F.B.I. Found No Risk To Security From Aide

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30580, 24 October 1964, Page 18

F.B.I. Found No Risk To Security From Aide

(N.Z. Press Association-Copyright) WASHINGTON, October 22. The Federal Bureau of Investigation told President Johnson today that its investigation of his former assistant, Walter Jenkins, disclosed no information that Jenkins “has compromised the security or interests of the United States in any manner,” the Associated Press reported.

The President had asked the F.B.L to look into Jenkins’s affairs a week ago, one day after Jenkins resigned at Johnson’s request after revelations that Jenkins was arrested on morals charges in 1959 and again early this month.

Jenkins, a top assistant to Johnson for 20 years, was arrested at the Washington Young Men’s Christian Association.

The F.B.L director, Mr J. Edgar Hoover said his inquiry covered “the full scope” of Jenkins’s life from his early years in Texas to the present time.

“A favourable appraisal of Mr Jenkins’s loyalty and dedication to the United States was given the F.B.L by more than 300 of his asso-

ciates, both business and social, representing divergent political backgrounds, who were interviewed in this investigation. The investigation did not indicate any classified data had been compromised,” Mr Hoover said. The report said the investigation started last week has disclosed that Jenkins “has had limited association with some individuals who are alleged to be, or who admittedly are, sex deviates.” Hoover added that there was no information to indi-

cate that Jenkins has ever engaged in improper acts ■with them. According to persons interviewed in connexion with the two arrests, the incidents “occurred during periods of extremely intense emotional strain and physical exhaustion in Mr Jenkins’s life,” Mr Hoover said. The chairman of the department of psychiatry in the School of Medicine at the George Washington University was quoted by Mr Hoover as saying—with Jenkins’s authorisation —that he had first examined Jenkins on October 15 and “found him to be suffering from a severe depressive state.” “This,” the report went on, “necessitated continuing hospitalisation with constant nursing attendance. Further examination of Mr Jenkins leads to the conclusion that his general adjustment is within the normal range and that his present condition was the culmination of extreme tensions.” On the day Jenkins resigned his White House post and the arrest came to light, it was announced he had entered the hospital suffering extreme fatigue and “sky high” blood pressure. The F. 8.1. report said Johnson did not know of the 1959 arrest when he assumed office as President.