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Warren Commission Hearings: Vol. V - Page 587« Previous | Next »

(Testimony of C. Douglas Dillon)

The Chairman.
Secretary DILLON. Oh, no.
The Chairman.
And the necessity of going into those groups to ascertain further whether they were a threat to the President?
Secretary DILLON. Yes; but I don't think it is their function to try, for instance, to have undercover people to penetrate groups or do things of that nature which the FBI generally does.
The Chairman.
Yes.
Secretary DILLON. And it is their job to do that. That would require, of course, a much larger organization, but I certainly think the Service has to keep track of them, and they can't just say we have no interest and everything must come from somewhere else. I don't mean that at all. But that is not their primary responsibility. I thought that is what Mr. Dulles' view of it was.
The Chairman.
Anything more?
Mr. Dulles.
Mr. Secretary, just one other question. It raises the question of the combination of the in the Secret Service of the two functions of Presidential protection and of the counterfeiting and related investigatory duties in connection with counterfeiting. Have you got any comments on that? Is that a logical or wise combination or would you suggest any change there?
Secretary DILLON. Well, these are two separate functions. I do think that there is a certain advantage to it that has developed and which I think should be maintained. That comes from the fact that counterfeiting is not an operation that is overly large; so it means that people who are engaged in this can very well be trained. Many have had tours such as earlier in the White House detail.
Mr. Dulles.
You transfer back and forth, do you, from these two functions?
Secretary DILLON. Oh, yes; many of the people after a little service in the White House detail find that life too strenuous, the hours bad, or prefer not to travel, and so forth, prefer the type of work that opens up in the counterfeiting section. Then they move out into one of the field offices, and there are probably a few more possibilities as heads of these fields offices for higher level jobs than there would be in the White House detail. So there is an interchange.
Now, that interchange, I think, is useful because you do have these field offices that you can then call upon to do protective work, and I think there can be much more of that because, as what I indicated earlier, with this development of more detailed criteria, the greater number of people coming in to check up on, there are going to be more investigations in the field that should be done by the Secret Service, and it can be done by these people who have had this training and who know what to look for and who have worked on this same sort of assignment.
They also are readily available and fit right into the pattern of Presidential protection when the President goes to their area. So I think that is another great advantage.
So therefore I think there is substantial advantage by having this additional assignment which is in a different area, counterfeiting. I think it is probable happenstance; it grew that way. It could have been in some other different area, but the size of it which is large enough but not too large I think combines very well with the White House detail to give us a possibility of making a very effective operation.
Mr. Dulles.
Do I correctly assume from what you have said that initially your field offices were largely organized for the counterfeiting side of the work but that is now changing, and more and more the work of the field office is coming into the Presidential protection?
Secretary DILLON. Well, I think certainly the amount that they will be doing on Presidential protection has greatly increased.
The counterfeiting hasn't decreased. That has increased also. But whereas earlier I think they were only used in Presidential protection when they had to be, when they were pulled off their other Jobs and brought to Washington and sent to travel on a trip or something like that, because extra people were needed, I think now if we get an adequate staff they will be doing more of this as a regular routine part of their job, investigating people in their areas as well as investigating counterfeit cases in their area.
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