mailto:vincebethel@yahoo.com
The following is a detailed chronology, using many recently-releaseddocuments, demonstrating the Secret Service's pre-November 22 knowledgeof mortal threats to President Kennedy's life, as well as my major discoveryof a covert monitor of these threats put in place during the short days andweeks before the assassination. This chronology further strains the credi-bility of the notion that one man, Lee Harvey Oswald, "got lucky" duringthe very same time that the agency assigned to protect his alleged victimwere 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-backedcoup;
11/2: JFK's trip to Chicago, IL was cancelled at the last minute due tomortal threats against his life: apart from Thomas Arthur Vallee, ThomasMosely, and Homer Echevarria, inluding a team of four Cuban gunman, 2 ofwhom eluded surveillance and escaped.1 Former agents SamKinney, Bill Greer, and James Griffiths told the HSCA that this trip wascancelled at the last minute---the excuses were varied: JFK had a cold [theCuban Missile Crisis alibi], Diem's death [refuted by Salinger, by theway], Thomas Arthur Vallee arrest, and others: Joseph Noonan, a Chicagooffice agent, told the HSCA that he "participated directly in surveillanceinvolving TOM MOSELY and HOMER ECHEVARRIA....he and [the] other agentswere uneasy that the Cubans might have some ties to the CIA...a little laterthey received a call from Headquarters to DROP EVERYTHING ON MOSELYAND ECHEVARRIA AND SEND ALL MEMOS, FILES, AND THEIR NOTEBOOKS TOWASHINGTON AND NOT TO DISCUSS THE CASE WITH ANYONE"(emphasis added).2
11/8 to 11/9: Kennedy's first, low profile trip to New York City
.3
A VERY IMPORTANT POINT TO KEEP IN MIND: THERE WERE NO PRS SPECIALAGENTS---THOSE ADMINISTRATIVE AGENTS THAT MONITOR THREATS TOTHE 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 Miamion 11/18/63). This is known by the Secret Service BEFORE Dallas, asSAIC Bouck told me AND as Secret Service records reveal!4
11/10: PRS agent Glen Bennett was "temporarily assigned to the WhiteHouse Detail" on this date 5---
IMPORTANT INTERLUDE REGARDING PRS AGENT GLEN BENNETT: AlthoughBennett told the HSCA that he "was not on the Florida trip [11/18/63]"6,the Secret Service shift reports for that trip7 AND the Survey Reports'"8not only state he WAS indeed on this trip, but he RODE IN THE FOLOW-UPCAR! Miami WHD advance agent Bert DeFreese told the HSCA that "in 1963it was rare for a PRS agent from Washington to accompany an advance agentin to the field, and that no PRS agent accompanied [him] on this trip"9, yetBennett 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 theWhite House Detail for the Dallas trip [11/22/63]. This was because therewas a manpower pull for the Dallas trip", a statement NOT backed up by therecently-released shift reports, courtesy of the ARRB. Furthermore, SamKinney told me that Bennett was making his FIRST trip on 11/22/63 which,while "corroborated" by Bennett's aforementioned statement to the HSCA, isALSO obviously contradicted by the above-mentioned shift reports and Surveyreports for the Florida trip of 11/18/63 AND, if that wasn't enough, Bennettwas on the SECOND New York, NY trip JFK made (11/14-11/15/63)10!
To review: 11/1---Diem assasinated; 11/2--JFK's Chicagotrip cancelled at the last minute due to threats; 11/8---start of JFK'sFIRST NY trip [no PRS agent on this trip, as there appears to have beenNONE on any prior trip---a rarity, according to DeFreese];
11/9----Milteer threat in Miami 11/10---Bennett temporarilyassigned to WHD from PRS... 11/11: SAIC of PRS Robert Bouck was notifiedabout JFK's upcoming SECOND trip to NY, NY for 11/14-11/15/63---BENNETT WAS THEN DISPATCHED TO JFK'S PRESIDENTIAL SUITE AT THECARLYLE HOTEL, PRIOR TO KENNEDY'S ARRIVAL, "to conduct a technicalsurvey" (NOT done on any prior trips in Nov., inc. the FIRST NY trip, tripsfrom October, September, or any other known to this author; coinciding withBennett's temporary assignment, his denials to the HSCA, and everything abovein toto, there is something going on here---the timing is everything);
11/13: Army code breaker Eugene Dinkin, who had foreknowledge of a threatand attempted to warn officials, is taken into custody by Army officialsand hospitalized (a Secret Service agent even interviews him) 11
11/14-11/15: the aforementioned SECOND NY, NY trip (shift leader ArtGodfrey, the advance agent on BOTH NY trips---he actually stayed IN NYbetween both trips---did NOT know the reason why JFK made the FIRST NYtrip or its purpose, although he was much aware of the second trip) [this isalso the trip where much is made, after the fact, of so-called securitylapses invoked by JFK].
11/18: JFK's Florida trip: Miami advance agent DeFreese admitted to theHSCA that "a threat did surface in connection with the Miami trip...therewas an active threat against the President which the Secret Service wasaware in November 1963 in the period immediately prior to JFK's trip toMiami made by a GROUP OF PEOPLE" (emphasis added). In addition to thisthreat 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 yetanother threat subject: John Warrington 12.Kinney told me of an unspecified "organized crime" threat related tothis same trip. [this is also the trip where, despite numerous films,photos, and interviews to the contrary, JFK allegedly ordered the agentsoff the rear of his limo, cited as causing peril in Dallas on 11/22/63 fromsuch diverse people as William Manchester and current Secret ServiceDirector Lewis Merletti!]
11/21-11/22:Texas trip (U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson and Senator William Fulbrightwarn JFK not to go to Dallas)---
11/21: DNC advance man Marty Underwood gets "all sorts of rumors", 18hours before the assassination, that Kennedy was to be killed in Dallas13.Marty even conveys this to JFK, who tells him, "Marty, you worry about metoo much" (indeed, JFK told San Antonio Congressman Henry Gonzalez,"Henry, the Secret Service told me they took care of everything. There'snothing to worry about"); Advance agent Winston Lawson wrote in his reportthat " Agent Bennett was REMINDED that he would work Presidential follow-up car on the movement"14 .
11/22: While SA Bennett rides in the Secret Service follow-up car, scanningthe people lining the streets, President Kennedy is brutally cut down right infront of him.
AFTER the assassination: Bennett's observations---via his allegedlycontemporaneous handwritten notes from 11/22/63---were used by ChiefRowley to buttress the notion that Kennedy was struck in the back from theREAR, in spite of the films/ photos that appear to depict Bennett lookingaway from JFK, a point made by Lifton, Evica, Newcomb, and several othersbefore me. But this is almost ancillary to the major point made herein:
WAS PRS AGENT GLEN BENNETT MONITORING MORTAL THREATS TO JFK'SLIFE,MADE IN THE MONTH OF NOVEMBER, AND WAS THIS COVERED UPAFTERWARDS? IS THIS THE REASON FOR THE CONFLICTING ACCOUNTS--AND THE TIMING---OF BENNETT'S PARTICIPATION IN THE SECOND NYTRIP, THE FLORIDA TRIP, AND THE TEXAS TRIP?DID BENNETT RIDE IN THE FOLLOW-UP CAR ON THESE TRIPS FOR THISPURPOSE? I BELIEVE SO.WHILE GLEN BENNETT IS STILL ALIVE, HE SHOULD BE GRANTED IMMUNITYAND GIVEN A CHANCE TO TELL THE TRUTH.
1 Author interviews with former Secret Service agents Abraham Boldenand Maurice Martineau.
2 RIF#'s 180-10104-10331; 180-10087-10191;180-10099-10491;180-10078-10493; 180-10082-10453; 154-10001-10174: SecretService shift report.
3 Interviews with the advance agent, ATSAIC/ Shift Leader Art Godfrey, 1996and 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 BloodyTreason.
12 RIF#'s 180-10118-10041 and 10033.
13 Author's interview with Marty Underwood.
14 17 H 631---emphasis added.