FBI

Studs Terkel, the renowned historian and broadcaster, once sought a job at the FBI – the agency that would go on to spend 45 years tracking him as a suspected Communist, newly disclosed documents reveal.

The 269-page paper trail spans 1945 to 1990 – covering everything from Terkel’s McCarthy-era blacklisting to his involvement with Paul Robeson and third-party presidential candidate Henry Wallace to a birthday party toast he once made.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning writer died last year at age 96, nearly two decades after the final entry in his file. The dossier was obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request, which calls on the FBI to release certain documents to the public once the person has died.

Only 147 of the 269 pages were released by the agency, which said many of the documents should remain sealed because of privacy and other reasons.

From Applicant to Target

The newly disclosed documents show that Terkel asked the FBI for a job in the 1930s – to work on fingerprints – but was never employed by the agency. Instead, beginning in 1945, the feds started amassing a dossier on Terkel, who was born in New York and rose to fame in Chicago.

He promoted the civil rights movement, immigration rights and other causes that drew the attention of J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, which apparently pegged Terkel as a possible Communist.

Terkel worked for ABC television, hosting a show called “Studs’ Place,” but was forced to quit in 1953 because of the McCarthy-era blacklist. He became a noted radio interviewer – a passion that led to acclaimed oral histories.

He wrote more than a dozen volumes about everyday life and momentous events as observed by ordinary people. Terkel’s books include “Working,” “Division Street” and “The Good War,” which won him the Pulitzer.

Records Search

The FBI documents show agents tried to assemble documents from his birth until he was in his 70s. The effort included several New York FBI agents scouring the five boroughs – unsuccessfully – for Terkel’s birth records. Terkel, who has said he was born in the Bronx, earned a law degree at the University of Chicago and joined the Army in 1942. He was honorably discharged a year later because of his age.

Terkel’s attraction to the life of the American common man and woman was reflected in his politics, and he was frequently invited to speak at events suspected by the FBI of being infiltrated by Communists.

The FBI files record Terkel’s support for Wallace, a former vice president under President Franklin Roosevelt who ran for president on the Progressive Party ticket in 1948. Informants also told the FBI that Terkel spoke at events held in honor of Robeson, the actor and civil rights activist.  The informants alleged that Terkel subscribed to the “Daily Worker,” a New York-based communist newspaper.

Even his nights out were monitored. In April 1950, a source told the FBI that Terkel gave a toast at a birthday party for Pearl M. Hart, a Chicago attorney who worked on behalf of immigrants.

Unconfirmed Suspicions

The closest the FBI came to documenting that Terkel was a member of the Communist Party was an allegation by one unnamed source.

A Chicago weekly newspaper, The Garfeldian, published an article disparaging Terkel for alleged Communist ties, and the FBI noted that it knew another newspaper, the Austin News in Texas, was working on a similar story.

In 1955, a memo reached Hoover’s desk recommending that Terkel be removed from the security index, since there had been no evidence of recent membership in Communist Party, referred to in the files as the CP. But this was re-evaluated in 1961, when, agents noted, “an admitted CP member advised that Terkel….was a concealed CP member in 1945.” The report goes on to describe Terkel as “a person whom the CP can always call upon to write articles, entertain and to secure funds.”

Terkel was aware he was being tracked by the FBI, and several accounts of his life recall him joking that his file wasn’t as thick as the one compiled on his wife Ida Goldberg, a social worker and anti-war activist.

Speaking Out

In an October 2007 opinion column for The New York Times, Terkel described his life under scrutiny by the feds as he criticized the Bush Administration’s reforms to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Terkel was one of the plaintiffs in a suit against AT&T, in an effort to stop the company from turning over customer telephone records to the National Security Agency without a court order.

“In the 1950s, during the sad period known as the McCarthy era, one’s political beliefs again served as a rationale for government monitoring,” Terkel wrote. “I was among those blacklisted for my political beliefs. My crime? I had signed petitions. Lots of them. I had signed on in opposition to Jim Crow laws and poll taxes and in favor of rent control and pacifism. Because the petitions were thought to be Communist-inspired, I lost my ability to work in television and radio after refusing to say that I had been ‘duped’ into signing my name to these causes.”

Paper Trail Ends

Terkel’s FBI file ends in 1990, when agents in Miami clipped and pasted a Wall Street Journal article quoting his reaction to financier Michael Milken’s junk-bond scandal.

“We live in a corrupt, amoral moment,” Terkel told the paper. “There are a million Milkens, and he doesn’t deserve even a footnote in history. He’s reflective of our society at this time. But he probably won’t be chastised in the history books.

“People have lost their sense of outrage.”

Conservative standard-bearer William F. Buckley maintained ties with longtime FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover – and even earned a spot on a secret list of journalists given preferential treatment, documents show.

Buckley “is on the Special Correspondents List and is favorably disposed toward the FBI,” an agent noted in one internal document. The relationship included correspondence and meetings with Hoover, and personal tours of the FBI by top agents. The ties extended to Buckley seeking permission for an FBI informant to testify in his defense in a libel suit for accusing Yale students of being communists.

But the “Firing Line” host’s relationship with Hoover suffered a setback in 1967 when Buckley’s magazine, the National Review, published a parody claiming the FBI boss had been arrested on morals charges. Hoover removed Buckley from the special correspondents list and considered legal action, although the two later resumed a cordial relationship.

The extent of Buckley’s ties with the FBI are disclosed in nearly 400 pages of documents obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request, which calls on the agency to release certain documents to the public once the person has died. Buckley died from a variety of ailments, including emphysema, at the age of 82 on February 27, 2008 at his home in Stamford, Conn.

A 1992 National Review article detailed some of the FBI file’s contents — the documents were obtained with Buckley’s permission by noted author and poet Natalie Robins, who also wrote about the file in her book, “Alien Ink: The FBI’s War on Freedom of Expression.”  But some details from the massive file weren’t included in the National Review story.

Young Gun

The first substantial entry in the file came in 1949 when, as a 23-year-old student at Yale University, Buckley organized a forum where he defended the FBI’s investigations for government loyalty programs, and invited a Bureau representative to explain its practices.

A year later, the FBI showed Buckley its appreciation for what it wrote in a memo as “his past interest in the Bureau and his future benefits” by giving him and his wife, Patricia, a private tour of Bureau headquarters in Washington. The tour included a brief meeting with Hoover, inspection of crime scene labs and each taking turns firing a Thompson machine gun at the bureau’s shooting range, documents show. (In the 1992 National Review article, Patricia Buckley denied firing the gun.)

“Mr. Buckley appeared extremely well-read, cognizant of the Bureau’s responsibilities and activities in a general way,” an FBI memo said of Buckley’s Oct. 25, 1950 visit. “He commented most favorably upon our role in the government loyalty program and expressed admiration for the Director’s ability to withstand political, subversive and academic attacks.”

Much of the 393 pages obtained by the NYCity News Service deal with two background checks the FBI made on Buckley for his appointments to the U.S. Advisory Commission on Information in 1969 and as a delegate to the United Nations in 1973. He easily passed the investigations and served in both positions.

The files also document an investigation into threatening letters sent to Buckley, his support for Sen. Joe McCarthy’s anti-Communist platform and his public battles with liberals and Hoover critics.

A Special Correspondent

In 1953, Buckley wrote to the FBI telling the agency of his plans to write a book that would counteract critics of the Bureau’s security investigations. A year later he sent an autographed copy of “McCarthy and His Enemies” to Hoover, who responded with a note thanking Buckley for his generosity.

Throughout the next 15 years, Buckley sent Hoover his new books, met him at least once more at FBI headquarters and exchanged friendly letters. In one missive dated, April 1, 1958, Hoover described a Buckley article as “a source of much encouragement to me.” In another note from Oct. 19, 1964, he responded to a Buckley column by writing “my associates and I are indeed grateful for your support.” Buckley wrote back with a short letter that ended with “I am, as always, at your service.”

After Buckley’s second visit to FBI headquarters, Hoover sent him a copy of his book “A Study of Communism” and a picture they took together.

There is no mention in the disclosed documents about Buckley’s brief stint with the Central Intelligence Agency early in his life, something Buckley himself acknowledged later, including in the National Review. The Bureau redacted portions of Buckley’s FBI file, claiming privacy and other reasons, and at least 10 pages were withheld.

At some point, the FBI put Buckley on Hoover’s special correspondents list, which circulated information to allies who could be trusted to put the Bureau in good light. Buckley is first mentioned as being on the list in 1964.

Libel Help

In 1966, Buckley even approached the FBI to help the National Review, the conservative magazine he founded and edited, in a libel suit. The magazine printed a story that accused three Yale students of being communists. According to his published story, the source was an FBI informant’s testimony at a hearing for the House Committee on Un-American activities. In the FBI dossier, the unnamed informant apparently had not testified during the hearing about the three students, but did relay the information in a telephone conversation with Buckley.

Buckley asked the FBI for permission for the informant to testify in the defamation proceedings, but the FBI declined. The informant told the FBI he was prepared to confirm in court that he had relayed the information to Buckley.

The Bureau and Buckley had a falling out of sorts in 1967 after the National Review printed a parody, a facsimile of The New York Times that included a story that Hoover had been arrested on a morals charge. The FBI considered a defamation lawsuit, but didn’t pursue one.

Hoover removed Buckley from the Special Correspondents list. But Hoover didn’t stay upset for long as from then until his death in 1972, he wrote to Buckley on a few occasions thanking him for his work.

Chronicling Buckley’s Feuds

Within Buckley’s FBI files are numerous references to his public defense of conservatism and anti-communism.

In April of 1959, the Bureau sent agents to discreetly cover Buckley’s debate on “Should we Repudiate Liberalism” with New York Post editor James Wechlser at Hunter College. The agents reported the central theme of the debate was battling communism and such details as the price of tickets, which sold for $1. In a memo from 1962, an agent described Buckley at this event by writing, “he has made James Wecshler look rather silly during debates.”

There are also several references to Buckley’s infamous battles with writer Gore Vidal and his $500,000 1969 lawsuit against Vidal for defamation.

In 1972, the FBI also reported on journalist Jack Anderson’s appearance on Buckley’s television show, “Firing Line,” in which they debated government secrecy. According to the memo, Anderson argued for the right to inspect government files as long as national security wasn’t endangered.

Buckley disagreed and said Americans have no more right to inspect government files as the government has to inspect Anderson’s files. The FBI made no mention that it had been tracking Anderson and later sought to inspect the documents he had amassed as a journalist.

Background Checks

In 1969, President Richard Nixon named Buckley to the U.S. Advisory Commission on Information, a non-partisan diplomacy group. The White House requested a customary background investigation into Buckley. The FBI obtained information from Buckley’s peers and friends, including Republican Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, and reported such mundane details as a parking ticket he received at Yale.

In 1973, Nixon appointed Buckley as a delegate to the United Nations and the FBI performed another background investigation. Nearly every person the Bureau interviewed recommended Buckley with the exception of historian and Kennedy Administration adviser Arthur Schlesinger. According to the report, Schlesinger voiced concern over Buckley’s connection to E. Howard Hunt, who was Buckley’s case officer in the CIA, and later would become a key Watergate figure.

Threatening Letters

Buckley’s communication with the FBI did not end with Hoover’s death in 1972.

In 1987, Buckley turned over four threatening letters he received from a person, whose name is redacted in the files. One of the letters read: “After that stunt you better think twice before you publicly criticize anti-intellectualism elsewhere in this country…I would be delighted to kick the [crap] out of you personally. In the meantime, nasty letters are the cheapest and most effective form of communication.”

The FBI interviewed the author of the letters and sent the letters to its psycho linguistic expert for analysis. But according to the files, the Bureau didn’t take further action.

To read William F. Buckley’s FBI file, click below:
Buckley FBI File, Part 1

Buckley FBI File, Part 2

Buckley FBI File, Part 3

Buckley FBI File, Part 4

Buckley FBI File, Part 5

Buckley FBI File, Part 6

Buckley FBI File, Part 7

Buckley FBI File, Part 8

The FBI investigated American chess champion Bobby Fischer in the 1960s after the Cold War icon created a controversy at a tournament in Cuba, where he famously played against Fidel Castro, according to newly disclosed documents.

The FBI dossier, obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request, shows the bureau’s Mexico City office began probing the one-time chess prodigy after a tumultuous headline-grabbing trip to Havana.

Fischer was a Cold War hero who would ultimately best the Soviets at a game they had dominated, at a time when beating Communists stirred national passions.

Before ascending to take the world crown in an historic 1972 match against Russia’s Boris Spassky, the Brooklyn-reared Fischer traveled the globe to play in chess tournaments.

Trip to Cuba

In 1966, Fischer flew to Havana, leading the U.S. delegation at the 17th Chess Olympiad, a top international competition. It was an era when Washington tightly controlled travel to Communist nations – U.S. officials, in fact, had rejected Fischer’s bid to compete there in a tournament a year earlier.

Once in Cuba, Fischer sparked an international stir when he refused to play against the Soviets because the match would be on a Saturday, conflicting with his religious practices. The Soviets were outraged and protested.

The controversy drew worldwide press coverage, and chess officials intervened. Fischer got his way and the match was rescheduled.

The FBI interviewed several sources it considered reliable about the incident. One unnamed source asserted the American chess team “had attempted to embarrass the Cuban Government in order to prevent any future world championship from being held in Cuba.”

Played Castro

Among the opponents Fischer faced in the rescheduled matches: Spassky. Fischer took an early lead but then made a crucial mistake and ended with a draw. The American team went on to take second place to the Russians largely due to Fischer’s extraordinary performance.

At another point during his stay in Cuba, Fischer played against Castro. Both sides got advice from chess masters, and Castro won.

The friendly competition, including a congratulatory handshake at the end of the event, was captured in news photographs. The documents released by the FBI do not discuss the Fischer-Castro meeting. It’s unclear whether the match is addressed in the passages withheld by the bureau.

The dossier is 12 pages, but portions were redacted by the FBI, which claimed sections should remain shielded from public view because of national security, privacy and other reasons.

Extended Visit

Fischer’s refusal to play on Saturday was not the only part of his trip to raise questions in the FBI dossier. He did not leave Cuba with the rest of the U.S. team, and extended his visit. The FBI file does not document what Fischer did there after the matches were over.

One bureau report quoted an unnamed source who “felt it unusual that when the team returned to the United States, Fischer remained on in Cuba. He felt maybe Fischer wanted to see what the Castro regime was accomplishing.”

The FBI decided to re-examine whether Fischer’s 1966 trip to Cuba was “authorized.” The file later documented the trip to the tournament was valid.

FBI agents in Mexico City and Washington not only interviewed sources, they also combed through documents such as Fischer’s birth certificate, travel records, letters and other information on file at the U.S. Department of State’s passport office.

Dossier Compiled

The FBI compiled a four-page biography of Fischer, from his birth in Chicago to his Brooklyn childhood and his chess triumphs. The bio recounts trips for tournaments around the world, including matches in Russia and Yugoslavia, and details how Fischer lost his passport in Buenos Aires in 1960.

The FBI also examined documents about Fischer’s proposed trip to Cuba a year before the events that spurred its investigation. In April 1965, Fischer was invited to compete in Havana at a tournament named after the legendary Cuban champion, Jose Raul Capablanca.

The documents obtained from the FBI detailed Fischer’s repeated attempts and subsequent rejections to compete in the tournament late that summer. Two publications wanted Fischer to write about his trip. One was the magazine Saturday Review, which wanted a story about Cuba. The second was Chess Life.

Though Fischer would go on to author a notable book about chess, he had little professional writing experience at that time.

Passport officials rejected his 1965 bid to visit Cuba. They noted U.S. rules at the time did not deem chess tournaments a valid reason to visit the Communist country. They also “doubted Fischer would qualify as a bona fide journalist.”

While Fischer did not travel to Havana in 1965, he still played in the Capablanca tournament, competing via telegraph from the Marshall Chess Club in New York. He tied for second through fourth places – an unusual accomplishment that helped put chess on the map in America.

When Fischer finally did go to Cuba in 1966, he did not pursue any journalistic ambitions. A review of magazine articles published by the now defunct Saturday Review show no stories about Cuba by Fischer in the aftermath of his trip. A spokesman for Chess Life said that while he did write a few stories for the publication, none were about the matches in Cuba.

There is another notable omission in the portions of the documents released by the FBI: There’s no mention that Fischer’s mother, Regina, had been tracked by the feds from about 1942 until 1967 for suspicion of Soviet espionage. That investigation never led to charges.

Fischer’s FBI documents were obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request, which calls on the agency to release certain documents to the public once the person has died.

There is no evidence that the Fischer dossier ever reached the desk of then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, whose long tenure included amassing files on hundreds of public figures who had not committed crimes – a practice decried by many critics.

Bizarre Decline

Fischer is largely remembered as the troubled boy genius who faded into solitude but never obscurity. In 1992, U.S. officials barred him from a rematch with his old rival Spassky in Yugoslavia, a country that was falling apart and, in the wake of Serbian domination, was the subject of a United Nations embargo. In response, Fischer infamously spat on the order, and left the United States.

He faced prosecution on tax charges. On occasion, he emerged to grant rare interviews, in which he would spew anti-Semitic and anti-American venom.

Fischer referred to the attacks of September 11, 2001, as “wonderful news” and repeatedly called for the toppling of the U.S. government and the imprisonment of the Jewish people. Despite his tarnished public image, Fischer is also remember by many as the greatest chess player in American history

Fischer died January 17, 2008 of renal failure at the age of 64 and is buried in Iceland.

The FBI amassed a dossier on the late journalist David Halberstam for more than two decades – keeping tabs on his reporting, tracking his marriage to a Polish actress and preparing background reports on the Pulitzer Prize winner for other federal agencies, documents show.

The feds appear to have paid particular attention to Halberstam in the mid 1960s when he was a New York Times correspondent in Poland during the Cold War – when that nation was closely aligned with the Soviet Union.

Halberstam married one of Poland’s top actresses, Elzbieta Czyzewska. He was expelled in 1967 for his coverage, including stories that cast doubt on public support for Poland’s Communist leaders.

Czyzewska, who left her homeland and moved with Halberstam to New York, also was tracked by the FBI. Halberstam’s FBI file includes magazine profiles of his then-wife, and stories about him being expelled from Poland.

Many Pages Withheld

Halberstam would go on to become a best-selling author of numerous books, including “The Best and the Brightest,” a sharp look at the leaders who guided the nation into the Vietnam War.

The dossier is 98 pages, but only 62 pages were released by the FBI, which said many of the documents should remain sealed because of national security, privacy and other reasons.

The documents were obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request, which calls on the agency to release certain documents to the public once the person has died. Halberstam was killed April 23, 2007, in a car accident in Menlo Park, Calif.

In one of the most famous moments of Halberstam’s long career, President John F. Kennedy called Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, the Times’ publisher, to complain about the journalist’s reporting in Vietnam. Kennedy suggested Halberstam be removed from the assignment. The Times refused. Halberstam would go on to win his Pulitzer for his reporting on the war.

The FBI records released do not document Kennedy’s request – but it’s unclear exactly when the agency started the Halberstam file, since more than a dozen of the file’s initial pages were not made public.

Critical of Vietnam Policy

However, in a memorandum dated April 19, 1968, the FBI noted “that articles written by [Halberstam] in the past, including those written about the Vietnamese War, had been critical of the U.S. participation in that conflict.”

FBI agents compiled the dossier through a wide range of methods, from mining telephone company records to reading Halberstam’s articles, including one in Playboy. The file includes stories from The New York Times and notations about his jobs with Harper’s magazine and National Public Radio.

Some of the communications were written by officials the main office of then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, whom Halberstam once called the century’s “worst public servant.” Hoover’s long tenure at the FBI included building files on hundreds of public figures who had not committed crimes – a practice slammed by many critics.

The first entry in Halberstam’s dossier is dated September 1965. In October 1965, agents probed an anonymous letter that somehow cast Halberstam in a bad light. The details of the letter itself were redacted by the FBI.

‘No Derogatory Information’

The memorandum goes on to note that FBI files had “no derogatory information” about Halberstam. It also cast doubt on the veracity of the anonymous letter. It noted agents should treat the letter with caution, warning the missive could be “a provocation” by Polish intelligence agents or someone with “a personal vendetta” against Halberstam.

The FBI also talked with sources who provided information about Halberstam and his first wife, Czyzewska. On Aug. 11, 1969, the FBI was following a person who telephoned Halberstam. The FBI redacted the name of the person who dialed the number, though it did note that person was interested in Polish theater. The FBI did not listen in on the call, but the New York Telephone Co. told an FBI agent that the call was placed to Halberstam.

FBI Eyed Interview

On Aug. 28, 1971, the FBI weighed whether agents should interview Halberstam. The documents are unclear about why they were interested in talking to him.

The memo notes the FBI’s New York office had “no information which would preclude [an] interview with Halberstam” but would hold off interviewing him pending further instructions from the agency. There is no information from the files disclosing whether agents ever did talk with him.

The FBI prepared some documents about Halberstam for other agencies – documents known as “letterhead memorandum.” One document noted that a March 3, 1966 memo – not included in the dossier released by the FBI – was sensitive, and should not be released to another federal agency “without prior approval from the FBI.”

After Hoover died in 1972, documents concerning Halberstam thin out, though the file was added to at least through 1987. The later internal memos made public deal mainly about whether to declassify records on file.