J. Edgar Hoover and the Rhetorical Rise of the Fbi: the Public Campaigns Against Vermin, the Fifth Column, and Red Fascism
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ABSTRACT Title of Document: J. EDGAR HOOVER AND THE RHETORICAL RISE OF THE FBI: THE PUBLIC CAMPAIGNS AGAINST VERMIN, THE FIFTH COLUMN, AND RED FASCISM. Stephen Michael Underhill, PhD, 2012 Directed By: Professor Shawn J. Parry-Giles, Department of Communication This project examines J. Edgar Hoover’s rhetorical leadership of the Federal Bureau of Investigation during the Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S Truman administrations (1933-1953). Hoover launched and sustained a concerted domestic propaganda program that helped enhance his own political power and invented the FBI as a central force in domestic and international matters. In the process, he re- envisioned conceptions of U.S. citizenship by promoting notions of idealized citizenship. Hoover entered law enforcement and U.S. politics during the early decades of the twentieth century—a time of increased use of public campaigns sponsored by the U.S. government and presidential administrations to alter public opinion on important policy matters. This period witnessed, for example, the country’s experimentation with domestic propaganda during World War I. While the Soviet Union and Germany used disease, vermin, parasite, and body metaphors to organize their own domestic propaganda campaigns in the following decades, Hoover used these same metaphors to advance the need to purify America and exterminate its social pariah. Through his public campaigns against vermin (1933-1939), the Fifth Column (1939-1945), and Red Fascism (1945-1953), Hoover constructed a reality in which corruption and subversion were immutable elements of democratic life. Increasingly, Hoover’s tactics of threat and intimidation began to mimic the tactics of threat practiced by America’s enemies, moving the country closer to what many at the time called a police state. Hoover’s coupling of propaganda and coercive tactics ultimately helped him to rapidly expand the FBI and undermine his superiors and counterparts in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. Whereas Roosevelt benefited politically from building up a secret police force, Truman inherited a cunning FBI director eager to use his power to expand and exploit the rhetorical presidency during the Red Scare. J. EDGAR HOOVER AND THE RHETORICAL RISE OF THE FBI: THE PUBLIC CAMPAIGNS AGAINST VERMIN, THE FIFTH COLUMN, AND RED FASCISM. By Stephen Michael Underhill. Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2012 Advisory Committee: Professor Shawn J. Parry-Giles, Chair Professor Trevor Parry-Giles Professor James F. Klumpp Professor Kathleen E. Kendall Associate Professor David Freund © Copyright by Stephen Michal Underhill 2012 Acknowledgements I thank my faculty support at the University of Maryland for their help in envisioning and executing this project. I am forever grateful to my advisor, Shawn J. Parry-Giles, and to my committee members, David Freund, Trevor Parry-Giles, James F. Klumpp, and Kathleen E. Kendall, for all of their encouragement and direction. I thank Charles Wright and his Interlibrary Loan staff in McKeldin Library for tracking down and retrieving hundreds of propaganda texts for this and future projects. Also in McKeldin Library, I am very grateful for the assistance that I received from Michael Fry and his staff in the U.S. Government Information, Maps, and GIS Services department. I also thank my professional support at the National Archives in College Park for teaching me about the federal government’s history through its primary documents. Elizabeth Gray, Tim Nenninger, Richard Peuser, David Langbart, Tab Lewis, David Pfeiffer, Joe Schwartz, Christine Jones, Gene Morris, and Amy Reytar of the reference division trained me to think like an archivist when researching. I thank Julie D. Cornelius for her administrative assistance. I thank my wife, Jill, for her continued support of this never-ending project. Lastly, thank you friends, family, classmates, and God for all of your help and kindness. ii Table of Contents Acknowledgements ii Table of Contents iii Introduction 1 Chapter 1: The Evolution of Justice 76 Chapter 2: The War on Crime 174 Chapter 3: Fighting the Axis Powers: “Americanism” Versus the Fifth Column 249 Chapter 4: Red Fascism: The Masquerade and the Menace 343 Afterword 440 Bibliography 447 iii Introduction J. Edgar Hoover formalized a counter-intelligence apparatus to neutralize the communist threat as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) years before Senator Joseph R. McCarthy (R-WI) first warned of a domestic communist conspiracy in 1950. 1 The communist problem of Russian spy cells operating in Washington, D.C. from the 1920s through the 1940s became the communist “menace” once the problem was strategically politicized following the Truman Doctrine address in March 1947. 2 Regardless of the veracity of its claims, anti- communism had blossomed into a powerful ideological movement that disrupted the New Deal political era and beyond. Despite common conceptions, Senator McCarthy was not the father of “McCarthyism.” His brand of anti-communism, rather, was visible in hearings conducted by Americanist committees in Congress during the late 1930s. 3 Scholars of international relations and members of the U.S. Congress, the intelligence establishment, and the business community alike were bolstered by an anti- communist coalition propped up by Director Hoover and many others at the time. 4 And, although these parties sought different ends, they contributed to a campaign that targeted the Kremlin and New Deal policies. 5 These anti-communist opinion leaders expressed the ideological commitments of political realism, which assumed that the international arena was governed by anarchy. National stability, therefore, necessitated perpetual preparedness against international threats, especially manifestations of espionage, sabotage, and propaganda in U.S. territories. Realism constitutionally complicated the presidential 1 relationship with the FBI—a civilian agency that was charged with protecting the nation from a vast array of threats. For example, Tom Wicker wrote in an April 1971 Life magazine article that Director Hoover and any “president” were “almost inevitably . linked” more “directly” because “no attorney general [could] interpose himself between them, if they do not want him to.” Wicker enumerated that “[w]iretapping and bugging, leaking derogatory information, planting or destroying evidence and testimony, unwarranted surveillance, and undercover penetration of organizations—these [were] only a few of the weapons an FBI director who wanted to use them could deploy on his own, or on a president’s behalf.” 6 Presidents from both parties had questionable relationships with Hoover’s FBI. Even though President Harry S Truman referred to the FBI as a “Gestapo,” he also accepted political intelligence from the Bureau about his rivals in the Democratic Party. 7 Though the FBI was created under the supervision of the attorney general in 1908, Director Hoover ultimately expanded the power of the position in ways that helped him circumvent constitutional checks and allowed him to report directly to presidents. 8 Such actions extended presidential influence and his own political stature. Hoover thus made available such questionable political tools to the eight presidents that he served from 1924 until his death in 1972. During this time, he helped enhance the scope and authority of the FBI. Under his leadership, the Bureau’s annual appropriations grew from $2.2 million to $336.1 million. This growth was continuous during the Great Depression, and accelerated during World War II and the Cold War. 9 This project explores the rhetorical imagination that Hoover utilized to militarize the FBI and expand his own influence through his campaigns against 2 gangsters (1933-1939), German and Soviet espionage (1939-1945), and communist penetration of the national security apparatus (1945-1953). These movements established Hoover’s rhetorical and political trajectory. In his December 1969 New York Times review of Hoover’s career, Wicker concluded that Hoover possibly wielded “more power longer than any other man in American history.” 10 The director’s rhetorical campaigns were key components of his nefarious triumph. Utilizing the international relations perspectives of political idealism and political realism, this study examines the public campaigns and the behind-the-scenes rhetorical maneuvering that helped give rise to Hoover’s own public image and political influence. This study also examines the normalization of an omnipotent and militarized FBI. Before discussing the specific scope of this project, a history of the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover will first be offered, followed by a discussion of the rhetorical presidency, domestic propaganda, and international relations paradigms. The Historical Rise of the FBI and Director Hoover The early twentieth century represented a pivotal era for federal law enforcement. The Department of Justice (DOJ) was still in its formative years during the Theodore Roosevelt Presidency (1901-1909) when it developed an investigative agency that would become the FBI. From 1933 to 1953, the Bureau experienced an unprecedented expansion under the leadership of the director. The FBI’s public relations department—the Crime Records Division (CRD)—promoted Hoover’s leadership as a means for expanding the agency. The FBI was