by Thomas White
In the spring of 1941, Cvetic’s luck began to change. The FBI was looking for informants to infiltrate the Communist Party in Pittsburgh. Cvetic accepted the difficult assignment, even though it meant that he would have to publicly express sympathies toward communism. By 1943, Cvetic had successfully become a member of the party, attended meetings and even sold the party newspaper, the Daily Worker. He participated in protests and marches and became so vocal that the FBI asked him to tone it down so as to not attract suspicion. During his time with the party, Cvetic sent the FBI thousands of pages reporting on meetings, members and publications of the Communist Party. He was considered one of the FBI’s most productive informants. His work would be used in prosecutions, and later he would testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Cvetic’s activities continued to take a toll on his private life. His mother died believing that he had become a communist. His own sons disowned him while he was undercover. He was fired from his job at the Civil Service Commission for being a communist.
Then things began to fall apart with his undercover work. By the late 1940s, Cvetic had revealed his FBI affiliation several times while intoxicated. After he committed other violations of his agreement, the FBI discontinued his service in 1950. Cvetic always claimed that he had quit because he had spent too much time undercover. The FBI refused to publicly issue a report stating that he had been employed by the bureau, so he allowed his story to reach the press after he was called as a federal witness. He exaggerated his exploits and the value of his information, as well as the danger that he regularly faced. He served as a witness in several important trials after leaving the employment of the FBI, but his testimony soon became unusable because he became a “professional witness.” His only source of income and pride was to tell his increasingly exaggerated version of his story to whoever would listen.
For a brief period of time, he became a celebrity. Mayor David L. Lawrence declared April 19 Matt Cvetic Day in Pittsburgh in 1951. There was a luncheon for the city’s prominent officials and a parade in Cvetic’s honor. His life even inspired a movie and subsequent radio show entitled I Was a Communist for the FBI. Unfortunately for Cvetic, he was not prepared to deal with the sudden fame. His exaggerations of his activities became so bad that the FBI distanced itself from him as much as possible, and many of his new friends began to back away as his credibility waned. By 1955, he was no longer being called as a witness. His own book about his exploits, The Big Decision, sold well enough but did not bring the profits that he expected. It seemed to be based more on the movie than on real life. Tales of his dysfunctional personal life surfaced in the press, and Cvetic sank back into relative obscurity. He died of a heart attack in 1962 while in California, but he was buried in Pittsburgh.
About the Author
Thomas White is the university archivist and curator of special collections in the Gumberg Library at Duquesne University. He is also an adjunct lecturer in Duquesne’s History Department and an adjunct professor of history at La Roche College. White received a master’s degree in public history from Duquesne University. Besides the history of Pennsylvania, his areas of interest include folklore, public history and American cultural history. He is the author of Legends and Lore of Western Pennsylvania, also published by The History Press.
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