If PRS concludes after investigation that an individual presents a significant danger to the life of the President, his name is placed in a “trip index file” which is maintained on a geographical field office basis.[C8-27] At the time of the assassination the names of about 100 persons were in this index, all of whom were included in the group of 400 being reviewed regularly.[C8-28] PRS also maintains an album of photographs and descriptions of about 12 to 15 individuals who are regarded as clear risks to the President and who do not have a fixed place of residence.[C8-29] Members of the White House detail of the Secret Service have copies of this album.[C8-30]
Individuals who are regarded as dangerous to the President and who are in penal or hospital custody are listed only in the general files of PRS, but there is a system for the immediate notification of the Secret Service by the confining institution when a subject is released or escapes.[C8-31] PRS attempts to eliminate serious risks by hospitalization or, where necessary, the prosecution of persons who have committed an offense such as threatening the President.[C8-32] In June 1964 PRS had arrangements to be notified about the release or escape of approximately 1,000 persons.[C8-33]
In summary, at the time of the assassination PRS had received, over a 20-year period, basic information on some 50,000 cases; it had arrangements to be notified about release from confinement in roughly 1,000 cases; it had established periodic regular review of the status of 400 individuals; it regarded approximately 100 of these 400 cases as serious risks and 12 to 15 of these cases as highly dangerous risks. Members of the White House detail were expected to familiarize themselves with the descriptions and photographs of the highest risk cases. The cases subject to periodic review and the 100 or so cases in the higher risk category were filed on a geographic basis, and could conveniently be reviewed by a Secret Service agent preparing for a Presidential trip to a particular part of the country. These were the files reviewed by PRS on November 8, 1963, at the request of Special Agent Lawson, advance agent for President Kennedy’s trip to Dallas.[C8-34] The general files of PRS were not indexed by geographic location and were of little use in preparing for a Presidential visit to a specific locality.
Secret Service requests to other agencies for intelligence information were no more specific than the broad and general instructions to its own agents and the White House mailroom. The head of PRS testified that the Secret Service requested other agencies to provide “any and all information that they may come in contact with that would indicate danger to the President.”[C8-35] These requests were not communicated in writing by the Secret Service; rather, the Service depended on the personal liaison maintained by PRS with the headquarters of the Federal intelligence agencies, particularly the FBI, and at the working level with personnel of the field offices of the various agencies.[C8-36] The Service frequently participated in the training programs of other law enforcement agencies, and agents from other agencies attended the regular Secret Service training schools. Presidential protection was an important topic in these training programs.[C8-37]
In the absence of more specific instructions, other Federal agencies interpreted the Secret Service’s informal requests to relate principally to overt threats to harm the President or other specific manifestations of hostility. For example, at the time of the assassination, the FBI Handbook, which is in the possession of every Bureau special agent, provided:
Threats against the President of the U.S., members of his immediate family, the President-elect, and the Vice-President
Investigation of threats against the President of the United States, members of his immediate family, the President-Elect, and the Vice-President is within the exclusive jurisdiction of the U.S. Secret Service. Any information indicating the possibility of an attempt against the person or safety of the President, members of the immediate family of the President, the President-Elect or the Vice-President must be referred immediately by the most expeditious means of communication to the nearest office of the U.S. Secret Service. Advise the Bureau at the same time by teletype of the information so furnished to the Secret Service and the fact that it has been so disseminated. The above action should be taken without delay in order to attempt to verify the information and no evaluation of the information should be attempted. When the threat is in the form of a written communication, give a copy to local Secret Service and forward the original to the Bureau where it will be made available to Secret Service headquarters in Washington. The referral of the copy to local Secret Service should not delay the immediate referral of the information by the fastest available means of communication to Secret Service locally.[C8-38]
The State Department advised the Secret Service of all crank and threat letter mail or crank visitors and furnished reports concerning any assassination or attempted assassination of a ruler or other major official anywhere in the world.[C8-39] The several military intelligence agencies reported crank mail and similar threats involving the President.[C8-40] According to Special Agent in Charge Bouck, the Secret Service had no standard procedure for the systematic review of its requests for and receipt of information from other Federal agencies.[C8-41]
The Commission believes that the facilities and procedures of the Protective Research Section of the Secret Service prior to November 22, 1963, were inadequate. Its efforts appear to have been too largely directed at the “crank” threat. Although the Service recognized that its advance preventive measures must encompass more than these most obvious dangers, it made little effort to identify factors in the activities of an individual or an organized group, other than specific threats, which suggested a source of danger against which timely precautions could be taken. Except for its special “trip index” file of 400 names, none of the cases in the PRS general files was available for systematic review on a geographic basis when the President planned a particular trip.
As reported in chapter II, when the special file was reviewed on November 8, it contained the names of no persons from the entire Dallas-Fort Worth area, notwithstanding the fact that Ambassador Stevenson had been abused by pickets in Dallas less than a month before. Bouck explained the failure to try to identify the individuals involved in the Stevenson incident after it occurred on the ground that PRS required a more direct indication of a threat to the President, and that there was no such indication until the President’s scheduled visit to that area became known.[C8-42] Such an approach seriously undermines the precautionary nature of PRS work; if the presence in Dallas of the Stevenson pickets might have created a danger for the President on a visit to that city, PRS should have investigated and been prepared to guard against it.
Other agencies occasionally provided information to the Secret Service concerning potentially dangerous political groups. This was done in the case of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico, for example, but only after members of the group had resorted to political violence.[C8-43] However, the vague requests for information which the Secret Service made to Federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies were not well designed to elicit information from them about persons other than those who were obvious threats to the President. The requests shifted the responsibility for evaluating difficult cases from the Service, the agency most responsible for performing that task, to the other agencies. No specific guidance was provided. Although the CIA had on file requests from the Treasury Department for information on the counterfeiting of U.S. currency and certain smuggling matters,[C8-44] it had no written specification of intelligence information collected by CIA abroad which was desired by the Secret Service in advance of Presidential trips outside the United States.