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(Testimony of Alan H. Belmont)
Persons who are suspect or may be considered dangerous are immediately rounded up and detained while the individual is in the county. The authorities have no problem because in those countries there is not a free society such as we enjoy, and the people who are detained have no redress. The FBI approaches this whole field of security---I am not boring you with this, am I?
The Chairman.
No indeed. This is tremendously important.
Mr. Belmont.
The FBI approaches this whole field of security and its tremendous responsibility we have for the internal security of the country as a sacred trust. In carrying out our investigation and our work in the security field, we do it in such a manner under the law that we strengthen rather than weaken the free society that we enjoy. It is for that reason that our men are trained carefully, thoroughly, and supervised carefully, to insure that their approach to the entire security field, which inevitably touches on control of thought, is handled with extreme care. Our activities are directed to meet the terrific responsibility we have for the internal security of the country, but to meet it under the law. We feel that to place security as such above the rights of the individual or to increase these controls beyond what is absolutely essential is the first step toward the destruction of this free society that we enjoy.
We have been asked many times why we don't pick up and jail all Communists. The very people who ask those questions don't realize that if action, unrestrained action, is taken against a particular group of people, a precedent is set which can be seized on in the future by power-hungry or unscrupulous authorities as a precedent, and which inevitably will gnaw away at this free society we have, and sooner or later will be applied to the very individuals who are seeking this action. Up until the time of the assassination we religiously and carefully and expeditiously furnished to Secret Service immediately on a local basis as well as on a national basis, headquarters basis, any and all information that in any way was indicated to be a possible threat against the President. This permitted Secret Service to take such action as was required against these individuals who had by their action set the stage for appropriate restraint or observation based on something they did. Therefore, they were not in a position to complain legitimately because they had by some word or deed set in motion a threat against the President of the United States. Since the assassination, as I have testified, we have broadened the area of dissemination in an effort to be helpful. It stands without question that we could have said, "No; we won't go any further." But we felt that it was our responsibility to do whatever we could do and, hence, we have broadened these criteria, and we have distributed thousands of pieces of information on individuals to Secret Service.
(At this point in the proceedings, Representative Ford enters the hearing room.)
We are not entirely comfortable about this, because under these broadened criteria after all we are furnishing names of people who have not made a threat against the President, people who have expressed beliefs, who have belonged or do belong to organizations which believe in violent revolution or taking things into their own hands. Unless such information is handled with judgment and care, it can be dangerous.
For example, we know that in one city when the President recently visited, the police went to these people and told them, "You stay in the house while the President is here or if you go out, we will go with you." We know that these people have threatened to consult attorneys, have threatened to make a public issue of the matter on the theory that this is restraint that is not justified as they have made no threats against the President. Now, when you examine this a bit further, we give these names to Secret Service. Secret Service must do something with those names, and Secret Service solicits the assistance of the police, quite properly. But I don't need, I think, to paint this picture any further, that when you get away from a specific act or deed of threats against the President, and you go into the broader area of what, perhaps, a man is thinking and, therefore, he may be a threat, and you take action against the man on the basis of that, there is a danger.
That is why, despite the fact that we have given this additional information and will continue to do so, we are uneasy. Again, if I may be permitted to continue, this is inherent in the entire approach of the FBI to the security field.
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