J. Walter Yeagley Oral History Interview –RFK #2, 12/17/1970

Administrative Information

Creator: J. Walter Yeagley

Interviewer: James A. Oesterle

Date of Interview: December 17, 1970

Place of Interview: Washington, D.C.

Length: 32 pp.

Biographical Note

Yeagley, J. Walter; Deputy Assistant Attorney General, 1953-1959, Assistant Attorney

General, Department of Justice, 1959-1970; Chairman, Personnel Security Advisory

Board, 1958-1961. Yeagley discusses his work with Robert F. Kennedy [RFK] regarding

espionage cases, his responsibilities with the Internal Security Division, and the

communication issues that existed across departments regarding internal security, among

other issues.

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Transcript of Oral History Interview

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Suggested Citation J. Walter Yeagley, recorded interview by James A. Oesterle, December 17, 1970, (page

number), Robert F. Kennedy Oral History Program.

Oral History Interview

Of

J. Walter Yeagley

Although a legal agreement was not signed during the lifetime of J. Walter Yeagley, upon his

death, ownership of the recording and transcript of his interview for the Oral History

Program passed to the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library.

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1. The transcript is available for use by researchers.

2. The tape recording shall be made available to those researchers who have access to

the transcript.

3. Copyright to the interview transcript and tape is assigned to the United States

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J. Walter Yeagley – RFK #2

Table of Contents

Page Topic

44 Robert F. Kennedy’s [RFK] early years with the

Department of Justice

46 John Francis Reilly’s work with the Internal Security

Division and the Criminal Division, including his

resignation over the Otto F. Otepka case

50, 59 Yeagley’s work, and RFK’s involvement, with espionage

cases

50, 53 Dr. Robert Soblen and Jack Soble espionage case

51 Igor Melekh and Willie Hirsch case

55 Rudolf Ivanovitch Abel exchange for Francis Gary Powers

59, 66 Yeagley’s responsibilities within the Internal Security

Division

63, 66 RFK’s involvement with foreign intelligence matters

65 Formation and weakening of Interdepartmental Committee

on Internal Security [ICIS]

66 Issues surrounding National Security Memorandum

Number 161

71 Changes in the attorney general’s responsibilities after RFK

left the Department of Justice

72 Nation Security Council civil defense drills and emergency

planning

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YEAGLEY:

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Second Oral History Interview

with

J. WALTER YEAGLEY

December l7. l970 Washington, D. C.

By James A. Oesterle

For the Robert F. Kennedy Oral Hist ory Program of the Kennedy Library

Since the last interview, I saw a friend who still works in the

Justice Department: [John H.] Jack Davitt; and I recalled that

Jack had told me at one time that he had been the office mate

of [Robert F.] Bobby Kennedy when Bobby first came to the depart-

ment as a young lawyer just having graduated from the law school

of the University of Virginia. I would t hink this would be about

195l. The assistant attorney general in charge of the Criminal

Division I believe at that time was James Mcinerny [James A.

Mcinerny] who had known Joseph Kennedy [Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.].

I don't know in what manner. I know one means would be political.

But they had been good friends, and I know in later years af'ter

Jim lef't the department he did considerable legal work for him

and the family. In any event Bobby came to work as a lawyer

assigned to the internal security section--then of the Criminal

Division--and his office was the same as Jack Davitt's . I don't

know how long that lasted, but probably a matter of months.

I mentioned these interviews to Jack. He said he recalled

talking to Bobby many, many times--or rather Bobby talking to

him, perhaps--about what he should do for a career : what direc-

tion he should aim for; whether it should be in government,

whether or not it even should be l egal, or whether it might be

in business. And of course not having money problems, he seemed

to have quite a potential choice .

Jack couldn' t remember that he ever discussed entering

politics seriously . He said he may have, but he just doesn't

recall it at all. As a matter of fact, he said to his knowledge

Bobby never came to a decision during these months as to just

what he really wanted to do in the long term for a career. He

recalled he was a delightful person to work with and to be

officed with, that he was very informal around the office . As a

matter of fact, he mentioned that he frequently went and took

his shoes off and wor ked in his stocking feet. And they often

spent their noon hours together, too, at lunch or shopping. He

didn't recall what kind of cases or work Bobby got into, but I

don ' t think he was here long enough to have gotten into anything

particularly interesting or that would be of interest today .

There are quite a few lawyers though over there now who were

there at that time and knew Bobby . I can remember when he crune

back as att orney general, he, as far as I ever noticed, he remembered

and recognized each one of them, as he first encountered them

back in 1961. That's all of the information I have on that

point. I was not here, of course, in the department at that

time.

OESTERLE: I think last time, off the record, we mentioned John Francis

Reilly as opposed to John Richard Reilly.

YEAGLEY: Right.

OESTERLE: And he had been in your division.

YEAGLEY: That's right.

OESTERLE: And, of course, he became involved in the [Otto F.] Otepka

case. I wonder if you might fill me in on that background

to some degree.

YEAGLEY: Well, I don't know how much information I have on that. I have

some. When they were looking for someone to fill that position

at the State Department--I've forgotten the title of it; it was

in the Office of Security and Consular Affairs, but it was the

position that Reilly eventually took--it seems to me I had a call

from someone and I believe it was [And.red F.] Andy Oehmann who

was the executive assistant to Bobby, the attorney general. This

was in general terms, as I recall, about possible candidates or

available candidates for the job or what kind of a person it

might be. I don't know that anything ever came of that conversa-

tion, but not long af'ter that he called to ask me about Jack

Reilly and whether he would be interested and what kind of a job

I thought he would do.

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At that time Jack was in the Interna:i Security Division.

He'd been there long before my day. As a matter of fact he

probably came in about 1951, about the same time Bobby did the

first time. At the time of this call--this would be in 1 61--

he was then and had been for some time, working on espionage

cases. I believe I considered him our top man in espionage at

that time. He also was doing some liaison work or work with

other agencies, particularly State Department, and he had assign-

ments on the planning board of the National Security Council.

But the legal work that I recall he, was involved in was espionage.

We had a very high opinion of Jack as a lawyer. He'd been a

good law student when he was in school in Boston. He was a good

worker and had a good mind and I recommended him. I recommended

him quite highly to Andy at that time although, of' course, he had

not been in security work which really was what the State Depart-

ment was apparently looking for. Jack's work had been largely

in the prosecutive end, plus this National Security Council type

of work which you might call policy planning in a sense, not

security work. I don't know that he ever was involved in per-

sonnel security or the loyalty program or physical security, any

of .. that kind. But I thoµ.ght he was qualified because he was

bright and he was a good worker, and had had a lot of work with

the Department of State but no experience in this particular

area. .Anywa:y, I believe that he had a conference or a.~ inter-

view with the attorney general shortly a~er that and eventually

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was offered the job and accepted it.

OESTERLE: This was very ear~, now, in the new administration?

YEAGLEY: I don't have any way of pinpointing the date. I'd have to

guess it was in 1 61. Must've been '61, but I can't be certain

of that. I just don't recall.

OESTERLE: I don't have any dates either, but his name appears in 1 61- 1 62

in the report--in the Justice Department Annual Report--ahd not

i n the 1 62- 1 63.

YEAGLEY: Well then it sounds more like 1 62, doesn't it?

OESTERLE: Yes, or •

YEAGLEY: That must be correct. r · just can't recall what year it would

have been.

OESTERLE: Were you in touch with him later on? I guess you followed the

Otepka case when it first

YEAGLEY: Well, I don't recall that we had any business with Jack in his

new position. I suppose we had some things down the line. If

he had a:ny responsibility for passport or visa matters, some of

my lawyers might have checked with some of his people on some

things of that sort, but I donrt recall now of any important

business relationships between his office and mine after he

l eft. I saw him around town occasionally, socially and possibly

at lunch, but I really didn 1 t see him a great deal after he had

changed jobs. I know he told me that he liked the work very

much, that it was quite different but it was interesting and

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OESTERLE:

YEAGLEY:

he thought he was getting along all right. We had no direct

connection with the Otepka matter at all. That was handled in

the Criminal Division when it did arise. I think it was assigned

there purposely since that division probably had never had a:ny

dealings either with Otepka or that office or even Jack Reilly,

whereas my shop had. So there isn't a great deal I could offer

on the problem that Jack had with otepka and the ensuing trouble

that finally resulted in Jack's leaving the Department of State.

Do you have a:ny impressions about it, though?

Well, I was, of course, surprised that Jack got into trouble of

that sort because he had done really a very good job--you might

even sa:y an excellent job--in the Internal Security Division.

I'm sure that my predecessor; [William F.] Tommy Thompkins, who

I recall worked with Jack quite a bit--some of Jack's cases--had

a very high regard for him. Jack was a good student. He was a

good lawyer. He liked his work. He enjoyed working; he wasn't

a loafer. I was surprised that he got into that sort of trouble.

I always wondered whether or not it was his decision or someone's

up higher that got him involved in that matter. I know that there

are people in my shop that feel that Jack couldn't have got mixed

up that way on his own independent thinking and his own indepen-

dent decisions . They just felt that someone higher up was involved,

and he was trying to be a good employee and do a job that he had

been asked or told to do. But I have no information on that of

any kind, and I don't think the people who have expressed that

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OESTERLE:

YEAGLEY:

50 -~

suggestion have any either. It's strictiy speculation. I had

never asked Jack. I saw him; I've seen him since then some, not

a great deal. I've nevel' asked him anything about it.

We should perhaps get to him at some point and talk to him. You

have before you some of the annual reports of the Justice Depart-

ment for the period 1 61 through 1 63 . Under the Internal Security

Division section, I wonder if the listing of the cases and the

work of each of the years brings anything to mind that you might

consider to be interesting or important in some way?

Well at the last interview we discussed the [Irvin C.] Scarbeck

case. That's in the espionage area. I notice that there were

other espionage cases during that period. It seems to me we had

a few more than usual from the period of, say, 1960 to 1 62.

Cases that started in r6o of course weren't tried or the appeal

finished until sometime later, well in the Kennedy administration.

The Scarbeck case ca.me right in Bobby's administration, as I

indicated before. Slightly before that had been the indictment

in New York involving Dr. Robert Soble. He called himself' Soblen,

S-0-B-L-E-N, but he was a brother of Jack Soble who had previously

been indicted and convicted. Jack was one of those that had

supplied information and even testimony implicating his brother,

who also was tried and convicted. Dr. Soblen, however--I think it

was on .the very day that his conviction was affirmed by the Supreme

Court--he disappeared instead of reporting as required by the terms

OESTERLE:

YEAGLEY:

OESTERLE:

YEAGLEY:

OESTERLE:

YEAGLEY:

S/ ~

of his bail bond and either went to England or at least he was

found later in England.

And extradited?

Yes. There was an extradition proceeding, it seems to me. As

I recall it, the attorney general sent his chief marshal who was

a long old-time friend of his, [James J.P.] Jim Mcshane, over

to England to pick up Soble from the British authorities. I

assume someone went with Jim. I donrt know who it was. This

isn't in this report I have before me of course but .•.

No, it just sketches, I guess the . . •

I 1 m quite certain of it--it was on this flight back, in the

course of eating a meal on the airplane that the doctor used an

airplane knife, I think--dinner knife--to slash his wrists or

cut himself severely enough that it eventually resulted in his

death as I recall. Another case that I remember in reference

to Bobby was one of the first matters I had to discuss with him

when he came on board in February of 1 61. I suppose we talked

about it earlier even before he was attorney general--in the

transition period. That involved a Soviet here :by the name of

Igor Melekh, M-E-L-E-K-H. He was not a diplomat, he was a soviet

national employed in the United Nation 1 s Secretariat. Herd been

charged in Chicago along with a local alien by the name of

Willie Hirsch, H-I-R-S-C-H.

Who was a resident alien.

Yes. And he was a German as I recall. He'd been here a good

many years but he'd never taken out his papers--citizenship

papers--never applied for naturalization, I don't believe.

They had been endeavoring to get national defense information in

the Chicago area. As I recall it related to military bases. I

think there was an airfield or an airport involved and some

military buildings within the city of Chicago where military

personnel were officed. They had been indicted--herers the

date--October 27, 1960.

OF.STERLE: The three count indictment.

YEAGLEY: Yes. The interesting t hing here is that it developed that the

new administration wanted to make some sort of a friendly

gesture to the Soviet Union from the standpoint of foreign rela-

tions, foreign affairs. I remember talking to the Attorney

General. I don't recall the exact questions or the substance

or the particulars of the conversation but the point of the con-

versation was more or less how important is Igor Melekh? How

important is a trial and a conviction to us? Can we try Hirsch

if we don't try Melekh and so forth. As I recall I advised him

that we couldn't convict Hirsch if we couldn't keep Melekh in

the case. We had blew some of our evi~ence that way . I don't

know what point he finally told me what his interest was but it

wasn't too difficult to speculate from the nature of the ques-

tions. In any event, i t was finally decided--I wasn't in on

that decision but I assume by, if not the president, by the

attorney general and the secretary of state--to adjust Melekh's

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OESTERLE:

5 3 . ~

bond. As I recall that's what they did to permit him to leave

the country. In any event he was allowed to leave and Hirsch

also. And after they lef't the charges were dismissed. We let

Hirsch go because we couldn't try him and convict him. As I

recall he was told that if he didn't go that he would be in

trouble; that we would still have these charges hanging over

him and eventually we'd make the case on him. Anyway he was

probably glad to leave as long as Melekh was leaving.

That was a little disturbing to the lawyers in my shop of

course who had been looking from the beginning of the administra-/

tion for signs that they were going to abolish the Internal

Security Division. They didn't think this was a very strong

stand and t hey didn't think it displayed much interest in

internal security problems. It turned out that it was unrelated

and it was not an indication of things to come at all. It was

done strictly- -as far as I ever knew at least--as a goodwill

gesture toward the Soviets on the part of the new administration.

On the Scarbeck matter ., ... let's see, no it was actually on the

Soblen matter that I wanted to ask you a question. That was that

among the co-conspirators Lavrentia Beria who had been former

head of the Russian s ecret polieywas naxned along with [Vassili]

Zubilin who was a one- time third secretary of the Soviet Embassy

in Washington along with his wife. It's mentioned in the report

too, I believe.

YEAGLEY: Yes •

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OESTERLE:

YEAGLEY:

OESTERLE;

YEAGLEY:

Do you recall anything in regard to these rather high-place

government officials?

No, I don't. Beria had never been to this cowitry. He was not

named as a co-conspirator based on any information that he had

actually operated here. It was because he was the head of the

NKVD [People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs] or the NVD--

whatever they called it at that particular time--and that the

people with whom Jack Soble and Dr. Soblen had worked in supply-

ing information were down the line but in the Beria organization

and I would assume--I'd have to base it on assumption now because

I don't recall the evidence--I'd have to assume that among them

would have been Vassili Zubilin. That's not unusual that a third s e~aw ri G,~ C\5ecuno o r e;J-Ln a (..; rs \-secretary in the Soviet diplomatic mission is in fact a repre-

sentative of the intelligence organization in Moscow. That is

not only not . unusual, as a matter of fact, it would be my estimate

that at any time here in the United States at least one of them

would be. That would've been the situation with Zubilin except

of course he had diplomatic immunity and could not have been

indicted. He could not have been prosecuted. So be was merely

named as a co-conspirator. That wasn't unusual. It was unusual

to name Bl?ria though and I don't know why that was done.

There may be an interesting story behind that actually. And in

Zubilin' s case, when he just as a third secretary of the Soviet

embassy, he becomes persona non grata •

That's right.

OESTERLE: • • • and he leaves

YEAGLEY: He's returned.

OESTERLE: ••• and he's no longer an effective operator in the United

States.

YEAGLEY: That' s right. That's what happened there. Beria being made a

co-conspirator must have come from the testimony that was pro-

vided by Jack Soble. He had quite a bit of knowledge over the

years of the operation of the Soviet espionage system, not only

in this country but elsewhere. I think some of the knowledge

was direct but, of course, a good .deal of it was hearsay from

associates in the organization. But I'm quite sure that that's

what that would have been based on: something that he had told

the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] in interviews or per-

haps even testified to later in court.

OESTERLE: Do you recall how this case went through it's period of discovery?

YEAGLEY: No. I do not. But it was a follow- up to the Jack Soble trial

that came earlier. The Bureau had known that Dr. Sobl en--or at

least they thought--that he was involved in espionage activities

but they couldn't prove it. In their effort to complete their

case somehow it finally worked out t hat Jack Soble decided to

tell what he knew when he was in prison and that was corroborating

evidence. That was the evidence that was needed for an indictment

as I recall. He agreed to testif'y.

OESTERLE: Where does the [Rudolf Ivanovitch] Abel exchange come in?

YEAGLEY: I was not involved in that at the beginning though I remember

near the end of the negotiations I attended a meeting at the

Department of State. That was chaired by George Ball who I

believe was under-secretary. I don't remember all the people

that were there. I believe James Bennett was there, the

director of the Bureau of Prisons. There must have been nine

or ten people there, most of them f'rom the State Department.

It seems to me I went to that meeting either with [Nicholas deB.]

Nick Katzenbach or for him. I would think that if Ball was there,

Katzenbach must've attended that meeting also. At that ti.me they

were more or less interested in working out what I would consider

the final details of the arrangements as to on the Abel end of

it, how to manage the release and the exchange. I don't know any-

thing about the beginnings of the exchange or who was in on it.

I would assume that same group pretty much was the State Depa.rt-

ment plus Nick Katzenbach. We had had proposals for exchange of

espionage agents over the yea.rs. The Soviets were always inter-

ested in getting their people out of jail. I suppose we had

always--if not always at least al.most always--resisted the offers

because we found that they were not quid pro quo. They were try-

i ng to trade us an American they had seized in Russia for what

we considered trumped-up charges. They might even have been

traffic charges--I believe they were magnified and ballooned up

into something more serious--and then try to get the release of

an espionage agent and OJ1 agreement to release the American.

So you can see we had a different reaction to the proposed

trading of Abel for [Francis] Gary Powers. We considered Abel

the highest and the most important and probably the best Soviet

espionage agent that we'd ever dealt with and had ever succeeded

in convicting. He was the one we would most like to keep in

jail and keep away from the Soviets because he had great

knowledge, bright mind and a great experience and a valuable man

to their operation. But of course it was easy to recognize that

what had happened to Gary Powers was of great i nterest to this

country. It was of great importance to get to him and have the

right people to interview him in detail- -what you might say a

debriefing--to find out how he got shot down, just what happened

and what happened af'ter . that. The only way that that could be

done was to make a trade for him. As far as I know no one in

any position of authority ever opposed the trade of Abel for

Powers although perhaps several didn't like to see Abel getti ng

back to the Soviets. But I don't know of any opposition to the

suggestion. After considerable work and negotiations it worked

out. I think there were many that were surprised that the

Soviets would let Powers go so that the .Americans coUld interview

him to see what happened. But they did and I think that was a

pretty fair trade. It was undoubtedly usef'ul.

OESTERLE: Did your division ever benefit from the debriefing of Powers?

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YEAGLEY: No, not as I recall. No.

OESTERLE: Were you privileged to read the reports?

YEAGLEY: Never met him, never talked to him. No, I never saw the

reports. I would think that most of them were related t o the

experiences that day he was shot down: What was his course?

Was he on course? How high was he? What was he hit by or with or

did he know? Had there been other shots or near misses? I

imagine they went into great detail on all that , and of course

to some extent later on how he was treated. But I t hink that

was the thing that they were really interested in: about his

ejection from the plane and his descent and all that .

OESTERLE: Whether he was able to destroy any of the equipment.

YEAGLEY: Yes. That's right .

OESTERLE: But they did get that airplane.

YEAGLEY: Did the plane crash or did it glide down? Even did he land it?

That was the important part.

OESTERLE: Af'ter Abel was returned did his logo ever appear on anything

that came your wa:y afterwards .

YEAGLEY: Not that I

OESTERLE: . that he was st i ll in operation, alive and well back lf\

Moscow?

YEAGLEY: Well, I don't remember Jthe sources. We had heard--it could have

been through the press, I don't know--that he was back in good.

graces--obviously they wouldn't have given up Powers f or him--

and that he was back in his old haunts where he had one time

lived. I think, for a while, he had spent. some time in East

Germany. The indications were that he was back working in

one of the Soviet headquarters in espionage work, not in the

field but administrative work of some sort. That was not

directly f'urnished to us. I don't remember how we got it but

it was no doubt true. I'm sure that would happen. I think they

usually make a point of trying to take of their good agents

and trying to get them released and get them back home. They

tell them before they go out that they're going to stand by them.

OESTERLE: We don't know whether he's alive today.

YEAGLEY: No, I don't. I see there are other espionage cases listed in

thi~ report. I don't know that they' re of any interest to you

at all. They don't recall anything to my mind about any particu-

lar interest Bobby had in them. In most cases--since espionage

involved foreign countries and therefore also involve our State

Department--I would usually discuss them with the attorney

general before bringing the matter before a grand jury, before

authorizing the arrest. But ordinarily we'd have all the ground

work finished with State Department, having advised them of the

nature of the case and what we planned to do and getting a "no

objection" from them at a high enough level so that when I talked

to the attorney general that that problem was eliminated. But

I don't recall those discussions now on these cases. I see

[George and Jane] Zlatovsk.i: [Alf'red and M3.rtha] Stern, Arthur

Rogers [1l oddey] , Reilly. I remember Melekh parti cula.r ly with

Bobby but that's about all in the espionage . area. Incidentally,

I should say that I don't think Bobby ever turned us down. When

we felt we had a case and reconnnended prosecution on espionage

cases, he agreed. Usually he would have--if it were any case of

importance--Byron White involved in it also and af'ter Byron left

it would be Nick Katzenbach.

OESTERLE: Your work accelerated tbruout this period, didn't it7 I mean

t here were quite a number of cases.

YEAGLEY: I don't think i t accelerated materially. At least it did not

result in increasing our staff or increasing our budget or the

number of lawyers. In that sense I think it was rather constant.

We may have been busier at one time, one season or another but

it didn't accelerate that much because I didn 1 t have an increased

budget. It went down gradually over the years.

OESTERLE: This kind of operation, is it pretty much a nine to five kind of

day for the attorneys working on these matters or do they really

have to burn the mid.night oil a great deal?

YEAGLEY: Well, it's pretty much a regular day. Our day was nine to five-

thirty. Those on the top side usually didn't leave at five-thirty.

They 1 d usually worked till six, ; six-thirty, sometimes later. But

as you neared a pickup or a grand jury on an espionage case, there

was so much to do that there would be nighttime or even weekend

work immediately prior to something like that. But as a day-in,

day-out rule that wouldn't be true. The investigators, of course

have the difficult time because as we get near to what we think

will be an arrest or an indictment it's important to know the

whereabouts of the man and his up-to-the-minute activities. It's

just about necessary to have a twenty-four hour surveillance at

that time, and maybe for several weeks prior to it. It's

extremely difficult of course because you want to know what he's

doing and make sure hers not leaving the country. On the other

hand, it's of the greatest importance that he not break the sur-

veillance either. That would be a real blunder to run a surveillance

that would tip"the subject's hand. They' re the ones that have

the overtime work although we do have the problem of getting out

the memorandum of the available evidence, memoranda on each wit-

ness, what they can testify to, who the witness · is, background.

The closer you get t o the pickup day, or the grand jury date,

the more work there is and you just have to have some overtime

at that time. But otherwise in the department the working hours

are nine to five-thirty and only those in topside work later. By

that I mean AG's[attorney general] office, deputy's office, solici-

tor's, all of the assistants and a few of each of their assistants

would be the ones that I'm talking about as far as working over-

time. With the traffic the wa:y it is in Washington, there's no

ha.rm in working till six-thirty because at five-thirty you just

sit on the street in your car anywa:y.

OESTERLE: Yeah. I've discovered that. How did you affect liaison with

other intelligence sources? Was thisd6 "ethrough the bureau?

- - --~- .

-~ ~--

YEAGLEY: Almost always it was done through the FBI although we had a lot

of contact with the Central Intelligence Agency for various

reasons all the way from legislation to, I suppose, national

policy on matters in this area on down to espionage cases . The

CIA of course, had no jurisdiction domesticaJ.ly in espionage but

they o~en had background information or they might have other

inf'orma.tion :from abroad on a given case. But that type of con-

tact was always done through ·. the FBI. FBI and CIA worked out

those investigative intelligence matters together. Sometimes the

CIA would have an interest in one of our cases but that seemed to

me it was more :from the standpoint of broadening their knowledge

of the scope of the Soviet effort and getting all that they can

on Soviet know-how and modus operandi in any given case. But

domestically they did not have a direct interest and never dis-

played a:ny to me. But we still had quite a lot of business and

we. • • . Ordinarily our point of contact would be t he general

counsel's office, Larry Houston. If our problem related to some

other division or to operations, he would either handle it for us

or put us in touch with the right person.

CESTERLE: You evidenced the operation of the Central Intelligence Agency

while you were in the bureau and then later i n the Internal

Security Division of Justice. Do you have any observations th.at

you might make about the work of the CIA over a period of time?

Do you see the organization becoming more sophisticated?

YEAGLEY: I don't think I'm in a position to have enough information to

make a useful estimate on that regard. I have known a lot of

the people that work there. Of course many of the people that

I knew in the FBI ended u:p with CIAo Some of them stayed here,

others went abroad and I met other CIA people through them.

But I did not get enough knowledge of their method of operation

or particularly of their results to make a good judgment. This

is an extremely difficult field. It is extremely difficult and

having been in the FBI, of c~urse, we always thought that CIA

co~dn't passibly be as efficient or as effective as the bureau

was or as we were in La.tin America during the war. But I can't

say that's necessarily an objective estimate at all.

OESTERLE: During the Kennedy administration many of the reports that

found their way to the president that originated, not only from ·- . .

the CIA but_also from Army and Navy Intelligence and so forth,

went through a certain amount of rewriting--! guess in the State

Department--especially for the presidential briefing books, when

he would be preparing for a trip. Do you recall anything about

tha.t in particular or how this decision was made? Who ma.de it?

YEAGLEY: No. I wasn't involved in that. Bobby seemed to be involved in

foreign intelligence matters. I don't know if it was only from

the standpoint of wanting to know what was going on operationally

and wanting to know how effective or how efficient they are and

how much or how good their judgment is, but at least he was

interested and it was noticeable. I soon learned that he knew

the people at CIA and at Defense who were interested in these

things. I don't know how much involved he became. Of course he

got thrown in even closer than ever with them during the Cuban

missile crisis. But I do know that he did have an interest and

I rather believe that he had instructions from the president

as to what his area of interest would be outside the Department

of Justice, beyond the Department of Justice; and I think this

was one of them. In this connection it's demonstrated perhaps

by development domestica~. We had, at the National Security

Council two permanent internal security committees that were

organized when [Harry S.] Truman was president. One of them was

called the Interdepartmental Intelligence Coni'erence. It was

chaired by J. Edgar Hoover and the member agencies were such as

ONI [Office of Naval Intelligence], G-2 [Arnzy- Intelligence]"~ _

Air Force Intelligence and CIA [Central Intelligence Agency].

Their responsibility as a committee was to get together to iron

out their own problems and agree on jurisdictional matters, agree

on policy matters and such other matters in which there might be

an overlapping interest or disagreements. One of the main pur-

poses of this was to get it done by agreement so that superiors

wouldn't be bothered with these problems. If they didn't have

this mechanism to iron out the problems, every time there was a

flareup, it'd come to the head of a--secretary of defense or

secretary of state or someone. This was so successful they

decided within a year or two to organize another committee which

was called the Interdepartmental Connnittee on Internal Security,

generally referred to as ICIS. It was assigned the role of

being responsible for ironing out the problems and ma.king policy

in alJ. other areas of security, other than the intelligence:

and investigative function. So this would involve such things as

port security, security of documents, Executive Order 1050 [Safe-

guarding Official Information in the Interests of the Defense of

the United States]. For a while they were in personnel security--

but that became a special matter and they didn't deal with it

eventually--but industrial security program, anything other than

intelligence was handled by this new committee. The con:nnittees

would report to the National Security Council on their operation.

The members of this latter committee were State, Treasury,

Defense and Justice. However, they had five subcommittees, and

of course in order to resolve these problems by agreement it was

necessary to involve every department or agency that had an interest.

So they would ad hoc them for that particular problem. If they

coUld get alJ. interested departments to agree on something, the

policy could be implemented merely by the chairman of the connnittee

writing a letter to the operating agencies saying, "Herers the new

policy. Pleas e implement it." There'd be no objection because

every agency with an interest had _ agreed to it. It would only be

when there was dissent--a disagreement--that the man would go to

the council, for the council to resolve. It was unf'ortunate that

the council had to get into those matters but at least through

,,---... ,..,..,,. .;ilji<>i"

-- - · - -- -- -

that mechanism they had fewer of those problems coming to their

attention than they otherwise would've, because we were able to

get agreement most of the time. When we didn't get it I had the

pleasure of attending the council meetings in the back row or

the row all along the wall. But if we had an agenda item on a

council meeting, why, we would, I wOU.ld be there. And if Hoover's

committee was involved, and it usually was, he would also be there.

Well, what I was going to say about Bobby's involvement--I

don't know if I'll be abl.e to think of a date, whether it was '61

or '62; I think it was, I'd guess around June of •62. There was

an order issued--National Security Memorandum Number 161, I

remember--by the president. After all, the council is the presi-

dent. There's no one •••• The decisions are strictly his.

Although many people in the Ex:ecutive branch attend council meet-

ings, he's the only one that decides anything. This order removed

the two committees from the council, i n that they were no longer

to report to the council. They were to function as they had in

the past; be composed of the same members as they had in the past;

but they were to report to Robert Kennedy. He was to make the

decision if there were dissents or decisions necessary, in order

to keep those matters away from the council presumably. But I

mention that as illustrating. • • • Well, at least there's a

reason for my feeling that Bobby was interested from the beginning

--- in intelligence and investigative matters and in the agencies that

were responsible for them. And this is merely another step in

-.-

that operation.

OESTERLE: Was there any resentment about this more indirect

YEAGLEY: No, I •••• Well, I'll have to take that back; there was some.

I had not been involved in the decision. I thought it was ill-

advised. I thought it would create problems, and I don't know

that af'ter I saw the problems that did develop. • . . But what

happened, obvious1y, the other departments other than Justice--

that would be Defense, State and Treasury--didn't relish the

idea or the final decision in matters in which they might have

an interest being ma.de at a level lower than the National

Security Council and particularly they didn't relish it being

made by another Cabinet officer than their own. So that if we

would get in a dispute on a new policy or program or some opera-

tion with Defense through the ICIS mechanism, if they couldn't

iron it out, the Defense Department would lose it; the Justice

Department was going to ma.ke the decision. And of' course the

result was that the--I suppose the word resent is proper although

it wasn't apparent. It wasn't noticeable but I'm sure it was

there. It manifests in this IJ¥1.nner: that they rarely submitted

problems to the ICIS; they rare1y put things through the ICIS

mechanism of their own volition, as they had done in the past.

Before, if' Treasury or Defense got into a dispute or an argument, .

well, one or the other would come right to ICIS and say, "Let's

get this resolved." But af'ter this happened, and Bobby was going

to be the man making the decision if there was no agreement, those

-·· ~~-~~

problems just quit coming in, unless they were on the surface

and the chairman of ICIS could see them and somebody else might

bring them upo The ICIS didn't go out of business; they still

had work but the other agencies were a little reluctant to put

t hings into the mill. I suppose there was some resentment; I

guess that's the word. Anywa:y, they didn't like it very well.

Those of us in Justice didn't either, even though you might sa:y

it gave us a little more authority. But I think it lessened the

effectiveness of the group; and it lessened their interest con-

siderab~.

OESTERLY: Can you think of any specific development later on that served as

a practical indication of this breakdown in cooperation--not

complete breakdown--but a lessening of cooperation?

YEAGLEY: No, I wouldn't say it was a breakdown; it was a lessening of it.

No, I don't think of any examples. The chairman of the committee

was always the first assistant, or what they now call the deputy

assistant attorney general i n the Internal Security Division; and

during that period, it was John Doherty, my deputy. Re was the

one directly involved and he was the chairman. I had acted in

that capacity, prior to becoming assistant attorney general, for

I think five years or so, yes. But I was not in that capacity

af'ter August -,of '59. I think John has examples--he did at that

time--of things he thought that Defense or another agency should

have brought to the attention of the committee and they didn't.

·---:-··- . --~ ...

~­~ - -- -- - -· -· -

OESTERLE:

YEAGLEY:

He had--it's an odd thing--but I know he had trouble that he

never used to have at all in getting the members to attend. It

didn't operate on the quorum basis; we always wanted everyone to

be present, because quorum was no good if an interested party

wasn't there. He had more continued meetings than I'd ever

heard of before. And I think this was part of the reason for

it, that it was· just a slowdown on the whole operation. But they

did have problems; they did have business. The five subcommittees

continued to function, but not with the results they'd gotten

before. And then, he would have examples of problems that were--

on which they failed to get agreement--submitted to Bobby for a

decision. It so happened that there were few; there weren't many.

But I don't know what those problems related to now. I know that

on one of them, as I recall, Bobby didn':t take it to the council.

He met before a council meeting with two or three of the other

council members, and John Doherty I know went with him. And it

was on an ICIS matter. Though he made the decision, I think he

went over there to discuss it with such .persons as the Secretary

of Defense. or State or something like that. He did it before a

council meeting because it was easy to get them together at that

time. It only took maybe ten minutes. I don't remember what

that issue was now.

Was Roger Hilsman involved in any of these meetings?

Well, not that .. . none that I was, and I don't remember John

Doherty talking about him . That one meeting I just mentioned is

.• . - - . -.. -· . --

one t hat he could have been involved in, but I don't specifically

recall, and I haven't heard his name in connection with i t .

OESTERLE: Then you didn' t have any direct contact · with him?

YEAGLEY: No. I could have had a phone call, maybe two or three, I don't

r ecall now. It's quite possible that I did. I always wanted to

try to do all t he business I could on the telephone. I found

that conferences sometimes raise more problems than they solve.

This may not be true but it 's a standing joke i n Justice, if

you get i n a conference with State Depart ment, you're going to

have about six other people there inst ead of one or two. I do

t hink they tended to bring in every area that they have of a

possible i nterest in the results, and making the conference a

little longer than it needed to be, I think.

OESTERLE: Do you have any evidence t hat the attorney general became aware

that there were problems of communication af'terwards--after t he

organizat ion?

YEAGLEY: No, I don't. That's not to say that he was not aware of it.

John Doherty may have menti oned it t o him, may have sai d something

to him. I would assume that he was somewhat aware of it. The

question would be, was he barely aware of it or did he have a

rather extensive knowledge. And I don't know.

OESTERLE : There was no rethinking though or possible restructuring i n the

works at any point?

YEAGLEY: Well, a:fter Bobby le:ft the department, it was my feeling that

since the relationship between t he president and the attorney

OESTERLE:

7 / ' -~

general was now different- - was not brother to brother; it was

strictly attorney general to president or vice versa--that it

was almost unfair to ask a new attorney general to assume the

responsibility of making these decisions when he didn't have

that close relationship with the president. And so I wrote a

memorandum pointing that out, and suggesting that it would be

advisable to call this to the attention of the--I don't know

whether I said the council or the president; not much difference--

probably the council. Certainly they should know about it, that

this exists. And further, that it should be a strong recommenda-

tion on the part of the attorney general that he does not particu-

larly want this responsibility and that it be reassigned or

restored to its other format. It's my recollection that af'ter

holding that for some time--that would be Nick Katzenbach,

wouldn't it?--instead of. . • • All I know is that he sent my

memorandum over to the council for its consideration, and to my

knowledge I don't think he attached a personal recommendation of

his own. But he did forward it over and nothing. I don't believe

it was acted on and I think John Doherty did the same thing when

John Mitchell crune in. As far as I know, it's pending business.

But there again, John Mitchell is interested in a good many of

these things. He has been given direct responsibility in some of

these areas, too, by the president.

How many of the National Security Council meetings did you attenQ

over the years?

YEAGLEY: I didn't •••• I wish I'd kept a record of . that. I don't know.

I was in that capacity from September-October '54 until--for

about five years and that would be. • • • So I would say at

least a half a dozen times; maybe more, but not many more. I

remember one when they had--this wasn't under, this was probably

under the [Dwight D.] Eisenhower administration though- -one of

the civil defense drills, when they involved the military and

what they now call, I guess, the Office of .Emergency Planning,

sponsored it. But they had sort of an evacuation of Washington

[District of Columbia]--not evacuation; a relocation of the top

officials to merely go through the movements of trying to operate

elsewhere under rather difficult conditions and limited ability

at communications and so forth, and testing some of the sites that

had previously been set aside and designated ~or that.

OESTERLE: This was done with the principals?

YEAGLEY: Yes, and I remember that they had a, during the. . . • And this

lasted more that a day; this must have lasted two or three days

when they were all--the Cabinet level--were all out of town, plus

many other workers, even secretaries. The president called a

meeting of the National Security Council at a defense installa-

tion. And being a chairman of a permanent subconnnittee- -the

council only had two permanent subconnnittees--why, I got notice

to attend the meeting. I remember riding over there with then

Attorney General [Herbert, Jr.] Brownell. They had quite a large

military staff there. Many of the generals were there and the

OESTERLE:

YEAGLEY: .

OESTERLE:

YEAGLEY:

president chaired the meeting. They had cqmmunications with

military people in Europe at that time--right at the meeting,

while we were there. It was sort of a testing of equipment and

to see what the problems were in an operation of that kind.

Those things have gone on at different times to a degree off and

on over the years; not very many of them, but every once in a

while the administration would have a relocation exercise. Some-

times there's emphasis on communicating with the various civil

defense regions. I think there are eight or nine regions in the

country and they have some various local responsibilities. They

test the communications there. They have mock bomb patterns that

they--someone arbitrarily sets a bomb pattern up for a certain

day, and they take into consideration the actual weather condi-

tions of that day and the actual and the actual direction of the

wind for fallout from at.2_.mic bombs, on the assumption that, say,

a hundred atomic weapons dropped on our country. They' 11 have

maps, pinpoint the places on the map, get the weather report,

project possible fallout and so forth . It's all just an effort

to see what·the problems are, where the things are that have to

be improved.

This must be planned quite a bit in advance •••

Oh, yes.

• when the president's calendar isn't :fUll and •••

Yes, it is. Very much in advance. So far in advance that

they're o~en cancelled or postponed. They're planned way in

--.- - . - -· : · ·

advance by the O:f:fice of Emergency Planning. That agency's

gone through different changes of names, but it's the same basic

agency, working with the Defense Department.

OESTERLE: I guess one of the objectives, too, i s to keep it out of the

press.

YEAGLEY: Well, the press is given press releases about this thing, but

they don't know what's going on. They know that there is such

an operation going on as of a given day, and that the Cabinet

relocated, things of that kind. There were press statements

made at that time, that's right. Matter of fact, the press--not

the press but the government-salaried press whose representatives

go--also t hey're included in the program. And they're the ones

that made the release.

OESTERLE: How many people does this involve, in total?

YEAGLEY: Well, I don't remember at that time. Each one is different,

each test is usually for a different purpose . Sometimes some

agencies might say, "This is a kind of a test that doesn 1 t

involve our agency a.t all. We're not going to participate."

It might be just a small relocation test by a few agencies with

a few people. This one I'm speaking of happened to be one of

the largest ones theyrve ever had. I have no way of knowing how

many relocated from State Department and Defense or any of these

other agencies--Treasury or so forth. We had quite a few from

Justice, but not a large number. But I would j udge that, based

- .. -:··

on what our involvement would be and how many people we had

there, that some of the other agencies must have had quite a

large numb-er . And of course, the Security Council was involved.

But there are press releases made on these things, and I wouldn't

be surprised if the press statement indicated the approximate

number of people involved. What they don't do is say exactly

where they had gone, where they've relocated, where the sites

are, and what kind of operations are being conducted .

I