Doug, in the field that in the Commission here we have described as the preventive intelligence field; that is, trying to identify beforehand the individuals or the type of individuals who might be a danger to the President, have you, ever thought of any possible division of responsibility and of work between the Secret Service and the FBI to define more clearly.which each should do in that field?
Secretary DILLON. Well, my own feeling is that the agency that handles the actual work of deciding who the individuals are that the Secret Service should watch out for, which is the PRS, would function much better and would strengthen the Service if it works as it does now as part of the whole Secret Service operation, and working very closely with the people who are on the White House detail and not having to be involved in a liaison operation somewhere else.
So I think our problem is to strengthen this PRS, and I think that this long-range plan is a good beginning.
I don't think it is necessarily an end because as soon as we develop the automated machinery that we need, then we will know a little better, and we may need some people to make full use of that.
But this is enough to get it underway and all you can use, I think, well, for that purpose at present.
I would think that there is a liaison problem which exists whenever you have liaison with anyone, whether it is within your department or without, as long as it is a separate organization. And I think there has been clearly a problem of inadequate liaison with other Government agencies.
It is much better now. We have already taken steps. And additional steps of assigning specific liaison officers will help. But I think this is something that has just got to be worked out continually at all levels to make it work. So the problem is not unique to this situation; it affects all intergovernmental relations.

Mr. Dulles.

Today with the Communist Party and with rightist groups and we have more and more groups--we have always had them, but we seem to have more than others which might breed up elements of danger--is there any part of that you would like to turn over to anybody else or---
Secretary DILLON. Well, I think the identification of groups that are likely to be dangerous as groups would probably more likely fall on the FBI because they study the background of these groups and they are aware of them and try to penetrate them, and so forth.
So I think that from that point of view, they would certainly be the purveyor, the first purveyor of the information that is needed and the ones who would have the responsibility of signaling to the Secret Service that this is a dangerous group and to the best of our knowledge these are its members. Some of the members would probably be subterranean and might not be known. And it would be important that they pass on that information on the individuals.
The Secret Service I think would be more concerned in dealing with--trying to protect against the actual individuals.
I think that probably on the basis of thinking of something that would be sort of an international plot, Communist Party plot, or something like that, I think you probably need all arms of the Government working on that.
We can't say that Secret Service can do it alone. Central Intelligence Agency might get wind of it anywhere in the world or FBI would have to use all its resources. Just to beat back something like that you would need the combined resources of whatever you have got.
I think there is sort of a greater thrust of continuing responsibility obviously on the FBI for following these groups, as you call them. For following individuals which may come to their notice because they were somewhat deranged or did something bad at one time, they would then pass that on to the Secret Service, and with adequate manpower, I think that the Secret Service would have more or less the primary responsibility of following those sort of individuals.

The Chairman.

I suppose you wouldn't want to take away from the Secret Service entirely the concern that it might have for groups?

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