American History Tellers - J. Edgar Hoover's FBI - Controlling the Message | 4

Episode Date: May 1, 2019

The rise of fascism and World War II shifted the FBI’s focus in the 1940s from fighting midwestern outlaws to catching Communists. To Hoover and the FBI, nearly anyone on the political left was suspect, potentially part of a Soviet conspiracy to overthrow Western democracies. In reality, the American left was fragmented. But again and again, Hoover would use the threat of Communism to go after the Bureau’s enemies. He would resort to exhaustive surveillance, including wiretaps, bugging and prying into personal lives to keep in check outspoken journalists and any other critics who threatened Hoover’s ironclad control of the media. Support this show by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Imagine it's June 15th, 1945. You're in the Fort Worth airport on a layover, waiting to board a plane to Mexico City. As you wait in the terminal for your flight, two men approach. One of them is wearing a police uniform, the other a gray suit, white shirt, black tie, and a fedora. The police officer speaks first. Ma'am, I'm Officer Jones of the Fort Worth Police Department, and this is Agent Conway of the FBI.

May we speak with you for a moment? Yes, of course. How may I help? Please, follow us. You notice other passengers staring at you, no doubt wondering what crime you may have committed, but you gather your bags and follow them to the small meeting room. Please, have a seat, ma'am. Conway settles into a corner, watching silently. Officer Jones begins reading you questions from a typewritten sheet. Are you the wife of George Seldes? I am Helen

Larkin Seldes, yes. Does your husband publish In Fact newspaper? Yes, he does. Who subsidizes In Fact? We know it can't be making money. I'm sorry, why are the Fort Worth police investigating my husband's New York publication? We have reason to believe that In Fact is a communist front, possibly subsidized by the Soviet government. You're too shocked to respond, so Officer Jones continues. Is In Fact subsidized by the Soviet government? This is ridiculous. Of course not. My husband and I are loyal Americans. You wouldn't know it from reading the magazine.

Officer, have you even seen the paper? I doubt we have more than a dozen subscribers in all of Texas. Officer Jones leans forward, studying your face. Are you a communist, Mrs. Seldes? No, and neither is my husband. Being opposed to fascism does not make you a pro-communist. Well, that's not how we see it. You are affiliated with known communists. Does the name Bruce Milton ring a bell? You mean Bruce Minton, my husband's old business partner. The officer glances at Agent Conway in

the corner. He nods. Yes, he was with us for all of six months. George bought him out when he discovered his pro-communist views. We haven't spoken in years. You notice Agent Conway making notes in the corner. But before you can ask why he's here, Officer Jones holds out his hand. May I see your papers, ma'am? You hand over your passport. The book, too. That's my address book. I need to see it, please. He rifles through it, makes some notes, and then the two men escort you back to the gate. The flight crew announces final boarding call for your plane, and the two men turn to go. I need my passport and address book. Officer Jones turns and hands

you your documents. You look solemn. You must be a dangerous person. Otherwise, the FBI wouldn't be getting involved. They leave you at the gate fuming and scared. You wonder how the officer and agent found you and what else they know about you. You're worried about your husband. There's no time to call and warn him that law enforcement is looking into him.

As you board your plane, you wonder, if having a political newspaper or being married to someone who runs one makes you the target of an investigation, what's happened to freedom of the press? Hey, this is Nick. And this is Jack. And we just launched a brand new podcast called The Best Idea Yet. You may have heard of it.

It's all about the untold origin stories of the products you're obsessed with. Listen to The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. From the team behind American History Tellers comes a new book, The Hidden History of the White House. Each chapter will bring you inside the fierce power struggles, intimate moments, and shocking scandals that shaped our nation. From the War of 1812 to Watergate. Available now wherever you get your books. From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History Tellers.

Our history. your story. Neither George nor Helen Larkin Seldes were accused of any crime. Instead, they were investigated because they held liberal political views, views that did not match up with those of the FBI or J. Edgar Hoover. In the eyes of Bureau officials, the most egregious offense George Seldes had committed was criticizing Hoover and the FBI in his leftist newspaper. These critiques were not understated. Another journalist wrote that Seldes was about as subtle as a house falling in. Seldes and his paper threatened one of the most effective weapons in Hoover's arsenal,

control of the media. Hoover relied on this influence to pitch the public the version of the bureau he wanted them to see and take down any enemies in the media who didn't buy his story. This is episode four, Controlling the Message. When Helen Larkin Seldes returned from her trip to Mexico, George Seldes wrote to Hoover to register a complaint about her treatment in Fort Worth. In addition to the interrogation and search, Seldes said, his wife was also shadowed by FBI agents in Mexico. Seldes also told Hoover that he had evidence the FBI was intercepting and reading his personal mail. A letter, intended to confirm the so-called mail

cover, was mistakenly sent to Seldes instead of the FBI by the local postmaster. The letter even included Seldes' top-secret FBI file number. Hoover ordered his agents to immediately suspend the mail cover, check out Seldes' complaints, and craft a response. A crime record station agent reported back to Hoover that Seldes' charges were all accurate. The agent confirmed that Mrs. Seldes' hotel room in Mexico City had been searched. Agents found nothing but an empty rum bottle and three empty cigarette packages. They searched her luggage, compiling a detailed list of her personal belongings. Bureau employees from the Bureau of Special Intelligence Services had also shadowed Mrs.

Seldes in Mexico City, and the FBI for years had intercepted and read the Seldes' personal and business mail. The agent drafted a letter to Seldes for Hoover to sign. The letter did not address most of Seldes' complaints. Instead, its tone was defiant, reading, Most travelers who found it necessary to leave the United States during the war not address most of Seldes' complaints. Instead, its tone was defiant, reading, Most travelers who found it necessary to leave the United States during the war were glad to submit to the slight necessary inconvenience encountered at the borders on the basis that this contribution on their part essentially worked to the benefit of the United States

and protected this country against foreign agents, saboteurs, and subverters. Hoover's letter went on to deny that Mrs. Seldes was under surveillance by agents of the FBI while she was in Mexico. And this was technically true, in so much as the FBI investigators who tailed Mrs. Seldes were called legal attachés rather than agents. Hoover didn't mention the mail cover, and it was soon reinstated. The FBI's active surveillance of Seldes had actually begun five years earlier, when the first issue of In Fact came out in 1940. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt initiated the investigation.

At the time, FDR told the FBI to look into Seldes' opposition to U.S. involvement in World War II. Hoover, as he typically did with a presidential request, took it as a blanket authorization to dig into Seldes' life and, in fact, business for decades. George Seldes was a former international reporter who had traveled widely, including to the Soviet Union. His weekly news magazine, In Fact, had an anti-fascist, anti-authoritarian bent. It frequently targeted big business, mainstream news media, certain politicians, and officials like Hoover. Above all,

Seldes was skeptical of centralized power, and that made him another one of Hoover's public enemies. By the early 1940s, as Americans battled fascism in World War II, the FBI was shifting its focus from Midwestern outlaws to communists. Hoover and the FBI saw nearly anyone on the political left as potentially part of a communist conspiracy to overthrow Western democracies. In reality, the American left was home to a wide variety of perspectives on communism. Within the ACLU, for example, there were both pro- and FBI factions. Labor unions fell into rabidly anti-communist and more agnostic camps. There was never any American Popular Front on the left,

uniting disparate leftist groups into a unified, coherent force in society. But Hoover conflated leftist politics and pro-communism. In Hoover's eyes, anyone who expressed liberal views, joined a leftist activism group, or even subscribed to certain newspapers must be pro-communist. Hoover's investigation into alleged communists like Seldes rarely uncovered direct links to the Communist Party. Seldes was a contrarian, not a communist. Instead, the FBI relied on affiliations with suspect organizations or individuals and presented them as if they were proof of wrongdoing. The Bureau's initial look into Seldes' background found that he had joined several left-wing advocacy committees and had maintained contact with a German friend.

The FBI also found that the communist newspaper The Daily Worker had mentioned Seldes a few times. This amounted to damning proof of his communist leanings in the agents' minds. It apparently did not occur to them that the Daily Worker also frequently mentioned J. Edgar Hoover. In a memorandum to Hoover, Crimes Record chief Lou Nichol summarized the editorial perspective of Seldes' paper, In Fact. The viewpoint of In Fact is simple. It is in favor of every idea, movement, and organization that is for what we carelessly call liberalism, democracy, progress, but it intends to follow up the frauds which hide behind these words. It is pro-labor and especially pro-progressive labor.

While no credible source was able to prove Seldes was a communist, Hoover nevertheless attempted to have him indicted for a violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA. Enacted in 1938, FARA required any person acting as an agent of a foreign interest to register with the government, and Hoover believed Seldes was an agent of the Soviet Union. In 1941, the FBI forwarded its file on Seldes to the Justice Department and asked that he be indicted. But because the allegation was unsupported by evidence, the Justice Department quickly returned the FBI's file with only a short comment. The attorney who reviewed the case said he found nothing at all to support an indictment under any federal law.

But the FBI's investigations of journalist George Seldes didn't stop. Even after, in fact, ceased publication in 1950, Hoover's agents continued to search for a communist connection to Seldes for decades. They never found one. Imagine it's about 8 p.m. on January 8, 1948. You're seated at a table in Harvey's, popular Washington, D.C. restaurant on Connecticut Avenue. Your wife is on her way to join you for dinner. As you're waiting, FBI Associate Director Clyde Tolson approaches the table. You smile and stand to greet him, reaching

out to shake hands. Hello there. Good to see you again. Tolson stops, just out of reach, unsmiling. How's the smear article coming along? I'm sorry, what? We have information that you are planning to smear the director in an upcoming article. Tolson is well known in Washington as Hoover's protector and attack dog. You've seen him having dinner with Hoover at this very restaurant many times. In fact, you realize Hoover is sitting at a table across the dining room right now, waiting. Please, won't you join me? We can discuss it. Unless you cancel the article immediately, we have nothing more to talk about. Not now, not ever. Clyde, we have worked with you many times,

haven't we? American Mercury has always been a supporter of the Bureau. Tolson moves in closer. He's taller than you, and his presence would be intimidating even if he wasn't the associate director of the FBI. Are you going to lie to me? Are you going to tell me you didn't commission Anthony Leviero from the New York Times to write a profile of the director? You're taken aback. How could the FBI know that you were in contact with Leviero? We are talking with Anthony, yeah, but...

So you admit it, then, that you're planning to smear Mr. Hoover? We are still working with Anthony to determine the scope of, yeah, but... So you admit it then, that you're planning to smear Mr. Hoover. We are still working with Anthony to determine the scope of the article, but... But you have to know, we wouldn't do anything to harm Mr. Hoover or the Bureau. Here's what I know. Our information is that you plan to charge Mr. Hoover with perversion. You're going to find people who will say the director is a glory seeker who takes credit for accomplishments of local police. You're going to find people who will say that he plays politics and that he doesn't know anything about law enforcement. Do you deny that?

Where are they getting this information? Many have heard rumors about Hoover's alleged homosexuality and relationship with Tolson. You've also heard frequent charges that Hoover is a glory seeker, more of a PR man than a lawman, and you and Leverio have discussed addressing those kinds of charges in the article. Who told you that? We haven't even signed a contract with Anthony yet. We know exactly what you're planning, Lawrence. Clyde, we're friends. I've had dinner in this restaurant with you and Edgar. Conversations around you have stopped, and other diners have turned to watch. Can't we please discuss this?

Where are you getting this information? We have many sources, Lawrence. If someone told you that American Mercury is going to be publishing a critical article about Mr. Hoover, they're doing it so to hurt me in the magazine. It's just not true. You feel your face flush.

Tolson must know you're lying. We have very specific information. Why would you hire Leverio if you're planning a positive profile? He's a well-known liberal. If you're planning to charge Mr. Hoover with perversion, we won't stand for it. Don't think you want us as your enemy. Of course. I'm telling you, we have no such article in the works.

Tolson glares at you for a moment and walks away and joins Hoover at his table. You're left with many questions. Who told the FBI about the article and about your talks with Leverio? Are the phones at the office tapped? What happens when Hoover and Tolson put you on their enemies list? You glance over and see them chatting with a waiter, smiling, and ordering dinner. What are you going to do? Lawrence Spivak was the publisher of the popular American Mercury magazine, an opinion magazine with a center-right political perspective. Spivak enjoyed a cordial relationship with crime records chief Lou Nichols, who often received the final edit on articles concerning the FBI. Despite that good relationship,

Spivak was discussing an article addressing some of the common concerns about Hoover's long tenure. It was another journalist, international news service reporter Martha Kearney, who informed the Bureau of Spivak's plans to commission a critical profile of Hoover. Kearney was one of the FBI's special service contacts, a group of influential friends in the media who informed on other journalists. A few days after the confrontation at Harvey's, Spivak convinced Nichols to meet with him at FBI headquarters. He told Nichols that American Mercury planned an objective profile of the director, nothing else. He also offered to allow Nichols to edit the article before publication.

Tolson's overt threat had worked. After their meeting, Nichols assured Hoover that Spivak had been jittery and upset. He seemed sincere, so the FBI decided to cooperate with the Hoover profile. When Nichols told Spivak that the Bureau would help him with the article, Spivak was relieved. He even found an ironic silver lining to the situation. He told Nichols, This incident is a wonderful demonstration of a free country.

Had this occurred in any other country, I would have been shot by now. Spivak may have been joking about the peril of tangling with the FBI, but the Bureau was known to play hardball with critics. And Spivak had just gotten a chilling lesson in the Bureau's tactics for intimidation and manipulation of the media. But others, including some liberal icons, were more than willing to assist the FBI's shaping of public perceptions. How did Birkenstocks go from a German cobbler's passion project 250 years ago to the Barbie movie today? Who created that bottle of red sriracha with a green top that's permanently living in your fridge? Did you know that the Air Jordans were initially banned by the NBA? We'll explore all that and more in The Best Idea Yet, a brand new podcast from Wondery and T-Boy.

This is Nick. This is Nick. This is Jack. And we've covered over a thousand episodes of pop business news stories on our daily podcast. We've identified the most viral products of all time and their wild origin stories that you had no idea about. From the Levi's 501 jeans to Legos. Come for the products you're obsessed with.

Stay for the business insights that are gonna blow up your group chat. Jack, Nintendo, Super Mario Brothers, best-selling video game of all time. How'd they do it? Nintendo never fires anyone, ever. Follow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Best Idea Yet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Are you in trouble with the law?

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Follow Criminal Attorney on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Criminal Attorney early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Imagine it's 10 a.m. on October 18th, 1949. You're at FBI headquarters in the Department of Justice building in Washington, D.C. You've been invited to meet FBI Assistant Director Lou Nichols,

a top advisor to the director and the man in charge of public relations for the Bureau. Nichols, a heavyset man in a rumpled suit, enters the room. Morris, thanks for joining us. Lou, happy to be here. He settles into his office chair. I appreciated your defense of the loyalty program investigations. Was that in the Saturday Evening Post? Yeah, the Saturday Evening Review, yes. I'm growing tired of the hysteria over the loyalty investigations. Us too. Seldes over at In Fact led that effort. Sorry to say the nation and the new republic followed his lead. It seems entirely reasonable to me to investigate federal employees to root

out communists. They have infested our government. Mr. Hoover is tired of people defending the rights of people who would overthrow our democracy. Nichols lights a cigarette. You take the opportunity to fire up your pipe. So your review article was well received? It was, and thanks to your staff for the statistics. Only 91 federal employees dismissed out of 2.6 million investigated. It's a very clear case of being blown out of proportion. Indeed, I particularly like this passage. Nichols digs through a pile of folders on his desk and pulls out a clipping of the Saturday Review article. Keep in mind that the FBI can't fire or hire. It only investigates and reports.

I couldn't have said it better myself. Well, that's because you wrote it. I did, yeah. Yes, you did. So, what can I do for you today, Lou? I have an idea. You're always up to hear one of Lou Nichols' ideas. The information he feeds you has boosted your writing reputation, all while raising awareness of what you believe is the true threat to civil liberties, communist ideology. What do you have in mind? I think we should seek a larger audience for the same kind of article. We need to counter critics like I.F. Stone or Seldes. Stone and that parlor pink gang at The Nation really have it out for you.

Did you see that letter to the editor I sent them? Ah, hopefully it'll do some good. I did. Yeah, thank you for that. I'm amazed they published it. Look, I've spoken to Fulton Alsler at Reader's Digest. This sounds interesting. He will publish an article about the FBI's efforts to protect civil liberties. We'd like you to write it. With your law degree, co-founding the ACLU, you have credibility on these issues. You'd be a great help to us. I'd be happy to. I assume you have some ideas about

what the article might say. As a matter of fact, we do. Nichols again digs through the stacks of papers on his desk, pulls out a stapled document, and hands it across the desk to you. Oh, thank you. You have a working title? We think something like, Why I No Longer Fear the FBI. I'll get in touch with Fulton right away. You stand, shake hands, and head out the door. Morris Ernst was a New York attorney famous for being the co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU. It made him an attractive defender for the FBI. A few months after Ernst's conversation with Nichols,

Reader's Digest editor Fulton Alsler turned the article over to Nichols for final editing. Ernst's column, headlined Why I No Longer Fear the FBI, appeared in the December 21, 1950 edition of Reader's Digest. At the time, Reader's Digest had the largest circulation of any magazine in the country. Each weekly issue reached 10 million readers. Coming as it did from the co-founder of the ACLU, Ernst's article bestowed on the Bureau the endorsement of a liberal icon and a vowed protector of civil liberties. Eleanor Roosevelt considered Ernst a close friend. The article was presented as an unsolicited testimonial to the invaluable work of the FBI. Ernst told readers that he had carefully studied the Bureau over years and had changed his mind

about Hoover and the FBI. He wrote, those who feared the Bureau, as I once did, will be glad to know the facts. The FBI is unique in the history of national police. It has a significant record of respect for individual freedom. It invites documented complaints against its agents. It has zealously tried to prevent itself from violating the democratic process. Ernst did not mention his close ties with Lou Nichols or the relationship between Nichols and Ausler. Hoover was delighted with Ernst's defense. He immediately ordered Nichols to send 375 reprints of the article to special service contacts and other key opinion leaders in the news media and Congress. For the next 20 years, the Reader's Digest article became part of the FBI's canon.

It was wielded as a weapon, essentially an endorsement from the ACLU confirming Hoover and the FBI as fellow civil libertarians. Any time a member of the left charged the FBI with some form of impropriety, Hoover or his agents would tote out the Ernst article as their defense. It was as if Ernst's public endorsement inoculated the Bureau from all reproach and further emboldened Hoover to rid the media of FBI critics. One of those critics was journalist I.F. Stone, one of the most influential reporters and editors of the 20th century.

The Bureau's interest in Stone dated to the early 1940s, when The Nation, a left-leaning political journal, published four articles, including two by an anonymous author suspected to be a federal government employee. Stone was the Washington editor of The Nation at the time, and the articles were published on his watch. They made the case that the FBI had become an American Gestapo. They offered detailed examples of the Bureau's unsubtle methods in its thousands of loyalty investigations into government employees. In one of the articles, the anonymous writer reported the questions an FBI agent asked regarding the alleged disloyalty of a federal employee. Questions like, could I tell him why Bill Smith had grown a beard?

What did he have to conceal? Why did he sometimes use an alias instead of his real name? The anonymous author reported telling the agent that Smith's alias wasn't an alias at all. It was a childhood nickname. The interrogation continued with questions about Smith's ham radio hobby and his love of Tchaikovsky, who was, after all, a Russian. And what about his interest in reading The Nation magazine? The logic was absurd. In the eyes of the FBI, Bill Smith grew a beard to emulate Vladimir Lenin, was using a ham radio to feed secrets to Moscow while he listened to Russian music and read The Nation.

What other possible conclusions could one draw from that set of facts? The anonymous articles in The Nation portrayed the FBI as America's thought police and as fumbling oafs. Hoover was sensitive to this kind of criticism, which challenged his preferred public image of restraint, clinical, dispassionate, and scientific law enforcement and thoughtful investigators. A few weeks after the anonymous articles appeared in The Nation, Stone authored his own article recalling Hoover's role in the infamous and discredited 1920 Palmer raidsids. Hoover had coordinated the raids, in which 10,000 alleged radicals were rounded up in a dragnet.

The vast majority of so-called radicals were released because of lack of evidence to sustain the arrests. It was a fact Hoover had worked for more than 20 years to suppress. Stone wrote, It may well be that Hoover has changed somewhat since those days. Under a progressive administration, in a period when the labor movement is strong, Stone wrote, Despite this relatively even-handed treatment, Hoover was livid. He ordered his staff in the crime records section to investigate the charges. The crime records sections responded with a memorandum that detailed how the Bureau's public relations wing had revised Hoover's central role as coordinator of the Palmer Raids. Crime records section agent J.J. Stark wrote a 24-page

response to Stone's two-page article and shared it with Hoover. Stark countered every factual claim in Stone's article with FBI spin, concluding that attacking Mr. Hoover for his role in the Palmer raids was one of the most vicious smear attacks on the FBI and its director. Hoover's alleged supervision of the raids was a lie. But after all Stark's effort, the memo was never shared outside the Bureau. Hoover and his publicists determined it was better not to draw more attention to Stone's article. So Hoover changed tactics. He scrawled a handwritten note on a crime record section memorandum about the articles from the nation. The director was the only FBI employee allowed to use blue ink, and within the bureau,

his notes became known as blue gems. Hoover asked, what have we on Stone? And thus began an intensive investigation into yet another journalist who had not violated any laws. Like George Seldes, Stone was a critical journalist skeptical of centralized power. Also like Seldes, Stone's only offense was criticizing Hoover and the FBI. Over the next 10 years, the FBI investigated Stone virtually nonstop. The search included thousands of man-hours of surveillance, a review of Stone's personal banking and tax records, wiretaps and buggings, and interviews with hundreds of acquaintances.

For nearly a year in 1951 and 1952, FBI agents followed Stone 24 hours a day. The agents watching Stone compiled hundreds of pages of handwritten surveillance notes, mostly detailing the rather dull comings and goings of a middle-aged man eating lunch, getting groceries, and buying cigars. They were unable to catch Stone in the act of being a communist, whatever that might entail. There was, however, plenty of evidence that Stone was an outspoken opponent of the FBI. In 1946, for example, Stone downplayed the communist threat that Hoover continuously highlighted in an article he wrote for The Nation. It is hysterical nonsense to build up the Communist Party, which can't elect a dog

catcher outside of New York City, into public enemy number one. Despite the futility and expense involved in months of 24-7 surveillance, in 1952, the New York agent leading the Stone investigation recommended that the journalist be added to the FBI's Security Index. Agents placed an X on the line next to the term communist on Stone's Security Index card. And Stone was placed in the A category of American citizens Hoover planned to round up and imprison in case of a national emergency. Washington agents added a note, since Stone has been only tentatively identified as a Soviet agent, the Bureau feels that his name should not be included in the special section designated for Soviet agents actively engaged in espionage. So the FBI's official position was that while Stone was a communist, he probably wasn't a Soviet spy. Eventually, the FBI compiled a dossier on Stone totaling more than 2,500 pages.

On December 7, 1952, Stone debuted his own newspaper called I.F. Stone's Weekly. He had purchased from George Seldes the mailing list for In Fact, which had since gone out of business. The FBI, through one of its cover organizations, was among the first to pay $5 for an annual subscription. I.F. Stone's Weekly never achieved the mainstream success of Seldes' In Fact, but its readership was concentrated among opinion shapers in Washington, D.C. and New York City. While Seldes' publication could be shrill, Stone's Weekly was more thoughtful, and because of its well-connected readers, more influential. The first mention of the FBI in I.F. Stone's Weekly came in the 10th issue, published on March

21, 1953. In it, Stone again accused the FBI of having become an American secret police. Stone noted that the FBI operated in secret, compiled dossiers on individual Americans not accused of any crime, and often employed anonymous informants in its investigations. He wouldn't learn until decades later that these were the same tactics that had been used on him. Stone wrote, this is certainly acting as a secret police, but what the Japanese called a thought police. In an August issue, Stone linked Hoover with Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, who was then undertaking a divisive campaign against alleged communists. Stone wrote, Mr. McCarthy is America's most controversial figure.

J. Edgar Hoover is its most feared. Hoover's closet is well-stocked with skeletons. Many in the Capitol fear the stray bones he may rattle. By the early 1950s, Hoover and his agents were American icons. The director was among the most famous people on earth. His agents were widely viewed as an indispensable force against craven criminals and evil communists. Emboldened by widespread public support, Hoover wasn't shy about whose skeletons he was willing to rattle. To protect the Bureau, he took his threats all the way to the Oval Office. For more than two centuries, the White House has been the stage for some of the most dramatic

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instructions for people's murders. This podcast is the true story of how I ended up in a race against time to warn those whose lives were in danger. And it turns out, convincing a total stranger someone wants them dead is not easy. Follow Kill List on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Kill List and more Exhibit C True Crime shows like Morbid early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+. Check out Exhibit C in the Wondery app for all your true crime listening. Imagine it's 10am on August 28th, 1950. You're the appointment secretary to President Harry S. Truman. You've worked for the president since his Senate days, when you served as chief investigator for his Senate committee. Now, as Truman's personal assistant, you were the gatekeeper to the Oval Office,

as well as his trusted confidant. You check the appointments book. This morning, you're scheduled to meet with Lou Nichols from the FBI. Nichols requested the meeting this morning to discuss something of great importance to J. Edgar Hoover. Right on time, Nichols walks into your cramped West Wing office. Good morning. How can I help you today, Mr. Nichols? Good morning. Mr. Hoover is concerned about a forthcoming book by Max Lowenthal. We haven't heard anything about it. In fact, Lowenthal, a longtime friend of President Truman, has been contacting you daily, asking for the president to endorse his book called The Federal Bureau of Investigation.

We've seen the manuscript. It's about the FBI. It's a hit piece. We didn't get to approve it, and we don't like what's in there. Mr. Hoover won't tolerate any more Gestapo talk. I'm sorry, but I don't see what that book has to do with this administration. Lowenthal is a friend of the president. He worked with the president when he was a senator. He did. But I'm still not sure what you're driving at. We have information that Lowenthal is a communist. Such as? Strong allegations have been received alleging communist party membership. Such as? He was general counsel to the Russian American Industrial Corporation. When? 1923. That was a long time ago. And the records of the House

Un-American Activities Committee reflect that Lowenthal was a member of the National Lawyers Guild. Not everyone agrees that the Lawyers Guild is a communist front. We have information who tells us Lowenthal associated with known Soviet spies in the early 1940s. Who were they? I cannot release that information. Of course not. What do you want from the president? I don't know. I wonder if there is anything that can be done to stop the publication of the book. And there it is. Nichols is asking the president to intervene with Lowenthal's publisher. No, I think not. But I'm happy to pass your information along to the president. That is all we ask, then. Thank you.

Truman is already under fire, being blamed for the communist takeover of China last year. You understand that the president faces a choice. Allow the FBI's friends in the media to tar him with stories about Lowenthal's alleged communist connections. Disavow a book written by a friend. Or simply ignore the FBI's veiled threat and let the chips fall where they may. about Lowenthal's alleged communist connections, disavow a book written by a friend, or simply ignore the FBI's veiled threat and let the chips fall where they may. The FBI's playbook was well known in Washington. Typically, the Bureau would send an agent or official for an ostensibly cordial chat. In those meetings, the Bureau representative would offer a

few details indicating what the FBI knew. Rarely was there a clearly stated threat. Instead, the threats were implied. We know this. Imagine what else we know. Ultimately, Truman chose not to help the agency or speak about the book at all. But determined to silence Lowenthal, Nichols turned next to ACLU co-founder and Hoover's friend, Morris Ernst, who had proved so helpful with a Reader's Digest article. Nichols wanted Ernst to use his contact with Lowenthal's publisher to deliver the Bureau's threat, but Ernst declined to help, saying he feared that the publisher would use Ernst's intervention as an opportunity to market the book. Instead, he agreed to put out pro-FBI stories on behalf of the agency to help blunt Lowenthal's message.

Nichols' next stop was a visit with the staff members of the House Un-American Activities Committee. The committee was formed in 1938 and charged with a broad mandate, investigate American citizens, organizations, or public employees accused of subversive activities. It was a natural ally of the FBI. And even most of the investigators employed by the committee were former FBI agents. Once Nichols brought Lowenthal to their attention, the committee called him in to testify. Then the committee immediately released his supposedly secret testimony to the press. Such was the cultural power of the House

Un-American Activities Committee that appearing before it to deny communist ties was perceived by many in the public as an admission of guilt. After all, communists could not be trusted to tell the truth. At the same time, agents in the crime records section prepared critical reviews of Lowenthal's book and planted them with friendly journalists, including syndicated columnist Walter Winchell, broadcaster Fulton Lewis Jr., and reporter Walter Trohan of the Chicago Tribune. Ultimately, dozens of critical reviews appeared in newspapers across the country, many of them restating the recommended themes helpfully provided by the crime records section. According to Winchell, Lewis Jr., Trohan, and others, Lowenthal was a communist,

so his charges about the FBI were simply part of a smear campaign intended to tarnish the Bureau's stellar record. Nothing was left to chance. FBI agents around the country were even ordered to visit booksellers to intimidate or pressure them not to stock the book. Not surprisingly, given all that effort, Lowenthal's book did not sell well and quickly faded from shelves. Only later would it be discovered as a key historical document of the Hoover era.

Much of what Lowenthal alleged in the book was correct, thanks to his sources in government, including former FBI agents. Lowenthal charged that the Bureau was engaged in massive spying and public relations campaigns. But in 1950, thanks to Hoover's friends and the FBI's power to shape public perceptions, another possible public relations crisis was averted. By the mid-1950s, Hoover and the FBI were well-established in American popular culture. Hoover was an icon of law and order and Americanism. The Bureau had overwhelmed all of its critics. The crime records section maintained mutually beneficial relationships with hundreds of reporters, editors, publishers, and entertainment producers. Many of the FBI's critics found themselves on the margins, contributing only

to niche journals and other publications. But while Hoover was adamant that the FBI be favorably portrayed in the press, he had remained surprisingly cautious about putting the Bureau's official brand on anything. Other than its radio program and a forgettable motion picture or two, the FBI exercised its influence behind the scenes. Nichols and others, though, had continued to urge Hoover to be more bold. ACLU co-founder Morris Ernst pitched a television deal to the Bureau, but it was rebuffed. In early 1955, though, Nichols assigned a member of his staff to revise an existing official FBI history manuscript into a marketable book. On September 29, 1955, Nichols pitched the book to Bennett Cerf, founder of Random House, the largest publishing company in the U.S. The publisher wielded the kind of power in the book industry that could make nearly any book a bestseller.

Cerf was also an avowed friend of the FBI, and Nichols knew he would be receptive to the book proposal. At the meeting, Nichols pitched the book as a counterpoint to critics like Lowenthal, Seldes, Stone, and others. It was an opportunity, Nichols told Cerf, to clear up misconceptions about the FBI's mission and authority. Cerf was naturally interested. He asked who Nichols had in mind to write the book. Nichols didn't reveal that the draft was already complete. Instead, he recommended associate press reporter Don Whitehead as the author. Whitehead was a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, the kind of objective journalist whose endorsement of the FBI in a best-selling book would inoculate the Bureau from criticism. Though he had never heard of Whitehead, Cerf agreed that a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist

would be the ideal person to pen an authorized FBI history. He told Nichols that Random House would pay essentially any price. Publication of the book was a public service to the nation, Cerf said, and any FBI book would be a showpiece for the publisher's catalog. Nichols told Cerf he had a few conditions. First, the Bureau would have the final edit of the book, and the FBI would have the final approval of any subsequent deals, including motion picture or television rights. Finally, Nichols said, the book should get top billing on the Random House list,

an important distinction that all but guaranteed a bestseller. Cerf quickly agreed, but with one condition of his own. Hoover would write the foreword to the book. That meeting resulted in one of the most important publications in FBI history. The FBI Story, A Report to the People by Don Whitehead appeared in 1956. It was a New York Times bestseller and eventually sold millions of copies. In his foreword, Hoover claimed the book was a work of objective journalism by an award-winning reporter.

He wrote, This volume, then, is Mr. Whitehead's report. He has selected the material which has been used, and the facts reported are supported by the Bureau's record. He wrote, This was the perception Hoover wanted readers to have. It was an objective history of the FBI, written by an objective journalist. It was not true. The first 851-page draft of the book was actually written by the assistant director at the time, William C. Sullivan. Then, a crime records agent revised it and handed the manuscript over to Whitehead.

Whitehead tweaked the manuscript from there, working at a desk inside the FBI headquarters. Unlike Max Lowenthal's history of the FBI, Whitehead's book avoided questions of FBI domestic surveillance entirely. The FBI edited and approved the final product, something no objective journalist would allow. But Whitehead was close to retirement, and the money may have been too good to resist. Reviewers doubled down on the message Hoover offered in the foreword. A New York Times reviewer lavished praise on Whitehead's book as having been written with the restraint and respect for facts which one expects of a first-class

journalist like Mr. Whitehead. Even socialist Norman Thomas, writing in Commentary Magazine, declared, unquestionably, this is an honest piece of work. Another reviewer was the District of Columbia ACLU director Irving Fuhrman, who, like Ernst, was a liberal icon. Fuhrman said the book undermined the shrill arguments of the Bureau's critics. He wrote, Had it acted, as FBI critics maintain, in Gestapo-like fashion, I would answer unequivocally in the negative. But Fuhrman didn't mention that he was a special service contact of the FBI and had been acting as an informant to the Bureau for years, outing communists and providing information from inside the ACLU.

Whitehead's authorized FBI history was a high point in the Bureau's ability to control its message. But that control could not last forever. While the Bureau's counterintelligence and spying organizations grew, a new generation of Americans was coming of age, a generation more skeptical of government than their predecessors. The cracks in the FBI's public image were bound to appear. Next time on American History Tellers, as FBI public relations achieves its greatest

successes in motion pictures and television, the Bureau's carefully constructed public image begins to crumble. If you like American history tellers, you can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. From Wondery, this is American History Tellers.

I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you're listening on a smartphone, tap or swipe over the cover art of this podcast. You'll find the episode notes, including some details you may have missed. And if you do like this show, one of the best ways to show your appreciation is to give us a five-star rating and leave a review.

And you can find us and me on Twitter and Facebook. Follow the show at A.H. Tellers, and I'm at Lindsey A. Graham. And thank you. American History Tellers is hosted, edited, and produced by me, Lindsey Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. This episode is written by Matthew Cecil, edited by Audrey Dilling, edited and produced by Jenny Lauer Beckman.

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