CHAPTER VIII

The Protection of the President

In the 100 years since 1865 four Presidents of the United States have been assassinated--Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy. During this same period there were three other attacks on the life of a President, a President-elect, and a candidate for the Presidency, which narrowly failed: on Theodore Roosevelt while campaigning in October of 1912; on President-elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt, when visiting Miami on February 15, 1933; and on President Harry S. Truman on November 1, 1950, when his temporary residence, Blair House, was attacked by Puerto Rican Nationalists.[C8-1] One out of every five Presidents since 1865 has been assassinated; there have been attempts on the lives of one out of every three.

Prompted by these dismaying statistics, the Commission has inquired into the problems and methods of Presidential protection in effect at the time of President Kennedy’s assassination. This study has led the Commission to conclude that the public interest might be served by any contribution it can make to the improvement of protective arrangements. The Commission has not undertaken a comprehensive examination of all facets of this subject; rather, it has devoted its time and resources to those broader aspects of Presidential protection to which the events of last November called attention.

In this part of its inquiry the Commission has had full access to a major study of all phases of protective activities prepared by the Secret Service for the Secretary of the Treasury following the assassination. As a result of this study, the Secretary of the Treasury has prepared a planning document dated August 27, 1964, which recommends additional personnel and facilities to enable the Secret Service to expand its protection capabilities. The Secretary of the Treasury submitted this planning document on August 31, 1964, to the Bureau of the Budget for review and approval. This planning document has been made a part of the Commission’s published record; the underlying staff and consultants’ reports reviewed by the Commission have not, since a disclosure of such detailed information relating to protective measures might undermine present methods of protecting the President. However, all information considered by the Commission which pertains to the protective function as it was carried out in Dallas has been published as part of this report.

The protection of the President of the United States is an immensely difficult and complex task. It is unlikely that measures can be devised to eliminate entirely the multitude of diverse dangers that may arise, particularly when the President is traveling in this country or abroad. The protective task is further complicated by the reluctance of Presidents to take security precautions which might interfere with the performance of their duties, or their desire to have frequent and easy access to the people. The adequacy of existing procedures can fairly be assessed only after full consideration of the difficulty of the protective assignment, with particular attention to the diverse roles which the President is expected to fill. After reviewing this aspect of the matter this chapter will set forth the Commission’s conclusions regarding certain protective measures in force at the time of the Dallas trip and propose recommendations for improvements.

THE NATURE OF THE PROTECTIVE ASSIGNMENT

The President is Head of State, Chief Executive, Commander in Chief, and leader of a political party. As the ceremonial head of the Government the President must discharge a wide range of public duties, not only in Washington but throughout the land. In this role he appears to the American people, in the words of William Howard Taft, as “the personal embodiment and representative of their dignity and majesty.”[C8-2] As Chief Executive, the President controls the exercise of the vast, almost incalculable powers of the executive branch of the Federal Government. As Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, he must maintain ultimate authority over the development and disposition of our military power. Finally, in accordance with George Washington’s maxim that Americans have a government “of accommodation as well as a government of laws,”[C8-3] it is the President’s right and duty to be the active leader of his party, as when he seeks to be reelected or to maintain his party in power.

In all of these roles the President must go to the people. Exposure of the President to public view through travel among the people of this country is a great and historic tradition of American life. Desired by both the President and the public, it is an indispensable means of communication between the two. More often than not, Presidential journeys have served more than one purpose at the same time: ceremonial, administrative, political.

From George Washington to John F. Kennedy, such journeys have been a normal part of the President’s activities. To promote nationwide acceptance of his administration Washington made grand tours that served also to excite interest in the Presidency.[C8-4] In recent years, Presidential journeys have been frequent and extensive, partly because of the greater speed and comfort of travel and partly because of the greater demands made on the President. It is now possible for Presidents to travel the length and breadth of a land far larger than the United States in 1789 in less time than it took George Washington to travel from New York to Mount Vernon or Thomas Jefferson from Washington to Monticello. During his Presidency, Franklin D. Roosevelt made almost 400 journeys and traveled more than 350,000 miles.[C8-5] Since 1945, Roosevelt’s successors have ranged the world, and their foreign journeys have come to be accepted as normal rather than extraordinary.

John F. Kennedy’s journey to Texas in November 1963 was in this tradition. His friend and Special Assistant Kenneth O’Donnell, who accompanied him on his last visit to Dallas, stated the President’s views of his responsibilities with simplicity and clarity:

The President’s views of his responsibilities as President of the United States were that he meet the people, that he go out to their homes and see them, and allow them to see him, and discuss, if possible, the views of the world as he sees it, the problems of the country as he sees them. And he felt that leaving Washington for the President of the United States was a most necessary--not only for the people, but for the President himself, that he expose himself to the actual basic problems that were disturbing the American people. It helped him in his job here, he was able to come back here with a fresh view of many things. I think he felt very strongly that the President ought to get out of Washington, and go meet the people on a regular basis.[C8-6]

Whatever their purpose, Presidential journeys have greatly enlarged and complicated the task of protecting the President. The Secret Service and the Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies which cooperate with it, have been confronted in recent years with increasingly difficult problems, created by the greater exposure of the President during his travels and the greater diversity of the audiences he must face in a world torn by conflicting ideologies.

If the sole goal were to protect the life of the President, it could be accomplished with reasonable assurance despite the multiple roles he must play. But his very position as representative of the people prevents him from effectively shielding himself from the people. He cannot and will not take the precautions of a dictator or a sovereign. Under our system, measures must be sought to afford security without impeding the President’s performance of his many functions. The protection of the President must be thorough but inconspicuous to avoid even the suggestion of a garrison state. The rights of private individuals must not be infringed. If the protective job is well done, its performance will be evident only in the unexceptional fact of its success. The men in charge of protecting the President, confronted by complex problems and limited as they are in the measures they may employ, must depend upon the utmost cooperation and understanding from the public and the President.

The problem and the reasonable approach to its solution were ably stated in a memorandum prepared by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover for the President soon after the assassination:

The degree of security that can be afforded the President of the United States is dependent to a considerable extent upon the degree of contact with the general public desired by the President. Absolute security is neither practical nor possible. An approach to complete security would require the President to operate in a sort of vacuum, isolated from the general public and behind impregnable barriers. His travel would be in secret; his public appearances would be behind bulletproof glass.

A more practical approach necessitates compromise. Any travel, any contact with the general public, involves a calculated risk on the part of the President and the men responsible for his protection. Such risks can be lessened when the President recognizes the security problem, has confidence in the dedicated Secret Service men who are ready to lay down their lives for him and accepts the necessary security precautions which they recommend. Many Presidents have been understandably impatient with the security precautions which many years of experience dictate because these precautions reduce the President’s privacy and the access to him of the people of the country. Nevertheless the procedures and advice should be accepted if the President wishes to have any security.[C8-7]

EVALUATION OF PRESIDENTIAL PROTECTION AT THE TIME OF THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY

The history of Presidential protection shows growing recognition over the years that the job must be done by able, dedicated, thoroughly professional personnel, using the best technical equipment that can be devised.[C8-8] The assassination of President Kennedy demands an examination of the protective measures employed to safeguard him and an inquiry whether improvements can be made which will reduce the risk of another such tragedy. This section considers first the means used to locate potential sources of danger to the President in time to take appropriate precautions. In this connection the information available to Federal agencies about Lee Harvey Oswald is set out and the reasons why this information was not furnished to the Secret Service appraised. Second, the adequacy of other advance preparations for the security of the President during his visit to Dallas, largely measures taken by the Secret Service, is considered. Finally, the performance of those charged with the immediate responsibility of protecting the President on November 22 is reviewed.

Intelligence Functions Relating to Presidential Protection at the Time of the Dallas Trip

A basic element of Presidential protection is the identification and elimination of possible sources of danger to the President before the danger becomes actual. The Secret Service has attempted to perform this function through the activities of its Protective Research Section and requests to other agencies, Federal and local, for useful information. The Commission has concluded that at the time of the assassination the arrangements relied upon by the Secret Service to perform this function were seriously deficient.

_Adequacy of preventive intelligence operations of the Secret Service._--The main job of the Protective Research Section (PRS) is to collect, process, and evaluate information about persons or groups who may be a danger to the President. In addition to this function, PRS is responsible for such tasks as obtaining clearance of some categories of White House employees and all tradesmen who service the White House, the security processing of gifts sent to the President, and technical inspections against covert listening devices.[C8-9] At the time of the assassination PRS was a very small group, comprised of 12 specialists and 3 clerks.[C8-10]

Many persons call themselves to the attention of PRS by attempting to visit the President for bizarre reasons or by writing or in some other way attempting to communicate with him in a threatening or abusive manner or with undue persistence. Robert I. Bouck, special agent in charge of PRS, estimated that most of the material received by his office originated in this fashion or from the occasional investigations initiated by the Secret Service, while the balance was furnished to PRS by other Federal agencies, with primary source being the FBI.[C8-11] The total volume of information received by PRS has risen steadily. In 1943 PRS received approximately 9,000 items of information; in 1953 this had increased to more than 17,000 items; in 1963 the total exceeded 32,000 items.[C8-12] Since many items may pertain to a single case, these figures do not show the caseload. In the period from November 1961 to November 1963, PRS received items in 8,709 cases.[C8-13]

Before the assassination of President Kennedy, PRS expressed its interest in receiving information on suspects in very general terms. For example, PRS instructed the White House mailroom, a source of much PRS data, to refer all communications on identified existing cases and, in addition, any communication “that in any way indicates anyone may have possible intention of harming the President.”[C8-14] Slightly more specific criteria were established for PRS personnel processing White House mail referred by the White House mailroom, but again the standards were very general.[C8-15] These instructions to PRS personnel appear to be the only instance where an effort was made to reduce the criteria to writing.[C8-16] When requested to provide a specific statement of the standards employed by PRS in deciding what information to seek and retain, the Secret Service responded:

The criteria in effect prior to November 22, 1963, for determining whether to accept material for the PRS general files were broad and flexible. All material is and was desired, accepted, and filed if it indicated or tended to indicate that the safety of the President is or might be in danger, either at the present or in the future. * * * There are many actions, situations, and incidents that may indicate such potential danger. Some are specific, such as threats; danger may be implied from others, such as membership or activity in an organization which believes in assassination as a political weapon. All material received by PRS was separately screened and a determination made as to whether the information might indicate possible harm to the President. If the material was evaluated as indicating some potential danger to the President--no matter how small--it was indexed in the general PRS files under the name of the individual or group of individuals to whom that material related.[C8-17]

The general files of PRS consist of folders on individuals, card indexed by name. The files are manually maintained, without use of any automatic data-processing techniques.[C8-18] At the time of the assassination, the active PRS general files contained approximately 50,000 cases accumulated over a 20-year period,[C8-19] some of which included more than one individual. A case file was established if the information available suggested that the subject might be a danger to the President. Many of these cases were not investigated by PRS. The case file served merely as a repository for information until enough had accumulated to warrant an investigation.[C8-20] During the period November 1961 to November 1963, PRS investigated 34 newly established or reactivated cases concerning residents of Texas.[C8-21] Most of these cases involved persons who used threatening language in communications to or about the President. An additional 115 cases concerning Texas residents were established but not investigated.[C8-22]

When PRS learns of an individual whose conduct warrants scrutiny, it requests an investigation by the closest Secret Service field office,[C8-23] of which there are 65 throughout the country. If the field office determines that the case should be subject to continuing review, PRS establishes a file which requires a checkup at least every 6 months.[C8-24] This might involve a personal interview or interviews with members of the person’s household.[C8-25] Wherever possible, the Secret Service arranges for the family and friends of the individual, and local law enforcement officials, to advise the field office if the subject displays signs of increased danger or plans to leave his home area. At the time of the assassination there were approximately 400 persons throughout the country who were subject to periodic review.[C8-26]

If PRS concludes after investigation that an individual presents a significant danger to the life of the President, his name is placed in a “trip index file” which is maintained on a geographical field office basis.[C8-27] At the time of the assassination the names of about 100 persons were in this index, all of whom were included in the group of 400 being reviewed regularly.[C8-28] PRS also maintains an album of photographs and descriptions of about 12 to 15 individuals who are regarded as clear risks to the President and who do not have a fixed place of residence.[C8-29] Members of the White House detail of the Secret Service have copies of this album.[C8-30]

Individuals who are regarded as dangerous to the President and who are in penal or hospital custody are listed only in the general files of PRS, but there is a system for the immediate notification of the Secret Service by the confining institution when a subject is released or escapes.[C8-31] PRS attempts to eliminate serious risks by hospitalization or, where necessary, the prosecution of persons who have committed an offense such as threatening the President.[C8-32] In June 1964 PRS had arrangements to be notified about the release or escape of approximately 1,000 persons.[C8-33]

In summary, at the time of the assassination PRS had received, over a 20-year period, basic information on some 50,000 cases; it had arrangements to be notified about release from confinement in roughly 1,000 cases; it had established periodic regular review of the status of 400 individuals; it regarded approximately 100 of these 400 cases as serious risks and 12 to 15 of these cases as highly dangerous risks. Members of the White House detail were expected to familiarize themselves with the descriptions and photographs of the highest risk cases. The cases subject to periodic review and the 100 or so cases in the higher risk category were filed on a geographic basis, and could conveniently be reviewed by a Secret Service agent preparing for a Presidential trip to a particular part of the country. These were the files reviewed by PRS on November 8, 1963, at the request of Special Agent Lawson, advance agent for President Kennedy’s trip to Dallas.[C8-34] The general files of PRS were not indexed by geographic location and were of little use in preparing for a Presidential visit to a specific locality.

Secret Service requests to other agencies for intelligence information were no more specific than the broad and general instructions to its own agents and the White House mailroom. The head of PRS testified that the Secret Service requested other agencies to provide “any and all information that they may come in contact with that would indicate danger to the President.”[C8-35] These requests were not communicated in writing by the Secret Service; rather, the Service depended on the personal liaison maintained by PRS with the headquarters of the Federal intelligence agencies, particularly the FBI, and at the working level with personnel of the field offices of the various agencies.[C8-36] The Service frequently participated in the training programs of other law enforcement agencies, and agents from other agencies attended the regular Secret Service training schools. Presidential protection was an important topic in these training programs.[C8-37]

In the absence of more specific instructions, other Federal agencies interpreted the Secret Service’s informal requests to relate principally to overt threats to harm the President or other specific manifestations of hostility. For example, at the time of the assassination, the FBI Handbook, which is in the possession of every Bureau special agent, provided:

Threats against the President of the U.S., members of his immediate family, the President-elect, and the Vice-President

Investigation of threats against the President of the United States, members of his immediate family, the President-Elect, and the Vice-President is within the exclusive jurisdiction of the U.S. Secret Service. Any information indicating the possibility of an attempt against the person or safety of the President, members of the immediate family of the President, the President-Elect or the Vice-President must be referred immediately by the most expeditious means of communication to the nearest office of the U.S. Secret Service. Advise the Bureau at the same time by teletype of the information so furnished to the Secret Service and the fact that it has been so disseminated. The above action should be taken without delay in order to attempt to verify the information and no evaluation of the information should be attempted. When the threat is in the form of a written communication, give a copy to local Secret Service and forward the original to the Bureau where it will be made available to Secret Service headquarters in Washington. The referral of the copy to local Secret Service should not delay the immediate referral of the information by the fastest available means of communication to Secret Service locally.[C8-38]

The State Department advised the Secret Service of all crank and threat letter mail or crank visitors and furnished reports concerning any assassination or attempted assassination of a ruler or other major official anywhere in the world.[C8-39] The several military intelligence agencies reported crank mail and similar threats involving the President.[C8-40] According to Special Agent in Charge Bouck, the Secret Service had no standard procedure for the systematic review of its requests for and receipt of information from other Federal agencies.[C8-41]

The Commission believes that the facilities and procedures of the Protective Research Section of the Secret Service prior to November 22, 1963, were inadequate. Its efforts appear to have been too largely directed at the “crank” threat. Although the Service recognized that its advance preventive measures must encompass more than these most obvious dangers, it made little effort to identify factors in the activities of an individual or an organized group, other than specific threats, which suggested a source of danger against which timely precautions could be taken. Except for its special “trip index” file of 400 names, none of the cases in the PRS general files was available for systematic review on a geographic basis when the President planned a particular trip.

As reported in chapter II, when the special file was reviewed on November 8, it contained the names of no persons from the entire Dallas-Fort Worth area, notwithstanding the fact that Ambassador Stevenson had been abused by pickets in Dallas less than a month before. Bouck explained the failure to try to identify the individuals involved in the Stevenson incident after it occurred on the ground that PRS required a more direct indication of a threat to the President, and that there was no such indication until the President’s scheduled visit to that area became known.[C8-42] Such an approach seriously undermines the precautionary nature of PRS work; if the presence in Dallas of the Stevenson pickets might have created a danger for the President on a visit to that city, PRS should have investigated and been prepared to guard against it.

Other agencies occasionally provided information to the Secret Service concerning potentially dangerous political groups. This was done in the case of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico, for example, but only after members of the group had resorted to political violence.[C8-43] However, the vague requests for information which the Secret Service made to Federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies were not well designed to elicit information from them about persons other than those who were obvious threats to the President. The requests shifted the responsibility for evaluating difficult cases from the Service, the agency most responsible for performing that task, to the other agencies. No specific guidance was provided. Although the CIA had on file requests from the Treasury Department for information on the counterfeiting of U.S. currency and certain smuggling matters,[C8-44] it had no written specification of intelligence information collected by CIA abroad which was desired by the Secret Service in advance of Presidential trips outside the United States.

_Information known about Lee Harvey Oswald prior to the assassination._--No information concerning Lee Harvey Oswald appeared in PRS files before the President’s trip to Dallas. Oswald was known to other Federal agencies with which the Secret Service maintained intelligence liaison. The FBI had been interested in him, to some degree at least, since the time of his defection in October 1959. It had interviewed him twice shortly after his return to the United States, again a year later at his request and was investigating him at the time of the assassination. The Commission has taken the testimony of Bureau agents who interviewed Oswald after his return from the Soviet Union and prior to November 22, 1963, the agent who was assigned his case at the time of the assassination, the Director of the FBI, and the Assistant to the Director in charge of all investigative activities under the Director and Associate Director.[C8-45] In addition, the Director and Deputy Director for Plans of the CIA testified concerning that Agency’s limited knowledge of Oswald before the assassination.[C8-46] Finally, the Commission has reviewed the complete files on Oswald, as they existed at the time of the assassination, of the Department of State, the Office of Naval Intelligence, the FBI, and the CIA. The information known to the FBI is summarized below.

_From defection to return to Fort Worth._--The FBI opened a file on Oswald in October 1959,[C8-47] when news reports appeared of his defection to the Soviet Union.[C8-48] The file was opened “for the purpose of correlating information inasmuch as he was considered a possible security risk in the event he returned to this country.”[C8-49] Oswald’s defection was also the occasion for the opening of files by the Department of State, CIA, and the Office of Naval Intelligence. Until April 1960, FBI activity consisted of placing in Oswald’s file information regarding his relations with the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and background data relating largely to his prior military service, provided by other agencies. In April 1960, Mrs. Marguerite Oswald and Robert Oswald were interviewed in the course of a routine FBI investigation of transfers of small sums of money from Mrs. Oswald to her son in Russia.[C8-50]

During the next 2 years the FBI continued to accumulate information, and kept itself informed on Oswald’s status by periodic reviews of State Department and Office of Naval Intelligence files. In this way, it learned that when Oswald had arrived in the Soviet Union he had attempted to renounce his U.S. citizenship and applied for Soviet citizenship, had described himself as a Marxist, had said he would give the Soviet Union any useful information he had acquired as a marine radar technician and had displayed an arrogant and aggressive attitude at the U.S. Embassy; it learned also that Oswald had been discharged from the Marine Corps Reserve as undesirable in August 1960.[C8-51] In June 1962, the Bureau was advised by the Department of State of Oswald’s plan to return to the United States. The Bureau made arrangements to be advised by immigration authorities of his return, and instructed the Dallas office to interview him when he got back to determine whether he had been recruited by a Soviet intelligence service.[C8-52] Oswald’s file at the Department of State Passport Office was reviewed in June 1962. It revealed his letter of January 30, 1962, to Secretary of the Navy Connally, in which he protested his discharge and declared that he would use “all means” to correct it. The file reflected the Department’s determination that Oswald had not expatriated himself.[C8-53]

_From return to Fort Worth to move to New Orleans._--Oswald was first interviewed by FBI Agents John W. Fain and B. Tom Carter on June 26, 1962, in Fort Worth.[C8-54] Agent Fain reported to headquarters that Oswald was impatient and arrogant, and unwilling to answer questions regarding his motive for going to the Soviet Union. Oswald “denied that he had ever denounced his U.S. citizenship, and * * * that he had ever applied for Soviet citizenship specifically.”[C8-55] Oswald was, however, willing to discuss his contacts with Soviet authorities. He denied having any involvement with Soviet intelligence agencies and promised to advise the FBI if he heard from them.[C8-56]

Agent Fain was not satisfied by this interview and arranged to see Oswald again on August 16, 1962.[C8-57] According to Fain’s contemporaneous memorandum and his present recollection, while Oswald remained somewhat evasive at this interview, he was not antagonistic and seemed generally to be settling down.[C8-58] (Marina Oswald, however, recalled that her husband was upset by this interview.)[C8-59] Oswald again agreed to advise the FBI if he were approached under suspicious circumstances; however, he deprecated the possibility of this happening, particularly since his employment did not involve any sensitive information.[C8-60] Having concluded that Oswald was not a security risk or potentially dangerous or violent, Fain determined that nothing further remained to be done at that time and recommended that the case be placed in a closed status.[C8-61] This is an administrative classification indicating that no further work has been scheduled. It does not preclude the agent in charge of the case from reopening it if he feels that further work should be done.[C8-62]

From August 1962 until March 1963, the FBI continued to accumulate information regarding Oswald but engaged in no active investigation. Agent Fain retired from the FBI in October 1962, and the closed Oswald case was not reassigned.[C8-63] However, pursuant to a regular Bureau practice of interviewing certain immigrants from Iron Curtain countries, Fain had been assigned to see Marina Oswald at an appropriate time.[C8-64] This assignment was given to Agent James P. Hosty, Jr. of the Dallas office upon Fain’s retirement. In March 1963, while attempting to locate Marina Oswald, Agent Hosty was told by Mrs. M. F. Tobias, a former landlady of the Oswalds at 602 Elsbeth Street in Dallas, that other tenants had complained because Oswald was drinking to excess and beating his wife.[C8-65] This information led Hosty to review Oswald’s file, from which he learned that Oswald had become a subscriber to the Worker, a Communist Party publication. Hosty decided that the Lee Harvey Oswald case should be reopened because of the alleged personal difficulties and the contact with the Worker, and his recommendation was accepted.[C8-66] He decided, however, not to interview Marina Oswald at that time, and merely determined that the Oswalds were living at 214 Neely Street in Dallas.[C8-67]

On April 21, 1963, the FBI field office in New York was advised that Oswald was in contact with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New York, and that he had written to the committee stating that he had distributed its pamphlets on the streets of Dallas.[C8-68] This information did not reach Agent Hosty in Dallas until June.[C8-69] Hosty considered the information to be “stale” by that time, and did not attempt to verify Oswald’s reported statement.[C8-70] Under a general Bureau request to be on the alert for activities of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, Hosty had inquired earlier and found no evidence that it was functioning in the Dallas area.[C8-71]

_In New Orleans._--In the middle of May of 1963, Agent Hosty checked Oswald’s last known residence and found that he had moved.[C8-72] Oswald was tentatively located in New Orleans in June, and Hosty asked the New Orleans FBI office to determine Oswald’s address and what he was doing.[C8-73] The New Orleans office investigated and located Oswald, learning his address and former place of employment on August 5, 1963.[C8-74] A confidential informant advised the FBI that Oswald was not known to be engaged in Communist Party activities in New Orleans.[C8-75]

On June 24, Oswald applied in New Orleans for a passport, stating that he planned to depart by ship for an extended tour of Western European countries, the Soviet Union, Finland, and Poland. The Passport Office of the Department of State in Washington had no listing for Oswald requiring special treatment, and his application was approved on the following day.[C8-76] The FBI had not asked to be informed of any effort by Oswald to obtain a passport, as it might have under existing procedures, and did not know of his application.[C8-77] According to the Bureau,

We did not request the State Department to include Oswald on a list which would have resulted in advising us of any application for a passport inasmuch as the facts relating to Oswald’s activities at that time did not warrant such action. Our investigation of Oswald had disclosed no evidence that Oswald was acting under the instructions or on behalf of any foreign government or instrumentality thereof.[C8-78]

On August 9, 1963, Oswald was arrested and jailed by the New Orleans Police Department for disturbing the peace, in connection with a street fight which broke out when he was accosted by anti-Castro Cubans while distributing leaflets on behalf of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. On the next day, he asked the New Orleans police to arrange for him to be interviewed by the FBI. The police called the local FBI office and an agent, John L. Quigley, was sent to the police station.[C8-79] Agent Quigley did not know of Oswald’s prior FBI record when he interviewed him, inasmuch as the police had not given Oswald’s name to the Bureau when they called the office.[C8-80]

Quigley recalled that Oswald was receptive when questioned about his general background but less than completely truthful or cooperative when interrogated about the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. Quigley testified:

When I began asking him specific details with respect to his activities in the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New Orleans as to where meetings were held, who was involved, what occurred, he was reticent to furnish information, reluctant and actually as far as I was concerned, was completely evasive on them.[C8-81]

In Quigley’s judgment, Oswald “was probably making a self-serving statement in attempting to explain to me why he was distributing this literature, and for no other reason, and when I got to questioning him further then he felt that his purpose had been served and he wouldn’t say anything further.”[C8-82]

During the interview Quigley obtained background information from Oswald which was inconsistent with information already in the Bureau’s possession. When Quigley returned to his office, he learned that another Bureau agent, Milton R. Kaack, had been conducting a background investigation of Oswald at the request of Agent Hosty in Dallas. Quigley advised Kaack of his interview and gave him a detailed memorandum.[C8-83] Kaack was aware of the facts known to the FBI and recognized Oswald’s false statements.[C8-84] For example, Oswald claimed that his wife’s maiden name was Prossa and that they had been married in Fort Worth and lived there until coming to New Orleans.[C8-85] He had told the New Orleans arresting officers that he had been born in Cuba.[C8-86]

Several days later, the Bureau received additional evidence that Oswald had lied to Agent Quigley. On August 22, it learned that Oswald had appeared on a radio discussion program on August 21.[C8-87] William Stuckey, who had appeared on the radio program with Oswald, told the Bureau on August 30 that Oswald had told him that he had worked and been married in the Soviet Union.[C8-88] Neither these discrepancies nor the fact that Oswald had initiated the FBI interview was considered sufficiently unusual to necessitate another interview.[C8-89] Alan H. Belmont, Assistant to the Director of the FBI, stated the Bureau’s reasoning in this way:

Our interest in this man at this point was to determine whether his activities constituted a threat to the internal security of the country. It was apparent that he had made a self-serving statement to Agent Quigley. It became a matter of record in our files as a part of the case, and if we determined that the course of the investigation required us to clarify or face him down with this information, we would do it at the appropriate time.

In other words, he committed no violation of the law by telling us something that wasn’t true, and unless this required further investigation at that time, we would handle it in due course, in accord with the whole context of the investigation.[C8-90]

On August 21, 1963, Bureau headquarters instructed the New Orleans and Dallas field offices to conduct an additional investigation of Oswald in view of the activities which had led to his arrest.[C8-91] FBI informants in the New Orleans area, familiar with pro-Castro or Communist Party activity there, advised the Bureau that Oswald was unknown in such circles.[C8-92]

_In Dallas._--In early September 1963 the FBI transferred the principal responsibility for the Oswald case from the Dallas office to the New Orleans office.[C8-93] Soon after, on October 1, 1963, the FBI was advised by the rental agent for the Oswalds’ apartment in New Orleans that they had moved again.[C8-94] According to the information received by the Bureau they had vacated their apartment, and Marina Oswald had departed with their child in a station wagon with Texas registration.[C8-95] On October 3, Hosty reopened the case in Dallas to assist the New Orleans office.[C8-96] He checked in Oswald’s old neighborhood and throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth area but was unable to locate Oswald.[C8-97]

The next word about Oswald’s location was a communication from the CIA to the FBI on October 10, advising that an individual tentatively identified as Oswald had been in touch with the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City in early October of 1963.[C8-98] The Bureau had had no earlier information suggesting that Oswald had left the United States. The possible contact with the Soviet Embassy in Mexico intensified the FBI’s interest in learning Oswald’s whereabouts.[C8-99] The FBI representative in Mexico City arranged to follow up this information with the CIA and to verify Oswald’s entry into Mexico.[C8-100] The CIA message was sent also to the Department of State where it was reviewed by personnel of the Passport Office, who knew from Oswald’s file that he had sought and obtained a passport on June 25, 1963.[C8-101] The Department of State did not advise either the CIA or the FBI of these facts.[C8-102]

On October 25, the New Orleans office of the FBI learned that in September Oswald had given a forwarding address of 2515 West Fifth Street, Irving, Tex.[C8-103] After receiving this information on October 29, Agent Hosty attempted to locate Oswald. On the same day Hosty interviewed neighbors on Fifth Street and learned that the address was that of Mrs. Ruth Paine.[C8-104] He conducted a limited background investigation of the Paines, intending to interview Mrs. Paine and ask her particularly about Oswald’s whereabouts.[C8-105]

Having determined that Mrs. Paine was a responsible and reliable citizen, Hosty interviewed her on November 1. The interview lasted about 20-25 minutes.[C8-106] In response to Hosty’s inquiries, Mrs. Paine

* * * readily admitted that Mrs. Marina Oswald and Lee Oswald’s two children were staying with her. She said that Lee Oswald was living somewhere in Dallas. She didn’t know where. She said it was in the Oak Cliff area but she didn’t have his address.

I asked her if she knew where he worked. After a moment’s hesitation, she told me that he worked at the Texas School Book Depository near the downtown area of Dallas. She didn’t have the exact address, and it is my recollection that we went to the phone book and looked it up, found it to be 411 Elm Street.[C8-107]

Mrs. Paine told Hosty also that Oswald was living alone in Dallas because she did not want him staying at her house, although she was willing to let Oswald visit his wife and children.[C8-108] According to Hosty, Mrs. Paine indicated that she thought she could find out where Oswald was living and would let him know.[C8-109] At this point in the interview, Hosty gave Mrs. Paine his name and office telephone number on a piece of paper.[C8-110] At the end of the interview, Marina Oswald came into the room. When he observed that she seemed “quite alarmed” about the visit, Hosty assured her, through Mrs. Paine as interpreter, that the FBI would not harm or harass her.[C8-111]

On November 4, Hosty telephoned the Texas School Book Depository and learned that Oswald was working there and that he had given as his address Mrs. Paine’s residence in Irving.[C8-112] Hosty took the necessary steps to have the Dallas office of the FBI, rather than the New Orleans office, reestablished as the office with principal responsibility.[C8-113] On November 5, Hosty was traveling near Mrs. Paine’s home and took the occasion to stop by to ask whether she had any further information. Mrs. Paine had nothing to add to what she had already told him, except that during a visit that past weekend, Oswald had said that he was a “Trotskyite Communist,” and that she found this and similar statements illogical and somewhat amusing.[C8-114] On this occasion Hosty was at the Paine residence for only a few minutes.[C8-115]

During neither interview did Hosty learn Oswald’s address or telephone number in Dallas. Mrs. Paine testified that she learned Oswald’s telephone number at the Beckley Street roominghouse in the middle of October shortly after Oswald rented the room on October 14. As discussed in chapter VI, she failed to report this to Agent Hosty because she thought the FBI was in possession of a great deal of information and certainly would find it very easy to learn where Oswald was living.[C8-116]

Hosty did nothing further in connection with the Oswald case until after the assassination. On November 1, 1963, he had received a copy of the report of the New Orleans office which contained Agent Quigley’s memorandum of the interview in the New Orleans jail on August 10,[C8-117] and realized immediately that Oswald had given false biographic information.[C8-118] Hosty knew that he would eventually have to investigate this, and “was quite interested in determining the nature of his contact with the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City.”[C8-119] When asked what his next step would have been, Hosty replied:

Well, as I had previously stated, I have between 25 and 40 cases assigned to me at any one time. I had other matters to take care of. I had now established that Lee Oswald was not employed in a sensitive industry. I can now afford to wait until New Orleans forwarded the necessary papers to me to show me I now had all the information. It was then my plan to interview Marina Oswald in detail concerning both herself and her husband’s background.

Q. Had you planned any steps beyond that point?

A. No. I would have to wait until I had talked to Marina to see what I could determine, and from there I could make my plans.

Q. Did you take any action on this case between November 5 and November 22?

A. No, sir.[C8-120]

The official Bureau files confirm Hosty’s statement that from November 5 until the assassination, no active investigation was conducted.[C8-121] On November 18 the FBI learned that Oswald recently had been in communication with the Soviet Embassy in Washington and so advised the Dallas office in the ordinary course of business. Hosty received this information on the afternoon of November 22, 1963.[C8-122]

_Nonreferral of Oswald to the Secret Service._--The Commission has considered carefully the question whether the FBI, in view of all the information concerning Oswald in its files, should have alerted the Secret Service to Oswald’s presence in Dallas prior to President Kennedy’s visit. The Secret Service and the FBI differ as to whether Oswald fell within the category of “threats against the President” which should be referred to the Service.

Robert I. Bouck, special agent in charge of the Protective Research Section, testified that the information available to the Federal Government about Oswald before the assassination would, if known to PRS, have made Oswald a subject of concern to the Secret Service.[C8-123] Bouck pointed to a number of characteristics besides Oswald’s defection the cumulative effect of which would have been to alert the Secret Service to potential danger:

I would think his continued association with the Russian Embassy after his return, his association with the Castro groups would have been of concern to us, a knowledge that he had, I believe, been courtmartialed for illegal possession of a gun, of a hand gun in the Marines, that he had owned a weapon and did a good deal of hunting or use of it, perhaps in Russia, plus a number of items about his disposition and unreliability of character, I think all of those, if we had had them altogether, would have added up to pointing out a pretty bad individual, and I think that, together, had we known that he had a vantage point would have seemed somewhat serious to us, even though I must admit that none of these in themselves would be--would meet our specific criteria, none of them alone.

But it is when you begin adding them up to some degree that you begin to get criteria that are meaningful.[C8-124]

Mr. Bouck pointed out, however, that he had no reason to believe that any one Federal agency had access to all this information, including the significant fact that Oswald was employed in a building which overlooked the motorcade route.[C8-125]

Agent Hosty testified that he was fully aware of the pending Presidential visit to Dallas. He recalled that the special agent in charge of the Dallas office of the FBI, J. Gordon Shanklin, had discussed the President’s visit on several occasions, including the regular biweekly conference on the morning of November 22:

Mr. Shanklin advised us, among other things, that in view of the President’s visit to Dallas, that if anyone had any indication of any possibility of any acts of violence or any demonstrations against the President, or Vice President, to immediately notify the Secret Service and confirm it in writing. He had made the same statement about a week prior at another special conference which we had held. I don’t recall the exact date. It was about a week prior.[C8-126]

In fact, Hosty participated in transmitting to the Secret Service two pieces of information pertaining to the visit.[C8-127] Hosty testified that he did not know until the evening of Thursday, November 21, that there was to be a motorcade, however, and never realized that the motorcade would pass the Texas School Book Depository Building. He testified that he did not read the newspaper story describing the motorcade route in detail, since he was interested only in the fact that the motorcade was coming up Main Street, “where maybe I could watch it if I had a chance.”[C8-128]

Even if he had recalled that Oswald’s place of employment was on the President’s route, Hosty testified that he would not have cited him to the Secret Service as a potential threat to the President.[C8-129] Hosty interpreted his instructions as requiring “some indication that the person planned to take some action against the safety of the President of the United States or the Vice President.”[C8-130] In his opinion, none of the information in the FBI files--Oswald’s defection, his Fair Play for Cuba activities in New Orleans, his lies to Agent Quigley, his recent visit to Mexico City--indicated that Oswald was capable of violence.[C8-131] Hosty’s initial reaction on hearing that Oswald was a suspect in the assassination, was “shock, complete surprise,” because he had no reason to believe that Oswald “was capable or potentially an assassin of the President of the United States.”[C8-132]

Shortly after Oswald was apprehended and identified, Hosty’s superior sent him to observe the interrogation of Oswald.[C8-133] Hosty parked his car in the basement of police headquarters and there met an acquaintance, Lt. Jack Revill of the Dallas police force. The two men disagree about the conversation which took place between them. They agree that Hosty told Revill that the FBI had known about Oswald and, in particular, of his presence in Dallas and his employment at the Texas School Book Depository Building.[C8-134] Revill testified that Hosty said also that the FBI had information that Oswald was “capable of committing this assassination.”[C8-135] According to Revill, Hosty indicated that he was going to tell this to Lieutenant Wells of the homicide and robbery bureau.[C8-136] Revill promptly made a memorandum of this conversation in which the quoted statement appears.[C8-137] His secretary testified that she prepared such a report for him that afternoon[C8-138] and Chief of Police Jesse E. Curry and District Attorney Henry M. Wade both testified that they saw it later that day.[C8-139]

Hosty has unequivocally denied, first by affidavit and then in his testimony before the Commission, that he ever said that Oswald was capable of violence, or that he had any information suggesting this.[C8-140] The only witness to the conversation was Dallas Police Detective V. J. Brian, who was accompanying Revill. Brian did not hear Hosty make any statement concerning Oswald’s capacity to be an assassin but he did not hear the entire conversation because of the commotion at police headquarters and because he was not within hearing distance at all times.[C8-141]

Hosty’s interpretation of the prevailing FBI instructions on referrals to the Secret Service was defended before the Commission by his superiors. After summarizing the Bureau’s investigative interest in Oswald prior to the assassination, J. Edgar Hoover concluded that “There was nothing up to the time of the assassination that gave any indication that this man was a dangerous character who might do harm to the President or to the Vice President.”[C8-142] Director Hoover emphasized that the first indication of Oswald’s capacity for violence was his attempt on General Walker’s life, which did not become known to the FBI until after the assassination.[C8-143] Both Director Hoover and his assistant, Alan H. Belmont, stressed also the decision by the Department of State that Oswald should be permitted to return to the United States.[C8-144] Neither believed that the Bureau investigation of him up to November 22 revealed any information which would have justified referral to the Secret Service. According to Belmont, when Oswald returned from the Soviet Union,

* * * he indicated that he had learned his lesson, was disenchanted with Russia, and had a renewed concept--I am paraphrasing, a renewed concept--of the American free society.

We talked to him twice. He likewise indicated he was disenchanted with Russia. We satisfied ourselves that we had met our requirement, namely to find out whether he had been recruited by Soviet intelligence. The case was closed.

We again exhibited interest on the basis of these contacts with The Worker, Fair Play for Cuba Committee, which are relatively inconsequential.

His activities for the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New Orleans, we knew, were not of real consequence as he was not connected with any organized activity there.

The interview with him in jail is not significant from the standpoint of whether he had a propensity for violence.

Q. This is the Quigley interview you are talking about?

A. Yes; it was a self-serving interview.

The visits with the Soviet Embassy were evidently for the purpose of securing a visa, and he had told us during one of the interviews that he would probably take his wife back to Soviet Russia some time in the future. He had come back to Dallas. Hosty had established that he had a job, he was working, and had told Mrs. Paine that when he got the money he was going to take an apartment when the baby was old enough, he was going to take an apartment, and the family would live together.

He gave evidence of settling down. Nowhere during the course of this investigation or the information that came to us from other agencies was there any indication of a potential for violence on his part.

Consequently, there was no basis for Hosty to go to Secret Service and advise them of Oswald’s presence. * * *[C8-145]

As reflected in this testimony, the officials of the FBI believed that there was no data in its files which gave warning that Oswald was a source of danger to President Kennedy. While he had expressed hostility at times toward the State Department, the Marine Corps, and the FBI as agents of the Government,[C8-146] so far as the FBI knew he had not shown any potential for violence. Prior to November 22, 1963, no law enforcement agency had any information to connect Oswald with the attempted shooting of General Walker. It was against this background and consistent with the criteria followed by the FBI prior to November 22 that agents of the FBI in Dallas did not consider Oswald’s presence in the Texas School Book Depository Building overlooking the motorcade route as a source of danger to the President and did not inform the Secret Service of his employment in the Depository Building.

The Commission believes, however, that the FBI took an unduly restrictive view of its responsibilities in preventive intelligence work, prior to the assassination. The Commission appreciates the large volume of cases handled by the FBI (636,371 investigative matters during fiscal year 1963).[C8-147] There were no Secret Service criteria which specifically required the referral of Oswald’s case to the Secret Service; nor was there any requirement to report the names of defectors. However, there was much material in the hands of the FBI about Oswald: the knowledge of his defection, his arrogance and hostility to the United States, his pro-Castro tendencies, his lies when interrogated by the FBI, his trip to Mexico where he was in contact with Soviet authorities, his presence in the School Book Depository job and its location along the route of the motorcade. All this does seem to amount to enough to have induced an alert agency, such as the FBI, possessed of this information to list Oswald as a potential threat to the safety of the President. This conclusion may be tinged with hindsight, but it stated primarily to direct the thought of those responsible for the future safety of our Presidents to the need for a more imaginative and less narrow interpretation of their responsibilities.

It is the conclusion of the Commission that, even in the absence of Secret Service criteria which specifically required the referral of such a case as Oswald’s to the Secret Service, a more alert and carefully considered treatment of the Oswald case by the Bureau might have brought about such a referral. Had such a review been undertaken by the FBI, there might conceivably have been additional investigation of the Oswald case between November 5 and November 22. Agent Hosty testified that several matters brought to his attention in late October and early November, including the visit to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City, required further attention. Under proper procedures knowledge of the pending Presidential visit might have prompted Hosty to have made more vigorous efforts to locate Oswald’s roominghouse address in Dallas and to interview him regarding these unresolved matters.

The formal FBI instructions to its agents outlining the information to be referred to the Secret Service were too narrow at the time of the assassination. While the Secret Service bears the principal responsibility for this failure, the FBI instructions did not reflect fully the Secret Service’s need for information regarding potential threats. The handbook referred thus to “the possibility of an attempt against the person or safety of the President.”[C8-148] It is clear from Hosty’s testimony that this was construed, at least by him, as requiring evidence of a plan or conspiracy to injure the President.[C8-149] Efforts made by the Bureau since the assassination, on the other hand, reflect keen awareness of the necessity of communicating a much wider range of intelligence information to the Service.[C8-150]

Most important, notwithstanding that both agencies have professed to the Commission that the liaison between them was close and fully sufficient,[C8-151] the Commission does not believe that the liaison between the FBI and the Secret Service prior to the assassination was as effective as it should have been. The FBI Manual of Instructions provided:

Liaison With Other Government Agencies

To insure adequate and effective liaison arrangements, each SAC should specifically designate an Agent (or Agents) to be responsible for developing and maintaining liaison with other Federal Agencies. This liaison should take into consideration FBI-agency community of interests, location of agency headquarters, and the responsiveness of agency representatives. In each instance, liaison contacts should be developed to include a close friendly relationship, mutual understanding of FBI and agency jurisdictions, and an indicated willingness by the agency representative to coordinate activities and to discuss problems of mutual interest. Each field office should determine those Federal agencies which are represented locally and with which liaison should be conducted.[C8-152]

The testimony reveals that liaison responsibilities in connection with the President’s visit were discussed twice officially by the special agent in charge of the FBI office in Dallas. As discussed in