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Prompted by the assassination of President
Kennedy, the Secret Service has initiated a. comprehensive and
critical review of its total operations. As a result of studies
conducted during the past, several months, and in cooperation
with this Commission, the Secret Service has prepared a planning
document dated August 27, 1964, which recommends various programs
considered necessary by the Service to improve its techniques
and enlarge its resources. The Commission is encouraged by the
efforts taken by the Secret Service since the assassination and
suggests the following recommendations.
1. A committee of Cabinet members including
the Secretary of the Treasury and the Attorney General, or the
National Security Council, should be assigned the responsibility
of reviewing and overseeing the protective activities of the Secret
Service and the other Federal agencies that assist in safeguarding
the President. Once given this responsibility, such a committee
would insure that the maximum resources of the Federal Government
are fully engaged in the task of protecting the President, and
would provide guidance in defining the general nature of domestic
and foreign dangers to Presidential security.
2. Suggestions have been advanced to the Commission for the transfer of all or parts of the Presidential protective responsibilities of the Secret Service to some other department or agency. The Commission believes that if there is to be any determination of whether or not to relocate these responsibilities and functions, it ought to be made by the Executive and the Congress, perhaps upon recommendations based on studies by the previously suggested committee.
3. Meanwhile, in order to improve daily supervision
of the Secret Service within the Department of the Treasury, the
Commission recommends that the Secretary of the Treasury appoint
a special assistant with the responsibility of supervising the
Secret Service. This special assistant should have sufficient
stature and experience in law enforcement, intelligence, and allied
fields to provide effective continuing supervision, and to keep
the Secretary fully informed regarding the performance of the
Secret. Service. One of the initial assignments of this special
assistant should be the supervision of the current effort by the
Secret Service to revise and modernize its basic operating procedures.
4. The Commission recommends that the Secret
Service completely overhaul its facilities devoted to the advance
detection of potential threats against the President. The Commission
suggests the following measures.
(a.) The Secret Service should develop as quickly as possible more useful and precise criteria defining those potential threats to the President which should be brought to its attention by other agencies. The criteria should, among other additions, provide for prompt notice to the Secret Service of all returned defectors.
(b) The Secret Service should expedite its current plans to utilize the most efficient data-processing techniques.
(c) Once the Secret Service has formulated
new criteria delineating the information it desires, it should
enter into agreements with each Federal agency to insure its receipt
of such information.
5. The Commission recommends that the Secret Service improve the protective measures followed in the planning, and conducting of Presidential motorcades. In particular the Secret Service should continue its current efforts to increase the precautionary attention given to buildings along the motorcade route.
6. The Commission recommends that the Secret
Service continue its recent efforts to improve and formalize its
relationships with local police departments in areas to be visited
by the President.
7. The Commission believes that when the new criteria and procedures are established, the Secret Service will not have sufficient personnel or adequate facilities. The Commission recommends that the Secret Service be provided with the personnel and resources which the Service and the Department of the Treasury may be able to demonstrate are needed to fulfill its important mission.
8. Even with an increase in Secret Service
personnel, the protection of the President will continue to require
the resources and cooperation of many Federal agencies. The Commission
recommends that these agencies, specifically the FBI, continue
the practice as it has developed, particularly since the assassination,
of assisting the Secret Service upon request by providing personnel
or other aid, and that there be a closer association and liaison
between the Secret Service and all Federal agencies.
9. The Commission recommends that the President's physician always accompany him during his travels and occupy a position near the President where he can be immediately available in case of any emergency.
10. The Commission recommends to Congress
that it adopt legislation which would make the assassination of
the President and Vice President a Federal crime. A state of affairs
where U.S. authorities have no clearly defined jurisdiction to
investigate the assassination of a President is anomalous.
11. The Commission has examined the Department
of State's handling of the Oswald matters and finds that it followed
the law throughout. However, the Commission believes that the
Department in accordance with its own regulations should in all
cases exercise great care in the return to this country of defectors
who have evidenced disloyalty or hostility to this country or
who have expressed a desire to renounce their American citizenship
and that when such persons are so returned, procedures should
be adopted for the better dissemination of information concerning
them to the intelligence agencies of the Government.
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