◆ SpookStack

ECEMBER10,1956 The FBI and Civil Liberties Mr. Hoover. Personnel selection, the functioning of its academy, its integra. tive use of chemistry, physics, metal- by Irving Ferman Jurgy, electronics, and engineering in developing crime laboratory techniques NAnlonAt roJice could infect the specific.authorization from the Bu- are all dealt with. W/hitehead also de. organism ef a government of Jaw, . reau... votes space to a little known -aspect of FBI work: its Civil Rights Training Schools in which 22,o0o local police officials have been oriented and indoc. trinated on this touchy and .vastly im- formed public opinion. This is why we should be grateful for Mr. Whitehead's excellent new book: Whitehead writes would answer unequivocally .in. the Some of my mentors in the American negative. . Civil Liberties Union renember vividly The FBl Story, by Don Whitehead Progran in 1948, and the Eisenhower World War I organization whose (Random House; $4.95). : about the FBI's almost-half-century his- extended the activity of the FBI, and the wear badges inscribed "American Pro- tory in highly readable style but bis- chief virtue is the sensitive historio. becausc of its insistence that its inform- Department ofJustice.These self- graphic sense he displays. subject. to confrontation and cross- Departnent to conduct "slacker" raids, The FBI has been criticized most examination. one of which involved rounding up sharply for its. collecting intelligence On this, Whitehead quotes what some so,ouo citizens in New York. When a proposal was made. by the subrersives were not self assigned. He Posts as investigative units (and this discloses for the first time in print that would have nost certainly led to a . Our responsibility is limited to revival of the vigilantism of World President Roosevelt called J. Edgar the securing of facts. I stated tlrat the War I) it was intelligently rejected by Hoover to his office on the summer FBI was the investigator, not the prose- the Justice Departnent. By contrast in morning of August 24, 1936, to express cutor, judge or jury. I informed the our World War II experience, the. concern over the activities of Commu- Boaid that we planned to make our FBI's handling of the draft-evasion nists and Fascists. It was the President, Special Agents available to testify to those matters of ahich they had per- problen with particular reference to the and not Mr. Hoover, who stresscd the need for developing a broad intelli. sonal knowledge and that we would conscientious objectors led the Ameri- list the names and addresses of those can Civil Liberties Union in 1943 to gence-picture of these activities. Even persons interviewed who did not object then, Mr. Hoover emphasized that he comment: to their identities being known. I had no specific authority to make such The striking contrast between the state stated that ahenever an FBI Agent general investigations. However, the interviews a person who says that he of civil liberty in the frst eighteen authority was found through the instru- is giving information in strict con- months of World War Il and in World mentality of Cordell Hull and the State War I offers strong evidence to support fidence,his confidence must be re- Department which. under law, could spected... the thesis that our democracy can fight request investigations from the Justice I pointed out that.as an alternative. even the greatest of wars and still Department. we could explain our mission to each maintain the essentials of liberty. Mr. Hoover, in an instructional Ietter person and explain that he might be As Whitehead accurately suns it up: called as witness and be required to to his agents issued on September 5, testify in public and then report only 1936, very carefully outlined the scope The FBI represents the pcople's effort such information as was furnished of the Bureau's new- investigatory as- to achieve government by law. It is an. without any restrictions as to source. agency of justice.And the FBJ in the signment: J advised the Loyalty Review Board future will be as strong or as weak as The Pureau desires-to obtain fron all that this was a matter of policy for the people denand it to be. No more. possible. sources informationi concern the Board to detcrmine. No less. ing subversive activities. being con- Whitehead's reporting of the Hoover ducted in the United States by Com- view establishes a franework in which. Notes on Contributors munists, Fascists and representatives criticism of the present security procced- or advocates of other organizations or CHARLES CURRAN is a reguIar contribu- ings might be more responsively direct- tor to The Spectator, Encounter and groups advocating the overthrow or replacement of the Governint:t of the ed than it has been in the past. Other British periodicals. IRving FER- United States by illegal methods.No Whitehead properly devotes about man is director of the District of Co. investigation should le initiated into one-eighth of,his book to the interna! lumbia office of the American Civil cases of this kind.in the atsence of, operations of the FBI, as developed by Liberties Union FHOLOSPRE