The Burglary

by Betty Medsger

  34 “The politics of alien”: Arthur Miller, “Why I Wrote The Crucible,” New Yorker, October 21, 1996. Miller, “Are You Now or Were You Ever?,” Guardian, June 17, 2000. Ungar, FBI, 257.

  35 “he tangled with the FBI”: Tom Knudson, “FBI Was Out to Get Freethinking DeVoto,” High Country News, August 8, 1994.

  36 “We have occasional qualms”: Bernard DeVoto, “Due Notice to the FBI,” Harper’s, October 1949.

  37 For instance, when he: Theoharis and Cox, The Boss, 37.

  38 It was widely believed: Ungar, FBI, 257.

  39 at least 150: Angus Mackenzie, “Sabotaging the Dissident Press,” Columbia Journalism Review, March–April, 1981.

  40 Consistent with Hoover’s: Ibid., 129.

  41 To deal with professors: Rosenfeld, Subversives, 29.

  42 Some universities: Schrecker, No Ivory Tower, 43–47, 264. George Striker, “College Files Open to Official Investigations,” Columbia Spectator, April 8 1953. Lewis, Cold War on Campus, 19.

  43 For campuses in small towns: David M. Oshinsky, “Cold War on Campus,” New York Times, September 28, 1986.

  44 Entire academic disciplines: Keen, Stalking Sociologists, 5, 203–7. Price, Threatening Anthropology, 3, 6, 346.

  45 A 1958 study: Keen, Stalking Sociologists, xvii.

  46 The threatening atmosphere: Lewis, Cold War on Campus, 14–15.

  47 the type of research: Ibid., 205–6.

  48 In one of Hoover’s largest: Rosenfeld, Subversives. This book traces Hoover’s thirty-year effort to control the University of California and, in the process, destroy the reputations of and remove administrators, faculty, and students, an effort in which Ronald Reagan joined him after becoming governor of California in 1967.

  49The files on the Berkeley: Ibid., 517n5.

  50 The FBI had been: Ibid., 157–59.

  51 Savio was followed: Ibid., 499.

  52 “I know Kerr is”: Seth Rosenfeld, “The Cautionary Tale of Clark Kerr,” Los Angeles Times, December 4, 2003. Kerr, The Gold and Blue, 69. “In Memoriam—Clark Kerr,” posted by the faculty senate of the University of California upon the death of Kerr, December 1, 2003, http://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/inmemoriam/clarkkerr.html. In his memoir, Kerr described Hoover’s scribbled note—“I know Kerr is no good”—and wrote that “I look on this as an honorary degree.”

  53 When President Johnson: Rosenfeld, Subversives, 229–31.

  54 It was not the first time: Ibid., 232–33.

  55 Against his own judgment: Ibid., 3–5.

  56 Hoover often treated: Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover, 645. Ungar, FBI, 475. Schwarz and Huq, Unchecked and Unbalanced, 18, based on Church Committee Report, Book III, 425–26.

  57 But for the sake of: Rosenfeld, Subversives, 233–40, 334–36.

  58 On January 20, 1967: Ibid., 371–74.

  59 The FBI fought strenuously: Ibid., 505–12.

  60 Senator Dianne Feinstein: Ibid., 508.

  61 He stated that: Ibid., 509.

  62 Hoover’s perception: Charns, Cloak and Gavel, 2.

  63 In 1965: Theoharis, ed., From the Secret Files, 272–73. Charns, Cloak and Gavel, 59.

  64 The FBI director was watching: Alterman, When Presidents Lie, 198, 224, 232.

  65 Two years after: Dallek, Flawed Giant, 352–53, 367, 369–70, 371.

  66 Throughout the Vietnam War: Ungar, FBI, 479–80.

  67 It was difficult for: Marchetti, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, 229–30.

  68 In response to: “F.B.I. Files Reply to Damage Suit,” New York Times, April 4, 1976.

  69 From 1960 to 1966: John M. Crewdson, “F.B.I.’s Tardiness Is Facing Inquiry: Justice Department Lawyers Heard About Burglary Files Just Before Disclosure,” New York Times, April 4, 1976. Crewdson, “Justice Department Indicates It Might Not Defend 3 F.B.I. Agents in Suit by Socialists Workers Party,” New York Times, May 11, 1976. Crewdson, “U.S. Won’t Defend 2 Agents of F.B.I.,” New York Times, May 13, 1976.

  70 Levi ordered the FBI: “… Mr. Levi Calls a Halt,” New York Times, April 1, 1976.

  71 Remarkably: “Enough Is Enough,” New York Times, October 10, 1975.

  72 Their difficulties pale: “Burton Vows FBI Probe: Claims Hoover Knew of Miscarriage of Justice,” 60 Minutes, January 25, 2002. “What’s in a Name?,” Buffalo News, June 7, 2002. Fox Butterfield, “Hoover’s F.B.I. and the Mafia: Case of Bad Bedfellows Grows,” New York Times, August 25, 2002. Robert Barnes and Paul Lewis, “FBI Must Pay $102 Million in Mob Case: Agency Knew Witness Lied in Naming Four Men, Judge Says,” Washington Post, July 27, 2007. Pam Belluck, “U.S. Must Pay $101.8 Million for Role in False Convictions,” New York Times, July 27, 2007. Shelley Murphy and Brian R. Ballou, “U.S. Ordered to Pay $107.7 Million in False Murder Convictions: FBI Withheld Evidence in ’65 Gangland Slaying,” Boston Globe, July 27, 2007. Jonathan Saltzman, “U.S. Won’t Appeal Verdict in Case of Four Framed by FBI,” Boston Globe, May 1, 2010. Judge Nancy Gertner, United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, Peter J. Limone, et. al., Plaintiffs, v. United States of America, Defendant, Civ. Action No. 02cv10890-NG, Memorandum and Order Re: Bench Trial, 1–223, July 26, 2007.

  73Former FBI director Robert Mueller: Kevin Cullen, “A Lingering Question for the FBI’s Director,” Boston Globe, July 24, 2011.

  74 Another federal judge: Laurence H. Silberman, “Hoover’s Institution,” Wall Street Journal, July 20, 2005.

  75 He also recommended: Robert Novak, “Removing J. Edgar Hoover’s Name,” Lincoln (NE) Tribune, December 1, 2005. Johanna Neuman, “A Chorus of Hoover Critics,” Los Angeles Times, December 31, 2005.

  76 Considered a classic: Aaron Latham, “Top Secrets at Top Cost,” Washington Post, July 25, 1970. A few observations about the then under construction headquarters, which Hoover had been involved in designing for more than a decade: More space was provided for domestic intelligence than for criminal investigations; the space allocated for (predigital) intelligence files would occupy more than a half million square feet, one-third of the total floor space; the director wanted but failed to get approval for a nuclear reactor on the bottom floor; Hoover adamantly opposed having any freestanding columns because he thought they would provide ideal cover for assassins. Bryan Bender, “FBI Gives a Glimpse of Its Most Secret Layer,” Boston Globe, March 29, 2010. The volume taken up by the “most highly sensitive” files Hoover kept separate from other files in a “special file room” became so large that in 1961 the files were moved to another building “out of fear that the Justice Department Building, where [the bureau] was housed, could not withstand the weight.” That building, at 9th Street and Constitution Avenue, is a massive steel-framed structure.

  20. CLOSING CASES

  Unless otherwise indicated, all comments and information attributed to Neil Welch are from interviews conducted with him in person, by phone, and in correspondence.

  1 As Kelley gradually: Tom Wicker, “What Have They Done Since They Shot Dillinger?,” New York Times, December 28 1969: “Hoover had written and insisted throughout the fifties and sixties that there was no Mafia; and of the hundreds of bureau agents in the New York area, [Robert] Kennedy found only two assigned to organized crime.”

  2 Their attitude: Ibid.: A Justice Department official says, “If you want to screw an agent, just go to Hoover and tell him you were talking with the agent and he gave you a good idea.”

  3 The committee members: Marro, “Choice to Head F.B.I. Still Eludes Carter,” New York Times, July 31, 1977.

  4 J. Edgar Hoover understood: Welch and Marston, Inside Hoover’s FBI, 280–81.

  5 As he settled into: Ibid., 253.

  6 In the aftermath: Ungar, FBI, 484–85; this false information about the burglars, provided to Ungar by an anonymous source, was the basis of descriptions used by most authors who wrote subsequently about the burglary.

  7 By 1976: “Kelley Apologizes for F.B.I. Actions,” New York Times, May 9, 1976.

  22. UNCONDITIONALLY P
OSITIVE

  1 Then, in the first semester: Peace in Vietnam. This report prepared by the American Friends Service Committee motivated Forsyth to become an antiwar activist.

  2 In a sign of: Invitation to Retrospective of the Camden 28 Trial, May 4, 2002.

  3 Forsyth spoke up: Transcript of video of Retrospective, May 4, 2002.

  4 “We are a nation”: Ibid.

  24. BUILDING LITTLE POCKETS OF LIFE

  1 As Bonhoeffer: Robertson, The Shame and the Sacrifice, 176.

  25. YOU DIDN’T DO THAT

  1 Interestingly, the two primary: E. Forrest Harris Sr., “The Black Church’s Influence on Dietrich Bonhoeffer,” http://bonhoefferblogdomain.com/2009/02/21/the-black-churchs-influence-on-dietrich-bonhoeffer/. Scott Holland, “First We Take Manhattan, Then We Take Berlin: Bonhoeffer’s New York,” http://www.crosscurrents.org/hollandf20.htm. David Pacchioli, “Bonhoeffer’s Dilemma,” http://news.psu.edu/story/140578/2000/05/01/research/bonhoeffer’s-dilemma. Robertson, Shame and the Sacrifice, 54–68, 141–73.

  2 In a forceful private memo: Laurence Stern, “Humphrey Early Critic of Viet War,” Washington Post, May 9, 1976. Ted Van Dyk, “HHH: Insights and Memories,” Washington Post, June 6, 1976.

  26. FRAGILE REFORM

  1 At the end of its work: Schwarz and Huq, Unchecked and Unbalanced, 50.

  2 The effort to turn: Kathy Olmsted, “Lies About the Church Committee,” Chronicle of Higher Education, August 25, 2009.

  3 One of the first attacks: Schwarz and Huq, Unchecked and Unbalanced, 52.

  4 Such attacks: Ibid., 225n46. Mary Ferrell, “Post-Watergate Intelligence Investigations,” http://www.maryferrell.org. Chris Mooney, “Back to Church,” American Prospect, December 19, 2001.

  5 In March 2005: James Ridgeway, “The Bush Family Coup: Son Revisits the Sins of the Father on America,” Village Voice, December 27, 2005.

  6 Setting a ten-year limit: Vivian S. Chu and Henry B. Hogue, “FBI Directorship: History and Congressional Action,” Congressional Research Service, June 7, 2011, 1. Schwarz and Huq, Unchecked and Unbalanced, 54.

  7 In 1978: Schwarz and Huq, Unchecked and Unbalanced, 53.

  8 A fierce debate: “The F.B.I. Under Law,” editorial, Nation, October 6, 1979. “Symposium: Chartering the F.B.I.,” Nation, October 6, 1979. “Proposed Charter for F.B.I. Criticized,” New York Times, November 5, 1979. Schwarz and Huq, Unchecked and Unbalanced, 51.

  9 The politics of intelligence: Schwarz and Huq, Unchecked and Unbalanced, 54.

  10 With Congress’s failure: Berman, Domestic Intelligence, 10–12. “The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Compliance with the Attorney General’s Investigative Guidelines: Historical Background of the Attorney General’s Investigative Guidelines,” Special Report, Office of the Inspector General, September 2005.

  11 It was a sign: Schwarz and Huq, Unchecked and Unbalanced, 55.

  12 For instance, Jennifer Dohrn: Amy Goodman and Juan González, “Jennifer Dohrn: I Was the Target of Illegal FBI Break-ins Ordered by Mark Felt aka ‘Deep Throat,’ ” Democracy Now!, June 2, 2005.

  13 When Reagan pardoned: Ronald Reagan, “Statement on Granting Pardons to W. Mark Felt and Edward S. Miller,” April 15, 1981, http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1981/41581d.htm.

  14 When Felt’s history: Ruth Marcus, “Deep Throat on Trial,” Washington Post, December 20, 2008. Colby King, “Deep Throat’s Other Legacy,” Washington Post, June 4, 2005.

  15 After that report: Schwarz and Huq, Unchecked and Unbalanced, 56.

  16 In hindsight: Philip Shenon, “F.B.I. Papers Show Wide Surveillance of Reagan Critics,” New York Times, January 28, 1988. “How Did the F.B.I. Go Astray?,” editorial, New York Times, February 6, 1988. Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover, 758–59. Schwarz and Huq, Unchecked and Unbalanced, 58–59.

  17 At first, he defended: Philip Shenon, “F.B.I.’s Chief Says Surveillance Was Justified,” New York Times, February 3, 1988.

  18 Sessions later confessed: Philip Shenon, “F.B.I. Reportedly Faults Its Inquiry on Foes of Latin America Policy,” New York Times, June 4, 1988.

  19 At the White House: Philip Shenon, “Reagan Backs F.B.I. over Surveillance,” New York Times, February 4, 1988.

  20 It was now more difficult: Schwarz and Huq, Unchecked and Unbalanced, 61.

  21 A New York Times editorial: “The F.B.I. Confesses,” editorial, New York Times, September 17, 1988. Philip Shenon, “F.B.I. Is Willing to Erase Names from Its Records,” New York Times, September 17, 1988. Chip Berlet, “Re-framing Dissent as Criminal Subversion: Paradigm Shift and Political Repression,” PublicEye.org.

  22 The single most important: O’Reilly, Hoover and the Un-Americans, 289.

  23 ‘as bad as possible’: “Veto Battle 30 Years Ago Set Freedom of Information Norms: Scalia, Rumsfeld, Cheney Opposed Open Government Bill,” November 23, 2004, Briefing Book No. 142, National Security Archive.

  24 His order to the: National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, July 22, 2004. Lichtblau, Bush’s Law, 84.

  25 “I felt like”: Brian McNeill, “FBI Director and Jefferson Medal Recipient Robert Mueller ’73 Reflects on Bureau’s Transformation After 9/11,” UVA Lawyer, Spring 2013, 12.

  26 Overnight, the FBI’s mandate: Lichtblau, Bush’s Law, 81–90.

  27 It was later discovered: Shenon, The Commission, 245–48, 274.

  28 By the time: Shenon, The Commission, 364–69.

  29 In the years before 9/11: Philip Shenon, “Urging Swift Action, Panel Warns Deadlier Attacks Are Likely,” New York Times, July 22, 2004.

  30 One FBI official: Lichtblau, Bush’s Law, 85–86.

  31 The bureau’s pre-9/11 failures: David Johnston and Neil A. Lewis, “Traces of Terror: The Congressional Hearings: Whistle-Blower Recounts Faults Inside the F.B.I.,” New York Times, June 7, 2002. Eric Lichtblau, “Report Details F.B.I.’s Failure on Two Hijackers,” New York Times, June 10, 2005. Lichtblau, Bush’s Law, 121–23. Shenon, Commission, 48, 241–42. Philip Shenon, “The Terrible Missed Chance,” Newsweek, September 4, 2011.

  32 “The problem was mostly”: Shenon, The Commission, 270.

  33 In some parts of the country: Priest and Arkin, Top Secret America, 270–73. Aaronson, The Terror Factory, 42. Charlie Savage, “F.B.I. Scrutinized for Amassing Data on American Communities,” New York Times, October 20, 2011.

  34 The expanded use: Jerome P. Bjelopera, “The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Terrorism Investigations,” Congressional Research Service, April 24, 2013, 9–11. Priest and Arkin, Top Secret America, 134–135.

  35 Agents could target: Berman, Domestic Intelligence, 21–22.

  36 Mukasey validated: “A New Rush to Spy,” editorial, New York Times, August 22, 2008. “Another Invitation to Abuse,” editorial, New York Times, October 19, 2008. Charlie Savage, “Loosening of F.B.I. Rules Stirs Privacy Concerns,” New York Times, October 29, 2009.

  37 Instead, the Obama administration: “Backward at the FBI,” editorial, New York Times, June 18, 2001. Ernesto Londono, “Drones Cause ‘Growing Hatred of America,’ Bipartisan Senate Panel Told,” Washington Post, April 23, 2013.

  38 So were crucial: Eric Lichtblau, “F.B.I. Said to Lag on Translating Terror Tapes,” New York Times, September 28, 2004.

  39 In their series and book: Dana Priest and William M. Arkin, “A Hidden World, Growing Beyond Control,” from “Top Secret America” series, Washington Post, July 19, 2010.

  40 As large digital haystacks: Lichtblau, Bush’s Law, 85. Bjelopera, “The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Terrorism Investigations,” 26–27.

  41 Assessing the impact: Richard Clarke, Frontline interview, April 30, 2013.

  42 “More is good”: Jeff Stein, “FBI Cheating Confirmed by Justice Department,” Washington Post, September 27, 2010. “Investigation of Allegations of Cheating on the FBI’s Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (DIOG) Exam,” Insp
ector General, Department of Justice, September 2010.

  43 For instance, available: Bjelopera, “The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Terrorism Investigations,” 26. Marshall Curtis Erwin, “Intelligence Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service, April 23, 2013. “A Ticking Time Bomb: Counterterrorism Lessons from the U.S. Government’s Failure to Prevent the Fort Hood Attack,” Special Report by Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, February 3, 2011, 7–89.

  44 In the latter case: Scott Shane, “Wide U.S. Failures Helped Airliner Plot, Panel Says,” New York Times, May 19, 2010.

  45 The new FBI secrecy: Eric Schmitt and Julia Preston, “Senators Say Case Indicates That Problems Persist in Agencies’ Data Sharing,” New York Times, April 23, 2013.

  27. THE NSA FILES

  1 The most startling aspect: Glenn Greenwald, “NSA Collecting Phone Records of Millions of Verizon Customers Daily,” Guardian, June 5, 2013.

  2 accessing all of it: Barton Gellman and Laura Poitras, “U.S., British Intelligence Mining Data from Nine U.S. Internet Companies in Broad Secret Program,” Washington Post, June 6, 2013. Glenn Greenwald, “XKeystone: NSA Tool Collects ‘Nearly Everything a User Does on the Internet,’ ” Guardian, July 31, 2013. Scott Shane and David E. Sanger, “Job Title Key to Inner Access Held by Snowden,” New York Times, June 30, 2013.

  3 NSA’s main partner: Eric Lichtblau and Michael S. Schmidt, “Other Agencies Clamor for Data N.S.A. Compiles,” New York Times, August 3, 2013.

  4 released to journalists: Mirren Gidda, “Edward Snowden and the NSA Files—Timeline,” Guardian, July 25, 2013. Barton Gellman, Aaron Blake, and Greg Miller, “Edward Snowden Comes Forward as Source of NSA Leaks,” Washington Post, June 9, 2013.

  5 “another capability”: Nick Hopkins, Julian Borger, and Luke Harding, “GCHQ: Inside the Top Secret World of Britain’s Biggest Spy Agency,” Guardian, August 1, 2013.