Marc Aronson
Page 19
Courtesy of Universal Studios Licensing LLC. Creature from the Black Lagoon copyright 1954 by Universal Pictures Company.
National Archives, FBI, Box 25, Folder 1414.
National Archives, FBI, Box 25, Folder 1414.
National Archives, FBI, Box 8, Folder 488.
National Archives, FBI, Box 17, Folder 1123.
National Archives, FBI, Box 17, Folder 1128.
Courtesy of the Robert Joyce Photography Collection, Historical Collections and Labor Archives, The Pennsylvania State University.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, New York World-Telegram & the Sun Newspaper Collection, LC-USZ62-119689.
Courtesy of AP Images.
Courtesy of Columbia Pictures. On the Waterfront copyright 1954, renewed 1982 by Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Look Magazine Photograph Collection, LC-USZ62-137206.
National Archives, SEN 83A-B4.
Courtesy of the WFAA Collection, The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, U.S. News & World Report Magazine Collection, LC-U9-183B-20.
National Archives.
Courtesy of Ralph Crane /Time & Life Pictures /Getty Images.
Courtesy of Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen Gay History Papers and Photographs, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
Courtesy of Universal Studios Licensing LLC. Spartacus copyright © 1960 by Universal Pictures Company, Inc. & Bryna Productions, Inc.
Photograph by Cecil Stoughton, courtesy of White House Photographs, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.
Courtesy of Dr. David Garrow.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Yanker Poster Collection, LC-USZ62-91158.
Photograph by Warren K. Leffler, Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, U.S. News & World Report Magazine Collection, LC-U9-18949-12.
Library of Congress, Yanker Poster Collection, LC-USZ62-123293.
National Archives, 111-SC-636742.
Photograph by John Filo, courtesy of the Premium Archive /Getty Images.
Library of Congress, Yanker Poster Collection, LC-USZC4-2871.
Students for a Democratic Society archive.
Win Magazine, vol. 8, no. 5 (March 15, 1972), 8, courtesy of the Swarthmore College Peace Collection.
Library of Congress, Yanker Poster Collection, LC-DIG-yan-1a38772.
National Archives, NLRN-WHPO-8146-03A.
Design by Philip Lief and Marcel Feigel, copyright © 1973 by Philip Lief. At the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Divison, Yanker poster collection, LC-USZ62-93125.
Courtesy of John Emerson and Trevor Paglen.
Image by Jonathan Landy, McClatchy Washington Bureau, Oct. 26, 2006, courtesy of TMS Reprints.
(Louis Post): Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-75418.
(Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.): Photograph by Marion S. Trikosko, Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, U.S. News & World Report Magazine Collection, LC-U9-11696-9A.
(Margaret Chase Smith): Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-42661.
(Frank Kameny): Library of Congress, Frank Kameny Collection, Box 106, Folder 8.
Every effort has been made to obtain permission from the relevant copyright holders to ensure that all credits are correct. Any omissions are inadvertent and will be corrected in future editions if notification is given to the publishers in writing.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book has taken so long and been helped by so many hands that I have to divide the thank-yous into categories:
On the research side, my neighbor and reading group buddy Joe Dubek shared his experience of arriving at work at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, which, in earlier drafts, framed the book. I gained a great deal from lunchtime discussions with my historian-friend Dr. Steven Jaffe and was grateful for suggestions from Dr. Josh Brown; Dr. Leonard Cassuto generously shared many insights into 1950s film and fiction; Dr. David Garrow responded to my e-mail with generous aid, including the two versions of the King letter I have reprinted. In turn, he pointed me to one of the two expert readers who reviewed my manuscript.
I sent the manuscript to two academics for their comments. Both are excellent scholars who have read deeply in the primary sources and are on any list of FBI experts. One asked to remain anonymous; the other is Dr. Douglas M. Charles, whose work on Hoover and the anti-interventionists is listed in the source notes. The two letters I got back could not have been more different. In fact while each scholar made extensive, detailed, and helpful comments, outside of noticing a spelling error, their remarks had not one single observation in common.
The first expert reader was focused on what can be proven from primary sources and emphasized the ways in which Hoover functioned within the laws and expectations of his time. The expert strongly objected to the view that Hoover’s personality quirks led him astray or that the FBI itself was characterized by racism or intrusive illegal actions. That reader recommended Athan Theoharis’s The FBI: A Comprehensive Reference Guide as a more objective and nuanced view of the agency than is found in many books, even by accomplished historians. Dr. Charles, on the other hand, pointed to the most recent book by Dr. Theoharis, Abuse of Power. This latest study by the dean of FBI historians argues that Hoover claimed more authority than FDR actually gave him and mishandled the pursuit of Soviet spies because of his own obsessions. When two highly trained experts disagree so completely, when each cites work overseen by the same senior scholar but for entirely opposed reasons, it is clear that the study of Hoover and the FBI is still charged and contentious. But it was wonderful for me to get such informed and helpful advice, and my book is better for it.
Several people who have written about the FBI responded to my e-mails. I was grateful to Sam Tanenhaus, editor of the New York Times Book Review, for giving me his insights into the Cold War and the Hiss trials, and to Dr. Ellen Schrecker, Dr. Aaron Purcell, Dr. Kim Phillips-Fein, and Kenneth Ackerman for general encouragement and suggested readings.
Of course, and I underline this, everything in this book is the product of my research and represents my own judgment. The fact that others read it in whole, in part, or in earlier drafts does not imply they agree with, or are responsible for, anything I say.
As I was writing the book, I sent it out to several teachers and teenagers to read. Larry Jones gave me the chance to present its main argument to teachers in Glendale, California. I owe a great debt to Hayden Baker-Kline, a brilliant high-school student, who read two different versions and sent back the most extensive and helpful editorial notes. Knowing that readers like Hayden are out there inspires me to write my books.
Thanks to Ken Wright for shepherding this project through the wilds of publishing, and to everyone at Candlewick Press for believing in it. Especially to Liz Bicknell and Carter Hasegawa for the editorial queries that made the book so much better; to Hannah Mahoney for such careful notes; and to Renée Cafiero. Renée’s copyediting comments were not only useful but personal — she knew Frank Kameny “back in the day.” I’m also grateful to Amy Berniker for taking my design suggestions seriously and going one better with the book, and to Pam Consolazio for inventing such a compelling cover. Carter, working way overtime, and the invaluable Michael Cooper — with a special assist from my friend John W. Glenn — were my saviors in the last days of photo research; we would not have the richly illustrated book I always wanted without them. My colleagues and students in the Rutgers University School of Communication and Information have created a nurturing home for intellectual freedom which was just the right place to finish writing this book.
Thanks to my wife, Marina Budhos, for reading the whole book in two very different incarn
ations and, as ever, helping me to find the best words, and to Sasha and Rafi for putting up with a dad who was forever disappearing into his office, his books, and the past. And finally to my mother and (long ago) my father, who lived through this entire period of history and gave me their insights — from my father’s distaste for the Communists during the 1917 revolution, to his experiences among the devout leftists of the Group Theater, to my mother’s memories of her sister’s troubles after the war, to my parents’ shared time of working with close friends suffering from the blacklist in the 1950s, to the heroism of Arthur Miller — their tales made this vast political drama of Left and Right into the personal stories of individual human beings. I hope some of that comes through on these pages.
MARC ARONSON has a doctorate in American history and is a member of the graduate faculty in the library school at Rutgers. He is an editor and author of many award-winning books for young people, including Sir Walter Ralegh and the Quest for El Dorado; War Is . . . Soldiers, Survivors, and Storytellers Talk About War, which he co-edited with Patty Campbell; and most recently, Trapped: How the World Rescued 33 Miners from 2,000 Feet Below the Chilean Desert. Marc Aronson lives in New Jersey.
Copyright © 2012 by Marc Aronson
Image credits can be found here.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First edition in this format 2012
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Aronson, Marc.
Master of Deceit: J. Edgar Hoover and America in the age of lies / Marc Aronson. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-7636-5025-4 (hardcover)
1. Hoover, J. Edgar (John Edgar), 1895–1972 — Juvenile literature. 2. United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation — Officials and employees — Biography. 3. Government executives — United States — Biography. 4. Police — United States — Biography — Juvenile literature. 5. United States — History — 20th century — Juvenile literature. 6. Communism — United States — History — 20th century — Juvenile literature.
I. Title.
HV7911.H6A76 2012
363.25092 — dc23 [B] 2011046078
ISBN 978-0-7636-5619-5 (electronic)
ISBN 978-0-7636-6384-1 (electronic PDF)
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