(Testimony of J. Edgar Hoover)
Mr. Hoover.
have discussed the matter, naturally, with Mr. McCone, the Director of CIA, and he, of course, will no doubt appear himself, but there is no indication at all that he was employed by them. We frequently get that kind of a story from individuals who, when they get into some kind of difficulty, will claim they were working for the CIA or they were working for the FBI.
Representative Boggs.
Surely.
Mr. Hoover.
Now, no one can work for the FBI without the approval being given at Washington and a record kept of it, even of the confidential informants. That is very tightly controlled. We have no so-called lump sum that we can use to hire people. So there has to be a voucher and specific details of payment. And I know at no time was he an informant or agent or a special employee or working in any capacity for the FBI.
As to the interviews we had with him in which he gave us some information, some of it was not the truth, but this was not particularly significant. The interviews we had with him I would not term as talking with an informant. He was interviewed while under arrest by the New Orleans police, and then after he had committed this act of assassination we interviewed him in police headquarters in Dallas. But they were the only contacts we had, I think four contacts altogether, and he received no money of any kind, no promise of any kind, and there was no indication that he was rendering assistance to the U.S. Government. We looked upon him as a criminal after the assassination, of course, and prior to that time we looked upon him as an individual who we suspected might become an agent of the Soviet government. There was no proof of that, and we checked him carefully.
We knew of his contact with the Soviet Embassy here at Washington, his contact with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New York, and his contact with the Worker publication in New York. And none of those contacts gave any indication of any tendency to commit violence.
There are many people who read the Daily Worker, or what is now the Worker, and you certainly can't brand them as hazards to the security of the country or as potential assassins. It is in that area that I am particularly concerned that we don't become hysterical and go too far in restricting the citizens of our country from exercising their civil and constitutional rights. The mere fact a person disagrees with you in a matter on communism doesn't mean he should be arrested. Many Communists make very violent speeches, and we know them, but I don't feel that the time has come that they should be arrested. If they have violated the laws of the United States, we will, then, proceed with prosecution, and the cases can then go through the courts. Such cases last for years before they get to the Supreme Court, and even then such cases often start over on some legal angle. But, all in all, I think that the enforcement of security and the enforcement of laws dealing with subversion ought to be handled in the American manner.
I am criticized by the extreme right for that. They put me in the category, I guess, along with General Eisenhower. But the extreme left criticizes me, saying I believe that any person who has on a red necktie may be addicted to communism, and, therefore, is a great danger. That is why I say the extremists at both ends are bad, and I have repeated that several times publicly.
Representative Boggs.
No doubt about the problem being a difficult one. I remember some years back when these fanatics started shooting up the House of Representatives.
Mr. Hoover.
I recall that.
Representative Boggs.
I happened to be there on the occasion and there were many suggestions that we build a bulletproof glass enclosure around the Members of Congress and so on. Of course, all of us rejected those ideas because it would be totally incompatible with our democratic institutions and this, obviously, becomes a problem in the security of the President; that is what you are telling us, isn't it?
Mr. Hoover.
That is the great problem. We have participated in the protection of the President since the assassination. The Secret Service indicates how many agents it needs when the President is traveling somewhere or going somewhere in Washington, and then I assign that number of agents to the Secret Service. They are not under my direction. They are under the direction
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