The CHAIRMAN. The Commission will be in order.
Director Hoover, will you please raise your right hand to be sworn,
please. You solemnly swear the testimony you are about to give before
the Commission will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth, so help you God?
Mr. HOOVER. I do.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Rankin will carry on the examination, Mr. Director.
Mr. RANKIN. Mr. Chief Justice, do you want to tell him briefly what our
purpose is?
The CHAIRMAN. Oh, yes; it is our practice to make a brief statement
before the testimony of each witness, and I will do it now.
Mr. Hoover will be asked to testify in regard to whether Lee H. Oswald
was ever an agent, directly or indirectly, or an informer or acting on
behalf of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in any capacity at any
time, and whether he knows of any credible evidence of any conspiracy,
either domestic or foreign, involved in the assassination of President
Kennedy.
What he has to say about an article in the National Enquirer,
Commission Exhibit No. 837, and concerning the failure to include
the name and information concerning special agent Hosty in the
initial report of the Oswald address book and any suggestions and
recommendations he may have concerning improvements or changes in
provisions for the protection of the President of the United States.
Now, Mr. Rankin, you may proceed.
Mr. RANKIN. Mr. Hoover, will you state for the record your name and
position?
Mr. HOOVER. J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation of the Department of Justice.
Mr. RANKIN. Where do you live, Mr. Hoover?
Mr. HOOVER. I live at 4936 30th Place, Northwest, Washington, D.C.
Mr. RANKIN. And you have been Director of the Bureau for some 40 years
according to the newspapers?
Mr. HOOVER. That is correct; since 1924.
Mr. RANKIN. You have furnished us a considerable amount of information,
Mr. Hoover, about whether or not Lee Harvey Oswald was ever an agent or
acting for the Bureau in any capacity as informer or otherwise at any
time. Are those statements correct?
Mr. HOOVER. They are correct. I can most emphatically say that at no
time was he ever an employee of the Bureau in any capacity, either as
an agent or as a special employee, or as an informant.
Mr. RANKIN. I call your particular attention to Exhibit 835, and
suggest that you will find that that is your letter, together with
your affidavit about this subject matter, and other matters that you
furnished to us concerning this particular subject.
Mr. HOOVER. That is correct.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you wish to add anything?
Mr. HOOVER. No; there is nothing that I desire to add to what appears
in this letter and my affidavit which accompanied it to the Commission.
Mr. RANKIN. You have provided many things to us in assisting the
Commission in connection with this investigation and I assume, at
least in a general way, you are familiar with the investigation of the
assassination of President Kennedy, is that correct?
Mr. HOOVER. That is correct. When President Johnson returned to
Washington he communicated with me within the first 24 hours, and
asked the Bureau to pick up the investigation of the assassination
because as you are aware, there is no Federal jurisdiction for such
an investigation. It is not a Federal crime to kill or attack the
President or the Vice President or any of the continuity of officers
who would succeed to the Presidency.
However, the President has a right to request the Bureau to make
special investigations, and in this instance he asked that this
investigation be made. I immediately assigned a special force headed
by the special agent in charge at Dallas, Tex., to initiate the
investigation, and to get all details and facts concerning it, which we
obtained, and then prepared a report which we submitted to the Attorney
General for transmission to the President.
Mr. RANKIN. From your study of this entire matter of the assassination
and work in connection with it, do you know of any credible evidence
that has ever come to your attention that there was a conspiracy either
foreign or domestic involved in the assassination?
Mr. HOOVER. I know of no substantial evidence of any type that would
support any contention of that character. I have read all of the
requests that have come to the Bureau from this Commission, and I have
read and signed all the replies that have come to the Commission.
In addition, I have read many of the reports that our agents have made
and I have been unable to find any scintilla of evidence showing any
foreign conspiracy or any domestic conspiracy that culminated in the
assassination of President Kennedy.
Representative FORD. May I ask this, Mr. Hoover. As I understand your
testimony, it is based on the evidence that has been accumulated thus
far?
Mr. HOOVER. That is correct, sir.
Representative FORD. Is the Federal Bureau of Investigation continuing
its investigation of all possible ramifications of this assassination?
Mr. HOOVER. That is correct. We are receiving and we, I expect, will
continue to receive for days or weeks to come, letters from individuals
that normally would probably be in the category of what we would
call crank letters in which various weird allegations are made or in
which people have reported psychic vibrations. We are still running
out letters of that character and in turn making a report to this
Commission upon it, notwithstanding the fact that on the face of it the
allegation is without any foundation. Individuals who could not have
known any of the facts have made some very strange statements. There
have been publications and books written, the contents of which have
been absurd and without a scintilla of foundation of fact. I feel, from
my experience in the Bureau, where we are in constant receipt over the
years of these so-called crank letters, that such allegations will be
going on possibly for some years to come.
I, personally, feel that any finding of the Commission will not be
accepted by everybody, because there are bound to be some extremists
who have very pronounced views, without any foundation for them, who
will disagree violently with whatever findings the Commission makes.
But I think it is essential that the FBI investigate the allegations
that are received in the future so it can't be said that we had ignored
them or that the case is closed and forgotten.
Representative FORD. Could you give us some idea of how many agents are
currently working to one degree or another on any aspects of this case?
Mr. HOOVER. I would estimate, Congressman Ford, that there are at the
present time at least 50 or 60 men giving their entire time to various
aspects of the investigation, because while Dallas is the office of
origin, investigation is required in auxiliary offices such as Los
Angeles or San Francisco, and even in some foreign countries like
Mexico. We have representatives in Mexico City.
At the outset of the investigation, following the assassination, it was
the desire of the President to have this report completed by the Bureau
just as quickly as possible, and as thoroughly as possible, and I would
say we had about 150 men at that time working on the report in the
field, and at Washington, DC.
Now, all the reports that come in from the field are, of course,
reviewed at Washington by the supervisor in charge of the case, and
then in turn by the assistant director of the division, and then in
turn by Mr. Belmont, who is the assistant to the Director.
Reports in which there is a controversial issue or where statements
have been made of the existence of some particular thing that we have
never heard of before, I myself, go over these to see that we haven't
missed anything or haven't had any gap in the investigation so it can
be tied down.
Recently the National Enquirer had a fantastic article in it as to the
existence of a letter that had been written or a request that had been
made by the Department of Justice to Chief Curry of the Dallas Police
Department, to withhold arresting Rubinstein, or Ruby, and Oswald after
the Oswald attempt on General Walker's life.
First, I had the agent in charge at Dallas interview Chief Curry and
I have sent to the Commission a letter as to what Chief Curry had to
say. He branded it as an entire lie--that he had never received any
request of that kind. I had our files searched to be certain we had
not written any such letter as that and found we had not. I requested
the Department of Justice to advise me whether they had written any
such letter and Mr. Katzenbach advises there is no reference in the
Department files to the alleged letter from any Department of Justice
official to Chief Curry nor any reference that an FBI official was
asked to request the Dallas police not to arrest Oswald or Ruby.
A letter is being sent to the Commission today setting forth this
information.
Representative FORD. The point that I think ought to be made is that
despite the magnitude of the effort that has been made by the FBI
and by other agencies, and despite the tremendous effort that has
been made, I believe, by the Commission to help and assist and to
consolidate all of the evidence that we possibly could, that there is
always the possibility at some future date that some evidence might
come to the surface.
Mr. HOOVER. That is, of course, possible; yes.
Representative FORD. I want just to be sure that no leads, no evidence
regardless of its credibility will be ignored, that it will be pursued
by the Bureau or any other agency to make certain that it is good, bad
or of no value.
Mr. HOOVER. Well, I can assure you so far as the FBI is concerned,
the case will be continued in an open classification for all time.
That is, any information coming to us or any report coming to us from
any source will be thoroughly investigated, so that we will be able
to either prove or disprove the allegation. We found in the course of
our investigations that individuals have made statements. Yet, when we
investigate they will frankly admit that the statement is an entire
falsehood, or that they don't know why they wrote the letter or why
they made the statement. But, nevertheless, we have the record and
generally in those instances we try to get a signed statement from that
individual so it can be made a part of the record.
Representative FORD. Under your authority from the President, the
authority which gave you the FBI, the responsibility to conduct this
investigation it is not an authority with a terminal point. It is an
authority that goes on indefinitely?
Mr. HOOVER. Very definitely so. The President wanted a full and
thorough investigation made of this matter, and we have tried to do
so. As I have stated, I think we will continue to receive allegations.
I think this will be a matter of controversy for years to come,
just like the Lincoln assassination. There will be questions raised
by individuals, either for publicity purposes or otherwise, that
will raise some new angle or new aspect of it. I think we must, and
certainly we intend in the FBI to continue to run down any such
allegations or reports of that kind.
Representative BOGGS. Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Yes, Congressman Boggs.
Representative BOGGS. Mr. Hoover, I don't want any cover--to cover any
ground which has been covered but I just have one or two questions.
First, let me say that you and the Bureau have been very cooperative
with this Commission.
Mr. HOOVER. Thank you.
Representative BOGGS. And tremendously helpful. I have been concerned
about some of these wild press reports and concerned about what impact
it may have ultimately on the history of this thing. For instance there
is a man named Buchanan who has written a series of articles.
Mr. DULLES. A book now. A book is out; yes.
Representative BOGGS. A book now. I understand they have been widely
circulated in the European press, and this man came here and was, as
I got it from some other sources, he took in some people here, some
American journalists, and I am told that this man has a Communist
background, and in addition to that is a most unreliable person. He has
made these allegations that the Dallas police force was involved in the
assassination and so on.
Would you have any suggestions on how this Commission should deal with
this sort of thing?
Mr. HOOVER. We have received a request from the Commission to review
that book and to make a report upon any portions of it that can be
contradicted or substantiated by actual facts or documents. I know
Buchanan's background. He worked on the Washington Star and he was
dismissed from the Washington Star because he was a member of the
Communist Party. He spent much of his time in recent years in France
writing for French newspapers. I have followed the articles that
he has written about this matter and they are what I would call
"journalistic garbage." There is not a scintilla of truth to most of
the things he has written in these articles and in his book which I
have had a chance to scan but haven't actually reviewed yet. It is
being reviewed by my research section. Some of the allegations are
utterly fantastic. I often wonder where some of these individuals get
such ideas and why they make such statements without foundation.
Now, he makes many wild charges there, and to read it, a person not
knowing him, or his views, or his background, would be inclined to
wonder. I think you are going to have that problem, as I say, for years
to come. I don't know how you can handle individuals like him other
than to have the record clear upon the facts of the case, and either
substantiate or disprove his statements. I don't think too much time
should be given to these individuals who have such unsavory backgrounds
as Buchanan has and who makes statements that have been proved to be
untrue. But, at the same time I think when a book like that comes out
or an article of that type comes out that deals with the assassination
of the late President, I think it should be gone into from an
investigative point of view. We should then submit to this Commission,
even after it has concluded its hearings, for record purposes, what we
have found in each particular instance.