Mr. Dulles. As it applies to the situation today, without the law which is recommended in your memorandum, and might apply also after that, because the investigation would be required in either case to turn up possible suspects.
My question is, where should that responsibility be primarily centered in order to avoid undue duplication and expense, and yet accomplish our objective?
Mr. Rowley. Well, when you mention duplication, I do not think there has been much duplication in this case, when the President directed the FBI to conduct the investigation to determine whether or not there was a conspiracy.
Mr. Dulles. I am not talking about now. I am talking about investigation prior to, say, the President's visit to city X in the United States.
Mr. Rowley. I see.
Mr. Dulles. Or abroad—where you have the problem of the Secret Service and the CIA.
Mr. Rowley. Well, I think you want to keep the concept of Presidential protection by a small, closely knit group, because of the intimate relationship. But if you want to expand it and give it to another group, to take the long-range view, you do not know what may develop from something like that—whether a police organization could lead to a police state or a military state—if you want to delegate it to some organization like that.
The Chairman. I suppose also, Chief Rowley, that if your people were not doing the spadework on this thing, and keeping their minds steeped in this protection matter, but were obliged to rely on the written records of someone else presented to you, that they would not be in the proper state of mind, would they, to be alert to it?
Mr. Rowley. That is right. There would be a tendency to relax and say John Jones is taking care of it. This is always the possibility that you might encounter something like that.
The Chairman. And in law enforcement, you have to have the feel of the situation, do you not?