Chapter XXIII: Part 23

If it appears that on the surface there is a threat, lookouts will immediately be issued to the White House detail, the White House police and various other security details, in order that they may be alerted to any danger that happens.

If the danger seems quite strong, a telephone call will be made to the field office in order to begin the investigation without even waiting for the mail. The threat is then processed and sent through the mail with the documents to the office concerned.

If it is determined that it is a possible danger, a card is put in a particular file which would alert us in case the President went to that area that an investigation of a dangerous person were underway. After the field office has investigated they would attempt to take corrective action if a law has been violated, the individual will be prosecuted, if practical, and if the individual is determined to be mentally ill, attempts will be made to get commitment into a mental institution.

When the report is submitted back, if the individual is not confined or is not evaluated as being no danger, then we would put cards in several control devices, one being a trip index file to make sure that we alerted the field office when the President went to that area; another being a control checkup device which means that if this individual is regarded as dangerous we will keep checking up on him every few months to see if he is getting worse or see what he is doing.

Mr. STERN. Could you illustrate by a case or two from Exhibit 762 the different kinds of matters that come to your attention and the different ways in which they are processed?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes. On page 2 of this exhibit happens to be a case that had its origin in the field, in Denton, Tex., of a potential threat that appeared to apply to Dallas. It was investigated in the field, and pictures were obtained, and information was obtained and dispensed to the White House detail at the time President Kennedy went to Dallas, and in this particular case, it was subsequently referred to PRS and has been placed in our files and indexed in our indexes. Case No. 3 is a similar----

Mr. DULLES. May I ask a question there? When you refer to the field offices, this is the field office of the Secret Service?

Mr. BOUCK. Field offices of the Secret Service.

Mr. DULLES. How many do you have?

Mr. BOUCK. Sixty.

Mr. DULLES. Sixty?

Mr. BOUCK. In the United States, and I believe one of those is in Puerto Rico and one is in Paris, of the 60.

Mr. DULLES. Those offices cooperate with the FBI offices?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes. If you will look over these cases, you will see that as a matter of fact, this page 3, this case is given as originating with the chief of police of Denton, Tex., but the FBI already also determined that and they reported that to us almost simultaneously.

Mr. DULLES. Yes; that doesn't show up on this particular page.

Mr. BOUCK. No; it is stated, I think in some other exhibit but I erroneously neglected it here. But you will find in many of those, that was true on page 5, that indicates a case where the FBI has picked up information and gave it to us.

Mr. STERN. You might mention, perhaps, Mr. Bouck, the cases under the last tab of your exhibit which were cases that were not investigated, just as a contrast.

Mr. BOUCK. That is right. These referrals from the FBI are all through here. Page 8 is another one where they picked up information and gave it to us. The first four sections relate to the cases in the four offices of Texas during a 2-year period. The very final one illustrates just a little sample of the kind of cases we received in Texas which we did not think warranted investigation. That will give you an idea of what those cases amounted to. Why we didn't go into them.

Mr. McCLOY. Let me ask you this: Are your records and equipment modern in the sense that you have got punchcards on all these, have you got the type of equipment that you would think that extensive files and extensive information and quick access to them might be very important. Do you have IBM machines and do you have punchcards, for example, so that you can have quick cross references?

Mr. BOUCK. No, sir. Our files are conventional, card indexes, conventional folders. We do not have machine operation in that sense.

Mr. McCLOY. Don't you think that with all this mass of information that comes in that that would be an asset to you?

Mr. BOUCK. If I might defer to Mr. Carswell again, I believe that is in the document you are handling, discussion of that, am I right, Mr. Carswell, or in the studies that are going on.

Mr. CARSWELL. Yes.

Mr. BOUCK. This is part of this big overall consideration again.

Mr. McCLOY. It just seems to me this is almost a typical case of where that type of thing can do you a great deal of good. You have it in industry to a very marked degree. I wonder whether it could be--I don't know enough about the flow of these things.

Mr. BOUCK. This is under a great deal of consideration as a part of this post-Dallas study that Mr. Carswell referred to and I am quite sure that it will be contained in the final results.

Mr. McCLOY. Very well. Go ahead.

Mr. DULLES. Could I ask one question in that connection? You say at the bottom of the page, this introductory table page, that the total exceeded 32,000 items.

Mr. BOUCK. Yes.

Mr. DULLES. Does that mean now you have cards on 32,000 people?

Mr. BOUCK. Oh, no; we have cards on close to a million people.

Mr. DULLES. A million people?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes.

Mr. DULLES. This total then is 1-year total?

Mr. BOUCK. This is a 2-year total--no, wait a minute. I beg your pardon.

Mr. McCLOY. 1963.

Mr. BOUCK. This is a 1-year total for 1943, 1-year total for 1953, and 1-year total for 1963.

Mr. DULLES. That is just the number, and these figures are cumulative that you have here?

Mr. BOUCK. No; everyone is a year.

Mr. DULLES. That is what I mean, you have the total you have to add this up for previous years, but you don't keep them forever, you take some of these out.

Mr. BOUCK. These are not all cards, but these are items of information. In 1-year cases we might get 40, 50 items in a particular case, and these items would go in the case files.

Mr. DULLES. Do you know how many names you have carded now, approximately?

Mr. BOUCK. We have not counted them but we think in the vicinity of a million but they are not all active, you see. We have no way of knowing when people die in some cases and things like that. So we don't know just how many of these million are now active. Certainly very much less than a million.

Mr. DULLES. But you have a million names carded?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes. In the indexes.

Mr. STERN. In the files which you describe as basic files, I believe, how many cases are current, either in your office or within easy access?

Mr. BOUCK. About 50,000.

Mr. STERN. About 50,000. So that 950,000 are in some other storage?

Mr. BOUCK. Not all of these cards, you see, will represent cases because we have some cases in which many people are involved. There would be considerably less cases than there would be card indexes, but we do have a very sizable storage of cases under National Archives, some of the older ones having gone to places like the Roosevelt Library.

(At this point Representative Ford left the hearing room.)

Mr. STERN. These are your basic files which now have something in the order of 50,000 active cases?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes.

Mr. STERN. And some of these involve more than one individual?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes.

Mr. STERN. In these cases?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes.

Mr. STERN. A case might be an organization, as I understand it, rather than an individual?

Mr. BOUCK. That is right.

Mr. STERN. And the members of that organization would be collected under that one case?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes.

Mr. STERN. Would they also be listed individually?

Mr. BOUCK. They would be listed individually if they were of interest to us as individuals. Sometimes we would get the membership of a group of people that attended a lecture, let's say, where very derogatory information was given out about the President, but most of these people seem like ordinary citizens and it doesn't seem like worth investigating. We might have 200 people listed in that, this would not be normal, but it would be a few cases like that.

Mr. STERN. Now, as I understand it you by no means investigate every individual who is in one of these 50,000 cases?

Mr. BOUCK. That is correct.

Mr. STERN. And what are the criteria that you use?

Mr. BOUCK. The criteria for investigation are feelings that there is indeed an indication that there may be a danger to the President.

Mr. STERN. But there has to be some indication of a potential danger to the President to get that individual into a case to begin with, I take it. If it were clear he was not?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes; but not necessarily a current indication. We take many of these where we think an individual is becoming hostile and a little bit disgusted with the President, we take many of those cases to watch these people. We keep getting information here and there along, and frequently after we get the second or third piece of information, we decide indeed this individual is perhaps--does perhaps constitute a menace, and at that point we would investigate it.

Mr. STERN. As I understand it, one of the main purposes of your investigation is to attempt to deal with the dangerous individual at that time?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes, sir.

Mr. STERN. How would you deal with these people whom we are speaking about?

Mr. BOUCK. We deal with them primarily in three ways. First, if a law violation is involved an attempt will be made to see if a prosecution is in order.

Mr. STERN. What sort of law violation?

Mr. BOUCK. Well, we have a threat law, for one, that is under our jurisdiction. Then in the case----

Mr. STERN. This is threats against the President?

Mr. BOUCK. Threats against the President. Then there is----

Mr. DULLES. Is that a local law?

Mr. BOUCK. No; that is a Federal law.

Mr. DULLES. It is a Federal law?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes.

Mr. STERN. And it involves what sort of act?

Mr. BOUCK. It involves making a threat to kill the President or to harm the President.

Mr. STERN. Not necessarily----

Mr. McCLOY. Do you have a citation of that law?

Mr. BOUCK. It is in some exhibit, I am sure.

Mr. McCLOY. I think it is well to put it in the record if we have it.

Mr. DULLES. Yes; I think it would be very good.

Mr. CARSWELL. Can we supply it?

Mr. DULLES. Why don't you supply it?

(It was later supplied as 18 U.S.C., Section 871.)

Mr. BOUCK. If the investigation indicates that the individual is mentally unbalanced, which a high percentage are, then attempt will be made to persuade local authorities to get hospitalization, confinement in an institution.

If neither of those are possible, attempts will be made to get local officers and family, if they will cooperate, to help us keep track of him, and we will institute checkups from time to time when we are investigating. Those are basically the control measures that we are able to use. In some cases we may conduct surveillance, by the way, if we can't do any of those, and we regard the man as very dangerous.

Mr. STERN. I show you a 1-page pink card marked for identification Commission Exhibit No. 765. Can you tell us what that is?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes; this is a card which we have prepared when an individual that we have rated as dangerous is placed in an institution, either a mental institution or a penal institution. We supply that card to the superintendent of the institution. We ask him to put it in the front of the individual's case jacket, and it is all filled in so that the return address and all are on it. The frank portion of it on the bottom is a frank portion, all he has to do is to indicate whether the individual has escaped, transferred or been released and drop it in the mail to advise us on action they may take on letting him out or if he has escaped.

Mr. STERN. That is the control you exercise over persons who are institutionalized in prison or some sort of hospital?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes.

Mr. STERN. When an individual is determined after investigation to present some level of danger but not sufficient to warrant prosecution or not to be a mentally disturbed person warranting commitment, how do you control that individual, keep track of him?

Mr. BOUCK. If we think he is in fact dangerous, he would be in our checkup file which is really a control device by which at least every 6 months we reinvestigate and in between times we try to have arrangements with the family and local officers to let us know if he leaves town or buys a gun or anything.

The other device is a geographical card file in which we would put a card to let us know about this individual in case the President went to that geographical area so that the office might take a further look and see if he was a menace.

Mr. STERN. At the time of Dallas, do you know approximately how many persons were in institutions under this system where you would be notified if they left or escaped?

Mr. BOUCK. I am sorry, I don't have that.

Mr. STERN. The order of magnitude, any estimate?

Mr. BOUCK. It would be some thousands but I wouldn't really have a close idea. I could get that and supply it. I just would have to guess and it would be a very bad guess.

Mr. STERN. Fine. But you can determine this for us?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes.

Mr. STERN. Good. How many at the time of Dallas would be in your checkup control file system with this periodic review?

Mr. BOUCK. About 400.

Mr. STERN. 400 individuals?

Mr. BOUCK. That is nationwide.

Mr. STERN. Again, at the time of Dallas, how many individuals would have been listed in the trip-index file which you have described?

Mr. BOUCK. About a hundred.

Mr. STERN. One hundred in the Nation?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes.

Mr. STERN. What are the criteria for putting someone's name in the trip-index file?

Mr. BOUCK. The belief on the part of the local field office, with confirmation from the Protective Research Section that this individual would indeed constitute a risk to the President's safety, if he went to that area.

Mr. STERN. This is done, this is organized, on a geographic basis?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes.

Mr. STERN. By Secret Service field offices?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes.

Mr. STERN. Is there any other control device that you employed at the time of Dallas?

Mr. BOUCK. We had at the time a very small device that we call an album which has a few, perhaps 12 or 15 people that we consider very dangerous or at least dangerous and so mobile that we can't be sure where they might be. This is a constant thing. Copies of these are kept before the protective personnel at the White House all the time. This resides in their office.

Senator COOPER. On that point, if this last category represents a group that is so highly dangerous, have any individuals in that group reached the place where they have made such statements as would bring them under the Federal act which would require prosecution?

Mr. BOUCK. No, sir; if they were prosecutable we would seek that solution immediately, and many of them have been taken to the district attorney and it has just been determined they do not quite meet the requirements for prosecution.

Some have been prosecuted, and have served sentences and are out at the end of sentences but still thought to be dangerous.

Senator COOPER. Yes.

Mr. BOUCK. Some have been in mental institutions and discharged, and there isn't ground to put them back but we are still afraid of them.

Mr. STERN. Are the individuals who are listed in the trip-index file, which numbered at the time of Dallas about 100, also listed in the checkup control files?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes. Yes; they would, primarily that 100 would to a large degree be in both places.

Mr. STERN. Then it is a fair summary, Mr. Bouck, that at the time of Dallas the number of individuals that you were concerned with were some thousands, the number you will supply, who were institutionalized either in prison or in mental hospitals, and with such institutions you had an arrangement that would promptly notify you of the discharge or escape of that individual, some 400 on a systematic review, approximately every 6 months by your field offices, of which 400, 100 were separately identified as particularly dangerous in the trip-index file, and some 12 to 15 whose photographs were in the album?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes; I think----

Mr. STERN. As a matter of fact, I would suppose the people in the album would also be in the checkup control file so really we are talking about, are we not, the unknown number in institutions, and about 400 other individuals whom you were actively reviewing and about whom you would be concerned on the occasion of the President's trip?

Mr. BOUCK. That is right.

Mr. STERN. In addition, you had files on, active files on, approximately 50,000 cases involving at least that number and probably more, individuals which were your basic library, as it were, but of reference use only until more information was developed about them?

Mr. BOUCK. Well, I think you are quite accurate except in the last category. In these 50,000 cases would be tremendous numbers of cases that had been given investigative attention, and had been determined that our first thought or our first indications of danger were not substantiated. The investigator, and we concurred, felt that the individual, at least at any particular time, that this particular individual was not really in fact a menace to the President's life.

Mr. DULLES. What was the location of these 50,000 cases? We are talking now about Dallas, is that countrywide?

Mr. BOUCK. Countrywide.

Mr. McCLOY. International.

Mr. BOUCK. It is worldwide over a period of 20 years.

Mr. DULLES. Yes. Somebody in Thailand, if he was in Thailand wouldn't be of much danger in Dallas.

Mr. STERN. But he would, as I understand it, sir, be included in the basic files if he had come to their attention as a potential danger.

Mr. DULLES. Someone in New Orleans, for example, he could get up to Dallas very quickly or if he were in Houston, but this 50,000 covers the whole world.

Mr. STERN. Yes; and I think the important point here, Mr. Dulles, is that these are 50,000 cases of background information, including people already investigated and found not to represent danger. The number of cases under active scrutiny at the time of Dallas amounted to about 400, who were reviewed periodically, plus a much larger number, in the thousands, of persons committed or imprisoned, and as to those, I expect there would be no problem until they were released.

Mr. BOUCK. That is right.

Mr. STERN. And you had a system to be notified about the release or escape, is that correct?

Mr. BOUCK. That is correct.

Mr. DULLES. So can we get from that about the number of cases you felt to look at in connection with the President's trip to Dallas?

Mr. BOUCK. We actually----

Mr. DULLES. What range would that be?

Mr. BOUCK. We actually looked at a volume of cases approximating 400 in connection with the trip to Dallas.

Mr. STERN. Well----

Mr. BOUCK. That is the total file that we looked into.

Mr. STERN. On a national basis?

Mr. BOUCK. The total two or three files we looked into would encompass about that many people.

Mr. DULLES. All right. That gives me just what I was asking for.

Mr. STERN. In point of fact, Mr. Bouck, when you looked at the checkup control file and the trip-index file before the Dallas trip how many names were reported for the areas in the Dallas field office territory where the President was to visit?

Mr. BOUCK. We found no uncontrolled people in the trip file for Dallas. All of the cases in Dallas were controlled to our satisfaction. We found also in the checkup file no uncontrolled individuals that we thought warranted an alert for Dallas.

Mr. DULLES. Did you ask the FBI or any other local agency for any cases they might have?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes, sir.

Mr. DULLES. In connection with the trip?

Mr. BOUCK. In fact, they referred several cases to us in connection with the trip, right prior to the trip on the local level.

Mr. DULLES. On the local level?

Mr. BOUCK. On the local level.

Mr. McCLOY. Being as objective as you can be under the circumstances, what would you have done if the FBI had told you there was a man named Oswald in Dallas, who was a defector, had been a defector?

Mr. BOUCK. I think if they had told us only that, we probably would not have taken action. If I might qualify it further, if we had known what all of the Government agencies knew together, and knew that he had that vantage point on the route, then we certainly would have taken very drastic action.

Mr. McCLOY. If they had told you that there was a man named Oswald in Dallas, who had been a defector, who was employed at the Texas School Book Depository?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes, sir; we would have looked at that.

Mr. McCLOY. You would have looked at that?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes, sir.

Mr. McCLOY. Knowing that the Texas School Book Depository was on the President's route?

Mr. BOUCK. On the President's route.

Mr. STERN. Would it have made a difference to you if he was a legitimate employee of that institution?

Mr. BOUCK. Well, not from our standpoint of having us look at it. I can't predict too well what the field office would have done after they looked. It would depend on what they found out, but the field office would have checked that. We would has asked them to check it and they would in fact have checked it not knowing what conclusions they would have arrived at, I don't quite--I am not quite able to predict just what measures they would have taken.

Senator COOPER. May I ask a question on this point? Have you examined your records since the assassination of President Kennedy to determine if the name Lee Oswald appears in your files?

Mr. BOUCK. We have never had it prior in any connection, never in our records.

Senator COOPER. I gathered from what you said in response to Mr. McCloy's question you do not keep any special file relating to defectors?

Mr. BOUCK. No, sir.

Senator COOPER. In this country?

Mr. BOUCK. Not unless there is something much more to it than the fact they defected.

Senator COOPER. Then in the case of Lee Oswald from your statement that you do not keep any file on defectors, if you had known about his presence there, what would have been the cause then for you to have taken special notice of him?

Mr. BOUCK. The key there would have been a defection plus a knowledge that he had a vantage point on the route. Those two together would have required action.

Senator COOPER. The point I make is, and this again is arguing after the fact, if the fact he was a defector, plus a vantage point would make you take notice of him it would seem to me it would be very substantial evidence to have in your file that he was a defector, wouldn't you think so?

Mr. BOUCK. Well, again, this is part of this big study that we are in. We never before knew, I think, of a defector who did anything like this so we are not quite sure that defection in itself is a key to an assassin. However, that combined with certain things, knowing that he had a vantage point would have caused us to look.

Mr. STERN. Were there any other characteristics of Oswald that you believe to have been known to other Federal agencies before November 22 that would have been important to you in deciding whether or not he was a potential threat?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes. I think I have supplied you with a list of about 18 things that were known to the Federal agencies, but these, I believe, were spread from Moscow to Mexico City in at least four agencies, so I am not aware of how much any one agency or any one person might have known.

But there was quite a little bit of derogatory information known about Oswald in this broad expanse of agencies.

Mr. STERN. Without respect to any such list, what other characteristics, trying as much as possible to avoid hindsight, do you think were germane to determine his potential danger?

Mr. BOUCK. I would think his continued association with the Russian Embassy after his return, his association with the Castro groups would have been of concern to us, a knowledge that he had, I believe, been court-martialed for illegal possession of a gun, of a hand gun in the Marines, that he had owned a weapon and did a good deal of hunting or use of it, perhaps in Russia, plus a number of items about his disposition and unreliability of character, I think all of those, if we had had them altogether, would have added up to pointing out a pretty bad individual, and I think that, together, had we known that he had a vantage point would have seemed somewhat serious to us, even though I must admit that none of these in themselves would be--would meet our specific criteria, none of them alone.

But it is when you begin adding them up to some degree that you begin to get criteria that are meaningful.

Senator COOPER. I am sure you have answered what I am going to ask but I will ask it anyway. Then it is correct prior to the assassination the Secret Service had no information from any agency or any source----

Mr. BOUCK. That is correct.

Senator COOPER. Relating to Lee Oswald?

Mr. BOUCK. That is correct.

Mr. STERN. I believe you said earlier, Mr. Bouck, that before Dallas you thought the liaison arrangements were satisfactory and that other Federal agencies, in particular, had full awareness of the kind of information that the Secret Service was looking for under the general criteria that you articulated?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes, sir.

Mr. STERN. Why then, do you think you were not notified of Oswald? Was there perhaps something wrong with the system?

Mr. BOUCK. This, of course, is opinion. In my opinion, there was no lack of knowledge of what we should have. Insofar as I know no individual knew enough about Oswald to judge him to meet our criteria of presenting a danger to the President. I know of no individual who knew all about Oswald, including the fact that he had a vantage point on the route.

If that is so, I don't know. I didn't know.

Mr. McCLOY. Somebody in the FBI knew it, didn't they?

Mr. BOUCK. I have no record to know that. They knew certain information. I have no record that would indicate they knew all of the derogatory information.

Mr. McCLOY. I don't know I would say they knew all the derogatory information but they certainly knew the vantage point and they certainly knew the defection elements.

Mr. BOUCK. I know they knew he was in Dallas. Whether they recognized that as being on the route, I don't know that.

Mr. McCLOY. I think the record shows he was employed there, or the deposition shows.

Mr. BOUCK. I don't know that.

Mr. STERN. Is it of key importance to what you say now regarding the information on Oswald before the assassination to identify his vantage point? If you would take that away from the other characteristics does he then not become a threat?

Mr. BOUCK. He would not meet the criteria of a threat as we had it at that time, if you take that away.

Mr. STERN. And the criterion was----

Mr. BOUCK. That there be some specific indication that a possible danger to the President existed.

Mr. DULLES. Off the record.

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. McCLOY. Back on the record.

Mr. STERN. Well, Mr. Bouck, if the pivotal ingredient is his employment at that Depository, is that because that showed some, to your mind, some intention, some desire to be on the route, because access to the route----

Mr. BOUCK. No; it relates him to the President. This, I think if all the information that was known about him, indicates that he was a pretty untrustworthy individual, I think there was no indication that that untrustworthiness might be of a danger to the President until you associated that he had a vantage point where he might use it toward the President.

There was nothing previous that indicated that the President might be an object of this, and----

Mr. STERN. As far as any of us know, any citizen had pretty much the same sort of access to the parade route. Is there any difference----

Mr. BOUCK. We would feel the same way if we knew this much derogatory type of information about any citizen if we knew he had a particular vantage point on a route.

Mr. STERN. But a citizen, possessing all the characteristics you believe to have been known about Oswald but not having access through employment or residence or some comparable relationship to the parade route, would not have been of concern to you under the criteria and practices in effect at the time of Dallas, is that what you are saying?

Mr. BOUCK. I think a little broader than that. Access of any kind, working in a hotel or any point where he might have unusual access.

If you broaden the question to that, I would say that is what I am saying.

Mr. STERN. Unusual access?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes.

Mr. McCLOY. If I might intervene here, if I understand it. I don't know whether it is good but there is speculation and conjecture in it, I don't know if you will get far with it. Probably if you had known all the derogatory information that you now know was accumulated in all of the agencies of the Government irrespective of where this fellow was in Dallas you might have kept your eye on him.

Mr. BOUCK. Again, that would be speculation. I don't know. It wouldn't be normal. It wouldn't fit within our normal category unless we knew he was--he had a vantage point. We know of tremendous numbers of people who are bad people that we don't keep an eye on.

Mr. McCLOY. Yes; but suppose you knew these men, or suppose you encountered some of these defectors. I am told there are 18 others, wouldn't you have been somewhat negligent if you didn't check up on him when he got to the vantage point in Dallas?

Mr. BOUCK. If we had checked up, I don't know whether we would have gone beyond that.

Mr. McCLOY. I don't suggest that but you might have kept him under surveillance.

Mr. BOUCK. We would have taken note of this.

Mr. STERN. Would that have been true if he had not been known to be living in Dallas, if his last known address was New Orleans?

Mr. BOUCK. If he had not been living in Dallas we would not have checked on on him in this trip area even with the other information.

Mr. STERN. Suppose he had been living in Fort Worth?

Mr. BOUCK. Well, if we had known he were living in Fort Worth that would be the same as Dallas, to us. When we speak of a city we speak of the driving distance or the commutable distance to a city.

Mr. STERN. We will move very quickly to questions concerning Oswald and I would like to go back now and cover the details of your file search and other PRS activity for the Texas trip, the total Texas trip. If you would start with the first date you heard that the President was preparing to travel to Texas and tell us what your Section did and what you found.

Mr. BOUCK. Our first knowledge of the Texas trip was on November 8 when the advance agent, Agent Lawson, reported to the Protective Research Section that the President was going to Texas, and that Dallas was one of the stops. A check at that time was made of our trip index, and no cards were found on Dallas to indicate that there was an uncontrolled dangerous person in Dallas.

Two such people were found at the Houston stop. This information was imparted to Mr. Lawson at that time.

Mr. STERN. Excuse me, could you identify the two Houston cases from Exhibit 762?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes; they are in here. Case No. 21 is one. This individual is a local law-enforcement officer that was not considered awfully dangerous but again because he might have an unusual vantage point we made arrangements each time to see that he was not used in any way that he might have a vantage point. Case 26 is the other one, which is a case that goes back many, many years of an individual who has been repeatedly threatening but we have been unable to do much about. She has been in and out of mental hospitals.

Mr. STERN. So these were the two cases?

Mr. BOUCK. The two cases.

Mr. STERN. That were in the trip-index file involving the jurisdiction of the Houston field office?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes.

A notation was made at that time for the individual in charge of that section and on the 14th he again checked that file. He pulled out these two cards, and he checked the checkup file and concluded that these in the State of Texas were the only two uncontrolled people that we should alert the field about, and he pulled the case jackets on these two people and reviewed those, and then caused an alert to be prepared on these two people, the original being sent to the White House Detail, and the copy being sent to the field office.

Mr. STERN. These are the same two Houston cases?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes.

Mr. STERN. Was there an additional case added on the 14th?

Mr. BOUCK. No; not by our section. There were just the two. There were cases picked up in the field on some of these, but we only sent out the two cases as being in our opinion of protective concern on that trip.

Mr. STERN. Would you look, Mr. Bouck, please, at the first page of Exhibit 760, the first text page, the third paragraph, the middle of the paragraph, it says, "On November 14, 1963, the above indicated clerical employee prepared an office memorandum advising the name of one PRS subject who had previously been referred to the interested offices and was still of concern and furnishing identifying data on a new PRS subject who had not been previously included in the alert."

Mr. BOUCK. These were the two cases. The one we had alerted on a previous trip, the deputy sheriff one, had not been, that had occurred since a previous trip and so this was the first time that we had told the detail and the field office that this individual should be looked at. Making a total of two.

Mr. STERN. Were there entries in the trip-index file then for the other cities that the President was planning to visit or the other field office areas, Dallas, San Antonio, and El Paso?

Mr. BOUCK. No; there were no cards on any of the other three cities, indicating uncontrolled people.

Mr. STERN. So in the four field offices covering the entire State of Texas there were in the trip index only two cards both of them residing in the Houston office area?

Mr. BOUCK. That is correct.

Mr. STERN. Now, do you know what was done in Dallas to supplement this investigation into potentially harmful people?

Mr. BOUCK. Dallas made contact with the local authorities, they had contact with the FBI, they had contact with the local police in Dallas, and also some of the suburbs, particularly Denton, Tex., in which they received information on several situations and several individuals in addition to, well, they received this information.

Mr. STERN. Are those cases summarized in Exhibit 762?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes; they are. I think the first one of those is page No. 2 of Exhibit 762, which involved people who had attempted to embarrass Ambassador Stevenson. Also page 3 is a further one. I believe they also received information on some scurrilous literature that was being circulated in Dallas at that time from the FBI.

Mr. STERN. Now, referring to the visit of Ambassador Stevenson in October, I believe----

Mr. BOUCK. Yes.

Mr. STERN. Was anything done at the time of that visit in October to identify the people who were participating in the obstreperous conduct that occurred?

Mr. BOUCK. I do not know. It was nothing----

Mr. STERN. So far as PRS was concerned?

Mr. BOUCK. Nothing was done by PRS.

Mr. STERN. These individuals did come to light in the liaison activities just prior to President Kennedy's trip to Dallas?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes, sir.

Mr. STERN. And they were then, as I understand it, placed in your permanent records and are now in your trip-index files?

Mr. BOUCK. That is correct.

Mr. STERN. Mr. Bouck, since the Stevenson trip received a great deal of publicity and I take it you knew about it at the time or PRS knew about it, can you tell us why there was no effort in October to determine who these people were for possible use if President Kennedy or a later President should consider a trip to Dallas?

Mr. BOUCK. Well, there are a great many disturbances and activities around, and we have never felt that we should document those per se inasmuch as they did not constitute a jurisdiction--they were not within our jurisdiction except when the President went to an area, so it has always been something that we attempted to resolve when we had jurisdiction in the area because the President was going there, rather than engage in investigative activity that was not within our jurisdiction just per se, whenever there was a disturbance.

Mr. STERN. I am not sure I follow that. I take it your jurisdiction is to determine, perhaps not to act upon, but to determine people who might be threats to the President or Vice-President.

Mr. BOUCK. These people were not judged at that time to be threats to the President, necessarily.

Mr. STERN. I see. Their activities in connection with Ambassador Stevenson's visit did not seem to you at that time----

Mr. BOUCK. They did not fit our criteria as being a direct indication that the President might be harmed, but then when the President went to that area, then a more serious connotation was put on those people and they were investigated and were identified and pictures were made of them and given to the agents.

Mr. STERN. That is because the President was then going to that area?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes; that is right.

Mr. STERN. Suppose the President was going to another area to which these individuals had moved in between the Stevenson visit and the hypothetical Presidential trip. You would have had no record of them, no way of knowing about them, is that correct?

Mr. BOUCK. No; that would have to--unless it had been reported to me they had moved, then the only way we would pick that up would be in the local liaison which begins some days before a trip.

Mr. STERN. But there would have been no basis to report to you that they had moved as I understand it because they would not have been persons of concern to you merely because of their involvement in the Stevenson affair?

Mr. BOUCK. That is probably right.

Mr. McCLOY. To summarize your testimony a bit, I gather that the fundamental criterion that you were looking for is the potential threat to the health and life of the President of the United States, that you are not a general security agency of the United States, but are directed particularly to that particular objective, and one of the things that alerts you most is the threat, and then you examine that threat to determine whether or not it is a serious threat. A lot of elements enter into that and at that point when it does become a serious threat, then you put it on your alert files, is that abut right?

Mr. BOUCK. That is a very good----

Mr. McCLOY. Furthermore----

Mr. BOUCK. Analysis.

Mr. McCLOY. Flowing from that the mere fact that a man or woman was a defector, or a man is a member of a political organization doesn't in itself embody the threat to the United States, to the President, the person of the President of the United States.

Mr. BOUCK. Right.

Mr. McCLOY. It is only as there is some additional element that causes you to fear that there is a potential menace that you put in that category you have been talking about?

Mr. BOUCK. Yes, sir.

Mr. STERN. I think we might illustrate that, Mr. McCloy, by a series of abstracts of cases that Mr. Bouck has prepared. I show you Commission Exhibit No. 766 for identification.

Mr. BOUCK. Yes.

Mr. STERN. And would you describe that and summarize very briefly the cases involved there which I think are intended to typify, are they not----

Mr. BOUCK. Yes; I prepared this and the thought was that the Commission might be interested in a couple of examples of how the PRS function has been helpful in protection, and so three cases have been presented in this paper.

Mr. STERN. Mr. Bouck, have you anything you would like to add, any clarification, any amplification of the matters we have discussed this morning?

Mr. BOUCK. I don't believe so. I think Mr. McCloy's summary probably exceeds anything I could give, and I think it is quite good and reflects, I believe, what we were trying to get at here.

Mr. STERN. Have you reviewed the memoranda and other exhibits that you have identified this morning and do you have any corrections or additions to make to those?

Mr. BOUCK. No, sir; I think they are accurate.

Mr. STERN. Mr. Chairman, I would like to request the admission of all the exhibits that Mr. Bouck has identified for us this morning. I have no further questions.

Mr. McCLOY. They may be admitted.

(The documents referred to, previously marked as Commission Exhibit Nos. 760 through 766, were received in evidence.)

Mr. McCLOY. I have one more question I would like to ask you. In the light of what you know now about the whole episode, have you come to any conclusions as to how you ought to operate in the future other than you did in the Dallas situation?

Mr. BOUCK. As Mr. Carswell has mentioned, of course, a great deal of study is being conducted. I think there are a number of other things that can be done. Great problems arise as to human rights and constitutional rights and costs and resources and just sheer--dealing with just sheer volumes of millions of people, and I do not feel I would want to give final judgment as to whether we should do these things until we have completed all of these studies, but perhaps there will be some that will----

Mr. McCLOY. Do you at this stage have any definite ideas about any steps that ought to be taken for the added protection of the President?

Mr. BOUCK. Well, I have quite a lot of them which are incorporated in this study. I have been, and as I understand it, the Commission perhaps will have the benefit of that but I have been very heavily involved in many, many ways in this study, and as to the final conclusions, of course, I think maybe it goes all the way to the Congress to decide the practicality of some of this.

Mr. McCLOY. I am sure it does.

Mr. BOUCK. I just don't quite feel in a position to say that I would want to recommend most of these things without reservation at this time. If I might, without presuming to evade your question, if we could delay that a little bit until we have completed this rather massive look that we are now taking.

Mr. McCLOY. Very well. Thank you very much for your cooperation, and very much obliged to you and the Treasury Department for helping us.

Mr. BOUCK. Thank you, sir.

Mr. McCLOY. To achieve our--perform our duties.

Thank you.

We will adjourn until 2 o'clock.

(Whereupon, at 1 p.m., the President's Commission recessed.)

Afternoon Session

TESTIMONY OF WINSTON G. LAWSON, ACCOMPANIED BY FRED B. SMITH, DEPUTY GENERAL COUNSEL, TREASURY DEPARTMENT

The President's Commission reconvened at 2 p.m.

Mr. McCLOY. Mr. Lawson, you know the general purpose of what we are here for?

Mr. LAWSON. Yes, sir.

Mr. McCLOY. In the way of trying to get as much information as we can, not only regarding the assassination of the President but also some background as to the steps that have been taken to protect him and as well as perhaps to take some testimony with the thought that we might be able to recommend measures that might insure future security of our Presidents. I will ask you, if you will, to rise and I will swear you.

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. LAWSON. I do.

Mr. McCLOY. Go ahead.

Mr. STERN. Mr. Lawson, would you state your name, age, and address for the record, please?

Mr. LAWSON. Winston George Lawson, 35 years old, 516 Vista Drive, apartment 204. Falls Church, Va.

Mr. STERN. What was your education at the college level?

Mr. LAWSON. A bachelor of arts with a major in history and government.

Mr. STERN. From what?

Mr. LAWSON. University of Buffalo, 1949.

Mr. STERN. Briefly, what was your employment experience from 1949 to 1959?

Mr. LAWSON. From the time of my graduation after a couple of months working for a firm that my father worked for, I became a wholesale carpet salesman until December 1951, and then I joined the Carnation Co., manufacturers of milk products nationally, and was a representative in various capacities for them in New York State. In 1953, March, I went in the Army and I had been a reservist and was called up as a CIC agent. I had 16 weeks of basic infantry, basic training, went to the CIC Counterintelligence School in Holabird, Md.--Fort Holabird, Md.--outside of Baltimore, and then was assigned eventually to the Lexington field office where I did general counterintelligence work for the Army, background investigations, and some interviews of the prisoners, POW's from the Korean war.

After I returned to civilian life in 1955, I returned to the Carnation Milk Co. and had various sales or public relations jobs with them in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., Syracuse, N.Y., generally covering most of the State of New York. I applied to enter the Secret Service approximately 3 years before I was accepted, and entered the Secret Service in October 1959 in the Syracuse field office.

Mr. STERN. Will you tell us of your experience in the Secret Service, describing briefly each assignment of work?

Mr. McCLOY. When you say CIC agent you mean----

Mr. LAWSON. Counterintelligence agent; yes, sir, in the Army. I was hired as an agent in the Syracuse field office, and did general investigative work in the Syracuse area, part of New York State, with time out for a special assignment during the Eisenhower administration for approximately 21 days when I had to come to Washington to replace some agents who were advancing some large trips in South America. I was away from the Syracuse office in Treasury School for 6 weeks and I was away from the Syracuse office for 5 weeks while I attended Secret Service School.

I was here in Secret Service School during the inauguration of President Kennedy. The school was let out for that day so that they could take advantage of the agents that were here in town for post assignments. After returning to Syracuse for approximately 3 weeks I was transferred to Washington on the White House detail in March 1961.

Mr. STERN. And you have been a member of the White House detail.

Mr. LAWSON. Of the White House detail.

Mr. STERN. Since then?

Mr. LAWSON. Yes.

Mr. STERN. What has your experience been, Mr. Lawson, in doing advance work for Presidential or Vice Presidential trips?

Mr. LAWSON. I have assisted on some advances and I have had the overall responsibility on some others. Some of my overall responsibilities were Billings, Mont.; Little Rock; Buffalo and Niagara Falls, N.Y.; Cherry Point, N.C.

Mr. STERN. Approximately how many trips did you have the major responsibility for, and how many did you assist on in doing advance work?

Mr. LAWSON. I have assisted on five or six and had the major responsibility on seven or eight, I believe, and then have done what we call local advances here in the Washington area, if the President is going to a dinner or to a speech or to a function here in Washington.

Mr. STERN. Do all members of the White House detail do advance work for Presidential trips?

Mr. LAWSON. Yes, sir; after they have been there a few months perhaps, or sometimes a little less, depending on the need of advances, they are assigned to go out and help on some advances, and then they will work regular shift work for a while and then they may be assigned other advances and then a little bit later have the responsibility of one.

Mr. McCLOY. Mr. Ford, this is Mr. Lawson from the Secret Service. He is just giving us his qualifications and giving his experience up to the time that he was given responsibility in connection with making preparations, advance preparations, for Presidential trips.

Mr. STERN. When you are not doing advance work, Mr. Lawson, what are your general responsibilities?

Mr. LAWSON. I am assigned to a regular shift, of which there are three on the White House detail, and we work 2 weeks 4 to 12, 2 weeks midnights, 2 weeks days. That is generally because if there is a Presidential movement here in Washington, usually if it is a daytime engagement the 4-to-12 shift will have to come in and work extra. If it is an evening engagement, why, the 8-to-4 shift will have to work extra. And then as the President takes trips, if we are assigned to work that day we would also go along as a regular working agent, accompanying him or going just ahead of him.

Mr. STERN. When you do the advance work for a trip, do you file reports in connection with the work you have done?

Mr. LAWSON. Yes, sir.

Mr. STERN. Do you typically file a report somewhere in the middle of the advance and then at the end, or how does it work? What are your responsibilities?

Mr. LAWSON. Until just prior to the Dallas trip we had a report which we tried to get out if it was at all possible and send back to Washington, the complete report at that time, and then write a supplemental after we returned to Washington, with any changes. The first advance and the advance that I had in Billings, Mont., and in Little Rock, Ark., I was able to do that. Those were in September and October of 1963. However, they changed the reporting system so that we send a preliminary report, and it was the first one of this type that I had had after the Dallas trip. So this one has a preliminary report and also a final survey report.

Mr. DULLES. How much forenotice did you have of the Dallas trip; do you recall?

Mr. LAWSON. Yes, sir; I was notified of it on November 4, which is quite a bit of notice.

Mr. DULLES. So you could start your preparations for it on November 4, approximately?