Were the Chicago & Miami plots genuine or psy-ops?

[Myra Bronstein]

Myra,

You -- and so many others -- reference "[supposed] plots in Miami and Chicago".

I'm of the opinion that these rumors were designed to flood the security system with false plots. To cry wolf, if you will.

The purposes: To minimize the impact of any leaks about the real hit in Dallas, and to reassure the president that, as he said all so tragically, "the Secret Service has taken care of everything." Or words to that direct effect.

One plot. One location.

Charles

Very intriguing opinion Charles.

So much so that I felt it needed its own thread.

Yet again I'm torn. I think your premise makes a lot of sense. Plus the Chicago "plot" never felt right to me.

First it's a Northern city, i.e., with fewer racists and confederates, i.e., less hate (which is Dallas' primary export--as established by Stephen in the other thread, but I paraphrased). Second it had a Kennedy friendly Mayor, Daley. Third it voted for Kennedy (at least the citizens in graveyards did ). Finally, I seem to recall the patsy was right wing, but I certainly can't name a source for that offhand. And if that's true there goes the blame Castro scenario. (Or does it undermine the argument that invading Cuba was an essential element? Oh let's not go there again.)

But flooding the pipelines with rumors of plots to kill President Kennedy could have also backfired and increased security... unless they knew they had the secret service in the bag. And I think it's pretty clear the secret service was in the bag.

Supposedly they even had a tentative patsy selected in LA but never used him. I believe I read that in Larry's book. So that would indicate to me that they really were canvasing cities for the hit before they settled on Dallas. And what about Oswald writing those letters about relocating to the DC area? If that was for real then they might have been considering DC at one point.

Well, I'm all over the place on this.

What do others think?

[Cliff Varnell]

Finally, I seem to recall the patsy was right wing,

Thomas Arthur Vallee: "member of the John Birch Society and a vocal Kennedy

critic," Jim Marrs, Crossfire, pg 242.

Another possibility: there was a contingency plan to blame an undeniable

conspiracy on right wingers -- in case the Castro-did-it scenario and

the Lone-nut scenario didn't hold.

This might explain why Richard Nixon called Hoover the afternoon of 11/22/63

and asked, "Was it the right wing nuts?"

It may also explain why on 11/23/63 one George Bush called the FBI to finger

right wing young Republican James Parrott for making threats to kill Kennedy.

It may explain why potential patsies like Jack Lawrence and (perhaps) Charles Harrleson

were picked up the afternoon of the assassination.

In this view, picking up Vallee in Chicago and getting Joseph Milteer on tape could

be spotlighted post-assassination to buttress this contingency.

Edited August 17, 2007 by Cliff Varnell

[Tim Gratz]

I agree with Cliff that the conspirators may very well have had alternative patsies lined up, including right wing patsies. They would have had to if the attempts in Chicago, Miami and Tampa were serious.

But I must say Charles' thought is very intriguing. If the SS had rumors of plots all over the place and nothing happened, it makes sense that it might relax its efforts. His analogy to the story of the boy crying "wolf" is apt.

Edited August 17, 2007 by Tim Gratz

[Cliff Varnell]

I agree with Cliff that the conspirators may very well have had alternative patsies lined up, including right wing patsies.

The only people capable of pulling that off would be US intel.

Welcome aboard, Tim...

[Tim Gratz]

Clif, I respectfully beg to differ. You think the Mafia did not know some right-wingers? (See my last sentence re a possible alternative patsy in Dallas.)

As Tim Weiner points out in "Legacy of Ashes", his history of the CIA, the CIA was more akin to the Keystone Kops! (Remember his story about how the CIA mistook a female US Ambassador's playing with her dog as evidence of her love affair with her secretary!)

What did the CIA get right (successful in its eyes anyway) after 1954?

How about if we start with its assessment of the SMD in Iraq ("A slam dunk" Clinton's man Tenet told POTUS 43) and work our way back to its efforts to kill Castro; the BOP fiasco and the U2 disaster. And just so people know it was human on the ground intelligence that first alerted us to the missiles in Cuba, not CIA U2 flights. And let's not forget the CIA's failure to catch Aldrich Ames even though Ames like an idiot was conspiculously consuming his ill-gotten gain.

In the intro to his "Operation Mongoose" WFB quotes a statement made by NR in 1957 about attempted assassination attempts on Pres Sukarno: "They had the look of a CIA operation. Everybody got killed except the intended target."

(Ooops! I guess no one will any longer take me for a CIA apologist!)

As you know, my candidate for the "Big Fish" is Santo.

He ran a criminal enterprise for over what forty years, never spent a night in an American jail and died of natural causes. He read every newspaper he could get his hands on.

IMO Santo had the brains of Dulles, Helms and Bissell put together.

And so did Meyer Lansky although I don't think he was directly involved in the assassination.

********************************************************************************

And for what it is worth one possible alternative "patsy" in Dalles was right-winger Loran Hall, who was connected to Santo.

Edited August 17, 2007 by Tim Gratz

[Charles Drago]

Myra -- Thanks for seeing the value of this discussion and opening a dedicated thread. One of the goals of the false plot gambit, I think, was to get uncorrupted Secret Service agents to acquiesce to "uniquely insecure" conditions in Dallas because of both the crying wolf phenomenon and the wholly manufactured evidence that their colleagues had had the easiest of times dealing with whatever "real" threats had been out there in the past.

Even the president was taken in.

Cliff -- In order for the latter scenario to be effected, the fictive non-plots had to be convincing -- hence the identifications of living, prospective shooters who could be linked plausibly to such actions Further, the ruses had post-assassination functions: the maintenance of cognitive dissonance among honest investigators, and the mollification of distraught SS agents who could assuage their "survivors' guilt" by referencing false and/or successfully thwarted pre-Dallas events.

Peter -- Your point on the doppelganger phenomenon is very well taken. Multiple everything equals congnitive dissonance of the highest, most effective order.

Charles

[Robert Howard]

I would respectfully disagree, for the simple reasons that Abraham Bolden went to prison for helping foil the Chicago attempt, there ostensibly was a street close to the Baseball stadium, eerily similar to Dealey Plaza and Arthur Vallee had some pretty good bona fides to be a serious threat, to boot.

So for the supposition that even the Chicago plot [let alone Miami] to be psy ops we are assuming that if Keenedy made it out of Dallas alive, that he would have been too easily duped to realize Abraham Bolden was trying to save his life?

Doesen't get my vote....And I mean no disrespect [Really!]

[Charles Drago]

Robert,

Thanks for your valuable thoughts on what we all can agree is a rather perplexing subject.

I'm not sure that I follow you. Let's imagine that the Dallas hit is aborted (and JFK dodges at least six bullets). What have the conspirators lost? One opportunity. At worst, they've added another false alarm to the load that is being dumped into the system. The result: No need to worry about the open motorcade scheduled for next year in X city, Mr. President. The Secret Service is on top of it, although it's probably just another false alarm like Illinois and Florida and Texas ...

As for Bolden: We have no reason to believe that his warning would have reached the president in a form sufficient to change history. And his incarceration helped make the Chicago plot credible to those who were intended to be reassured by its foiling.

All of this, of course, is speculation. NONE OF IT has any impact whatsoever on the historical truth that is conspiracy.

This is the most critical of distinctions and must not be lost as we move from "how" to "who" and "why".

Charles

Edited August 25, 2007 by Charles Drago

[Robert Howard]

Robert,

Thanks for your valuable thoughts on what we all can agree is a rather perplexing subject.

I'm not sure that I follow you. Let's imagine that the Dallas hit is aborted (and JFK dodges at least six bullets). What have the conspirators lost? One opportunity. At worst, they've added another false alarm to the load that is being dumped into the system. The result: No need to worry about the open motorcade scheduled for next year in X city, Mr. President. The Secret Service is on top of it, although it's probably just another false alarm like Illinois and Florida and Texas ...

As for Bolden: We have no reason to believe that his warning would have reached the president in a form sufficient to change history. And his incarceration helped make the Chicago plot credible to those who were intended to be reassured by its foiling.

All of this, of course, is speculation. NONE OF IT has any impact whatsoever on the historical truth that is conspiracy.

This is the most critical of distinctions and must not be lost as we move from "how" to "who" and "why".

Charles

Well, you have a good point, Bolden's, [i believe], trumped-up arrest and subsequent incarceration was much later before the issuance of the Warren Commission's Report, I happen to believe that the Dallas Plot even if it hadn't succeed, would have been unlike Chicago, and Miami a public affair, publicly exposed [now I am injecting my take, on post-alternative history, ye gads] ........which is a big qualifier, I know we are dealing in hypotheticals, so that is another way to look at it, I just believe there was too much invested in Dallas, for it to have been prevented, I am one of those "strange" people that believe it was deemed Kennedy would not leave Dallas alive.......But I have seen stranger postulations, than those being bandied about here.......

[Charles Drago]

I remain convinced that Dallas was the one true ambush, and that, once the unalerted motorcade had turned onto Elm Street, it was "go" at any costs.

The period of ultimate risk for the assassination's sponsors was, I submit, the time between "Green!" and the final fussilade.

If JFK survives, the arms of Orion twist askew.

If the shoot is called off at the last second ...

Try, try again.

If a head is blown off ...

Crack that magnum of Romanee Conti '52, darling. We have much to celebrate.

Use the '35 for cooking.

Charles

[Ron Ecker]

the Chicago "plot" never felt right to me.

First it's a Northern city, i.e., with fewer racists and confederates, i.e., less hate (which is Dallas' primary export--as established by Stephen in the other thread, but I paraphrased). Second it had a Kennedy friendly Mayor, Daley. Third it voted for Kennedy (at least the citizens in graveyards did ). Finally, I seem to recall the patsy was right wing, but I certainly can't name a source for that offhand. And if that's true there goes the blame Castro scenario. (Or does it undermine the argument that invading Cuba was an essential element? Oh let's not go there again.)

The plotters could have had evidence ready to use that Valle was hired by Castro operatives. Don't know if there is evidence of this, as such evidence wasn't used or disappeared. But it wouldn't matter what a shooter's political persuasion was if he hated Kennedy anyway and it could be shown he was a hired gun.

But flooding the pipelines with rumors of plots to kill President Kennedy could have also backfired and increased security... unless they knew they had the secret service in the bag. And I think it's pretty clear the secret service was in the bag.

Not all of the SS was in the bag.

I think some of this stuff can be overanalyzed. If almost everything connected to the hit was a psy-op, the plotters would have been so busy planning these clever and really unnecessary things they would hardly have time to carry out the assassination.

But what do I know? I wouldn't make a good spook.