Mr. DULLES. Just for the record, I wonder if he would identify Mr.
Hornig. I think we know, but possibly----
Secretary DILLON. Oh, yes; Dr. Hornig is Special Assistant to the
President for Science and Technology.
Mr. RANKIN. Mr. Chief Justice, I ask leave to give this document
the next number in order and offer it in evidence as part of the
examination.
The CHAIRMAN. It might be admitted.
(The document referred to was marked Commission Exhibit 1053-D for
identification, and was received in evidence.)
Mr. RANKIN. Mr. Secretary, would you just briefly tell us without
getting into any classified matters or matters that are not properly to
be revealed because of the effects they might have on the protection of
the President, why the Secret Service would need a scientific adviser?
Secretary DILLON. Well, I think this is because they do a number of
things. First, they need it in the communications field. There are all
sorts of advances there, and they have been assuring or working to
assure the security of the communications of the President. In addition
there are all sorts of new developments in the form of protective
devices that are being developed all the time, better forms of
bulletproof glass, better forms of protection of that kind, new types
of protection against access. For instance, there is under development,
I understand, a sort of a radar type of fence so that you can see if a
person comes through a certain area without there being any fence there.
They are developing, working on the development of other protection
devices. They have had very substantial progress recently, I
understand, in the detection of weapons that someone might be carrying,
devices that are more effective. This is something people have tried
to develop, I guess, for a long time. Apparently they are having some
success. It is that sort of thing that is very necessary.
And then in addition this field of computer technology is highly
scientific and complex, and I think that the scientific adviser is in
an excellent position to be sure that the Secret Service has the very
best advice in trying to identify their needs and develop the machines
for those needs.
Mr. RANKIN. Mr. Secretary, it has been suggested to the Commission
that it might be of assistance to you and other Secretaries of the
Treasury and the Secret Service to have someone acting as Special
Assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury, having supervision, under
your direction, of the Secret Service in its various activities, both
protection of the President and otherwise. Do you think that that would
be of help or would it not?
Secretary DILLON. Well, I am not sure. You see, we have an Assistant
Secretary, and I should think he probably would be able to do it as
adequately as having another special assistant.
We also have a Special Assistant for Law Enforcement Coordination who
coordinates the general work of all our law enforcement agencies and
works with outside agencies on overall law enforcement problems.
Probably of interest is that the Treasury Department, I think, has
more law enforcement officials working for it than any other agency of
Government. It is a very large law enforcement organization, although
there are a number of separate organizations that work in different
fields.
So we already have this. I think that it probably can be made tighter
and should be made tighter.
One aspect of this matter, I think, is the advent of computers,
of course, which is very recent and has changed what can be done
effectively in this PRS. I think that should be done anyway. One
aspect of this matter that probably hasn't had as close and detailed
supervision as we may feel appropriate now is the White House detail.
It has always operated over the years in very close contact with
the President and has operated in a slightly different manner with
different Presidents, depending on their wishes.
And it has been felt that as long as they were doing an adequate job,
that it was pretty hard to come in and tell them exactly what they
should do on a day-by-day basis because the President might not want
them to do that sort of thing.
It is a very complex and personal assignment here that is a little
different than any other law enforcement agency, and I certainly think
it should be followed more closely--gone into in more detail--from the
top level of the Treasury Department probably than it has, but even if
it is, we are still going to have this problem that we won't be able
to tell the President exactly what he should do in each case. So there
never will be that close sort of supervision of day-to-day operations
of the White House detail--it wouldn't be effective anyway--that there
would be in another police operation.
Mr. RANKIN. After the assassination, you did have Mr. Carswell take
over certain work in this area, did you not?
Secretary DILLON. Yes; Mr. Carswell is my special assistant, in
my own office. He is a lawyer by profession and training. He has
had investigative experience, 3 years in Naval Intelligence on the
active side of it, and so he has some knowledge of this whole type of
operation, and I felt in view of this investigation, in view of the
work that had been done, it was important to have someone with legal
experience that was close to me, that had immediate access any minute
to me working on the matter. Then while this thing was running along,
they would get to me at any time, and I could ask questions, they would
bring matters to me, we could handle this matter of being sure that a
proper long-range plan was developed, and that the whole effort in the
Secret Service was organized as well as possible. That is why I asked
Mr. Carswell, as part of his work for me, to undertake this special
assignment, which he has done, and I think done very well.
Mr. RANKIN. It has been suggested to the Commission that it might
be helpful if the National Security Council or some Cabinet level
committee would help to supervise in this area of Presidential
protection. Do you have any comments you care to make?
Secretary DILLON. Yes; I think that would be helpful because in
relationship with the President, if there are questions of what is the
proper protection, I think a group of the Cabinet would have a stronger
voice, and also having a group, the President would be more sure that
this was not just one man's ideas, that it would be helpful.
I am not quite sure about the National Security Council as such because
as I recall, the President himself is the Chairman of that, so he would
be advising himself, and I suppose this would be a group to advise the
President.
Mr. DULLES. We thought there might be certain advantages in that
because if you prescribe things for the President to do, and he doesn't
want to do them, they don't get done in the field of protection.
Secretary DILLON. That is right. Then if you describe it in the meeting
at which he was present, that might be well.
The CHAIRMAN. I suppose, Mr. Secretary, also if a committee of that
kind was composed of the Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of
Defense, Secretary of State, and the Attorney General, that you would
have on that committee the men who had all of the agencies that would
of necessity have to be coordinated in order to bring all the work into
focus.
Secretary DILLON. Yes, and the Central Intelligence Agency.
The CHAIRMAN. Yes.
Secretary DILLON. One thing about the National Security Council is that
neither the Secretary of the Treasury nor the Attorney General are
members of the National Security Council by law.
The Secretary of the Treasury has been asked by the Presidents to sit
with the National Security Council for some years, practically since
its beginning.
The Attorney General has sat with it during the last few years, but I
don't know whether that will or will not continue into the future. So
there is a certain problem there.
If this assignment is given by law to the National Security Council,
and some other President comes along that doesn't ask the Secretary of
the Treasury or the Attorney General to sit with it, the two people who
are probably most concerned wouldn't have any part in this.
Mr. DULLES. It would have to provide that in all matters relating to
Presidential security, of course, they will be present. One way of
doing it, I would say.
Secretary DILLON. Yes; there should be some such provision; otherwise I
see some advantages as you say.
Mr. RANKIN. Mr. Secretary, are you familiar with the method of
selection of the Secret Service personnel?
Secretary DILLON. Only somewhat. They do get young men who meet their
qualifications. They do hire them at GS-7 and they stay there for 1
year. If they have a year of satisfactory service, they are promoted
two grades. Then if they have 2 more years of satisfactory service,
they are promoted another double jump to GS-11.
These individuals do not have the legal qualifications that some other
law enforcement agencies such as the FBI require, where you have to be
a lawyer or an accountant, because they do other kinds of investigative
work and that wasn't thought to be necessary in the case of the Secret
Service.
But the Secret Service has felt, and I have inquired into this, that
they have no difficulty in getting young men of the highest type to
come and to take these jobs under the present setup.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you have a printed or written list of the various
qualifications that you seek in regard to the Secret Service?
Secretary DILLON. I don't--I am not aware of that. There probably is
such a list; yes.
Mr. RANKIN. If you have such a list will you please supply it to us?
Secretary DILLON. Yes; I will be glad to.
Mr. RANKIN. Mr. Chief Justice, I would like to ask leave to give the
next number of exhibits to that document once supplied and make it part
of the record.
The CHAIRMAN. It may be admitted.
(The document referred to was marked Commission Exhibit No. 1053-E for
identification and received in evidence.)
Mr. RANKIN. Mr. Secretary, are you familiar in a general way with the
investigation that the Commission has been making with regard to this
matter?
Secretary DILLON. Yes; In a general way, I have followed it through
Mr. Carswell, who has followed it more closely, and through the Secret
Service, so I am generally aware of it.
Mr. RANKIN. And are you generally aware of the investigation in
connection with the assassination, the entire matter?
Secretary DILLON. Oh, yes.
Mr. RANKIN. Have you made any inquiry in the Secret Service to
determine whether or not Lee Harvey Oswald was ever an agent of that
Service?
Secretary DILLON. Yes. I heard rumors of this type of thing very early,
and I asked the direct question of Chief Rowley and was informed that
he never had any connection with the Secret Service.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you know of any evidence in regard to Lee Harvey Oswald
being an agent of any part of the government?
Secretary DILLON. I am not aware of any evidence myself in that way,
but I don't think I necessarily would be fully competent in that.
Mr. RANKIN. But you have never heard of any such evidence?
Secretary DILLON. I have never heard it.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you know of any area of the investigation of the
Commission that you would like to suggest that we do more than we have
insofar as you are familiar with it?
Secretary DILLON. No. As far as I know, the investigation has been very
thorough.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you know of any credible evidence that would lead you
or anyone to believe that there was a conspiracy, foreign or domestic,
involved in the assassination of President Kennedy?
Secretary DILLON. No. From all the evidence I have seen, this was the
work of one deranged individual.
Mr. RANKIN. And who would that be?
Secretary DILLON. Lee Harvey Oswald.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you know of any evidence in regard to any connection
between Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald?
Secretary DILLON. No, no.
Mr. RANKIN. Is there anything that you would like to call to the
attention of the Commission at this time that we should know or that we
should cover?
Secretary DILLON. No; I think we have covered my area of competence
pretty thoroughly this morning. I can't think of anything else.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Dulles?
Mr. DULLES. Doug, in the field that in the Commission here we have
described as the preventive intelligence field; that is, trying to
identify beforehand the individuals or the type of individuals who
might be a danger to the President, have you ever thought of any
possible division of responsibility and of work between the Secret
Service and the FBI to define more clearly which each should do in that
field?
Secretary DILLON. Well, my own feeling is that the agency that handles
the actual work of deciding who the individuals are that the Secret
Service should watch out for, which is the PRS, would function much
better and would strengthen the Service if it works as it does now as
part of the whole Secret Service operation, and working very closely
with the people who are on the White House detail and not having to be
involved in a liaison operation somewhere else.
So I think our problem is to strengthen this PRS, and I think that this
long-range plan is a good beginning.
I don't think it is necessarily an end because as soon as we develop
the automated machinery that we need, then we will know a little
better, and we may need some people to make full use of that.
But this is enough to get it underway and all you can use, I think,
well, for that purpose at present.
I would think that there is a liaison problem which exists whenever
you have liaison with anyone, whether it is within your department or
without, as long as it is a separate organization. And I think there
has been clearly a problem of inadequate liaison with other Government
agencies.
It is much better now. We have already taken steps. And additional
steps of assigning specific liaison officers will help. But I think
this is something that has just got to be worked out continually at all
levels to make it work. So the problem is not unique to this situation;
it affects all intergovernmental relations.
Mr. DULLES. Today with the Communist Party and with rightist groups and
we have more and more groups--we have always had them, but we seem to
have more than others which might breed up elements of danger--is there
any part of that you would like to turn over to anybody else or----
Secretary DILLON. Well, I think the identification of groups that are
likely to be dangerous as groups would probably more likely fall on
the FBI because they study the background of these groups and they are
aware of them and try to penetrate them, and so forth.
So I think that from that point of view, they would certainly be
the purveyor, the first purveyor of the information that is needed
and the ones who would have the responsibility of signaling to the
Secret Service that this is a dangerous group and to the best of our
knowledge these are its members. Some of the members would probably be
subterranean and might not be known. And it would be important that
they pass on that information on the individuals.
The Secret Service I think would be more concerned in dealing
with--trying to protect against the actual individuals.
I think that probably on the basis of thinking of something that would
be sort of an international plot, Communist Party plot, or something
like that, I think you probably need all arms of the Government working
on that.
We can't say that Secret Service can do it alone. Central Intelligence
Agency might get wind of it anywhere in the world or FBI would have to
use all its resources. Just to beat back something like that you would
need the combined resources of whatever you have got.
I think there is sort of a greater thrust of continuing responsibility
obviously on the FBI for following these groups, as you call them.
For following individuals which may come to their notice because they
were somewhat deranged or did something bad at one time, they would
then pass that on to the Secret Service, and with adequate manpower,
I think that the Secret Service would have more or less the primary
responsibility of following those sort of individuals.
The CHAIRMAN. I suppose you wouldn't want to take away from the Secret
Service entirely the concern that it might have for groups?
Secretary DILLON. Oh, no.
The CHAIRMAN. And the necessity of going into those groups to ascertain
further whether they were a threat to the President?
Secretary DILLON. Yes; but I don't think it is their function to try,
for instance, to have undercover people to penetrate groups or do
things of that nature which the FBI generally does.
The CHAIRMAN. Yes.
Secretary DILLON. And it is their job to do that. That would require,
of course, a much larger organization, but I certainly think the
Service has to keep track of them, and they can't just say we have no
interest and everything must come from somewhere else. I don't mean
that at all. But that is not their primary responsibility. I thought
that is what Mr. Dulles' view of it was.
The CHAIRMAN. Anything more?
Mr. DULLES. Mr. Secretary, just one other question. It raises the
question of the combination of the--in the Secret Service of the two
functions of Presidential protection and of the counterfeiting and
related investigatory duties in connection with counterfeiting. Have
you got any comments on that? Is that a logical or wise combination or
would you suggest any change there?
Secretary DILLON. Well, these are two separate functions. I do think
that there is a certain advantage to it that has developed and
which I think should be maintained. That comes from the fact that
counterfeiting is not an operation that is overly large; so it means
that people who are engaged in this can very well be trained. Many have
had tours such as earlier in the White House detail.
Mr. DULLES. You transfer back and forth, do you, from these two
functions?
Secretary DILLON. Oh, yes; many of the people after a little service in
the White House detail find that life too strenuous, the hours bad, or
prefer not to travel, and so forth, prefer the type of work that opens
up in the counterfeiting section. Then they move out into one of the
field offices, and there are probably a few more possibilities as heads
of these fields offices for higher level jobs than there would be in
the White House detail. So there is an interchange.
Now, that interchange, I think, is useful because you do have these
field offices that you can then call upon to do protective work, and
I think there can be much more of that because, as what I indicated
earlier, with this development of more detailed criteria, the greater
number of people coming in to check up on, there are going to be more
investigations in the field that should be done by the Secret Service,
and it can be done by these people who have had this training and
who know what to look for and who have worked on this same sort of
assignment.
They also are readily available and fit right into the pattern of
Presidential protection when the President goes to their area. So I
think that is another great advantage.
So therefore I think there is substantial advantage by having this
additional assignment which is in a different area, counterfeiting. I
think it is probable happenstance; it grew that way. It could have been
in some other different area, but the size of it which is large enough
but not too large I think combines very well with the White House
detail to give us a possibility of making a very effective operation.
Mr. DULLES. Do I correctly assume from what you have said that
initially your field offices were largely organized for the
counterfeiting side of the work but that is now changing, and more
and more the work of the field office is coming into the Presidential
protection?
Secretary DILLON. Well, I think certainly the amount that they will be
doing on Presidential protection has greatly increased.
The counterfeiting hasn't decreased. That has increased also. But
whereas earlier I think they were only used in Presidential protection
when they had to be, when they were pulled off their other jobs and
brought to Washington and sent to travel on a trip or something like
that, because extra people were needed, I think now if we get an
adequate staff they will be doing more of this as a regular routine
part of their job, investigating people in their areas as well as
investigating counterfeit cases in their area.
So they will have more or less two permanent jobs to do.
The CHAIRMAN. While you may have had a decrease in counterfeiting, I
suppose you have had a great increase in forgeries, haven't you?
Secretary DILLON. Yes; we have had an increase I said in counterfeiting
and also in forgeries.
The CHAIRMAN. Oh, in counterfeiting. I misunderstood you. I thought you
said you had a decrease.
Secretary DILLON. No; a great increase in counterfeiting on account of
development of these methods of photography.
The CHAIRMAN. Yes; I recall now.
Secretary DILLON. That is similar to check forgery which is the same
problem on Government checks which has also increased.
Mr. DULLES. That is all I have, Mr. Chief Justice.
The CHAIRMAN. Very well. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary.
Before we adjourn, I would like to say to you, Mr. Secretary, that the
Secret Service has been most cooperative ever since this Commission was
formed. It has been very attentive to our every wish and has been very
helpful throughout. We appreciate it very much indeed.
Secretary DILLON. Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice.
The CHAIRMAN. Also, we appreciate the very fine work which the Internal
Revenue agents did in making a study of reconstructing income of
persons involved in the investigation and the other assistance that the
agents gave in connection with our work.
[In connection with the testimony of Secretary Dillon the Commission
requested and received additional information on Secret Service
budget requests for the fiscal years 1960 through 1965. The document
containing the information was marked as Commission Exhibit No. 1053-F
for identification and received in evidence.]
We will adjourn now.
(Whereupon, at 1:25 p.m., the President's Commission adjourned.)
_Sunday, September 6, 1964_