Now, sometimes a new man might be a year in the Secret Service, and during that period he is on probation, after which we determine through the agent in charge whether his service is satisfactory, and whether he will develop into an agent.
Mr. Dulles. Is the FBI School open to any of your respective recruits?
Mr. Rowley. Well——
Mr. Dulles. FBI Academy.
Mr. Rowley. The Police Academy would be if we had occasion to send them there, if there was something they could benefit from. We do send the White House Police to the FBI Police Academy, because that is more in connection with their police function.
Mr. Rankin. How does your agent get into the Presidential protection?
Mr. Rowley. Well, some of the agents have indicated in their personal history questionnaires submitted each year whether they wish to select an office of duty preference, and there are three offices listed. If an agent wants for one reason or another after a period of 3 years on the White House detail to make a request for a transfer, we consider which of the three offices he selected has a vacancy, and we assign him to that office. Then we bring in one of the new men from the field service to replace him. We then train him in the protective work.
Necessarily, you have to have a nucleus. So there are also a number of men in supervisory positions who have been on the White House detail for 20 or more years.
Mr. Rankin. But your theory is that they should be able to be trained so that they could be shifted to any part of the service?
Mr. Rowley. That is right. And it has this advantage: Once they are trained in Presidential protection, if for some reason the White House detail gets instructions that the President is going to fly to one of the cities, or some hamlet across the country, and we do not have time to get an agent aboard a plane and send him there, or maybe the Air Force has no plane available to transport him there, we pick up the phone and call an agent at the nearest place—and here is an agent that has been trained, he knows the mechanics of the operation, and the procedure, and he goes to work, and effectively lays out the arrangements.