Mr. BOUCK. My name is Robert Inman Bouck. I am 49 years of age. I live
at 411 Norwood Drive, Falls Church, Va.
Mr. STERN. What is your education, Mr. Bouck, at the college level?
Mr. BOUCK. I have a B.S. degree in police administration.
Mr. STERN. From what college?
Mr. BOUCK. From Michigan State College.
Mr. STERN. And that was awarded when?
Mr. BOUCK. 1939.
Mr. STERN. What is your experience in the Secret Service--when did you
join the Service?
Mr. BOUCK. I came to the Service in 1939 upon leaving college. From
1939 to 1945 I worked on protective assignments for the President and
the presidential family and other people in the Washington area.
From 1945 until 1951 I worked in Chief's office on supervising and
reorganizing various activities in the Chief's office.
In 1951 I was loaned to the Treasury Department as coordinator, I
organized schools and directed them in the enforcement area until 1957,
and in 1957 was assigned to the present job I now have of Special
Agent-in-Charge, Protective Research.
Mr. STERN. Mr. Bouck, I show you this document of six pages which has
been marked Commission Exhibit No. 760.
Can you identify that for me?
Mr. BOUCK. Yes. This is a memorandum of December 3 that I prepared,
also a second memorandum of December 3 that I prepared.
Mr. STERN. And these were prepared in response to instructions to you?
Mr. BOUCK. In response to instructions from my headquarter's office,
yes.
Mr. STERN. With the help of these memoranda I would like to touch
briefly upon the functions of the Protective Research Section that you
head--for the moment those functions other than with respect to persons
of concern as a possible danger to the President.
If you will turn to the last page of this exhibit, there are a list of
other duties of PRS, and would you explain briefly those and give some
idea of the magnitude of the task involved?
Mr. BOUCK. Yes.
The manufacture and control of White House passes are the admittance
passes to the White House issued to the press, employees and others
who have occasion to come to the White House or the Executive Office
Building that houses White House staff. This is some four to five
thousand, fluctuating in volume.
The procurement and evaluation of character investigations and
clearances for some categories of employees, these are the employees
that passes are issued to and these are the clearances that we require.
Some of them we investigate ourselves, many of them are investigated
by other agencies, and we review and evaluate the results, the number
being roughly the same as the number of passholders in this category.
The procurement of national agency file checks and determination of
admittance restrictions on a large number of tradesmen, contract
employees and so forth who service the White House--these are non-White
House employees. These are people who come to fix typewriters, clean
rugs and that sort of thing.
Mr. STERN. Approximately how many people are involved in that category,
Mr. Bouck.
Mr. BOUCK. This, we have a file of about 20,000 of these people, about
4,000 are active at any one time, and several hundred a month turn over
in this.
Item No. 4, control of security processing of mail and gifts received
at the White House, this is done by postal and White House employees
under X-rays and security equipment provided by us under our guidance
and we take over whenever any dangerous situation is indicated. This
varies at Christmas time, when there are many hundreds of items
reviewed; normally a few a day.
No. 5, handling and disposition of suspicious packages or objects that
may contain bombs or infernal devices; we have a bomb transporting
truck, we have bomb analyzing equipment, we have a location and a place
where we can dismantle bombs, and this, I am happy to say, we have had
many scares but we have not had the real thing. We do this frequently
as a precaution on things that we cannot analyze under the X-ray, but
we have not actually had a bomb at the White House.
Mr. DULLES. May I ask where is the White House mail handled, right in
the White House itself?
Mr. BOUCK. No; it is handled in the Executive Office Building which is
across the street from the White House.
Mr. DULLES. The old State, War and Navy Building?
Mr. BOUCK. Yes, sir.
No. 6, evaluation of safety and control of disposition of all foods,
beverages and similar consumable items received by the President or
White House as gifts.
We do not, even though these are handled by White House and post office
employees, we pass judgment as to whether any consumable item may be
used and under what conditions it may be used or whether it must be
destroyed. This particular function we do entirely.
And again at Christmas time and birthdays it would be very high, many
hundreds of items. Other times a few a day.