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."