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TESTIMONY OF ROBERT INMAN BOUCK beginning at 4H294...
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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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,
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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.)
Robert Carswell
Page 299
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.
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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.
Robert Inman Bouck
Page 300
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
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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
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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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 l-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.
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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.
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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
re-investigate 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.
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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,
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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 ether 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
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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,
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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
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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 it 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.
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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.
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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 i 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, the a
more serious connotation was put on those people and they were investigate 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 funds
mental 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 genera 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 about
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----
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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.)
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