Vince Morelli

[Ron Ecker]

A couple of years ago a page of a document was posted on the Lancer forum about two assassination attempts on JFK. The first was the case of Richard Pavlick, who intended to ram the president-elect’s limo with a dynamite-loaded car in December 1960, only to change his mind for fear of injuring Jackie and the children. This is also recounted in Schlesinger’s A Thousand Days, p. 161.

The doc then states, “Later, in October 1962, during a Presidential trip to Chicago a man named Vince Morelli drew a pistol on the President. Morelli, however, was disarmed by police and arrested.” The doc shows a photo of Morelli and a cop after his arrest.

What happened to Morelli? What happened to Pavlick? The doc says, “No further information is yet available about the backgrounds, or fate, of either of these two men.”

With the similar disappearances of the two Carter would-be assassins Ray Lee Harvey and Oswaldo Espinoza Ortiz in 1979 (discussed here in an earlier thread), that makes a total of four would-be presidential assassins who have been arrested only to disappear.

Does anyone have information on a trip to Chicago that JFK made in October 1962?

It may have been James or Robin who posted the page on Lancer. (I printed a copy of it at the time.) If so, perhaps James or Robin can repost it here.

[Guest Stephen Turner]

A couple of years ago a page of a document was posted on the Lancer forum about two assassination attempts on JFK. The first was the case of Richard Pavlick, who intended to ram the president-elect’s limo with a dynamite-loaded car in December 1960, only to change his mind for fear of injuring Jackie and the children. This is also recounted in Schlesinger’s A Thousand Days, p. 161.

The doc then states, “Later, in October 1962, during a Presidential trip to Chicago a man named Vince Morelli drew a pistol on the President. Morelli, however, was disarmed by police and arrested.” The doc shows a photo of Morelli and a cop after his arrest.

What happened to Morelli? What happened to Pavlick? The doc says, “No further information is yet available about the backgrounds, or fate, of either of these two men.”

With the similar disappearances of the two Carter would-be assassins Ray Lee Harvey and Oswaldo Espinoza Ortiz in 1979 (discussed here in an earlier thread), that makes a total of four would-be presidential assassins who have been arrested only to disappear.

Does anyone have information on a trip to Chicago that JFK made in October 1962?

It may have been James or Robin who posted the page on Lancer. (I printed a copy of it at the time.) If so, perhaps James or Robin can repost it here.

Ron, Cant help you with Pavlick, or Morelli, but you are absolutely correct about Carters would be assassins Harvey & Ortiz, after I started that thread I did a lot of research into this question and could find no further reference to either man, arrest details, court appearences, sentencing, Nothing, it was as if these guys slipped into a vortex. I finally concluded that no such people ever existed, and the whole thing was a warning to Carter from the powers that be, either about the October surprise that he was alegedly planning. Or his threat to re-open the JFK case. either way it appears to have worked. Steve.

[James Richards]

Ron,

It wasn't me who posted the stuff at Lancer but I can tell you that Pavlick was 73 at the time of the aborted assassination attempt. He was released from prison in 1966 having never stood trial. He then took to stalking the local postmaster and his family. A strange bird to say the least.

I have no idea when or where he died.

Here is Pavlick below and the vehicle he was going to use to blow up JFK.

James

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

Ron,

It wasn't me who posted the stuff at Lancer but I can tell you that Pavlick was 73 at the time of the aborted assassination attempt. He was released from prison in 1966 having never stood trial. He then took to stalking the local postmaster and his family. A strange bird to say the least.

I have no idea when or where he died.

Manchester, NH in November 1975, aged 87. I stumbled across a reference to Pavlick's aborted plan in the NYT by accident, and thereafter began cataloguing such attempts upon/threats against JFK. There were several that received a bit of media play, and several others that received virtually none. Morelli's a new name to me, as I recall, but will try to locate the pertinent file.

Edited November 24, 2005 by Robert Charles-Dunne