Focus 580; Dangerous Dossiers

We are talking with Herbert mid-game about his book Dangerous dossiers exposing the secret war against America's greatest authors. Mr. MIT gang is a cultural correspondent of The New York Times. He is in addition to this book the author of four novels for biographies 10 other nonfiction works and a play about the life of Abraham Lincoln. He is also a two time winner of the American Bar Association's silver gavel award for legal writing the book is just recently published by Donald Fein and as if as we talk up you would like to be involved in our discussion like to speak with our guest. Please don't hesitate to pick up the phone and give us a call. Mr. making Hello hello. Very interesting book. I enjoyed reading it I'm glad you could be with us today. I mentioned just so people will have had some idea the range of people that the FBI was keeping tabs on. They if you look at them their lives what they wrote about their work. They all seem to be very different. What what do these people have in common or do they have anything to come.

Well one thing that I discovered was and I have got. Yeah but why does it happen. Well historically it's part of the call which goes back not to the speech by the church. 1846 but goes back to the First World War the end of it and the beginning of cultivation on that particularly J Edgar Hoover and the attorney general of the United States were afraid that radicals were going to panic and impulsive it's going to take on the United States and that was the true beginning of the Cold War and the invasion of privacy and domestic surveillance. More specifically why many of these or what is an artist filed was that there were two benchmarks one in the 1920s was the sack over 30 years

where many people thought that these two characters had been railroaded and didn't get a fair trial and justice certainly should not have been. Executed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and then another one that involved people like DOS PASSOS and Hemingway and Dorothy pock Billiam Hellman and many of the great oil because the United States of playwrights was the Spanish Civil War. These people were on the loyalist side against bashes them Franco's Spain. One might say they were prematurely anti-fascist and that famous phrase because soon thereafter Franco Spain was the enemy of the United States and world war two. It seems that of course another thing that these people had in common many of them was that they had aroused the attention the suspicion of J Edgar Hoover the man who so for so many years headed the FBI was was

this this effort at keeping tabs on these people largely the the exclusive effort or idea or brainchild of Hoover. No it was not because you have two presidents like Harry Truman who started loyalty oaths back there during his press. Say Hoover can't take full credit for being the ultimate cold warrior. There was a fella name a Cauchy there was the Senate Internal Security Committee the House Un-American Activities Committee which when they after the Hollywood writers and directors the movie studios themselves a lot of people some trade unions caved in and there were. The country was divided during the Cold War with an enormous fear of

a socialist or radicalism coming to this country of course. There was no glass knobs then and there was. It was used for political reasons by many people to advance their own cause including Richard Nixon after he was chosen because it said it's a hard liner and against red. And there everyone is looking for reds on the bads. No of course nobody even though there was enormous millions of dollars spent by the House Un-American Activities Committee and then there was the California American devotees committee which was even worse and nobody could. Point to a single thing that was made and which boxes the line was never advocated

in fact I think you make the point in the book and you make it's several places that none of these people were ever convicted of any any crimes certainly none none of the offenses for which they were being investigated. Maybe never any crimes at all. But they were accused of very serious crimes including subversion even espionage. But out of 100 people or so mentioned in the book August dramas and authors and not one of. Ever was and guided not one of them ever spent a day and yeah. What was your your entry point into this story how did you get involved in it. Well there was a man from the state of Illinois name called Sander Galesburg Illinois Lombard college now Knox College. I hadn't called Sandberg's letters

and a pack I once took a walk with Samberg to the University of Illinois and library and when I had his letters among the early letters was the fact that the Secret Service in the United States Army had confiscated his papers when he came back from. We being a correspondent for the newspaper enterprise Association and they were keeping files on them so under the Freedom of Information Act that wonderful law that was passed in the wake of Watergate I wrote away for college Sandberg's final and sure enough Col. Sandberg had a posse. Interesting thing is it wasn't just from my post or on Kerry but once he got into the file the FBI would like to get out and make a cracking and write till he was in his 80s and living in retirement down on his wife's goat farm in

Flat Rock North Carolina. The FBI was still chasing this old man for his writings. In one of the things that you talk about in this case and apparently in other cases was that much of the information or good part of the information that was in these files was was wrong that they were full of errors. Can you give some examples. Yes. Well I give you a little mind no one would talks about shows the inaccuracy. I even think the Tennessee Williams had a file there. And what's a street con Named Desire. It was described as a novel polite but more seriously John Steinbeck John Steinbeck Nobel laureate had a final in the air

which apparently had some amateur literary critics in it found that his great novel The Grapes of Wrath was a socialist big document went on It was made into the film starring Henry Fonda and the Grapes of Wrath undoubtedly had some employments in causing legislation to help the migratory work its during the DE pression. But. This seminal American novel sympathetic to the impoverished in the Okies once considered a subversive document in some way so that later on when John Steinbeck tried to list in the army and help the war cause has it be on the final

track and trailed him and he couldn't get into the service. Ironically at the same time John Steinbeck was a friend of President Roosevelt contribute to his speeches. But even though he could help the commander in chief they wouldn't let him become a second lieutenant because of J Edgar Hoover bottle. Well of course Mr. Mr. Hoover had didn't have much use for Mr. Roosevelt. You mention in the book at some point that he that Hoover thought that the New Deal was a communist plot. That's right. And well that the new There was a time use proppants. Security. So the regulatory agency. You suggest there that one interesting fact that that you see when you you look at the book is that it appears that the FBI people didn't didn't really pay very careful attention to the work of the people that they were

that they were following that they didn't quite they obviously many of these things they hadn't read I think in some cases the reason that people got on the the FBI is a list of suspicious persons was simply because. Well for example you mention Tennessee Williams apparently one of the reasons he was on the list was because that communist paper the Daily Worker gave a good review to Streetcar Named Desire. So somehow if the Communists thought that the work of the person was good then that somehow must mean that there was something wrong with them. And Tennessee with Sue was kind of. Suspect. Say he was a known homosexual and yet be any disapproved anything that wasn't straight arrow. And there he had to and because he was very interested in

sex. We know that they kept a file from Martin Luther King tried to frame him but he also kept files on every president in this family and every congressman and senator. And this was way back mailing. Even more specific if increasing the FBI budgets. And make sure that the congressman were. There. Yeah well we're talking this morning with Herbert mid-game. He is the author of a recent book Dangerous dossiers tells the story of years of FBI surveillance of some of America's greatest authors. And as always you're invited to call in if you have your own questions that is you folks who are listening here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Toll free in Illinois it's 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. In some of these cases I think that

some of these people were were almost amused by the fact that the FBI was keeping tabs on them. Just in. You did though mention one case with Steinbeck that that information was really used against him. Were there are there are there many cases where the information that was in these files really was an inconvenience or worse or was it in a sense just on the level of a nuisance. Well I did not know that they had the files because they were accused by faceless accusers and these are all rock files. Steinbeck wrote to the attorney general would you go off by you know if he had a file. Coming away I had a strong suspicion that he had a file so when he registered

at the hospital and bulk of it I didn't want to be bothered that he he had registered on a different name but fearing the FBI might cause the probable. The FBI was informed that he had a different name on the register that they have especially in cases of military service. There were several riders while in the army. F B. I don't see a case trailing then. Irwin was one example the Nelson Walgren was the number example Dashiell Hammett was another example. All the B were in uniform and they would whenever they were recommended for a promotion or something.

It was kill her one show off fix what the Young Lions rich men on them tried to get into my own army out stars and stripes in the Geass and we wondered why he was not a jewel. And it was only after I got his from the file that I discovered that J had to go personally at all at the end. Irwin Shaw was by now considering him a possible communist one piece and you know of course the same with the national damage national animal of their in the Aleutians that Corporal the national Hamet Who is this that there they are. Forty eight adults is World War One. He was being trailed by the FBI. I am the one to take in the

case given in the book. Him to them. On a number of big fines prevent that these riders from doing their thing. The book is quite different from Hollywood business where only 10 act of answering respond. Think before committees question. So take it and go first to. But in the case what does this prevent them from having this day writing books. They would then as well as television blacklist think that was the order of the day and not just during the day right. It's the extent that for a good ten years it. Yeah well I have a caller holding on here and I hope that we will get some of the people involved in the show. Our telephone number 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free in Illinois.

800 2 2 2 1 9 4 5 5 We're talking with Herbert making author of Dangerous dossiers. Here's our first caller here on our line number one. Hello. And now. Yeah. I would like to ask you Do you have that going for your own research. Find out on the Hollywood screenwriters that time if you know if you ever found any reference to the people. Angered I don't know you know and for instance our present president said to him now that I don't know whether he was the head of the Screen Actors Guild at the time or just a number bet that he opted for the duties of an informer. I wondered if you ever found any evidence that Iraq. You're absolutely right ma'am. And I include that in my book and 1940 than Ronald Reagan was president of the Screen Actors Guild and his then

wife Jane Wyman that's why. Well well spying on their fellow actors in the Screen Actors Guild and they was good in that they were assigned code by f the guy. Jane Wyman was 0 8. T none thing is om. Reagan president the screening was Agent t 10 and at the same time they were elected by their fellow activists and also surreptitiously behind the backs of those who attended meetings. They were also serving as a foreman for the FBI. Now I did not discover this myself although I did up came the plan. This story first appeared in the

California newspaper the San Jose Mercury News very ingeniously wrote a way for this material and updated it and I also have to say I did so in order to see be actual documents. And I have the documents describing this so there's no question about it. Interestingly enough the a couple of months ago in the wake of the ram. Rick hearings President Reagan the United States out of the Screen Actors Guild spoke now found sick leave the good old days of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Yeah I mean does that does that get at your question are you would you like to think I want to thank you for being that and thank you. How how long did it take you to accumulate all of this material and to to go through it.

Well it took me about four years. Thanks to the freedom of information there and by the way the FBI I. The records division was very cooperative. And in this respect course they were opposing the freedom of information. Nevertheless they cooperated in sending the these Xeroxes photocopies of these files. Of course. But now many if not most days or sense it was blacked out lines which. They put in and some say appeal that decision to them stone got a little more and make it even though the material was censored by the UN especially when it came to giving out the

names of lamas. I did. Patiently wait in some cases it would be six months and some case it was more than two years before they sent made to you. You have in the book reproduced a few pages here and there and some of them look as if they are. There was the censorship was so heavy it's a wonder that you can make any. You can get anything out of them at all. Yes they do like the comics. Well but the whole rack out. Oh so much of a bad one. Then use about 25 pages and then they have been looking at thousands and thousands of pages and the IF SO GOING TO Biograph biographies. Their own writings and the newspaper. Once you could fill in the blanks. And find out what was going on where they were to give a time

Camas. Well of course it got to Nazi Germany which would be full. Well what to do. He was being followed then and. Or take the case of Alex that the great artist sculptor Venter. But they don't stop you. His file was censored much to my surprise that he had a file but that Alex and all the participated in anti Viet Nam war demonstrations both in Paris and Washington and even though the file was censored. It was well known that day he was out front against Americans but as a nation the escalation of the Viet Nam. Well. Oh so the people in the finals were

black. Now. One could piece together the true story. This morning on focus 580 Our guest is Herbert mid gang and we're talking with him about his new book Dangerous dossiers it tells the story of years of FBI surveillance of some of America's greatest writers and just to mention a few. We're talking about people like Pearl S. Buck William Faulkner Sinclair Lewis Thomas Wolfe Dorothy Parker Truman Capote Dashiell Hammett William Saroyan Robert Lowell HL Mencken. Also foreign authors Graham Greene Alice Huxley and artists like Alexander Calder and Georgia O'Keeffe. They're all detailed in this book. It's a newly published by Donald Fein and if you would like to get in on our discussion the number is 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 here in Champaign-Urbana toll free in Illinois it's 800 0 2 2 2 9 4 5 5. We we do

have another caller here when we when we talk with them here on our toll free line. Hello Kyra. Yes I wrote a letter. I want yours. I'm here. Yeah the embassy. Yeah. We have been ordered by Libyan troops were occupying the. Which is just south of the border on the maps that we commonly see. They send it to embassy Park Drive I didn't know the exact address all of those letters to foreign embassies are handled by a separate special department at the post office. It's American. An article I cut out of the Chicago Tribune. They

indicated that territory just might be Libyan territory rather keen back address here known and probably gotten letters back like this. The dress was lined out in a new address Twenty six hundred Virginia Avenue was written in Cannes next to it so I sent the letter off. Twenty six hundred for Kenya. You haven't and that one came back to live with Paul and I know that the post office must know where the cat embassy to the United States is even if it's in a separate room in the caddy and the ambassador's apartment so I send it to a friend of mine. Instead here he never got it in. My friend's

father a get well card following and he never got that so now when I send letters to places like Institute for International Community. Patients in Kiev I offer those send copy to Senator Simon. I don't know if they get those for Nach or even if Senator Simon gets them are I'm wondering if I should be concerned about my own welfare. In what respect I wonder if the FBI is opening my email. Well you can you can right away to the truck you see there is a distinction between the dots CA's in my book and living people only you or say your attorney with you permission can right away on the Freedom of Information Act for a file. I could not for example right away for you on file

because the files in my book on the author's romanists and artist's home were deceased and so but you yourself can write away for your own file on the Freedom of Information and you write to the Department of Justice in Washington. And. And wait a while and see if they have one. And I intend to print from my FBI file you see. That was your original question whether it was being watched the system because you would get to a certain groups or embassies or agents of foreign powers written to me when

I was sensitive in this male breaking up. I wrote a letter to the point so I am a great guy. About a mile down the road from me and he never got Japanese or you know. Yeah well and so on he was you know I don't I don't think that the post office. Fallen into confusion. You know other letters that I send to art in places that don't seem to have any trouble arriving. In my desk. The post office appreciates your you're talking about sad that whole thing about how you want to paint farms. Incidentally in my book I duel had filed op for a number of living quarters. John Kenneth Galbraith the Harvard economist Bill Malden the famous cartoonist of the Chicago newspapers.

Syndicated cartoonist author of Up Front Willie and Joe. These were friends of mine and after money. When word got out that my I was working on the subject Bill Malden sent me his FBI file so sudden John Kenneth Galbraith and so did several obvious Tiriel from their files. But but it was their files that they had obtained. As I say I could not have received the files and I think that's a very good policy by the way because that would invade their privacy. You can't get my file and I can't get your it's from. Right. It's part yeah I think. OK let me ask you know I'm curious Mr. making it did you. Have you ever written to the FBI to find out whether they have a file on you.

Well only after I finished the book I didn't want to personalize this book because I was writing about some of the giants that American literature doesn't hope oh Norie it's coming for spine comments pro book. And so I didn't want to intrude myself into it but I have tried to finish the book I did right away from my family I'm still waiting to hear. But as a friend as E.L. Doctorow the author of ragtime he said well it be an honor to be included with these giants of American literature. Yes I would think it would it would be sort of like being on those people who were on President Nixon's enemies. Yeah it's kind of as I said above and you wonder are there you know I believe in the book you mentioned that you are aware that there are files on some authors and you don't name them. There are number

of people that you that you know there are files on that here and there ask us. Yes I was shown in Washington I was shown a long long list of names and organizations with files but I was shown these unconditioned that I could not reveal the source. So but I have enough then that if I do actually have five Many of these were living go up as your previous caller mentioned and so I could not get the files on these things. Yes but there is an interesting question that has arisen and then I've frequently been Aniston's dangers dossiers first published and that is is this still going on today or is just a vestige of the bad days of Hoover and McCarthy. It's

the sad answer is that it is still going on today. And anyone who opposed President Reagan's and this administration's policy in Central America anyone who went down to Nicaragua or El Salvador for legitimate reasons to make a movie is a journalist. We're fairly certain to get files open upon the scent that the constitutional rights made up a lot of pro bono lawyers wrote away in this respect and up to over a thousand pages of documents and not just well with tired but pointing out that such organizations as you and I did a little work because the film

companies and most surprising of all the Mary Norwood sisters nuns and gunned down out Salvador Central America nursing missions humanitarian missions. Nevertheless they have a file opened up on them and that was last year something that you also mention in the book that people may have heard of is is. The FBI says efforts to recruit librarians to write Mormon patrons apparently the FBI would like the librarians to keep track of what people are reading so that then the FBI can come along and get a list of what books I went down to the local library and took out. And I think the librarians are the wrong bunch to approach at this kind of thing because they're they're pretty fierce about these sorts of things and didn't didn't much appreciate the FBI request.

Well that's called the library awareness program of the big. And then 38 states plus the District of Columbia including the state of Illinois. There are a lot of confidentiality statutes where librarians can be forced or supposed to give them the names of library users and what books they take out. I bet it's not just by as it exists and he's cool. But it could dish from the time as a kid you get your first proud library card. It's between you and the librarian. You don't want somebody in the law books or taking all of all what you're reading. It's a private encounter and the library only in this program. The FBI has alerted certain librarians to tell them what books are being taken

if there are any of them have anything to do especially in the science technology area that might be helping Russian agents. That is their reason for doing so. And this came up only last week and the testimony by the FBI itself which tried to justified the program. However I have guns in the major library associations. Including the American Library Association represents about 45000 librarians and is based in Chicago the American Library Association is a. Post when this program and that is that is one of the things where there is a clash in what people regard certain people regard as constitutional

rights. There's no doubt that the FBI has its own role to play. Yes they have a role to play in trying to discover a foreign agents in this country. That's the role that's the purpose behind a library awareness program. However as Congressman Don Edwards of California and chairman of the Subcommittee on civil and constitutional rights said only last week during hearings on this subject that this is excessive This should not and you know we have hybrid librarians right of privacy uses right to privacy. FBI thinks otherwise. We have just about 10 minutes left maybe a couple of minutes more than that. And I just want to remind people again they were listening they were talking with Herbert gang author of Dangerous

dossiers a book about FBI attempts at keeping. Back of some of our greatest writers the book is recently published and if you will again or if in our last 10 or so minutes here you want to be a part of the program three three three W I L L eight hundred two to two a W I allow. There are a couple of rather funny stories in the book. Stories of ways in which the FBI showed there showed his lack of literary AKh human and in keeping files on some of these people and I wondered if you could tell the two stories I'm thinking of. One is about Nelson all grin and one is about the gall break John Kenneth Galbraith Yes and as you know the whole room he's listed in his file is having an allegiance with several months and hope annoyed with the girl on the arm. Chicago city home some somebody on the phone

write a wonderful funny man write sense of the great body of Studs Terkel. And I've spent time with. Oh wow. By now I was of course was having the well-known. But cmon took both and. The existentialists. Nelson listed in the Gary Indiana telephone directory that his name was Simon Both WA. SIMON Oh Flora. Well this caused great consternation and suspicion by the at the ANA with their relationship. And and I checked the Gary Indiana phone directory Thanks library and then the same directory did not have the name Nelson Morgan but it was his phone number where I

used to reach him. And so finally I wrote a baby and said Don't you know the reason behind these aliases you've got Simon. The both of us. Cmon both. They had three of them and they would not answer because I did. Think OK that's a great story. The other one was. Has to do with the certain dock to dock to which the FBI had once heard a description of John Kennedy or brought here to work has been doctoring their doctrine there and so they had heard it wrongly and so they went looking for a doctor. Where w a r e. Thinking that this was some kind of economic terrorist. Well

they never could find Dr where the evil doctor where evil to wit. Yeah Bray seems to think that that's pretty that's pretty funny. Well go break is the one who made it more seriously that on me alone the FBI. Nor do I have a file and track him in the half dozen cities and of course he came. He's a Canadian so that for some reason made him the suspicious characters. Well as well as the fact that he is on his books. The affluent society and so on may not of please. J Edgar Hoover's concept of a true American is the. J. Albright Tommy on him alone. The FBI must have expended hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now you multiply that by many ABA people and you can see tens of millions of dollars of wasted

manpower and wasted taxpayer treasure all the time that they could have been pursuing real criminals then organized crime spending their time on these people who did nothing more than than perhaps arouse the ire of Mr. Hoover or some other people or that they rouse the more right people like Rex Stout. I once wrote one of his novels. And when there was an FBI agent a true libertarian light and something like as well as Ernest Hemingway both made cracks against him. He was doing cartoons which talked about the right to go to vote by any means. And it's funny how the

FBI was actually clipped his cartoons because he took a couple of cracks against American Activities Committee. But no pink against creative people. Instead of chasing real criminals. Yeah I guess to one of the people that you talk about in the book one of the the living writers is Norman Mailer and apparently the FBI was rather upset by a crack that he took at Hoover when he was doing Irv cups in its old TV show. You know in Chicago he said that J Edgar Hoover has paralyzed the imagination of this country in a way Joseph Stalin never could. And if there was a great number of the pages in the Mailer's file that were devoted just to this one appearance on this television program. Well I think they were exaggerated. I think it's common with them. The worst hell of a lot worse. And the fact that as this paper reports that finally going to somebody's doing a

biography of Stalin. But no but the broad influence of J Edgar Hoover and now I'm not siding by itself citing some of his home aides and I do biography co op him for the books it was. As far as by a license by the state's Constitution First Amendment especially the follow up the ban saying that people shall be secure against by a license by government and their houses and papers. Very important amendment with the amendment. J Edgar Hoover constantly violated those amendments. Well as a result of people reading this book what is it that you will hope will happen what you know other than documenting these this specific

program these files on these writers. What is it that you would like people to come away with from but I hope that first of all this would show that the right of privacy is fake. Constitutional right. Fourth Amendment to go. It's right there in the Constitution that the government has no right to keep files on individuals and I'm not talking just about an orifice of playwrights and artists. I took it about citizens. Furthermore that the only way you can police agency Federal State or Local should be able to intrude on people's lives is first buy up training or orders you just can wiretap and bug people watch them

mail take down their license plate numbers look at the law petitions they sign. With out having some court order alleging that there's a possible crime being committed or planned for them or this book. I hope this book will cause biographers to examine and make use of the freedom of the mission the activists I have because a lot of these biographies I think will have to have a second look as a result of the information that I have on Earth on the Freedom of Information Act. Major American writers. It makes shed some light on on them and especially their relationship to the government. But above all

I want to reveal the fact that there is on occasion and in certain quarters of the United States government and anti intellectual tone. And they went to university. You remember the great governor of Illinois Yad Les Stevenson was called an egghead by people like McCarthy by people like Richard Nixon eg. It was a word of opprobrium. What they were saying because he's an intellectual this mineral has the nerve to read books. This man has to. There's the quote. The pimps ministries talking over our heads. What right has he got to be an egg. What right has he got his. So this is kind of a.. I don't like to mix certain quarters.

You know it's been said Ronald Reagan that he owns the tuxedoes Baen Books. And let's hope. And those areas where government and suspect with our own law ramps to my library think ramps to universities and grants from the National Endowment for the you that the National Endowment for the arts to Woods to sions that this and to go back to that was at the heart of these dasi it's exposed and these efforts. Well that's. Well there we will have to leave it. It's a very interesting book and I appreciate you giving us some of your time today to talk about it. Herbert made gang our guest and the once again the book that we have been talking about is dangerous dossiers exposing the secret war against America's greatest authors.

It's a recently published by Donald fine.