March 12, 1975 VOL 4, No. 11 An Exclusive Interview with a Former Top FBI Official Thirty Years with the Hoover Gang

By Peter Irons " . . The former official argued that the FBI had been A cynic might conclude that J. Edgar almost totally frustrated in its attempts to infiltrate the Hoover planned the location of the new Weathermen and other radical groups [because] Hoover FBI headquarters in Washington to keep a suspicious eye on both congress and the refused to hire FBI agents who could pose as long-haired president. Halfway between the Capitol and radicals . . . 'He wanted his agents to be clean-cut, all the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, American types.' the J. Edgar Hoover Building looks as if the architects had tried to capture Hoover's intelligence field, as well as complete access Congressman Don Edwards of California. personality in stone — squat, impenetrable, to all the classified documents in the FBI The former official made the following a bulldog in granite. But as the future home headquarters. challenges to the public record of Hoover of the FBI's 6.5 million files nears comple- Our interview lasted more than eight and the FBI: tion, the walls of the edifice Hoover con- hours, and was conducted in a comfortable — Hoover consistently lied to con- structed during nearly 50 years to protect New England country house whose gressional committees about the strength his reputation and power are crumbling. bookshelves are lined with an extensive and dangers of the Communist Party. Revelations that Hoover and the Federal library reflecting interests in intelligence —Hoover's claim that the FBI conducted Bureau of Investigation abused their and philosophy: Ladislas Farago's "The effective counter-intelligence against powers and perverted their functions arc Game of the Foxes" sits next to Georges Soviet-bloc "illegal" espionage agents in beginning to emerge in the press and before Bernanos' "Diary of a Country Priest." the United States was untrue. Congressional committees. Wall and mantels are lined with citations —Hoover lied when he assured Congress Liberal critics such as Max Lowenthal and badges from domestic and foreign in- that the FBI operated only a "limited and and Fred J. Cook have shot charges against telligence agencies — Scotland Yard, the carefully controlled" wiretapping and the FBI's tough hide for years, but with lit- Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the US bugging program. tle effect. "That's just an old lie from the Air Force and the security agency of the —Hoover misled Congress when he Cook-book;" friendly journalists would be Philippines. The former official talked can- claimed that the FBI's investigation of the told as they were leaked rebuttals from didly about the mythology surrounding "terroristic activities of the New Left and Hoover's propaganda machine, the Crime Hoover and the FBI. His bitterness toward black extremists" was producing results. Records Division. Hoover was tinged with both pride and —Hoover's assertion that the FBI's sadness as he described the "deterioration" "stepped-up drive against organized crime" But the public image of Hoover as the in- of the FBI under Hoover. We sat looking threatened the high levels of the Mafia was corruptible, non-partisan gangbuster and across the snow-covered hills as I listened to a fraud. scourge of the Red Menace has now been him describe his love of the land and his —The claim that the FBI maintained challenged from inside. I recently con- happiness at having left Washington. But as "very fine working relations with all the in- ducted for the Real Paper the most exten- he eagerly pulled documents from folders to telligence agencies of the government - sive interview ever held with a source able illustrate his charges against Hoover, one military and civilian" concealed violent to reveal the top-level, carefully-guarded could sense the sorrow of a Dreyfus exiled acrimony and Hoover's refusal to share its operations of Hoover and the FBI. The from the French Army which he wanted to files with the CIA and other agencies. source for this story requested anonymity reform and serve loyally. —Hoover cultivated the fiction that FBI for legal reasons. What he revealed, What I was told in this interview adds files were never abused. but in fact Hoover however, is based on a 10-year career in the significant detail to the recent statements of and his chief aides frequently leaked these Attorney General Edward Levi before the files to favored politicians and newspaper- Peter Irons reaches ar UM ass in Boston. and House Judiciary subcommittee on Civil and men. Boston State College. Constitutional Rights, chaired by —Hoover helped build up the careers ,,r caught the Weatherman fugitives, we Hoover of having "caused a Communist right-wing politicians, including Richard hadn't solved the Capitol bombing, we had scare in the Nation which was entirely un- Nixon and Joseph McCarthy. by providing little intelligence on these groups." The FBI files to fuel their charges of "treason". warranted." main fault, he emphasized, lay in Hoover's and subversion. Hoover's continuing obsession with the refusal to hire FBI agents who could pose Communist Party helped precipitate a ma- —I loover maintained a list of Protestant as long-haired radicals and successfully in- jor internal split in the FBI several years clergymen on a "special list" of suspected filtrate organizations such as SDS. ago. William C. Sullivan. the third-ranking subversives to be picked up and detained in "Hoover wanted his agents to be clean-cut, official in the Bureau and head of its the event of a "national emergency." all-American types, and obviously they —The FBI may possess crucial evidence Domestic Intelligence Division. made a wouldn't have fit in to these groups." exculpating Alger Hiss, the former State speech in 1970 in which he said that the Consequently, the FBI was forced to rely Department official convicted in 1950 for Communist Party "is not in any way caus- on informers of doubtful skill and loyalty, perjury in denying he had passed secret ing or directing or controlling the unrest we who were often carried away in their role as documents to the Soviet Union, in the case suffer today in the racial field and in the provocateurs and failed to impress juries which made Richard Nixon a national academic community." In a 1974 conversa- when cases came to trial. figure. tion with Sullivan, he told me that Hoover The former official also belittled had blown up at him: "How do you expect Hoover's testimony about the FBI's us to get appropriations from Congress if Cherry Blossoms and Congressmen counter-intelligence against Soviet-bloc you downgrade the Communist Party." These charges, detailed to me by the former "illegal" agents, spies who have no legal or Sullivan was fired a year later. intelligence official and in documents I have diplomatic cover, as opposed to "legal" In our interview, the former official been shown by informed sources. can best agents operating from the Soviet and other challenged Hoover's repeated testimony be illustrated by contrasting them with the embassies, the United Nations and that FBI files were sacrosanct and never public testimony of J. Edgar Hoover. A legitimate businesses. Hoover told the leaked. Not only did Hoover maintain Washington institution as predictable as the Rooney subcommittee in 1971 that these secret files on political figures, as Attorney flowering of the cherry blossoms was "deep-cover" agents "constitute counter- General Levi acknowledged just recently, Hoover's annual appearance before the intelligence problems which require much but these and other FBI files were often House Appropriations subcommittee detailed and extensive investigative effort." leaked to right-wing politicians and favored chaired for years by the reactionary New The FBI has, in the past, apprehended newsmen. Hoover helped "build up Rich- York congressman, John Rooney. Hoover Soviet KGB agents such as Kaarlo Tuomi ard Nixon as a great anti-communist would travel the few blocks from the FBI to and spies operating from "legal" cover, but politician" by leaking files to Nixon during the Capitol in his $20,000 armored many of these arrests have resulted from his entire career, and similarly fueled Joe limousine, slouched down in his seat to tips by defectors or from other intelligence McCarthy's rabid charges of communist in- avoid possible snipers. Flanked by his loyal agencies. filtration of government with leaked files. aide and constant companion, Clyde What Hoover had done, the former of- Two of the favored newsmen to whom tiles Tolson, Hoover would graciously accept ficial told me vehemently, was to abolish or were leaked, I was told, were Walter the flattery bestowed by Rooney, who cripple many of the FBI's counter- Trohan of the Chicago Tribune and would begin by expressing his "complete intelligence programs. Asserting that Jeremiah O'Leary of the Washington Star. confidence" in Hoover. "illegal" espionage agents were For example, the former official said, when On March 17, 1971, Hoover asked the proliferating up and down the East Coast, the FBI was tapping the phones of Rooney subcommittee to approve an FBI he said that the FBI could not identify a newsmen and members of Henry budget of almost a third of a billion dollars single "illegal" spy at the time Hoover Kissinger's National Security Council staff (almost half of the total Justice Department testified. between 1969 and 1971, Hoover called in request), which was accepted without dis- Hoover's claim that the FBI had "very friendly newsmen, "brought down one of sent. His real concern, Hoover said, was to fine working relations" with other govern- his stooges from the Crime Records Divi- impress on the subcommittee the pressing ment intelligence agencies was also derided. sion, and told the newsman that he should need for an additional 477 FBI agents, to Jealous of his institutional prerogatives, know that Tony Lake was a security suspect add to the total of almost 9,000 Special Hoover had broken off relations with the while he had access to classified.material." Agents on the Bureau staff These agents CIA and other agencies and driven from the Lake was a Kissinger aide who was later were essential "to handle the ever- Bureau Sam Papich, the FBI.liaison with cleared of complicity in the leaks the FBI increasing investigative work load in • the the CIA. whom Hoover suspected of under- was investigating. general criminal field and particularly in the mining him. In his 1971 testimony, Hoover claimed internal security area where terroristic ac- Fundamentalist anti-communism was the that the FBI was "operating 33 telephone tivities of the New Left and black extremists rock on which Hoover built his career. But surveillances and four microphone in- have accelerated and the intelligence ac- in a perverse way, Hoover functioned as a stallations in Bureau cases in the security tivities of foreign countries have inten- press agent for the Communist Party. field." Rooney's subcommittee accepted sified." Testifying before the Rooney subcom- Hoover's statement without question. And At the time of Hoover's testimony, more mittee. Hoover cited without challenge Par- Hoover took pains to denounce as "ab- than half of the fugitives on the FBI's Most ty leader Gus Hall's claim of 15,000 solutely untrue" a news report that large Wanted List were Weathermen and New members, and reiterated his 1946 estimate numbers of FBI taps and bugs were Left radicals, including Mark Rudd and that ten sympathizers lurked behind every removed prior to Hoover's annual con- Bernadine Dohrn. The FBI, Hoover said, Party member. Accepting these suspect gressional appearance and restored as soon had identified "over 1,544 individuals who figures helped Hoover justify his appeals as he returned to his office. But the former adhere to the extremist strategy" of the for additional funds and agents to combat official emphatically agreed with this Weatherman faction of the fractured the Communist Party, which Hoover said charge. The FBI "had a real racket going" Students for a Democratic Society. Hoover was "riding the crest of optimism." to conceal from the public the extent of FBI cited the convictions of the Chicago 7 and However, Hoover's public statement tapping and bugging, he told me. the indictments of Dohrn and Rudd and the about Party membership was challenged in • By limiting his testimony to "Bureau Seattle 8 as evidence of the FBI's in- a document that I was shown, prepared by cases," Hoover was also able to escape vestigative skill. an authority on the Communist Party reporting on taps performed for the CIA In our interview, the former official was knowledgeable about FBI infiltration of the and other intelligence agencies, and the un- scornful of Hoover's boast and argued that Party. This document revealed that, as of authorized taps which former FBI agent the FBI had been almost totally frustrated 1971. the total membership of the Party was William Turner characterized as "suicide in its attempts to infiltrate the Weathermen only 2,800, half of whom were elderly, inac- taps," those installed by an agent without and other radical groups. "We hadn't tive members. The document accused authority. In fact, under the reporting "To the best of my knowledge," the procedures established by the Crime Con- former official told me, "the FBI did have photographed smoking a cigarette. Facing trol Act of 1968. the federal courts have the typewriter" before it was Found by the such peremptory action, agents were un- revealed that over one million conver- Hiss defense, although he was not sure derstandably reluctant to jeopardize their sations were tapped between 1969 and 1971. whether it had been located by the FBI or careers. Hoover's boasting about the FBI's brought to the Bureau labs by Nixon. Hillis Another factor is the favorable press that "stepped-up drive against organized crime" account is accurate, evidence in the FBI Hoover and the FBI enjoyed for almost half was also challenged in documents I was files could indicate whether Hiss was a century. This image was carefully shown. The Bureau had been reluctant for framed. Nixon himself slated, both in his cultivated. Cooperative newsmen and years to tackle the Mafia, they revealed. In hook "Six Crises" and in a taped White columnists were rewarded with "inside" fact, Hoover even refused to acknowledge House conversation with John Dean in material leaked from FBI files, and agents the cxistance of an organized crime syn- 1973, that he had found the disputed were forbidden by Hoover to talk to those dicate, until the FBI was pressured by typewriter, although he quickly retracted on the media blacklist. For instance, the Congress and Robert Kennedy, when he his published account. It is possible to con- former official revealed to me that hoover served as attorney general, to begin in- struct a plausible scenario that the FBI dis- placed one of the television networks on the vestigative work. Most of the FBI's effort covered that the typewriter did not match blacklist for allowing an airline pilot to was directed at the lower levels of petty the Chambers documents, which would voice criticism of the FBI's handling of an gambling, leaving unscathed the Mafia's have destroyed Nixon's career, and that a airline hijacking. The FBI propaganda penetration of legitimate business. Reporter forged typewriter was constructed and machine is centered in the Crime Records Hank Messick, who specializes in organized planted, with the Hiss defense later un- Division, which has churned out literally crime, wrote in his biography of Hoover suspectingly led to it. 1 have requested FBI tons of favorable publicity, extended lavish that top FBI officials had close connections files bearing on this question from current support to film companies and television with crime figures. who donated large sums Director Clarence Kelley, in an attempt to programs lauding the 1-131, and kept to the I. Edgar Hoover Foundation, con- investigate the possibility raised by the meticulous track of every piece of press trolled by Hoover aides Lou Nichols and former official in our interview. criticism. Cartha DeLoach. A third factor, probably the most potent I was also shown a document alleging The Rule of Fear deterrent, lay in the fear of many potential that Hoover conducted a campaign Never before has the Hoover mythology critics that FBI files might be used against designed to convince the public that the been attacked by a source with direct, per- them. Attorney General Levi recently con- Protestant clergy was honeycombed with sonal knowledge of the inner workings of firmed that Hoover kept derogatory files on communist sympathizers, and that Hoover the FBI, who was able to confirm charges 17 members of Congress and many other personally slandered a top official of the previously made by Bureau critics (and uni- public figures. The former official told me National Council of Churches with claims formly denied by Hoover) and add new that Hoover aide Cartha "Doke" DeLoach, that he was a communist. The document details to the picture of Hoover and the a crony of Lyndon Johnson and FBI liason also revealed that Hoover maintained a FBI, How was Hoover able, for almost half to the White House. circulated the tapes of "special list" of twelve Protestant ministers a century, to maintain an image of the FBI Martin Luther King's bedroom activities, who were to be picked up and detained in as an incorruptible, non-partisan agency, which effectively stifled King's attacks on the event of a "national emergency." and to stifle and counter his critics? the FBI. Johnson enjoyed regaling his Presumably this refers to the secret list com- One factor is what the former official friends with scatological details from FBI piled by Hoover under authorization of Ti- called the "rule of fear" in the FBI, Bureati files which Hoover made available, a prac- tle II of the Internal Security Act of 1950, employees are not protected by Civil Ser- tice dating back to the Roosevelt ad- sponsored by Senator Hubert Humphrey. vice regulations; they can be, and many ministration. Former Attorney General under which suspected subversives would times have been fired or disciplined by Francis Biddle related Hoover's delight in be detained in concentration camps on Hoover for expressing the slightest dissent. sharing "intimate details" of the escapades declaration of an "Internal Security What happened to Special Agent John of Cabinet members. Emergency." Congress repealed this act in Shaw in 1970 is typical. Shaw had written a In another ease, an FBI agent acting on 1971, but Hoover's list existed for more private letter to a college professor, voicing Hoover's orders sent anonymous letters at- than tssenty years. mild criticism of Bureau procedures while tacking Arizona Stale University professor The Real Paper interview also revealed defending it against many charges. Shaw's Morris Starsky to a college committee that the FBI may possess, in spite of past real sin was that he bluntly described the reviewing the tenure application of the anti- denials, crucial evidence which could ex- "cult of personality" built up to protect war activist in 1970. The former official told culpate Alger Hiss. It was the Hiss case Hoover's power. After a copy of the letter me that Hoover himself sent a "rude, which propelled Richard Nixon to national was fished out of his wastebasket and vulgar" letter to the president of American prominence and the Vice-Presidency. In pieced together by Bureau agents, Shaw University in an attempt to have a Bureau 1948, Nixon's friend and Time magazine was summarily fired "with prejudice," critic fired from the faculty. editor Whittaker Chambers produced which effectively ruined his career in law (I had a personal taste of the Bureau's secret State Department documents which enforcement. There is a wry joke in the looseness with files in 1961, when I was a he said Hiss, a former State Department of- Bureau that Hoover's loyal aide Clyde student at Antioch College and had been ficial and advisor to Roosevelt at the Yalta Tolson asked one day to go home, telling circulating anti-draft leaflets to other cam- conference, had passed to him a decade Hoover he felt depressed. "if you're puses. Two FBI agents, the stereotyped earlier for transmission to the Soviet depressed, Clyde," Hoover replied, "you crew-cut men in trench coats, showed up Union. The crucial question in the Hiss don't have to go home. Why don't you fire one 'day to interrogate me about my in- trials was whether the incriminating somebody?" Tolson brightened up "Can I volvement in the anti-draft movement. We documents had been typed on Hiss's per- fire him with prejudice, Mr. Hoover?" spent several hours in their car, parked in sonal typewriter, as Chambers claimed. Agents who incurred Hoover's wrath but front of the student union, while they asked More than 60 FBI agents searched the escaped dismissal faced exile tos such me such questions as "which version of the country for the typewriter, supposedly Bureau Siberias as Butte, Montana and Bible do you read?" Needless to say, they without success. The typewriter was finally Oklahoma City. The Special Agent .in were highly visible on the Antioch campus located by the Hiss defense itself and, to charge of these Offices would be instructed and another student wrote Ohio Senator their astonishment, matched the type on the by Hoover to assign the offending agent to Frank Lausche to complain that the Bureau Chambers documents. It was not until after the worst cases and to "give him a rough was harassing me (in fact, they had Hiss began serving his five-year sentence time." Agents were disciplined or exiled for threatened to arrest me for sedition). The that his attorneys suspected that the such petty affronts to Hoover's puritanism student who wrote Lausche received from typewriter was a forgery. as having long sideburns or being him, obviously through a mistake in his of- lice, a copy' of my FBI file. I was un- Dean had in mind, he told Nixon, was doubtedly a minor-league subversive to the The Sullivan Memo evidence of FBI involvement in the Walter FBI, but the file contained more than twen- Congress has begun to subject the FBI to its Jenkins affair, involving an aide to Johnson ty pages, including photocopies of petitions first intensive scrutiny in its history. The arrested as a homosexual, the bugging of I had signed for the Fair Play for Cuba newly-established nelect committees headed Committee, the NAACP and other by Senator Frank. Church and Represen- Martin Luther King, Kennedy's use of the organizations, reports on meetings I had tative Lucian Nedzi will soon begin probing Bureau to harass steel company executives, attended and statements I had made at very the FBI, CIA and seventeen other govern- I and other incidents involving Democratic ment intelligence agencies. and the House presidents. A source with knowledge of the obscure and private meetings. The file was Judiciary subcommittee headed by Don episode told me that Sullivan had no love soon stolen from me, and we later learned Edwards has uncovered some of Hoover's for Dean or Nixon, and agreed only to that there had been at least two FBI infor- secret files. Probably the most explosive describe incidents about which he was will- mants on the Antioch campus.) testimony before these committees, accord- ing to testify before a congressional com- Few people have had an opportunity to ing to the former official, will come from mittee, and that he also advised Dean that examine their FBI files, but fear of their dis- former Assistant to the Director William C. all those involved in Watergate should closure certainly has inhibited many poten- Sullivan, whose FBI service began in 1940 accept their culpability and take the conse- tial critics of the Bureau, especially those in and continued until Hoover fired him in quences. Congress. The extent of the FBI's sur- 1971..Sullivan headed the Domestic 1 also learned that Dean had once called . veillance and penetration of political Intelligence Division of the Bureau from an FBI official and said, "This is the groups, not only radical organizations but the early 1960s until 1970, and directed the Counsel to the President. I'd like to have liberal ones as well, is massive and has been infiltration and surveillance of anti-war and you do something for me — I'm going out documented by the Media files (stolen in black groups. with a girl tonight: would you run her name 1971 from an FBI office near Phila- For most of his career Sullivan func- through the Bureau files." The startled and delphia) and reports on the Bureau's tioned as an authority on the Communist annoyed official called Dean hack, having counter-intelligence program, known as Party, but he became convinced during the done no such thing, and replied truthfully, COINTELPRO, reluctantly released by the 1960s that the New Left had replaced the "I don't know of anything derogatory Justice Department last fall after press dis- Party as the maj& threat to internal securi- about her in the FBI files." closure and a Freedom of Information Act ty. Nothing could have been more heretical Nixon and Dean later discussed the best suit. to Hoover, who had invested millions of method to leak the information contained dollars and countless agents to monitor the in the memo Sullivan prepared. Nixon The Media documents provide the most Party and infiltrate it at the highest levels. A suggested giving it to the right-wing extensive knowledge yet of the FBI's in- few weeks after being denounced by magazine U.S. News and World Report, telligence operations. They indicate that Hoover for asserting that the Party was not but Dean said he had turned it over to almost half of the Bureau's time has been pulling the strings of the New Left, Sullivan White House aide William Baroody to use spent on political intelligence, rather than returned from sick leave to find his office in preparing a speech for Barry Goldwater. enforcement of the federal criminal laws. locks changed and his Bureau career ended. But the Sullivan memo, which Dean later Hundreds of groups were spied upon and Shortly before Sullivan was fired, accord- turned over to the Senate Watergate Com- infiltrated, and information was solicited ing to an FBI interview with John Mitchell mittee, has not yet been released, and Nix- from local police, college officials, during the Watergate probe, Hoover on's only public use of it was to claim in an telephone operators and neighbors of showed Mitchell "a lengthy letter he . . . August, 1973 press conference that prior suspected subversives. Although the osten- received from Sullivan in which Sullivan ac- Democratic presidents had engaged in sible purpose of COINTELPRO was to cused Hoover of running contrary to the widespread wiretapping. However, in- identify and monitor violence-prone President's wishes in many instances." formed sources report that the memo, in groups, practically none of the Media Mitchell characterized Sullivan as "a little addition to the incidents described above, documents reveal any such intelligence. nuts" and advised Hoover to fire him. In- detailed a history of illegal burglaries con- Congressman Don Edwards of California, formed sources report that Sullivan had ducted by the FBI for more than thirty a former FBI agent, described sent Hoover a 13-page letter listing some 28 years, including foreign embassies, sur- COINTELPRO as "2,370 incidents of overt areas in which Hoover had mismanaged the veillance of the staffs and opponents of action to disrupt and damage persons and FBI and deceived the public, Congress and presidents back to Franklin Roosevelt, the organizations viewed by the Bureau as the White House. bugging of Robert Kennedy at the 1964 dangerous to our national security." And Another document prepared by Sullivan Democratic convention, the FBI alliance former Special Agent Robert Wall has is in the hands of the Edwards subcom- with Senator Joe McCarthy, FBI spying on acknowledged taking part in a dozen ille- mittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, Barry Goldwater in 1964 and Spiro Agnew gal burglaries of the homes and offices of and subcommittee counsel Alan A. Parker in 1968, and Hoover's leaking of "dirty and suspected radicals, and other told me that Sullivan will be called to testify smutty" material from FBI files to several COINTELPRO actions included attempts about his knowledge of the FBI. The story presidents. to sow dissension by planting false charges behind the Sullivan memo is. part of the Sullivan's direct knowledge of other il- of corruption and ideological ileviation, Watergate saga. During Nixon's frantic ef- legal FBI activities is also likely to be and by disrupting demonstrations. forts in early 1973 to block the Watergate probed by congressional committees. In One motivation behind COINTELPRO, inquiry, he was furious at the FBI's 1969, after Henry Kissinger blew up at a as expressed in one of the Media tenacious investigation and lamented the New York Times article by William documents, was to make those active in death of Hoover: "He'd have fired a few Beecher revealing American bombing of anti-war and civil rights groups suspicious people or he'd have scared them to death. Cambodia, Sullivan was asked by General of surveillance to "enhance the paranoia He's got files on everybody, God damn it," Alexander Haig of Kissinger's staff to in- endemic in these circles" and "to get the he told John Dean. Dean suggested stall FBI wiretaps of seventeen possible point across that there is an FBI agent enlisting Sullivan in a White House sources of the leaks to Beecher, including behind every mailbox." The FBI can't read counter-attack. Sullivan, Dean told Nixon, four newsmen and six members of everyone's mail or tap every telephone, but is "a reliable man who thinks a great deal of Kissinger's National Security Council staff. it has succeeded in enhancing the paranoia this Administration and of you." Documents secured by the House Judiciary on the left; thousands of activists are con- Calling Sullivan to the White House, Committee indicate that Kissinger com- scious of every click and hum on their Dean asked him to prepare a memo detail- mitted perjury in his sworn denials that he phones. ing prior political uses of the FBI. What had not authorized the taps installed under Sullivan's supervision or selected those to be tapped. Ironically, the record shows that none of those tapped was responsible for the leaks, although the taps led directly to the dismissal of the charges against Daniel Ellsberg, when the government revealed that Ellsberg had been overheard on a tap of Morton Halperin's phone. Halperin is now suing both Kissinger and Sullivan for their roles in the tapping. As part of another attempt to trace leaks, Sullivan travelled to France in 1969 to enlist the cooperation of the French police in bugging the hotel room and phone of Joseph Kraft, the syndicated columnist. Sullivan also worked closely with White House aide Tom Charles Huston in for- Hoover for President? Chief Justice Hoover? mulating the ill-fated "Huston Plan" of .1. Edgar Hoover's political ambitions have this•country, and now he wants a world- 1970 to use illegal break-ins and mail been hinted at by historians, but the former wide Gestapo." (I have also seen a docu- coverage to secure intelligence on New Left top FBI official related two incidents, never ment showing that Truman told his activity. For ten years, Sullivan represented before revealed, which indicate that the Counsel, Clark Clifford. that he was "very the FI31 on the United States Intelligence non-partisan image cultivated by Hoover strongly anti-FBI" and labeled the Bureau Board, working with USIB members Ad- and the FBI was a myth. a potential Gestapo.) miral Noel Gaylor, head of the National In 1936, the former official said. Hoover Hoover's reaction to his feud with Security Agency, and General D.V. considered seeking the Republican nomirta- Truman, 1 was told, was to work for Bennett, head of the Defense Intelligence tion. to run against Franklin Roosevelt, who Truman's defeat in 1948: What Hoover Agency, on the Huston Plan, Although had disregarded Hoover's warnings against wanted, the former official said, was to he Hoover, suspicious of other intelligence recognition of the Soviet Union and had appointed attorney general by a Republican agencies and jealous of his prerogatives, staffed the New Deal agencies with persons president. and ultimately gain a seat.on the successfully blocked implementation of the Hoover considered communists. FBI agents Supreme Court. The former official was Huston Plan, Huston told me in a recent around the country were instructed to emphatic about Hoover's role in the 1948 phone interview that representatives of all solicit support from local police chiefs. But election. "Talk about politics, the FBI was the agencies involved, including the FBI, almost without exception they reported that up to its ears. The Bureau worked day and supported the program until Hoover ob- the chiefs detested Hoover for the FBI's night to defeat Truman and elect Tom jected. headline-grabbing, and would not support Dewey," his Republican opponent. With his voice reflecting both resignation his political ambitions under any cir- The FBI first assisted Dewey, l was told, and resentment, the former official, discuss- cumstances. in his primary campaign against Harold ing the Sullivan memo summed up his view This cold reception may have blunted Stassen, and during the election FBI of the FBI under Hoover. "The Bureau is Hoover's desire to seek office himself, but it documents were flown from Washington to not what it seems to be," he told me. didn't dissuade him from trying to influence Dewey's office in Albany in private planes. "There is ample evidence of intellectual, presidential elections. Roosevelt had A major issue in the campaign was moral, and financial corruption. It had tolerated Hoover (whether he knew of Republican charges that Truman was "soft become a• totalitarian agency under Hoover's 1936 ambitions is unknown), and on communism," and the public testimony Hoover. and it is still controlled by the ■ had brushed aside Hoover's warnings dur- that Alger Hiss had been an espionage Hoover gang." ing World War II that Soviet sympathizers agent.were carefully timed to explode three exercized too much influence in the White months before the election. One participant House and State Department. But the first in the Hiss case, Father John F. Cronin, president to actively challenge Hoover's told me that an FBI agent would phone him power was Harry Truman, who failed to ac- every day with details of the FBI's case cord Hoover the deference he demanded. against Hiss, which Cronin would relay to In 1945, Hoover sent Truman a memo Richard Nixon, who was in close contact charging that Harry Dexter White, assistant with Dewey. treasury secretary, was a Russian agent But Truman confounded the pollsters transmitting secret documents to a Soviet with his razor-thin victory over Dewey. courier. Truman disregarded this memo Hoover's response, the former official said, and went ahead with his appointment of was to blame the debacle on Lou Nichols, White to a high international monetary the aide Hoover expected to replace him as post. Hoover was infuriated, and later FBI Director. "You pushed me out on a forced Truman to institute a federal limb and then sawed it off." Hoover was employee loyalty program. Truman's es- quoted as telling Nichols, in the account I tablishment of the CIA in 1947 further was given. Although Dewey lost and frustrated Hoover's ambitions and Hoover's dream of becoming Mr. Justice produced another clash. The former official Hoover was shattered, the FBI's assistance told me that Truman yelled to his aides to Richard Nixon in the Hiss case ultimate- "Hoover's gal a goddamned Gestapo in ly helped him into the White House,