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CHURCH COMMITTEE REPORTS

220
recent contact with him knew that age increasingly impacrod his
judgment. 1Ve all-the Presidents~ the Congress, the Attorneys General,
the press and many segments of the public-knew that, and yet
he stayed on struggling against change and the future. I hope the
committee will weigh the great service he ga\OC this Kation and the
great institution he created and dedicated to the public interest favorably
against what I regard as largely the transgressions of an elderly
man who served with distinction, hut too long.
Senator TOWER. Thank you~ Mr. Katzenbach. Mr. Clark, we have
your complete statement. You may summarize it or read it in its
entirety as you choose. In any case, it will be printed in full in the
record.
TESTIMONY OF RAMSEY CLARK
)Ir. CLARK. Thank vou. )11'. Chairman.
I ask that my 7-page statement be put into the record and I make a
few cOlllments so we can get on with the questioning.
It seems }ike we ha ,-e been through an intolerable series of revelations
of GO\'ernment misconduct. As we approach our 200th anninrsary.
I hope we will renwmber that freedom made this country
possible. and freedom has been our credo, and that we will act with
strength and determination now to see that we can begin our third
century in freedom. It has been imperiled, I believe, by Government
misconduct.
I served 8 years in the Department of .Justice, beginning with the
Kennedy administration and ending at the end of the Johnson administration.
I was no stranger to the Department. ",Vhen I first officially
entered therl', I padded the halls as a 9-year-old kid beside my father.
I love the place. I believe its importance in our social fabric is enormous.
I belie\Oe it is a durable instltution~but I believe it needs help, and
I think the Congress must be a principal source of that help.
I ha\Oe sadly come to the conclusion that the revelations regarding
the FBI and other governmental activities concerning Dr..Martin
Luther King.•J1'., require the creation of a national commission, not
legislative, not executive, although it certainly could contain members
of both of those branches. hut ill\'olving the people.
I think we have a crisis~ among other things, in credibility. I would
like to see people on this commission who were close to Dr. King, who
belie\Oed in his moral leadership and participated in his movement.
la\vyers from his past~ people \dlO worked with him, like Congressman
Andy Young, many others. broad based.
I think the commission should han the power to compel testimony
to subpena witnesses and documents. I do not helieve we can afford to
leaw a stone unturned in exposing for the scrntiny of a democratic
society ewry activity of gOH>rnment that related to Dr. King. to his
frielllis. his associates. his church, the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference. anv of his acti\·ities. to his work.
That is a sa~l thing for me to ha\Oe to recommend. I was Attorney
General \dwn Dr. King was mmdered. I followed that inwstigation
more carefully than any ilwestigation while I was Attorney General.
I had confidpllce at the time that we \\'('I'e doing ewrything that could
be dOll(' to detpl'Inine tIll' facts. Hut Illy confidence and my judgment
don't mattel'. The confidence and tIll' judgment of the people is
imperative.
221
Beyond the reTelations concerning Dr. King-we've had so many
that required drastic action-I list('d aga.in a number of recommendations
that I\'e made from time to time here before, discussions with
staff her(' this morning. I realize I left some out. I think, for instance,
the Director of the FBI should be limited to a term of 4 years. I
suggested this before. I think the term ought to begin at the end of the
second year of the Presidency. so that a President would serve a
Directoi· appointed before his term for 2 years and then 2 years
\vjth someone that he appointed. I don't think that's extreme. I think
it's f'ssential. In fact, I think we have many analogies to indicate the
desirability. Take the Chief of Staft' in the military and things like
that. 'Ve are considering our freedom here. I believe that a society
committed to democratic institutions, aspiring to freedom and hope
and to live under the rule of la\" must have faith in its agents, can
fully protect their interest and serve their needs by fair conduct, by
honorable conduct.
The Congress will have the courage to come to grips and enact laws
to prohibit inYestigative and enforcement activities that are unacceptable
to the moral standards of the American people. I think we need
as a first requisite specific statutes that address every form of investigative
and enforcement acti\'ity prohibiting those that are judged
unaeeeptable. and I would hope that would be a long list, attaching
eriminal sanetion to their \·iolation. I would hope that eonduet !that is
permitted would be speeifieally authorized in statute, so that no agent
on the street would eYer wonder \vhat he is au'thorized to do. And if
Congress determinl's there is a twilight zone, that it \vould vigorously
regulate that t\vilight zone. Some eonsider the use of eleetronic surveillance
to be such a zone. I don't. I think it ought to be prohibited, as
I said when I \vas Attorney General. Hit is permitted, I think it
would require rigorous regulation well beyond what we have considered
in the title III of the Omnibus Crime Control Act. That shows
the eoneern of Congress and it shows, I think, the potential of law to
protect the people from abuse of governmential powers.
I think that any disrupti\'e activities sueh as those 'that you ren~al,
regarding the CODITEL Program and the Ku Klux Klan, should be
absolutely prohibited and subjected 'to criminal proseeution. I believe
the police inYestigation. the crimina1investigation and aecumulation of
<lata fi]rs or dossi(lJ's should be prohibited, except in aetual ongoing
eriminal investigations initiated where there was probable cause to
belien> 'the crimes have been committed, or is about to be committed.
I think information obtained by poliee, by agents of the FBI or
other Fedeml bureaus, from public sourees for general informational
purposes-and I am not a know-nothing-I think that those
\vho have the duty to protect us must know publie information about
the society in which thev lin'. I think that should be made available
always to the publie aiHl to the press in the form in whieh it is
received.
"'here teclmiques inherently inimical to freedom, such as paid informants,
which I oppose, are authorized by law; they should be
stringently J'egulated. I think the standards should exeeed those tha,t,
the courts han~ now impoS{'d upon fourth amendment procedure
regarding sral'ch aIHI seizurr. I think yigorous internal complianee
should be required, regular inspection anel reporting to the highest
222
authorities within the executive, congressional oversight and regular
public reporting with the times, number. and duration of all such
activities. Every individual or organization should be entitled to notice
of, and on demand to review, any information possessed by any investigative
or enforcement agency concerning him, her or it, unless that
information is part of an ongoing criminal investigation, and in
those circumstances it be subjeet to judicial rules of discovery. I believe
it will better serve the public safety and the freedom of the people, and
under any circumstances I think there should be full disclosure not
less than 2 years after the date of the receipt of the information.
'When Government agencies act unlawfully, I think responsible persons
should be subject to criminal sanction, civil damages, and injunction.
I think the law should strictly prohibit unauthorized public
agencies, or private persons, from engaging in authorized criminal
investigations assigned to another jurisdiction. Illustrations that explain
what I'm talking about are such things as the plumbers, as they
,vere called; the use of IRS agents to engage in general criminal
investigation, which can destroy the confidence in the integrity of
the taxmg power that is essential to any Government. I think the law
should prohibit and p\illish le.aks of information from Government
investigations which can either damage reputations, or prejudice fair
trials, and I think we need to be rigorous 'about that. I guess I need
only note some of the revelations regarding Martin Luther King to
suggest to the Department what I'm talking about.
'We need far more effective Freedom of Information Acts, and both
~fr. Katzenbachand I were deeply involved in the formulation of
the existing basic statute !that exists today. I think we both had higher
hopes for it. I know I did. I was deeply disappointed when I argued
the first case under it in the Supreme Court to find that the exceptions
which had been created by ,the Congress were as great as they were. I
think democracy is premised upon an informed public.
Secrecy in Government is one of the great perils to the continuation
of democr.acy and freedom in this society. I think that only rights of
privacy and the integrity of ongoing criminal investigations should
exempt information from disclosure. I think civilian review boards
comprised of the broadest citizen representation with the power to
subpena witnesses and documents, compel testimony, should be created
for all police departments and investIgative agencies by the appropriate
legislati,-e bodies, Federal, State, and local. They should have
the power to oYersee. to check. to initiate studies. to review and determine
complaints of wrongful conduct, and report regularly to legislati,-
e. the executive. the judiciary. the public. and the fourth estate.
If this sounds b\!rdensome. it is in my judgment a small price to
pay and I would hke to end with the words of a great man and a
l~niqnely free American, \Yilliam O. Donglas, on the subject of discretIon.
because I think they tell us what we risk if we continue to permit
unbridled discretion in Federal in H'stigati Ye agencies, or for that
matter, those at State and 10calleYels. He said:
Law has reached its finest moments when it has freed from unlimited discretion
some ruler, some ciYil or some military official. some hureaucrat. Where
discretion is ahsolute, man has always suffered. At tinH's it has .been his property
that has been inYaded, at times his prh-acy. at tiln{'s his lih{'rty of Illoyem{'nt, at
tilll{'s his fr{'{'dom of thou"ht, at times his Iif{', Absolute discrfi>tion is a ruthless
mast{'r, It is more d{'structiYe of fr{'edom than any of man's other inn'ntions.
223
I urge you to enact laws that \yill inform every agent investigating
or enforcing for the Federal establishment of the limits of that discretion.
Thank you.
[Prepared statement of Ramsey Clark follows:]
STATEMENT OF RAMSEY CLARK, FOR~lER ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES
)Iust we remind ourselves? This is America. Freedom is our credo. Because we
overcame fear and live free, our imagination and energy burst across the continent
and built this incredible place. Fulfillment is the flower of freedom, born
of no other tree. Freedom is the child of ~Iother Courage.
What utter outrage that as we approach our two hundredth anniversary of the
quest for freedom striving still to "secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves
and our posterity" we should turn, frightened, careless or unscrupulous, to police
state tactics. Have we forgotten who we are and what we stand for?
Recent yt'ars have seemed a constant revelation of growing abuses of freedom.
Frightened, hateful, insecure, craving power, a thousand ignoble emotions have
justified means to obtain ends. We have felt the hot breath of tyranny in America.
Many haye found it comforting.
Some seeming paralysis grips us. Raised to belie,-e the truth will set you free,
we are told the truth is too dangerous and not for the people to know. A year in
the wake of 'Vatergate, the Congress has not enacted a single law to prevent its
recurrence, while Senate Bill 1 from the Committee on the Judiciary imperils
freedom.
If we love freedom, we will demand a full accounting by government, federal,
state and local, of past conduct threatening liberty.
Your partial disclosures about FBI efforts to destroy the desperately needed
moral leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr. are an important first service. We
need to know more. For years I have pleaded for full disclosure. Five years ago,
writing in Crime in America, I observed:
"There have been repeated allegations that the FBI placed bugs in hotel rooms
occupied by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and subsequently played the tapes of
conversations recorded in the room for various editors, Senators and opinionmakers.
The course of the civil rights movement may have been altered by a
prejudice caused by such a practice. The prejUdice may have reached men who
might otherwise have giveu great support-including even the President of the
United States. The public has a right to know whether this is true. If it is, those
responsible should be held fully accountable. A free society cannot endure where
such police tactics are permitted. Today they may be used only against political
enemies or unpopular persons. TomOrrow you may be the victim. 'Vhoever the
subject, the practice is intolerable."
What you have now revealed demands the creation of a national commission,
empowered to investigate thoroughly all governmental activity relating to
Martin Luther King, Jr., his movement, family, friends, associates, church, the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference, his activities and his murder. The
commission, broad based and fully financed, with the power to subpoena documents
and compel testimony, should report to the Congress, the President and
the People. 'Vhen the evidence warrants it, a special grand jury should consider
its findings. The commission should develop, draft and present legislation, regulations
and review procedures to prevent recurrences of wrongful conduct it
uncovers.
'Ve must recognize the far greater danger and injury flowing from government
misconduct than from any threat claimed to justify it. Govermnent can only be
effective with the support of the peoplp. The people will only support government
which earns its respect. People do not respect "a dirty business."
Law enforcement will not long respect itself when it engagps in wrongdoing.
Intpgrity will bp dpstroyed. Good ppople drawn to public service will abandon it.
A mystique of cunning and surreptition will drive out objective, lawful investigath-
e prioritips and practices. America, too. can be a police state. The only special
immunitv we have known has heen our commitmpnt to freedom.
The n~tion that modprate ::Uachiavpllian means are required by dangerous conditions
and can prpvail o"er a radienl )Iaclliavelli is twice wrong. An unbridled
dis<'retion in policp powpr is the sure road to despotism. 'Ve should learn from
the words of a great and uniquel~' free man, 'Villiam O. Douglas:
224
"Law has reached its finest moments when it has freed from the unlimited
discretion of some ruler, some chiI or militar~- official, some bureaucrat. ·Where
discretion is absolute man has always suffered. At times it has been his property
that has been invaded; at times, his privacy; at times his liberty of mO\'ement;
at times his freedom of thought; at times his life. Absolute discretion is a ruthless
master. It is more destructh-e of freedom than an~- of man's other inventions."
The only acceptable course is constitutional principle.
Kow, as Lincoln urged at Cooper rnion in the darkening year before the Civil
War, "Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the
end, dare to do our duty as we understand it."
A society aspiring to freedom, to the rule of law and democratic institutions,
can prevent domestic insurrection, crime and wrongdoing within its own borders
by fair, lawful, honorable means. To adopt lesser means is to kill the American
Dream.
We gave some cause to the Soviet newspaper Tass to report as it did in January
of this year with regard to CIA-FBI activities "And now it is obvious that
fundamental rights of citizens are flouted in the leading country of the 'free
world.' " It is for you and me now to redeem our pledge to freedom for humanity.
And we must begin at home.
From a larger number of recommendations, I will outline nine proposals
I have urged to control domestic surveillance, preserve freedom and protect
society. I urge the ena.etment of laws implementing them.
1. Specific statutes should authorize, prohibit or regulate every investigative
and enforcement practice for federal, state and local go\-ernment. Obviously,
disrupth-e government acth-ities such as those revealed in Cointelpro or against
the Ku Klux Klan should be subjeeted to criminal snnction. En'ry authorized
act must be founded in law. GovE'rnment agents should not have to guE'SS what is
permitted.
2. Police investigation and accumulation of data, files or dossiers should be
prohibited except in criminal investigations initiated only where there is probable
cause to believe a crime has been committed. Information retained by police
from public sources for general informational purposes, such as newspapers,
should be kept equally available in its original form to the public and the press.
3. 'Vhere techniqu~ inherently inimical to freedom such as paid informants
or electronic sun'eillances (I oppose both) are authorized by law, they should
be stringently regulated. Court orders meeting Fourth Amendment standards
should be required. Internal compliance, inspection and reporting to the highest
authority should be rigorous and regUlar public reporting of times, numbers and
duration required.
4. Every individual and organization should be entitled to notice of, and on
demand to review, any information possessed by any investigative or enforcement
agency concerning him. her. or it. unless that infonnation is part of an
ongoing criminal investigation where it should be subject to judicial rules of
discovery and full disclosure not more than two years after receipt.
5. When goveMlment agencies act unlawfully, responsible persons should be
subjected to criminal Mnctions, civil damages and injunction.
6. Law should strictl~- prohibit unauthorized public agencies or primte persons
from engaging in authorized criminal investigation.
7. Law should PTohibit and punish leaks of information from government investigations
which can either damage reputations Qr prejudice fair trials.
S. Freedom of Information Acts at all levels of government should open investigative
agencies to public scmtiny. Democracy is premised on an informed
public. Only rights of privacy and the integrit~- of ongoing criminal investigations
should exempt information from disclosure.
9. Civilian Review Boards comprised of the broadest citizen representation,
with power to subpoena witnesses and documents aud compel testimony should
be created for aU police departments and investigative agencies. They should
oversee, check, initiate studies, review and determine complaints of wrongful
conduct and report regularl~' to the legislature. executin', judiciary, the public
and the Fourth Estate.
If this sounds burdensome, it is a small priC(' to pay for freedom. Without
such safeguards we will enter our third century with libert~- exposed to clear
and present danger. We must ask ourseh-es. in the words of ,Justice Hugo Black
"whether we as a people will try fearfully and futilE'ly to presen'e democracy
hy adopting totalitarian methods, or whether in accordance with our traditions
and our Constitution will have the confidence and courage to be free."
225
Senator TOWER. Thank vou. ~1r. Clark.
Before we proceed ,,'ith the questions 1 would like to instruct the
witnesses to refrain from mentioning the names of private citizens
unless permission has been given in adnlllce by that person, or unless
the information is already in the public domain. This is, of course, designed
to protect people who may appear in raw FBI data files and
that sort of thing. 'Ye don't want ourselves unwittingly to infringe on
anybody's rights here, and we are investigating the fact that it has
been done by Government agencies.
The questioning of ~1r. Katzenbaeh will be initiated by the counsel
for the minoritv. ~Ir. Smothers.
Mr. S:\fOTHE';S~Thank you, ~Ir. Chairman.
Mr. Katzenbach, your statement suggests that, for much of the
activities we reviewed. or much of the activities of the FBI, these
represented matters that started with Mr. Hoo\'er and were pursued
without opposition, certainly without opposition at the Attorney General's
level. I think it would be fair to say that from some of the documents
which you have been shown, there is at least a suggestion that
Hoover did communicate some information regarding his activities
and may have belieYed that there was some authority based on those
communications.
'Vhat I would like to do briefly with you is to concentrate first on
the area of electronic surveillance, beginning with your own attention
to the area of bugs or regulation of those, and then to move briefly to
the three matters we IU1\'e indicating surveillance of Dr. King and
then to the information regarding your knowledge on those, and
then finally with regard to asking information regarding the
COINTELPRO activities of the Bureau during this time. In the
interest of sa\'ing time, let me just briefly indicate ,vhat our record
reveals with regard to the regulation of electronic surveillance, the
bugs here as distmguished from the wiretaps.
We know that wiretapping had required the prior approval of the
Attorney General. 'Vithout respect to bugs. the Bureau apparently
relied upon a 1954 memorandum by Brownell, when he ,vas Attorney
General, indicating either inherent or delegated authority by the
Bureau to plant electronic bugging devices.
On March 30, 1965, you indicated dissatisfaction with this and
established a rule essentially requiring the Bureau to conform to the
wiretap procedure, that is, come to the Attorney General for permission
to use any such devices.
I see an amendment to that in 1965, where you indicate in emergency
situations the Bnreau could indeed plant such devices, but that notice
would immediately follow, notice to the Attorney General.
Is that account snbstantially correct?
Mr. KATZEXBACII. Yes, it is, Mr. Smothers, except that I did a good
deal more than just put bugs on the same basis as taps. because taps
were not on a wry good basis at that time either. So that my procedm'es
did equate the two, but they in addition required formal notice
to the Attorney General of any discontinuance. and they required a
formal 1'1'-permission fl)r anything that had been on 6 months.
Mr. S:\IOTIIl·;W;. To the best of your knowledge, did the Bureau COI11ply
with those procedures?
226
Mr. KATZENBACII. To the best of knowledge, it complied with those
procedures. I don't recollect ever having any occasion of seeing the
emergency power that you referred to used by the Bureau.
Mr. SJ\lOTlIERS. All right. In your statement you referred to three
alleged incidents of after the fact ad,'ices regarding electronic
bugging. I have a memorandum dated May 17, .1965, entitle?: "Memo.:
randum for the Attorney General, Re: Martm Luther Kmg, .J1'.'
[See footnote, page 21.]
Reading from the first paragraph of that memorandum, the memorandum
is signed by Mr. Hoover, Mr. Hoover reports to you that.
"This Bureau's investigation of the Communist influence in racial
matters has developed considerable information indicating the influence
upon Martin Luther King••Jr." It then proceeds to name individuals
previously discussed; individuals ,vhich the chief counsel
indicated, in his discussion this morning, had been shown at least by
reporting from the Bureau to not be directly under the control of the
Communist Party. Further down in the memorandum, the end of the
first paragraph. Mr. Hoover reports the purpose of the surveillance
activity, or the purpose of the FBI in looking at King here. He indicated
that, "results in obtaining evidence of influences upon King," I
continued to quote, "as well as information concerning the tactics and
plans of King and his organization and the civil rights movement."
Mr. Katzenbach, there are initials on this document in the upper
right hand corners. Are those your initials?
Mr. KATZENBACH. Yes; those are my initials.
Mr. SMOTHERS. Do you recall this information received by Mr.
Hoover?
Mr. KATZENBACH. No, I do not, and I do not know whether I wrote
those initials or not.
Mr. SMOTHERS. I don't understand.
Are they your initials?
Mr. KATZENBACH. Yes; my initials are N. deB. K., and that's
N. deB. K., as I customarily write, in the place where I would custom4
arily write it.
Mr. S~fOTHERS.Does that look like your handwriting?
Mr. KATZENBACH. It looks like it.
Mr. SMOTHERS. Do you believe it to be your handwriting?
Mr. KATZENBACH. I don't ha"e any recollection of ever receiving this
memorandum or the two subsequent memorandums, or the same memorandums
of the same kind. Mr. Smothers. I have no recollection of that,
and I very strongly believe that I would ha,-e recollected it.
Mr. S~lOTHERS. Mr. Katzenbach. if we can stay with my question.
please.
That is. does this look like your handwriting?
Mr. KATZENBAClI. Yes; it looks like my handwriting.
Mr. S~lOTHERS. Do you have any reason to believe that you did not
initial this document?
Mr. KATZENBACII. Yes; because I do not recollect the document and
I believe very strongly that I would recall this document.
Mr. S~IOTTIE&". Can we turn to the next document. please; the document
dated October 19. ID65. stating substantia11y the same information
as was in the first paragraph of the :\Iay 17 document. looking again
to the upper right-hand corner.
227
Are those your initials!
1fr. KATZI~XBACH.Yes, tlH'y are~ and the same situation as before.
1fr. S:~\IOTlIERS. Do they appear to 1)(' in anyone~s hand other than
your own '!
Mr. KATZEXIUCH. Xo. That is the way I ,,-auld write initials.
1fr. S}IOTII ERS. ,Yill you tum to th~ document dated December 1,
1965. u '
Again, going to the upper right-han(l corner, do those appear tQ be
your initials there!
Mr. KATZEXK\CII. Yrs~ the initials appeal' to be minr. The handwriting
immediately lllldernrath that does not appear to be mine.
~fr. S}IOTlIERS. 1fr. Katzenbach. in the normal course of rvents,
would one be rpasonablp in assuming that thrse three documents. separated
by some months in time from the Bureau's files~ with initials that
you indicated appeal' to be yours. rrftect thr fact that you had seen and
initialled these documents!
Mr. KATZEXBACIJ. In thl' normal ('OUI'Sl' of ewnts '!
Mr. S}IOTHERS. ,Yhat is 'Hong ,,-ith that assumption?
,Ve are talking about thrre docum('nts months apart that appear to
be yom initials. according to your testimony. Is there anything that
,vould suggest that someone else hall initialled these documents?
1Ir. KATZf:XB.\Clr. The only thing that would suggest that anybody
else could ha,-e initialled these documents are a series of reasons that
I have set forth in some length in my prepared statement that I think
you are familiar with. ~fr. Smothers. as to why I am confident that I
would han' recollrded these memorandums..
It is also. to my mind. I don't understand, and I never saw any
memorandums. to the best of my recollection, ,vhere the Bureau had
put a microphone surveillance in anyplace and notified me afterward.
Mr. SMOTHERS. I'll come to the substance of the documents in a
moment. Mr. Katzenbach. but let's be ycrv clear on the record in this
matter. . •
Are you suggesting that what appears to be your initials on these
documents in fact represent forgeries?
Mr. KATZEXB.\CH. Let me br just as clear about that as I can. I have
no recollection of I'rceiving these documents, and I seriously believe
that I would ha,-e recollected them hacl I receiwd them. If they are
my initials and if I put them on, then I am clearly mistaken in that
recollection.
Mr. SMOTHERS. Very well.
May ,ve go to the substance of the documents for a moment, and
we'll turn to the docmnent of 1fay 17. [See footnote~ p. 21].
Senator ~r.\TIIL\S. ~Ir. Chairman, if counsel would suspend for just
a minute, there is no (loubt in yom mind that you would have remembered
that document if you had seen it.
~Ir. K,\TZf:XB.\CI!. I haY(' no doubt in mv mind that I would have remembered
it, Senator. On the other hand, if that in fact are my initials.
then for reasons that I cannot nmv explain to the committee, and
whirh I find difficult to conceive, the memorandum must have been
seen by me and initial1ed by me.
Senator ~L\TlIL\S. But you wouldn't ha,-e considered it routine
melll()ralldum~passing over'it?
228
Mr. KATZENBACH. I would have considered it anything but a routine
memorandum.
Mr. Sl\lOTHERS. In that connection, Mr. Katzenbach, is it your testimony
then that you would not have apprm"ed of an objective of the
Bureau as stated in the ~1ay 17 memorandum, to gain information
concerning the tactics and plans of Dr. King and the ci,"il rights
movement? Would you have considered this an improper objective on
the part of the FBI?
Mr. KATZENBACH. Yes, I would have considered that an improper
objective. The Communist influence is another question, and if I might
just go back to something you said a minute ago, Mr. Smothers, I
think it was not my information. You said the Bureau and all of
these people had said that they were not under Communist influence.
If my understanding of that is correct, then I believe your statement
is not correct. At least, I do not belie'"e it e,"er came to my attention
that one of these individuals was not still believed to be a secret and
important member of the Communist Party as far as information
coming to me was concerned. .
Mr. SMOTHERS. That may well be. There is a matter of some dispute
there. We talked about information coming from the New York office
in regard to that indi,"idual. I do not wish to pursue that at the
moment. I grant you that certainly information which may have been
received by the Bureau would indicate there was Communist influence.
My question regarding the Communist influence, though, is rather,
assuming again that you received this memorandum, it would not have
raised questions in your mind as to the nature of this information,
this considerable information which the Bureau had developed.
Would this have, in the ordinary course of things, sparked a request
from you to Mr. Hoover about the nature of this considerable information,
the same language which appears in three memoranda?
Mr. KATZENBACH. I think I can best answer that question, Mr.
Smothers, to say that to gain that kind of information through a
microphone suneillance, and particularly one in a hotel seems to m.e a
crazy way to try to get that information in the first place, but to gain
it in that way, I would have thought was wrong.
Now, for the Bureau or the Attorney General to be interested in information
concerning the tactics and plans of Dr. King's movement
in those times, I am sure would have been something that I would
have been interested in. Indeed. we talked to him often about--
Mr. Sl\IOTHERS. According to the )1ay 17 memorandum, wouldn't
the action ha'"e been in violation of yom own instructions regarding
the use of these dedces? They are reporting to you after the fact
regarding a microphone placement, and tlwy tell you "because of the
importance of the meeting," the meeting between King and these
other persons, "and the urgency of the situation, a microphone
surveillance was effected."
Mr. KATzExBAcn. Yes, that ,vould haH' been in violation. I cannot
see this as an emergency. Then>'s nothing in the memo to suggest
that it's an emergency. It comes to me some days afterward. I was
virtually available to the Bureau e'"ery minute prior to the time this
was put in. My conclusion is that the reason they didn't ask for my
authorization is that they knew they wouldn't get it.
229
~1r. S:\IOTlIERS. )11'. Katzrnbach. tlw rxact same language, except
for a change in datr, appears in the October 1n memorandum and in
the Dl'cl'mber 1 nwmoran<hun, all J'l'porting aftrr thl' faet.
Now, I am a little puzzled by the fact that none of this information,
three occasions of reporting hprr, came to your attpntion, or at least
no recollection camp to your attention. Arp \vr snggesting that these
memoranda were not forwarded to the Office of the Attorney General?
~1r. KATZEXB,\CII. I don't know thr ans\\"('r to that qurstion, )Ir.
Smothers, and I assure you that I am much more puzzled than you
an'. and much morr conceJ'nr<l.
~1r. S:\IOTIIERS. Let me turn to thr last docunwnt. rSee footnote
p. 21]. That one is also thr source of some concern. This document
is on stationery indicating Office of the Attorney General. The document
is handwritten and reads al3 follows:
l\1r. Hoover: Oliviously these are particularly delicate surveillances and we
should lie very cautious in terms of the non-FBI people who may from time to
time necessarily lie involved in some aspect of installation.
There are initials at the bottom. Arr those your initials or signahIres,
Mr. Katzenbach?
Mr. K.UZEXBACII. Yes.
Mr. S:\IOTIIERS. Is this note in vour hand?
Mr. KATZENBACH. It is in my hand and I recall writing it.
Mr. S:\IOTIIERS. The date of the note is December 10, 1~65, 9 days
after the last memorandum regarding the sun-eillances of Dr. King.
You will also notr, written across and apparrntly not in your hand,
printed, are the \vords )Iartin Luther King, .Jr.
This document was found in the Bureau's King file. Do you remember
writing this notr? Do you rrmember what slllTeillances you were
making references to, what delicate surveillances?
Mr. KATZEXB.\CII. I don't recall, and I have nothing in my possession
that has srn-ed to refrrsh my recolh'ction, and nothing has been
shown to me by thl' committee staff that SelTI'S to refresh my rrcolll'c,
tion.
~1r. S:\IOTIIERi". In your opinion, could this notr han rl'ferred to
the threr mrntionrd electronic surveillances against Dr. King?
Mr. KATZENBACH. On its face it says that it did. If I remember any
rl'colleetion \vhatsol'\'er of the first three documents. then it would
Srem to me tha~ would be a possibility. I point out that it could refer
to almost anytlung.
~1y opinion is obviously, since I don't recall getting the first three.
that this was not associated with it. and I really don't hay(' enough
recollection of what was assoicated \vith it to say. I do. 01' I did see
~1r. Helms on that date. 'Whether it relatrs to 'something he asked
for, I don't know.
~Ir. S:\IOTIIERS. Let me raise this qurstion. ~rr. Katzenbach.
Had these memoranda come to thr Officr of thr Attorney General.
would your immediatr staff or thosr persons in your office who would
han. been recri\'ing these nwmoranda, without regard to whether you
actually initiated them, would these persons ha\-r called these matters
to your atteniton?
)11'. KATZEXBM'I1. If thry had seen thrm. vps. thry would. I would
crrtainly assume so, yes. . .,
230
Mr. SMOTHERS. "~as your immediate staff aware of the disagreement
you alluded to earlier between )11'. Hoover and the Attorneys
General, including yourself, on the question of civil rights?
Mr. KATZEXBACII. Oh, yes, certainly.
Mr. SMOTHERS. Then unless,ve are willing to assume that these
documents nm'er reached the Office of Attorney General, we have a
true puzzle.
Mr. KATZENBACH. Yes, I am very puzzled.
Mr. S:\IQTHERS. Let me just raise a question about one bit of information
concerning Dr. King which may have come to your
attention.
Do you recall in 1964 information coming to you re~arding a reporter
who had been offered access to certain informatIOn regarding
Dr. King, certain information that would assist in the ruin of
Dr. King?
Mr. KATZENBACH. Yes, I do. I covered that incident in much detail
as I can presently recollect in the longer, prepared statement.
Mr. SMOTHERS. So that you did, as early as 1964, have some information
to suggest that the FBI may have been interested in an attack
on Dr. King?
Mr. KATZENBACH. Oh, yes.
If your guestion is did I know the animosity between Mr. Hoover
and Dr. Kmg, absolutely, yes, sir, and I knew that this one incident
had taken place.
Mr. SMOTHERS. Would you agree then, that with this information
in your mind, it would have been a clear dereliction to merely initial
or approve the matters-not approve, to initial without taking further
action on the matters mentioned in the memoranda that we have just
been talking about?
Mr. KATZEXBACH. I would certainly expect that if I read the memorandums,
then I would have done something about it.
Mr. SMOTHERS. Let me move along very briefly to one matter,
Mr. Katzenbach.
Mr. KATZENBACH. I would point out that the action in each case was
completely finished and done, but I would have done something about
it. I did do something about the other, Mr. Smothers [see p. 210.] I
did. I went to the PreSIdent with that.
Mr. S~WTHERS. That's correct, and the record does reflect that.
Do you recall receiving information in September of 1965 in memorandum
form [exhibit 44 1 ] from the Bureau directed to the Attorney
General indicating that the Bureau was about the business of
disruptive activities against the Klan ~
~1r. KATZEXBACII. I recall a memorandum the committee showed
me which speaks for itself. I wouldn't characterize it that way
.Mr. Smothers.
Mr. S~WTHERS. Do yOll recall a memorandum [exhibit 45 2] originating
from you back to Mr. Hoo"er indicating your satisfaction with
the Bureau's efforts against the Klan as reflected by that memorandum?
Mr. KATZENBACH. Yes, sir, I do, and they were magnificent.
1 See p. 513.
2 See p. 515.
231
~Ir. S:UOTHERS. Did you approve the Bureau's COINTELPRO
effort against the Klan?
~Ir. KATZENBACII. I never heard the word COINTELPRO as such.
I certainly approved everything described to me in that memorandum.
Mr. SMOTHERS. You approved the disruption?
Mr. KATZENBACH. I approved-I think there's a terribly important
distinction for this committee to make. There was a great deal of
evidence with respect to the Klan's being investigated that they had
engaged and they were the instrumentality of violence, and I would
have approved of activities not only to punish that violence, but activities
within the law to do everything that they could to prevent
violence in those situations. The situation in 1964 in Mississippi was
a desperate one. There was no law enforcement agency in Mississippi
that was worth a damn, and none would protect the rights of clients.
It wasn't until the Bureau went in there, and went in with a massive
investigation under one of its most able inspectors, Joe Sullivan,
after the Chaney, Goodman, Schwerner murders, and I think the
committee basically has to understand the difference between that
situation and the Communist Party or the New Left or something
else.
If you can't make that distinction, then I despair. I think that is
an extremely important distinction.
Senator MONDALE. In fairness to the committee, we're not arguing
at all. As a matter of fact, we are fully supporting the FBI in the
discharge of its essential traditional responsibilities to enforce the
law. The matters you are talking about are all clearly and classically
law violations, and insofar as the FBI went down there and investigated
those who committed or were about to commit crimes of violence,
I don't think there is a person on this committee who would not but
say hurrah.
But we are talking about matters that went clearly beyond this,
and that's what concerns us.
Mr. KATZENBACH. Those matters are not contained in that memorandum.
Senator MONDALE. But I thought I heard in your lecture to us that
you didn't see a difference.
Mr. KATZENBACH. Because of that memorandum. That memorandum
is the basis, because it uses the word "disruption." You cannot
do a criminal investigation of any organization properly without
having some disruptive influence, where you have reason to know that
that organization and its members are engaged in acts of violence,
then by George, you want to disrupt those acts of violence. And part
of the .disruption of those acts is to create open surveillance. 'We did
that WIth the Klan, openly sUlTeyed them, followed them around all
day.
Senator MORGAN. Did you break into their headquarters in Louisiana
in 1962?
MI'. KATZENBACH. Not to the best of my knowledge.
Senator MORGAN. 'Were you in the Department of Justice in 1962?
Weren't you involved in civil rights activities in 1962?
Mr. KATZEKBACH. Certainly I was, Senator.
Sena~or ~ORGAN. 'Well, do you r.ecall, or did in fact the Department
of JustIce ll1struct the FBI or dId they break into the Klan headquarters
and steal the roster of the membership?
66-077 0 - 76 - 16
232
Mr. KATZENBACH. I don't have any recollection.
Senator MORGAN. Would that be within your definition of
disruption?
Mr. KATZENBACH. Breaking and entering? No, sir.
Senator MORGAN. Did the Bureau with your knowledge do any
breaking and entering in any of these matters?
Mr. KATZENBACH. No, sir.
Senator MORGAN. Are you sure?
Mr. KATzENBAcH. I am sure about my knowledge, Senator.
Senator MORGAN. Are you saying that it did not happen or you just
don't recall?
Mr. KATZENBACH. I am saying that I had no recollection of that
event. I don't know whether it happened and I have no recollection.
Senator MORGAN. While you headed the Department of Justice were
instructions given to keep under surveillance all members of the black
student activist organizations regardless of whether they had been
involved in disruptions or not?
Mr. KATZENBACH. Keep under surveillance all members of black-Senator
MORGAN. Student organizations, regardless of whether they
had been involved in disruptions or not and surveillance should inelude
a number of things which were enumerated, including taxes,
checking audits of their taxes.
You know nothing of that?
Mr. KATZENBACH. I don't know what you're talking about, Senator.
Senator MORGAN. You have no knowledge of it?
Mr. KATZENBACH. I have no knowledge of it. Is there a document on
that subject? I'd like to see it.
Senator TOWER. I wonder if we might withhold the production of
that document until such time as the question evolves to the Senator.
The questioning of .MI'. Clark will be initiated by the chief counsel
of the committee. Mr. Schwarz. .
MI'. SCHWARZ. Mr. Clark. sir, has someone put in front of you Mr.
DeLoach's testimony from this morning?
Mr. CLARK. I have a page clipped on top of another page.
Mr. Scmv.\Rz. "'VeIL I don't know if you were here then, but he
testified as follo\vs. He was asked did YOU brief Attornev General
Ramsay Clark on the COINTELPRO act'ivities? And readil1g his full
answer:
Shortly after Mr. Clark became Attorney General, or Acting Attorney General,
Mr. Clark instructed me on one occasion to brief him, to assist him in his knowledge
concerning FBI actiYities, to hrief him concerning all ongoing programs.
I do distinctly recall that on OIl£' occasion hriefinl:' :\11'. Clark concerning programs
of the FBI, that I did generally brief him concerninl:' COIXTELI'RO or
the counterintelligence program, yes, sir.
Now was that testimony of )11'. V('Loach's tl'lle and accurate to the
best of your knowledge? '
Mr. CL.\RK. No.
)Ir. SCIIW.\RZ. And in what respects is it inaccurate?
MI'. CLARK. I do not believe that 11(' briefed mE' Oil anything, even,
as he says. generally concerning COINTELPRO, whate"el' that means.
The next question as YOU see there. Senator Schweiker asked for some
specification of what lie was talking about and he said nothing has
233
been shown to me to refresh my memory. This is DeLoach talking. I
briefed him concerning electronic suneillance that had been previously
authorized by the Attorney General.
\Vell, I don't know what that is supposed to mean. It is certainly a
nOr! sequitU1' from the question.
I had been in the Department for 5% years or longer when I became
Acting Attorney General in September, roughly of 1966. I don't recall
being briefed about any activity in the Department. Ordinarily, when
a new Attorney General comes in, there are big books that they bring
around and tell you what everything was supposed to be. But I guess
the assumption was that I had been around for a while and I'd been
Deputy Attorney General for a couple of years and I was supposed to
~~~~. .
I noticed in the morning that Mr. DeLoach said that I asked hIm to
instruct me, but I believe I sa'" in a document that was handed me this
afternoon that he earlier said that Mr. Hoover asked him to give me
those instructions.
I had difficulty with )11'. DeLoach. It finally resulted in a discontinuation
of our relationship, an unhappy event, but I think they knew
my disposition. 'When I became Acting Attorney General, I had already
opposed the death penalty officially. I had already opposed wiretapping
and other things, and the probability that they were going
to be briefing me very much about something that had I heard of, I
would have stopped, is not high.
Mr. ScmvARz. Is it your testimony then that you had no knowledge
concerning COIKTELPRO from ~lr. DeLoach or any other source?
)lr. Ch\RK. I never heard the word, as far as I know, until the last
couple of years. It came out in the press.
~Ir. SCHWARZ. Apart from the word. did you have any knowledge of
Bureau programs to disrupt or neutralize any of the five target groups,
the Communist Party, the Socialist 'Workers Party, the Klan, the
Black Nationalists, or the Xew Left?
Mr. CLARK. \Vell, cases would arise. Ifs hard to think of the best
illustration.
I will recall, I had been sent to Selma to enforce Johnson's court
order protecting the marchers from Selma to )Iontgomery and that
Friday night I was flying back and got a radio message that Mrs. Viola
Liuzzo had been murdered. And I well remember my dismay and I
believe it was Monday-perhaps Nick can recall-lo and behold the
FBI had solved the case, so to speak. And it seemed like a wizardly
piece of investigative work. But it turned out, from what I understand.
that actually there was a paid FBI informer in the murder cal'.
Certainly I knmv about that. I remember being deeply concerned at
the time. I remember discussions in the Department whether there was
any possibility that that murder could have been prevented, and that
is something that will ahvays haunt me. Certainly law enforcement
has as its first responsibility the prevention of crime.
Mr. SCHWARZ. Did you have from the Bureau any knowledge that
the BUI'eau had a program to disrupt the Ku Klux Klan?
Mr. CL,\RK. I had no knowledge. You all showed me a memo of
December 19G7. I belie\'e, that indicates I had a cOll\-ersatioll ,vith
)11'. IkLoae!l in ,vhich I asked him apparently for a briefing on what
is going on with the Klan.
234
When I ,vas interviewed by your staff people I couldn~t recall why
I asked him about the Klan at that time because that was really well
after the Department focus on the Klan as a major enforcement
problem.
My assumption now is it must have becn related to the Xeshoba
County prosecution, which was just about wrapping up at that time.
This comes not from any recollection I had, but from a conversation
with the subsequent Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Civil
Rights Division and that perhaps John Doar or others in the prosecution
in the case put the idea in my head because the Klan is not something
that we were focusing on. 'Ve had bad riots that summer. 'Ye
were deeply eoncemed about what would happen the following year.
",Ye had riots now three or four summers in a row.
Mr. SCHWARZ. Could you just look at the document and we~ll go
through a couple of words in it. It is a memorandum dated December
10,1967 [exhibit 46] 1
Now, let me just take you through a couple of the words in it, the
language, and ask you after doing that whether you recollect receiving
the information and whether you now read the document as putting
in a notice of a program to disrupt the Klan?
The cover sheet describes the conversation as a request for FBI
coverage and penetration of the Klan. Then in the attachment under
FBI responsibility, Mr. Clark, the second page of the attachment, it
talks of the objectives as including, "second, we conduct intelligence
investigations with the view toward infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan
with informants, neutralizing it as a terrorist organization, and deterring
violence."
And then starting on the sixth page, under "Special Projects," they
deseribe various States, and I am picking out just particular examples.
And the other material in the document has no connection with CO
IKTELPRO type activity, so I'm just picking little excerpts and asking
whether they put you on notice.
Under Florida, it states that the Bureau had made an effort to bring
personal misconduct to the attention of the Klan rank and file of a
certain leader. And then on the next page, also under Florida, we
found that by the removal of top Klan officers and provoking scandals
within the State Klan organization through informants, the Klan in
a particular area can be rendered ineffective.
And then under Mississippi, a leader of the Klan has been removed
and discredited. Then under Louisiana, referring to some other leader,
this action contributed to the organization and disruption of the
United lOans in Louisiana. And then under Virginia~ an effort, is
described to contain the growth of the Klan.
Xow in a sense ,,-hat I've done is a little unfair to vou, because I have
taken isolated words in the document. But giYen' those words, why
didn~t they put you on notice, or in fact. inform you that the Bureau
was engaged, not merely ill seeking to prosecute crime and not merely
seeking to deter violence, but also on attempting to neutralize, disrupt,
through tactics such as cansing scandal?
Mr. CLARK. I don't think it's unfair. I don't know how else you would
get at a document like this.
1 See p, 516.
235
Did they put me on notice? Xo. 'Why? I either did not read them, or
if I read them, didn't read them carefullv.
You know I grew up in the South, alid the Klan wasn't any outfit I
ever cared about. I don't recall concern or focus on Klan activities.
E,"en things like the Neshoba case were just late coming to trial.
There was something" that they're as anguished as we had all been.
It was 4 years before It came to trial. Or;) years, I guess.
I had long since discovered that the Bureau's investigative capacity
in many types of southern criminal activities that they had jurisdiction
over \vere inadequate and we had, on occasion, to preempt their
function often with young attorneys who had no significant investigative
experience.
So I guess I think I didn't read this. I think perhaps I had asked
for it for someone else, and either bucked it on to them or I never saw it,
I haven't found anybody in the Civil Rights Division who was
aware, and these were people who worked in the South intimately, I
had been down there virtually every year after I came into office, By
that I mean as Assistant Attorney General. 'Ve were aware of programs
that were disrupti\'e and other than prevention of threat of
crime, in a sense, and I guess that's all I can tell you about that,
Mr. SCHWARZ. 'Ve'll come back to some other subjects, Mr. Clark,
if you want.
Senator TOWER. Senator .MondaIe ?
Senator MONDALE. Mr. Katzenbach, I read your full statement. It
was placed in the record. In the recommendations section there are
many observations with which I agree. You have to understand the
times during which these occurred, You have to understand some of
Hoover's predispositions. You have to understand the enormous popularity
he tnjoyed with the American people, with the Congress, everywhere.
You have to understand the risk and fears that Americans felt
deeply during much of this. I buy that.
Yet my problem with your recommendations is that you indicate
there isn't much we need to do about it except make certain we have
good oversight and that we ne,"er again let someone stay there too
long, and this recommendation seems to flow from what you say was a
general awareness of what Hoover was up to and Hoover's eccentricities
in later life.
I have a good deal of difficult~· with that analysis. First of all, while
many may have been aware of ~fr. Hoover's prejudices, I think very
few, apparently from your testimony eYen the Attorneys General, were
unaware of some of the excesses that go beyond the law, beyond constitutional
rights that were being practiced.
Of course the classic case is Dr. King, which occurred while you
were Attorney General, while both of you served under the then Attorney
General, and during which almost a classic KGB type of harassment
program was going on against a major moderate civil rights
leader. How then can we say that this agency was accountable in the
light of this record?
~rr. KATZEXBACH. I don't think that YOU can.
Senator MONDALE. Did I misunderstand what yon were saying?
~Ir. KATZEXBACH. No. I think yon characterized it slightly different
than I ,vould have characterized it, Senator. I believe, as I said, that
236
simply exposing this gets you a long way toward sohing it and makes
it much marc difficult for it to re-occur ,dth the gentleman sen-ing almost
half a century in that job with his own yiews.
1£ we have similar problems, tIll' Congn'ss ought to think of them in
other agencies. 1 didn't mean to say that that was the end of what the
Congress could do. I think you can certainly do things. tighten up the
wiretapping legislation. I have no problem with doing something on
surveillances. I think ,,-c have got a problem in terms of being sure
that you can hold the Attorney General responsible.
I would think, for example, that an Attorney General ought
to have access to Bureau files. 1£ he wants them and wants to put
people in for a particular access that I don't think even the staff of this
committee has, and I don't think the Attorney General has it today.
Senator MONDALE. ·Well, I think many of them disappeared 111
smoke. The OC files just disappeared one day.
Mr. KATZENBACH. I think an attorney trying the case, the principal
trial attorney, ought to have full access to all Bureau files in that case.
I think procedures of that kind which you could prescribe by legislation
or which an Attorney General can prescribe, help to hold him
responsible for what's going on.
Senator MONDALE. In order to have responsibility, you have to have
standards to judge them by.
Mr. KATZENBACH. Yes.
Senator MONDALE. One of the problems here is to define what ar(',
those standards. But our failure to have them specifically defined has
brought us to a point where these agencies have been in disgrace and
where even the spokesman for the FBI yesterday was pleading for a
definition of their authority so they wouldn't continue to be kicked
around the way they are.
Your second point was that a good deal of this was simply traceable
to Mr. Hoover. But how do ;you explain that while this was going on,
we had Operation CHAOS 111 the CIA, which was just about as bad,
maybe just as bad. You had the IRS freely participating in CO
INTELPRO using the IRS, in my opinion illegally, for general investigative
and surveillance purposes. You had another agency of Government
freely tapping the international lines of communications. You
had the postal department opening up thousands of letters illegaHy.
You had all of these agencies participating directly and indirectly, not
only on illegal intelligence gathering, but harassment, neutralization,
and all of the rest.
Then, of course, you had the creation of such things as the plumbers,
and the infamous Huston plan, about which, for, I think, irrele,'ant
reasons, Mr. Hoover was the only one to say no. Everyone else said
yes, including the former Attorney General and the generals in the
services, e,-erybody liked it. except Mr. Hoover. He didn't like it.
So how can we be content with the notion that we've solved this
problem when we've carefully analyzed Hoover's historic role in the
FBI and we never should let anybody get in that position again?
Mr. KATZENBACH. I don~t think we can, Senator.
Senator MONDALE. Then you've written inartfully.
Mr. KATZENBACH. Can I urge you to think of two buckets. One is
what kind of rules ought to be legislated, what kinds of rules. what
237
can you do, things, what procedures you're going to set up by legislation.
Go to it. ~Iake them as clear as they can be made. Fine.
The other side of the problem is admimstration, and that is the
side I was directing it to. .Make that responsive not merely because
you prescribe the rules, but because they're going to be carried out. Because
Senator, the Bureau's rules, the Bureau's manual with respect to
informants are pretty good rules. There may be areas that ought to be
covered more, but they're pretty good-they weren't followed.
So you have to have the two. You have to insure that you're not
going to have an administrative system-if you had an agency as not
as severely controlled as the FBI by Mr. Hoover or the Attorney General,
you would have heard about that because one of the agents would
have told him or if they were scared to tell him, would have told the
press and it would have come out in almost any agency of the Government.
It seems to me those kinds of activities would have been leaked
to someone.
Sel~ator MOXDALE. You talked of Hoover's popularity. There's no
questIOn about that. He also had a tremendous power of fear oyer
everybody, including Presidents. \Vhat he knew, how he could embarrass
them, gave him his chance. I think Stalin used to shoot his
KGB agents Hery ;{ years to take care of that problem. I don't think
that remedy is available. But ifs almost similar to trying to get civilian
control of the military. You need civilian control of the investigative
agencies to keep them in a place where they are responsive, accountable
and must comply with the law.
Mr. KATzExBAcH. I agree with that and I don't think-it's the sort
of thing that Mr. Clark is talking about the committee ought to seriously
consider. I think they ought to be looked at and examined to see
what you can do by legislation. I don't have any problems with that.
Senator MmmALE. Then I misread your statement. I thought you
were saying we just made a mistake in letting one man sta.y on too long.
I remember you said, "I believe in a strong executive." Do you see anything
inconsistent in believing in a strong executive and insisting that
the executive restrain its activities to those permitted by the law?
Mr. KATzENBAcH. Absolutely not and I think that the major function
the Congress can perform and perform well is to lay down the
rules and then see, through the kind of innstigation that you're doing
now, whether they are being complied with.
Senator MONDALE. vVell, I am past my time. I'll ask one question
and I'll ask both of you to respond to it.
The history of the FBI is that it was created under the leadership
of Mr.•Justice Stone for the precise purpose of getting it out of politics
and restraining it to the role of law enforcement to enforce crimes, to
enforce the civil laws of the land.
Then as the years went on and the fears of the Nazis developed and
of the Communists in the 1930's, vVorld \V"ar II, the cold war, civil
strife here at home, they forgot that charter and increasingly went
beyond the law into a new role of one imposing political and moral
orthodoxy upon the American people. I don't know how else you could
describe it. It was this crucial and fateful step beyond the law enforcement
role that in my opinion turned the FBI to the same kind of
posture of embarrasSment that finally led to the termination of its
predecessor, the Bureau of Investigation.
238
Would you agree with me that one of the essential and crucial steps
to be taken if we're going to preyent the recurrence of this problem is
to somehow very carefully and efl'ect.iYely restrain all of the&> organizations
from ever again getting into the so-called political ideological
roles that we have seen?
Mr. KATZEKBACH. Yes; I do agree with that, Senator. I think you'll
have to face the problem in the futnre that ,,,ill not be the problem of
the Communist Party. I will make it somewhat simpler. You will have
to face the problem of political ideological groups who are going to
be engaged in acts of violence. Violence is getting easier and easier,
and you're going to haye to face the problem- and set up procedures to
determine not on the political beliefs, but that will permit an inyestigation
where there is some reason to believe the group might actually
be engaged in violence. And I think it's important to concentrate on
that.
Senator MOXDALE. That could be defined, couldn't it?
Mr. KATZEXBACII. At least you could define the procedure and you
could define some standard. You cannot get rid of all discretion.
Senator MONDALE. You could make it subject to a warrant, couldn't
you?
Mr. KATZEKBACH. No, I don't think so.
Senator MOl"DALE. ·Why not?
Mr. KATZENBACH. ·Well, you could. Obviously you could. Congress
can legislate anything that's not unconstitutional. I don't think a warrant
would be the proper way to go about it. It might be for whatdepending
upon what technique you're talking about.
I would concentrate on the question of who is going to be investigating
as a more important question than the means of investigation.
If you're talking in the political area, the standards are the who, not
the how.
Mr. CLARK. Senator, I agree with your statement of the historical
development. It is as perceptive and brief a statement as could have
been made on the situation as I see it. I agree that the failure was
that the Bureau became ideological and that is the antithesis of the
uninhibited investigator who has to follow any fact, any place it
leads him.
I think the solution is to limit investigations to criminal matters
defined by statute. I believe it is improper to use public funds to gather
information about people we don't like or we are afraid of. I think
if we continue to permit that, not only wiII we inhibit the discovery of
truth and the testing of unpopular ideas and personalities in the marketplace
of public opinion, but that we will risk a police state because
we have seen perYasive police actidties and we shouldn't blink at it.
I think the investigator must not be a know-nothing, but that the
information that he has generally about activities and people and
ideas should come from public sources and be publically arailable
when you get to the place of assembly, and if you do that, then I
don~t think that we need to fear, except by violation of the law, abuse
of investigati,-e power that can get us back into the situation we've
just been through.
Senator l\fOXD.\LE. I just want tD conclude that I t~lked to an old
high-level, retired FBI agent and he put it simply. He said we were
a great Ol'ganization until we got into 'politics and politics ruined us.
239
SenatOt TOWER. Senator Mathias ~
Senator )LTIIL\S. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I basically haye onp cOlilprehensin> qupstion ,,-hich I ,,"mild addrpss
first to Mr. Katzpnbach. Thp committee's inypstigation of the
domestic intelligencp function, in a very real sense, is a historical
study. And history can be not.hing more. than an afternoon's amusement.,
if you can call it that, lmless we make some use of it. And it is
in that spirit that I would like to explore what I think is one of the
fundamental issues now on the record: first, t.hat. everything we\"e
talked about, mail openings, COIXTELPHO, informants, bugs, ,,-iretaps,
whateyer the technique may be, is ahyays preceded by one conscious,
cLeliberate human act, and that is the decision to undprtakl'
domestic intelligence ill\"estigation of a group or of any indiYidual.
Some human being has to make that decision, or some group of human
beings.
In the past that decision has been primarily within the sole discretion,
or largely in the sole discretion of the Bureau, and I think it is
fair to the Bureau to say that in the overwhelming number of cases it
has been a discretion that has been exercised soundly and properly.
But the Constitution recognizes that whether it's the Congress that's
involved, or whether it's the Presidency that's inyolved, or whether
it's the courts that are involved, you have to ha"e some check and
balance in the exercise of discretion.
Now, you have said in your statement that decent law enforcement
is always less a matter of legislat.ive prescription than the judgment
of people. I would set up against that the man who appears to be the
favorite source of quotations for this committee to date, and that's
James Madison, who said that if men were angels, no government
would be necessary, and although a dependence on the people is no
doubt the primary control on the government, experience has taught
mankind the necessity of auxiliary precaution. So I suppose, to use
that phrase from Madison, what kind of auxiliary precautions do you,
and, I hope, that :Mr. Clark would address himself to the same question,
what kind of precautions would you suggest to us in the light of your
experience as Attorney General ~
.Mr. KWZEXBACH. I think you're quite right in saying that in the
sort of a political area, it spIlled O\"er when the Communist Party,
perhaps the Kazi party a little bit. but primarily the Communist Party
and into the cold war period and so forth, it just spilled over into other
radical groups. That's an awful standard. The Communist Party itself,
I still don't know if faced with that situation really how to deal
with-if you assume thp Communist Party is a disciplined organization
operating under the control of a foreign power, that is a very
difficult problem to know how YOU deal with it. It shouldn't spill over
into other ideological groups. '
I think today the point I was trying to make, in a way, with Senator
Mondale, you can proscribe certain techniques, but I think the
problem of who is im'estigatpd is a difficult onf'. I agree with Mr.
Clark. it should be today, ,dlen you have rf'ason to belie'"e that crimes
are committed or are about to be committed, then investigate. I think
when you're talking about political groups-and some political groups
will rpsort to ,-iolent acti,"itif's-an open investigation into that group
to determine ,yhich members are spawning yiolencf'-I think that procedures
should be set up ,,-hich puts that decision squarely in the hands
240
of the Attorney General with a, written memorandum which he
preserves as to what facts "'ere presented to him.
Senator MA'l'lIIAS. Could you analogize "'hat you are suggesting to
the Attorney General's fourth amendment role, in wiretaps, for example,
under the present practice?
Mr. KATZENBACH. 'VeIl, I wouldn't want to because I think the
present statute goes further and probably requires less because it uses
national security, a term I think virtually is undefined, and is virtually
undefinable. I think I would limit it to todav. I would limit it to reason
to believe that crimes have been commItted or are going to be
committed.
But, because it's a political organization, I think particular care
should be taken in terms of opening up an investigation for the reason
that I think any investigation is obviously an invasion of privacy
otherwise enjoyed, oh\'iously can have some disruptive effects. And
then I think I would concentrate some on the techniques that ought
to be permitted and the procedures there.
Senator MATHIAS. Mr. Clark, would you like to comment on that?
Mr. CLARK. I think you have asked the most critical question, and
I guess I think this is the question that my paper basically addressed,
certainly the nine points that I made.
You have an assumption, how6\'er, that I have to disagree with. I
don't believe that ordinarily these things begin with a conscious,
deliberate decision that there's nothing that's gone before. and suddenly
there's a decision 'and everything flows after it. I think when I
try to analyze my experience with different investigations, what I see
is a long preliminary period where there are beginnings and there's
information coming in.
Senator :MATHIAS. You find a bottlecap manufacturer "'ho hasn't
paid his sales tax, and it leads you to a bootlegger sooner or later.
Mr. ("LARK. 'Vell, you take the slow development of the FBI's addressing
the phenomenon of organized crime. I think as late as the
mid-Hl50s Mr. Hoover was saying organized crime or the Mafia didn't
exist. but finally there was an accumulation of both FBI cases and
investigations and a bunch of litt Ie statutes that gave them very little
reach into it, of knowledge that-to challenge that assumption.
The \"Cry thing with wiretaps. Mr. Hoover opposed the usr of wiretaps
late into the 1930's, 1937. 1938 as I recall. So I think those things
go slowly.
I believe if we are going to be a Government of la,,'s, that we have
to have regular procedures, that we have to inform agents of activities
that are permittrd. I really do not believe that group investigations
unrelated to facts and acts pertain to every member of the group. In
other words, I don't think the group can he larger than the number of
people that you han' probable cause are acting or are about to act.
In other words. inevitably you~rC' g-('tting into the Boy Scouts and
everybody in the Boy Scouts is going to be im·olved. In the Ku Klux
Klan. C'\"Crybody in the Ku Klux Klan was suddenly involved. That's
a dangerous 'yay to address the problems of crimI' and antisocial conduct
by people who want to li"e in frerdom. They ought to be based
on acts and individuals, and not organizations or beliefs.
Senator MATHIAS. Thank you \"Cry much. Mr. Chairman.
Srnator TOWER. Senator Morg-an ?
241
Senator MORGAK. ~1r. Clark, would you go a little further?
Did I lUHlerstand from your last statement that you thought the
ill\'estigation should be based on acts of individuals rather than necessarily
their vie\ys?
Am I following you correctly?
Mr. CLARK. Yes.
I even believe that-and I have for many years, Senator-our
conspiracy law, I think the body of conspiracy law, so to speak, has
developed to such a state that it is inherently unfair. 'Ye ought to get
away from it and address acts. The law should address acts individually.
Senator MORGAN. Mr. Clark, I certainly agree with you that the
conspiracy law constitutes one of the greatBst threats to our freedom
of any law that I know of.
Now, Mr. Katzenbach, am l' correct in my recollection that somewhere
along the way you did know that bugs were being placed in Dr.
Martin Luther King's offices or hotel rooms or someplace that he was?
Mr. KATZENBACH. I have no recollection of that. I do have a recollection
of a wiretap in the SCLC office. I do have a recollection of the
wiretap that I took off from Dr. King's home phone.
Senator ~loRGAx. I think I remember some other document that
we had.
Mr. KATZEXBACH. There were three documents, and we discussed
them earlier, Senator, where I said I had no recollection, and I
strongly believed I would have a recollection of them if I had seen
them. They do bear my initials in what appears to be my handwriting,
and that is a problem for me because clearly if I did initial them,
I did see them. And they did constitute notice after the fact of installation
for less than 24 hours on three separate occasions, installation
without my prior authorization, and installation not in accordance, in
my judgment, with the practices that I had laid down. And I believe
if they had been presented to me in advance, and I assume in fact,
they occurred from these documents.
Senator MORGAN. 'Yell, one of the things I find in your statement
and I heard that interests me-on page 42,1 you state that you were
informed by a reporter that the reporter had been offered a tape by a
member of the FBI which contained derogatory materials concerning
Dr. Martin Luther King. which I believe he saicl-I can't find the
exact statelllent-"that came from bugs or tapes," and you went to the
President, but you never at any time asked Mr. Hoover where the tape
was, whether there was such a tape in existence.
Did you pursue that in any way?
Mr. KATZEXBACH. I did not pursue that with ~Ir. Hoover myself.
I did pursue it with the Bureau agent involved. The reporter, in my
recollection, Senator, the reporter identified the Bureau agent involved
and identified that tape as a Georgia Bureau of Investigation
tape, not as a Bureau tape.
Senator MORGAx. Mr. Katzenbach, I don't quite understand, unless
I take your statement on the whole that you frankly were afraid to
deal with Mr. Hoover.
Mr. KATzEXBACII. Ko. sir, frankly I felt that the President would
deal with Mr. Hoover, and I belieyed that he did.
1 See p. 210.
242
Senator MORGAN. But you "ent to the President. You didn~t go to
Mr. Hoover about this tape~ and I assume thafs \vhy the President had
appointed you as Attorney General.
Mr. KATZEXBACH. I wasn~t at that time Attorney General. I was
acting.
Spnator "JIoHGAN. You \Yl'l'e Act ing ~\Jtonwy General?
Mr. KATZENBACII. I "as acting.
Senator MonGAN. But you still had the responsibility for the dirE'ction
of the Federal Bureau of IllV<'stigation, didn~t you?
"JIr. K,\Tzt~XBACII. Yes. sir. I cC'rtainly (lid.
Senator ~IORGAX. And you did not'inquirC' of Mr. Hoover or any
other high official if such a tape existpd in the Georgia office or any\
vhereelse?
Mr. KATZENBACII. It was denied to me, Senator.
Senator "JIoRGAN. Ih whom?
Mr. KATZENBACII. By the agent who did it.
Senator MORGAX. You didn~t pursue it any further than that?
Mr. KATZENBACH. I certainly did. I went to the President.
Senator ~IORGAX. You're implying, ~Ir. Katzenbach, in your statement,
that you resigned over a disagreement. or because of the bitterness
that had gro"n up between you and Mr. Hoover.
Mr. KATZEXBACII. That "as certainh a factor, Senator.
Senator MORGAN. 'Was any such reference made to that point when
you resigned, and did you warn the public about what you conceived
to be a threat from the Federal Bureau of Investigation?
Mr. KATZENBACH. No, I certainly didn't, Senator. I didn't conceive
it to be that threat at that time.
Senator MORGAX. 'Yell, did vou not conceive the situation in which
the Attorney General, who had responsibility over the conduct of the
Bureau, the Federal Bureau of Investigation-you didn~t conceive of
that relationship as being a threat to the orderly operation of the
Department of ,Tustice oyer the Bureau?
Mr. KATZEXR\CH. Oh, I felt that it was. I didn't think that fact
was secret, Senator. I think Mr. Hoover's reputation and knowledge
and power were known to the public, on the Hill, ewrywhere. I don't
think anybody in either House of Congress thought that any Attorney
General could exercise the theoretical power he had in firing Mr.
Hoover.
Senator MORGAN. Did you ever ask Mr. Hoover for any information
that he refused to furnish you?
Mr. KATZENR\CII. I don't recall Her asking for any information
that he refused to furnish to me. 'Yhether the information I got was
accurate or not, I don~t know, or \vhether it was all the information in
the files, but I don't I'peall him PH'r saying "yon havp askpc1 me for
this and I will not gin' vou that inforl1lation.~'
Senator MORGAN. 'Yell, did hp e"cr fail to satisfy you with regard
to any requests to the, extent that you went back and asked for more
information?
~Ir. KATZEXR\CH. 'Yell, there were a number of occasions where I
\ynntpd the Bureau to get into something and they didn't want to
gE't into it. I goUE'SS that~s really \vhat you're talking about.
Senator ~IonG.\x. Did he Her fail to carry out any instructions or
ordersthatyouga\"ehim? ."
243
Mr. KATZENBACH. It seems clear to me that if he installed these
three bugs, he failed to carry out the orders and instructions that I
gan, him, but I did not know that, or 1 have no rocollection of knowing
that at the time.
Senator MORGAN. Now, earlier you made the statement that in light
of the horrible experiences and crimes that were committed, you
thought that anything you could do to disrupt the Klan was justifiable.
Do you place all Klan members all across the country in that category?
Mr. KATZENBACH. Senator, I never said that or even made a statement
like that, and I don't think that kind of characterization of my
testimony is a worthy one.
Senator MORGAN. Well, Mr. Katzenbach, you did make it a little
earlier. You even said, "not like the Communist Party." \Ve'll ask the
reporter to read it back.
Mr. KATZENBACH. All right, sir, On what I said about the Klan on
disruption, if I said anything at all, which is what you just now said,
of course I didn't say that, Senator.
Senator MORGAN. \Vell, if you did not, I misunderstood you. But
you said that-you cited a number of crimes that had been committed
which "'e all applauded. You said, as I understood you to say, "we're
not dealing with anything like the Communist Party," and you named
some other organizations, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference,
but you're dealing with-I forgot exactly how you characterized
it, but would you now subscribe to Mr. Clark's theory that
you must deal with individuals and investigate individuals and not
characterize a whole group?
Mr. KATZENBACH. I don't think that I would, Senator, because if
we'd have been dealing with individuals, we would have been dealing
with the members of that group.
Senator MORGAN. All of them?
Mr. KATzENBAcH. \Vell, you'd want to find out which ones, and
the way you would find out would be through informants within the
group. and in(leed. that is what happened; in the case of the \Vhite
Knights, that's exactly what happened. I think you have justice-I
don't see the distinction. I hate to disagree with Ramsey, because he's
often right, and I'm wrong, but I don't see any distinction to go after
the six top members of the group, that it's any different from going
after the group.
Senator MORGAN. Well. because there were some in the group, do
you justify discrediting all of the members of the group?
Mr. K.\TZENBACH. 1Ve were not talking about all Klans, Senator,
hut we were talking about certain segments of the Klan in certain
places. \Ve were talking primarily about the White Knights. I believe
that all of the members of that group were dedicated to and preached
violence and other unlawful deprivations of the rights of individuals.
1\"ow. members went to different extremes as to what they did, but
I be!ieve that they were all dedicated to an unlawful purpose, to be
earned out by unlawful means.
Senator ~iORG.\X, So. bv your belief that they were all-then you
were willing- to disrupt their activities whether you had evidence on
those indi dduals or not.
Mr. IC\TzExn.\clT. Senator, I drscribed this in my opening statement.
T say that T was not. to the best of mv reeol1ection. awaJ'e of any activities'that
J regarded as improper, aJ;d then I name them. '
244
Now, even in that context--
Senator MORGAX. I'm sorry. I can't hear you, Mr. Katzenbach.
Mr. KATZEXBACII. I'm sorry. Previously, I described what I regarded
as the Klan investigation," an investigation of their violent acts to
be, and I don't see anyplace on there ,,-here 1 say ,,-hat you characterize
as my testimony.
Senator MORGAX. "'VeIl, didn't you just say a moment ago that all
members of the ",Vhite Knights ,,-ere dedicated to violence? Yall said
that just a moment ago.
Mr. KATZENBACII. Yes, sir, I said criminal deprivations, and I think
that they were. And if saying all is too broad a statement, let's take 98
percent. They talked at their meetings, they took credit at their meetings
for the murders of Chaney and Schwerner and Goodman, open.
at their meetings.
Senator TOWER. All right. Now you've made a broad statement. Document
it. When?
Mr. KATzExBAcH. Yes, sir, I will. I would be happy to supply documentation.
[See Appendix A, page 841].
Senator MORGAN. All right. Would you please supply it, and let's
go on to something else.
We talked about Mr. Hoover. I want to ask you if you didn't testify
informally yesterday afternoon before some staff members that you
personally asked Hom-er to float a false rumor that .James Meredith
was going to register at the University of Mississippi and that Mr.
Hoover refused, because you wanted to see what the KKK's reaction
was.
Mr. KATZENBACH. That is substantially correct, sir.
Senator MORGAN. So you did?
Mr. KATZEXBACII. I didn't say the KKK part of it was not correct.
We had information at the time of the integration of the University
of Mississippi that there were many persons who were going to come
to that campus, and come with guns and :prepared to commit violence.
",Ve got information-it was Bureau intellIgence-they expected people
from as far as Texas and Florida and other States. I suggested at that
time, and I suggested it to the Assistant Director, Al Rosen, I said,
"since Meredith is going to go on Sunday, why don't we float the rumor
that the university will be integrated on ",Vednesday, and see what happens.
See where there is a lot of convergence of traffic, the preceding
",Vednesday, to see what "'ould happen." And Mr. Rosen talked to Mr.
Hoover and said Mr. Hoover declined to do it because the Bureau
would not be involved in the spreading of any false information. So
I dropped it.
To this day I think that would have been a useful thing, and a lot of
people who got hurt would not have been hurt if we had had that much
intelligence in advance. Maybe I was wrong or unethical, but I'd do it
again.
Senator MORGAN. In other words, in your mind, the ends justify the
means?
Mr. KATZEXBACH. "'VeIl, I think there are times when the ends justify
the means, and it depends on what the means are and the ends
are.
Senator MORGAN. "'Yell, you were Attorney Geneml in September
1964.
1 See p. 207.
245
Mr. KATZEXBACH. Yes, sir, I was Attorney General, Acting Attorney
General, from September 4, 1964 on.
Senator MORGAN. And Mr. Clark, you were Attorney General in
August of 1967?
Mr. CLARK. Yes, sir.
Senator MORGAX. I want to read to both of you a comparison of two
memorandums that went out from the Federal Bureau of Investigation
while both of you-while both of you were Attorney General.
It was under your direction, even though you may not have exercised
that direction.
One was a letter dated September 2, 1964, to the Georgia office concerning
White Hate groups, wlder your administration.
Mr. KATZENBACH. Not technically, it wasn't under mine.
Senator MORGAN. ·Why wasn't it under your administration?
Mr. KATZENBACH. Because Mr. Kennedy resigned September 3-Senator
TOWER. ·Would the Senator suspend for a moment? These
gentlemen appear to be coaching the witness. If they are acting as
counsel, they ar~ acting pro bono. Would you please identify yourselves?
Mr. CUTLER. My name is Lloyd Cutler, Senator. rm a friend of Mr.
Katzenbach.
Mr. BARR. My name is Thomas Barr, Senator, and I'm also a friend
of Mr. Katzenbach.
Senator MORGAN. Were these gentlemen associated with you in the
Department of Justice ?
Mr. KATZENBACH. No, sir.
Senator MORGAN. Do they have any personal knowledge of the matters
that we're talking about?
Mr. KATZENBACH. No, sir.
Senator MORGAN. I believe you said Mr. Kennedy resigned 1 day
later.
Mr. KATZENBACH. Yes.
Senator MORGAN. The letter to the--
Mr. KATZENBACH. I don't mean to make a point of that, though.
Senator MORGAN. \Vell, at this point what I'm trying to do is to
show that the tactics used by the Bureau went from one side of the
spectrum to the other. One went to Atlanta with regard to White
Hate groups under your administration or Mr. Kennedy's. The other
went to Albany, N.Y., to the Black Nationalist under Mr. Clark, and
I don't mean to say that either one of you had personal knowledge
of it.
The first one on the \Vhite Hate groups, the purpose, to "expose,
disrupt, and otherwise neutralize." ·With regard to the Black Nationalists,
the purpose, "to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise
neutralize." No distinction made as to what acti"ities, just Black
Nationalists.
The second, No.2, with \Vhite Hate groups, there were no individuals
targeted. \Vith the Black Nationalists, they were instructed to
target Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, Elijah Muhammad, Maxwell
Stanford.
Three, the \Vhite Hate group was instructed to concentrate; that is,
"subject to continuing counterintelligence" on "action groups", "the
246
relatively few individuals in each organizations who use strong-arm
tactics to achieve their ends. Often these groups act without the approval
of the Klan organization or membership:~'With regard to the
Black Nationalists, no similar distinction was made bebveen violent
and nonviolent. Instructions to "counter their propensity for violence
and civil disorder."
With the White Hate, No. 4 target was "various Klans and hate
organizations, their leadership and adherents.~~ 'With Black Nationalists,
target "black nationalist, hate-type organizations and groupings,
their leadership, spokesmen, membership, and supporters."
FIve, with the 'Vhite Hate, the "devious maneuvers and duplicity of
these groups must be exposed to public scrutiny." Black Nationahsts,
the "pernicious background of such groups, their duplicity, and devious
maneuvers must be exposed to public scrutiny."
Six, with regard to both groups, we must frustrate any effort of the
groups to consolidate their forces or to recruit new and youthful
adherents."
Seven, with 'Vhite Hate, "capitalize upon organizational and personal
conflicts of their leadership." Seven, with Black Nationalist, "exploit
organizational and personal conflicts of the leaderships, and
where possible, capitalize upon existing conflicts between competing
black nationalist organizations."
1Vith the 1Vhite Hate, when using media, "furnish assurances the
source will not reveal the Bureau's interest or betray our confidence."
1Vith the Blacks, "insure the targeted group is disrupted, ridiculed, or
discredited through the publicity and not merely publicized."
I think both of you all have already heard testimony or read documents
where false press releases were used.
'With 1Vhite Hate groups, list of targets, 17 Klan organizations,
9 hate organizations: Alabama States' Right Party, American Nazi
Party, Council for Statehood (also known as Freemen), Fighting
American Nationalists. National States' Rights Party, National Renaissance
Party, United Freemen, Viking Youth of America, White
Youth Corps. Black targets-Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee,
Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Revolutionary Action
Movement, Deacons for Defense and Justice, Congress of Racial
Equality, and Nation of Islam.
Ten, on both sides, "The agent must be alert for information which
has a disruptive potential. The information will not come to him, he
must look for it."
With regard to the Black Nationalists [reading] :
Many individuals currently active in black nationalist organizations have
backgrounds of immorality, subversive activity, and criminal records. Through
rour investigation of key agitators, you should endeavor to establish their unsavory
backgrounds. Be alert to determine evidence of misappropriation of funds
or other types of personal misconduct on the part of militant nationalist leaders
so any practical or warranted counterintelligence may be instituted.
With regard to the Black Nationalists [reading] :
Consideration is to be given to techniques to preclude violence prone or rabble
rousing leaders of hate groups from spreading their philosophy publicly or for
various mass media.
You are urged to take an enthusiastic and imaginative approach to this new
counterintelligence endeavor and the Bureau will be pleased to entertain any suggestions
or techniques you may recommend.
247
I think it~s true that the Bureau is interested in whole groups and
not just indiYicluals "'ho ,wre subject to this kind of harrassment.
I'm sorry~ ~lr. Chairman. I went oyer my time.
Senator TOWER. That's quite all right. You can thank your colleague
from Colorado. Mr. Hart.
Senator HMiT of Colorado. Gentlemen. as with our investigation of
the subject of assassination attempts on foreign leaders~ in this whole
area there is a constant tension bebveen the theory-the runaway
agency, in this case the Federal Bureau of Investigation-yersus the
theory all the Bureau was doing in any of these periods was what they
thought the political leadership of the country wanted them to do.
This was, as I'm sure you are aware, a very difficult problem for this
committee to try to pin down, not only responsibility, but also to idmtiry
how these institutions can prevent some of these abuses in the
future, and I think that second goal is more the purpose of this committee
than to try to pin blame for the past.
And in that connection, I would specifically like to ask Mr. Clark a
question or two about a specific case in point that I think he was
involved in in the fall of 1967. And that ,,-as the establishment of
something called the Interdivision Information Unit within the Department
of .Justice. And there are several documents in the period
from September to December 1967 that I think came from the Attorney
General himself with regard to the establishment of this unit.
I'd like to quote you some very brief portions from these documents
and then ask a couple of questions along with the institutional lines
that I started out with.
In a memorandum dated Sept~mber 14, 1967, signed by you, Mr.
Clark [exhibit 47 1J:
"In view of the seriousness"-all of these relate to riot activities and
I'm sure you can recall some of this:
IIll view of the seriousness of the riot activity across the country, it is most
important that you use the maximum available resources, investigative and intelligence,
to collect and report all facts bearing upon the question as to whether
there has been or is a scheme or conspiracy by any group of whatever size, effectiveness
or affiliation, to plan, promote or aggravate riot activity.
In the last paragraph of that same memo:
Moreover, sources or informants in black natiOl!lalist organizations, SNCC and
other less publicized groups, should be developed and expanded to determine the
size and purpose of these groups and their relationship to other groups and also
to determine the whereabouts of persons who might be involved in instigating riot
activity in violation of federal law.
And then in the confidential memorandum that follows, it is dated
November 9, 1967-relating to the establishment of this unit [exhibit
48 2J :
To carry out these responsibilities we must make full use of wd constantly
endeavor to increase and refine, the intelligence available to us, both from internal
and external sources concerning organizations and individuals throughout
the country who may playa role either in instigating or spreading disorder or in
preventing or checking them.
The last paragraph of the memo: "You are free to talk with the
FBI and other intelligence agencies"-this is the establishment of a
1 See p. 528.
2 See p. 531.
66-077 0 - 76 - 17
248
special unit inside Justice-"in the Gm'ernment to draw on their experience
in maintaining similar units, in exploring possibilities of
obtaining information we do not now receive, and to carry out other
purposes relative to this assignment."
And then, finally, in a memo from the Attorney General to several
othe: people involved on December 18, 1967 [exhibit 49 1] :
It shall be the responsibility of this unit for reviewing and reducing to quickly
rdrievable form all information that may {ome to this Department relating
to organizations and individuals throughout the country who may play a rol{',
whether purposefully or not, either in instigating or spreading civil disorders,
or in preven-ing or checking them.
'Well, I think that nobody, including the members of this committee,
are in favor of riots or civil disorders, and I don't think the
line of questioning should suggest that anybody condones that. The
questioning, I think, as to ~fr. Clark should be obvious; how do you
carry out your functions as the principal law enforcement officer,
using the devices at hand, and at the same time do so without establishing
or suggesting a mandate to agencies like the FBI that can be
used to infringe upon people's constitutional rights?
So is it more caution in lise of language? 'Vhat is it? 'Vhat is it
that can be done to prevent this intelligence unit from. as apparently
it did, being the focal point of the computer list that made its way to
the IRS, and became their special list of people in the tens of thousands
to watch?
'Vhat can we do in retrospect, in your experience. to prevent riots,
to prevent the breaking of law. but not to give institutions like the
FBI the kind of running room that apparently they used to violate
people's constitutional rights?
Mr. CLARK. 'VeIl. I think the best answer that I can rrive is contained
in Nos. 1 and 2 of the nine rerommendations that I have made.
and what they basically do is to didde your knowledge into that
accumulated in the course of the criminal investigation, based upon
probable cause. to believe that a crime has been or is about to be
committed, based upon, obviously. statutorv authorization. and hopefully.
very soon based upon a legislative prescription prohibited, prohibitive
and rerrulated investigative technioues. and a method of
publicly acumulating knowledge that is essential to be aware. simply
be aware of what's going on in your own countrv and your own town
and your own part of town where there may be trouble.
'Vhat we found-I should say somethinrr about IDIU. Of couri'le. I
was deeply involved in its creation. and it began shortly. the ideas
that led to it. began shortly after the Detroit riots where we found an
unacceptable ignorance of basic data.
The Army, for instance. having to stop at filling shtions to get
roadmaps to know which wa,' town was and things like that. not
knowing who the Attorney General or the mayor's assistant was.
Public information. It's a big country, and it wasn't acrumulated.
Also. not knowing what was going on locally, even though it's pnhlic
information reported on the radio there, reportect in the prE.'Ss. You
diiln't know wherE.' there was a raid on rars thflt led to the riot. Now.
I think YOU cannot fnnction with a know-nothinq philosonhv in om
complex' society. and yon haye to be ablr to urcnmnlutr knowledge
1 See p. 533.
249
that you need to know. You haye to have quick call on that knowledge.
'VI' found many Federal agencies "'ith knowledge. ,VI' found
three diyisions of the Department of .Tustice with knowledge that
other divisions didn't ha\'e what thev needed to know to enforce the
statutes that they had responsibility over. The IDIU was initially
an effort to bring together, to coordinate. to analyze, the data that
was available and to hopefully stimulate more information. And
the three diyisions were the Criminal Division, the Civil Rights
Di\'ision. and the Internal S(>curitv DiYision, which had responsibility
primarily because they have" all the manpower and nothing
to do, which should ha\'e been abolished. and I recommended that, a
couple of years ago, but they were still there, and we needed the help
and \ve called on them.
,VI' started out with one young woman, a very able young woman,
but that was the dimension. She couldn't even keep up with the mem06
that were coming in from all these agencies. I couldn't keep up with
the ones that were coming in to me alone. Of course. there were many
more going to the Assistant Attorneys General than I ever saw. A total
of 700,000 im'estigations, FBI im'estigations. You heard about that
time. ,Yhat we \vere trying to do \vas get our knowledge together
where we could use it. I believe in a bureaucracy. I think it's essential
in mass society. But I find it frequently a very unresponsive P?enomenon,
You have to prod. And I think that language was usmg
some of their terms to get them to mO\'e.
Senator HART of Colorado. You think that language was too broad,
in retrospect? .
Mr. CLARK. I don't like the lang:uage. and I think it should be, you
know, a much-in the best of all worlds it would be much cooler language,
if you will, but we would be way lwyond where we are now, We
would have not just a law and a guidance, but a practice and procedure
that would tell us, you know, what is permissible and what is impermissible
in that area.
I don't think the unit ever had investigative capacity, It had no
manpower to investigate. It never had the capacity to even organize
the information it got by the time we left. as far as I know; and what
happened later, I can't say for sure. I think the idea was right. It does
not always help to recall the past. hut in August of that year, or perhaps
early September, there was, for instance, an article in Life magazine
with pictures of people with rifles on tops of buildings saying that
the same groups are causing riots throughout the cities. The then Governor
of Maryland was quoted on the front page of the Washington
Post one morning saying that he had information that the same people-
it was Mr. Agnew-had caused the riot in Newark and Detroit,
and we tried to find out how come he knew so much more about it
than we did.
That was the temper of the country. There was a real belief. as there
always is when you're afraid. that there wer(l some evil conspirators
out there that are causing all of your problems. And I think that
needed to be addressed. And the idea that this \vas done secretlv is
wrong. The information. you know. was publicly announced. The
,Yhite House referred to it on a number of occasions. It \vas something
that we felt essential and was not a secret operation at all.
Senator HART of Colorado. Well, I don't believe I suggested it was.
250
.Mr. CLARK. 'Yell, you said a confidential document, and it may have
been a confidential document in the formulative stage, but we
announced it.
Senator HART of Colorado. 1Vell, the :Kovember document says that,
"Planning and creation of the unit must be kept in strictest
confidence."
But I think you said in a passing phrase-it was quite a comment,
that you said, "I don't know what happened to it after I left." That is
part of the problem. People with good intentions often leave, and they
are replaced with people whose intentions are not the same as theirs.
It is the capability of computer lists and enemies of the state that
bothers all, and I think any help that you can give us on the guidelines,
however beneficial and helpful and necessary such an operation may
have been at that time, \vhat can be done to head it about so that it
isn't used by someone \vho doesn't have the same constitutional ideals
as someone who put it together.
Mr. CLARK. 'Yell, \ve never know what happens when we leave. We
have to operate on faith, finally, don't we, the assumption that our successors
will act in as good faith as we do.
Senator HART of Colorado. No.
Mr. CLARK. Well, above all, you can't refuse to do anything out of
fear that someone won't later fulfill their responsibility, and the idea
that I could bind some subsequent Attorney General-see, I didn't
know that Mr. Mitchell was going to replace me at the time. In fact,
I didn't know who he was until several years after he was Attorney
General.
Mr. KATZENBACH. Well you did know he wasn't going to use you.
Senator HART of Colorado. Well, I would quarrel with you. I think
that is why we have laws. I think we can use the laws and the regulations
that spring from it to prevent the kind of abuses that we've had
in the last few years. But I do think that you have to take the worst
case assumption about human nature sometimes, particularly with the
kind of power that we're talking about here, to see what can be done
to regulate and control them, and not just say that I hope the fellow
that follows me is as good as I am.
Mr. CLARK. Well, I hoped that he was better, but I am not sure that
we really disagree. I believe the checks are central. I have gone beyond
what I have ever believed the Congress would do in checks. It's all
there. But with all those, the idea that you can proceed finally other
than with faith, with cautions and prudence but faith, is wrong. You
have to believe finally in the good will of the people and the good will
of future administrations. and the idea that you can hind them now
and watch the night watchman is wrong. There are 7,700 FBI agents,
and how I could ever hope to know of their individual activities is
beJ:ond. I think. the capacity of technology or humanity. You have to
!leben>. that they care. You have to believe that they know what their
duty is. and you have to believe that in the main they will do their
duty, a~d then you have to have systems that will hopefully reveal
theIr faIlure.
Senator HART of Colorado. 'VeIl. I share your faith in the people of
this eountry. perhaps less in future administrations. Thank you.
.Senator TOWER. Mr. Clark. in your printed statement that you submItted
for the record, you said where techniques inherently limited
251
freedom, "such as paid informants or electronic surveillance-I oppose
both-are authorized by law, they should be stringently regulated." I
believe that in your oral statement you did say you felt they should be
outlawed.
Mr. CLARK. That is correct.
Senator TOWER. Or that electronic surveillance should be outlawed?
Mr. CLARK. I would outlaw both.
Senator Tmwr. You'd outlaw both?
Mr. CLARK. Yes; I think that paid informants finally destroy the
faith I was talking about earlier, and ,,,hen you meet some of the paid
informants on the other side of the counsel table in cases that I've met
in the last 5 years, you don't like what our Government has been doing.
It is an inherently corrupting phenomenon, and it is not necessary to
effective investigation, and the sooner we break away from that, the
sooner we will be more effective and freer.
Senator TOWER. According to documents in the possession of the
committee, and according to the testimony of Mr. DeLoach this morning.
you, on October 29, 1966. ordered the physical surveillance of
Mrs. Anna Chennault which included electronic surveillance, is that
correct?
:Mr. CLARK. That's ridiculous. Senator. I don't think I ever heard
anything like that before in my life. Absolutely false. I don't know
what you're reading from-that I ordered it?
Senator TOWER. Let me read Mr. DeLoach's testimony.
To the best of my recollection on that specific case, the Executive Director,
I believe, the Executive Secretary of the ~ational Security Council, Mr. J.
Bromley Smith, called me on one occasion and indicated the President of the
.United States wanted this done. I told Mr. Smith that I thought what he should
do is call the Attorney General concernin~ this matter, and I believe either
:\fr. Hoover or I later received a call from the Attorney General indicating that
this should be done.
Mr. CLARK. I never heard of it.
Senator TOWER. vVe have in hand an FBI document, a memorandum
from Mr. Sullivan to ~fr. John Dean in the 'Vhite House dated
February 1. 1975. It's--
Mr. CLARK. 1975?
Senator TOWER. Yes. This is a recent investigation. It says, on
October 29, 1968, Mr.•J. Bromley Smith on the White House staff,
the Exrcutive Srcretarv of the Xational Security Council, was in telephone
contact with Ca~tha D. DeLoach, former assistant to the Director
of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Smith advised that he
was speaking on behalf of President r~vndon B. Johnson, requested a
telephone surveillance be installed on the Embassy of South Vietnam.
He stated there was urgent need for the vVhite House to know the
identity of every individual going into the South Vietnamese Embassy
for a 3-dav period. Physical suneillance of the embassy was
instituted immediately. Director lIooYer sent in a written request to
then Attorney General Ramsev Clark on October 29. 1968. The Attorney
Genenll authorized the installation. .
Another reference to the South Vietnamese Embassy installation,
and then. on October 30. 1968, Smith advised that President ,Johnson
desired immediate physical surveillance of Mrs. Anna Chennault. the
widow of Gen. Claire Clwnnault of Flying- Tiger fame. Physical
surveillance was instituted on ~frs. Chennault to cover her activities
in Washington, D.C.
252
So you had no knowledge of that?
Mr. CLARK. Senator, you didn~t ask me about the Vietnamese Em·
bassy, did you?
Senator TOWER. No: I did not. That was just included in here.
Mr. CLARK. I authorized electronic surveillance on a good many
flmbassies in the national securitv field.
Senator TOWER. I understand. that. That~s not part of my reasons.
Mr. CLARK. But the rest I never heard of.
Senator TOWER. You did not authorize electronic surveillance on
Mrs. Chennault?
Mr. CLARK. Or physical surveillance.
Senator TOWER. DeLoach testified to our committee earlier, "The
usual physical surveillance. as I recall, Senator. following- her to
places where she went in the city of ",Vashing-ton. and as I rerall a
statement made this mornin!!. also a trip that she made to New York."
I then asked DeLoach, "Did it involve the constant monitorin~ of
an_y and all of her incoming- and outgoing telephone calls?"
Mr. DeLoach replied, "I believe the instructions of the President
and at the instruction and approval of the Attorney General, that a
wiretap was placed on her telephone, sir."
Mr. CLARK. 'Well, he believed wrong.
Senator TOWER. So vou never authorized that?
Mr. CLARK. Never authorized it, never heard of it until this moment.
Senator TOWER. Do you think 1It'r. DeLoach perjured himself before
this committee?
Mr. CLARK. Well. I can't read his mind. You'll have to examine
him to determine that.
Senator TOWER. WelL apparently the FBI did do it. You will not
stat!' that the FBI (lid not do it?
Mr. CLARK. I don't know whether the FBI did it. I know that I had
never heard of it until this moment.
Senator TOWER. Well. there were a lot of reports on Mrs. Chennault's
rominrrs and goings also included lwre in memorandums that were sent
to the White House on the surveillance of Mrs. Chennault.
Mr. CLARK. Do any of them show a ropy ~oin~ to the Attorney
General?
Senator TOWER. No. This is directlv from the FBI to the White
House. These reports of Mrs. Chenmlult's movements, they do not
indicate anything to the Attorney General.
Mr. CLARK. I never heard of them.
Senator TOWER. You were not aware this was going- on ?
Mr. CLARK. I never heard of them. I turned down scores of
refluests.
Senator TOWER. If you had been aware of it, would you have ordered
it stopped or sug-gested to the White House ~
Mr. CLARK. "'VeIL I would have to know what the grounds for it
were.
Senator TOWER. But vou were not a,,'are that it was occurring?
Mr. CLARK. I neYer l~eard of it. T J1C\"er IWflrd anything about it. I
didn't know what the grounds were. How could 1--' ~
Senator TOWER. Tlw FBI resisted it originally on the grounds that.
according to the testimony and arrordiJ1g- to this document, the FBI
253
insisted that the order come from the Attornev General because the
FBI apparently reasoned that this was a politi~al surveillance.
;\11'. CL\RK. ,VeiL the President's Executive order. Perhaps it wasn't
done on Executive order, at least a memo from the President instructed
to all agencies that there be no electronic surveillance without
the approval of the Attorney GeneraL so it 'would-I guess he could
countermand his own order, but it would be required by his own order.
But there is no-I never heard of it.
Senator TOWER. ·Well. in the absence of any grounds of suspected
criminal acti"ity, would you suspect that that would be a violation of
Mrs. Chennault's rights?
Mr. CLARK. Certainly.
Senator TOWER. Thank you.
Mr. Katzenbach. you've indicated that if the documents mentioned
by ;\11'. Smothers were in fact initialed by you, that they would constitute
some evidence of dereliction of your duty as Attorney General.
Now, you've further indicated that although the initials on these documents
appear to be in your hand, you would remember these docu!Dents
if you had seen them. Is there any plausible reason or any ratIonale
which comes to vour mind ,vhich should lead the committee to conclude
that these documents, and your handwritten note of December 10 of
the same year, are anything other than genuine?
Mr. KATZENR\CH. The handwritten note is genuine. I testified to
that. I think that "dereliction of duties" was Mr. Smothers words, not
mv own. I think I would han~ certainly remembered if I had seen
them. ..
Senator TOWER. You're suggesting, then, that your initials are
forged.
~fr. KATZEXR\CH. I suppose that has to be a possibility. The other
possibility, Senator, is that for some reason on three separate occasions
these documents came to mv office. I sa,v them. I initialled them, and
in some way was careless ahout tIlt' reading of them, because against
all of the facts I put in my statement. I beliHe wry strongly that I
would have recollected it. It is hard for me to see how I could haveon
one occasion, sure. I might haYe missed a sentence at the end and
thought it was just another information memo on :Martin Luther
King. It·s hard for me to believe that I could miss that on three. And
of course. if the December 10 note in fact refers to the December 1
memorandum, then clearly I read that one.
Senator TOWER. Thank VOU. ;\:[1'. Katzenbach.
:Mr. Schwarz? .
~fr. SCIIW.\RZ. ~fr. Clark, I ,vant to discuss a remedy problem that
you haven't gotten into, and get your vie'vs on it.
. Does the FBI frequently rely on local police to prO\-ide them with
mformation?
Mr. CLARK. Yes. a great deal of information. more than that: literally.
cases are turned over to the FBI by the local police. .
Mr. SCHWARZ. And that's a relationship which is, of course, important
for the FBI carrying ont its inYestigative activities.
Mr. CLARK. I think it is essential to effective innstigation in the
Federal system.
:Mr. ScfnvARz. Now. I asked OJl(' of the associate counsel to show you
two docunwnts from Director Hoover. \\Titten short]y after the Deinocratic
Convention in 1968. .
254
Have you got those?
Mr. CLARK. 'Well, it looks like I'm about to have them.
Mr. SCHWARZ. Well, before I question you about the documents, did
you, in your capacity as Attorney General, look into the beating of
demonstrators that occurred at that conyention1
Mr. CI~\RK. Oh, yeah; you see, I had sent Roger 'Vilkins, who was
head of the Community Relations Service, out there a month before.
I sent out 'Yes Pomeroy, "'ho ,yas special assistant for the law enforcement
experience. The Deputy Attorney General went out at the
time. Bob Owen. from the Civil Rights Dn·ision. was out there. 'Ve
had urged the city to give permits to demonstrate. to gi"e a permit
to take the stadium over where Lakeshore Drive is. 'Ve had an investigation
underway-I think by the Saturday, a formal investigation.
I was working with the principal people involved by that
weekend.
Mr. SCHWARZ. The weekend after the convention?
Mr. CLARK. At the end of the convention.
Mr. SCHWARZ. And did you involve the Bureau in the events which
had taken place in Chicago?
Mr. CLARK. Well. I'm sure we did.
Mr. SCHWARZ. There's no evidence you ever got these documents,
and I'm not in any way suggesting that you did. but I'd like to read
into the record what Director Hoover instructed his Bureau chiefs to
do in connedioI' with that investigation. First, from the document of
August 28, 1968. [Exhibit 50] 1 He refers in the first paragraph to
the fact that the police had been criticized for using undue force. and
then in the next paragraph instructs the agent in charge in Chicago as
follows: "The Bureau should be alert to the situation and be in a position
to refute unfounded allegations whenever possible."
And then in the telegram of September 3 to about 14 Bureau offices,
he instructed them as follows: [exhibit 51] 2
In view of recent accusations against Chicago authorities relating to their
handling of demonstrators at the Democratic National Convention. the Bureau
desires to collect all possible information regarding provocations of police hy
demonstrators, and the reactions of the police thereto.
Those excerpts indicate that what Director Hoover was interested
in, was refuting the charge that the local police had beaten the demonstrators,
and the question first, did you know that Director Hoover
had issued those instructions?
Mr. CLARK. No. That's contrary to anything I ever heard.
Mr. SCHWARZ. Would yon regard those instructions as proper?
Mr. CLARK. No, they are highly improper.
Mr. SCHWARZ. Now the problem or remedy I'd like you to focus
on is. given the fact that the Bureau must necessarily depend upon
good, close relationships with local police, and given this instance of
attempting to disprove allegations against local police, what if anything
should the committee focus on as far as that relationship and
that problem?
Mr. CLARK. Well, the question raises all the issues that cause me to
place as the number one civil rights enforcement priority official misconduct,
In the Orangeburg massacre. for instance. we finally had to
1 See p. 535.
2 See p. 537.
, t
255
take the inYestigation essrntial1y tnyay from the FBI. In this Chicago
situation I sent two teams out. onr from the Ciyil Rights I>iyisioll
\yith its statutes to enforcl'. ami Ollp from tI\(' Criminal IliYisioll \yith
its statutrs to enforcp. and eight police officers hac] (n\(' hills returlled
agaimt thrm while I was AttorIlry (~pneral. had tnIP hills Yotpd against
thplll. Tlwy ""('I'(' not fOrIlla]]y rptlll"JH'(] until latpr.
This is the problem that we had throughout thp South. particularly
while the so-called rrsident agent policy was in oppration, \yhere an
agent could opt out of prolllotion or opt out of promotion possibilities
and rpmain as a resident agent. and soon camp to idl'ntify more closely
\yith the local sheriff's office and the local policp dqJartJ11pnt than he
did with his own superiors liecausr that's where he liyed and that's
where he operated eYery day..\nd I guess the operational solution
that \n' foun(] was the general intprcession in these critically important
casps. ]wcause tlwy really test the integrity of goyernments, and
they will ad to redress wrongful conduct by their own at some other
leyel. or other lewIs of gowrnmrnt.
I guess we found it necessary to use tl1(' Ciyil Rights Diyision, and
that is basically what we did.
Now, what can be done better than that? I hope ,,"e can find something
better than that to rIo. That is awfully hard. I think rotation
of prrsonnel. I think intrrchangr of lwrsonnpl. for instance, I think
you could enact into la"w, or you can see that the offices of investigation
haye a policy, if there are charges of police misconduct against
the sheriff's office in Los Angeles. for instance, that agents will be
used for inn'stigation from Chicago or someplace else. But there's
that sort of problem, or that sort of possible technique.
I \yould be inclined against the establishment of an inYestigati\"e
agency exclusiyely for this purposr. Those. too. get out of hand. You
nerd to haye an institution \yith owrall integrity that can function
t.hat way. but I think there are techniqurs that can reduce the problem.
At Orangeburg it took us \yeeks to discoyer that the Special Agent
in Charge was sharing a hotr] room \yith the head of the State
police \yho had bl:'en at tIl(' scenr of the killings. and those are hard
lessons to learn. 'Ye just pre-emptpd the FBI in those cases. I guess
I think that's something that really requires some legislative evaluation
and perhaps resource becausr it is imperative that official misconduct
be the highest priority in Federal enforcement.
Senator TOWER. Senator Morgan, do you have any more questions?
Senator ~fORGAX. No.
Senator TOWER. Gentlemen, thank you for appearing today and
thank you for your coop(,J'ation with th(' committee.
Tomorrow afternoon tlw committee \yill rcassemblr at :2 o'clock.
The witnesses ,,-ill be ~fr. Corey and ~fr. Dungan. former AmbassaoaI's
to Chile. preceded by a staff briefing.
The committee "ill stand in recess until 2 p.m. tomorrow afternoon.
[vVhereupon, at 4 :40 p.m.. the committee recessed, to reconvene at 2
p.m.. Thursday, Decemhrr 4. 1971).J

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