FBI’s Role in Presidential Protection
The FBI, established within the Department of Justice in 1908, has played an increasingly important role in presidential protection. Since 1910, an annual appropriation item for the “protection of the person of the President of the United States” has recurred under the FBI’s budget. Although the FBI is not responsible for the physical protection of the President, it shares an assignment with other government agencies in the field of preventive investigation regarding presidential security. The Bureau has attempted to fulfill this role by codifying in its Handbook the procedures agents must follow when receiving information indicating a possible attempt against the President or other protected persons.
Overlap in Preventive Investigation Authority
With two federal agencies operating in the same general field of preventive investigation, questions inevitably arise about the scope of each agency’s authority. J. Edgar Hoover and other Bureau officials testified that the FBI did not believe its directive required notification to the Secret Service of substantial information about Lee Harvey Oswald before the President reached Dallas. The Secret Service had no knowledge of Oswald, his background, or his employment at the Book Depository. Robert I. Bouck of the Secret Service’s Protective Research Section believed the FBI’s accumulation of facts should have constituted sufficient basis to warn the Secret Service of the risk.
Commission Assessment of Agency Responsibility Construal
The Commission concluded that both the FBI and the Secret Service have too narrowly construed their respective responsibilities. Too much emphasis has been placed by both agencies on investigating specific threats by individuals, and not enough on dangers from other sources. The Secret Service particularly tends to be the passive recipient of threat information, and its Protective Research Section is not adequately staffed or equipped to conduct the wider investigative work required for presidential security today.
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