Mr. KILGORE. That is correct, sir, but I hope you appreciate that in my August 1955 memo, or Mr. Karsted's memo, we did not ask that the Assistant Attorney General's Office authorize us to file any of the pleadings in the so-called overall program. We did ask for authority to file a single proceeding. Mr. HARKINS. I see. Now, on May 21, 1956, did Mr. Karsted again submit a memorandum of summarized activity of a particular company subject to the decree? Mr. KILGORE. May we have that date again, please? Mr. HARKINS. May 21, 1956. Mr. KARSTED. I don't know, either, unless those were the two actions that Kirkpatrick asked me to bring up to date. Mr. HARKINS. Let me clarify this. Did you submit two memorandums on May 4? Mr. KILGORE. Yes. Mr. HARKINS. Did you submit one memorandum on May 21? The CHAIRMAN. What is your answer? Mr. KARSTED. I don't know. The CHAIRMAN. I didn't hear you. Mr. HARKINS. Did you submit a total of 3, or did you submit 2 memorandums that summarized the activities of particular companies subject to the decree? Mr. KARSTED. All I have is the record of the two on May 4, 1956. Now, one may have been submitted on May 21. Mr. HARKINS. At our conference on April 12, 1956 Mr. HANSEN. 1957. Mr. HARKINS. 1957, excuse me. Did you you had submitted two memorandums? Mr. KARSTED. Yes. advise us that on May 4 Mr. HARKINS. And at that same conference did you advise us that on May 21, 1956, you submitted another memorandum to Mr. Kilgore? Mr. KILGORE. Mr. Harkins, we tried our best to pin down dates as to the schedule of these various things, and I personally have no recollection as to when we may have submitted these memos. Mr. HARKINS. May I ask this question: Mr. Karsted, have you submitted 3 memorandums involving 3 sepa rate companies? Mr. KARSTED. Yes. Mr. HARKINS. You have? Mr. KARSTED. Yes. Mr. KILGORE. I believe the record should show, Mr. Harkins, that he submitted four. Mr. HARKINS. Yes. Did you submit one of them after our April 12 conference? Mr. KARSTED. Yes. Mr. HARKINS. So, before the April 12 conference you had submitted three? Mr. KARSTED. Yes. Mr. HARKINS. Now, is it true that with respect to the May 21, the third memorandum, the staff of the Judgment Enforcement Section had received no word from the Office of the Assistant Attorney General on April 12, 1957? Mr. KARSTED. I think that would be true. Yes; that is true. Mr. HARKINS. Are the cases that were filed by the Department of Justice for enforcement of this decree on October 11, 1957, the same cases that were involved in any of your 1955 or 1956 memorandums? Mr. KARSTED. Three of them are; yes. Mr. HARKINS. Three of them are. Mr. Bicks, do you recall on April 10, 1957, members of the staff of the Antitrust Subcommittee conferred with Mr. Kilgore and Mr. Bicks with respect to the committee's consent-decree investigation? Do you recall that? Mr. BICKS. I do. Mr. HARKINS. Mr. Kilgore, during this conference do you recall that Mr. Bicks asked you whether there had been any instance where you had recommended a case for violation of the consent decree, where your recommendation had not been accepted? Mr. KILGORE. I have no personal recollection of it. Mr. HARKINS. You do not recall that conversation during our conference? Mr. KILGORE. I do not recall it. I do not deny that the statement was made. Mr. HARKINS. And accordingly, you may recall your answer to Mr. Bicks' question. Do you recall stating that you answered to Mr. Bicks that there had been cases you had recommended, where cases had not been filed, for violation of the judgment? Mr. KILGORE. Whether I made the statement or not, those are the facts. Mr. HARKINS. At that conference-this is the April 10, 1957, conference between Mr. Singman and myself and you and Mr. Bicks-did you not advise Mr. Bicks that you had recommended to Mr. Barnes that several proceedings be instituted in the Atlantic Refining case, and that your recommendations had not been accepted? Mr. BICKS. I was present at that conference, Mr. Harkins, and I do not recollect Mr. Kilgore saying that. May I reconstruct what happened? Bear in mind, I don't have the benefit of your apparently stenographic notes of the conference. You asked some questions about Atlantic Refining. This was in April of 1957. I had been the acting first assistant, and then first assistant, since October 1956. During that period I knew that no staff recommendation regarding action under the Atlantic Refining decree had reached my desk. Therefore, I had no occasion to wrestle at any length with the many complex problems under the judgment. And I was comparatively unfamiliar with it. When you asked the question I wanted to refresh my memory, so I turned to Mr. Kilgore, as if seeking some kind of recall of memory, and said, "Bill, you have never made any recommendation for action under this judgment to me, that I know of." And I believe that is true, between the date I became acting first assistant and the date of your April visit to me, no staff recommendation regarding action under this judgment came to my desk. Mr. KILGORE. I made my recommendations to Judge Barnes. Mr. BICKS. Which was before I became first assistant. That was the context, Mr. Harkins, that I put the question I did to Mr. Kilgore. Mr. HARKINS. May I read a paragraph from a memorandum of this meeting that I prepared, to see if it accords with your recollection? With respect to any information that would show instances where the Antitrust Division staff had recommended court proceedings for consent decree violations, Mr. Bicks stated it was the policy of the Department not to make such information available to Congress. He stated, however, that to his knowledge there had been no recommendation for court action from the staff of the Judgment Enforcement Section which had not been followed, and asked Mr. Kilgore if he (Mr. Kilgore) had in any instance recommended a case for violation of a consent decree where his recommendation had not been accepted. Mr. Kilgore answered in the affirmative and stated that he had recommended institution of such cases and that there were some instances where his recommendations had not been followed. When Mr. Bicks asked him to identify an instance, Mr. Kilgore stated he had recommended to Judge Barnes that several proceedings be instituted to enforce the decree in the Atlantic Refining case, and that his recommendations had not been accepted. Mr. Bicks stated that he was unfamiliar with that decree, or Mr. Kilgore's recommendations. Does that correspond with your recollection? Mr. BICKS. It does not, because it does not correspond with the facts. Mr. Kilgore recommended one proceeding that reached Judge Barnes during the time he was here. Mr. HARKINS. That was the August 10, 1955, basic program? Mr. BICKS. No. You apparently are a bit confused about what the August 10, 1955, program was. That involved only one proceeding, and that proceeding, a proceeding testing that issue, has since been filed, even though it did not involve the pieces of paper called pleadings that were attached to that memo. Mr. HARKINS. There was a memorandum submitted on August 10, 1955. Is that right? Mr. BICKS. That is correct. Mr. HARKINS. Was Judge Barnes in office? Mr. BICKS. Yes, he was. Mr. HARKINS. On May 4, 1956, there were 2 memos. Mr. BICKS. I believe that Judge Barnes never saw those memos. They went to Mr. Kirkpatrick, second assistant in the division. In the normal course of routing, the Assistant Attorney General doesn't receive proposed pleadings until the immediate assistants in his office have gone over them and gotten a chance to formalize their own views. Only then can all views be presented to the Assistant Attorney General. Accordingly, regarding the May 4 memos that were sent to Mr. Kirkpatrick, I doubt that Judge Barnes saw them before he was appointed to the bench some 6 or 8 months later. Mr. HARKINS. They were addressed to Mr. Barnes. Mr. BICKS. But they went to Kirkpatrick. You understand the division's routing procedures. Mr. HARKINS. I understand the proceedings, but the question is: Was Judge Barnes in office on May 4, 1956? Mr. BICKS. Of course he was. Mr. HARKINS. On May 21 there was another. Mr. BICKS. I don't recall the May 21 memo. Neither does Mr. Karsted. He refuses to indicate that he made one on May 21. Mr. Kilgore, do you have a present recollection of what it is? Mr. KILGORE. We have no recollection on it. Mr. HARKINS. Mr. Kilgore, how many recommendations with respect to enforcement of this decree have you prepared and approved, and forwarded to Judge Barnes' office? Mr. KILGORE. As of what time? Mr. HARKINS. As of April 10, 1957. Mr. KILGORE. May I confer just a minute? Mr. Karsted says that I had recommended four by that time. Now, do you recall the paragraph that I just read from, the memorandum that I prepared, summarizing our conference on April 10, 1957? Mr. KILGORE. Generally, sir, but I would like to also have a caveat on the word that implied that we had been turned down on our recommendations. Mr. HARKINS. I am not implying that you had been turned down. They had not been accepted as of that date; is that correct? Mr. KILGORE. That is right. Nor had they been rejected. Mr. HARKINS. Mr. Bicks, at the conference on April 10, 1957, did you not state to the members of the antitrust subcommittee staff that you were unfamiliar with the decree, or Mr. Kilgore's recommendation? Mr. BICKS. Yes. I was comparatively unfamiliar with it. Of course, I had some idea what the decree was. I was completely unfamiliar with Bill's May 4, 1956, recommendation since they had never gone beyond Mr. Kirkpatrick's desk to me. Mr. HARKINS. Mr. Kilgore, after the April 10 conference with the subcommittee staff, did you not collect all the documents from the office of the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division bearing upon enforcement in the Atlantic Refining case? Mr. KILGORE. Yes, sir; that is true. Mr. HARKINS. Among these documents did you not find a memorandum from Mr. Bicks to Mr. Barnes dated September 1955 that dealt with the pleadings that were attached to Mr. Karsted's August 10, 1955, memorandum? Mr. KILGORE. I believe that is true. Mr. HANSEN. And the date of these papers again? I want to be accurate. Mr. HARKINS. September 1955-Mr. Bicks' memorandum. Mr. BICKS. What is the date of my memo? Mr. HARKINS. Yes, sir. Mr. BICKS. I don't recall. Mr. HARKINS. It was in September 1955? I was asked to comment on the merits of one particular legal proceeding that was suggested and the form in which it was presented. Mr. HARKINS. Mr. Bicks, before writing the memorandum to Judge Barnes in September 1955, did you read Mr. Karsted's August 10, 1955, memorandum? Mr. BICKS. I read only the portion relating to the proceeding. My judgment was not sought by Judge Barnes on the administrative problem of how much time should Bill Kilgore spend on the whole program. I viewed the suggestion put to me as I think our chances of prevailing on this particular proceeding were in its present form. Mr. HARKINS. Was the information that was contained in that part of Mr. Karsted's August 1955 memorandum that you did read of such a nature as you would be likely to remember? Mr. BICKS. You mean between August 1955 and April 13, 1957? Not with all the water that had gone over the dam in between, Mr. Harkins—that is, the almost 100 new antitrust cases that came across my desk between my reading part of the August 1955 memo and your visit. Mr. HARKINS. Then are you in this position: That you wrote a recommendation to Judge Barnes with respect to the pleadings that were attached to the August 10, 1955, memorandum of Mr. Karsted without having read the basic memorandum itself? Mr. BICKS. I read those portions of the basic memorandum that related to the pleadings. If you had seen the basic memorandum, Mr. Harkins and you may well have; I don't know-you would realize that much more than that particular pleading is treated. Mr. HARKINS. How can you understand the merits of a pleading without reading the basic memo? Mr. BICKS. I have already indicated I read that portion of the memorandums which I felt bore on the merits of the particular pleading. So I would not concede I did not read the basic memorandums, as you use the word. By far the substantial portion of that memo bore no relation to the merits of the particular pleadings which I was reviewing. To the best of my knowledge, you do not know what the particular pleading was attached, or what issue that raised? Or do you? Mr. HARKINS. I do not. Mr. BICKS. Then how can you comment or make any judgment as to what portion of the memo bore on that pleading? Mr. HARKINS. That had to do with Service Pipe Line Co.; is that not true? Mr. BICKS. I am not going to indicate that. Mr. HARKINS. Did the basic memorandum of August 10 have attached to it a pleading that names Service Pipe Line? Mr. BICKS. I am not going into that. I would not like to go into the changes that were made in our pleadings before they were filed. I think that would be a very clear indication of the process of evolution of the Department's thinking regarding drafting of those papers, papers, I emphasize, that are now before the court. Mr. HARKINS. Mr. Bicks, in May or June 1957, after the committee started its investigation, did you confer with Mr. Chaffetz, counsel for Standard Oil Company of Indiana, with respect to a possible case against Service Pipe Line Co. under the consent decree. Mr. BICKS. What do you mean by "confer"? Did I speak with Mr. Chaffetz? Yes. Mr. Chaffetz represents several antitrust defendants or companies under investigation by this Division. I do not recall the occasion he was visiting with me. I do recall that he was in my office, I believe on a conference on some other matter. As a matter of fact, I don't recall exactly the circumstances that he was there. I recall him asking if we were investigating any matters under the Pipe Line judgment. I recall responding that we were. He then asked if any involved his company. I said some did. He then asked if I would promise him that he would have a chance to meet with any member of the Department before any proceeding involving his client, Service, was filed. I indicated, in accord with our long-standing policy, first, that I could make no such promise that any counsel for any defendant would have a chance to confer with the 98505-57-pt. 1, vol. 1-16 |