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
Prior to that time we reported to the Secret Service all information
that dealt with individuals who were potential killers or by whom
acts of violence might be anticipated. The Secret Service would take
that information and would do with it as they saw fit. I gave great
consideration to it because I am not very happy with the criteria
expansion, but I felt we had to include subversives of various
character, and extremists. We have, in turn, furnished their names to
the Secret Service. I think 5,000 names up to the present time already
have been submitted and there are at least three or four thousand more
that will be submitted within the next few months.
Then you come to the problem of what you are going to do when the
Secret Service gets those names. They have to call upon the local
authorities. Just recently, in the city of Chicago, when the President
was there, the local authorities were asked to give assistance as they
usually do to the Secret Service and they went to the homes of some of
these people, and it resulted really almost in a house arrest.
Now, I don't think there is any place in this country for that
kind of thing, but these people who belonged to extreme subversive
organizations or organizations that advocated the overthrow of
government by force and violence were told that they couldn't leave
their house or if they did they would be accompanied by a police
officer. That gives me great concern because in New York City alone,
you run into maybe three or four thousand such individuals who would be
members of subversive organizations, and then you get into the twilight
zone of subversive fronts.
Now, there again, merely because a man belongs to a subversive front
organization, in my estimation doesn't mean that he is blacklisted and
is a menace to the country for life. If he belongs to 20 of them, it
certainly shows either one of two things, he is either very gullible
and dumb or he is a menace. That has been my attitude in regard to
Government service where you find a Government employee who belonged to
one or two, maybe in his early days. I don't believe this necessarily
makes him a security risk. Rather, this would be dependent on the
degree of his activity in the front group and his purpose and intent in
associating himself with it. But where he has belonged to 15, 18, 20 of
them, I don't think he has enough good judgment to be in the Government.
Some ministers get drawn into organizations, some of which are under
the domination of the Communist Party. Now, those ministers don't know
that. They are just as loyal and patriotic as you and I are, but they
happen to belong. Now, that is where the question of human judgment
has to be used. We try to use it in selecting these names. But I was
startled when I learned of the incident in Chicago because there you
come pretty close to a house arrest and we don't want that. We don't
want a gestapo. We have to, I think, maintain an even balance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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