Mr. DULLES. May I add one other thing just to interrupt. I wish you
would add to your list a book called "The Red Roses of Dallas" by a man
named Gun. He is a more reliable correspondent.
Mr. HOOVER. He is a Philadelphia correspondent.
Mr. DULLES. He has been living in this country since 1946. I have met
him over here. Let's see, he was at Dallas at the time. He was then
reporting, I think, for the Italian newspaper Epoca.
Mr. HOOVER. That is not the same one.
Mr. DULLES. He might have been lying. This book is full of lies. But I
think it is a book that ought to be added, too, and I will see that a
copy is sent to the Bureau.
Mr. HOOVER. I would appreciate that.
Representative BOGGS. On the other side of the spectrum some professor
out at the University of Illinois wrote a piece in which he alleged
the President was a Communist agent, President Kennedy, and Buchanan's
allegations are that the extreme right assassinated the President and
this fellow's allegations are that the Communists assassinated the
President. Would you care to comment? Have you read that piece?
Mr. HOOVER. I have read that piece. My comment on it is this in
general: I think the extreme right is just as much a danger to the
freedom of this country as the extreme left. There are groups,
organizations, and individuals on the extreme right who make these
very violent statements, allegations that General Eisenhower was a
Communist, disparaging references to the Chief Justice and at the other
end of the spectrum you have these leftists who make wild statements
charging almost anybody with being a Fascist or belonging to some
of these so-called extreme right societies. Now, I have felt, and I
have said publicly in speeches, that they are just as much a danger,
at either end of the spectrum. They don't deal with facts. Anybody
who will allege that General Eisenhower was a Communist agent, has
something wrong with him.
A lot of people read such allegations because I get some of the
weirdest letters wanting to know whether we have inquired to find out
whether that is true. I have known General Eisenhower quite well myself
and I have found him to be a sound, level-headed man.
In New York City there is a woman by the name of Kraus who must be
mentally deranged as she stands on a Broadway corner there handing out
leaflets in which she charges me with being in the conspiracy with the
Communists to overthrow this Government and so forth.
Well now, if any person has fought communism, I certainly have fought
it. We have tried to fight it and expose it in democratic ways I think
that is the thing we have to very definitely keep in mind in this whole
problem in the security of the President and the successor to office.
Just how far you are going to go for his protection and his security. I
don't think you can get absolute security without almost establishing a
police state, and we don't want that. You can't put security in a black
groove or a white groove. It is in a gray groove, and certain chances
have to be taken. You are dealing with a human being when you are
dealing with the President of the United States. President Johnson is a
very down to earth human being, and it makes the security problem all
the more difficult, but you can't bar him from the people.
There are certain things that can be done, and I submitted a memorandum
to the Secret Service, and to the White House on certain security
steps that might be taken and tightened up. But you are dealing with
the general public and that is what has given me great concern in the
recent expansion, of the criteria for dissemination that we adopted
after the assassination.
Prior to that time we reported to the Secret Service all information
that dealt with individuals who were potential killers or by whom
acts of violence might be anticipated. The Secret Service would take
that information and would do with it as they saw fit. I gave great
consideration to it because I am not very happy with the criteria
expansion, but I felt we had to include subversives of various
character, and extremists. We have, in turn, furnished their names to
the Secret Service. I think 5,000 names up to the present time already
have been submitted and there are at least three or four thousand more
that will be submitted within the next few months.
Then you come to the problem of what you are going to do when the
Secret Service gets those names. They have to call upon the local
authorities. Just recently, in the city of Chicago, when the President
was there, the local authorities were asked to give assistance as they
usually do to the Secret Service and they went to the homes of some of
these people, and it resulted really almost in a house arrest.
Now, I don't think there is any place in this country for that
kind of thing, but these people who belonged to extreme subversive
organizations or organizations that advocated the overthrow of
government by force and violence were told that they couldn't leave
their house or if they did they would be accompanied by a police
officer. That gives me great concern because in New York City alone,
you run into maybe three or four thousand such individuals who would be
members of subversive organizations, and then you get into the twilight
zone of subversive fronts.
Now, there again, merely because a man belongs to a subversive front
organization, in my estimation doesn't mean that he is blacklisted and
is a menace to the country for life. If he belongs to 20 of them, it
certainly shows either one of two things, he is either very gullible
and dumb or he is a menace. That has been my attitude in regard to
Government service where you find a Government employee who belonged to
one or two, maybe in his early days. I don't believe this necessarily
makes him a security risk. Rather, this would be dependent on the
degree of his activity in the front group and his purpose and intent in
associating himself with it. But where he has belonged to 15, 18, 20 of
them, I don't think he has enough good judgment to be in the Government.
Some ministers get drawn into organizations, some of which are under
the domination of the Communist Party. Now, those ministers don't know
that. They are just as loyal and patriotic as you and I are, but they
happen to belong. Now, that is where the question of human judgment
has to be used. We try to use it in selecting these names. But I was
startled when I learned of the incident in Chicago because there you
come pretty close to a house arrest and we don't want that. We don't
want a gestapo. We have to, I think, maintain an even balance.