(1976) The R Document

by Irving Wallace

  ‘Yes, sir. I have it all in transcript and edited.’

  ‘With things deteriorating the way they were, the President needed the Old Man again. Since they couldn’t have him, they - meaning the President - he decided he wanted a real dyed-in-the-wool Hoover man. So he pulled me back. He’s never been sorry. In fact, the opposite. I told you - didn’t I? - how he took me aside a month ago and said, “Vernon, not even J. Edgar Hoover could have accomplished what you’ve

  managed to accomplish.” His very words.’

  ‘I remember,’ said Young. ‘That was quite a tribute.’

  ‘Well, Young, I don’t want this part of the book to be a tribute to me. I want it to be a tribute to the Old Man, so readers will know why I respected him and what I learned from him.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve been doing a lot of reading on Hoover all week.’

  ‘You forget your reading. Those vicious press people were never fair to the Old Man, especially toward the end. You listen to what I have to say and then you’ll get it right.’

  ‘I’ll do that, Director.’

  ‘You write down carefully what I’m going to tell you next, just to be sure you get it with no mistakes.’

  ‘Well, sir, I have the tape on. There’s no need to write it-‘

  ‘Oh, yeah, I forgot. Okay. Now, you listen. It was J. Edgar Hoover who introduced professionalism into law enforcement. He got rid of the Keystone Cop image - that’s not bad, use that - and he made the public respect us. The FBI was started under Teddy Roosevelt by Attorney General Charles Bonaparte. He was born in the United States, but he was the grandson of Napoleon’s youngest brother. There were a bunch of Bureau Directors that followed, and they were all either mediocre or downright bad. The last before the Old Man was William J. Burns, and he was God-awful. According to Harlan Fiske Stone, under Burns the Bureau became a private secret service for corrupt forces inside the Government. So Stone, the year before he went to the Supreme Court, he picked a twenty-nine-year-old kid named J. Edgar Hoover to head the Bureau. Hoover had worked as a library clerk for the Government. He took over the FBI when it had only 657 workers. It had some 20,000 employees when he died. He introduced the crime laboratory, the fingerprint files, the training academy at Quantico, the National Crime Information Center with its computers and almost three million records. The Old Man did that himself. And under him - like under me - no FBI agent has ever committed a criminal or corrupt act. That’s something.’

  ‘It sure is,’ Young agreed.

  ‘Just think of what J. Edgar Hoover did,’ said Tynan, finishing his cottage cheese. ‘He nailed John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Alvin Karpis, Machine Gun Kelly, Baby Face Nelson, Ma Barker, Bruno Hauptmann, the eight Nazi saboteurs who landed from submarines, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Klaus Fuchs, and Brink’s robbers, James Earl Ray - the list is a mile long.’

  Ten miles long, Ishmael Young thought. He thought of the triumphs Tynan had conveniently left out. For most of his career, Hoover had ignored the Mafia, refusing to believe in its existence. Not until 1963, when Valachi decided to talk, did Hoover recognize organized crime. Singed by this evidence of the Mafia, Hoover never referred to it by that name, preferring the euphemism La Cosa Nostra instead. Apologists would claim that the Old Man had ignored the Mafia because he was afraid that the underworld might bribe and corrupt his agents as they had the local police, and thereby ruin his scandal-free record. Cynics would insist he avoided the crime syndicate because investigations would take so long that they might lower his crime-statistics batting average.

  Ishmael Young thought of other Hoover triumphs that Tynan had neatly passed over. Hoover had called Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, a notorious liar, and had wiretapped his telephone to record details of his sex life. Hoover had called former Attorney General Ramsey Clark a jellyfish. Hoover had called Father Berrigan and other Roman Catholic antiwar activists kidnappers and conspirators before their cases had been presented to the grand jury. Hoover had slurred Puerto Ricans and Mexicans, insisting people of those two nationalities couldn’t shoot straight. Hoover had bugged Congressmen, as well as nonviolent civil rights and antiwar protestors. He had even investigated a fourteen-year-old Pennsylvania boy who had wanted to go to summer camp in East Germany and an Idaho scoutmaster who had wanted to take his troop camping in Russia.

  Ishmael Young recalled a column by Pete Hamill that he had read. ‘There was no single worse subversive in this country in the past thirty years than J. Edgar Hoover This

  man subverted our faith in ourselves, our belief in an open

  society, our hopes that men and women could live in a country free of secret police, of hidden surveillance, of persecution for political ideas.’ There was all of this to discuss, but Young held his tongue.

  ‘And I’ll tell you a little personal thing few people know about J. Edgar Hoover,’ Tynan was saying. ‘You can learn a lot about a human being by the way he regards his parents, I always say. Well, Hoover lived with his mother, Anna Marie, until he was forty-three years old. A guy who would do that has got to be a decent guy.’

  Or at least a case for Freud, Young thought.

  ‘Let me tell you another story that gives you a picture of why the Old Man was respected and why I especially respected him. When J. Edgar Hoover was seventy, a lot of pressure was put on President Lyndon Johnson to have him resign. President Johnson, to his credit, said No, he’d never let him go. Someone asked him why, and President Johnson said, “I’d rather have him inside the tent pissing out than have him outside the tent pissing in!” How do you like that?’ Tynan slapped his thigh and broke into raucous laughter. ‘Isn’t that something?’

  ‘It sure is,’ said Young doubtfully.

  ‘I don’t know if I should use the story in my book.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Young quickly. ‘It’s an amusing story. We can use all the anecdotes we can get.’

  ‘Maybe you can say President Johnson said it to me,’ said Tynan, winking. ‘No one’ll know the difference. Johnson is dead. Hoover is dead. Who’s going to contradict us?’

  ‘LBJ could have said it to you,’ said Young. I think we should put it that way. It makes the anecdote stronger.’

  ‘Yeah, you put it in that way, Young. You know how to do it. And you can put in something else. It’s a dream I had about a week or so ago. I dreamt that J. Edgar up there was jealous as hell of me. He was jealous because I was getting the final big solution to crime in America - the 35th Amendment - because I’d always have that sort of as my monument and he wished he’d had that opportunity. And I told him that in a way he was as responsible as I was for the 35th because without him I couldn’t have been Bureau Director at a time like this.’ He grinned at Young. ‘That was really

  my actual dream. Now, isn’t that something?’

  Before Ishmael Young could say that it was, or say anything, the buzzer sounded from the Director’s desk.

  Tynan appeared surprised, got quickly to’ his feet, and tramped toward the desk. ‘Now, who could that be? I guess Beth must be telling me it’s the President.’

  He picked up the receiver. ‘Yeah, Beth?’ He listened. ‘Harry Adcock? Well, ask him if it can’t wait. What’s so important?’ He stood by, then listened more intently. ‘Baxter what? The Holy Trinity matter - Oh, yes, of course, of course, the Collins thing. Okay, tell Harry I’ll be ready for him in a minute.’

  He placed the receiver back on the cradle, lost in some reflection. At last he slowly turned away from the desk, and then he saw Ishmael Young and was genuinely startled. ‘You - I forgot you were still here. Did you hear that conversation?’

  ‘What?’ said Young, pretending bewilderment as he studied his list of questions.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Tynan, satisfied. ‘I’m afraid some pressing business has come up. We’re still running a country, you know. Sorry to shortchange you this time, Young, but I’ll give you an extra half hour next week. Okay?’

  ‘Certainly. Anything you say, sir.’


  As Young obediently shut off his tape recorder and hastily stuffed his papers into his briefcase, he made a mental note to replay the last of the tape the moment he returned to his bungalow. What was it that the Director had not wanted him to hear? Something about Harry Adcock’s having to see him at once concerning Baxter - that would be the former Attorney General who had been buried yesterday - and the Holy Trinity matter - that would be a code name or - or maybe - Holy Trinity Church in Georgetown - and the Collins thing. That would be Christopher Collins. What could be important about all that? He determined to file away carefully these pieces of what might be an interesting jigsaw puzzle. Maybe, with a few more pieces, they’d give him a better picture of Tynan’s activities.

  How he’d like to get something on Tynan, he thought,

  as he fastened the catch of his briefcase, something to

  counterbalance and possibly eradicate what Tynan had on him. Something that would enable him to get out of this rotten project.

  With a wheeze, he came to his feet and started across the office just as Tynan finished unlocking the second of the two doors. Tynan waited, holding the door open for his ghostwriter.

  I think this wasn’t a bad session,’ Tynan said cheerfully. ‘Next week will be even better. We’ll go into what I learned from the Old Man, and we’ll talk about some of Vernon T. Tynan’s own contributions to the Bureau. How’s that?’

  ‘That’s great,’ said Ishmael Young. I can’t wait.’

  But what, he wondered, would a dead Attorney General and a Catholic church in Georgetown and a Collins thing have to do with running a country?

  Maybe, if he told Collins, Collins could tell him.

  Maybe Collins would then owe him a favor.

  Or maybe, Young decided, for the sake of his health he’d better forget he’d heard anything at all.

  *

  ‘Hold any calls,’ Tynan ordered on the intercom, ‘unless they’re from the White House.’ He hung up and swiveled to face Harry Adcock, who sat in the pull-up chair across from him. ‘Okay, Harry, what is it?’

  ‘We ran the check on the priest, on Father Dubinski, of Holy Trinity Church. There wasn’t much. Just one item, way back. He was involved in a drug case in Trenton once, but the police dropped it. Still, we -‘

  Tynan straightened in his swivel chair. ‘That’s more than enough. You go in and spring that on him, and then we’ll see -‘

  ‘I already have, chief,’ said Adcock quickly. ‘I went over to see him late this morning. I’ve just come back.’

  ‘Well, goddammit, what did he say? Did he spill Noah’s confession?’

  Harry Adcock was orderly and chronological in all his narratives. He never gave answers out of sequence, the way

  newsmen wrote leads, because he felt it led to distortions, omissions, misunderstandings. Tynan had learned to live with this habit, and he did so now. He drummed the fingers of his right hand on his desk and waited. ’

  ‘I phoned Father Dubinski early this morning, identified myself, and told him I had to make an inquiry on a matter of Government security,’ said Adcock. ‘I saw him in his rectory at exactly five after eleven. I showed him my identification, my badge, and he was satisfied. At my request, we were alone, just the two of us.’

  ‘What kind of man is he?’ asked Tynan.

  ‘Dark wavy hair, lean face, swarthy, as you know. Five feet seven. Forty-four years old. Has been at Holy Trinity about twelve years. An extremely calm and cool man.’

  ‘Go on, Harry.’

  ‘I didn’t waste any time. I told him it had come to our attention that he had been Colonel Noah Baxter’s confessor the night Baxter expired. I said we understood that Baxter had spoken to no one but him - that is, to Father Dubinski -before dying. I asked him if that was true. He said it was true.’ Adcock fished into his suit-coat pocket and extracted a folded envelope with some jottings on it. I made notes of our conversation while I was being driven back here.’ Adcock reviewed them. ‘Ah, yes, then he - Father Dubinski - he asked if I had obtained this information from Attorney General Christopher Collins. I said No.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Then I said, “As you must be aware, Father, Colonel Baxter was privy to some of the Government’s highest secrets. Anything he had to say to anyone outside Government, when he was ill or not in complete control of his faculties, would be of extreme interest to the Bureau. We’ve been trying to trace a leak on a matter of utmost security, and it would be useful for us to know if Colonel Baxter spoke to you about it.” Then I said, “We’d like to know his last words, the words he spoke to you”.’ Adcock looked up. ‘Father Dubinski said, “I’m sorry. His last words were his confession. The confession is privileged. As Colonel Baxter’s confessor, I can reveal his last words to no one.”’

  ‘The bastard,’ muttered Tynan. ‘What did you say to that?’

  ‘I said we didn’t expect him to reveal the contents of a confession to any individual. This was information desired by the Government. He answered right away that the Church was not beholden to the Government. He reminded me of the separation of church and state. I represented the state, he told me, and he represented the Church. One could not encroach upon the other. I saw I was getting nowhere fast, so I toughened up.’

  ‘Good, Harry. That’s better.’

  ‘I said to him, in effect - I don’t remember exactly - I said to him that despite his clerical collar, he wasn’t above the law. In fact, I said, it had come to our attention that he had once been very much involved with the law.’

  ‘You laid it right in there? Good, good. How did he take that?’

  ‘He didn’t say a word at first. Just let me go right on. I reeled off the evidence we had of charges against him for possible drug possession in Trenton fifteen years ago. He didn’t deny it, didn’t even answer, as a matter of fact. I said while he had no formal arrest record, this information -if made public - would make him look pretty bad today. I could see he was angry, all right. Ice-cold anger. He said only one thing. He said, “Mr Adcock, are you threatening me?” I was quick to tell him the FBI doesn’t threaten anyone. I told him the FBI merely collects facts. The Justice Department acts on them. I was very careful. I knew we had no real offense to hang on him. We could only cause him trouble with his parishioners.’

  ‘All priests are vulnerable in the public relations area,’ said Tynan sagely.

  Adcock went on. ‘That’s what I was counting on. That’s all I had to go with. I tried to make it more than it was. I told him that because of his position, he may have inadvertently stumbled upon some vital security information. I told him if he withheld it, then it was inevitable that his name and his past might come up when the security lead was probed. “But if you cooperate with your Government now,”

  I said, “then your past is no issue.” I strongly advised him to cooperate. He flatly refused.’

  Tynan hit the desk with his fist. ‘Sonofabitch.’

  ‘Chief, when we deal with clergymen, we’re not dealing with the normal run of men. They don’t react like ordinary human beings. It’s because they’ve got all that God stuff for a backup. Like after he refused to cooperate, he stood up to dismiss me, and he said something to the effect, “You’ve heard me. Now you can do what you want, but I must obey my vow to a higher authority than yours, one that considers the confession sacred and inviolable.” That was it, actually. When I left, I thought I’d give him one last warning. I told him to think it over - because if he didn’t cooperate for the good of his country, we’d have to speak about him and his behavior and his past to his ecclesiastical superiors.’

  ‘And still he didn’t crack?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Do you think he might yet?’

  ‘I’m afraid not, chief. My evaluation is that nothing will make him talk. Even if we aired his dirty linen, I think he’d prefer minor martyrdom to talking, betraying his vows.’ Adcock was out of breath. He shoved the folded envelope back into his pocket. ‘What do we do
next, chief?’

  Tynan rose, thrust his hands in his trouser pockets, and paced behind his desk for a few moments. He stopped. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘We do nothing. My judgment is this. If Father Dubinski wouldn’t talk to you, despite what you could have done to him, he won’t talk to anyone.’ Tynan exhaled. ‘Whatever he knows doesn’t matter. We’re safe.’

  ‘I could still go to one of his superiors, put the screws on him that way, and maybe that’ll -‘

  The buzzer sounded. Tynan started for his telephone. ‘No, forget it for now, Harry. You’ve done good work. Just keep tabs on Dubinski from time to time, to keep him in line. That’ll be enough. Thanks.’

  As Adcock left the room, Tynan reached for his telephone. He picked up the receiver. ‘Yes, Beth? . .. Okay, I’ll take it.’ He waited, then said, ‘Hello, Miss Ledger.’ He

  listened. ‘Fine, of course. Tell the President I’ll be right over.’

  *

  Vernon T. Tynan did not know any foreign languages, and he knew only a few foreign words he had picked up here and there. Two of the foreign words he knew were French, and they were ‘deja vu’. He knew them because a Special Agent had once used them in a field report, and he’d gotten sore as hell and written the agent that the FBI wrote and spoke English only and to stick to English if he didn’t want to wind up in Butte, Montana. But meanwhile, he had a hazy idea of what the words meant.,

  Well, whenever he visited the Oval Office in the White House, which was more and more often lately, the very minute he walked into that room he had the feeling of deja vu, of reliving an earlier experience. This was because President Wadsworth, a great admirer of President John F. Kennedy’s image if not his politics, had restored the Oval Office to the way it had been when Kennedy was Chief Executive. Director Tynan, as a young FBI agent, had on several occasions accompanied J. Edgar Hoover to the Oval Office when the Director had been summoned by Kennedy to witness the signing of some crime bill. There had been the elaborate Buchanan desk, with a green-shaded lamp holding a fluorescent light. There had been, behind the desk, the green draperies hiding the White House lawn, and the six flags - the American and Presidential flags and the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps flags. There had been two square coach lamps on the wall, and on the fireplace mantel, two model ships. The curving walls were painted antique white, and the ceiling with the Presidential seal imprinted upon it looked down on the gray-green rug with the American eagle woven into it. Across the room there had been the fireplace, the facing sofas, and the rocking chair between them. And in the tall black executive swivel chair behind the brown desk there had been President John F. Kennedy.