Warren Commission (05 of 26): Hearings Vol. V (of 15)United States. Warren Commission
History
Warren Commission (05 of 26): Hearings Vol. V (of 15)
United States. Warren Commission
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 -- Assassination; Oswald, Lee Harvey
Representative BOGGS. On the other side of the spectrum some professor
out at the University of Illinois wrote a piece in which he alleged
the President was a Communist agent, President Kennedy, and Buchanan's
allegations are that the extreme right assassinated the President and
this fellow's allegations are that the Communists assassinated the
President. Would you care to comment? Have you read that piece?
Mr. HOOVER. I have read that piece. My comment on it is this in
general: I think the extreme right is just as much a danger to the
freedom of this country as the extreme left. There are groups,
organizations, and individuals on the extreme right who make these
very violent statements, allegations that General Eisenhower was a
Communist, disparaging references to the Chief Justice and at the other
end of the spectrum you have these leftists who make wild statements
charging almost anybody with being a Fascist or belonging to some
of these so-called extreme right societies. Now, I have felt, and I
have said publicly in speeches, that they are just as much a danger,
at either end of the spectrum. They don't deal with facts. Anybody
who will allege that General Eisenhower was a Communist agent, has
something wrong with him.
A lot of people read such allegations because I get some of the
weirdest letters wanting to know whether we have inquired to find out
whether that is true. I have known General Eisenhower quite well myself
and I have found him to be a sound, level-headed man.
In New York City there is a woman by the name of Kraus who must be
mentally deranged as she stands on a Broadway corner there handing out
leaflets in which she charges me with being in the conspiracy with the
Communists to overthrow this Government and so forth.
Well now, if any person has fought communism, I certainly have fought
it. We have tried to fight it and expose it in democratic ways I think
that is the thing we have to very definitely keep in mind in this whole
problem in the security of the President and the successor to office.
Just how far you are going to go for his protection and his security. I
don't think you can get absolute security without almost establishing a
police state, and we don't want that. You can't put security in a black
groove or a white groove. It is in a gray groove, and certain chances
have to be taken. You are dealing with a human being when you are
dealing with the President of the United States. President Johnson is a
very down to earth human being, and it makes the security problem all
the more difficult, but you can't bar him from the people.
There are certain things that can be done, and I submitted a memorandum
to the Secret Service, and to the White House on certain security
steps that might be taken and tightened up. But you are dealing with
the general public and that is what has given me great concern in the
recent expansion, of the criteria for dissemination that we adopted
after the assassination.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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