Mr. BOUCK. No, I am afraid we do not.
Control investigations on personnel and establishments that are supply
sources for food, beverages, drugs and so forth, these are the places
that the White House buys those supplies. We find out from the White
House where they would like to buy, we check on the employees of these
establishments, we check on the procedures by which it is handled, and
we check on the sources of their food, where they get the raw materials.
This is an investigative process and a control process.
Representative FORD. How often do you go through this process?
Mr. BOUCK. The process is continuous in that the control, for instance
a White House policeman goes and picks up, when the food is picked
up. But the reinvestigation is every 6 months. We take a new look at
each of these establishments every 6 months to see if any change has
occurred. In between times we have arrangements with Public Health to
make frequent health inspections, much more frequent than an ordinary
establishment would be inspected.
Representative FORD. If there is a change of an employee at one of
these shops or stores, are you notified?
Mr. BOUCK. We are supposed to be notified. Sometimes we aren't aware
until we make the next check, although our White House policeman and
our purchasing people do keep watch for this and usually we have
established that only a small percentage of the people who handle White
House orders, perhaps the manager and one clerk. It works quite well.
No. 8, the performance of technical and electronic inspections to
protect against covert listening devices.
This is something that has been done for a great many years, the volume
has gotten quite great in recent years, and we do this regularly at
the White House and for the people close to the President, we do it
regularly when he has stopover points on trips.
Mr. DULLES. Do you ever call the FBI in on this or do you have your own
staffs to handle this detection of listening devices?
Mr. BOUCK. We have our own staff but we frequently use people of other
agencies, including the FBI where they have specialties or are able to
perform something better than we could.
Mr. DULLES. Did you consider there is any duplication there, I mean of
facilities in government?
Mr. BOUCK. No; I think not. This really requires bodies, and if there
is----
Mr. DULLES. And skills?
Mr. BOUCK. Yes; and if, once in a while a special skill is required
that we do not possess then we turn to another agency to help us.
No. 9, determination of feasibility of application, establishment of
specifications for procurement, and assistance in maintaining operation
of a wide variety of electronic and technical protective aids. These
are alarms, both for hazards, intrusion, and all sorts of dangers where
a mechanical or electronic device can augment personal services.
Mr. DULLES. Could I just ask on that, do you have arrangements, say,
with the FBI, CIA and others to keep abreast of the art, as it were?
Mr. BOUCK. Yes.
Mr. DULLES. I have in mind that time when we discovered the Russians
had developed a new device and applied it in the Embassy in Moscow,
you may recall which was quite novel, when they put in a hollow cavity
inside the shield of the Great Seal of the United States, and then they
could beam on that and they could listen to conversations in the room.
That type of thing, you would be following that up through the FBI or
through the CIA?
Mr. BOUCK. Very much so, yes.
We have rather low resources in those areas so the other agencies in
the areas of research and development and hardware help us continuously
and very well.
Mr. STERN. Now these, Mr. Bouck, as I understand it, are the functions
of PRS which it has in addition to its main responsibility, and would
you describe that just briefly and we will get to that in a minute.
Mr. BOUCK. Yes, the other responsibility that is not listed here, is
the responsibility of attempting to detect persons who might intend
harm to the President, and to control those persons or take such
corrective measures as we can take securitywise on them.
Representative FORD. I am not sure I understand that.
Mr. BOUCK. This is an effort to detect people who might intend to harm
the President, people who make threats against the President, people
who do things that indicate they may intend to harm him, and the
various sort of things we do to see that they do not accomplish that,
to prevent them from accomplishing them.
Mr. DULLES. Does your particular office maintain the central files for
your agency?
Mr. BOUCK. For this function?
Mr. DULLES. For this function.
Mr. BOUCK. Yes.
Mr. DULLES. I mean if the FBI sent in to the Secret Service a name or
a description of a particular man, or a particular area that would be
filed in your office?
Mr. BOUCK. That is right.
Mr. DULLES. Do you file that alphabetically, by location or how do you
develop those files?
Mr. BOUCK. The information in its file jackets is filed numerically
but it is indexed alphabetically and by location as well as by certain
other characteristics that may help us find it.
Mr. McCLOY. To come back to this matter of bugging again, do you feel
that you are thoroughly well equipped, which is a repetition perhaps
of what Mr. Dulles asked, Mr. Dulles' question, do you have an expert
staff that know this business and that keep up to date with the
developments in the area, and that can constantly keep your equipment
in shape?
Mr. BOUCK. Yes; I think so. I think we, our contacts with the
intelligence community in this area are very excellent. Our people are
excellent. I think our big problem has been one of enough resources.
Mr. McCLOY. How many bodies have you got in this field?
Mr. BOUCK. I have three bodies devoted entirely to it, myself and my
assistant have also had years of experience, and we devote part-time to
this, which makes approximately four and a half full time bodies.
Mr. STERN. This might be a good opportunity, Mr. McCloy, to introduce
this document, marked Commission Exhibit No. 761.
Do you recognize that?
Mr. BOUCK. Yes, sir.
Mr. STERN. Did you prepare it.
Mr. BOUCK. I prepared it.
Mr. STERN. And what is it?
Mr. BOUCK. It is a chart showing the staffing of the Protective
Research Section as of the time of Dallas.
Mr. STERN. And the category you were just explaining to Mr. McCloy is
the last one?
Mr. BOUCK. That is right.
Mr. DULLES. Do you protect from this point of view anyone other than
the President? Do you cover, say, the Vice President's offices in the
Capitol?
Mr. BOUCK. Yes, sir.
Mr. DULLES. You do that, too?
Mr. BOUCK. Yes, sir.
Mr. DULLES. As far as safes are concerned and as far as listening
devices are concerned?
Mr. BOUCK. Not safes.
Mr. DULLES. Not safes?
Mr. BOUCK. That has not been something that they have desired us to do.
But insofar as----
Mr. DULLES. Why shouldn't you do that, I wonder, where he keeps his
secret papers? You mean you don't----
Mr. BOUCK. That has not been something that has been determined as
our responsibility. I believe other security officers have been given
that responsibility, and we certainly, of course, help when we find
something in that category, but we have not been asked at any of those
levels to take care of safes.
Mr. DULLES. But you do take care of listening devices?
Mr. BOUCK. Yes, sir.
Mr. DULLES. And for anybody else other than the Vice President in
addition to the White House and the President?
Mr. BOUCK. The White House, the President, the Vice President, the
close members of the Presidential staff, and the Secretary of the
Treasury.
Mr. DULLES. Well, would that involve the homes, for example, of the
close members of the President's staff?
Mr. BOUCK. The very high members, yes, not all, but the very high
members. I think we do about six or seven homes of such people. The
rest is office and working areas.
Mr. McCLOY. I have some question, I may say, that you have got enough
people to do this from what I know of the art. This is quite a
technical business now.
Mr. BOUCK. Yes, I know.
Mr. McCLOY. And the means of counteracting it and so forth, and the
constant surveillance that you have to employ, but you are satisfied
you are well equipped and have got sufficient people to do it?
Mr. BOUCK. As I mentioned earlier, I think we are well equipped in
know-how and in equipment. Sometimes we are pressed very hard for
enough hours to do it but our people have worked many hours overtime
and I think they have covered this quite well.
Representative FORD. What results have you obtained? Have you found any
problems?
Mr. BOUCK. We have not in the United States found any compromise. I am
not sure that perhaps in the open record I should go beyond that.
(Discussion off the record.)
Mr. McCLOY. On the record.
Mr. STERN. From Exhibit 761, Mr. Bouck, it appears that in the area of
processing information regarding threats, potential threats to the life
of the President, there are six people presently working in addition to
yourself and your assistant, one a clerk and five special agents, as
they are designated is that correct? This is as of the time of Dallas.
Mr. BOUCK. This is as of the time of Dallas.
Mr. STERN. These special agents are agents who would otherwise be
involved in protective work or in the other activities of the Secret
Service, counterfeiting and the like?
Mr. BOUCK. Yes.
Mr. STERN. Is there something about their general training that makes
them particularly desirable in this work or is it the absence of other
people that leads to the use of special agents in this work?
Mr. BOUCK. They have been selected because of an apparent aptitude for
this work. Some of them, not all, but most of them have had many years
of background in this work that increases their competence.
Mr. STERN. Are these men permanently assigned to this function or do
they rotate?
Mr. BOUCK. They are susceptible to other assignment, but this
assignment is something that may continue until the Chief should decide
it was in the interest of the Service to change. It can and has gone
many years for most of us. They do not automatically rotate.
Mr. STERN. I see.
As of the time of Dallas the total number of people in the Protective
Research Section was 15 of which 3 were clerks, is that correct?
Mr. BOUCK. That is correct.
Mr. DULLES. Could I ask one question that goes back to our earlier
discussion? At the present time the Speaker is next in line in case
anything should happen to the President.
Do you extend any special protective facilities as far as he is
concerned?
Mr. BOUCK. This, we are kind of in an advance area here. I do handle
mail that may come in the Protective Research area but I don't think I
am quite qualified to speak on the entire Secret Service relationship
to the Speaker, if I might seem not----
Mr. DULLES. What I was getting at was whether there were any special
protection afforded now in view of his, in a sense new position as
being next in line.
Mr. McCLOY. He is in effect the Vice President.
Mr. DULLES. He is in effect the Vice President.
Mr. BOUCK. Yes, I realize that, and I believe this gets into some
areas that involve the wishes of the Speaker, that make this question
a little bit difficult to answer, and I would say we do do what comes
to our attention that we can, but I think the Chief is probably in a
better position to indicate what degree we have gone. I am not really
overly familiar with the exact extent of that degree except as it may
apply here but we do handle in the crank area, and in the Protective
Research subject area, we do handle that material as we would handle it
for the President or Vice President when we are able to get it.
Mr. McCLOY. Off the record.
(Discussion off the record.)