(Testimony of C. Douglas Dillon)
Mr. Rankin.
Mr. Secretary, while you are on that subject, could you explain to the Commission how you make use of your agents in the White House duty and those in the field so they will understand that?
Secretary DILLON. Well, yes; the White House detail is composed of about 60 people now. About half of these are what you might call, more or less, permanent employees. They have been there for a long time, 10 years, 12 years, 15 years, on the White House detail.
The other half are shorter time employees who generally serve up to 3 years on the White House detail and then either leave because they prefer other duty in the Secret Service or sometimes leave because the Secret Service feels they can do other duty better.
Mr. Rankin.
Now, for the protection of the President, Mr. Secretary, is there any need to have the White House detail have any connection or reciprocal arrangement with those in the field?
Secretary DILLON. Well, I think it is a great help. Because of this turnover that I mentioned, very many of the agents in the field have had service in the White House detail of up to 2 or 3 years. So they know what the problems are and they are able to fit in very easily and very readily and very quickly with the White House detail which is with the President when he comes out on a trip.
Mr. Dulles.
By fieldwork you mean attached to your field stations, of which I believe there are 65 in the United States?
Secretary DILLON. Yes; that is right. And if they had not had this training, obviously they would be enforcement officers and they could work with White House detail when they come out, but they wouldn't be able to be as cognizant of its procedures, how the matter is handled, and they wouldn't be able to be fitted right into the routine as well as they can presently. I think it is highly valuable that we have this pool of experienced people around the country and, of course, this is again one reason that if we get a few more people out there, we will be able to do better.
One of the additional things that we are now undertaking, is, for instance, these building surveys that are partially a result of a study by the Research Analysis Corp. This seems to be something that we can probably do something about. We will probably use more people when the President travels through a city than we have in the past because you can have some success in designating certain buildings as high risk or higher risk than other buildings, and as I say, they are now trying to map the whole United States, at least the major cities where the President might travel, the routes he might follow, coming in from an airport, going to a major stadium or something like that so they will know ahead of time what the danger spots are. And one of the obvious ones which has come out is a warehouse where there are not so many people in it and where someone could more likely be alone and therefore more dangerous. A building that is full of people is not as dangerous because the other people would be watching. It is that sort of criteria. The same thing about roof access. If there is easy access to a roof and people are not usually on it, that would be more dangerous than if there wasn't.
Mr. Rankin.
Now, have you made quite a change in the Secret Service in regard to the inspection of buildings along a motorcade route since the assassination?
Secretary DILLON. Oh yes. We have been doing this, and we have used a great many more people as a result of this in our procedures, both local police officers and also our own people. The figures we have here are interesting. They are in this report. From February 11--I don't know why that was the beginning date for these figures--but from there through June 30, we used 9,500 hours of work by other enforcement agencies. About 2,000 of that came from the Justice Department and the rest of it from other Treasury agencies, the biggest one being the Intelligence Section of the Internal Revenue, but also the Bureau of Narcotics, Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Unit and so on.
Mr. Rankin.
And that is in connection with this motorcade route?
Secretary DILLON. That is largely in connection with that, both planning it out ahead and also stationing them in buildings that they thought might be difficult.
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