The Denton Texas Informant

Mr. STERN - I would like you now, Mr. Sorrels, to tell us something of the Protective Research activities that took place in preparation for the President's visit to Dallas, that you recall.

Mr. SORRELS - At that time, we had no known Protective Research subjects that we were making periodic checks on in that area. Mr. Lawson informed me that he had checked with PRS, and that was confirmed.

However, bearing in mind the incidents that had taken place some time before with Mr. Stevenson, I had instructed Special Agent John Joe Howlett, to work with the Special Services Bureau of the Police Department, and I also conferred by phone with the chief of police at Denton, Tex., because some of those individuals who were involved in the Stevenson affair were going to college there….

Mr. STERN - How soon had that happened before the President's visit?

Mr. SORRELS - I don't remember. It was probably some 60 days, maybe, before.
It was quite some time before.

But within recent time. And so Mr. Anderson, chief of police, informed me that he had an informant that was keeping in touch with the situation. I arranged with the Dallas Police Department for Lieutenant Revill to accompany Special Agent Howlett to Denton, and confer with the police there, and to also get photographs of these individuals.

When we were conferring with Mr. Felix McKnight, the managing editor of the Dallas Times Herald, I learned that--from him--that they had photographs taken at the Stevenson incident. So arrangements were made where by Special Agent Howlett and the members of the Dallas Police Department, together with the informant in the case, would view those films, so that there could be pointed out to them individuals known to have been in the incident.

We had duplicate pictures made, and they were furnished to the special agent assigned to the Trade Mart, and were shown to the police officers that were assigned out in that area.

Mr. STERN - Did anything else occur in the field of Protective Research?

Mr. SORRELS - That is all I can recall at the present time….

Mr. STERN - Was there anything else that you recall involving any person or group that might present a danger to the President?

Mr. SORRELS - There was some individuals from Grand Prairie, Tex., that were mentioned to us by the police department that were known to be the type that might appear with handbills or placards--not handbills, but with placards in the area where the President might appear. And it developed that they did show up with placards at the Trade Mart, and they were taken into custody by the police department….