The President's Commission met at 12:05 p. m., on September 2, 1964, at
200 Maryland Avenue NE., Washington, D.C.
Present were Chief Justice Earl Warren, Chairman; Senator Richard B.
Russell, Senator John Sherman Cooper, Representative Gerald R. Ford,
Allen W. Dulles, and John J. McCloy, members.
Also present was J. Lee Rankin, general counsel.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Secretary, would you please rise and follow me.
Do you solemnly swear the testimony you are about to give before this
Commission will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth, so help you God.
Secretary DILLON. I do.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Rankin will conduct the examination, Mr. Secretary.
Secretary DILLON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. RANKIN. Mr. Secretary, will you state your name and residence,
please?
Secretary DILLON. C. Douglas Dillon of Far Hills, N.J., presently
residing in Washington, 2534 Belmont Road, NW.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you have an official position with the Government?
Secretary DILLON. Yes, I do. I am the Secretary of the Treasury.
Mr. RANKIN. In that capacity do you have responsibility for the Secret
Service of the United States?
Secretary DILLON. Yes, the Secret Service is part of the Treasury
Department.
Mr. RANKIN. Have you had that position responsibility for some time?
Secretary DILLON. Since January 21, 1961.
Mr. RANKIN. Can you tell us briefly the nature of your supervision of
the Secret Service, prior to the assassination?
Secretary DILLON. Yes. Prior to the assassination, when I first took
office as Secretary of the Treasury, I naturally tried to find out,
in as much detail as seemed practical, how the various offices of
the Department functioned. One of the important ones was the Secret
Service. So I had a number of interviews with Chief Baughman who was
the Chief of the Secret Service at that time.
I got the general description from him of how the Secret Service
operated, what their responsibilities were, what their problems were.
After he retired, which was early, after I had only been there for a
few months, I spoke with the President about this matter--President
Kennedy--and it was my responsibility to find a new Chief of the Secret
Service.
He had known James Rowley very well as head of the White House detail,
and he felt that he would be an appropriate head of the Secret Service.
I talked with Chief Baughman, and he thought there were two or three
men, of whom Rowley was one, qualified to be head of the Secret
Service; so I decided to appoint Rowley and thereafter talked with him
considerably about the White House detail which he was more familiar
with than Chief Baughman.
However, I did not in any sense conduct a day-to-day supervision, or
close following, of its day-to-day operations. The Secret Service had
been functioning for many years and the presumption from its record
was that it had been functioning successfully. I think that the events
that have developed since November have very clearly shown that some
of the procedures, many of them, need to be changed and improved. I
think this is probably largely due, to a considerable extent due, to a
very rapid change which probably took place without our fully realizing
its importance in the last 3 years, and which greatly increased the
responsibility of the Secret Service. That is the greatly changed
nature of Presidential travel.
Mr. RANKIN. Will you describe to us how that affects the problems of
the Secret Service?
Secretary DILLON. Yes. In earlier times, the Presidents did not travel
very often. When he did travel, he generally traveled by train, which
was a protected train. Doing that, he could not cover very many parts
of the country, and the Secret Service could move easily right along
with him on the train that he was on.
What happened since has been, first, the advent of airplanes.
Presidents beginning with President Eisenhower began to move more
rapidly and were able to travel considerably more, and on very short
time differentials they could be in cities that were thousands of miles
apart.
However, this only just began with President Eisenhower because, in
the first place, jets were not yet available, and in the second place,
in the last 4 years of his term, he had to take greater care of his
health, and he didn't travel around the country quite as much as his
successors have. So when President Kennedy came into office with the
availability of, the relatively recent availability, of jets and his
desire to travel, this greatly increased the burden on the Secret
Service. Formerly when they had a trip, they used to send out an
advance agent to some big town. Now the trip would be a 3-day trip, and
there might be four towns, each one 1,000 miles apart, that would have
to be covered thoroughly at the same time. I think that probably there
was not a full realization by anyone of this problem.
Certainly the Secret Service came to me and said they needed more
personnel, and we tried to get them more personnel. Chief Rowley
testified, I thought quite convincingly, in 1962 before the various
Appropriations Committees of the Congress and met with very little
success because I think that this was not fully understood by the
public. The Appropriations Committees were a reflection of public
understanding, and probably it was not even fully understood within the
Secret Service.