Creating criminals: law enforcement culture and identity in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's counterintelligence programs

In the 1960s and 1970s, J. Edgar Hoover and the agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were on the hunt for subversives - but what, beyond political considerations, made someone a "subversive" and why were they so determined to find them? This dissertation examines why the FBI targeted groups based on categories such as age, race, and personal expression. It argues that the FBI investigated individuals and groups to perpetuate their idea of what it meant to be a respectable American worthy of the privileges of citizenship. This dissertation first examines the unique culture of the Bureau and the way in which FBI officials and agents saw themselves as defenders of white middle-class values. It then examines the way the FBI used racial stereotypes and tensions to interfere with groups such as the Black Panthers and ultimately argues that class distinctions often meant more to the FBI than racial distinctions. Next, it analyzes the FBI's interaction with the Students for a Democratic Society and reveals the way groups were explicitly targeted due to forms of personal expression. Fourth, it analyzes the Bureau's investigation of the American Indian Movement, and argues that these interactions demonstrate that even while the Bureau changed its practices 1970s, its desire to police particular definitions of "American" continued to influence their interaction with social movements. The FBI's focus on respectable behavior resulted in the investigation of law-abiding individuals and diverted the FBI's manpower and resources away from those who presented a real threat to the safety of the United States. Throughout American history, the federal government has often justified unconstitutional actions by claiming that they protected American citizens. However, the FBI's narrow view of who could claim "citizenship" actually served to harm, in very direct ways, a great number of the citizens they were charged to protect.

CREATING CRIMINALS: LAW ENFORCEMENT CULTURE AND IDENTITY IN THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION'S COUNTERINTELLIGENCE PROGRAMS by Jenel Carpenter Cope A dissertation submitted to the faculty of The University of Utah in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of History The University of Utah May 2013 Copyright © Jenel Carpenter Cope 2013 All Rights Reserved The University of Utah Graduate School STATEMENT OF DISSERTATION APPROVAL The dissertation of Jenel Carpenter Cope has been approved by the following supervisory committee members: Elizabeth Clement , Chair 11/15/12 Date Approved Matthew Basso , Member 11/15/12 Date Approved W. Paul Reeve , Member 11/15/12 Date Approved Susie Porter , Member 11/15/12 Date Approved Ronald Coleman , Member 11/15/12 Date Approved and by Isabel Moreira , Chair of the Department of History and by Donna M. White, Interim Dean of The Graduate School. ABSTRACT In the 1960s and 1970s, J. Edgar Hoover and the agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were on the hunt for subversives - but what, beyond political considerations, made someone a "subversive" and why were they so determined to find them? This dissertation examines why the FBI targeted groups based on categories such as age, race, and personal expression. It argues that the FBI investigated individuals and groups to perpetuate their idea of what it meant to be a respectable American worthy of the privileges of citizenship. This dissertation first examines the unique culture of the Bureau and the way in which FBI officials and agents saw themselves as defenders of white middle-class values. It then examines the way the FBI used racial stereotypes and tensions to interfere with groups such as the Black Panthers and ultimately argues that class distinctions often meant more to the FBI than racial distinctions. Next, it analyzes the FBI's interaction with the Students for a Democratic Society and reveals the way groups were explicitly targeted due to forms of personal expression. Fourth, it analyzes the Bureau's investigation of the American Indian Movement, and argues that these interactions demonstrate that even while the Bureau changed its practices 1970s, its desire to police particular definitions of "American" continued to influence their interaction with social movements. The FBI's focus on respectable behavior resulted in the investigation of law-abiding individuals and diverted the FBI's manpower and resources away from those who presented a real threat to the safety of the United States. Throughout American history, the federal government has often justified unconstitutional actions by claiming that they protected American citizens. However, the FBI's narrow view of who could claim "citizenship" actually served to harm, in very direct ways, a great number of the citizens they were charged to protect. For my grandfather, Roy Wallace Logan CONTENTS ABSTRACT…………………………………………………….………………………. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS…………………..………………………………………..….vii INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………...…………... 1 1 J. EDGAR AND HIS G-MEN: FBI CULTURE IN THE 1960s AND 1970s……………………………………………………………………………………. 16 2 BLACK EXTREMISTS AND DIE-HARD REDNECKS: RACE AND CLASS IN THE COUNTERINTELLIGENCE PROGRAMS………………………………........... 52 3 "IRRESPONSIBLE YOUTH": AGE AND THE STUDENTS FOR A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY……………………………………………………………………………….. 93 4 NOT JUST BLACK AND WHITE: THE AMERICAN INDIAN MOVEMENT AND THE CONTINUATION OF COUNTERINTELLIGENCE………………………….. 128 CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………....... 156 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I owe a great deal of gratitude to many people and institutions for their help with this dissertation. The Department of History at the University of Utah provided financial assistance through the Dean May Fellowship for American West and Utah History, Graduate Teaching Assistantships, a Travel Grant and the opportunity to teach as I finished my dissertation. The American West Center provided me with Graduate Research Assistantships and the Floyd O'Neil Scholarship for Western American Studies. The University of Utah Graduate School provided support through the Marriner S. Eccles Graduate Fellowship in Political Economy. The staff of a number of archives and libraries provided assistance to this research. I would like to especially thank Mary Curry of the National Security Archives, who provided me access to critical resources and the Society of Former Agents of the FBI for allowing me the use of their Oral History Project. I am grateful to a number of faculty members, foremost among these my committee chair Dr. Elizabeth Clement, who not only guided me through finishing this dissertation, but also helped me develop as both a scholar and a human being. My committee, Dr. Matthew Basso, Dr. W. Paul Reeve, Dr. Ronald Coleman, and Dr. Susie Porter each provided critical encouragement and direction. I would like to thank Dr. Robert Goldberg and Dr. Eric Hinderaker, who provided advice about various aspects of this project. I would also like to thank my fellow graduate students, especially my friend Michaele Smith. Finally, I would like to express my heartfelt appreciation to my friends and family for their patience and encouragement, especially my husband Tracy Cope, who provided critical feedback and support and without whom this dissertation would not have been possible. INTRODUCTION When the Federal Bureau of Investigation transferred Agent Billy Bob Williams to the newly opened Jackson, Mississippi office in 1964, he quickly came into contact with the civil rights groups working in the area, including the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In his first encounter with the group, Williams described them as "hostile" and said that because of their "uncooperative" attitude, he made no attempt to help them. In fact, Williams admitted that one of his duties in Mississippi involved "funneling the information about the troublemaking …SNCCs" to his FBI superiors.1 However, Williams's description of civil rights activist Charles Evers, a member of the NAACP (and brother of murdered activist Medgar Evers) stands in direct contrast to his description of SNCC. Williams describes the work of Evers and his colleagues as "dignified" and Evers as friendly and easy to work with.2 Agent Williams's attitude toward SNCC echoed a sentiment expressed by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover six years earlier. Speaking to the FBI National Academy on November 4, 1957, Hoover declared, "Crime has multiplied, not because people no longer respect the law, but because they no longer respect respectability." According to Williams, the young people of SNCC were undeserving of the FBI's help not because 1 Billy Bob Williams, Interviewed by Brian R. Hollstein, Society of Former Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Oral History Project, National Law Enforcement Memorial Museum, February 13 and February 16, 2007. 2 Ibid., 66 -67. 2 they were black or because they were breaking the law, but because they were "troublemakers," or as Director J. Edgar Hoover might have said, the kind of people who had "no respect for respectability." Clearly, Williams did not view Evers as being in the same category as SNCC, even though he was black and was advocating similar kinds of social change. In this case, SNCC serves as an example for a number of individuals and groups whose tactics, attitude, age, style of expression, and/or appearance fell outside what the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and a portion of the American people, viewed as acceptable. As a result, the FBI targeted and punished these groups regardless of the level of unlawful behavior in which they engaged. While issues of race cannot be dismissed from the equation, the importance of the construction of a "troublemaker" or "subversive" other, based not on criminal activities but on forms of expression, is a key factor in understanding the behavior and policies of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and their actions against particular social movements during the infamous years of the domestic Counterintelligence Programs. The FBI initially focused these programs, known as COINTELPRO, to investigate and punish those groups associated with the perceived communist threat. Later, the FBI expanded these programs to surveill and punish groups they felt were "subversive." Those people who by their class, race, age, and/or behavior fell outside of the FBI's definition of the legitimate American citizen and were, in the Bureau's, eyes unworthy of the same rights and protections as more "respectable" citizens. More broadly, this research highlights a debate in American society since the foundation of the United States, namely the conflict between liberty and security in a free society. In 1798, President John Adams signed the Alien and Sedition acts to protect the 3 Federalist Party, and in many minds the nation, from what his party felt were dangerous forms of expression. During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the order for American citizens of Japanese descent to be unfairly imprisoned. In recent years, President George W. Bush signed into law the Patriot Act and justified forms of torture as a way of dealing with a terrorist threat. Throughout American history, Presidents and other governmental powers have, especially during times of war, overlooked constitutional protections such as freedom of speech and freedom of the press in favor of national security. During the late Cold War years, this tendency was magnified by a belief that this threat came as much from "subversive" elements at home as from any foreign power.3 The Federal Bureau of Investigation was one way in which the government sought to deal with that threat, and the FBI did so by making judgments based on race, class, age, and gender as to who and what constituted a "subversive" or "troublemaker." In addition, a discussion of the FBI's counterintelligence programs and the enforcement of white middle-class values sheds light on the history of conservatism in the late 20th Century. As Alan Brinkley pointed out in his essay "The Problem of American Conservatism," postwar liberal consensus historians were unable to see conservative ideas and movements as a part of the mainstream of American political thought.4 In recent years, historians have successfully demonstrated that conservatism remained an important part of American political ideology; for example, historian Lisa 3 William Keller, The Liberals and J. Edgar Hoover: Rise and Fall of a Domestic Intelligence State (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989). Keller argues that liberal legislators even encouraged the FBI's handling of subversive groups because it was seen as the desirable alternative to invasive or extreme legislation. 4 Alan Brinkley, "The Problem of American Conservatism," The American Historical Review 99, no.2, (April 1994): 411. 4 McGirr discussed the ways in which conservative ideals survived at the grass roots level. These ideals consisted of a dedication to anticommunism, a limited federal government, low taxes, law and order, and in most cases, Judeo-Christian values. McGirr states that, "Ironically the grassroots mobilization of the Right in the early 1960s was a result of the conservative's lack of influence in Washington."5 This dissertation demonstrates that not only was conservatism alive and well on the grassroots level as McGirr suggests, but conservative ideas remained a mainstay of at least one federal government institution - the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This is not to say that the Bureau's policies were a perfect fit with conservative ideology; on the contrary, the Bureau's actions constitute one of the most intrusive examples of federal power. However, The Bureau did seek to enforce ideas about anticommunism and the morality of the nation which echoed trends in grassroots conservative thought. The idea that the interaction between the FBI and the people surveilled and punished by the organization was a negotiation over what it meant to be a citizen has been recognized by historians of the Bureau's early years. In her book War on Crime: Bandits, G-men, and the Politics of Mass Culture, Claire Potter argues that in the early years of the Bureau, "The figures of the policeman and the criminal were…deeply political, discursive locations for exploring the relationship between state and citizen." In addition, Potter argues that the FBI's early rise to power was due in large part to cultural fears about the spread of violent crime. Similar fears were at work during the 1960s and 1970s, and that these fears often allowed the FBI greater freedom than it would have otherwise enjoyed. However, one important distinction is that unlike the organized crime 5 Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001), 113. 5 and celebrity bandits of the 1920s, the "subversives" of the 1960s were often punished for noncriminal behavior. In addition, I look at the way the FBI constructed its view of criminality based on specific categories of identity, such as race and class, and specific forms of expression such as dress and speech. During the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s the FBI launched this series of counterintelligence investigations known collectively as COINTELPRO. These operations were well-organized ongoing programs primarily designed to infiltrate groups that the FBI felt had "subversive" ties. Speaking of this time in the FBI's history, Clarence M. Kelley, who was the Director from 1973-78, wrote, "In some cases, there were excesses in the FBI's treatment of radicals."6 These "excesses" included a number of questionable tactics, such as preventing the distribution of social movement newspapers and attempting to cost activists employment and educational opportunities. Since the FBI designed these tactics to disrupt the often entirely legal operations of the groups targeted and not to investigate criminal behavior, the Bureau made no distinction between criminal and noncriminal acts. The first chapter analyzes the exacting and unique culture of the FBI and the ways in which it reinforced and differed from middle-class white society as a whole, and begins to examine the ways in which FBI culture influenced the Bureau's views on social movement groups. In order to understand how and why the FBI punished and surveilled certain social movement groups, it becomes important to understand how the FBI defined the nature of a respectable, legitimate American citizen. 6 Clarence M. Kelley and James Kirkpatrick Davis, Kelley: The Story of an FBI Director, (Kansas City: Andrews, McNeel, Parker, 1987), 59. 6 FBI Agents, college educated, middle-class men, were less likely to target, or in some cases, more likely to assist those they saw as similar to themselves. While it is true that the FBI investigated many middle-class groups and individuals, such as the well-known actions against Martin Luther King Jr., the FBI more heavily targeted those groups dominated by people whom the FBI viewed as lower class. In addition, the FBI's shift in focus from middle-class groups to younger more expressive groups reflected the growing acceptance of groups such as Martin Luther King's SCLC amongst white middle-class Americans. This uneven response to social movements reflected the "law and order" attitude of the Bureau. The groups investigated maintained connections with civil rights and later with the anti-Vietnam War movement. The chief "evil" of these groups lay not so much in their opinions or stance, but rather with their willingness to disrupt the status quo of American society which, to the FBI, included any threat to their own organization. One well-known example of this is the way the FBI, and specifically J. Edgar Hoover, targeted Martin Luther King, Jr. Though the FBI kept King under surveillance from early in his career, it was not until King made public comments against the Bureau that they really sought to interfere with King and his work. This very public and publicized conflict was one of the first actions that turned the liberal press against J. Edgar Hoover.7 Since it was the director's prestige that shielded the FBI from suspicion, a charge against Hoover was a charge against the entire Bureau. In this case, it was not King's civil rights activities that made him such a target of the Bureau, but instead the FBI's perception of King as a threat to the Bureau and therefore to society as a whole. 7 Keller, Liberals and J. Edgar Hoover, 106. 7 In addition, FBI Agents, trained to sort people into the hard categories of "victim" and "criminal," found it difficult to understand the actions of those people they felt were "disorderly." This focus on appearance behavior meant that the FBI and its agents largely ignoring the motivations behind these "disorderly" actions. This helps explain the FBI's actions against the Ku Klux Klan during the same years that they investigated civil rights groups. Because the FBI often cared more about a person fitting into their definition of what it meant to be "respectable," they often failed to see real injustice. The second chapter examines this intersection between race and class, and specifically examines the way the FBI used racial stereotypes and tensions to interfere with groups such as the Black Panthers and SDS. This chapter also includes a comparative analysis of the FBI's actions against African-American social movements such as the Black Panther Party and extreme right-wing groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and argues that class distinctions often meant as much or more to the FBI than racial distinctions. Much of the current historiography on this era emphasizes the racist nature of J. Edgar Hoover and by extension the organization he so rigidly controlled. While race remained part of the equation, as the 1960s and 1970s unfolded, and white middle-class society became more accepting of the mainstream civil rights movement, class distinctions had as much, and possibly more, to do with which groups the FBI chose to target. In addition, those class distinctions tied directly to the FBI's conception of what was "respectable." The chapter begins by charting these complex changes in the FBI's attitude toward race, and goes on to analyze the ways in which race- and-class based 8 stereotypes were used to interfere with African-American groups, especially the Black Panther Party. In addition, since Hoover's battle was with any group he felt undermined the peace and order of the United States, it is important to look at the FBI actions against the Ku Klux Klan. In 1964, the FBI launched the "White Hate Groups COINTELPRO" and by 1965, the FBI had placed 600 FBI informants inside the Klan.8 Some of these informants were so deeply involved in the Klan that they actually participated in Klan attacks. By comparing the FBI's efforts against both white and black groups they felt were extremist, it becomes even clearer that class distinctions played an integral part in how the counterintelligence programs functioned. The third chapter discusses the way in which age and generational difference played a part in the FBI's targeting of social movement groups, with a primary focus on the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and fully explores the idea that behavior, such as language and dress, affected the FBI's perception of who was a "respectable" American. The FBI's preoccupation with respectability and order may help to explain the FBI's overwhelming interest in, and efforts against, SDS. With the possible exception of the Black Panthers, the FBI focused more effort on SDS than any other group. Like many groups, the FBI was concerned with SDS's connection to other protest groups and by the fact that SDS was garnering national media attention; however, these documents also reveal it was the group's age, language, appearance, and behavior that most concerned the FBI. In the perception of the Bureau, the age and behavior of these protestors also marked them as being outside the bounds of the respectable citizen, and, 8 Ibid., 81. 9 because they were often from the same race and class background as the agents themselves, made these young protestors the ultimate enemy within. The final chapter looks at the FBI's interaction with the American Indian Movement (AIM) and serves three purposes. First, it further complicates the issue of race by analyzing the FBI's response to the American Indian Movement in comparison with the response to the African-American social movements, and especially considers the complicated "otherness" of native people and culture and how that "otherness" influenced the FBI's interaction with AIM. Second, this chapter goes beyond existing scholarship on AIM and the FBI to place it firmly within the context of the larger issues surrounding federal law enforcement power and the policing of cultural values. For example, while the targeting of the American Indian movement can rightly be seen as another chapter in the long line of abuses perpetrated on American Indians by an Anglo-American dominated federal government, it can also be seen as part of a larger pattern of the FBI response to groups they viewed as outside the definition of legitimate American citizenship. The Bureau's actions against AIM at Wounded Knee in 1973 and the manhunt and trial of Leonard Peltier for the murder of two FBI Agents represent perhaps the agency's most controversial actions of the 1960s and 1970s. Though there are studies which evaluate the American Indian Movement and its interaction with the FBI, most scholarly works dealing with the FBI and social movements as a whole often fail to examine these events. By comparing the FBI's actions against AIM to those taken against other social movements, the potential implications for the ongoing conversations about race and 10 governmental power, and the difficulties of maintaining the balance between freedom and security in a democratic society become clear. Third, and perhaps most importantly, this chapter serves as an opportunity to study the ways in which counterintelligence evolved in the post-COINTELPRO years. When social and political pressure forced the FBI to discontinue the official COINTELPRO programs, the Bureau made significant procedural changes and attempted to ensure that FBI activities fell within the bounds of the law. However, in examining FBI documents about AIM, it becomes clear that the FBI's underlying desire to police particular definitions of "American" continued to influence their interaction with domestic social movements. A number of existing works of scholarship successfully argue that the counterintelligence programs of the era were repressive and illegal. Peter Mathiessen's In the Spirit of Crazy Horse details the actions the FBI directed toward the American Indian Movement. Nelson Blackstock in COINTELPRO: the FBI's Secret War on Political Freedom focuses on the FBI's investigation of the Socialist Workers Party and the Young Socialist Alliance. These works effectively expose the FBI's actions and the harm inflicted on social movement groups as a result. Other scholarly works dealing with the topic of the FBI and race emphasize the top down structure of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Kenneth O'Reilly in Racial Matters: The FBI's Secret File on Black America, 1960-1972 argues that while individual agents did help the civil rights movement, the overall politics of the Bureau generally represented the racist, and often paranoid, perceptions of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Similarly, David Cunningham's book There's Something Happening Here: the New Left, 11 the Klan, and FBI Counterintelligence goes beyond documenting the FBI's actions to start to look at how the institutional, top-down structure of the Bureau helped contribute to these abuses. Richard Gid Powers, whose book Broken: the Troubled Past and Uncertain Future of the FBI argues that modern intelligence failures stem from an aversion to the FBI errors of the past, not only makes a strong case that these issues are still relevant to modern society, but also provides one of the best histories of the FBI as an institution. Like Cunningham and O'Reilly, I argue that the top-down system of the FBI affected the work on the ground. However, neither of these works fully examines the way in which the FBI's very specific culture and their definition of what constituted a proper American citizen had an impact on the way in which they targeted social movements. In addition, as a departure from Cunningham, I argue that this top-down situation, and perhaps more disastrously, the persistent disconnect between the situation on the ground and the Bureau hierarchy, actually served not only to create egregious abuses of power, but actually hindered the proposed purpose of the Bureau to investigate and prevent criminal activity and foreign attacks in the United States. This not only led the Bureau to waste resources on groups whose activities were legal, but as a result turned hard working FBI Agents into criminals arguably more dangerous than anyone being surveilled, as they routinely violated the constitutional rights of American citizens. Though criticism built against the FBI throughout the late 1960s and 1970s, the catalyst for change occurred when a group known as the Citizens Committee to Investigate the Federal Bureau of Investigation broke into a Media, Pennsylvania office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and stole large number of classified documents. 12 These documents, when leaked to the press and Democratic Senators George McGovern (South Dakota) and George Mitchell (Maine), revealed that not only had the FBI spied on subversives, but Congress as well.9 Though these members of Congress had not faced the same interference from the FBI as the social movements targeted in the COINTELPRO programs, the leak of these documents pushed Congress to investigate the FBI's activities. The information revealed by the Media, Pennsylvania, documents substantiated many claims that civil rights groups had been making against agencies such as the FBI. The documents also enlightened Congress as to the pervasive abuses that had been going on in the arena of domestic intelligence. The evidence found in Pennsylvania was bolstered by a Supreme Court ruling which declared that wiretapping U.S. citizens without a warrant was unconstitutional. In 1974, Congress tried to pass the Privacy Act designed to reinforce the rights of Americans, but dispute between the Senate and House resulted in nothing more than an ineffective compromise.10 Finally, in 1975, the Senate established a temporary fifteen-month Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to investigate abuses within the federal intelligence agencies. Headed by Idaho Democrat Frank Church, the Committee began to investigate United States intelligence agencies and found rampant and widespread abuses perpetrated by several agencies. The Church Committee's own findings also support the idea that the FBI's counterintelligence programs served to police and punish legal forms of expression. When coming to conclusions about the COINTELPRO programs, the committee stated, 9 Congressional Quarterly Almanac 1971, (Washington D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Inc., 1971), 811. 10 Congressional Quarterly Almanac 1974, (Washington D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Inc., 1974) 294. 13 "The acts taken interfered with the First Amendment rights of citizens. They were explicitly intended to deter citizens from joining groups, 'neutralize' those who were already members and prevent or inhibit the expression of ideas."11 Further, later in the Final Report, the Church Committee declared that, "The unexpressed major premise of the programs was that a law enforcement agency has the duty to do whatever is necessary to combat perceived threats to the existing social and political order."12 The report then goes on to give examples of this "social order" that the FBI sought to protect, including an example of the FBI targeting two students for their use of profanity. Though it is clear that the FBI did seek to police society in this way, what is less clear is why it did so. The FBI, its leadership and agents, sought to defend a particular definition of what it meant to be an American citizen and made themselves the arbiters of who and what was part of the legitimate political and social order. This definition, outlined in Chapter 1, molded by a unique FBI culture championed not just white, middle-class, male society, but also a peculiarly rigid version of that culture. In my research of the counterintelligence programs, I relied on a number of sources. FBI documents came primarily from two sources, a collection on the Counterintelligence Programs from the National Security Archive at George Washington University and a collection of FBI Documents on the American Indian Movement published by University Publications of America. Both collections often have large portions of the documents redacted for security reasons, however, because I was less 11 Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, United States Senate, 94th Congress, 2nd Session, April 26 1976, Book II: Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans, 211. 12 Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, United States Senate, 94th Congress, 2nd Session, April 23 1976, Book III: Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans, 3. 14 interested in the particulars of the FBI's operations, these documents remained extremely valuable at assessing the FBI's attitudes toward social movement groups. Many FBI documents, however, still remain inaccessible without extensive and costly Freedom of Information Act requests, so it should be noted that the author is aware that these conclusions are drawn from a partial, though extensive, sampling of the total records of the COINTELPRO programs. This project owes a debt of gratitude to the oral history project of the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI, currently housed at the National Law Enforcement Memorial Museum. This project provides excellent access to the thoughts and perceptions of hardworking FBI agents, and was essential to understanding the culture of the FBI during the 1960s and 1970s. Often, the agents on the ground had a different perspective than the FBI hierarchy and this oral history project provided access to understanding these differences. The project also draws on holdings from the National Archives of the United States, specifically the subject files of the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security, which as a byproduct of investigating and targeting social movements created an extensive archive of materials on those same movements. In addition, the ACLU archives at the Mudd Manuscript Library at Princeton University provided another point-of-view on the FBI's activities in this era. In order to gain access to the perspective of the social movements themselves, the research for this project included the use of social movement publications such as the Students for a Democratic Society newspaper New Left Notes and the Black Panther newspaper as well as numerous published writings by leaders and members of these social movements. 15 The motto of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is "Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity," and as the next chapters will show, the idea that while the first two ideals "fidelity" and "bravery" did, at least in some respects, represent the FBI officials and agents who worked in counterintelligence, "integrity" remained a questionable commodity, especially when the FBI interacted with individuals and groups they felt fell outside their definition of what it meant to be American. CHAPTER 1 J. EDGAR AND HIS G-MEN: FBI CULTURE IN THE 1960s AND 1970s In an article in the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin regarding the recruitment and selection of law enforcement officers, J. Edgar Hoover wrote, "We feel that our personnel do not work for the FBI, but rather we consider that they are the FBI…The Agent applicant in particular must meet rigid physical and educational requirements; he must have a real interest in a career of service and his private life must withstand the closest scrutiny."13 These "rigid" requirements were about more than just ensuring an educated and physically fit officer; they reflected the complicated way the leadership and agents of the FBI sought to define themselves, the agency, and what it was to be American. This focus on rigid requirements and a life that could "withstand the closest scrutiny" indicates an FBI culture that was obsessed with order and the appearance of order. This served not only as a demonstration of their definition of what it was to be a "respectable" American, but also speaks to the obsessive need of FBI officials and agents to reinforce their own power by maintaining an image of respectability and control. This rigid definition of "order" was also something they sought to impose on American 13 "Police Management: Recruitment and Selection of Personnel," FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin , January 1967, 25. 17 society, and led to the investigation and punishment of groups and individuals who largely lived within the law. For most Americans in the 1960s, the idea of an FBI Agent or "G-Man" would have conjured up a very specific image; an extremely clean-cut white man in a crisp white shirt, with a dark suit and dark tie, usually with another identical agent at his side. Television and films featuring FBI agents widely popularized this image, and though attitudes began to shift by the 1960s, many Americans, especially white middle and upper-class Americans, would have seen the FBI Agent as a patriotic symbol of the effective and appropriate power of the federal government to protect its citizenry. Forged in the era of gangsters and bank robbers, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and J. Edgar Hoover had cultivated a position of enormous power within the United States government. Hoover exercised complete control over the Bureau and neither the Attorney General nor Congress subjected the Bureau to any real form of outside review.14 As the Cold War raged, many saw the FBI as the answer to the problems of Communism and internal security. William W. Keller explored the links between the Bureau, Hoover, and liberal government in his book, The Liberals and J. Edgar Hoover. "Liberal senators," wrote Keller "celebrated the director and his agency, invoking his power and prestige to bolster their approach to internal security."15 In addition, Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones argues in his book The FBI: a History that though the FBI eventually became "the darling of the neoconservatives" in the 1950s, the FBI was 14 Keller, Liberals and J. Edgar Hoover, 26. 15 Ibid., 45 18 seen as the "saner, more professional" organization to deal with the perceived threat of communism.16 In light of McCarthyism and the fear among liberals that such sentiments would lead to invasive and extreme legislation, such as the existing Alien and Sedition Act, liberals saw the highly reputable Federal Bureau of Investigation as the lesser of two evils.17 This freedom made the FBI one of the most insulated government agencies in the history of the United States and led to the creation of a very specific culture and environment within the agency. In order to understand the FBI's interaction with the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s, one must understand the culture and worldview from which FBI officials and FBI agents operated. Though the standard G-Man image depicted only one face of an incredibly complex organization, it was not wholly an illusion; instead, it represented the specific culture and life of the FBI and its agents. As sociologist David Cunningham persuasively argued in There's Something Happening Here, the leadership of the Federal Bureau of Investigation created an entirely top-down managerial structure, with the national offices imposing policies and programs onto the local field offices. The Bureau had a clear pecking order, and agents who wanted to thrive, or even survive, in their careers had to play by the rules of this hierarchical system. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover acted as the undisputed head of this system. During his nearly five decades as Director of the FBI (and its predecessor the Bureau of Investigation), Hoover built an early reputation for himself and the Bureau as fighters of organized crime. He later became a loud voice in the juvenile delinquency 16 Rhodri Jeffrey-Jones, The FBI: a History (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007), 11. 17 Ibid., 27-29. 19 and anticommunism hysteria before turning his full attention to any kind of perceived "subversion" by the end of the 1960s. Though individual agents and officials in the FBI found ways to work within and around Hoover's system, the director, and to a large extent the director's own political interests, set the priorities for the entire organization. One example of this can be seen in the fact that the Director's office reprimanded local field agencies of the FBI when they did not respond appropriately to the mandates from FBI headquarters, and praised those individuals who made the director's agenda a priority. In a letter from the Director's office to the Special Agent in Charge of the Cleveland office, the Director's office commended Cleveland for its "imaginative and aggressive approach" toward disrupting protest groups. The letter goes on to reinforce that Cleveland's "exceptionally aggressive approach" at "neutralizing the New Left" should be encouraged. 18 Clearly, those local offices that followed Hoover's agendas could expect praise and support. Hoover often made statements that the FBI defended the values of a majority of Americans, and the Bureau's emphasis on morality and anticommunism did reflect the values of many conservatives of the era. Historian Lisa McGirr discusses the way conservative groups considered Hoover's own book Masters of Deceit as part of their standard reading material not just for its anticommunism, but for the way that it focused on deceit from within and the idea that Christian religious values were needed to fight communism and other kinds of subversion.19 She also states that for grassroots conservatives concerns over "law and order" were a "dominant part of political 18 Director, FBI to SAC, Cleveland, unknown document type, 25 October 1968, Counterintelligence Programs Collection, The National Security Archive, Washington, D.C. 19 McGirr, Suburban Warriors, 95-96. 20 discourse."20 Clearly FBI rhetoric and priorities did match those of some Americans. However, it is difficult to thoroughly pigeon hole the FBI in terms of political views because the Bureau's dedication to its public image and the protection of the Bureau's power actually overrode clear political alliances. For example, the FBI might surveill any political figure, regardless of their party affiliation, if the Bureau felt they in any way threatened the agency's power. Though Hoover's politics undoubtedly skewed right, Hoover often made the claim that the FBI protected the values of a majority of Americans from the extreme politics of both the right and the left. In a speech in 1964, Hoover said, "These dangerous elements are at work in American today, subverting our traditional democratic processes and undermining respect for law and order. In all too many instances, they have been aided by a body politic incredibly indifferent to the demands of civic responsibility."21 In the same speech, Hoover went on to say, "The FBI will never be intimidated by the illogical criticisms and pressures of those detractors who would have us exceed some areas of our authority and grossly neglect others."22 Later, Hoover, and the officials that led the FBI after his death, would use this same logic to justify spying on subversive groups, claiming that such actions protected public safety. While the FBI did in fact investigate extreme right wing groups like the Klan, this strategy is similar to the one that William H. Chafe describes taking place in Greensboro, North Carolina when the civil rights movement challenged the area's moderate image on race relations in the early 1960s. Chafe argues 20 Ibid., 186. 21 Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, News Release, 12 December 1964, Records Group 46, Records of the United States Senate, Internal Security Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary. 22 Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, News Release, 12 December 1964, Records Group 46, Records of the United States Senate, Internal Security Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary. Emphasis in original. 21 that many white citizens in Greensboro, by rhetorically positioning themselves between the civil rights movement and violent white supremacy groups, made the status quo seem like the only respectable position and suggested that the civil rights movement was as extreme and dangerous as groups like the Klan.23 By using this same sort of rhetorical positioning, the FBI reinforced its idea of the status quo and suggested that the FBI's position was the only logical and respectable choice. The FBI also clearly expected the American people to do their part to support the programs of the Bureau. A poster on the back cover of the January 1961 FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin gave citizens a list of things they could do to fight crime. This included instructions to "constantly obey all laws," "report …information you have about any criminal activity" and "educate your children to respect law and order." 24 That the FBI would suggest the obedience to of all laws is understandable, if it a bit exacting. However, the other recommendations illustrate interesting aspects of FBI mentality. The FBI felt that Americans should not only be law abiding citizens, but they must also be willing to report on others and ensure that their children not only followed the laws but had an attitude of "respect." As the FBI saw this attitude of "respect" as key to determining who was worthy of FBI assistance and who had the right to live without FBI surveillance. Because the members of SNCC acted "disrespectful," Agent Williams saw them unworthy of assistance and as "troublemakers" who needed to be investigated. FBI officials, including Hoover, often suggested that those who wanted to live in a world of safety and freedom needed to be ready to support the actions of the Bureau. Hoover wrote, "A solid front of citizens behind the law enforcement officer who stands 23 William H. Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina and the Black Struggle for Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press USA, 1981). 24 "What You Can Do to Fight," FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, January 1961, back cover. 22 face to face with the criminal is the prerequisite for turning back the forces of crime."25 In addition, he suggested that security was essential to maintaining freedom. Hoover wrote, "To be free and to remain free, man must be relatively secure. He must rely on the stability of order created and maintained by the rule of law."26 On the surface, the suggestion that individuals should support law enforcement agencies in order to deter crime seems logical. However, in the hands of the powerful FBI, and in light of the abuses of the counterintelligence era, these statements have a more complex meaning. These statements, and the actions of FBI officials and agents, led to an attitude that those worthy of law enforcement help and protection actively and verbally supported law enforcement agencies like the FBI. Again, in order to be true Americans eligible for the benefits of citizenship, the FBI argued that one must support the power structure as well. This self-reinforcing logic further led to the belief that anyone who did not offer this unflagging support was not worthy of the benefits of freedom in a civilized society. This helps explain why the FBI felt justified in investigating civil rights and other protest groups even when their behavior fell within the boundaries of the law. Hoover, and his handpicked top officials, sought to define the role of the agency in very specific ways. Hoover constantly fed the flames of crime hysteria invoking gangsters, juvenile delinquents, and "urban terrorist" subversives. As an extension of that idea, FBI officials often painted the FBI and agents as beleaguered public servants, constantly at war with deadly crime and facing unprovoked attacks from every side. 25 J. Edgar Hoover, "Message from the Director," FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, January 1961, 1. 26 J. Edgar Hoover, "Message from the Director," FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, May 1963, 1. 23 William C. Sullivan, Assistant Director of the FBI, in a paper given at the 1966 North American Judges Association Conference, said of law enforcement officers: Nearly always, they are overworked; often, they are underpaid. They are cursed if they act too quickly and condemned if they hesitate too long. They are looked upon with suspicion and mistrust if they are present, but if they are absent when trouble strikes, they are reviled....Law enforcement agencies throughout the land, including the FBI, have repeatedly come under attacks of the communists. Charges of police brutality, 'unfair tactics' and 'police state' are not uncommon charges hurled against law enforcement agencies and officers in this day in time.27 The FBI promoted this same image in regard to civil rights investigations in the South. In speaking before the House Appropriations Committee in 1968, J. Edgar Hoover played up the difficulties FBI Agents faced: "I may also say that our men practically worked around the clock.…They worked in the swamps which were infested with rattlesnakes and water moccasins. We got no assistance in the area and every effort was made to frustrate the work of the agents. Many of our agents went without summer vacations. Only a few got home for Christmas."28 Ample evidence suggests that individual agents did work incredibly long hours under heavy workloads, but the constant need of Bureau officials to portray their agency as one under siege may have been an attempt to mask the growing power of the FBI and/or over-emphasize the professed dangers of the groups and individuals the FBI policed. The FBI also claimed that it played a purely investigative role. FBI publications and FBI officials often used this rhetoric to discuss the way in which the FBI dealt with civil rights investigations. In the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Annual Report of 1968 under the subheading "Racial Strife and Rioting," it states: 27 William C. Sullivan, "Communism, Law and Enforcement in America" (paper presented at the North American Judges Association 1966 International Conference, 31 October 1966), 9. 28 "Testimony of John Edgar Hoover, Director Federal Bureau of Investigation Before the House Subcommittee on Appropriations," 1966, Records Group 46, Records of the United States Senate, Internal Security Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary, 23. 24 Basically, the FBI's responsibility in this field is the development and dissemination of intelligence information while, of course, being ever alert to the detection of violations of Federal law over which it has investigative jurisdiction. The FBI does not have jurisdiction to protect persons and property nor does it have responsibility to police or control riotous conditions.....Certain organizations claiming to be civil rights groups but which in fact preach hatred for the white race, demand immunity from laws, and advocate violence, constitute a serious threat to our country's internal security.29 This is a line of rhetoric that the FBI frequently used, especially in regard to their work with civil rights violations. FBI officials, and agents, almost always put the emphasis on the number of cases investigated and, if there was any hint of criticism, often reminded the public, and even other political officials, that they faced extremely fearsome opponents. In addition, the FBI often stated that to do any more than simply "investigate" risked the freedom and safety of Americans. Ten years earlier in the 1957 Annual Report, it stated, "The Bureau constantly strives to protect the civil rights of individuals. Its operations are under such constant scrutiny that the FBI could never become what the Communists and their sympathizers like to refer to as the American 'Gestapo'."30 Official FBI documents and statements from FBI officials often made a significant point of stating, especially in regard to civil rights, that they did not have the mandate or jurisdiction to act as a national police force. However, the FBI extended far past a purely investigative role in so many other areas that invoking the "investigative only" mantra in regard to civil rights clearly indicated an unwillingness to fully invest Bureau time and resources defending the cause of civil rights. This idea that the FBI could not risk becoming a national police force often appeared in FBI documents and in statements and speeches given by FBI officials. In a magazine interview, J. Edgar Hoover said, "The danger of a national police force is that it 29 Annual Report, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1968. 30 Annual Report, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1957, 346. 25 centralizes into one place and into the hands of one man too much authority. The Federal Government, of course, has no cure-all for the crime problems existing in any community."31 However, the FBI had an undeniable role in shaping the nature of the nation's law enforcement capabilities and in defining what constituted criminal behavior. One example of the Bureau's role in national law enforcement was the FBI's extensive network of law enforcement training programs which in 1967 alone trained over 200,000 law enforcement officers from throughout the country and offered various training schools, classes, and conferences.32 The FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin featured articles on state-of-the-art police facilities, police procedures, investigative techniques, and other law enforcement topics. The FBI's extensive crime lab and data system, arguably the agency's most significant and valuable contribution to law enforcement, gained momentum during this era. In January 1967, the Bureau started the computerized National Crime Information Center, providing previously unheard of access to criminal files and information for law enforcement groups throughout the country.33 The FBI often worked closely with law enforcement groups throughout the United States. In fact, they worked so closely with those groups that the FBI hesitated to interfere with those agencies accused of civil rights violations. An FBI Annual Report stated: When civil rights investigations involving law enforcement officers or personnel of other public agencies are instituted, the FBI carefully avoids interfering with the orderly operation of the agency concerned. At the outset, contact is had with the head of the agency, as well as the Governor if a state institution is involved, and he is advised of the complaint received and the FBI's responsibility to 31 "Interview with J. Edgar Hoover," U.S. News and World Report, 21 December 1964, 36. 32 Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, News Release, 5 January 1968. Records Group 46, Records of the United States Senate, Internal Security Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, 1951-1975, Individual Name Files, Stokely Carmichael, January-June 1968, 10. 33 Ibid., 12. 26 investigate. These cases, like all others within the FBI's jurisdiction, are handled in a thorough, factual and impartial manner.34 This highlights two very important aspects of the FBI's attitude toward law enforcement. The first is the FBI's close relationship with local police departments. Though jurisdictional tensions did exist, the FBI involved itself, through training and support, with local and state police departments. In addition, J. Edgar Hoover's influence could affect the careers of local police officers.35 This close professional involvement fostered a tendency to view local and state police officers as part of the law enforcement family to which the FBI agents and officials themselves belonged. In addition, though the claim here is that the FBI handled the cases in a "factual and impartial" manner, the very fact that the FBI made the "orderly operation of the agency" a priority shows that the FBI cared more about the dangers of disrupting local and state police departments than it did about investigating violations. Another point that FBI officials frequently emphasized, especially in terms of domestic intelligence, was the idea of "preventative measures." As early as 1958, the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin justified FBI efforts against subversion, and the secrecy and lack of concrete results, by arguing that the methods were preventative and therefore could not be revealed or quantified. The report stated, "The very nature of the FBI's intelligence and counterintelligence activities is such that a detailed public appraisal cannot be made …Security operations are primarily preventive in nature. Accordingly, the information gathered and disseminated by the FBI frequently causes protective 34 Annual Report, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1958, 10. 35 William W. Turner, "An Insider's View of the FBI" (paper presented at the Federal Bureau of Investigation Conference Papers, 1971), Series AC312, Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University, 40. 27 measures to be taken before a violation of the law has occurred."36 In 1966, the Bureau used the exact same rhetoric to explain why the "nature and effectiveness" of the FBI's counterintelligence operations "cannot be publicly recorded." 37 This constant claim of "preventative measures" not only helped keep the FBI safe from oversight, it also allowed FBI officials and agents to spend their time and resources investigating who they wanted, however they wanted, largely without interference or accountability. Another method that the FBI used to keep its objectives and methods away from public scrutiny included severely limiting the information that the agency released to other government agencies and to the public. Even if the FBI had incriminating evidence on a group or an individual, they hesitated to share it with other agencies, preferring to carefully leak information through favored congressional resources like the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security or media outlets that they considered to be friendly to FBI interests. One example of this was the Cleveland office which worked with a "reliable" media source. The Bureau deemed this journalist as reliable because he, unlike other media in the Cleveland area, remained willing to portray SDS in a negative light. The Cleveland office also pointed out that it worked with this journalist because he was willing to speak to "civic and church groups" about the dangers of SDS.38 Similarly, when the Special Agent in Charge of the Springfield, Illinois office suggested that it could use an Illinois Congressman Thomas F. Railsback and another individual as "excellent outlets for material … which the Bureau may deem appropriate for public 36 Annual Report, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1958, 21. 37 Annual Report, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1966, 23 38 SAC, Cleveland to Director, FBI, Memorandum, 16 January 1969, Counterintelligence Programs Collection, The National Security Archive, Washington, D.C. 28 consumption."39 By using media sources and governmental officials friendly to the FBI to leak information, the FBI could push its own agenda while staying out of the public eye. However, even when working with sources they deemed to be reliable, the FBI protected its own files. One FBI office discussed a "reputable member of the community" who wanted to start an "educational program" about the dangers of SDS. This member of the community wanted to combat what he felt was the tendency of the media to portray SDS as "idealist." The director's office made it clear that it could not give him information from FBI files but directed him to several public information sources, including news articles, Hoover's speeches, and a hearing conducted on the New Left by the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security. The agents running the operation told the man to keep his contact with the FBI a secret, but to let them know how things went.40 Clearly, the FBI perceived its image and reputation as directly related to power and control. Though the FBI's rationale behind protecting its files and methods stemmed from the belief that it protected the Bureau's reputation, the rhetoric it used to defend such actions often went back to the idea that the FBI acted as an "investigative" agency. Title 28 of the United States Code indicates that those appointed by the Attorney General, including the agents and officials of the FBI, were to "detect and prosecute crimes against the United States," but the FBI clearly went past that original mandate, especially in regard to its famous interactions with organized crime. However, the FBI called on this 39 SAC, Springfield to Director, FBI, unknown document type, 23 March 1970, Counterintelligence Programs Collection, The National Security Archive, Washington, D.C. 40 SAC, Cleveland to Director, FBI, Memorandum, 19 December, 1968, Counterintelligence Programs Collection, The National Security Archive, Washington, D.C. 29 rhetoric as a sort of shield, claiming it could not release information or make judgments about individuals. In response to a letter from a women who wanted to know if the National Organization of Women was subversive J. Edgar Hoover replied, "this Bureau is strictly an investigative agency of the Federal Government, and as such, neither makes evaluations nor draws conclusions as to the character or integrity of any organization, publication or individual."41 In using this rhetoric, the FBI clearly put on a false front for the sake of maintaining its reputation, and its claims of objectivity. Behind the scenes, the FBI evaluated and judged organizations on a daily basis, and beyond that, Hoover spoke publicly about organizations such as the Panthers and SDS as dangerous threats to America. A statement by Hoover in the Washington Post reflected another related rhetorical screen used by the Bureau. He said, "An FBI Agent is not authorized to pass judgment on the guilt or innocence of a person. He can only gather the facts and let the facts speak for themselves."42 This was clearly a rhetorical strategy only, as FBI documents make it clear that the FBI routinely made judgments about who or what was "dangerous" and "subversive." Once the FBI made such judgments, it then took active steps to disrupt the activities of these groups and punish the individuals involved. One of the key issues surrounding J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI during this era involves the level of racism present in the FBI and how that racism may have affected the Bureau's daily operations. Race will be further explored in Chapter 2, but an overview of the institutional culture on this count is important to understanding how FBI officials and agents functioned. Though issues of race evolved in the Bureau during the time 41 To Unknown Recipient from J. Edgar Hoover, Letter, 12 July 1971, Subject File: National Organization of Women, Electronic Reading Room, Federal Bureau of Investigation. 42 "Hoover Ridicules Retirement Talk, Defends FBI Role," Washington Post, 5 December 1964, A4. 30 reflected in this study, the FBI, especially the leadership, saw itself as a white middle-class organization. Like many institutions in America, for the FBI, whiteness existed as a normative category; FBI documents and reports, unless talking specifically about individuals involved with civil-rights groups, rarely identified an individual as "white" but often described other individuals based on their skin color and/or physical characteristics. In addition, the FBI did not explicitly list being "white" as a requirement for an FBI Agent, the vast majority of the agents and employees depicted in FBI publications had fair skin and embraced white racial identity. The very fact that FBI documents and publications rarely discuss race demonstrates that most employees embraced white racial identity as the norm with non-white groups representing the "other." Some historians, especially Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, argue that racism constituted one of, if not the, most important factor in understanding the counterintelligence programs. Both Jones and Kenneth O'Reilly accurately point to the Bureau's history of spying on black Americans. Jones sees this as proof of the FBI's virulent racism and O'Reilly considers it a sort of "respectable racism" that was part of the "culture at large."43 O'Reilly further argues that while racism was undoubtedly part of Hoover's makeup, especially when it came to his revered special agents, Hoover's attitude toward race was quite complex and that he was willing to have personal and nonagent FBI employees who were non-white.44 Chapter 2 will further discuss issues surrounding the institutional racism at the FBI, and the personal feelings and practices that agents and officials of the FBI had toward non-white communities and protest groups; however, by 43 Kenneth O'Reilly, Racial Matters: The FBI's Secret File on Black America, 1960-1972 (New York: The Free Press, 1989), 11. 44 O'Reilly, Racial Matters, 17. 31 the late 1960s and early 1970s attitudes towards race both at the institutional level and the personal level were changing in the FBI. By the 1960s, some level of acceptance for African-American agents existed within the Bureau. Agent William H. Billups, an African-American who joined the FBI in the mid-1960s said, "I was one of two black guys in a class of sixteen and never had a problem….there was never an ugly word."45 Billups went on to talk about his work in offices in Pennsylvania and West Virginia and said, "I was fully accepted - I never had a problem." This did not mean that Billups felt that the Bureau had a positive reputation within the black community. In fact, Billups stated that people in the African American community had, "some concern that I was somehow joining the enemy" due to the "negative reputation that black folks had about police and the FBI." 46 Billups experience may have been fairly singular, but it does suggest that racial attitudes for both the Bureau and its director evolved in this period. In addition, individual agents often took their charge to investigate civil rights complaints very seriously, especially those that involved extreme violence. Many agents did in fact work significant overtime and sacrificed personal and family time in order to seek convictions against perpetrators of violence against civil rights workers. As individuals, each agent also carried his own perspectives about race and power which, in some cases, were more progressive than the institutional position. The FBI not only hired predominantly white agents, they hired only men. Women did serve in clerical and even scientific positions within the Bureau, but the FBI 45 William H. Billups, Interviewed by Brian R. Hollstein, Society of Former Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Oral History Project, National Law Enforcement Memorial Museum, 11 November 2008. 46 William H. Billups, Interviewed by Brian R. Hollstein, Society of Former Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Oral History Project, National Law Enforcement Memorial Museum, 11 November 2008. 32 reserved the role of agent and by extension FBI leadership for men. In a letter responding to the President of the National Organization of Women, J. Edgar Hoover wrote, "If the credibility of the FBI is to be maintained in the eyes of the public…and if we are to continue a flexible, mobile, ready-for-anything, force of Special Agents, we must continue to limit the position to males."47 In singling out males for the position of special agent, Hoover argued that agents needed to "be qualified for strenuous physical exertion."48 These quotations demonstrate not only the fact that the FBI felt that being male was essential to the duties of a special agent, but also suggests the particular type of masculinity associated with being an agent, an almost total dedication to the job as well as being physically fit. This definition of law enforcement masculinity was not unique to the FBI; in talking about the historiography of masculinity and law enforcement, Susan Broomhall and David G. Barrie discuss the ways in which historians have seen a pattern of connection between "force, physique, men, authority and danger" in the construction of law enforcement masculinity.49 In essence, the idea that men were inherently more capable of asserting physical force and therefore were more suited to law enforcement tasks. In addition, Broomhall and Barrie argue that law enforcement agencies publicized specific forms of masculinity to improve the public image of law enforcement officers in order to make them more accepted in the societies they policed. This concept ties in well with the idea that the FBI saw its public image as key to maintaining its power and authority in American society. 47 To Faith A. Seidenberg from J. Edgar Hoover, Letter, 10 June 1971, Subject: National Organization of Women, Electronic Reading Room, Federal Bureau of Investigation. 48 Ibid. 49 Susan Broomhall and David G. Barrie. "Introduction" in A History of Police and Masculinities, 1700-2010 ed. Susan Broomhall and David G. Barrie (New York, NY : Routledge, 2012), 2. 33 In understanding Bureau culture, it is also important to analyze the class backgrounds of FBI officials and agents. Though some agents did come from working-class backgrounds, the educational requirements to be an agent and the salary provided to FBI agents put them firmly in the middle class. In addition, as historian Roland Marchand argues, in the 1950s, white Americans, however wrongly, believed that America was evolving to become a classless society. The "homogeneous" popular culture of the 1950s echoed this belief positioning white upper-middle-class suburban families as the American norm.50 Likewise, FBI agents and officials clearly viewed white middle-class culture and ideas not as one part of a more racially and economically diverse America, but as part of what it meant to be a respectable American. The FBI also reflected the idea of "homogeneity" in the way Bureau leadership sought to control the lives of FBI agents. Hoover not only controlled the institutional priorities of the Bureau, he could also control the lives and careers of the individuals and agents who worked for him. This meant that FBI agents worked in an environment where respect for rules, regulations, and authority, in the form of Hoover, were required for survival on the job. Though Agent Roger S. Young voiced his admiration for the director, he also stated that he was extremely nervous to meet him: "Obviously I was terrified in the meeting because here was a man who, with one stroke of the pen, or one word, could have thrown my whole career out the window. And that's the way things were in those days."51 FBI agents had to accept that it was up to the leadership of the 50 Roland Marchand, "Visions of Classlessness, Quests for Dominion: American Popular Culture, 1945-1960," in Reshaping America: Society and Institutions 1945-1960, ed. Robert H. Brennen and Gary W. Reichard (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1982), 165. 51 Roger S. Young, Interviewed by Clarence H. Campbell, Society of Former Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Oral History Project, National Law Enforcement Memorial Museum, 10 August 2004. 34 Bureau, especially Hoover, to decide who had the qualifications, attitude, and appearance to represent the powerful FBI. Another example of this occurred when trainers took new agents to meet J. Edgar Hoover for the first time and gave them special instructions about what to wear and how to behave. New agents heard stories about men who had been fired due to sweaty palms or a failure to look the director in the eye. Agent Thomas E. Bishop said, "A lot of guys, I found out, even the fellas in my class, were nervous as hell and couldn't say anything to him. They didn't know what to say."52 This fear was not restricted to new agents; one agent reported being afraid to ask Hoover for clarification of instructions that were written on a memo.53 FBI employees, especially agents, worked in a world where respect, to the level of fear, for authority was a daily requirement. This is not to suggest that at an individual level Hoover's power made it impossible for agents to exercise a degree of agency. Hoover's power was an institutional reality, but some agents did find ways to work around it. In fact, the very ubiquity of the director's criticism made some agents less inclined to take it seriously. Agent William B. Anderson talked about the fact that he had thirty letters of commendation and six or seven letters of censure, "I took a cavalier attitude toward that, I thought just do what's right and, if they wanna criticize you, well, just do it right again and the next time and get a good night's sleep. What the hell. Frankly it was very helpful to have that attitude."54 52 Thomas E. Bishop, Interviewed by Clarence H. Campbell and Michael M. O'Brien, Society of Former Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Oral History Project, National Law Enforcement Memorial Museum, 13 January 2004. 53 Thomas J. Baker , Interviewed by Susan Wynkoop, Society of Former Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Oral History Project, National Law Enforcement Memorial Museum, 2 November 2009. 54 William B. Anderson, Interviewed by Brian R. Hollstein, Society of Former Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Oral History Project, National Law Enforcement Memorial Museum, 14 February 2008. 35 For some agents, the frequency and capriciousness of Hoover's criticism made it seem inevitable and therefore something not to be feared. However, whatever the reaction to Hoover's reputation and disciplinary standards, there is no doubt that the FBI hierarchy expected agents to look and behave according to very rigid standards. Before becoming agents, they had to face a number of exams and an extensive background check. FBI employment applications requested detailed information in over "50 different categories" in order for them to help conduct background investigations on those who applied to the FBI. 55 A cartoon in the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin declared, "Public opinion of a police department is greatly influenced by the personal appearance of its officers."56 FBI officials clearly felt that the reputation and respectability was closely tied to the way that agents looked. Everything about an agent's appearance could be called into question. In the early 1960s, Hoover declared that some of the agents looked like "truck drivers" and singled out an individual because his eyebrows grew together and ordered that he have them groomed into two separate eyebrows. Hoover threatened the training agents of the group with "disciplinary transfers" for not "weeding out" the individuals who did not fit the image of an ideal agent.57 As long hair and facial hair became more in fashion in the late 1960s and 1970s the short haired and clean shaven appearance of FBI Agents became even more distinctive. In a Time magazine interview December 14, 1970, the Director observed, 55 "Police Management: Recruitment and Selection of Personnel," FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, 36: 1 (January 1967): 26. 56 "Helpful Hints," FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, April 1964, back cover. 57 Rogers S. Young, Interviewed by Clarence H. Campbell, Society of Former Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Oral History Project, National Law Enforcement Memorial Museum, 20 August 2004. 36 "You won't find long or sideburns a la Joe Namath here. There are no hippies, the public has an image of what an FBI agent should look like.'"58 Though this will be discussed further in a later chapter, the short hair and clean shaven chin of an FBI Agent could have as much meaning to both the individual agent, and the organization, as the long hair of a student protestor or the "natural" hair style of a black activist. For FBI agents in the 1960s and 1970s, a clean-cut image represented their ideas about respectability and community. The physical appearance that the FBI expected an agent to maintain included more than eyebrows and hair. Agents had to meet exacting physical fitness standards. FBI officials considered this more than just a matter of respect and appearance, they also argued that it was essential for the agents to do their job. Hoover said, "Sickly, obese, out-of-condition peace officers cannot expect to cope with the arduous exertion required to fight against today's vicious criminals."59 In effect, he expected agents to dress the same way, wear their hair the same way, groom the same way, and have a largely similar body type. In addition, since the large majority of FBI Agents had light skin, this added another mark of visual similarity and conformity to the ranks of the G-men. This created an environment so exacting and specific that it impacted the way Hoover and agents reacted to other government officials who did not keep up the same high standards. One agent told a story about meeting Attorney General Robert Kennedy and made a specific point that Kennedy was in his "shirt-sleeves" and tossing a football while they talked. The agent put that information in his report to Hoover because he knew 58 Turner, "An Insider's View," 22-23. 59 J. Edgar Hoover, "Message from the Director," FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, July 1961, 1. 37 Hoover would disapprove of that kind of behavior.60 Though the agent did not discuss his own opinion of Kennedy's attire, it is clear that FBI culture was so rigid and specific that the agent knew that even the lack of a suit jacket would be an unacceptable breach of professionalism in the director's eyes. Language usage is another interesting aspect of FBI culture. FBI documents and articles in the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin indicate an interest in understanding the "slang" of criminal, subversive, and even sometimes simply young and urban environments. This stands in direct contrast to the language the Bureau expected of FBI Agents. Though written by a police officer, an article in the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin encouraged law enforcement officers to speak and write "the King's English" and advocated "flawless" pronunciation, spelling, and penmanship.61 The emphasis on proper language clearly extended to the written word; Agent Thomas E. Bishop received several letters of censure due to misspelled words in reports and the Assistant Special Agent in Charge warned him that if he did not correct his behavior they would "put [him] on probation and bounce [him] outta here."62 The Bureau expected agents to use the language that they viewed as being indicative of white, educated, middle-class America, further reflecting the Bureau's ideal of American respectability. In looking at a collection of FBI oral histories, it is clear that both agents and FBI officials did use colorful language on occasion; however, the subtext indicates that while such language might be used in private conversation, it was not the language that law 60 Fred C. Woodcock, Interviewed by Joseph L Tierney, Society of Former Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Oral History Project, National Law Enforcement Memorial Museum, 14 September 2004. 61 James Mancusi, "Policemen Should Make Proper Use of the King's English," FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, June 1961, 21. 62 Thomas. E Bishop, Interviewed by Clarence H. Campbell and Michael M. O'Brien, Society of Former Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Oral History Project, National Law Enforcement Memorial Museum, 13 January 2004. 38 enforcement officers, including FBI agents, should be using in public. Within the Bureau, a belief clearly existed that middle-class respectability was key to the Bureau's reputation and power. Beyond language and appearance, the Bureau expected FBI Agents to adhere to a wide array of behavioral rules and regulations. They required agents to account for their hours using a painstaking paperwork process. In fact, one agent reported that the agents often had to "fudge" the numbers on the forms just to be able to have the time needed to perform the functions of their job.63 Several agents reported that Hoover, and FBI supervisors in general, focused on statistics, including demanding that agents maintain a certain level of convictions and other quantifiable results, sometimes to the detriment of the quality of the work.64 Here is a prime example of a way in which the FBI leadership's emphasis on appearance and reputation actually prevented agents from being able to do their jobs effectively. The Bureau regulated almost every aspect of an agent's life both on the job and off. Something as simple as drinking coffee in the office could be cause for reprimand. Supervisors routinely inspected the desks of agents to ensure that any personal effects that sat on an agent's desk were on an "approved list." The Bureau disciplined one agent for having a single airline brochure in his desk drawer. 65 Everything about the way an agent represented himself had to reflect vigilance, order, and to a certain degree, conformity. 63 Turner, "An Insider's View." 64 Richard H. Ash, Interviewed by Stanley A. Pimentel, Society of Former Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Oral History Project, National Law Enforcement Memorial Museum, 15 July 2004. 65 Turner, "An Insider's View." 39 Agents also knew that, especially at headquarters, supervisors also monitored their activities off the clock. Agent William M. Baker said: I'll be very candid with you. I did not want and I turned down administrative advancement while Mr. Hoover was alive. I was single. I had read stories about the actions he took against clerical employees for having fiancés spend the night and so forth. And quite honestly, I was in no position to want to become high profile at the time. I didn't want my personal life looked at and I was very happy being in the field. And it really wasn't until his death that I accepted a transfer up the ranks.66 Though Baker clearly enjoyed working as an FBI Agent, the Bureau subjected the personal lives of FBI Agents to close scrutiny, and Baker felt forced to alter his career and turn down advancement in order to maintain the personal life of his choice. FBI agents were keenly aware that their supervisors monitored and evaluated their behavior against the Bureau's and Hoover's standards of American respectability. Though the Bureau prided itself on being the chief proponent of law enforcement training in the United States, those agents assigned to deal with civil rights, white hate, and domestic intelligence cases often felt unprepared. Agent Billy Bob Williams, in addition to stating that he knew nothing about the Klan or civil rights activities prior to being send to Mississippi, also described his first bombing investigation. In relating the incident, says that he, "got out my Agents manual," and followed the instructions as to how to investigate. In fact, in order to take the pictures required by the manual, Williams had to borrow a camera from people living near the site of the bombing. None of the FBI oral histories mention any special training required assignment to civil rights cases nor was any previous experience in working in such a complex situations required. Civil rights cases often required agents to question and investigate members of their own race 66 William M. Baker, Interviewed by Michael N. Boone, Society of Former Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Oral History Project, National Law Enforcement Memorial Museum, 23 February 2006. 40 and class for crimes committed against those viewed as being less respectable due to their race, class, and/or behavior. This factor may explain some of the reasons why the agents had such a difficult time interacting with, and working to protect, civil rights workers, whom they may have viewed as being unworthy of citizenship and therefore of the law enforcement protection that came with it. In spite of exacting working conditions, agents within the Bureau viewed FBI culture as integral to their social networks and even their own identity. At one point in Williams's oral history, he recounted a time when he was in an accident and the Bureau responded to help him very quickly. He said, "The Bureau, in those days, was that much of a family."67 In addition, Williams said, "When I tell stories about the Bureau, I very seldom speak in the first person because the Bureau was a team."68 James O. Ingram, likewise commented that "all our friends that we have, our close friends, are FBI Agents and their families scattered from the west coast to the east coast."69 For many agents, their work as FBI Agents was more than simply a job; it provided a sense of community and even helped to define who they were as individuals. Many agents also expressed how much they admired and respected the FBI leadership and the Bureau as a whole. Williams stated that he had the "greatest respect" for J. Edgar Hoover. He also stated that Roy K. Moore, head of the Jackson Mississippi Agency, was "one of the greatest leaders that I've ever worked for." 70 Other agents from 67 Williams, 8. 68 Ibid., 17. 69 James O. Ingram, Interviewed by Avery Rollins, Society of Former Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Oral History Project, National Law Enforcement Memorial Museum, 12 January 2005, 1. 70 Williams, 17, 18. 41 the Jackson office also had high praise for Moore, calling him a "tremendous man" who was "almost like a father."71 Agents also praised the agency as a whole. Ingram stated, "I realized then that we were the premier law enforcement agency, and, in my opinion we still are."72 Not only does Ingram's comment reflect that he had the same opinion of the Bureau as the other two agents, but as Williams's discussed, Ingram consistently refers to the FBI as "we," clearly demonstrating that he saw this organization as part of who he was. Agents often saw joining the FBI as a noble goal, and prided themselves on the FBI's reputation. Agent Roger S. Young put it this way; "I admired the FBI and, this isn't meant to be corny, but I wanted to be on the first team. I wanted to be on the first team against crime, the first team against a Communist threat at that time."73 Clearly, Young demonstrated a personal investment in the prestige of the FBI and the reputation it held for some as being the premiere law enforcement agency in the United States. This sense of closeness and emphasis on reputation could also have a dark side. As mentioned previously, the loyalty of the majority of the agents and employees of the Bureau, and Hoover's ability to keep the agency from being subjected to close scrutiny, contributed to the disturbing activities of the COINTELPRO period. Even more than any particular political agenda or philosophy, FBI officials and agents sought to maintain the power and prestige of the Bureau. 71 James W. Awe, Interviewed by E. Avery Rollins, Society of Former Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Oral History Project, National Law Enforcement Memorial Museum, 3 November 2005, 7 and Ingram, 3. 72 Ingram, 2. 73 Roger S. Young, Interviewed by Clarence H. Campbell, Society of Former Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Oral History Project, National Law Enforcement Memorial Museum, 10 August 2004. 42 The FBI's reputation granted such a level of power that agents could gain access to personal information on individuals without bothering to obtain warrants or other proper authorization. One FBI agent reported that he was able to obtain an individual's bank information without a warrant or any kind of legal document, just by flashing his FBI credentials and asking to obtain the information.74 The fear and respect that people held for the Bureau meant that its agents expected that individuals would ignore basic constitutional protections in order to provide the Bureau with what they needed. Given this attitude, one can see how easy it was for the abuses of the counterintelligence era to be perpetrated against those the Bureau deemed dangerous to their view of the American way of life. In talking about the Bureau prior to 1978, Agent William M. Baker stated, "There seemed to be a method of brushing it under the carpet, if there were some allegations."75 This statement most likely refers to allegations directed at the Bureau as a whole, but there is also evidence that the Bureau would cover up crimes committed by FBI agents, or simply fire agents who had any kind of brush with the law, in order to maintain the illusion that the FBI remained free of any hint of wrongdoing.76 J. Edgar Hoover and other FBI officials seemed extremely concerned about potential "embarrassment" to the FBI if their counterintelligence activities became known to the public. Even while leaking information to individuals they saw as trustworthy, they emphasized limiting that information to public record.77 Though the Bureau 74 Deposition of FBI Agent Anthony E. Constantino, Fifth Avenue Peace Parade v. Hoover, American Civil Liberty Union Records, 1917-Present, Series MC001, Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University. 75 William M. Baker, Interviewed by Michael N. Boone, Society of Former Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Oral History Project, National Law Enforcement Memorial Museum, 23 February 2006. 76 Turner, "An Insider's View." 77 SAC, Boston to Director, FBI, memorandum, 12 September 1968, Counterintelligence Programs Collection, The National Security Archive, Washington, D.C. 43 hierarchy was determined to discredit "troublemakers," it was even more conscious of maintaining its own image and reputation. In an interview in 1964, Hoover stated: I don't enjoy a controversy and I don't go looking for one. I have tried for years to avoid public disputes. But I cannot let attacks on the FBI go unchallenged when they are not justified. If I didn't speak out in defense of my agents, I would have no morale left in this organization....Public trust in the FBI is an important part of law enforcement and national security. 78 Hoover was willing to create controversy and make controversial statements in defense of the Bureau and its agents. This controversial style of defense, however, often led to the opposite effect than the director intended, and demonstrated the inappropriate lengths FBI officials went to ensure their own power. One example of this behavior can be seen in Hoover's public, and quite damaging, media feud with Martin Luther King Jr. Though the FBI had been investigating King in a casual manner, following comments King made about the FBI's too friendly relationship with the local police force of Albany, Georgia in 1964, Hoover viciously went after King both publically and privately. For example, Hoover reacted to reports that King was receiving the Nobel Peace Prize by sending a number of letters to the White House and the State Department claiming that King did not have the correct character to win the award and publicly called King a "liar" to a group of reporters. In addition, FBI officials drafted a note to King urging him to commit suicide and sent it to King along with a copy of a surveillance tape of "bawdy remarks" and "people engaging in sex" purportedly from King's hotel room.79 In keeping with the FBI's circular logic that anyone who criticized law enforcement deserved to be punished, Hoover saw King's statements 78 "Hoover Ridicules Retirement Talk, Defends FBI Role," Washington Post, 5 December 1964, A4. 79 Kenneth O'Reilly, Racial Matters, 142-152. 44 against the FBI as proof that the man needed to be investigated and punished. Ironically, Hoover's stand against the respected leader led to an erosion of the FBI's credibility. Hoover was not the only FBI official who declared the importance of maintaining the FBI's reputation; William C. Sullivan, the Assistant Director of the Bureau stated in a paper given at the 1966 North American Judges Association Conference, "The realization of success by law enforcement agencies in fulfilling their obligations depends largely on a single aspect of our national life -- respect for law by the people. This is the vital factor which must never change if we are to survive as a free nation."80 Here Sullivan equates the respect for law and law enforcement directly with the freedom of the United States. The idea that the respect for law, and by extension law enforcement, constituted a vital aspect of American values was another key piece of FBI culture and values. In discussing the FBI's actions during the COINTELPRO years, legal scholar Thomas Emerson said, "The Bureau tends to equate national security with the preservation of the traditional way of life….Any serious disagreement with the principles underlying this way of life is likely to be viewed as ‘disloyalty,' and any conduct which seeks substantial alteration of its institutions is viewed as 'subversive.'"81 An example of this can be seen in speech which Hoover gave to a conference on crime prevention in 1967. He said, "In a democracy such as ours, respect for law and order is one of the highest expressions of patriotism. Freedom cannot long survive where defiance and contempt are tolerated or condoned." 82 Later in this speech, Hoover specifically lists the Student for Democratic Society, civil rights organizations, and anyone who opposed the Vietnam War as those 80 Sullivan, "Communism, Law and Enforcement in America," 9. 81 Thomas I. Emerson, "The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bill of Rights," Federal Bureau of Investigation Conference Papers, 1971, Series AC312, Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University. 82 Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, News Release, 8 June 1967. Records Group 46, Records of the United States Senate, Internal Security Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary. 45 whose behavior risked the freedom of American society. This kind of rhetoric becomes important to understand as it demonstrates the ways in which the FBI sought to delegitimize protest groups, and justify their own unethical acts, by claiming that certain forms of expression fall outside the boundaries of what is considered "American." Another important aspect of J. Edgar Hoover's was the frequent connection he made between "discipline," "law and order," and patriotic ideals. He believed that a lack of discipline, not racism or poverty, constituted the real problem in the United States. "Crime and subversion," he said, "are formidable problems in the United States today because, and only because, there is a dangerous flaw in our Nation's moral armor. Self-indulgence -- the principle of pleasure before duty … is undermining those attributes of personal responsibility and self-discipline which are essential to our national survival."83 In addition, Hoover often railed against "civil disobedience," calling it "a seditious slogan of gross irresponsibility" and those who espoused it as "mentally and emotionally immature." 84 Often in the same speeches, Hoover, without any sense of irony, honored the founding fathers. This blindness towards protest as a part of American history went so far that in the same speech, Hoover lauded a quotation on citizenship by Ralph Waldo Emerson while also blasting "civil disobedience." To Hoover, any protest, no matter how just the cause, was suspect and could led to "anarchy." It was proof that those protesting had no respect for law enforcement authority and fell outside of the FBI leader's idea of who an American citizen should be. 83 Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, News Release, 9 October 1962. Records Group 46, Records of the United States Senate, Internal Security Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary. 84 Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, News Release, 19 October 1965. Records Group 46, Records of the United States Senate, Internal Security Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary. 46 Hoover specifically stated that this included the civil rights movement; "I am greatly concerned that certain racial leaders are doing a great disservice by suggesting that citizens need only obey the laws with which they agree. Such an attitude breeds disrespect for the law and even civil disorder and rioting."85 Here Hoover again equates proper citizenship with law and order, without any consideration for whether the laws in question were moral or just. By narrowly defining "justice" as the obeying of written law, Hoover and others who worked for the FBI saw civil rights protestors, especially those who flouted social conventions, as threats to America. Due to this narrow vision, the FBI refused to consider the fact that the law of the United States often supported injustice, especially against the poor and those who were not middle-and-upper-class white Americans. This narrow vision constituted only part of the reason for the abuses of the counterintelligence and domestic intelligence programs. Though motivated by their particularly narrow vision of what it meant to be an American, FBI officials and agents clearly knew that they violated their own purposed standards and ethics. In looking at the public statements of FBI officials, it is clear that FBI officials said one thing and did another. The FBI's Law Enforcement Officer's Pledge which appeared in several issues of the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin stated that, among other things, law enforcement officers should, "uphold the rights of every individual" and "avoid favoritism - race, creed and influence have no place in the scales of justice."86 In 1958, the FBI Annual Report claimed that, "The traditions of thoroughness, impartiality and ethical conduct are 85 Ibid. 86 "Law Enforcement Officer's Pledge," FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, February 1960, back cover. 47 zealously enforced at all times." The report went on to claim that the FBI did not "step beyond its carefully defined authority." 87 In 1965, though FBI documents clearly reveal otherwise, Hoover still claimed that the FBI was not investigating civil rights groups. In a magazine interview, the Director stated, "The FBI does not investigate the legitimate activities of civil-rights groups, but from an intelligence standpoint it is concerned with determining the extent of any possible communist infiltration."88 As the subsequent chapters will demonstrate, though the FBI did investigate communism, FBI agents and officials investigated people because of their class, race, and age, as well as the way they wore their hair or the language that they used. Even by the FBI's own purported standards, those investigating "dissent" needed to be careful not to overstep their bounds. William C. Sullivan argued that, "It is the very essence of liberty that these rights be asserted in an orderly, lawful manner. Care must be exercised to protect the right of legitimate dissent at all times…. Freedom of dissent is a cherished heritage of our Nation. Steps must never be taken to curb or abridge it." 89 As the FBI actively sought to disrupt meetings and curtail the economic and educational opportunities of black activists and antiwar protestors, they did everything they could to "curb [and] abridge" these people's constitutional rights of assembly and speech. Perhaps, though for people like Assistant Director Sullivan, the key word here is "legitimate." FBI officials like Hoover and Sullivan often stated that members of groups like SNCC and SDS were not legitimate members of society and did not meet their 87 Annual Report, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1958, ii. 88 "Communist Gains Among Youths - J. Edgar Hoover Reports," U.S. News and World Report, 1 November 1965, 6. 89 Sullivan, "Communism, Law and Enforcement in America," 9. 48 definition of American because they advocated for social change. However, the FBI's mandate was not to determine which individuals deserved their constitutional rights and which did not. In addition, FBI documents reveal that unlike Assistant Director Sullivan's claims, the FBI certainly did not take "care" as FBI agents investigated and interfered with social movement groups. As details about the counterintelligence programs came to light, many began to question the Bureau's actions and the insulated nature of the agency. By 1971, it became clear that Hoover's reputation and power were beginning to decrease. A Washington Post article reported the fact that Hoover's authority waned and that while Nixon and Attorney General John Mitchell still defended him in public, they hoped for his resignation.90 Another newspaper story the same year reported that the Justice Department had admitted to a congressional committee that FBI Agents, "follow no 'specific, published, or regular guidelines' when they spy on civilians they suspect of being troublemakers." 91 Clearly, the license that had been granted to the FBI to be the safer and more professional option for fighting communism and subversion had backfired. Several FBI Agents who looked back on the period defended the Bureau's domestic intelligence operations. Ingram said, "I want to compliment the Department of Justice. As you well know, in the seventies, everything turned around. With counter-intelligence programs, the Church committee, everyone else, the CIA, the FBI were all 90 Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, "Boss of FBI Knows Who's Boss," 2 June 1971, Washington Post, A19. 91 Frank Van Piper, "Reveal FBI's Snoops Carry No Guidelines," 18 March 1971, New York Daily News, 48. 49 under attack for their investigations."92 In stating this, Ingram did his best to defend the Bureau in light of his knowledge of these criticisms. In another oral history interview, without being asked by the interviewer, Williams spoke directly about the accusations of the FBI, "We didn't…we didn't do too much out of the way, down there, in the way of civil rights violations, but I'd just like to put that in if I could."93 Clearly Williams felt that he needed to defend the Bureau; however, he does not deny them completely but says that they did not do "too much." This implies that some violations occurred but that Williams did not think they were serious in scope. Another agent stated that he felt criticism of the FBI came not from legitimate concern over abuses of power, but simply as a result of political differences. Agent Richard H. Ash said, "There were people who had gripes and were trying to make political hay out of surfacing what they described as misdeeds of the FBI." Ash clearly felt that much of the reaction to COINTELPRO was politically motivated and that these allegations simply caused trouble without resulting in anything constructive.94 However, for Ash to single out the political motivations of the Bureau's enemies seems like a poor defense as the counterintelligence programs themselves were clearly political in nature. In a letter to L. Patrick Gray in 1972, Ash also argued against the creation of a Directory's Advisory Committee made up of individuals outside the Bureau. Ash wrote, "The esteem of the FBI and public respect has been attained by our achievements and our record as an unbiased, independent, professional, efficient, apolitical agency. Our strength has been the acceptance of the over-all constituency, the grass roots, the heartland of American 92 Ingram, 22. 93 Williams, 17. 94 Richard H. Ash, Interviewed by Stanley A Pimentel, Society of Former Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Oral History Project, National Law Enforcement Memorial Museum, 15 July 2004. 50 society." 95 Here Ash holds to the standard line of FBI rhetoric; the "heartland of American Society" must be defended, and only the FBI could defend it. The directors that followed Hoover after his death in 1972 continued to defend the counterintelligence programs, and as will be explored in Chapter 4, domestic intelligence operations continued to occur long after the supposed official end of the program. In 1974, Director Clarence Kelley told the New York times that, "For the F.B.I. to have done less under the circumstances would have been an abdication of its responsibilities to the American people."96 However, some agents did talk about the fact that they felt the COINTELPRO programs created a problem for the Bureau. Though he was speaking about an earlier period in counterintelligence, when the FBI taped Martin Luther King Jr., Agent Thomas E. Bishop said, "I didn't approve of it and thought it was bad policy. And it would come back to haunt us, and really, it did."97 Though he does not elaborate on his reason for these views, clearly Bishop was aware that the counterintelligence programs would be bad for the FBI's legacy as the premiere law enforcement agency. Another former FBI agent, William W. Turner, stated the opinion that the FBI had no business being involved in counterintelligence at all. The agent stated, "On the face of it counterespionage and criminal investigation are as immiscible as oil and water. They demand different approaches, different degrees of sophistication, different techniques. The FBI is not capable of doing both competently. It should not be expected to." 98 95 Ibid. 96 John M. Crewdson, "Saxbe Says Top Officials Knew Something of F.B.I. Drive on Various Groups," New York Times, 19 November 1974, C27. 97 Thomas E. Bishop, Interviewed by Clarence H. Campbell and Michael M. O'Brien, Society of Former Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Oral History Project, National Law Enforcement Memorial Museum, 13 January 2004. 98 Turner, "An Insider's View," 29. 51 Turner also stated that Hoover, because of his "cop" mentality, "oversimplified" issues and was unable to understand the "subtleties" necessary to successfully manage counterintelligence work. 99 This idea of oversimplification fits well with the argument that so many of the problems of the counterintelligence era were created by Hoover's narrow definition of what constituted a respectable American citizen. As the following chapters will demonstrate, Turner's comments represent a true picture of the Bureau. Though FBI agents worked extremely hard, and most were honestly dedicated to stopping crime and defending America, the counterintelligence programs placed them in a position in which they enforced not the constitutionally and legally created law of the land, but a system which sought to surveill and punish non-criminal and benign behavior based on class, race, age, and forms of personal expression. 99 Ibid., 36. CHAPTER 2 BLACK EXTREMISTS AND DIE-HARD REDNECKS: RACE AND CLASS IN THE COUNTERINTELLIGENCE PROGRAMS In 1970, the Buffalo, New York office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation wrote to the Director's office to discuss a counterintelligence proposal. The Buffalo office hoped the proposal would create public pressure against a high school teacher who was using the Black Panther newspaper as part of his Black History curriculum. The Buffalo office specifically stated that the manufactured letter should appear to be from a "black educated and concerned parent" and would be mailed to "appropriate responsible community leaders who, in turn, it is expected, would exert pressure and influence to eliminate any use of BPP literature at taxpayer's expense from being available in the Rochester School System." The proposed letter read as follows: Dear Sir: My son is a student at East High School, Rochester, N.Y. I am a long-time resident, home owner, and taxpayer of Rochester. I am proud of my family, our city and our school system. I make every effort to raise my family in a Christian manner and to help them become good citizens of our community. I want to be proud of my family and I want them to respect me. I want my children to have all the benefits of a good education that were not available to me. I write this letter because I think it is my civic duty and I want people to know about what I think is a bad situation. It is bad because it can influence my son in a way which is exactly the opposite of the way our son is being raised. I am talking about this Panther Party newspaper which preaches violence and hate that is available at 53 East High School...I don't like the idea of spending our tax money for such trash that can poison the minds of our kids and possibly lead to more violence between the races. Our racial problems can be solved, but certainly not by reading the Black Panther Party newspaper.100 This letter demonstrates two vital points about the FBI's interaction with black protest groups like the Black Panthers. First, it demonstrates the FBI's level of animosity toward groups like the Panthers, and the resulting tactics they used to prevent the Black Panthers and those who valued their message from participating in their most constitutionally given rights, such as freedom of the press. Second, and more importantly for this discussion, it demonstrates what, exactly, the Bureau felt constituted a respectable member of the black community - middle-class, Christian, and civically minded - and the way in which the FBI tried to use this image in their fight against the Panthers. In defining class, a number of factors must be considered, especially when looking at the FBI's counterintelligence programs. First, the most classic definition of class, that of levels of society divided by economic income, does come into play. In the letter above, the individual being portrayed is a "home owner" and "taxpayer" which suggests that the FBI's definition of class did in fact include how much money an individual had and what they chose to do with it. However, conceptions of class are much more complicated and include a number of social factors such as how a person behaves or the type of language they used. In the FBI's definition of "respectable" social status, one needed to be supportive of law enforcement and government authority. In addition, the FBI sometimes saw things such as intelligence and levels of violent behavior as indicative of a person's class status. 100 SAC, Buffalo to Director, FBI, Memorandum, 5 February 1970, Counterintelligence Programs Collection, The National Security Archive, Washington, D.C. 54 This is not only important in understanding the FBI's interaction with class, it also important in understanding African-American definitions of class as well. As identified by historians like Victoria W. Wolcott, in her book Remaking Respectability: African American Women in Interwar Detroit, ideas of "racial uplift" often connected certain social behavior to class status.101 Because African-American communities had little opportunity for economic advancement, appropriate social behavior could be considered as an equally, if not more important, marker of social class. Therefore, for the purposes of this discussion, the idea of "class" includes not only economic status but of social behavior as well. The Bureau's rocky history with the civil rights movement started early and has been well documented by historians. For example, in The Struggle for Black Equality, Harvard Sitkoff discussed how the FBI refused to help control the violence directed at civil rights groups and discusses the COINTELPRO actions dedicated to disrupting civil rights organizations. Historian Kenneth O'Reilly examined the way that the Bureau targeted Martin Luther King Jr.102 There is no doubt that the COINTELPRO programs had a negative effect on civil rights organizations and their members. There is also no doubt that racially based attitudes played a role in the organizations and individuals targeted by the FBI. However, in looking comparatively at the FBI's interaction with various groups including Black Panthers, SDS, and the Ku Klux Klan, it becomes clear that the FBI's attitude toward race evolved during the late 1960s and early 1970s and that in this period, class biases had as much, if not more, to do with the FBI's actions as race. 101 Victoria W. Wolcott, Remaking Respectability: African American Women in Interwar Detroit, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001). 102 Harvard Sitkoff. The Struggle for Black Equality. (New York: Hill and Wang, 1993). 55 As discussed in the previous chapter, the FBI often claimed that it was purely an investigative agency as a way of justifying their lack of action in civil rights cases. Hoover stated publically that the FBI could not use its resources to protect civil rights workers because the protection of individual citizens fell outside their investigative mandate. Hoover said, "There have been demands made upon the FBI for protection of many civil-rights workers who have gone into some of the Southern States. All we can do in an alleged civil-rights violation is gather the facts from witnesses, victims, suspects and others -- then report these facts to the Department of Justice."103 Clearly, this was a rhetorical device. The FBI had authority to arrest anyone violating a federal law and in the absence of Federal law breaking, had ample influence with local and state police departments. It is entirely possible, that had the FBI made protecting civil rights workers an institutional priority, it could have significantly improved the safety of those participating in civil rights protests. Hoover further claimed that the FBI could not act as "bodyguards" for civil rights workers because "our agents can not be used as instruments for social reform."104 This statement, while still something of a rhetorical shield, does get at the heart of how the FBI saw themselves in relation to the civil rights movement. As a defender of the middle-class white status quo, they felt they could not be expected to protect or defend those who sought to change the social, political, and economic realities of the country. In the 1950s and into the early 1960s, this included almost all civil rights groups; however, as these groups and their goals became more accepted by that white middle class, FBI efforts shifted from civil rights in a broad sense to targeting black radicals. 103 "Interview with J. Edgar Hoover," U.S. News and World Report¸ 21 December 1964, 36. 104 "Hoover Ridicules Retirement Talk, Defends FBI Role," Washington Post, 5 December 1964, A4. 56 Once the Civil Rights Act passed, Hoover continued to be resistant to involving the Bureau in civil rights cases. In his 1966 testimony before the House appropriations committee, Hoover simply claimed that the FBI did not have the resources to enforce the new law.105 However, the violence level in southern states such as Mississippi did merit Bureau attention and in 1964, it opened the Jackson, Mississippi office to address these problems. This did not necessarily reflect a radical shift in FBI policies or culture however; instead, it continued to reflect the FBI's enforcement of an orderly status-quo society free from individuals who challenged law and order. Agents in the field echoed Hoover's idea that the FBI did not have jurisdiction to protect civil rights workers. Agent James W. Awe said, "It was not within the Bureau's jurisdiction to provide protection. And we weren't in the position to provide protection. Maybe a hundred Agents in the area, we couldn't provide protection. That's a local matter. And that was one of the initial problems, I guess...is that there was a breakdown in law enforcement."106 Awe noted that the FBI used its influence to remove from office Klan members who worked in local law enforcement, and that their removal helped create "good cooperation between local and Federal officials." Awe's focus on restoring order and good cooperation between agencies reinforces the idea that for the FBI much of their work in civil rights cases was done restore order rather than out of any desire to defend the civil rights movement. One of the most interesting agent accounts of this era comes from Agent Billy Bob Williams, whose time with the Jackson, Mississippi office reflects the complex 105 "Testimony of John Edgar Hoover, Director Federal Bureau of Investigation Before the House Subcommittee on Appropriations," 1966, Records Group 46, Records of the United States Senate, Internal Security Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary. 106 James W. Awe, interviewed by E. Avery Rollins, Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI Oral History Project, National Law Enforcement Memorial Museum, 3 November 2005. 57 character of FBI interactions with the civil rights movement. Williams indicated that a native Mississippian supervisor basically assigned him to handle anything having to do with the civil rights workers. Williams said, "He did not care for the civil rights workers, and he wasn't alone."107 Even though Williams believed he could pass for a white Southerner because of his name and his parent's southern origins, he found the strict segregation of the South disconcerting. He describes an incident where he tried to shake the hand of a black business owner, and was later told by his partner that such a situation "made everybody uncomfortable."108 Though Williams had the cultural street smarts needed to blend into white southern culture, he still found the strict segregation quite foreign to his upbringing in New Mexico where whites were the minority. Also, Williams took the FBI mandate to prevent violence seriously. After the brutal killings of two local black men, Williams went to the Jackson office to request more help. According to Williams, he told one of his supervisors, "We're losing the battle down there…And somebody's going to get hurt pretty quick if we don't get a handle on this." In reaction to this, the supervisor requested that a number of agents be transferred to Natchez to help deal with the problem. Williams's story demonstrates two important aspects of the FBI's attitude toward racial violence, especially in the South. First, agents were individuals, and though the requirements of their job to some degree dictated their actions, their own personal opinions could effect how they did their job. Second, it shows the complicated relationship the FBI had with the civil rights movement: on one hand, the FBI saw the civil rights movement as the troublemakers causing the violence in the South, but on the other hand they, as enforcers of middle-class 107 Ibid, 24. 108 Ibid, 32. 58 peace and tranquility, felt a responsibility to control the violence occurring there even if they did not agree with the cause of civil rights. This idea of controlling violence and maintaining order is key to understanding the FBI's relationship with protest movements; any group, white or black, whom the FBI perceived as threatening law and order deserved to be surveilled and punished. As the civil rights movement evolved, so did the FBI statements and attitudes regarding civil rights groups. In the 1968 Annual Report under the heading "Racial Strife and Rioting," the FBI again declared that it could not provide protection for civil rights workers and that it could only gather and distribute information on civil rights organizations and the violence against them. It then stated that this information pointed to a "growing militancy on the part of black extremists." The use of the word militant, both in FBI rhetoric and for the purposes of this discussion, requires analysis. The word does connote aggressive and unrelenting behavior, and as used by Hoover clearly suggests physical danger and violence in violation of the law. However, the word can also indicate an individual or group who is verbally and/or politically dogmatic and inflexible, and therefore whose behavior falls within the law. The slipperiness of the term may indeed be the very reason it was so often used in FBI documents, as it suggested that individuals might be dangerous without having to actual spell out if and how they were breaking the law. To further discuss the FBI's definition of "militant" as violent, Hoover pointed to the rioting that occurred after the death of Martin Luther King Jr. as proof of this "destructive action and guerilla warfare." The report also declared that, "Certain organizations claiming to be civil rights groups but which in fact preach hatred for the 59 white race, demand immunity from laws, and advocate violence constitute a serious threat to our country's internal security."109 The pairing of these two ideas, that the FBI could not protect civil rights demonstrators and the idea that civil rights protests were quickly becoming a danger to security, clearly served as a rationale for the FBI actions in investigating and punishing black protest groups who fell outside the FBI's definition of legitimate protest. In addition, the rhetoric used by Hoover, in calling rioters "guerillas" and black activists "militants," demonstrates his efforts to imply that there were true enemies to be faced. Ironically, the lack of security and protection for African American citizens such as Dr. King contributed to the riots Hoover decried. While there is no question that racial views affected FBI practices and rhetoric through the entire period under study, the FBI did slowly become more accepting of the middle-class nonviolent civil rights movement and of the black middle class as a whole. This eventually led the FBI to commit, at least on some level, to investigating and prosecuting those guilty of racially motivated crime. John Doar and Dorothy Landsberg, who worked in the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, reinforce the idea that the FBI's view of the civil rights movement evolved in this period. In a conference paper in 1971, they initially had a difficult time working with FBI investigators. They wrote that in one batch of cases from 1961: A singular characteristic of 34 FBI reports was that we got exactly the information we asked for -- no more, no less. In conducting the interrogation, the FBI agents did not use their knowledge of the [voting] registration process although most of them were registered voters in the states where they were conducting interviews. The specificity of the request itself, and the characteristic FBI practice of confining interviews to items requested, caused two disadvantages. First, it was impossible to predict, and therefore to specify in a request, all the types of practices which Negroes might be subjected to in a given 109 Annual Report, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1968. 60 county. In such cases the Bureau's investigation would fail to bring out those practices.110 They also discuss another incident in which the FBI failed to ask important questions or collect needed evidence in five specific cases of violence against SNCC members. This information supports the idea that in the early 1960s, the FBI remained uncommitted to solving civil rights related cases. However, Doar and Landsberg reported that 1964 marked a turning point in the FBI's attitude toward civil rights investigations. In that year, the Jackson office opened after the death of the three civil rights workers. The agents who were brought into the state to investigate ... were appalled by the breakdown in local law enforcement and the rise in terrorist activity. They were ashamed of the Bureau's prior performance, and I suspect, reported their dismay to Mr. Hoover."111 When these agents, like Billy Bob Williams, arrived in the state and witnessed the level of violence taking place against civil rights workers, the FBI began to be more diligent in their investigations. Doar and Landsberg then provide multiple examples of the way the FBI, after 1964, effectively investigated civil rights cases. In summarizing their experience with the Bureau, Doar and Landsberg stated, "In evaluating the FBI's performance in protecting the right to vote, let us be sure we do not transfer our impatience with America itself, onto the FBI, simply because of its visibility -- or our prejudices -- or because we feel more comfortable criticizing a bureaucracy than criticizing ourselves."112 Doar and Landsberg attribute this change in FBI to a number of governmental pressures from 110 John Doar and Dorothy Landsberg, "Performance of the FBI in Investigating Violations of Federal Laws Protecting the Right to Vote -- 1960-1967" (paper presented at the Federal Bureau of Investigation Conference 1971) Series AC312, Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University, 8. 111 Ibid., 47. 112 Ibid., 61. 61 outside the Bureau and to the escalating violence of the Ku Klux Klan. As FBI agents, especially those from outside the South like Agent Williams, viewed the outright crimes and horrific violence being perpetrated by the Klan, it must have been easier to begin using the straightforward law enforcement labels of "criminal" and "victim" to define the Klan and civil rights workers rather than seeing the situation as a complex cultural conflict. While this was in keeping with existing FBI values, in choosing to protect black and white civil rights workers over white Ku Klux Klan members, the FBI made a stand that behavior demonstrated by the Klan constituted a greater breach with the ideals of American citizenship than the nonviolent protests of civil rights workers. As the civil rights movement gained support from middle-and-upper-class white Americans in the mid-1960s, the rhetoric of FBI leaders began to evolve. For example, in a 1964 speech to the Society of Pennsylvania Women, Hoover stated that the civil rights movement had "never been, dominated by the communists" and suggested that both "Negro and white" were concerned about the threat of communism. On its face, this is simply a quotation about communism. However, Hoover is drawing a line with communists on one side and legitimate Americans on the other, and at least rhetorically allowing that African Americans could be on the side of those who were defending American freedoms from the threat of communism. This same speech also demonstrates a shift away from identifying "troublemakers" based on communism and race and toward identifying subversives by their class and behavior. Though Hoover uses "communism" as the dangerous specter in this speech, he singled out the "brick-throwing rabble, or the raucous hoodlums" who had "turned orderly protests into nightmares of violence and bloodshed." This change in 62 rhetoric not only suggested that nonviolent groups could be "orderly" which is nearly a glowing description coming from Hoover, but also allowed Hoover to put forward the idea that the groups the FBI continued to investigate were not civil rights groups per se, but only the communist, subversive, criminal, etc. elements who used these groups to their own purposes. 113 In addition, when talking about these "raucous hoodlums," Hoover accused them of advocating a "doctrine of hatred." By claiming that anyone who became disorderly at a civil rights protest advocated hatred, Hoover turned rhetoric of the civil rights movement on its head, making the black protestors the creators of the "doctrine of hatred" rather than the victims of it. In addition, Hoover's emphasis on violent behavior points to the FBI's increasing scrutiny of those groups whom they considered militant. With the possible exception of the Students for a Democratic Society, there was no group of "raucous hoodlums" whom the FBI vilified more than the Black Panthers. The FBI official description of the Panthers emphasized the fact that the group was run by individuals with criminal records, advocated the killing of police officers, and had links to the communist party.114 It is no surprise that the Bureau targeted the Panthers so heavily. For the FBI, the Panthers embodied the ultimate combination of attributes which placed them well outside the Bureau's definition of what it meant to be an "American" young, black, disorderly, and lower class. While there is no doubt that race played a factor in the FBI's view of the Black Panthers, it is also clear that conceptions of class strongly affected the course of the counterintelligence programs. 113 Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, News Release, 12 December 1964. Records Group 46, Records of the United States Senate, Internal Security Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary. 114 SAC, New York to Director, FBI, Airtel, 1 February 1971, Records Group 46, Records of the United States Senate, Internal Security Subcommittee of the Senate Judicia