Spies in Dallas? Police Alert

Spies in Dallas? Police Alert

By JERRY RICHMOND
Staff Writer

“A man would be a fool to say any city in the United States is secure from subversion and espionage.”

This statement was made by the man in charge with keeping an eye on activities in Dallas involving espionage, subversion and sabotage for the Dallas Police Department.

‘Sensitive’

Police Captain Pat Gannaway, head of the department’s special services bureau, and a dozen of hand-picked offices under Lieutenant J. R. Revill in the criminal intelligence section of his bureau have been assigned to work with federal and state intelligence officials to guard the Dallas area from penetration by subversives seeking to harm the nation’s security.

Within this bureau fall all the things of a sensitive nature, and they…expionage and subversive activities….must be watched at all times,” the veteran police officer and reserve lieutenant colonel in the Army Intelligence corps said.

In addition to other country and state agents, the bureau’s work involves close support of Federal Bureau of Investigation agents, military intelligence teams from the Army, Navy and Air Force, and other federal agencies with investigators operating from headquarters here.

This combined federal, state and local team has men laced throughout the industrial and strategic points in the city’s life line.

The job of the intelligence action in Capt. Ganaway’s bureau, besides keeping check on organized crime, requires the closets cooperation with these other government agencies gathering intelligence on subversive groups and individuals suspected of espionage.

Dallas police have been highly successful in recent years in penetrating so-called subversive groups or radical groups which appear likely some day to cause danger to the public.

Penetration

In many cases undercover agents actually joined these groups to get names, addresses, past activities and future plans or have established networks of informants to acompolish the same result.

Private business,, retail credit bureaus, utility companies and even employers often provide invaluable information on suspicious perons who are kept under surveillance for months without their knowledge.

With membership in a national police intelligence organization known as LEIU (Law Enforcement Intelligence Unites) the local officers are able to get information almost immediately on suspected subversives when they move into Dallas. This information is exchanged by police units as these persons move from city to city.

Captain Gannaway’s men daily face the problem of changing membership in organization under question. He noted the most difficult part of the job is the freedom of movement of known subversives, but added: “That freedom is the dearest thing we have and I would not restrict it even for those who would destroy it.”

PLANT SECURTIY

Other civilians involved as a group in national security work at the local level are corporation security officers.

Floyd Purvis, manger of corporation security for Texas Instruments, pointed out that all plants in the Dallas-Fort Worth area with defense contracts operate under strict Department of Defense security regulations similar to those on military bases.

Employees in the plants are carefully screened by security conscious personnel ofificers, and the key jobs are given strict government security clearances.

UPGRADING

Industry is taking great strides to upgrade security practices. One such group in this aera is the American Society for Industrial Security, an organization in which Mr. Purvis is a local chairman.

Such governmental and civilian counter-intelligence activities are selcom publicized until a spy is caught, but local activity by these agencies has placed Dallas and other American cities in the fight against intrigues in a web of espionage.

Every citizen has a role in the nation’s security, Capt. Gannaway concluded. Often one small tip from an individual has meant bringing the pieces together for some intelligence agency.

August 5, 1963