Chapter XXII: Part 22

Mr. SHANEYFELT. I think the reason that the stock was retouched straight in the photograph on Life magazine, and my interpretation would be that the individual retouching it does not have a familiarity with rifles and did not realize there was curvature there, and in doing it just made a straight-line highlight without even considering whether that curved or not. There was curvature in that area which is not readily apparent--it is quite indistinct--and I think it was just made without realizing that there was curvature there.

Mr. EISENBERG. That is, the individual might have thought he was actually enhancing detail rather than putting in detail which was not present in the original?

Mr. SHANEYFELT. Yes.

Mr. EISENBERG. Is there anything else you would like to point out in this photograph, Exhibit 754?

Mr. SHANEYFELT. There is other retouching at the shoulder, to the left of the photograph as we view it; that area has had some retouching of the highlights. Along the barrel of the gun, or the stock of the gun above the hand, there is retouching, a little highlight enhancement there. These are all generally consistent with the type of retouching that we have previously discussed and I have previously pointed out.

Representative FORD. I am not clear why they would retouch, from a photographic point of view.

Mr. SHANEYFELT. They retouch because in the halftone process there is a loss of detail, and had they not retouched this photograph, had they not put the highlight along the rifle stock, then you would only have seen a black area. They were afraid you would only see a black area and you wouldn't get the definition here of the rifle. You lose the detail, and you would lose the view of the rifle. You wouldn't see the rifle there because this line would be lost. The same way along here. This one very definitely, had they not retouched it, it would have blended in and been a continuous tone of dark gray all across there.

Representative FORD. That is--up here--that is, above the hand on the stock?

Mr. SHANEYFELT. Yes.

Mr. EISENBERG. When you said a highlight "along the rifle stock," you actually meant on top, above the rifle stock?

Mr. SHANEYFELT. The upper edge.

Mr. EISENBERG. Is it the upper edge, or is it a place that does not correspond to the rifle stock?

Mr. SHANEYFELT. It is an edge along the rifle stock that corresponds. I am speaking now of the highlight above the hand.

Mr. EISENBERG. No; you said before, in describing the highlight which you can see, you said they drew a highlight "along" the rifle--the rifle stock. Actually it was drawn, as I understand it, considerably above the edge of the actual rifle stock?

Mr. SHANEYFELT. Yes; that is true.

Mr. EISENBERG. Have you used this technique yourself?

Mr. SHANEYFELT. Yes; I have done retouching of photographs for halftones; yes.

Mr. EISENBERG. When you said before that this retouching is done by airbrush or brush, what medium is used in the brush or airbrush to achieve the effect?

Mr. SHANEYFELT. It is a water-soluble pigment, and it is available in varying shades of from white to black; it is available in different shades of gray tones, so that you could actually match the gray tone of the picture--since in these instances we are dealing entirely with gray, shades of gray--and you select a gray that is not too prominent that would give you a highlight that would look normal.

Mr. EISENBERG. So that the negative is painted, so to speak?

Mr. SHANEYFELT. The actual photograph is painted.

Mr. EISENBERG. The photograph is painted. Now, would there be any conceivable reason for eliminating in a retouching the telescopic sight?

Mr. SHANEYFELT. The only reason again would be to enhance the detail. I cannot determine from Commission Exhibit 754 whether there was retouching around the stock. There are indications that there is some retouching--I mean around the telescopic sight. It appears to me they did do some retouching around the telescopic sight which we have marked as point E on Commission Exhibit 754.

Mr. EISENBERG. Without specific reference to 754, might an individual without experience in rifles have thought that the detail corresponding to the telescopic sight was extraneous detail, and blocked it out?

Mr. SHANEYFELT. Yes; it could be done.

Mr. EISENBERG. I have no further questions, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. McCLOY. Do you have anything?

Representative FORD. No further questions.

Mr. McCLOY. It may be because I am, and I am sure it is, because of my ignorance in regard to this composition of photographs, but the negative of which we have a copy is that from which this photograph was taken; isn't that right? [Referring to Exhibit 133A.]

Mr. SHANEYFELT. We do not have the negative of this photograph.

Mr. McCLOY. You have the negative of this? [Referring to Exhibit 133B]

Mr. SHANEYFELT. We have the negative of 133B.

Mr. McCLOY. You have the negative of 133B. That negative in itself shows no doctoring or composition at all?

Mr. SHANEYFELT. It shows absolutely no doctoring or composition.

Mr. McCLOY. So that the only composition that could have been made would have been in this process which you have described of picture on picture and negative and then photographing?

Mr. SHANEYFELT. And then finally rephotographing with this camera.

Mr. McCLOY. Rephotographing with this camera, this very camera?

Mr. SHANEYFELT. That is correct, and this then, to me, becomes in the realm of the impossible.

Mr. McCLOY. Yes. There is nothing in Exhibit 754 that, to you, insinuates any sinister type of touching up?

Mr. SHANEYFELT. That is correct. This is entirely innocent retouching, completely normal operation for a newspaper cut or a magazine reproduction.

Mr. McCLOY. I think I have no other questions.

Mr. EISENBERG. Just two other questions. Is there anything in the negative of 133B--that is, Commission Exhibit 749--to indicate whether it was developed commercially or not commercially?

Mr. SHANEYFELT. No; I cannot determine that from the negative.

Mr. EISENBERG. And finally, I hand you a page from that same issue of Life, the issue of February 21, 1964, page 80, which has a photograph similar to the cover photograph, and I ask you whether this photograph appearing on page 80 appears to you to be the same as the photograph used on the cover?

Mr. SHANEYFELT. Yes; it appears to be the same photograph.

Mr. EISENBERG. Does the retouching appear to be the same in both?

Mr. SHANEYFELT. The retouching is consistent; yes. It appears to be slightly clearer in the photograph on page 80; the highlight along the stock is sharper and more crisp and in more detail.

Mr. EISENBERG. Again you say "highlight along the stock."

Mr. SHANEYFELT. Along the stock.

Mr. EISENBERG. You mean the highlight introduced by the retoucher?

Mr. SHANEYFELT. Yes. And the scope appears to be much clearer in the photograph on page 80 than the photograph on the front cover, which is Exhibit 754, and is much clearer than is apparent in the photograph 133A.

Mr. EISENBERG. Can you account for that?

Mr. SHANEYFELT. My only explanation would be retouching, from retouching around the scope. The primary reason for the additional clarity between the entire photograph, without specific reference to the scope, the clarity that I mentioned in the entire photograph on page 80 as compared with the cover is, I believe, basically the fact that the cover is so enlarged. There is a tendency on big enlargements to separate the detail out by enlargement so it appears not as clear, so a smaller picture will sometimes look clearer than one of the same picture that has been enlarged. This would account for some of the additional detail and more distinct sharpness in the photograph.

Mr. EISENBERG. May this photograph on page 80 be introduced as 755?

Mr. McCLOY. It may be admitted.

(Commission Exhibit No. 755 was marked and received in evidence.)

Mr. EISENBERG. One final question: Can you compare the sharpness of the scope on Exhibit 755 with the sharpness on Exhibit 746E, one of the reproductions you prepared?

Mr. SHANEYFELT. Yes; there is the same difference in sharpness between the photograph on Commission Exhibit 755, which is page 80 of Life magazine, and the photograph which I made from the Government's Exhibit 133A, which is Commission Exhibit 746E. Again this difference in sharpness, I believe is due to retouching in part, and in part to the picture in Life magazine being smaller, and thereby the detail is not spread out so much. It is a combination of retouching of the photograph and size.

Mr. EISENBERG. Mr. Chairman, this concludes my examination.

Mr. McCLOY. I am further interested as you look at this rifle as it lies on the table you can see the highlight, even without any photograph, very clearly. The shine centers on the curvature of the stock. It is quite interesting.

Mr. SHANEYFELT. That is very apparent on Exhibit 748 also, where you get the duplication of the lighting. This nob tends to reflect more light.

Mr. McCLOY. It is obvious that it is right up there as a conspicuous highlight. I didn't realize that it was so indicative of the curve of the stock of the rifle.

Thank you very much indeed for your cooperation and very enlightening and very interesting testimony.

Mr. SHANEYFELT. Thank you.

(Recess.)

TESTIMONY OF ROBERT INMAN BOUCK

Mr. McCLOY. Mr. Bouck, you know the purpose for which you are here?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes, I do.

Mr. McCLOY. And we are very happy to have you help us to acquit ourselves of our responsibility here in determining all of the relevant circumstances in connection with the assassination of the President.

I believe you are going to give us something of the routine by which Presidents are protected?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes.

Mr. McCLOY. I will ask you to rise and hold up your right hand.

Do you solemnly swear the testimony you give in this hearing will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

Mr. BOUCK. I do.

Mr. STERN. Mr. Bouck, I would like to outline first the order of questioning I have in mind to give you a notion of how I would like to proceed and how you might respond to particular questions.

I would like to cover first your biographical background, then the functions of the Protective Research Section, generally the organization of the Section, the sources of information on which you rely regarding potentially dangerous people, the criteria you employ to determine when an individual might be dangerous, what you do with the information once you receive it, and then some detail on how your filing system is set up and operates, how do you get at data.

Then based on all that background information, the preparations that were actually made for the President's trip to Texas.

I will begin by asking you to state your name, age and address.

Mr. BOUCK. My name is Robert Inman Bouck. I am 49 years of age. I live at 411 Norwood Drive, Falls Church, Va.

Mr. STERN. What is your education, Mr. Bouck, at the college level?

Mr. BOUCK. I have a B.S. degree in police administration.

Mr. STERN. From what college?

Mr. BOUCK. From Michigan State College.

Mr. STERN. And that was awarded when?

Mr. BOUCK. 1939.

Mr. STERN. What is your experience in the Secret Service--when did you join the Service?

Mr. BOUCK. I came to the Service in 1939 upon leaving college. From 1939 to 1945 I worked on protective assignments for the President and the presidential family and other people in the Washington area.

From 1945 until 1951 I worked in Chief's office on supervising and reorganizing various activities in the Chief's office.

In 1951 I was loaned to the Treasury Department as coordinator, I organized schools and directed them in the enforcement area until 1957, and in 1957 was assigned to the present job I now have of Special Agent-in-Charge, Protective Research.

Mr. STERN. Mr. Bouck, I show you this document of six pages which has been marked Commission Exhibit No. 760.

Can you identify that for me?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes. This is a memorandum of December 3 that I prepared, also a second memorandum of December 3 that I prepared.

Mr. STERN. And these were prepared in response to instructions to you?

Mr. BOUCK. In response to instructions from my headquarter's office, yes.

Mr. STERN. With the help of these memoranda I would like to touch briefly upon the functions of the Protective Research Section that you head--for the moment those functions other than with respect to persons of concern as a possible danger to the President.

If you will turn to the last page of this exhibit, there are a list of other duties of PRS, and would you explain briefly those and give some idea of the magnitude of the task involved?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes.

The manufacture and control of White House passes are the admittance passes to the White House issued to the press, employees and others who have occasion to come to the White House or the Executive Office Building that houses White House staff. This is some four to five thousand, fluctuating in volume.

The procurement and evaluation of character investigations and clearances for some categories of employees, these are the employees that passes are issued to and these are the clearances that we require.

Some of them we investigate ourselves, many of them are investigated by other agencies, and we review and evaluate the results, the number being roughly the same as the number of passholders in this category.

The procurement of national agency file checks and determination of admittance restrictions on a large number of tradesmen, contract employees and so forth who service the White House--these are non-White House employees. These are people who come to fix typewriters, clean rugs and that sort of thing.

Mr. STERN. Approximately how many people are involved in that category, Mr. Bouck.

Mr. BOUCK. This, we have a file of about 20,000 of these people, about 4,000 are active at any one time, and several hundred a month turn over in this.

Item No. 4, control of security processing of mail and gifts received at the White House, this is done by postal and White House employees under X-rays and security equipment provided by us under our guidance and we take over whenever any dangerous situation is indicated. This varies at Christmas time, when there are many hundreds of items reviewed; normally a few a day.

No. 5, handling and disposition of suspicious packages or objects that may contain bombs or infernal devices; we have a bomb transporting truck, we have bomb analyzing equipment, we have a location and a place where we can dismantle bombs, and this, I am happy to say, we have had many scares but we have not had the real thing. We do this frequently as a precaution on things that we cannot analyze under the X-ray, but we have not actually had a bomb at the White House.

Mr. DULLES. May I ask where is the White House mail handled, right in the White House itself?

Mr. BOUCK. No; it is handled in the Executive Office Building which is across the street from the White House.

Mr. DULLES. The old State, War and Navy Building?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes, sir.

No. 6, evaluation of safety and control of disposition of all foods, beverages and similar consumable items received by the President or White House as gifts.

We do not, even though these are handled by White House and post office employees, we pass judgment as to whether any consumable item may be used and under what conditions it may be used or whether it must be destroyed. This particular function we do entirely.

And again at Christmas time and birthdays it would be very high, many hundreds of items. Other times a few a day.

No. 7, control and investigation of----

Mr. McCLOY. Can I interrupt there, have you had any poisoned foods?

Mr. BOUCK. We think not at the White House, but this we are always watchful for. We have some food that we think sanitationwise is very bad, it smells bad, it looked bad, some has spoiled and some have been prepared under very bad conditions but we know of no actual case of intended poison. We have had some where poisons may have generated because spoilage has set in.

Mr. McCLOY. Yes. You don't have a royal taster, do you? (Laughter.)

Mr. BOUCK. No, I am afraid we do not.

Control investigations on personnel and establishments that are supply sources for food, beverages, drugs and so forth, these are the places that the White House buys those supplies. We find out from the White House where they would like to buy, we check on the employees of these establishments, we check on the procedures by which it is handled, and we check on the sources of their food, where they get the raw materials.

This is an investigative process and a control process.

Representative FORD. How often do you go through this process?

Mr. BOUCK. The process is continuous in that the control, for instance a White House policeman goes and picks up, when the food is picked up. But the reinvestigation is every 6 months. We take a new look at each of these establishments every 6 months to see if any change has occurred. In between times we have arrangements with Public Health to make frequent health inspections, much more frequent than an ordinary establishment would be inspected.

Representative FORD. If there is a change of an employee at one of these shops or stores, are you notified?

Mr. BOUCK. We are supposed to be notified. Sometimes we aren't aware until we make the next check, although our White House policeman and our purchasing people do keep watch for this and usually we have established that only a small percentage of the people who handle White House orders, perhaps the manager and one clerk. It works quite well.

No. 8, the performance of technical and electronic inspections to protect against covert listening devices.

This is something that has been done for a great many years, the volume has gotten quite great in recent years, and we do this regularly at the White House and for the people close to the President, we do it regularly when he has stopover points on trips.

Mr. DULLES. Do you ever call the FBI in on this or do you have your own staffs to handle this detection of listening devices?

Mr. BOUCK. We have our own staff but we frequently use people of other agencies, including the FBI where they have specialties or are able to perform something better than we could.

Mr. DULLES. Did you consider there is any duplication there, I mean of facilities in government?

Mr. BOUCK. No; I think not. This really requires bodies, and if there is----

Mr. DULLES. And skills?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes; and if, once in a while a special skill is required that we do not possess then we turn to another agency to help us.

No. 9, determination of feasibility of application, establishment of specifications for procurement, and assistance in maintaining operation of a wide variety of electronic and technical protective aids. These are alarms, both for hazards, intrusion, and all sorts of dangers where a mechanical or electronic device can augment personal services.

Mr. DULLES. Could I just ask on that, do you have arrangements, say, with the FBI, CIA and others to keep abreast of the art, as it were?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes.

Mr. DULLES. I have in mind that time when we discovered the Russians had developed a new device and applied it in the Embassy in Moscow, you may recall which was quite novel, when they put in a hollow cavity inside the shield of the Great Seal of the United States, and then they could beam on that and they could listen to conversations in the room. That type of thing, you would be following that up through the FBI or through the CIA?

Mr. BOUCK. Very much so, yes.

We have rather low resources in those areas so the other agencies in the areas of research and development and hardware help us continuously and very well.

Mr. STERN. Now these, Mr. Bouck, as I understand it, are the functions of PRS which it has in addition to its main responsibility, and would you describe that just briefly and we will get to that in a minute.

Mr. BOUCK. Yes, the other responsibility that is not listed here, is the responsibility of attempting to detect persons who might intend harm to the President, and to control those persons or take such corrective measures as we can take securitywise on them.

Representative FORD. I am not sure I understand that.

Mr. BOUCK. This is an effort to detect people who might intend to harm the President, people who make threats against the President, people who do things that indicate they may intend to harm him, and the various sort of things we do to see that they do not accomplish that, to prevent them from accomplishing them.

Mr. DULLES. Does your particular office maintain the central files for your agency?

Mr. BOUCK. For this function?

Mr. DULLES. For this function.

Mr. BOUCK. Yes.

Mr. DULLES. I mean if the FBI sent in to the Secret Service a name or a description of a particular man, or a particular area that would be filed in your office?

Mr. BOUCK. That is right.

Mr. DULLES. Do you file that alphabetically, by location or how do you develop those files?

Mr. BOUCK. The information in its file jackets is filed numerically but it is indexed alphabetically and by location as well as by certain other characteristics that may help us find it.

Mr. McCLOY. To come back to this matter of bugging again, do you feel that you are thoroughly well equipped, which is a repetition perhaps of what Mr. Dulles asked, Mr. Dulles' question, do you have an expert staff that know this business and that keep up to date with the developments in the area, and that can constantly keep your equipment in shape?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes; I think so. I think we, our contacts with the intelligence community in this area are very excellent. Our people are excellent. I think our big problem has been one of enough resources.

Mr. McCLOY. How many bodies have you got in this field?

Mr. BOUCK. I have three bodies devoted entirely to it, myself and my assistant have also had years of experience, and we devote part-time to this, which makes approximately four and a half full time bodies.

Mr. STERN. This might be a good opportunity, Mr. McCloy, to introduce this document, marked Commission Exhibit No. 761.

Do you recognize that?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes, sir.

Mr. STERN. Did you prepare it.

Mr. BOUCK. I prepared it.

Mr. STERN. And what is it?

Mr. BOUCK. It is a chart showing the staffing of the Protective Research Section as of the time of Dallas.

Mr. STERN. And the category you were just explaining to Mr. McCloy is the last one?

Mr. BOUCK. That is right.

Mr. DULLES. Do you protect from this point of view anyone other than the President? Do you cover, say, the Vice President's offices in the Capitol?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes, sir.

Mr. DULLES. You do that, too?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes, sir.

Mr. DULLES. As far as safes are concerned and as far as listening devices are concerned?

Mr. BOUCK. Not safes.

Mr. DULLES. Not safes?

Mr. BOUCK. That has not been something that they have desired us to do. But insofar as----

Mr. DULLES. Why shouldn't you do that, I wonder, where he keeps his secret papers? You mean you don't----

Mr. BOUCK. That has not been something that has been determined as our responsibility. I believe other security officers have been given that responsibility, and we certainly, of course, help when we find something in that category, but we have not been asked at any of those levels to take care of safes.

Mr. DULLES. But you do take care of listening devices?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes, sir.

Mr. DULLES. And for anybody else other than the Vice President in addition to the White House and the President?

Mr. BOUCK. The White House, the President, the Vice President, the close members of the Presidential staff, and the Secretary of the Treasury.

Mr. DULLES. Well, would that involve the homes, for example, of the close members of the President's staff?

Mr. BOUCK. The very high members, yes, not all, but the very high members. I think we do about six or seven homes of such people. The rest is office and working areas.

Mr. McCLOY. I have some question, I may say, that you have got enough people to do this from what I know of the art. This is quite a technical business now.

Mr. BOUCK. Yes, I know.

Mr. McCLOY. And the means of counteracting it and so forth, and the constant surveillance that you have to employ, but you are satisfied you are well equipped and have got sufficient people to do it?

Mr. BOUCK. As I mentioned earlier, I think we are well equipped in know-how and in equipment. Sometimes we are pressed very hard for enough hours to do it but our people have worked many hours overtime and I think they have covered this quite well.

Representative FORD. What results have you obtained? Have you found any problems?

Mr. BOUCK. We have not in the United States found any compromise. I am not sure that perhaps in the open record I should go beyond that.

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. McCLOY. On the record.

Mr. STERN. From Exhibit 761, Mr. Bouck, it appears that in the area of processing information regarding threats, potential threats to the life of the President, there are six people presently working in addition to yourself and your assistant, one a clerk and five special agents, as they are designated is that correct? This is as of the time of Dallas.

Mr. BOUCK. This is as of the time of Dallas.

Mr. STERN. These special agents are agents who would otherwise be involved in protective work or in the other activities of the Secret Service, counterfeiting and the like?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes.

Mr. STERN. Is there something about their general training that makes them particularly desirable in this work or is it the absence of other people that leads to the use of special agents in this work?

Mr. BOUCK. They have been selected because of an apparent aptitude for this work. Some of them, not all, but most of them have had many years of background in this work that increases their competence.

Mr. STERN. Are these men permanently assigned to this function or do they rotate?

Mr. BOUCK. They are susceptible to other assignment, but this assignment is something that may continue until the Chief should decide it was in the interest of the Service to change. It can and has gone many years for most of us. They do not automatically rotate.

Mr. STERN. I see.

As of the time of Dallas the total number of people in the Protective Research Section was 15 of which 3 were clerks, is that correct?

Mr. BOUCK. That is correct.

Mr. DULLES. Could I ask one question that goes back to our earlier discussion? At the present time the Speaker is next in line in case anything should happen to the President.

Do you extend any special protective facilities as far as he is concerned?

Mr. BOUCK. This, we are kind of in an advance area here. I do handle mail that may come in the Protective Research area but I don't think I am quite qualified to speak on the entire Secret Service relationship to the Speaker, if I might seem not----

Mr. DULLES. What I was getting at was whether there were any special protection afforded now in view of his, in a sense new position as being next in line.

Mr. McCLOY. He is in effect the Vice President.

Mr. DULLES. He is in effect the Vice President.

Mr. BOUCK. Yes, I realize that, and I believe this gets into some areas that involve the wishes of the Speaker, that make this question a little bit difficult to answer, and I would say we do do what comes to our attention that we can, but I think the Chief is probably in a better position to indicate what degree we have gone. I am not really overly familiar with the exact extent of that degree except as it may apply here but we do handle in the crank area, and in the Protective Research subject area, we do handle that material as we would handle it for the President or Vice President when we are able to get it.

Mr. McCLOY. Off the record.

(Discussion off the record.)

TESTIMONY OF ROBERT CARSWELL

Mr. McCLOY. Why don't I swear you, Mr. Carswell?

Raise your right hand.

Do you solemnly swear the testimony you will give in this hearing will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

Mr. CARSWELL. I do.

Mr. McCLOY. You give your name for the record.

Mr. CARSWELL. Robert Carswell. Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury. My address is 3022 Q Street NW., Washington.

Mr. McCLOY. I think it might be well, Mr. Carswell, if you simply indicated some of it, in response to the last question, namely, as to whether or not there was security provided for the Speaker, who is next in line for the Presidency, and perhaps in view of your duties as Assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury you might have some information upon that which would be helpful to us.

Mr. CARSWELL. Yes. After the assassination in Dallas, the Secret Service initiated protection of the Speaker.

The Secretary of the Treasury spoke with the Speaker, and agents were assigned to him. I am not qualified to say exactly the number of agents or the duties they perform but in general they provide protection comparable to that previously provided to the Vice President.

Mr. DULLES. And Mr. Rowley could furnish us any detail the Commission might want?

Mr. CARSWELL. Yes, I would suggest that Chief Rowley is the proper person to furnish that information.

TESTIMONY OF ROBERT INMAN BOUCK RESUMED

Mr. STERN. I would like to turn now, Mr. Bouck, to the sources of information for PRS on potentially dangerous individuals.

Would you describe the various sources you rely upon?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes. If I might refer to this exhibit that is 760 which would be page 4 of that, the second memorandum. I believe the front of that lists the sources. No. 1 is mail, packages, telephone calls, received at the White House, the President's home, on trips, and so forth, these are screened, and so forth, in PRS and evaluated and if they meet certain prescribed criteria they are retained by PRS and become a source of information.

Unwelcome visitors to the White House or anywhere else the President may be is another source. Information received----

Mr. DULLES. What page are you on?

Mr. BOUCK. That is the page.

Mr. DULLES. The first page?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes, I am reading from the second paragraph or rather the tabulation.

Mr. DULLES. Yes, I find it.

Mr. BOUCK. Certain information comes directly to us or is developed by us, item 3. Item 4, reports from other Government agencies, and officials. Item 5, reports from police departments, State and local sources, and then we get a certain amount of phone calls, letters and information that come directly to us from the public.

Mr. STERN. We may get some notion of the volume of the information you receive from this document, which is entitled "Protective Research Cases, November 1961 through November 1963," which would be Exhibit 762. Do you recognize that, Mr. Bouck?

Mr. BOUCK. I do, I prepared this document.

Mr. STERN. May it be admitted?

Mr. McCLOY. It may be admitted.

(The document referred to, previously marked as Commission Exhibit No. 762, for identification, was received in evidence.)

Mr. STERN. Turning to the first page in the summary of Exhibit 762, Mr. Bouck, you have taken the Protective Research cases from November 1961 to November 1963, which involve residents of the State of Texas, and these were how many cases?

Mr. BOUCK. 34.

Mr. STERN. And you have broken them down by the source of the information in four categories which are----

Mr. BOUCK. Letters or phone calls; detected by the Secret Service; reported by Federal agencies; reported by local authorities.

Mr. STERN. Then towards the bottom of that page you have given gross figures during the same 2-year period of the nationwide activity. Would you state what the nationwide caseload was?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes. The cases we received nationwide and did not investigate because they didn't meet the criteria for investigation were 7,337. The cases we received and investigated were 1,372.

During the same period on these cases we arrested 167 people and 91 investigations were unproductive. They did not solve the cases.

Mr. STERN. You stated that the volume of information received has been rising. Would you describe the total for the years 1943, 1953, and 1963?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes. These do not represent cases. These represent items of information reported.

In 1943 we had about 7,000 such items coming to our attention; in 1953 this had increased to somewhat over 17,000 items. By 1963 this had increased in excess of 32,000 items.

Mr. STERN. Each of those items is examined by one of the five Special Agents working on this area?

Mr. BOUCK. That is right.

Mr. STERN. Now of the 34 Texas cases in this 2-year period----

Mr. DULLES. Could I ask a question before you get on the Texas cases, on this record, it indicates that about 6,000 cases were "received but not investigated" it seems to me for the record it would be well to have a little more on that as to why they weren't investigated, and so forth.

I suppose in a great many cases, you couldn't find who it was. It was an anonymous letter that came in. Would that be included?

Mr. BOUCK. Not for the cause of this, sir. I assume you are speaking of this 7,337 cases.

Mr. DULLES. That is right.

Mr. BOUCK. In the bottom table.

Mr. DULLES. Of those 1,372 were received and investigated?

Mr. BOUCK. We receive a great deal of information on people that we do not feel at that time intended to harm the President, but that would bear watching. We aren't quite sure whether they will become worse in the future, and this is----

Mr. DULLES. Is that among about the 6,000 cases I am referring to?

Mr. BOUCK. The 7,000.

Mr. DULLES. Well, there are 7,337 cases received, but not investigated.

Mr. BOUCK. These are two separate ones. The investigated cases are in addition.

Mr. DULLES. This is in addition to that?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes.

Mr. DULLES. I see.

Mr. BOUCK. The 7,000 cases are cases that we received, we looked at, and felt that we will file it and see if anything more happens on this, but it doesn't warrant investigative attention until we get something more alarming than we have.

Mr. DULLES. Who makes that judgment, is that made in your department?

Mr. BOUCK. That is made in my department by one of these five agents that are listed in this document.

Mr. DULLES. Do you review their determination?

Mr. BOUCK. I do not review all of them. I review a percentage of their determinations, and I am consulted on any that are borderline or that are difficult.

Mr. STERN. Of the 34 Texas cases, almost half or 15 were reported by Federal authorities. Is this typical of all information received by PRS in the course of a year?

Mr. BOUCK. No, this would be typical of the investigated cases but not typical of the entire quantity of cases received.

Mr. STERN. I see.

Representative FORD. Are the 34 listed here included in the 7,337 or the 1,372?

Mr. BOUCK. 1,372.

Mr. STERN. Do you have a judgment, Mr. Bouck, as to the proportion of cases coming to you from other agencies, Federal agencies, State and local agencies, of the total number of cases you have?

Mr. BOUCK. About 90 percent of the cases generated would be other than from agencies. The 10 percent that come from Federal and local agencies, the majority of that come from Federal agencies. I wouldn't know quite the percentage. But the majority of the 10 percent would be Federal agencies.

Mr. STERN. And predominantly from any one agency?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes, predominantly from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Mr. STERN. As to the 90 percent that is generated internally, as it were, do you have an opinion as to how many of those arise because of correspondence with the White House by the subject?

Mr. BOUCK. The great majority of them arise from telegrams, telephone calls, unwelcome visitors, letters to the White House.

Mr. STERN. Unwelcome visitors at the White House?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes.

Mr. DULLES. Do you know how many cases within the 7,337 noted here, which I understand is nationwide, were from Texas?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes. I believe we show that in the third paragraph, 115 cases were in Texas.

Mr. STERN. Yes.

Mr. BOUCK. In addition to the cases investigated. It is up in the third paragraph from the top, right under the table, the second paragraph under the table, sir; right where your finger is, the first line there.

Mr. DULLES. 115?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes.

Mr. DULLES. Did the name of Lee Harvey Oswald appear in your files at any time prior to the 22d of November 1963?

Mr. BOUCK. No, sir; we had never heard of him in any context.

Mr. DULLES. His name doesn't appear at all?

Mr. BOUCK. Not as of that time. Prior to Dallas, it did not appear in any fashion. We had no knowledge of the name.

Mr. DULLES. You had no report from the State Department or the FBI that covered his trip to Russia or anything of that kind?

Mr. BOUCK. No, sir.

Mr. McCLOY. Or of the CIA?

Mr. BOUCK. No, sir.

Mr. STERN. Mr. Bouck, what kind of information do you look for, what are the criteria you apply, in determining whether someone is a potential danger to the President? What do you ask other agencies, Federal, State, and local to be on the lookout for?

Mr. BOUCK. Our criteria is broad in general. It consists of desiring any information that would indicate any degree of harm or potential harm to the President, either at the present time or in the future.

Mr. STERN. Had you ever prior to Dallas had occasion to--for any part of your activities--list criteria that you would apply in trying to determine whether someone is a potential danger?

Mr. BOUCK. We had not had a formal written listing of criteria as such except in this general form of desiring everything that might indicate a possible source of harm to the safety of the President. We had some internal breakdown of information for the processing of certain kinds of material where the criteria were involved.

Mr. STERN. I didn't mean to restrict my question to criteria for external sources, but those you used internally as well.

Mr. BOUCK. We had some internal, as well.

Mr. STERN. I show you now a one-page document entitled "The following criteria are used as guides in determining whether White House mail is to be accepted for PRS processing," which has been marked for identification as Commission Exhibit No. 763. Can you identify that?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes, sir; this is a document that I helped draft some years ago. It is a document I prepared for the Commission. It is a document that was used up to and at the time of Dallas.

Mr. STERN. For what purpose?

Mr. BOUCK. For the purpose of screening White House mail. The White House gives us a considerable quantity of mail, not all of which we--it is desirable that we keep, and this is a guide to the agents in determining what we should keep and what should go back to be answered by the White House staff.

Mr. STERN. This guide is not used by the White House mailroom? This is an internal guide for your own agents?

Mr. BOUCK. My own agents.

Mr. STERN. What instructions does the White House mailroom have as to mail that is to be sent to you?

Mr. BOUCK. The White House mail has two general instructions: One, we supply them with identification information on all existing cases in which mail is concerned; that any further mail in those cases is automatically referred to us.

Their criteria are the same as our other general criteria--that in addition to these known cases we desire letters, telegrams, or any other document they receive that in any way indicates any one may have possible intention of harming the President.

Mr. STERN. Have you----

Mr. DULLES. Could I ask just one question here?

Mr. STERN. Yes, sir.

Mr. DULLES. I note that this list does not include membership in various types of organizations, such as the, for example, the organizations that are on the Attorney General's list. Have you ever considered that?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes; if I might explain, sir; the letters we are talking about are letters that are written by people, and they rarely include that kind of information, but we do in other categories, this is for a special purpose. This is letters only that are sent to the President which is all this is applied to. This does not apply to other sources of information, only the one source of letters.

Mr. STERN. Have you had occasion, Mr. Bouck, before Dallas, to put in writing criteria to be employed by Secret Service agents in dealing with uninvited callers at the White House?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes, sir.

Mr. STERN. I show you now a document which I have marked for identification Commission Exhibit No. 764, one page, entitled "The following criteria are used as guides in determining whether White House callers should be committed for mental observation." Do you recognize that?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes, sir.

Mr. STERN. Did you have it prepared?

Mr. BOUCK. I did.

Mr. STERN. How was this employed?

Mr. BOUCK. A great percentage of the people who come to see the President or to the White House gates have been found to be suffering from mental illness. This involves a determination as to whether a legal process will take place of committing these people, and in discussions with the Mental Commission in Washington and elsewhere, we have found that certain criteria meet their desires in whether or not we should legally process them. So this was prepared as a guide to agents in trying to determine whether we could send these people down for commitment to a mental institution or consideration by the Commission on Mental Health.

Mr. STERN. Under the District of Columbia commitment procedures?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes; that is right.

Mr. STERN. Beyond these criteria for dealing with White House mail and uninvited visitors at the White House, what instructions within the broad framework of your criteria do you give to Treasury law enforcement officers, including Secret Service agents, with respect to the kind of information you are interested in receiving?

Mr. BOUCK. We have participation in a broad program of Treasury schools which include all of the Treasury agencies as well as participation of certain other people in our own schools. We have a coordination setup in Treasury on which the heads of organization levels meets regularly.

In all of those the Secret Service jurisdiction, the Secret Service desires and needs in the way of protection of the President have been included many times over.

It is a constant, one of those things that is constantly brought up many times both in the schools and in the coordination needs of the Secret Service needs and functions in these areas.

Mr. STERN. Do you participate in other training programs of other law enforcement agencies?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes.

Mr. STERN. Will you describe that and with particular reference to this problem?

Mr. BOUCK. We participate both on the national level and at the field level. Our agents in the field are instructed to accept any invitation to teach in a police school of any level or security school, and we have prescribed exact outlines of material they should get across. One of the main topics being the protection topic.

We teach in Marine schools here in Washington. We teach in some of the State activities; a number of the different military activities. We have had students from most of the bigger agencies of government, CIA, State, and so forth, who have attended these portions of our training schools.

Mr. STERN. What requests do you make to other Federal agencies?

Mr. BOUCK. We make this same request--that we desire any and all information that they may come in contact with that would indicate danger to the President.

Mr. STERN. How are these requests communicated?

Mr. BOUCK. They are fundamentally communicated by personal contact of varying degrees with the FBI. We have a personal liaison contact in which an individual, a liaison officer actually makes daily contact.

With the other agencies, other security agencies and enforcement agencies, we are--people on my staff have personal relationships where we can call on the telephone and do call on the telephone very frequently, sometimes some agencies everyday, and they in turn call us.

Mr. STERN. What agencies do you have these liaison relationships with--Federal agencies?

Mr. BOUCK. We have on a commonly used basis, we have some liaison with almost all of them but on a common using basis we have these relationships with CIA, with the several military services, with the Department of State. I have mentioned the FBI.

Mr. STERN. Central Intelligence Agency?

Mr. BOUCK. Oh, yes; very much so. They are, especially on trips very, very helpful.

Mr. DULLES. Foreign trips?

Mr. BOUCK. Foreign trips, yes.

Representative FORD. How often do your people check to see procedures which are used by these various agencies for the determination of whether an individual is a dangerous person?

Mr. BOUCK. We don't do that systematically. We frequently have such discussions but they are usually on a specific basis. Our representative will call up and say, "We just received this information. Would this be of interest to you."

In these borderline cases, we have much of that, and after discussion we decide whether it would or would not be. But outside of raising this question as it comes in connection with business between our agencies we do not make a practice of just simply querying them on this. We have not done that, as I recall.

Representative FORD. You don't lay down a particular criterion for Agency X, Y, or Z?

Mr. BOUCK. No. We have the one general criterion that we have advocated for many years. I think it is quite well understood. We do not see signs that there were any lack of knowledge that this was our job and we wished this kind of information.

Mr. DULLES. Have you made any study going back in history of the various attempts that have been made, and successful and unsuccessful attempts, that have been made against Presidents or----

Mr. BOUCK. Rulers.

Mr. DULLES. Or people about to be President, or who have been President?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes, yes. We have not only studied all of our own but we have studied all of the assassinations that we could find any record of for 2,000 years back. And strangely enough some of the thinking that went on 2,000 years ago seems to show up in thinking of assassinations today.

Mr. STERN. Do you increase protection on the Ides of March?

Mr. DULLES. Is that available? Is that--I don't know.

Mr. BOUCK. It is available in a rather crude form. It has not been boiled down to a concise report.

Mr. DULLES. How voluminous is this? I should be very much interested in thumbing through it because I have been trying to study the past history.

Mr. BOUCK. The rough notes on this are this high.

Mr. DULLES. A few thousand pages?

Mr. BOUCK. The studies didn't go beyond that.

Mr. DULLES. By cases?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes. Of course, in many of these cases it is very spotty and these are handwritten notes. We never, outside of extracting in this in training material and what not, we have never systematized it down to where it is a readable document as such.

Mr. DULLES. Have you tried to draw any conclusion out of this study as to the type of people, the types of causes, the types of incentives?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes; we have.

Mr. DULLES. That is in your department, is it, to do this?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes; it is. We have arrived at some conclusions from it.

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. McCLOY. On the record. Your study of the prior assassinations would take into account Czolgosz, Guiteau, what type of persons they were?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes, sir.

Mr. McCLOY. The thing to me that seems very worthy of research is the plotter, I mean the political plotter as against, for want of a better word, the loner, the man who is self-motivated against the man who has to have a group around him. How do you tell one from the other? I just was reading last night in Loomis about Madame Corday. She was just as much of a loner as apparently Mr. Oswald was.

Mr. DULLES. So was Czolgosz so far as I can make out, and so was Zangara. Zangara, I was told, planned to shoot Hoover and then he decided that the climate of Washington wasn't very healthy in February and March for him because he had stomach trouble, so he decided that F.D.R. was coming to Miami and it was just as good to shoot him. You have situations of that kind that defy it.

Mr. BOUCK. I believe he intended to shoot the King of Italy before that but he got a chance to migrate before he got an opportunity.

Mr. DULLES. Zangara?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes.

Mr. McCLOY. Do you have any look out for defectors as such?

Mr. BOUCK. As such we have never been quite able to determine that that is a valid criterion. We do not as such.

Mr. McCLOY. You have some suspicions, now, don't you?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes; we have some suspicions now; yes, sir.

Mr. DULLES. I wonder whether it would not be useful for this Commission to have, if it could be reduced to readable form and to assist, the conclusions of your study if you have such conclusions?

Mr. BOUCK. We will do that, sir.

Mr. DULLES. What do you think, do the rest of you agree to that?

Mr. McCLOY. I think it is part of our mission to try to make recommendations in regard to the future protection of the Presidents. Actually, we don't want to go into anything which is going to compromise the future security of Presidents. We simply want to augment. What we are concerned about is how well equipped we are to do the job in the light of all the circumstances and I would think that any conclusions that you have in this regard, if you--the Secret Service, Treasury--could convey them to us in a form that perhaps we might endorse, it might be helpful from your point of view and our point of view.

Representative FORD. I would agree with that observation.

Mr. DULLES. You can possibly define categories. You may find the loner, you may find a fellow engaged in a plot with others for political reasons and that would help us very much because we find that particularly the case we are investigating falls into one of these classes.

Mr. BOUCK. All right.

(Discussion off the record.)

(At this point Senator Cooper entered the hearing room.)

Mr. McCLOY. I think we are ready to go ahead.

Mr. STERN. Fine, Mr. Chairman. I would like to turn now to the actual processing by PRS of the information they receive and have Mr. Bouck tell us what happens to an item of information when it is received, how it is processed, how the references to field offices are made, and perhaps you might illustrate, Mr. Bouck, from the cases that are summarized in Commission Exhibit 762.

Mr. BOUCK. In Exhibit 760, the second memorandum applies to that, and I will basically follow that unless questions differ.

Mr. STERN. I think it would be better for you not to read it but to paraphrase it, tell us what happens.

Mr. BOUCK. When a document is received by the Secret Service, it is first searched against our files to see if we have any previous experience with this individual or with this threat. If it is found that we do have previous material there is an analysis made, and then a determination is made at that point as to what the apparent degree of threat would be on this.