Mr. DULLES. Could I ask one question there? Does your answer, Mr.
McCone, include a negation of any belief that Oswald was working for or
on behalf of the Soviet Union at any time when you were in contact with
him or knew about his activities?
Mr. McCONE. As I have already stated, we were never in contact with
Oswald. We have no evidence that he was working for or on behalf of the
Soviet Union at any time. According to his diary, Oswald did receive a
subsidy from the Soviet Red Cross which we assume had the approval of
the authorities. Such a payment does not indicate to us that he even
worked for the Soviet intelligence services. Furthermore, we have no
other evidence that he ever worked for Soviet intelligence.
Representative FORD. Is the Central Intelligence Agency continuing any
investigation into this area?
Mr. McCONE. No, because, at the present time, we have no information in
our files that we have not exhaustively investigated and disposed of to
our satisfaction. Naturally, any new information that might come into
our hands would be investigated promptly.
Mr. HELMS. I simply wanted to add that we obviously are interested in
anything we can pick up applying to this case, and anything we get will
be immediately sent to the Commission, so that we haven't stopped our
inquiries or the picking up of any information we can from people who
might have it. This is on a continuing basis.
Representative FORD. In other words, the case isn't closed.
Mr. HELMS. It is not closed as far as we are concerned.
Mr. RANKIN. Would that be true, Mr. Helms, even after the Commission
completed its report, you would keep the matter open if there was
anything new that developed in the future that could be properly
presented to the authorities?
Mr. HELMS. Yes. I would assume the case will never be closed.
Mr. RANKIN. Mr. McCone, do you have any ideas about improving the
security provisions for the President that you would like to relate to
the Commission?
Mr. McCONE. Well, this is, in my opinion, a very important question
which I am sure this Commission will--has and will--devote a
considerable amount of thought to, and undoubtedly have some
recommendations as part of its report.
Mr. RANKIN. Your Agency does have an important function in some aspects.
Mr. McCONE. We have a very important function in connection with the
foreign travels of the President, and I would like to inform the
Commission as to how we discharge that responsibility by quickly
reviewing the chronology of the Central Intelligence Agency's support
of President Kennedy's visit to Mexico City from the 29th of June to
the 2d of July 1962.
Mr. RANKIN. Will you please do that.
The CHAIRMAN. Director, is that a security matter?
Mr. McCONE. No. I think I can handle this for the record.
The CHAIRMAN. Very well.
Mr. McCONE. If I have to make a remark or two off the record I will ask
that privilege.
That visit, as I said, started on the 29th of June. On the 28th of
April, in anticipation of the visit, instructions were transmitted to
Mexico for the Ambassador to coordinate planning and informational
guidance for the advance party of the Secret Service.
We asked that the Secret Service be given information on local groups
and persons who would cause disturbances, embarrassments or physical
harm, an estimate of the determination and ability of the Mexican
government to prevent incidents, and preparation for special briefings
to the Embassy officials and the Secret Service, and such additional
support and communications personnel that might be required.
These instructions were given two months before the trip.
On the 15th of May, we received confirmed information that the
President would visit Mexico on the specific dates. On the 1st of June
the Secret Service was supplied by the Agency with the detailed survey
of Mexican security forces that would be called upon to protect the
President.
Friendly and allied governments were informed of the visit and their
cooperation and pertinent informational support was solicited. From
this date through the 2d of July daily information reports were
furnished to the State Department, the Secret Service, the FBI and the
military services.
That is from the 1st of June to the 2d of July, a period of 31,
32 days. On the 8th of June the Secret Service advance party was
briefed in detail by a group of officers of the Agency on the Mexican
government's plans for the protection of the President, including
current information on the size, strength and capabilities of potential
troublemakers.
Hazardous locations and times in the planned itinerary were identified,
political and economic issues that might be invoked by hostile elements
for demonstrations were specified.
On the 11th of June, the Secret Service advance party left for Mexico
supported by additional security personnel to assist in coordinating an
informational report and the followup activity required.
Especially prepared national intelligence estimates on the current
security conditions in Mexico was approved by the United States
Intelligence Board on the 13th of June.
On the 15th of June arrangements were completed to reenforce
communications facilities. On the 24th of June a conference at the
State Department was held at the request of the President for reviewing
security measures, and this meeting I attended personally, and reported
to the State Department on the essence of all that had gone before.
Emergency contingency plans were discussed and a consensus was reached
that the President should make the visit as scheduled.
On the 27th of June, a final updated special national intelligence
estimate was prepared, and this indicated no basic changes in the
security assessment that Mexican government was prepared to cope with
foreseeable security contingencies.
On the 28th of June, a final briefing report was prepared for the
Director's use which indicated the security precautions of the Mexican
government had effectively forestalled major organized incidents, and
our informed estimate was that the President would receive a great
welcome.
The report was presented to the President personally by the Director at
noon in a final meeting prior to departure on this trip.
From the 29th of June to the 2d of July in Washington headquarters,
headquarters components remained on a 24-hour alert for close support
of the embassy and the Secret Service.
So, not only was the Central Intelligence Agency and its various
components involved in this for a period of 2 months in close
collaboration with the Secret Service, but by bringing in the United
States Intelligence Board we brought in all of the intelligence assets
of the United States Government in connection with this particular
trip. I thought this procedure which is followed regularly on all trips
that the President makes out of the country would be of interest to the
Commission.
The CHAIRMAN. That is the normal format of your procedures?
Mr. McCONE. Yes.
The CHAIRMAN. When the President goes abroad?
Mr. McCONE. Yes, I selected this one. The same was true of his trip to
Caracas or Paris or elsewhere.
Mr. RANKIN. Mr. McCone, in your investigation of the Oswald matter
did you use the same approach or a comparable approach to a liaison
with the other intelligence agencies of government to try to discover
anything that might involve your jurisdiction.
Mr. McCONE. Yes. We were in very close touch with the Federal Bureau
of Investigation and with the Secret Service on a 24-hour basis at all
points, both domestic and foreign, where information had been received
which might have a bearing on this problem.
Mr. RANKIN. Assassination?
Mr. McCONE. Assassination.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you have an opinion, Mr. McCone, as to whether or not
the liaison between the intelligence agencies of the United States
Government might be improved if they had better mechanical, computer or
other facilities of that type, and also some other ideas or methods of
dealing with each other?
Mr. McCONE. There is a great deal of improvement of information that
might be of importance in a matter of this kind through the use of
computers and mechanical means of handling files, and you, Mr. Chief
Justice, saw some of our installations and that was only a beginning of
what really can be done.
The CHAIRMAN. Yes; I did.
Mr. McCONE. I would certainly urge that all departments of government
that are involved in this area adopt the most modern methods of
automatic data processing with respect to the personnel files and other
files relating to individuals. This would be helpful.
But I emphasize that a computer will not replace the man, and
therefore, we must have at all levels a complete exchange of
information and cooperation between agencies where they share this
responsibility, and in going through this chronology, it points out the
type of exchange and cooperation that the Central Intelligence Agency
tries to afford both the Secret Service and the Federal Bureau of
Investigation in matters where we have a common responsibility.
I would like to emphasize the very great importance of this exchange,
which is not always easily accomplished because it is cumbersome.
Sometimes it becomes involved in distracting people from other duties,
and so on and so forth.
I have given a good deal of thought to the matter of some incentives to
bring out informers, thinking about the old informer statutes in which
some of them are still on the books, in which people were rewarded for
informing when others conducted themselves in a damaging way.
Mr. DULLES. Smuggling cases?
Mr. McCONE. Smuggling cases. But I believe that something could be
done. I call to the attention of this Commission one of the laws
relating to atomic energy, namely the Atomic Weapons Reward Act of 15
July 1955 wherein a substantial reward is offered for the apprehension
of persons responsible for the clandestine introduction or manufacture
in the United States of such nuclear material or atomic weapons. It
is suggested that the Commission may wish to recommend that original
but similar legislation be enacted which would induce individuals to
furnish information bearing on Presidential security by offering a
substantial reward and preferential treatment. Substantial reward could
represent a significant inducement even to staff officers and personnel
of secret associations and state security organs abroad who are
charged with assassination and sabotage. We have information that such
personnel and police state apparatuses have expressed and, in certain
cases, acted upon their repugnance for such work and for the political
system which requires such duties to be performed.
Mr RANKIN. Is it your belief, Mr. McCone, that the methods for exchange
of information between intelligence agencies of the Government could be
materially improved.
Mr. McCONE. I think the exchange between the Central Intelligence
Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the Secret Service
is quite adequate. I am not informed as to whether the exchanges
between the Secret Service and the FBI are equally adequate. I have not
gone into that. I would have no means to know. Certainly it is most
important that it be done.
Mr. DULLES. Looking back now that you have the full record, do you feel
that you received from the State Department adequate information at the
time that they were aware of Oswald's defection and later activities
in the Soviet Union, did you get at the time full information from the
State Department on those particular subjects?
Mr. McCONE. Well, I am not sure that we got full information, Mr.
Dulles. The fact is we had very little information in our files.
Mr. HELMS. It was probably minimal.
Representative FORD. Why did that happen?
Mr. HELMS. I am not sure, Mr. Ford. I can only assume that the State
Department had a limited amount. Interestingly enough, it is far enough
back now so that it's very hard to find people who were in the Moscow
Embassy at the time familiar with the case, so in trying to run this
down one comes to a lot of dead ends and I, therefore, would not like
to hazard any guess.
Representative FORD. Whose responsibility is it; is it CIA's
responsibility to obtain the information or State Department's
responsibility to supply it to Central Intelligence and to others.
Mr. McCONE. With respect to a U.S. citizen who goes abroad, it is the
responsibility of the State Department through its various echelons,
consular service and embassies and so forth.
For a foreigner coming into the United States, who might be of
suspicious character, coming here for espionage, subversion,
assassination and other acts of violence, we would, and we do exchange
this information immediately with the FBI.
Representative FORD. But in this particular case, Oswald in the Soviet
Union, whose responsibility was it to transmit the information,
whatever it was, to the Central Intelligence Agency?
Mr. McCONE. Well, it would be the State Department's responsibility
to do that. Whether there really exists an order or orders that
information on an American citizen returning from a foreign country be
transmitted to CIA, I don't believe there are such regulations which
exist.
Mr. HELMS. I don't believe they do, either.
Mr. McCONE. I am not sure they should.
Representative FORD. It wouldn't be your recommendation that you, the
head of Central Intelligence Agency, should have that information?
Mr. DULLES. In a case of an American defecting to a Communist country,
shouldn't you have it?
Mr. McCONE. Certainly certain types of information. What we ought to
be careful of here, would be to rather clearly define the type of
information which should be transmitted, because after all, there are
hundreds of thousands or millions of Americans going back and forth
every year, and those records are the records of the Immigration
Service, the Passport Division.
Mr. DULLES. I was thinking of a person who having defected might, of
course, have become an agent and then reinserted into the United States
and if you were informed of the first steps to that you might help to
prevent the second step.
Mr. McCONE. Well, certainly information on defectors or possible
recruitments should be, and I have no question is being, transmitted.
Representative FORD. What I was getting at was whether the procedures
were adequate or inadequate, whether the administration was proper
or improper in this particular case, and if some files you have that
started when he attempted to defect are inadequate why we ought to
know, and we ought to know whether the basic regulations were right or
wrong, whether the administration was proper or improper, that is what
I am trying to find out.