by Tim Weiner
9. “As an aftermath”: Judge Anderson’s speech was reported in the weekly Harvard Alumni Bulletin and reprinted in LaFollette’s Magazine 12, no. 2 (February 1920), p. 3. On Anderson’s record as United States Attorney and his handling of the Deer Island habeas corpus case, see his entry in The Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law.
10. “I’ll take great pleasure”: Skeffington quoted in Boston Globe, Jan. 13, 1920.
11. “Q: Who is Mr. Hoover?”: The proceedings before Judge Anderson are cited in the National Popular Government League’s “Report upon the Illegal Practices of the U.S. Department of Justice,” May 1920.
12. “This case seems”: Ibid.
13. “The plot is nationwide”: The New York Times, April 30 and May 1, 1920.
14. “creatures of the imagination of the Attorney General”: Hoover, Report on Radical Division, in Palmer on Charges, p. 186.
15. “the real story of the red menace”: Hoover to Palmer, May 5, 1920, Department of Justice file 209264.
16. “an assault upon the most sacred”: Report to the American People upon the Illegal Practices of the Department of Justice, National Popular Government League, Washington, D.C., 1920.
17. Hoover said: “No, sir”: Report upon the Illegal Practices, op. cit.
18. “the wrecking of the communist parties”: Hoover report to Congress on the General Intelligence Division, Oct. 5, 1920. He was half-right. Comintern files made public at the end of the century show that dues-paying membership of the Communist Party in the United States plummeted after the raids, from 23,744 in December 1919 to 2,296 in February 1920, then rose to 8,223 in April 1920; fewer than one thousand of those who remained on the rolls spoke English.
19. “the radical situation”: Hoover report to Congress on the General Intelligence Division, Oct. 5, 1920.
20. “We’ll get them”: The New York Times, Sept. 19, 1920.
6. UNDERWORLDS
1. “I am not fit for this office”: Harding quoted by a close adviser, Nicholas Murray Butler, the president of Columbia University, in Butler, Across the Busy Years: Recollections and Reflections (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1939), vol. 1, p. 411.
2. “Daugherty has been my best friend”: Francis Russell, The Shadow of Blooming Grove: Warren G. Harding and His Times (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968), p. 427.
3. “We made an effort”: Hoover to Burns, Sept. 20, 1921, NARA M-1085, doc. 202600-1617-53.
4. “holding us responsible”: “Circular Letter to the Membership of the United Communist Party,” NARA M-1085, doc. 202600-14.
5. “Soviet Russia is the enemy of mankind”: Harry M. Daugherty, The Inside Story of the Harding Tragedy (1932; Boston: Western Islands, 1975), p. 119.
6. In the spring and summer of 1921: C. J. Scully, “In re: Communist Activities—Special Report,” May 1, 1921, NARA M-1085, doc. 202600-1775-8.
7. “Rules for Underground Party Work”: Communist Party of America leaflet, undated, Comintern Archive, Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (hereinafter RGASPI).
8. secret four-day meeting: H. J. Lenon, “Unity Convention of Communist Parties,” NARA M-1085, doc. 202600-2265.
9. Clarence Hathaway: Hathaway was identified as an FBI informant from 1920 onward in a March 23, 1960, memo to Hoover on a meeting between Morris Childs, the FBI’s highest-ranking infiltrator of the CPUSA, and top CP leaders Eugene Dennis and Gus Hall. The memo was declassified by the FBI in a thirty-five-volume file on the Childs operation, code-named SOLO, and published on Aug. 2, 2011, on the FBI’s website: vault.fbi.gov/solo. The document identifying Hathaway is at volume 19, page 29 of the file.
10. “The Communist Party is definitely an outlaw organization”: C. E. Ruthenberg (writing under his pseudonym “David Damon”), The Communist 1, no. 2 (August 1921). Communist membership figures are taken from Comintern records and C. E. Ruthenberg’s own estimates published in The Communist 1, no. 9 (July 1922).
11.“The word went out through the underworld”: The snappy prose is from Hoover’s 1938 memoir, Persons in Hiding (New York: Little, Brown), ghostwritten by his favorite journalist, Courtney Riley Cooper.
12. “trays with bottles carrying”: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Crowded Hours (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1933), pp. 320–325.
13. “Communists and most subversive activities”: Hoover to Attorney General Robert Jackson, April 1, 1941.
14. The deciding ballot was cast by Agent K-97: Reflecting on the referendum, Max Bedacht, one of the delegates at Bridgman, wrote of the undercover Bureau man: “I became personally acquainted with the most contemptible creature in human form, the agent provocateur … police agents who help instigate the committing of deeds which can be construed as crimes.” Bedacht himself went undercover. He became a leading liaison between American Communists and Soviet intelligence; in 1932 he recruited the young editor of a Marxist journal by the name of Whittaker Chambers to serve Moscow as a spy. Max Bedacht, “Underground and Above: A Memoir of American Communism in the 1920s,” unpublished memoir, Tamiment Library, New York University.
15. “The radical chieftains”: St. Joseph [Mich.] Herald-Press, Aug. 24, 1922.
16. “advocated crime, sabotage, violence, and terrorism”: C. E. Ruthenberg, “Foster Verdict a Triumph for Communism in the United States,” The Worker, April 21, 1923.
17. two workers on his payroll: William Z. Foster, “Report on the Labor Union Situation in the United States and Canada,” Dec. 16, 1922, by William Z. Foster, Comintern Archive, f. 515, op. 1, d. 99, L. 1–2.
18. “virtually nonexistent”: J. Edgar Hoover, On Communism (New York: Random House, 1969), p. 5.
19. civil war: Daugherty, Inside Story of the Harding Tragedy, pp. 119–125; But Daugherty and Hoover escalated: “Lawless Disorders and Their Suppression,” Appendix to the Annual Report of the Attorney General for 1922; Washington, pp. 1–25.
20. “played into the hands of the radicals”: Daugherty, Inside Story, p. 166. Bureau memos on Senator Borah’s speech calling for the release of fifty-three men still imprisoned under the Espionage Act were filed on March 12, 1923.
21. “My image as a Bolshevik”: Burton K. Wheeler with Paul F. Healy, Yankee from the West (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1962), pp. 200–204. While United States senators such as Borah and Wheeler backed recognition of Russia, American socialists were denouncing the Soviets for killing real and imagined enemies of the state. Eugene Debs had fired off a telegram to the Kremlin in November 1922, saying: “I protest with all civilized people in the name of our common humanity” against political murder committed by the Communists. Debs telegram to Lenin quoted in The New York Call, November 1922.
22. “the Communist leader in the Senate”: Daugherty, Inside Story, p. 214.
23. “the most colossal conspiracy”: Richard A. Whitney, Reds in America (New York: Beckwith Press, 1924), pp. 17–19, 48–54.
24. “If you knew of a great scandal”: Russell, Shadow of Blooming Grove, p. 582.
25. “Get rid of this Bureau of Investigation”: Crim testimony, Investigation of the Hon. Harry M. Daugherty, United States Senate, 68th Congress, 1st Session, Vol. 3, p. 2570ff.
26. “exceedingly bad odor”: Alpheus Thomas Mason, Harlan Fiske Stone: Pillar of the Law (New York: Viking, 1956), pp. 147–149.
7. “THEY NEVER STOPPED WATCHING US”
1. “ultra-radical”: Hoover to Stone, July 31, 1924, FBI files, ACLU.
2. “I think we were wrong,” “to leave my desk each day,” and “We never knew”: in “They Never Stopped Watching Us: A Conversation Between Roger Baldwin and Alan F. Westin,” Civil Liberties Review 4 (November/December 1977), p. 25.
3. “The activities of the Communists”: Hoover to Donovan, Oct. 18, 1924, FBI. Hoover gave this answer to his immediate superior, the newly appointed chief of the Criminal Division of the Justice Department, William J. Donovan, destined to become the leader of American espionage during World War II and the godfather of the
CIA.
4. “official matters”: The statute enacted in 1916 says “the Attorney General may appoint officials … to detect and prosecute crimes against the United States [and] to conduct such other investigations regarding official matters under the control of the Department of Justice and the Department of State as may be directed by the Attorney General.” Nearly sixty years later, President Ford’s attorney general, Edward H. Levi, testified that this statute could not stand scrutiny: “the statutory basis for the operations of the Bureau cannot be said to be fully satisfactory.”
5. “This Bureau cannot afford”: Whitehead, The FBI Story: A Report to the People (New York: Random House, 1956), p. 71.
6. “see that every secrecy is maintained”: Hoover to Special Agents in Charge, Aug. 6, 1927, FBI/FOIA.
7. “the entire membership of all New York unions”: David Williams, “ ‘They Never Stopped Watching Us’: FBI Political Surveillance, 1924–1936,” UCLA Historical Journal 2 (1981).
8. RED FLAGS
1. “The workers of this country”: House Committee to Investigate Communist Activities, Investigation of Communist Propaganda, 71st Congress, 2nd Session (1930), p. 348.
2. “no department of the government”: Hamilton Fish, Jr., “The Menace of Communism,” The Annals 156 (Philadelphia: American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1931), pp. 54–61.
3. “never been established by legislation”: Memorandum of a telephone call between J. Edgar Hoover and Congressman Fish, Jan. 19, 1931, cited in “Counterintelligence Between the Wars,” CI Reader, National Counterintelligence Executive.
4. “to secure a foothold”: Hoover to Attorney General Mitchell, Jan. 2, 1932, cited in “Counterintelligence Between the Wars,” CI Reader, National Counterintelligence Executive.
5. “active Communist unit”: Hoover to Kelley, Jan. 20, 1931, cited in “They Never Stopped Watching Us.”
6. “We are now engaged in a war”: Cummings quoted in Kenneth O’Reilly, “A New Deal for the FBI: The Roosevelt Administration, Crime Control, and National Security,” Journal of American History 69, no. 3 (1982).
7. “the criminal standing army”: Hoover’s warning about 4.3 million criminals at large in America were debunked, albeit quietly, in a report to the Senate by the Brookings Institution, included in Investigation of Executive Agencies of the Government, 75th Congress, 1st Session (1937).
PART II • World War
9. THE BUSINESS OF SPYING
1. “a very careful and searching investigation”: Hoover memorandum of conversation, May 10, 1934.
2. “subversive activities in the United States”: Hoover memos, Aug. 24 and 25, 1936.
3. “men of zeal, well-meaning”: Olmstead v. U.S., 227 U.S. 438 (1928).
4. “probably have laughed”: Vetterli to FBI HQ, July 25, 1938, cited in Raymond J. Batvinis, The Origins of FBI Counterintelligence (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007), p. 23. My retelling of the Rumrich case relies on research by Batvinis, a former FBI counterintelligence agent, whose account is the first complete and straightforward narrative of the tale.
5. On October 14, 1938, Hoover: Hoover’s plans for intelligence and counterintelligence are in two crucial documents: “The Work, Function, Organization of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Time of War,” Oct. 14, 1938; and Hoover’s memorandum, enclosed with letter from Cummings to Roosevelt, Oct. 20, 1938. The documents are cited, respectively, in Batvinis, Origins, and “Counterintelligence Between the Wars,” and together represent a basis for regarding Hoover as the true founding father of central intelligence in the United States.
6. “He stated that he had approved”: Hoover memorandum, Nov. 7, 1938.
10. THE JUGGLER
1. “You know I am a juggler”: FDR quoting himself at a special study group on Latin America, May 15, 1942, Presidential Diary, p. 1093, Henry Morgenthau Papers, FDRL. The quotation forms the thesis of Warren F. Kimball’s classic study, The Juggler: Franklin Roosevelt as Wartime Statesman (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991).
2. “On June 26, 1939, FDR”: It read: “It is my desire that the investigation of all espionage, counter-espionage, and sabotage matters be controlled and handled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the Department of Justice, the Military Intelligence Division [MID] of the War Department, and the Office of Naval Intelligence [ONI] of the Navy Department. The Directors of these three agencies are to function as a committee to coordinate their activities.”
3. “take charge of investigative work”: Public statement of the president, Sept. 6, 1939. Attorney General Murphy said at a news conference held the same day: “Foreign agents and those engaged in espionage will no longer find this country a happy hunting ground for their activities. There will be no repetition of the confusion and laxity and indifference of twenty years ago. We have opened many new FBI offices throughout the land. Our men are well prepared and well trained. At the same time, if you want this work done in a reasonable and responsible way it must not turn into a witch-hunt. We must do no wrong to any man. Your government asks you to cooperate with it. You can turn in any information to the nearest local representative of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
4. “Twenty years ago inhuman and cruel things”: Murphy quoted in J. Woodford Howard Jr., Mr. Justice Murphy: A Political Biography (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968), pp. 205–210.
5. “Same rule prevails”: Hoover notation, Tamm to Hoover, Dec. 22, 1937, FBO/FOIA.
6. “inconsistent with ethical standards”: Nardone II, 308 U.S. 338.
7. “greatly concerned”: Hoover to Jackson, April 13, 1940, Library of Congress, Robert H. Jackson Papers, Box 94, Folder 8.
8. “the very definite possibility”: Hoover to L. M. C. Smith, Chief, Neutrality Laws Unit, Nov. 28, 1940, FBI, CI Reader, “The Custodial Detention Program.”
9. “the various so-called radical”: Tolson to Hoover, Oct. 30, 1939, FBI, CI Reader, “Scope of FBI Domestic Intelligence.”
10. “liberty in this country”: Memo to E. A. Tamm, Nov. 9, 1939, FBI, CI Reader, “Scope of FBI Domestic Intelligence.”
11. “watched carefully”: Memo to E. A. Tamm, Dec. 2, 1939, FBI, CI Reader, “Scope of FBI Domestic Intelligence.”
12. “entirely confidential”: Hoover to Field Offices, Dec. 6, 1939, FBI, CI Reader, “Scope of FBI Domestic Intelligence.”
13. August T. Gausebeck: The Rueckwanderer plot is detailed in Norman J. W. Goda, “Banking on Hitler: Chase National Bank and the Rückwanderer Mark Scheme, 1936–1941,” in U.S. Intelligence and the Nazis, published by the National Archives Trust Fund Board, Washington, D.C., 2005. The work is based on documents released and analyzed by the National Archives interagency working group on Nazi records.
14. “undoubtedly sound”: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Confidential Memorandum for the Attorney General, May 21, 1940, FDRL. Roosevelt’s next attorney general, Francis D. Biddle, later wrote: “The memorandum was evidently prepared in a hurry by the President personally, without consultation, probably after he had talked to Bob [Attorney General Jackson]. It opened the door pretty wide to wiretapping of anyone suspected of subversive activities. Bob didn’t like it, and, not liking it, turned it over to Edgar Hoover without himself passing on each case.” Francis Biddle, In Brief Authority (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967), p. 167.
15. at least 6,769 warrantless wiretaps: Attorney General Edward H. Levi testimony, Nov. 6, 1975, Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (hereinafter “Church Committee”).
16. “The Federal Bureau of Investigation”: Attorney General Jackson to Justice Department heads, undated.
17. “the difference between ‘investigative’ activity and ‘intelligence’ activity”: Hoover to Jackson, April 1, 1941; reprinted in From the Secret Files of J. Edgar Hoover, edited with commentary by Athan Theoharis (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1993), pp. 184–193.
18. “The President thought�
�: Early to Hoover, May 21, 1940, FDR Library. FDR’s thirst for political intelligence on his domestic enemies, and his correspondence with Hoover about that intelligence, is detailed in Douglas M. Charles, J. Edgar Hoover and the Anti-Interventionists: FBI Political Surveillance and the Rise of the Domestic Security States, 1939–1945 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2007).
19. “all telephone conversations”: Hoover to Watson, Sept. 28, 1940, FDR Library.
11. SECRET INTELLIGENCE
1. The question for the FBI: The Bureau’s handling of the Sebold case was detailed for the first time by Raymond J. Batvinis in his 2007 monograph, “The Origins of FBI Counterintelligence.” Batvinis was to my knowledge the first author to review the Sebold case file; my account follows his. American intelligence files say that “the FBI previously had been advised of Sebold’s expected arrival, his mission, and his intentions to assist them in identifying German agents in the United States.” During one of his four attempts to flee Germany during his forced conscription and training by the Abwehr, Sebold gave a detailed statement to the American vice consul in Cologne.
2. “a long meeting on coordinated intelligence”: Beatrice B. Berle and Travis B. Jacobs, eds., Navigating the Rapids, 1918–1971: From the Papers of Adolf Berle (New York: Harcourt, 1973), p. 321.
12. “TO STRANGLE THE UNITED STATES”
1. Very little was written about it: The History of the SIS is dated May 22, 1947, unsigned, in five volumes, declassified and released under the Freedom of Information Act in 2007. Volume 1, running 42 pages, is a remarkable document, despite some key deletions in the name of national security. It contains a frank discussion of the FBI’s failures, and it evidently was not intended for an outsider’s eyes. The administrative files of the SIS are also eye-opening; they are available at the National Archives, in Record Group 65. Quotes from the SIS history are cited herein as History of the SIS.