few hours after that meeting [a coordination meeting between the Secret Service and the Mayor's office on October 30] adjourned, the phone rang in the Chicago office of the Secret Service. Agent Jay Lawrence Stocks was for a few hours the ranking agent, so he took the call. It was the Federal Bureau of Investigation calling from Washington. The FBI man warned Stocks of a serious and dangerous four-man conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy at the Army-Air Force game.

Had they really uncovered a serious plot against Kennedy on October 30th, they would not have waited until the day of the trip to cancel his plans .


Kennedy's trip was cancelled because of the assassination of Diem. Palamara writes that this was "refuted by Salinger," but here is his outside contact report from the HSCA:


The major problem with Palamara's chapter on the Chicago plot is that he doesn't actually spell it out. Was it the plot that Black wrote about? Was it Arthur Vallee's supposed threat against JFK? Or was it all based on Homer Echevarria, a bus driver for the Chicago Transit Authority?


Palamara brings up Homer Echevarria at the start of his chapter: (pages 201 - 202 of the Kindle edition)

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.” On November 21, 1963, Thomas Mosley was negotiating the sale of machine guns to a Cuban exile named Homer Echevarria. In the course of the transaction, Echevarria said that “we now have plenty of money – our new backers are Jews” and would close the arms deal “as soon as we [or they] take care of Kennedy.” The next day, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. Mosley, an ATF informant, reported his conversation to the Secret Service, and that agency quickly began investigating what it termed “a group in the Chicago area who may have a connection with the JFK assassination.” Echevarria was a member of the 30th November group, associated with the DRE with whom Oswald had dealings the previous summer. Mosley said the arms deal was being financed through Paulino Sierra Martinez and his J.G.C.E. – Sierra interestingly was connected to Bobby Kennedy’s effort to unite various exile groups, through Harry Ruiz Williams.

How the story of Homer Echevarria fits into a supposed Chicago plot is beyond me. All of the activity occurred after the assassination -- whereas the supposed plot was to have taken place at the beginning of November. The supposed statement by Echevarria -- "we now have plenty of money -- our new backers are Jews ..." was reported to the Secret Service on November 26, 1963.


Even then the informant was not clear if Echevarria's group or the Jews were going to take care of Kennedy.


The reality turns out to be that neither the Secret Service nor the FBI dropped its investigation of the incident. They continued an effort to determine what exile group(s) Echeverria had been associated with, to develop the context of the remarks through additional meetings with (and reports from Mosley) and whether or not an actual threat was in play that might extend to President Johnson,

Hancock notes:

In the end the determination was made that no ongoing threat existed and that no illegal acts had actually been committed in regards to weapons or explosives sales. At that point investigation ceased as there were no grounds to refer the information for charges.

And here is an excerpt from a deposition of Joseph Noonan who was a Secret Service agent in the Chicago office:


Q: What was your assessment at the tie of the degree of seriousness of the threats against either Johnson or Kennedy?


Noonan: At the time I didn't feel that Tom [Mosley] had heard what he said he heard. I think he heard possibly a braggadocious, conditional threat at best which made a good story, and it was difficult to get Tom to evaluate Echevarria's demeanor because I don't think he understood Cubans too well; and Tom was the type of individual that liked a good criminal story; and this was --- I think he probably heard it in a statement like that; but I think it was -- as I recall it, I did not put a lot of faith in what exactly was said or that what was said is an indication of what the people involved tended to do by God if anything got in their way. But in my opinion probably they got a guy that was very hot under the collar, that was braggadocious, and of course everything hinged on whether the statement was made prior to the assassination.



The Secret Service passed their information to the FBI, who did little investigation, according to the HSCA.


But why is Palamara bringing up Echevarria? He is mentioned fourteen times in Palamara's book -- but what is his claim about Echevarria?


Palamara won't say.


Coming up: Palamara lists 16 "direct and indirect corroboration for Mr. Bolden's accounts of threats to JFK's life in Chicago." I will examine all sixteen. By the way, Bolden's book makes it clear that the Echevarria story is distinct from the team of snipers mentioned in Black's article.


Bolden says Echevarria told a Secret Service informant that his group would "take care of Kennedy." In a boarding house just off the highway from O'Hare and linked to Echevarria, authorities found high powered rifles, ammo and Kennedy motorcade maps.
I was there when in early November, 1963 the Chicago office of the secret service investigated a character named Echevarria. Echevarria stated that President Kennedy was about to be assassinated. I heard the investigating agent dictating the reports in early November, 1963. The investigation took place prior to the assassination in Dallas. On the afternoon of November 26, 1963, Inspector Kelly, SAIC James Burke, and representatives of the FBI had a meeting in the Chicago office of the secret service. Kelly and Burke were the lead investigators representing the secret service in Dallas prior to the assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald. The Echevarria investigation took place during the first two weeks in November. I was there in the office when the reports that had already been dictated by the investigating agents and typed by the secretaries were rounded up and banded in a single stack in the office of SAIC Martineau. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that these collected investigative reports were dictated by the agents PRIOR to the assassination of Kennedy. However, after Kelly and Burke ended their conference, these same reports were restructured and the dates of the investigation were changed to indicate that the Echevarria investigation was conducted AFTER the assassination and had reference to the concern for the protection of President Johnson as Blaine claims in his “CYA” book. I was there. I know what happened and Blaine may fool the general public, but he can’t fool me.

Interestingly, when Bolden was interviewed by Bernard Fensterwald in March 1968, he said nothing about Homer Echevarria.



And Bolden's book claims that the Echevarria story started just a few days before the assassination in Dallas: (page 56)

Just a few days before the shooting in Dallas, the Secret Service received even more threatening information, this time about a group of anti-Castro Cuban activists allegedly planning to assassinate the president. Homer S. Echevarria had been overheard to make a statement to the effect that Kennedy was about to be taken care of.

As you will see in future posts, Palamara basically believes the Edwin Black story but can not come up with any corroborating evidence.



Previous Relevant Blog Posts


A look at Lloyd John Wilson.


Chad Nagle tries to argue that there was a plot.


The HSCA did speak to Edwin Black. It was a memorable interview.


There is no evidence of a plot in Chicago against JFK.


Bolden's story about the supposed Chicago plot has changed over the years.


An examination of supposed other plots against JFK.


Bolden didn't say one word about a supposed plot against JFK in Chicago.

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