Dangerous People

Subversives: The FBI's War on Student Radicals,
and Reagan's Rise to Power. Seth Rosenfeld, 2012

Tom Hayden, and his FBI files.

The files released to journalist Seth Rosenfeld filled so many cabinets, his landlord worried the second-floor apartment might not survive them. But those were over 300,000 pages—documents Rosenfeld received after thirty years in courts, when his FOIA suits finally forced the FBI to release the hoard. Covering activities at UC Berkeley from the 1940s to 1970s, this is the most complete record of Bureau involvement at any college, and Rosenfeld's subsequent interviews corroborate many details.

The book's scope gets a good summary (silly title choice aside) in Peter Richardson's review. Another, by Rick Perlstein, notes how well Rosenfeld shows "J. Edgar Hoover and Ronald Reagan's twin obsessions with the University of California," and the degree to which "the FBI corroded due process and democracy," in pursuit of anyone Hoover saw as an enemy.

Even if American histories typically are too heavy on Great Men, Rosenfeld's focus on four key figures—Hoover and Reagan, along with UC Berkeley president Clark Kerr, and student activist Mario Savio—works quite well here, to narrate events and examine their implications.

Hoover's career as a red hunter went back to 1919. Rosenfeld fills in background on the FBI's post-World War II Red hunt, in California and throughout the country. Operations included recruiting elected officials as secret contacts for the "Responsibilities Program"—which Hoover for years kept from his boss, the Attorney General. Through this program, state governors were secretly given accusations against "Red" professors on public campuses; in the early 1950s, anonymous charges forced out nearly a thousand faculty, who never had a chance to defend themselves.

Even before the Free Speech Movement and antiwar protests of the 1960s, UC was a target of Hoover's. In 1959 he was enraged when told that the English aptitude test for admission contained an option among the choice of essay topics: "What are the dangers to a democracy of a national police organization like the FBI, which operates secretly and is unresponsive to criticism?" When Hoover ordered action against UC, tremendous resources went into a PR and disinformation campaign that mobilized political and media allies throughout the state. Thirty agents were assigned to identify the question's author; at first, a conservative professor was wrongly named. Rick Perlstein observes, "The bureau acted like a fascist organization by targeting anyone accusing it of acting like a fascist organization, all in order to publicly prove it was nothing like a fascist organization."

In 1960, Berkeley students protested HUAC hearings held at San Francisco City Hall. After police fire-hosed, beat, and arrested demonstrators, star SF reporter (and FBI contact) Ed Montgomery wrote a false story, claiming a student had started the violence by clubbing an officer. When the student was acquitted of the groundless charges, the FBI, maintaining that Communists were responsible for the protest, published "Communist Target—Youth," to make the case. The report, which named Hoover as author, was soon discredited.

There was no stopping Hoover's anger against Berkeley. Blaming the campus president for not clamping down on students, Hoover was determined to punish Kerr as well as student leaders. This is where Ronald Reagan found his political entrance cue: running for governor by running against Berkeley.

It's long been known that Reagan became an FBI informer in the late 1940s. Instead of protecting members' interests as president of the Screen Actors Guild, he divulged their records. Of actors later blacklisted, FBI files confirm a number of names offered up by Reagan. Rosenfeld also tells of a young actress who embarrassed Reagan at a party, by asking why livelihoods should be taken from people who simply may have made a mistake, years before. Reagan hastened to give her name (and home address, and workplace) to his FBI contact, noting "she was being hailed as a 'new discovery'—apparently someone who he thought might influence people the wrong way."

Along with shedding new light on Reagan's activities as informant, Rosenfeld's work offers previously undisclosed examples of the political and personal favors Hoover did for Reagan. The connection was so close that aide Edwin Meese thought nothing of asking the FBI to vet a woman for a job as his secretary; Hoover OK'd resources for that bit of non-federal business. He surreptitiously aided Reagan during the campaign, while working against Kerr and the incumbent governor, Pat Brown. Years later, Reagan returned the favors—from the White House, where he pardoned FBI officials who had authorized warrantless break-ins at homes of family and friends of Weather Underground fugitives.

Reagan's January 2, 1967 inauguration was held at midnight—at the suggestion of Nancy's astrologer, ran one line of speculation. More likely, the odd scheduling came from psychological projection, and was to prevent Brown from making imagined last-minute appointments.

Within days, Reagan's higher education plan—to cut the budget and charge tuition for the first time—was leaked, to public disapproval. A distressed Clark Kerr tried warning the regents of the likely damage to a system that had never turned away a student, and he tried unsuccessfully to meet with Reagan. Though he had made his reputation as a strong negotiator, Kerr was too often blindsided by the machinations of powerful right-wingers, on and off campus. Three weeks after taking office, Reagan attended a regents meeting, where Kerr was summarily fired. It was the first time a governor had so directly inserted himself into University affairs.

"One for the gipper" —Reagan and Kerr, 1967.
Cartoon by Bob Bastian; reprinted in a 2004 UC Berkeley article, "Ronald Reagan launched political career using the Berkeley campus as a target."

Mario Savio felt impelled to work for social justice; in public speaking about issues of concern, his intellect and eloquence overcame the severe stutter he had in other settings. His power as a speaker thrust him into a prominence he never sought, and when national publicity followed, Savio was distressed by journalists' focus on personalities and "leaders," not issues.

FBI records reveal the extent of harassment against Savio by its agents, local politicians, and UC administrators. The FBI ranked his name second-tier priority on the secret index of persons for rounding up in case of "a national emergency." Savio's school readmission applications were blocked, employers warned against hiring him, landlords enlisted to report his movements. When Savio listed his phone under names like "Jose Marti" and "Kathe Kollowitz" to screen unwanted calls, the FBI duly recorded the "aliases."

The harassment continued long after Savio stopped being publicly active in campus protests, and was not officially dropped until 1975. Throughout the period, Savio faced family and financial problems, along with periods of severe depression. Considering his death at fifty-three, it seems the years of persecution and marginal living can only have undermined his health.

Student protest—and police violence—continued long after Kerr and Savio were gone from the scene, and Rosenfeld details the complex history of anti-Berkeley activities by law enforcement, political, and UC figures. It all points to how agendas and ambitions, both political and personal, were conflated, and how easily these motives were manipulated by authorities intent on pursuing "Commies," by any means.

One player was Berkeley psychology professor Alex Sherriffs, who resented Kerr for not having appointed him to an expected post. An FBI informant, Sherriffs divulged confidential records on Kerr as well as antiwar faculty and students; among other breaches, he passed along a graduate student leader's medical records. After Kerr's ouster, Sherriffs was rewarded with a job as Reagan's special assistant for education. In that post he worked to harden campus policies against protest, and served as conduit for right-wing professors to inform on faculty they found too liberal.

Among the network of campus informers and "shadowy private operatives" was local Republican activist Patricia Atthowe. In 1966 she sued Kerr and UC, on grounds that—

the UC Berkeley dean's office had refused to let her review records listing the officers, faculty advisers, and stated purposes of officially registered student organizations. Declaring that she was merely a concerned taxpayer, Atthowe said she wanted to know who was behind groups like the University Friends of SNCC, the campus Vietnam Day Committee and the Campus Sexual Freedom Forum, which had "no place in an institution of higher learning." Soon newspapers across the state were carrying stories about the "Oakland Housewife" taking on UC. Some articles noted that she was associated with the Reagan campaign, though she claimed her research was unrelated. But no one knew that she also worked with the Alameda County District Attorney's intelligence unit, covertly collecting information that was funneled to the FBI.

Atthowe and her husband, an Alameda County sherriff's deputy, purchased a dossier service from another right-wing operative. This simple "Oakland Housewife" was the real power behind the business, which she expanded into a domestic intelligence operation, Research West. Atthowe was a confidential source for Reagan and Meese, "supplying reports on students, professors, and administrators." One of her former investigators told Rosenfeld, "I was reporting to the governor's office."

Research West offered such corporate services as job applicant screening and blacklisting, and it spied on antinuclear activists for Pacific Gas and Electric. Atthowe provided information to local police departments and the FBI; it's evident the firm worked with the CIA, to circumvent the prohibition against domestic surveillance by that agency.

In 1978, Congressman (and author of the Freedom of Information Act) John Moss subpoenaed Atthowe to appear before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Atthowe was ordered to bring all records on opponents of nuclear power: individuals and groups including Ralph Nader, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Union of Concerned Scientists. She defied the subpoena—on grounds of "free speech." After being found in contempt of Congress, Atthowe

... told reporters that nuclear utilities received inadequate protection from law enforcement and needed private firms like hers to protect them from terrorist attacks... She charged that legal restrictions on government spying had "castrated" police agencies and that the Freedom of Information Act impeded the flow of information between them. The FOIA, she said, was a "terrorist support mechanism." Moss retired later that year, and when the new Congress did not pursue contempt proceedings, Atthowe boasted of having thwarted Congress.

It wasn't until 1981 that Atthowe's operation crashed, after a number of legal actions against her. There were judgments in favor of creditors and IRS liens for back taxes. She also was sued for defaults on large loans from powerful people like Catherine Hearst and Richard Mellon Scaife. Another suit, for fraud, charged Atthowe with hiding her files from creditors; the location of the files has never been discovered.

Right-wing "political pranks," then as now, were a lame joke, if a destructive one. When antiwar activist (and actual Communist Party member) Bettina Aptheker ran a campaign for governor, a local FBI agent sought revenge against her for having exposed his identity at a rally. The agent's brilliant plan: to secretly place "Battina Craptalker for Governor" bumper stickers on "Communist-owned vehicles." Hoover thought the proposal was a seriously good idea, as long as the Bureau couldn't be identified with it; in other words, College Republicans shtick, as a tool of secret national security policing.

Hoover is long gone, but his legacy continues, in ways small and large.

When governor, Reagan proudly displayed a photo of himself shaking hands with Hoover. One of Rosenfeld's FOIA suits included a request for the photo, which the FBI claimed could not be located. In the end, Rosenfeld was able to include it in his illustrations—after a copy happened to turn up in the Bureau's public affairs office.

Exercise of First Amendment rights was the real target of Hoover's operations—which themselves were the truly subversive activities. That kind of attack doesn't end, nor does the abuse of power in pursuit of perceived enemies.

A current example.

Sam Seder's interview with author Will Potter: "why the FBI is monitoring non-violent activists, how corporations created the eco-terror scare, Will's own experience being harassed by FBI agents for passing out leaflets and who the major corporations behind environmental group targeting."

Ten Years and Counting

Though I'm usually bad at dates, March 19, 2003 is one I can't forget.

Sam Seder, on this year's March 19 tenth anniversary. Sam makes the important points: about how ten years ago the media screened out anyone who was right about Iraq; how it's as true now as then, that "experts" are used to shut out those who've been right all along; how media treatment hides its own role in ginning up war fever, as well as skipping over the lack of accountability for the Bush administration.

Sam also spoke with much passion about Janeane Garofolo's bravery in speaking out against the war ten years ago. He notes that hers was the only anti-war voice allowed on TV—because she was viewed as a lightweight who could be mocked and used to discredit the case against war. More of that story, from a 2003 interview.

At the other end of the spectrum are the voices with unlimited access. In case anyone were to doubt the truth of Sam's points about access, plenty was heard this week from those whose only post-2003 public speaking should be at the International Criminal Court.

Thanks to various media enablers, there were uncritical forums for the likes of Richard Perle and Stephen Hadley, for instance.

I haven't heard the latter, but was subjected first thing in the morning to the former—

Montagne: Ten years later, nearly 5,000 American troops dead, thousands more with wounds, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead or wounded. When you think about this, was it worth it?

Perle: I've got to say, I think that is not a reasonable question. What we did at the time was done in the belief that it was necessary to protect this nation. You can't, a decade later, go back and say, 'Well, we shouldn't have done that.'

The usual reality-based sources could be relied upon to write more critically of the PR effort. Charles Pierce, for one: on John Yoo, as well as media pundits' anniversary noting, represented by Johnathan Chait's anti-Pierce column bemoaning the loss of "open and rational debate."

The comments added much to the short post; a couple of typical ones—

Michael Cotter
I don't recall "let's have a more open and rational debate" being said much in the winter of '02-'03, do you? Let's ask Phil Donahue.

Matthew Pensinger
Chait seems to miss the fact that a truly "rational" debate wouldn't be "open" to the idiots who beat the drums for the fulfillment of PNAC's Strangelovian dreams.

It's a hard read, but the dying Tomas Young's last letter—an open one to Bush and Cheney—and Chris Hedges' interview with Young get at the reality of what those cool and calculating Strangelovians unleashed.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

Done deal, if it took two years.

Cap Times

To read is to weep, but Charles Pierce nails it—

We have been concentrating a little heavily for a number of reasons on the truly atrocious mining bill that finally passed the Wisconsin Assembly last night. The first is that it is yet another indication that Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage their midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin, plans to run for president, so it's a good idea to judge him by his works. The second is that the bill is an almost perfect example of the conception held by modern conservatives — which is to say, Republicans — of the way things are supposed to work, and an almost perfect example of the conservative idea of self-government as public oligarchy. And the last one is that it truly is an atrocious bill, being, at the same time, an environmental catastrophe, a staggering economic giveaway, and a deliberate and obvious offense against the idea of a political commonwealth.

The GOP rigged the bill to head off legal challenges by openly admitting that mines devastate the environment. As in a Republican legislator's words: "If the law is challenged and ends up in court, the judge needs to know it was the Legislature's intent to allow adverse (environmental) impacts."

Wisconsin has been a test case since Walker took office. It's always been part of a much larger plan; in Pierce's words—

This is raw state capitalism at its most egregious, and it demonstrates clearly that the conservative movement has plans that go back in history beyond rolling back the Great Society or the New Deal. They are after every progressive advance made since the end of the 19th Century. This isn't something that the conservative movement is trying to hide. In the middle of his filibuster the other day, Rand Paul threw a bouquet at the Lochner decision, the horrid 1906 ruling by the Supreme Court that hamstrung for decades the ability of workers to organize. The Citizens United ruling codified the corporate-personhood heresy that arose out of clerical chicanery in Santa Clara vs. Southern Pacific Railroad in 1886, and then CU itself was used to strike down state laws of that same era corporate campaign contributions in places like Montana. On the fringes, Glenn Beck made a fortune tracing the Great Progressive Conspiracy through the cobwebbed canyons of his mind, and the likes of Jonah Goldberg got rich explaining how Adolf Hitler really was nothing more than a proto-Green Party activist with an air force and submarines. Teddy Roosevelt didn't have three votes in the Wisconsin Assembly this week, let alone Bob LaFollette or FDR. They are playing for a newer, and far more permanent Gilded Age, and it is not coming about by accident.

Wisconsin had perhaps the strongest participatory democracy in the country, as seen when tens of thousands showed at legislators' doors, two years ago.

Which only showed that the public needed to be shut out.

AP/Andy Manis

Supremely Shameless

Another add to my to-read list, thanks to Adrastos—

I just finished reading David Halberstam's great 1999 book The Children for the first time. I'm not sure why it took me so long to read it since Halberstam is one of my heroes and I'm deeply interested in the history of the Civil Rights Movement but better late than never.

The timing is also somewhat fortuitous because the SNCC "children" of the title were responsible for the Nashville sit-ins, the Freedom Rides and the Selma March, a series of epic events that helped lead to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. That is, in turn, a big story today because the Supremes took up an Alabama case that wants to rip out the heart of that act, Section 5. Discrimination? What discrimination? We have a black President, what more do *those* people want? Sorry, for channeling Justice Scalia but his "crazy wingnut uncle who watches Fox News all day" shtick is contagious, y'all.

They're making no pretense. First, it was Scalia, bemoaning "racial entitlements."

Then, rehearsed fauxtrage from Roberts; here's Charles Pierce on Roberts, his talking points, and his being a "thumb-on-the-scale charlatan."

It's all as planned; after all, writes Pierce—

Roberts made his bones in conservative legal circles specifically because he's had the knives out for voting rights for 30 years. He's not going to let a little thing like the truth stand in his way now.

Sometimes, there's little distinction between "Supreme" and "supremacist."

Before the week was over, there was Michigan's CEO governor finally getting his hostile takeover of Detroit's democratically elected government. Besides lining the pocket of whatever Snyder crony becomes "Emergency Manager," it will be all about the usual screwing of labor and reneging on pensions.

But as emptywheel says, this travesty is also an example of the many creative ways the GOP finds of disenfranchising voters—

We have spent the week talking about whether or not we still need a Voting Rights Act. Given the cynical new ways politicians are using to disenfranchise people of color, I say it’s time to expand it, not end it.