List VII: Abraham Bolden

1. Abraham Bolden's exemplary record as an Illinois State Trooper helped him secure a position with the Secret Service during the Kennedy administration.

2. He was the first African American Secret Service Agent in U.S. history.

3. In October 1963, the Secret Service received a teletype from the FBI that the President would be assassinated in Chicago on November 2, on his way to a college football game at Soldier Field.

4. The assassination was to be carried out by a four-man Cuban exile hit squad, using high-powered rifles as the limousine was forced to slow down to make a hairpin left turn on the Jackson exit of the Northwest Expressway (now the Kennedy Expressway).

5. Kennedy cancelled the Chicago motorcade. Two suspected assassins were arrested but later released. The Secret Service kept the assassination teletype warning secret.

6. After Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, Bolden discovered that the Secret Service planned to conceal the Chicago assassination attempt from the Warren Commission.

7. Bolden traveled to Washington to testify what he knew about the Chicago assassination attempt.

8. He was arrested the day before he was to speak to the Warren Commission.

9. According to Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartmann, "It took two trials, but Bolden was finally convicted on counterfeiting charges based only on the testimony of two criminals: one of whom Bolden had previously arrested, and one who later admitted committing perjury against Bolden."

10. Waldron and Hartmann: "This agent with an excellent reputation and outstanding service record served six years in prison, sometimes in solitary confinement after he would try to draw attention to his case."

11. Bolden to this day seeks a pardon.