Agency: HSCA
Originator: HSCA
Document date: 06/13/1977
Document type: TRANSCRIPT

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JFK Assassination System

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AGENCY :

HSCA

RECORD NUMBER:

180-10116-10222

RECORD SERIES: NUMBERED FILES

AGENCY FILE NUMBER: 014647

Document Information

ORIGINATOR: HISCA

FROM:

TO :

TITLE:

DATE: 06/13/1977

PAGES: 37

SUBJECTS:

HSCA, ADMINISTRATION

BLAKEY, G. ROBERT

DOCUMENT TYPE:

TRANSCRIPT.

CLASSIFICATION:

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RESTRICTIONS: Open in Full

CURRENT STATUS:

Redact

DATE OF LAST REVIEW: 07/17/1993

OPENING CRITERIA:

COMMENTS :

King, Martin, material withdrawn pp. 1-10. Box 267.

v9:1

MH 54756

DocId: 32266577 Page 1

Date:

10/8/201

Released under the John

F. Kennedy

assassination Records

Collection Act of 1992

144 USC 2107 Notel.

Case#:NW 54756 Date:

10-31-2017

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stenographig

Transcript

HEARINGS

Before The

of

SINAL

SELECT COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

BUSINESS MEETING

EXECTIVE SESSION

Washington, D.C.

Tune 18, 1977

Alderson Reporting Company, Inc.

Official Reporters

300 Seventh St., S. W. Washington, D. C.

554-2345

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014647

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In the review of this file this item was removed because access to it is

restricted. Restrictions on records in the National Archives are stated

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John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 (P.L. 102-526)

NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION

NA FORM 1AODO (1-88)

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MI. Fauntroy. Right.

The Chairman. Thank you.

Let me mention just one other thing before we recognize

Mr. Dodd. I didn't want to make these comments in front of the

staff; that is, the committee staff, when you gentlemn were

discussing the matter of going over to the committee and

reading these documents and evidencing some interest in the

work the staff has done. It is important that you do have this

kind of concern.

Members of the staff have been over to discuss this type

of matter with me. Tom Lambeth is here and I am sure, Tom, if

you wanted to, would give you information on this situation.

There is a tremendous morale problem with our problem. Much

of it has to do with the facts and circumstances surrounding

other things that have happened with this staff. But over and

above it, they have not seen, members of this committee,

evidence of very much interest in them or the work that they

have been doing.

They have done an enormous amount of work that this commit-

tee is not even aware of. I have discussed the matter with

both subcommittee chairmen and in order to try and correct

the situation, I have asked both of them to set up some meetings

where other persons other than the chief counsel would be able

to brief you as to the specific areas in which they have done

an enormous amount of work and to also try to get some of you

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to give those individuals some additional direction in those

areas where they have done this enormous amount of work. And

what they have also asked is that you would perhaps work with

them and you select

an area of investigation of which you are

particularly interested and work with that individual or indi-

viduals and give them the kind of direction that they need.

I think also this will tend to offset some of the adverse

press that we have been getting where individuals, such as the

author that Mr. Fauntroy made reference. to, can tell New York

Times and the media that they are directing our investigation.

This would tend to help offset. this in the media's mind and the

staff would be able to say that you are directing the investiga-

tion as you should.

Bot Tannenbaum, for instance, is quite exercised over the

fact that thick booklet which he and his staff people compiled

which is dealing with the Kennedy investigation and the Warren

Commission and all the witnesses that this committee should be

interviewing, things of that nature, that no one on the commit-

tee had been over it at the time he talked to me.

I know now Bob Edgar has been over several occasions and

I sat there and read those various documents. So this is impor-

i tan.

Mr. Sawyer. Mr. Chairman, do the vote buzzers ring down

in that annex?

The Chairman. Do they, Tom?:

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Mr. Edgar. Mr. Chairman, we looked into that. They do

not ring in the rooms that I know of. I requested when I was

down there, both times were very early in the morning and were

not during the period of the bells themselves, but there are

a number of secretaries and staff people who could keep you

in immediate touch with them.. I think there would be time to

move from that office to the House floor without any difficulty

within the 15 minutes.

The Chairman. We could do like you do and go down very

early in the morning.

Mr. Edgar. Eight o'clock, 8:30 is a good time. Between

8:00 and 10:00.

The Chairman. Mr. Lambeth.

Mr. Lambeth. "I would suggest that someone that comes

over probably if they would ask Elizabeth burke who is the

secretary of the Director's Office. She culd call one of the

members' office and 'arrange for them to call immediately if'.

there were any kind of vote. Having had the experience of

walking back and forth for four weeks, I can tell you, you would

want to start out for the floor immediately after a buzzer but

I believe you could make it to the floor in time for a vote.

The Chairman.

I further want to take this opportunity to

say to the committee that. Tom Lambeth who was borrowed from

Richard Preyeer's office for 10 days, and as he has now been

on the job four weeks, has just done a marvelous job, just a

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yeoman's job of keeping Richie's office going, at the same

time stabilizing and working with the people on your committee

staff and he is really to be commended. I say it also in

sincerity he has helped stabilize that situation. He has

helped the morale over there tremendously.

Tom, I want you to know the committee is deeply indebted

to you for what you have done and we hope soon to relieve the

situation and not keep you at it.

Mr. Lambeth. Amen.

The Chairman. Was there anything you care to say in terms

of that morale situation?

Mr. Lambeth. Mr. Chairman, I just say you are obviously

very sensitive to what you described as to what is there. there

is a considerable morale problem there, most of which I think

will be relieved almost immediately with the appointment of a

permanent chief counsel. Some of the problems that are there

are those that would be in that kind of organization under the

best of circumstances and they are simply exaggerated, I think,

by the uncertainty of leadership.

But I think some of this attitude about the committee is

obviously unreasonable and is a product, I think, of people

in their uncertainty saying the committee is not paying atten-

tionus, something like that, which obviously, if nothing else,

indicates they are aware of how busy the committee is. That

is the sort of thing I think will be resolved by the appointment

of permanent chief counsel and perhaps a little of this effort

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of going down there.

I really ought to take the opportunity to say to you, my

brief association

with these people has made me have great confi-

dence in almost all of them. They are very able people. They

are people that are very dedicated to the job that they have

undertaken. I think with a permanent chief counsel they will

perform very well. I thank you for your kind words..

The Chairman. Thank you very much. Tom.

Now we will move then to that next subject, which is the

search for a new chief counsel. Chris Dodd, as you know, was

appointed as chiarman of a task force to conduct this search.

He and this task force has done a tremendous job. They have

spent a great deal of time and effort in trying to search

through the various resumes that have come to our attention

and to contact various individuals who have been recommended

to us for consideration. And I would like at this time to

recognize Mr. Doff for that report.

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MI. Dodd. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I will try and be brief. Actually, most of the people

who served on the task force are here, but for purposes of the

record and for Charlie Thone who was not on there and Sam who

was on but because of his slight illness he had was unable to

participate--I know he full intended to -- first of all,

MI. Chairman, I want to take this opportunity to thank the

members of the task force who showed up hour after hour, day

after day, during a process where we sometimes began to wonder

if we were ever going to be able to conclude it.

It was really quite impressive to have a group of us there

during every interview. There was never a situation where I

was there alone or any one single member of Congress was alone,

interviewing a potential chief

counsel.. The people partici-

pated just as fully as possible.

For the purposes of the record, of course, that task

force did include Mrs. Burke, Floyd Fithian, Bob Edgar, Hal

Sawyer, Stew McKinney, Sam Devine and myself. I think I

included everyone in that task force.

Very briefly, Mr. Chairman, the search committee began

by reviewing some 1ll people, names which had come to us as

result of your inquiries to various national organizations,

contacts with specific people in the country who had a repu-

tation for assisting other congressional comnittees in the

past in their search for staff, particularly in the area of

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chief counsel, chief administrators.

Before I move on any further, I would be negligent at

the very least if I did not also point out we had staff men-

bers from each one of the members of the task force who worked

very, very hard, In fact, an awful lot of work preparing

the documentation, seeking out the materials from the Library

of Congress, making contact and phone calls with all the

people across the country. Our guess is that this total

process took somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 to 400

manhours over the period of two and a half to three weeks,

which is really quite extensive.

At any rate, we had a first go-round where we contacted of

looked at some 64 individuals on paper. From that list of 64

we narrowed down as a group 17 candidates that we thought

should be interviewed personally, if they would be so willing.

Of that list of 17 that we contacted, six expressed a sincere

interest in serving as chief counsel and staff director of this

committee.

We interviewed all six of them and felt we should go

further.. From that group we were not satisfied entirely. with

the individuals that we had had a chance to talk to, so we .

then went back through the same process again, looking at a

list of 47 to 50 people, again by contacting various people

around the country, various organizations and so forth.

From that group of 50 we narrowed it: down to another group

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of some 13 or 14 that we thought would be worth looking at.

From that group some seven people agreed and indicated a

strong interest in serving on the committee.

As a result of those interviews and the interview of the

first group, we came up with two teams, so to speak, and the

reason for it was that we found so many qualified people, as a

result of going back over our own work.. We found it almost

impossible

to come up with any one person that all of us

completely agreed on.

As was agreed previously, prior to the time of starting

this process, our intention as a task force was to try and

narrow down the group and submit those names we thought would

be éminently qualified to you, Mr. Chairman, for the final

decision. We did not feel we should or could make that final

determination.

In reviewing these people, I must also point out that

we were looking for certain characteristics and qualities in

each one of these people. Although these do not necessarily

appear in any order of preference, we did consider their

professional standing, their administrative experience, their

investigative experience, their prosecutorial experience,

integrity, personality, ability to get along with other people,

political sensitivity, writing ability and, of course, any

possible information in their own background, professional or

otherwise, which could reflect poorly on this committee's

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efforts during the next year and a half.

From those lists and groups of people we talked to, as

previously mentioned, we came back with two teams.

The two teams we came up with, the first team consisted

of Professor Robert Blakey who was a professor at Cornell

University, former chief counsel to the McClellan Senate

Committee, had been there for some four or five years. Prior

to that time he had experience in the Justice Department, has

written extensively and was a rather impressive individual.

Mr. Lagel, Chicago prosecutor, who is presently the

Executive Director of the Illinois Crime Commission -- that

may not be the exact title but it is the crime commission.

The Chairman. Law Enforcement

Conmission.

Mr. Dodd. And Attorney General Highland was the Attorney

General of New Jersey, who has been, by the way, the attorney

general under four administrations in

that State and has exten-

sive background and experience as well. Mr. Highland removed

himself voluntarily from that first team. He contacted the

Chairman…

For reasons of his own, he regretfully declined to

be considered in that final group.

The second group consisted of Mr. Jaffe, Professor of

Israel from the University of Michigan; and Mr. Schaeffer,

former deal of the Notre Dame LahcSchool.. Mri Jaffe is a U.S.

Attorney from New York.

At that time, MI.

Chairman, we submitted te you those names.

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Rather than go into what you finally decided to work on,. I would

like to sun up by saying this did involve numerous manhours, and I feel

we did as good a job as we could under

the time constraints

we were operating inder in trying to do the job, to conduct

the search in as thorough and competent a manner as we could.

I am satisfied at this point, Mr. Chairman, that you have

before you the names of people; at least the task force anyway

feels we could live with very easily and would believe they

would bring credit to this committee in its effort to resolve

the questions surrounding these two assassinations.

I will be glad to answer any questions from any of the

other committee members. I am sure my colleagues on the task

force might like to comment on the process or make any other

additional observations.

The Chairman. Do any members of the task force want to

make additional comments?

(No response.)

The Chairman. I certainly want to once again thank you,

Mr. Dodd, and each member of the task force.

MI. Fithian. May I just say one thing?

The Chairman. I will recognize you in just a moment.

I do want to - on the record - thank both the chairman

and the members of this task force for having spent this type

of time in behalf of a search. I think all of us on the com-

mittee recognize the importance that all of us attach to this

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particular office, staff,and the ultimate report which we must

to the American people with. It is obvious you have expended

an awful lot of time and effort. I very sincerely appreciate

all your work on this.

I recognize Mr. Fithian.

Mx.. Fithian. I just want to say, cutting down to two

categories of people in this choice process, you could select

a person for his prosecutorial ability and make that really the

heavy emphasis, or you could get someone who had a lot of ad-

ministrative experience to write a good report and manage the

staff, and if you are lucky to get somebody who has some contadt

with Washington, some contact with the Hill, so they know what

the congressional committees and congressional staffs are all

about, and it is hard to find somebody who has had all of these.

It is hard to be an outstanding national prosecutor, have con-

tact and long years of experience on the Hill, and also be able

to administer a large number of lawyers.

It is just not a normal combination. I think I could

live very happily with any one of the six on the first and

second teams. For various other reasons, I would not have been

happy had we gone beyond that, beyond the top six.

Mr. Thone. Mr. Chairman --

The Chairman. Mr. Thone.

Mr. Thone. Mr. Dodd, what did Mr. Blakey teach at Cornell?

Mr. Dodd. He is in the Law School there and he teaches

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if you will wait one

second, let me pull out his resume for you.

Mr. Thone. How old is he, by the way?

Mr. Dodd. I would be guessing. Off the top of my head,

I believe he is 45. Let me get his resume for you.

The Chairman. Born 1936.

Mr. Doda. Born 1936, so that would make him 41.

The Chairman. The other fellow is 36, Mr. Zagel.

Mr. Thone. What is his first name?

The Chairman. James B. Zagel.

Mr. Sawyer. I was tremendously impressed by

this fellow

Zagel.

Mr. Dodd. Mr. Chairman, if I may ask the gentleman to

yield, he teaches criminal law, procedure, property, seminars,

organized crime and faculty advisor. He also taught at Notre

Dame Law School.

Mr. Thone. Going to

the Notre Dam Law School, did you

say the current or former dean?

Mr. Doda. Former dean.

MI. Thone. What does he do now?

MI. Dodd. He is a professor there.

Mr. Pithian. Every five of six years they rotate that

deanship. He is back on the staff again.

The Chairman. It might help, Mr. Thone, just reading out

part of the things on it: A.B.,1957, University of Notre Dame;

Li.B., 1960, Notre Dam Law School, Special Attorney Honors

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Program;. Organized Crime, Racketeering Section, Criminal

Division, United States Department of Justice, 1960 to 1964;

Assistant Professor of Law, Notre Dame Law School, 1964 to

1967; Professor, 1967 to 1974. Chief Counsel, Subcommittee on

Criminal Laws

and Procedures, Chairman John L. McClellan,

Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, 1969 to 1973;

Assault on Organized Crime, President's Commission on Law

Enforcement and Administration of Justice, 1966 to 1967; Report

on Electronic Surveillance, American Bar Association Project

for Minimum Standards in Criminal Justice, 1967-1968; Consult-

and on Conspiracy, Organized Crime, National Commission m the

Reform of the Federal Penal Law, 1968; menber, Task Force on Legalized

Gambling, 20th Century Assault, Commission on Review of National

Policy, 1974-1975; member, National Commission for the Review

of Federal and State Laws relating to Wire Tapping and Elec-

tronic Surveillance, 1974-1975; professor, Cornell Law School

since 1973; Director, Cornell Institute on Organized Crime,

subjectst criminal justice, criminal procedure, seminar on

organized crime.

I might say I have now interviewed both of these appli-

cants and I also had talked with Mr. Highland prior to his with-

drawal. All three individuals are very, very choice. Each

is outstanding in his own right. Zagel, of course, is a little

younger. He is about 36 years old and has not had, I suppose,

the extensive type of experience that Blakey appears to have

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had at 45, and yet he is the type of a fellow who at 36 is

considered to be an old prosecutor because he has been in the

field quite a while.

They are tremendously impressive.

I suppose on balance I would lean perhaps a little more

toward professor Blakey.. I think I do

so because on balance I

think he has perhaps a little more experience in different

areas than Mr. Zagel has and has the advantage of having had

Capitol Hill experience and is familiar with the working

members of Congress and Hill administration situation, which

is also unique.

I found Mr. Zagel, while he has had some administrative

experience, some relationship to persons in the State legis-

lature, also very knowledgeable in terms of the political

process and how to get along with officials he has to deal

with in official capacity and so forth.

It is just in my own personal type of reaction that on

balance I would put Blakey just a little bit above.

Mr. Dodd. If the Chairman would yield, just one point I

think should be mentioned.

I made an effort to contact Senator McClellan, to ask him

about how he had performed in his role as chief counsel over

there at that committee.: Unfortunately, Senator McClellan just

returned home from an operation in the hospital, but I did

manage to speak with one of his top assistants who has been with

the senator. for numerous years and knew Blakey very, very well.

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Speaking with him on a confidential basis, he told me he

would speak for the Senator without hesitation and that Bob

Blakey was the finest person he every had working for him,

he was top flight, in fact, felt so highly of him he has been

strongly recommended for one of the top positions in the Depart-

ment of Justice in the present Administration.

Iguess many have not been too successful in relationship

with the new Administration in that area. He had the highest

remarks for Blakey. Certainly it is a key question in terms of

his ability to perform as a chief counsel of a congressional

committee.

Mr. Sawyer. Mr. Chairman, I was egually impressed, really.

with Zagel and Blakey. They are both top guys.. I got the im-

pression, talking to Blakey, he might have some economic problem.

Did you get that?

The Chairman. I can speak to that. The task force had

indicated that to me, that we might have a problem there. He

is presently at around $53,000 and we only pay top of $47,000.

When he and I talked, we discussed that and I told him

$47.5 thousand would be tops.. He then did some computing on

his own there with me with reference to the fact the retirement

[situation here would provide him a little additional money. In

fact, he would be living over in Virginia where taxes and other

things are less than they are in New York. He felt he could

pick up a little additonal money there, and then he had a question

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as to whether he might pick up one consultant fee without

violating the House rules which would give him $2,500. He has

some time ago contracted with Lou Nizer to testify as an expert

in a libel case that will be coming up in August somewhere out

West where he would be testifying in his capacity as an expert

on organized crime. It is a civil matter where I guess a member

of the Mafia has sued the State - my understanding is it was

clearly a libel

situation on the part of either a newspaper or

magazine that wrote the article; and he would be testifying in

that case.

I guess one is paid testimony of this sort where he would

be entitled to a $2,500 fee

Mr. Sawyer. For which side?

The Chairman. He would be testifying against the newg-

paper.

Mr. Devine. The same situation we had with Sprague.

Mx. Dodd. He is not the principal in the case.

The Chairman. He evidently is an expert in this area and

has been called as a court witness in several of those cases.

I told him this is something I would have to take up with the

committee; but at any rate I think he realistically would be

willing to try to live with $47.5 thousand.

Mr. Sawyer. What problem is there if he was called as a

witness on behalf of the member of the Mafia?

The Chairman. I can see some problem, particularly with

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the problems this committee has had.

Mr. Dodd. His name is Alessandro Travicante?

The Chairman. No, but it is something similar to it.

Mr. Edgar.

Mr. Chairman -

The Chairman. Mr. Edgar.

Mr. Edgar. I would like to urge the committee to move

with deliberate haste to the selection of this chief counsel.

I think both candidates are equally qualified and because of

your interest in Mr. Blakey, having served on the task group and

having met Mr. Blakey, while he was not my choice, he was

clearly in the top part of the scale, and I think selecting and

securing a chief counsel at this time would do more to establish

this kind of mature staff morale that we are looking for now

in the committee.

I think if we could announce tomorrow the acceptance

of new chief counsel and that person could be in place by the

middle of July at the latest, we could really pursue the

investigations carefully. One of our concerns that we expressed

in our interviewing the candidates was the fact that every day,

every week pushed this off even further.

One of the things Mr. Lehner wanted to talk to us about

and didn't have a chance is that their investigation is a little

bit handicapped because they are working with three field

investigators divided between Kennedy and King. One of the

field investigators is leaving, a new one is possible on the

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horizon.

They would like to see the selection of three or four

minimum for the King group before the deadline passes, so those

investigators can be on board before August. I know we have

had a seminoratorium on hiring, rightly so, because the new

chief counsel should have that responsibility; but I would just

urge us to act. as quickly as possible to secure the new chief

counsel and allow some flexibility perhaps, at least two or three

investigators coming on as quickly as possible so we can get

the evidence together and pursue these cases.

Mr. Dodd. Mr. Chairman, I would like to suggest, I do

not believe a motion is necessary unless soneone so wanted,

but I would like to suggest that you, as Chairman of this com-

mittee, be authorized by the rest of us to make that decision

as to which one of these two or any of the other ones we looked

at, if you so desire to make that choice pursuant to Congress-

man Edgar's last suggestion.

Unless there is some projection in that, I would make that

as a suggestion.

Mr. Devine. I would agree with the assessment that the

Chair should make the selection between those two persons.

The

only thing that troubles me is what you just pointed out, his

desire to testify, to take this $2,500 consultant fee; if he

does, in fact.; publicly in August, why, that may be another

thing that people will jump upon.

Mr. Edgar. Mr. Chairman --

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The Chairman. Mr. Edgar.

Mr. Edgar. Mr. Chairman, I think when we offer Mr.

Blakey the opportunity to come with us, I think we should

respectfully request him to not take the consultant fee. I

think there will be sufficient ways that we can help MI.

Blakey. If it becomes a determinant whether he comes to us,

I know it. is a concern. I just frankly think we have got to

be careful not to have someone testifying in August who is to

spend full time here. I would urge him not to testify,

request of him that he not, and then see if there isn't a way

in which we can assist him as the year goes on, perhaps making

sure there are few, if any, requirements that he use his own

funds for any travel or any of his expenses. I just have a

hesitancy to see him going out and consulting.

The Chairman. There was one other thing you ought to be

apprised of, too. He did not know the answer to this himself.

Ordinarily, in the summer he conducts an institute for

Cornell and he antitipates conducting an institute this summer

It lasts one week and he was not certain whether or not he

would be compensated for it during that week. He had apprised

me of it..

Mr. Devine. What type of institute?

The Chairman. It is a law institute that is conducted

for the university, but it requires he be away that one week.

Mr. Fithian. Mr. Chairman, we have to make a choice here.

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If it is a matter of dollars and cents, I would be happy to

have him as chief counsel myself. I would much rather give him

up for a week to go up to Cornell and let him get compensated

than to go on the stand in the nature of the testimony that

he is an expert witness. The $2,500 would be paid by the

defense counsel for the Mafia. That leaves me a little shakey.

Mr. Sawyer. That bothers me, too.

The Chairman. I think on that point, I think the con-

mittee has well stated its opinion and the Chair understands.

• Mr. Fauntroy: Mr. Chairman, I just had two questions

and one comment. The question first is, when would he be

available - Mr. Blakey?

The Chairman. He is available, I think, within a period

of two weeks, and he stressed the fact economically his situation

is such, while he and his family are not starving, his

economic situation is

such that he cannot miss a two-week

pay period. If he misses a two-week pay period he said they

would be in trouble.

MI. Fauntroy. Do I understand he has nine children?

Mr. Sawyer. I believe..

Mr. Fauntroy.

Six children, a Protestant having attended

Notre Dame.

Mr. Dodd. No, he is a Catholic.

Mr. Fauntroy. I was wondering how he made it.

Mr. Dodd. Seven children.

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Mrs. Burke.

He said they will be going to college soon.

MI. Fauntroy. My second question is, is it possible for

our chief counsel to accept honoraria and outstanding income

at all? I think we had some arrangement with Mr. Sprague.

The Chairman. Under the House rules and, of course, if

you remember, if you recall; on the floor we had debate. I

assured members that the individual selected would work full

time and not have outside income. That has been expressed to

the House, so that is the position we are in.

Mr. Fauntroy. The final question with respect to Mr.

Blakey has to do with his previous work, the McClellan

commission.

Is that the committee for which Mr. Manuel

worked,, does anyone know?

Mr. Lennon. It was my understanding that Mr. Manuel worked

for the Jackson Subcommittee on Investigations.

Mx. Thone. He worked for the Senate International Comnittee,

one of the witnesses told us.

Mx. Fauntroy. I just want to get that clear in my mind.

Mr. Thone. I assume Blakey worked on S. I and all that.

Mr. Lennon. I think that is correct. I would want to check

that out, sir, before I give another answer.

Mr. Dodd. I talked to MI. Blakey about S. 1. He was

involved in an original draft of S. l. By the time he left

there was one draft and then the draft that caused the furor

he was not responsible for. It was the original draft. I

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brought that point up with him.

So those members who might have been concerned about that,

he was not involved in that period of time when there was --

Mr. Thone. To answer Mr. Fauntroy, he never was

associated

with the Senate International Security Committee.

MI. Dodd. The only committee I know he was associated

with is what appears on his resume.

The title of that com-

mittee was Subcommittee on Criminal Laws and Procedures.

Mr. Thone. That is an entirely different subcommittee.

Mr. Fauntroy. That satisfies me, Mr. Chairman. I would

hope we would move expeditiously on this

recommendation that you select the chief counsel of your

choice - we suspect that will be Mr. Blakey -- and apprise

him of the concerns we have with the testimony in behalf of

the Mafia.

The Chairman. Can the Chair just assume he has the

authority to go ahead and select counsel and arrange for hire?

Mr. Edgar. I recommend we not approach the press until

you get an affirmative decision.

The Chairman. Yes, and I would hope this committee, until

such time we have the confirmation by the individual and this

committee, of course, would make no statement regarding the

chief counsel.

Mr. Fithian. Mr. Chairman --

The Chairman. Yes?

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Mr. Fithian.

May I respectfully suggest to the Chair

that immediately your office get off a short letter to each

of the other people we interviewed. Hopefully, they would

receive this letter prior to any public announcement.

Mr. Dodd. If I can interrupt for a second, we have sent

Mr. Lennon. I have a draft of such letter.

Mr. Dodd. I sent out a letter as chairman of the task

force to everyone: we talked to right away, thanking them for

coming and telling them we would notify them of a decision.

There are 13 people we are talking about that we actually

interviewed. Actually, we are talking about 1l people because

two.of them removed themselves from consideration.

While certainly something must be done, I would suggest

a phone call is not that difficult a thing to do, to let these

people know a decision has been made and a letter would be

forthcoming. A letter could take three or four days.

I would also suggest, Mr. Chairman, at the time this

announcement is made to the public that Mr. Blakey be present

for it and that I will see you get a most complete combination

of all the information we have about Mr.. Blakey, everything

we were able to come up with, so you will have that for your

own purposes for review prior to the time of going to the press.

The Chairman. I would think probably since we have taken

so much time and tried to do this in the thorough way we have,

that perhaps a press conference of the committee would be the

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way we might want to do it.

Mrs. Burke.. I am not sure it is necessary to say this

kind of thing.. I would hope we rally are very sure that

Blakey has made a final decision in view of all of the ramifi-

cations and the scheduling before we send a letter notifying

zagel. I do not

think that is necessary.

One of the things I did detect in the debate on the floor

was that there seems to be a great deal of unhappiness about

practicing law,

but most of the people seem to be willing to

accept this idea of a person teaching in a law school, if they

were a long-term law professor. I know our rules provide

for it specifically.

It seems to me if there is some way to work this out to

do his one week before he is finished, if he is already con-.

mitted, if we could work it out some way his date would start

afterward, I do not think there would be an outcry. from the

Hosue on him teaching a course that he was committed to teach

beforehand.

I think practicing law, that sort of thing, and appearing

as an expert witness, would be totally unacceptable.

Mr. Edgar. Mr. Chairman, what was the practice on each off

the interviewees in terms of our funding their transportation?

Did we cover the cost of that transportation?

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Mr. Dodd. We had one individual that was not able to pay

his own way. That individual happened to be Mr. Blakey.

I do

not want the record to reflect the Chairman and I

assumed that

cost because we did not provide for that in our funding resolu-

tions. His bill was $104 for a round trip ticket. The Chair-

man paid $52 and I paid $52. I think is was money well spent

considering he was our choice.

The Chairman. An investment anyway.

Mr. Edgar. May I suggest we pass the plate during a pub-

lic session?

Mr. Sawyer. Mr. Chairman, I think no matter who you pick,

I really urge you to give maybe a day or two, when you have it

all nailed down, telephoning notice to the others because some-

times it gives them a very good position to say they have

rethought the matter and decided they want to withdraw their

name from the thing so they don't leave the impression with

whomever they were working with they are rejected and, there-

fore, they are going to stay. It is pretty healthy to do that.

The Chairman. Thank you.

MI. Lennon. If I might make a suggestion, I am not sure

when you want to make the announcement, within how many days, but

before you do, I would hope you would have Mr. Blakey come down

here and we could perhaps play a devil's advocate and hit him

with all the questions that is possible that we could possibly

think of from the press regarding his background and his

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philosophy on the investigation so that we do not have another

situation where he might be saying something inadvertently

that the committee would not particularly appreciate.

MI. Edgar. If I may respectfully disagree. I think we

should just indicate to Mr. Blakey that he is coming on new.

He doesn't know the issues of the task group. I think there

is a lot of work we need to do after he arrives.

But I would

hate for us to hold up his selection and appointment and bring

him down for a skull session. I just think it is really

imperative we do this efficiently and all good speed.

The Chairman. I might say on that point, one of the

things he and I discussed, we discussed his views toward the

way the investigation oughtto be conducted. One of the things

he said was that if he were selected, he would want to hold

one press conference for the purpose of announcing to the press

that

there would be no more press conferences and that this

investigation then proceed out of sight of the public until

such time as you have it prepared in a way that you could

come forward with it. I think he is

astute enough and sophisti-

cated enough to know the Hill well enough to know how to handle the Hill's

press.

Mr. Fauntroy. On that point, Mr. Chairman, I would like

to suggest that we consider for the edification for both new

chief counsel and all members of the committee a closed session

where all of the staff personnel under the leaderhhip of their

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counsel

would present, bring us all up to date on what they

have been doing with the view that both he and we can see

the picture of what the staff members are doing and he can

begin to make some assessments of what he has and what he may

need.

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The Chairman. An excellent idea.

Thank you very much.

By unanimous consent, this meeting will adjourn, subject

to call of the Chair.

(Whereupon, at 1:45 p.m., the committee adjourned, subject

to call of the Chair.)

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