FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s plan to imprison thousands of "disloyal" American citizens, details of which were revealed in a New York Times article last Sunday, Dec. 23, 2007, goes back many years further than the 1950 letter Hoover sent to President Truman.
According to documents I obtained from the FBI in 2003, Hoover was maintaining a list of "dangerous" U.S. citizens in the early 1940s. In 1943, however, Hoover was told by then-U.S. Attorney General Francis Biddle that the classification was "unreliable, is hereby cancelled, and should not be used as a determination of dangerousness or of any other fact."
But Hoover kept his list, and, according to the NYT report, in 1946 he asked Biddle’s successor for permission to resurrect it. Hoover was granted permission to do just that in 1948.
The FBI file I have is that of anti-war radical Scott Nearing (1883-1983). Several documents in that 794-page file pertain to Nearing’s classification on Hoover’s list, as well as AG Biddle’s memo ordering the suspension of the entire program.
Using newly declassified documents, Tim Weiner reported in the Dec. 23, 2007 NYT that Hoover, the longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, informed the CIA and the National Security Council (of which Truman was a member) in July 1950, days after the Korean War began, that he "had a plan to suspend habeas corpus and imprison some 12,000 Americans he suspected of disloyalty," should the President decide to issue such an order.
"In September 1950, Congress passed...a law authorizing the detention of ‘dangerous radicals’ if the president declared a national emergency. Truman did declare such an emergency in December 1950, after China entered the Korean War. But no known evidence suggests he or any other president approved any part of Hoover’s proposal."
Also according to that NYT report, Hoover was getting ready to write that letter to the White House years before he actually did. Hoover had sought authorization to implement what he called a "security index" in March 1946, a request that was granted in August 1948 by then-Attorney General Tom Clark.
But that was not when Hoover’s list first appeared. Based on the Nearing FBI file (which I requested in 1996 and finally received, only partially redacted, in 2003), Hoover’s detention plan for U.S. citizens was in operation long before 1946, and may have survived the ordered cancellation of that list in 1943.
Scott Nearing, pacifist and author of dozens of books and pamphlets ranging from the anti-war pamphlet "The Great Madness" (which got him charged under the Espionage Act in 1918) to "Living the Good Life," (the back-to-the-land bible of the hippie generation of the 1970s), was on Hoover’s list at least as early as July 1941, when a note from Hoover to a Philadelphia PA Special Agent in Charge informs him that "a photostatic copy of the custodial detention card prepared on one Scott Nearing has been forwarded to the Newark Field Division."
In a confidential memorandum dated Feb. 4, 1942, Hoover notified the Special Agent in Charge in Newark, NJ that, based on a memo from Lawrence M. C. Smith, Chief of the Special Defense Unit of the Department of Justice, "information has now been received" sufficient to "tentatively" place Nearing on the custodial detention list.
Nearing was placed in Group B, "Individuals believed to be somewhat less dangerous but whose activities should be restricted." In Group A were "Individuals believed to be the most dangerous and who in all probability should be interned in event of war." Group C folks were "believed to be the least dangerous and who need not be restricted in absence of additional information, but should be subjected to general surveillance."
The second page of the memo has check boxes for the value of the evidence, and the citizen status of the individual.
The evidence relating to Subject [Nearing] has been classified by the Special Defense Unit as:
X 1. Sufficient to establish the charges upon which the dangerous classification was made.
- Not satisfactory to substantiate the charges.
No details of that "evidence" are listed on that document.
In a third category, Nearing was further classified as a native born citizen. Other classifications were a naturalized citizen, and an alien.
Seventeen months later, if Hoover followed orders, Nearing and thousands of other Americans should have been removed from such a list.
On July 16, 1943, while World War II was in full swing, then-U.S. Attorney General Francis Biddle sent a memorandum to Hoover and Hugh B. Cox, Assistant Attorney General, disbanding the FBI’s effort. Characterizing it as "inherently unreliable" as well as "impractical, unwise, and dangerous," Biddle wrote that "the adoption of this classification was a mistake that should be rectified for the future."
This is the text of that letter:
I refer to Mr. L. M. C. Smith’s memorandum to me dated June 28, 1943, which reviews the history, development, and meaning of the Special Case work and of the danger classifications that were made as a part of that work.
After full re-consideration of these individual danger classifications, I am satisfied that they serve no useful purpose. The detention of alien enemies is being dealt with under the procedures established by the Alien Enemy Control Unit. The Special Case procedure has been found to be valueless and is not used in that connection. There is no statutory authorization or other present justification for keeping a "custodial detention" list of citizens. The Department fulfills its proper functions by investigating the activities of persons who may have violated the law. It is not aided in this work by classifying persons as to dangerousness.
Apart from these general considerations, it is now clear to me that this classification system is inherently unreliable. The evidence used for the purpose of making the classifications was inadequate; the standards applied to the evidence for the purpose of making the classifications were defective; and finally, the notion that it is possible to make a valid determination as to how dangerous a person is in the abstract and without reference to time, environment, and other relevant circumstances, is impractical, unwise, and dangerous.
For the foregoing reasons I am satisfied that the adoption of this classification system was a mistake that should be rectified for the future. Accordingly, I direct that the classifications heretofore made should not be regarded as classifications of dangerousness or as a determination of fact in any sense. In the future, they should not be used for any purpose whatsoever. Questions raised as to the status or activities of a particular person should be disposed of by consideration of all available information, but without reference to any classification heretofore made.
A copy of this memorandum should be placed in the file of each person who has hitherto been given a classification. In addition, each card upon which a classification appears should be stamped with the following language:
"THIS CLASSIFICATION IS UNRELIABLE. IT IS HEREBY CANCELLED, AND SHOULD NOT BE USED AS A DETERMINATION OF DANGEROUSNESS OR OF ANY OTHER FACT. (SEE MEMORANDUM OF JULY 16, 1943 FROM THE ATTORNEY GENERAL TO HUGH B. COX AND J. EDGAR HOOVER)."
Two years later, on June 26, 1945, Attorney General Biddle’s tenure ended. Tom Clark succeeded him a month later. That was an intense summer. To put it in context, the German surrender was in May 1945, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Japanese surrender would follow in August of that same year.
So there was a reason Hoover had to seek re-authorization to compile such a list. Until AG Clark’s granting of the request in 1948, Biddle’s 1943 suspension of the program stood.
There is evidence that the list survived not only the five-year hiatus in the 1940s, but also Hoover’s death in 1972. In the early 1970s, fast approaching 90 years of age, Nearing (who along with his wife Helen were my neighbors in Harborside, Maine) was still on a government watch list.
Here is the recommendation for his removal from the list, followed by a hand-written, unsigned note on the same page countermanding that suggestion:
SCOTT NEARING, previously carried as Priority III, is being recommended for deletion in view of his age, born 1883, and the fact that there has not been any appreciable subversive activity on his part within the last five years.
(Bold handwritten note on same page)
ADDENDUM: Place in ADEX 4. Due to subject’s intensive subversive background, including sponsorship of AIMS in 1964, and status of featured speaker in 5/68 at Washington Ethical Society Auditorium, when subject strongly criticized U.S. Vietnam policy and supported Red China and Soviet Union, it is felt subject would offer assistance to revolutionary elements in a national crisis. Submit next periodic communication 4/18/73.
So we have several sources of historical evidence that U.S. citizens have repeatedly been placed on FBI lists, with the intent of using that information to round them up during a national emergency. And we have evidence that the information used to classify people as dangerous was "inherently unreliable."
But we also have one courageous attorney general, even in a time of war, willing to call such a system "a mistake," as well as "impractical, unwise, and dangerous," and to put a stop to it.
It should give all of us who have been targeted for special airport screening, based on a government "no-fly" list with no known criteria and no way of challenging our apparent "dangerous" designations, a reason to be concerned.
Yes, we should be very concerned.
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Jean Hay Bright of Dixmont, Maine, is a political activist, writer and author of three books, including "Meanwhile, Next Door to the Good Life" (2003), "A Tale of Dirty Tricks So Bizarre: Susan Collins v. Public Record," (2002, reprinted with update 2007); and "Proud to Be a Card-Carrying, Flag-Waving, Patriotic American Liberal" (1996).