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
Now, I guess their attitude with all justice to them is. "Well, we
will resolve the risk in our favor. If we keep these people under
surveillance and keep them in the house until the President gets out
of town nothing can happen from them." That is what you would call
totalitarian security. I don't think you can have that kind of security
in this country without having a great wave of criticism against it.
There is a great tendency for people to expect the intelligence forces
and the law enforcement agencies to be able to go out and arrest
people and bring them in and hold them endlessly and talk to them. We
can't arrest a person, without probable cause, or unless he commits a
crime in our presence. We have to arraign him promptly and if not done
promptly, the confession that he may have made generally cannot be used
against him.
Just as a collateral matter we faced that problem in California in the
case of the kidnapping of Frank Sinatra, Jr. One of the kidnappers we
arrested near San Diego confessed but we didn't arraign him because
the other kidnappers would have left California and it would have been
difficult to find them. However, the next day after arraignment he made
changes in the confession and signed it so the court held that it was
admissible.
The Secret Service, of course, is faced with the same problem. They
just can't arrest people because they may not like their looks. They
have to have facts justifying detention but the public conception is
that you have a full right to go out and do these things. We have
stressed in the FBI that there must be full compliance with the laws of
this country and with the decisions of the Supreme Court. That is the
law of the country. Now, whether a person likes it or not and there are
some groups that are very violent against the decisions of the court
while others are very much in favor of them, it is not for the FBI to
take sides. We have a job to do and we do it under the rulings of the
courts and we have been able to do it effectively.
I know when the ruling came down on the prompt arraignment, there
was great shouting and some strong editorials claiming that it was
going to wreck law enforcement. It hasn't wrecked us. It has made it
more difficult but I think we have to face up to the fact that law
enforcement in a free country must abide by the laws of that country
irrespective of how difficult it is. Some persons talk about putting
handcuffs on the law enforcement officers and taking them off the
criminals. That is a nice catch phrase to use in a speech or article
but operating within the law has not interfered with our work.
Mr. RANKIN. Mr. Hoover, I ask you about Exhibit 825 which is first a
letter and then encloses certain affidavits of your agents.
Mr. HOOVER. Yes, sir.
Mr. RANKIN. You are familiar with that?
Mr. HOOVER. I am familiar with that. I read all of that and signed it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account