And then in addition this field of computer technology is highly scientific and complex, and I think that the scientific adviser is in an excellent position to be sure that the Secret Service has the very best advice in trying to identify their needs and develop the machines for those needs.
Mr. Rankin. Mr. Secretary, it has been suggested to the Commission that it might be of assistance to you and other Secretaries of the Treasury and the Secret Service to have someone acting as Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury, having supervision, under your direction, of the Secret Service in its various activities, both protection of the President and otherwise. Do you think that that would be of help or would it not?
Secretary Dillon. Well, I am not sure. You see, we have an Assistant Secretary, and I should think he probably would be able to do it as adequately as having another special assistant.
We also have a Special Assistant for Law Enforcement Coordination who coordinates the general work of all our law enforcement agencies and works with outside agencies on overall law enforcement problems.
Probably of interest is that the Treasury Department, I think, has more law enforcement officials working for it than any other agency of Government. It is a very large law enforcement organization, although there are a number of separate organizations that work in different fields.
So we already have this. I think that it probably can be made tighter and should be made tighter.
One aspect of this matter, I think, is the advent of computers, of course, which is very recent and has changed what can be done effectively in this PRS. I think that should be done anyway. One aspect of this matter that probably hasn't had as close and detailed supervision as we may feel appropriate now is the White House detail. It has always operated over the years in very close contact with the President and has operated in a slightly different manner with different Presidents, depending on their wishes.
And it has been felt that as long as they were doing an adequate job, that it was pretty hard to come in and tell them exactly what they should do on a day-by-day basis because the President might not want them to do that sort of thing.
It is a very complex and personal assignment here that is a little different than any other law enforcement agency, and I certainly think it should be followed more closely—gone into in more detail—from the top level of the Treasury Department probably than it has, but even if it is, we are still going to have this problem that we won't be able to tell the President exactly what he should do in each case. So there never will be that close sort of supervision of day-to-day operations of the White House detail—it wouldn't be effective anyway—that there would be in another police operation.
Mr. Rankin. After the assassination, you did have Mr. Carswell take over certain work in this area, did you not?