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Thomas Arthur Vallee


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Just received my copy of JFK and the Unspeakable by James W. Douglass.

It does seem to have quite a bit more on the Chicago plot than most other books.

Thomas Arthur valle was quickly identified from intelligence sources as an ex-Marine who was a "disaffiliated member of the John

Birch Society,"....Vallee was also descirbed as a loner, a paranoind schizophrenic, and a gun collector. He fit perfectly the 'lone nut'

profile that would late be used fo characterize ex-Marine Lee Harvey Oswald.

Only after two secret service agents surveilling Vallee found an M1 rifle, a carbine rifle, and twenty-five hundred rounds of ammunition, were

Chicago police officers Daniel Groth and Peter Schurla assigned the task of surveilling Vallee on Novermber 2nd. Interestingly, Douglass notes that

both of these officers were destined for

prominanat roles in police intelligence activites. In 1975, when a reporter tried unsuccessfully to interview Peter Schurla

about Vallee's arrest,

Schurla was a high-level intelligence official at Chicago police headquarters. His companion, Daniel Groth's career on intellignec had by then

become more public and more notorious tha Schurla's

At 4:30 A.M. on december 4, 1969, six years after the arrest of Thomas Arthur Vallee, Sergeant Daniel Groth commanded the police team that broke

into the the Chicago aprtment of Black Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. The heavily armed officers shot both men to death. ...Groth

(later) acknowledged under oath that his team of officers had carried out the assault of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark at the specific request of the

FBI (JFK and the Unspeakable, p. 203-204)

Douglass goes on to note, however that Northeastern Illinois Prof. dan Stern researched Daniel groths background and found that Groth had taken

several "training leaves" from the Chicago Police department to go to Washington D.C. where Groth' underwent speacialized counterintelligence

training under the auspices of both the FBI and the CIA.

The Chicago Police Department and the Los Angeles Police department seem to have had the closest ties with the CIA. They were pioneer members of the Law Enforcemnt Intelligence Union, a CIA -police liason program that was seen as a rival to similar and older liason-programs that the FBI had

established with most other police departments. The LEIU was formed in 1956. This, of course, does not preclude other CIA-Police programs, but Los Angeles and Chicago seem to stand out as the oldest and largest.

There's lots more on this in Douglass' book. Not bad for the first page I flipped open!

One has to wonder if Groth and Schurla knew about Vallee before they were tipped off by the Secret Service. It might sound like too little compartmentalization if they did, but given their earlier involvement with the CIA, and Schurla's later involvement in polical murder, it

seems at least a possiblility.

Edited by Nathaniel Heidenheimer
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I was reading Abraham Bolden's book The Echo From Dealey Plaza recently, which mentions Vallee.

Does anyone have information on Vallee, such as his age in 1963 or what happened to him later in life?

The following 1970 article from Time magazine discusses Sherman H. Skolnick's lawsuit to obtain records related to the Chicago assassination plot, but I can't find anything further about the results of the suit.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...,944016,00.html

The following article from May 14, 2008 claims Vallee's 1962 Ford Falcon was registered to Lee Harvey Oswald, as proven by a National Archives document (which is not named in the article).

http://www.hvpress.net/news/138/ARTICLE/4293/2008-05-14.html

Has anybody ever come across this claimed direct link between Vallee and Oswald before, other than from the Time article posted above?

Steve

Edited by Steve Rosen
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  • 2 weeks later...
I was reading Abraham Bolden's book The Echo From Dealey Plaza recently, which mentions Vallee.

Does anyone have information on Vallee, such as his age in 1963 or what happened to him later in life?

The following 1970 article from Time magazine discusses Sherman H. Skolnick's lawsuit to obtain records related to the Chicago assassination plot, but I can't find anything further about the results of the suit.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...,944016,00.html

The following article from May 14, 2008 claims Vallee's 1962 Ford Falcon was registered to Lee Harvey Oswald, as proven by a National Archives document (which is not named in the article).

http://www.hvpress.net/news/138/ARTICLE/4293/2008-05-14.html

Has anybody ever come across this claimed direct link between Vallee and Oswald before, other than from the Time article posted above?

Steve

Thanks for the post Steve. No, Ive never heard of any connection between the two, and it surprized me. After reading the posted article [which was very good] it struck me that if true, wouldnt LHO had to definately had to have a drivers license? No? I know it was the early 60's, but I would think that you would have had to have had one, which meant he probably took a drivers test [if it truly was him]. If a license wasnt needed, I dont know why in the world he would have had a 62' Falcon in his name. If it wasnt truly LHO, then it was a very elaborate tie in for him or Vallee to be a patsy in either Chicago and Dallas. A back-up patsy??? -smitty

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If a document exists tying LHO to the car Vallee was driving, it is certainly important to identify it and have it reproduced. Such a document would make life that much more miserable for lone nutters.

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Ron,

If a document exists tying LHO to the car Vallee was driving, it is certainly important to identify it and have it reproduced. Such a document would make life that much more miserable for lone nutters.

On 11/28/63 the SAC of New York sends a teletype to J. Edgar Hoover.

Evanston, IL radio station news editor, Chris Hester calls his father-in-law, Hugh Larkin, a retired New York City policeman and asks him how he (Hester) can get info on New York car with license plate 3110 RF. The car was currently in Dallas and some connection with Lee Harvey Oswald.

The New York FBI ran a plate check and found that it belonged to a 1962 Ford Falcon registered to Thomas Vallee of Hicksville, NY.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...mp;relPageId=50

While the connection to LHO is unknown, this may have some connection to the car T.F. White saw.

From John Armstrong's University of Minnesota Speech

Minneapolis--May 15, 1999

"Mr. T.F. White saw a red Ford Falcon quickly pull into the El Chico parking lot. This is 6 blocks north of the Texas Theater. The man and car appeared to be hiding behind a large billboard sign. Curious, Mr. White walked across the street toward the car. When White was within a few yards of the car, the driver looked directly at him, the quickly sped off throwing gravel with his rear tires. White wrote down the license plate number and make and model of the car. The license plates were traced to blue 1957 Plymouth owned by Carl Mather, an employee of Collins Radio. Mather was the best friend of Dallas Police officer J.D. Tippit. Mather was unknown to the Warren Commission and refused to discuss the matter with reporters. Years later Mather was granted immunity (LEFT-SLIDE 62) from prosecution and interviewed by the HSCA. Today, twenty years later, his interview was still classified."

White was a mechanic who worked for Mack Pate Garage 114 W. Seventh St. (HSCA vol. 12 p. 39)

The Falcon White saw bore Texas plate PP4537. White would later go on to say that it was Lee Harvey Oswald behind the wheel of that Falcon.

Steve Thomas

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Ron,
If a document exists tying LHO to the car Vallee was driving, it is certainly important to identify it and have it reproduced. Such a document would make life that much more miserable for lone nutters.

On 11/28/63 the SAC of New York sends a teletype to J. Edgar Hoover.

Evanston, IL radio station news editor, Chris Hester calls his father-in-law, Hugh Larkin, a retired New York City policeman and asks him how he (Hester) can get info on New York car with license plate 3110 RF. The car was currently in Dallas and some connection with Lee Harvey Oswald.

The New York FBI ran a plate check and found that it belonged to a 1962 Ford Falcon registered to Thomas Vallee of Hicksville, NY.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...mp;relPageId=50

While the connection to LHO is unknown, this may have some connection to the car T.F. White saw.

From John Armstrong's University of Minnesota Speech

Minneapolis--May 15, 1999

"Mr. T.F. White saw a red Ford Falcon quickly pull into the El Chico parking lot. This is 6 blocks north of the Texas Theater. The man and car appeared to be hiding behind a large billboard sign. Curious, Mr. White walked across the street toward the car. When White was within a few yards of the car, the driver looked directly at him, the quickly sped off throwing gravel with his rear tires. White wrote down the license plate number and make and model of the car. The license plates were traced to blue 1957 Plymouth owned by Carl Mather, an employee of Collins Radio. Mather was the best friend of Dallas Police officer J.D. Tippit. Mather was unknown to the Warren Commission and refused to discuss the matter with reporters. Years later Mather was granted immunity (LEFT-SLIDE 62) from prosecution and interviewed by the HSCA. Today, twenty years later, his interview was still classified."

White was a mechanic who worked for Mack Pate Garage 114 W. Seventh St. (HSCA vol. 12 p. 39)

The Falcon White saw bore Texas plate PP4537. White would later go on to say that it was Lee Harvey Oswald behind the wheel of that Falcon.

Steve Thomas

Steve, There are reports of a red Ford Falcon in Oak Cliff at the time, but it shouldn't be confused with the Wise Allegation, in which Wes Wise interviewed Mr. White, an elderly mechanic, who saw the accused assassin or someone strongly resembing him, acting suspiciously, sitting in and then driving away in a four door 1957 Plymouth. White wrote down the license plate nmber PP4537 and Plymouth, as the HSCA report clearly indicates.

It is only when the FBI get to interview Mr. White that the four door 1957 Plymouth becomes a two door red Ford Falcon. Since Mr. White was a mechanic, I don't think he would or could mistake the two different model cars, especially since he wrote the correct number and make down on a piece of paper and when the FBI went out to the owner of the PP537 license plate there it was - a four door 1957 Plymouth in the drive way of the Mather home. It's a shame that the FBI didn't bother interview Mather about such a strange coincidece, especially since he was such a good friend of the policeman murdered in the same neighborhood where his car was seen being driven by someone who looked just like the killer. That's to say nothing about his alibi of being at work at Collins Radio, where he worked on the radio on LBJ's plane, for the same company that owned the CIA raider ship the Rex. But instead of going out to Collins and interviewing Mather they go intimdate Mr. White and change his story with the Red Herring Ford.

You can follow the Ford or you can follow the Plymouth.

http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk...Vol12_0021a.htm

That's not to say that there weren't some suspicious red Fords in Oak Cliff.

Michael Benson (Who's Who in JFK) quotes Benevendes as saying there was a man sitting in a red 61 Ford Falcon parked about six cars from Tippit's car and Igor Vaganov had a red Ford Thunderbird.

BK

Edited by William Kelly
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Kathy...

Here is a link to a photo of Thomas Arthur Vallee. IMO he looks nothing at all like Oswald.

HSCA-070-vallee.jpg

http://www.cuban-exile.com/photo/hsca-mugs...-070-vallee.jpg

Dixie

I don't think that TA Vallee was an Oswald double. The allegation, as outlined by James Douglass in JFK the Unspeakable, is that TAV was set up and framed as a possible patsy, had JFK been assassinated in Chicago Nov. 1, 1963.

The former USMC has a basic covert operational background similar to Oswald, and appears to have been set up in a similar fashion.

It's a shame John Armstrong threw out his half baked Harvey & Lee theory and then retreated to his other ventures, making things more confusing for people like KC, rather than making things more clear and understandable, as the conspiracy should be as we learn more.

BK

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I don't know Bill...that is suppose to be an HSCA photo of Vallee. But then maybe they got it wrong, which wouldn't really surprise me any.

I do wish we were able to find out for sure though. I have Douglass's nww book, but haven't gotten too far in it yet.

Dixie

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