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
Mr. STERN. What was your employment briefly before joining the Federal
Bureau of Investigation?
Mr. BELMONT. I joined the Bureau, the FBI, in 1936, and in the interim
I worked for public accountants and as a public accountant myself in
California.
Mr. STERN. Would you describe, please, for the Commission briefly your
experience in the Federal Bureau of Investigation since 1936?
Mr. BELMONT. I entered the FBI November 30, 1936, and after the period
of training, was assigned to Birmingham, Ala., as my first office.
I transferred to Chicago in about August 1937, and remained there
until the summer of 1938 when I was transferred to Washington, D.C.,
headquarters.
In January of 1941 I was transferred to New York as supervisor of
applicant and criminal investigative matters, remained there until
the fall of 1942, when I was made assistant agent in charge of our
Chicago office. In January of 1943 I was made agent in charge of our
Cincinnati office and remained there until the summer of 1944 when I
was transferred to New York as assistant agent in charge of criminal
matters in New York.
Subsequently, I was placed in charge of all security work in New York
for a number of years and was transferred to Washington in charge of
the domestic intelligence division in February 1950. I headed that
division until about June of 1961 when I was made assistant to the
director in charge of all investigative work of the FBI and that is my
present position.
Mr. STERN. Could you describe the organization of the FBI with two
purposes in mind: First, to fix your position in the organization.
Second, to provide a framework for describing the investigation of the
case of Lee Harvey Oswald.
Mr. BELMONT. The headquarters of the FBI is, of course, or the FBI is
headed by Mr. J. Edgar Hoover as Director. Directly under him is Mr.
Clyde Tolson, Associate Director. There are 10 divisions broken down in
particular types of administration.
Mr. DULLES. May I say if any of this is classified, highly classified,
you had better let us know because then we could go off the record.
Mr. BELMONT. There is nothing classified here.
Mr. DULLES. Right. I know that you would have that in mind.
Mr. BELMONT. Thank you.
Basically, the division of the 10 divisions at headquarters is
between administrative and investigative. The 10th division is the
inspection division and reports directly to Mr. Hoover. I am in charge
of the investigative divisions which are comprised of the general
investigative divisions handling general criminal work, the special
investigative division handling special inquiries of applicant nature,
and our aggressive approach to organized crime.
The laboratory division handles all examinations of a scientific
nature, and the domestic intelligence division handles all types of
security work. I am in charge of those four divisions, and thus am in
charge and responsible for our investigative work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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