May 19, 1971
Page 15762
THE FBI AND ITS DETRACTORS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. ASHBROOK) is recognized for 30 minutes.
Mr. ASHBROOK. Mr. Speaker, on April 5, 1971, House Democratic leader, Representative HALE BOGGS, charged on the floor of the House of Representatives that the FBI bugged the telephones of Members of both the House and Senate. He stated:
When the FBI adopts the tactics of the Soviet Union and Hitler's Gestapo, then it is time ... that the present Director thereof no longer be the Director. ... The way Mr. Hoover is running the FBI today it is no longer a free country. I ask again that Mr. Mitchell, the Attorney General of the United States, have enough courage to demand the resignation of Mr. Hoover.
Subsequently, my colleague, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. BOGGS) declared that he had "proof positive that the FBI has tapped and bugged Members' of Congress telephones."
He said
I say this categorically. I shall have further comment soon.
Mr. BOGGs' charges were immediately challenged by House Republican Leader GERALD R. FORD on April 5, who said:
I suggest that the gentleman from Louisiana submit proof before he makes such a charge or to buttress such an allegation by facts in the future.
While Representative BOGGS’ charges received banner headlines – even the Washington Star gave it an eight-column front-page head – Mr. FORD's challenge received only two sentences in the New York Times of April 6 on page 1.
Following Mr. BOGGS' remarks the news media readily provided the names of other Members of Congress who shared his feelings – note that, feelings, not facts – that their telephones had been tapped, such as Senator GEORGE McGOVERN, Senator FRED HARRIS, Senator JOSEPH M. MONTOYA, Senator HAROLD E. HUGHES, and the office of Senator EDMUND MUSKIE. Other notables who "thought" their telephones were tapped were Columnist Frank Mankiewicz, NAACP legislative chairman, Clarence Mitchell, and Washington attorney Joseph L. Rauh.
Prior to his charges of April 5. Mr. BOGGS had been mentioned in a questionnaire prepared and circulated by the Washington Post to 1,500 prominent Washington residents including Senators, Representatives, Supreme Court Justices, White House aides, lawyers, and businessmen. A total 380 persons replied of which 96 indicated a belief that their telephones were tapped, or had requested that checks be made on their lines, or had curtailed their telephone conversations.
However, "no tap or bug had been found by any of those responding" the newspaper reported. Among those responding were Representatives HALE BOGGS, JOHN E. MOSS, EMANUEL CELLER, and Senator J. GLENN BEALL.
THE TAPS THAT WERE NOT THERE
Representative EMANUEL CELLER, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, announced on April 25 that the Attorney General's wiretapping policy might be leading the Nation toward a police state. He admitted that he had no evidence that his or any other Congressmen's telephones were tapped.
In spite of the Washington Post survey and summary in February which stated that none of those complying with the survey found wiretaps, Mr. BOGGS still went before the Congress to affirm that his telephone had been tapped.
On April 22, 1971, Mr. BOGGS, speaking on the House floor stated that the Department of Justice by its statements in the case of Representative DOWDY, had now "supported and proved every aspect of the statement which he made before the House on April 5." It, of course, proved nothing of the sort. Nor did Mr. BOGGS prove anything beyond the fact that he did not prove anything.
When Mr. BOGGS first became suspicious of the FBI is somewhat of a mystery. In his April 22 speech he offered a peculiar time sequence concerning his suspicions–
(1) Today I see what until now I did not permit myself to see, and we know far more now than any of us knew 2 weeks ago about just how much liberty has yielded while the power of government has gained ground, unchecked and unchallenged.
(2) Two years ago, though, it became evident to me that the nature and character of the Bureau was undergoing conspicuous change.
(3) I have been aware that in the reality of postwar America the character of the Department of Justice has changed from an agency solely devoted to the quest for justice into an organ with great potential for political control of the American people. Over my 26 years in this Chamber, I have been aware – as each of you has been aware – of the directions in which we have been moving.
In the opening portion of his remarks, Mr. BOGGs stated:
Although I serve as majority leader of this body, I am speaking only for myself.
He then proceeded to relate the experiences of others. The majority leader stated that until April 22, he did not "permit myself to see" the dark lights cast by Mr. Hoover and the FBI. What had he really seen "2 years ago" or over his "26 years in this Chamber," by his own admission, that he withheld until April 1971? Mr. BOGGS' speech revealed that he apparently saw less than he had heard through the congressional grapevine. He said that he "knew" that former Senator Ralph Yarborough, of Texas, former Stephen Young, of Ohio, former Senator William Benton, of Connecticut, had either found or were advised to use care when using the telephones. Mr. BOGGS offered as proof only the statement that he "knew." How he knew remains with him.
Continuing to speak for others, Mr. BOGGS related additional alleged bugging experiences beyond the three Senators noted above. He mentioned that Senator MONTOYA "had reason to believe" his telephone was under surveillance and that Senator BIRCH BAYH also had reason to believe that his office was under surveillance. Senator CHARLES PERCY, former Senator Wayne Morse, and Senator MUSKIE alleged experiences were also mentioned.
BURDEN OF PROOF WITH ACCUSER
Either some congressional telephones are bugged or they are not. Mr. BOGGs declares that they are, Mr. Hoover and the Attorney General state categorically that they are not. The onus still rests with the majority leader to offer proof – not speeches – that even his own telephone is bugged.
The burden of proof is clearly on the accuser. If he cannot in fact do that, how can he expect people to believe that other Members of Congress have also had their lines monitored.
Mr. BOGGS spoke of two men who alleged – and obviously the majority leader concurs – that the Bureau was being destroyed because it was being used not to perform its mission but to protect the position of its Director. Where specifically has the Bureau failed in its mission one must ask? And protect the position of the Director from what or whom? Mr. BOGGSs admitted in the beginning of his April 22 speech that under Mr. Hoover's direction "the Bureau has earned the reputation as one of the most effective investigating agencies in the world." If that is true, then how can it not be performing its mission?
WHERE HAS THE FBI FAILED?
The following are but a few items covering the decade of only the sixties that Mr. Hoover and his organization might well be proud – and all Americans relieved – 1960-69 convictions, 127,967 – represents over 96 percent of the persons brought to trial.
Fugitives located, 143,522. Autos recovered, 209,129.
Fines, savings, and recoveries – by court or other legal action, or physically recovered, where the FBI expended investigative effort – $2,298,012,538.
Could this be the record of an organization which is not performing its mission? If its "new mission" is to protect the Director, who then is locating the fugitives, recovering the autos, and other loot not to mention the hundred and one other responsibilities assigned to the FBI? In the area of espionage, for example, several major convictions have resulted during this decade and scores of privileged foreigners – those with diplomatic immunity and thus not subject to prosecution – have been expelled from our country after extensive FBI investigation.
An article in the Washington Post of April 5, was entitled "Hoover and FBI Fast Becoming Punching Bag." And so they are. The current punchers are Senators MUSKIE and MCGOVERN who led the attacks in the Senate while those in the House included Representative BoGGS and Representative ABZUG. Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark had previously attacked Mr. Hoover's "self-centered concern for his own reputation." The liberal press has been estatic in exploiting the attacks by anti-Hoover antagonists and have been editorially expansive in this new windfall presented by Mr. BOGGS, as they have on previous occasions. For example, the Washington Post could not resist releasing the substance of the stolen FBI documents from Media, Pa., which had come into its possession. It did this in order to show the public, it rationalized, "some of the ways in which the FBI works."
The Post, as Columnist James J. KilPatrick wrote, was especially outraged at what the stolen documents revealed of the surveillance maintained "on a professor regarded as a radical." But as Kilpatrick pointed out:
To those of us on this conservative side, the disclosures on some indicates precisely the kind of expert police work demanded by the real world we live in.
The FBI was not investigating the professor because of his political views but because of the possibility that he might be in contact with two young women indicted in connection with the slaying of a Boston policeman in a bank holdup in September 1970.
The motives of the Bureau in investigating American students, professors, and scientists must not be construed as infringement of the American educational system and the pursuit of intellectual freedom
A stolen Media, Pa., FBI memo had stated. Does the press show this statement?
A truly effective attack–
Stated Frank Donner in a special supplement on "The Theory and Practice of American Political Intelligence," printed in the New York Review of Books in April–
on the evils of intelligence cannot be mounted apart from the political process. A legislative investigation.... is vital in order to scour this area . . . Such a probe could develop a fuller understanding of political intelligence and might lay the basis for dismantling a system which, if it is allowed to grow, may choke all possibility of real change in this country.
Indeed it would bring about a change – a highly unfavorable one – if the ramparts of the internal security system were "dismantled."
While anti-Hooverites on the Hill received coverage in the mass media for their allegations Hoover's congressional supporters saw little of their material or remarks gain the media's recognition. For example, 6 months ago on November 25, 1970, Congressman H. ALLEN SMITH, of California, made an interesting observation on the floor. He contrasted former Attorney General Ramsey Clark's comments on Mr. Hoover when he was in office and after he had departed.
In September 1967, Mr. Clark stated, somewhat inarticulately if quoted correctly, that of all the attributes of the excellence demonstrated by the FBI, perhaps none is more impressive than the balance this is always shown. He, contrary to expectation, perhaps to many’s evaluation of human nature, there is no quest for empire.
Contrast Clark's remarks about the Bureau's "balance" with those made by him in November 1970 that "the FBI became ideological some time back." Where was the press when Mr. Smith brought out Mr. Clark's interesting inconsistencies? Where was the media coverage for Congressman JOHN ROONEY'S support of Mr. Hoover against Mr. Clark in his remarks on the floor made at the same time.
A REPLAY OF ATTACK ON FBI
At least the Republican Congressional Committee newsletter will give some play, if the press will not, to the comments made on the floor by Hoover's supporters. The May 10 issue of the newsletter carried the remarks made by Representative WILLIAM BRAY that the current campaign against the FBI was almost an exact replica of an attack made against the Bureau and its Director three decades ago when it was compiling a general index of persons reportedly active in subversive activities detrimental to the internal security. The Bureau was conducting this project under new responsibilities proscribed by President Roosevelt in 1939.
Representative BRAY said that the Communist Party had met in Washington to plan a two- pronged attack – one on the Bureau as violating civil liberties and another against the Director himself. A key part of the party's plan was to solicit the services of certain Congressmen for the purpose of restricting the Bureau's activities, said an undercover agent who attended.
Representative Vito Marcantonio, a well known party-line supporter, attacked the Bureau and Mr. Hoover for their alleged "general raid against civil rights" and "against the civil liberties of the American people."
Representative BRAY noted the "striking" similarity between the language used then and now in these two campaigns against the Bureau and its Director. Noteworthy was the fact that the FBI's wiretapping authorization bill of 1940 had been introduced by Representative EMANUEL CELLER and passed by the House by voice vote.
Former President Harry Truman coined the apt expression that if you cannot take the heat get out of the kitchen. Winter or summer, the political heat in Washington is a scorching one. And the FBI Director has been on the receiving end of some searing statements. The Daily World, always quick to publicize a juicy anti-Hooverism, quoted Representative WALTER FAUNTROY as having stated in reference to Mr. Hoover, that he was not in the habit of commenting on the babblings of senile public officials. Mr. Hoover was given a clean bill of health at his latest medical checkup. An attack of this type tells more about Representative FAUNTROY than it does about J. Edgar Hoover.
Ramsey Clark had complimentarily stated in September of 1967 that the great Federal Bureau of Investigation is the lengthened shadow of John Edgar Hoover. For those who have in mind the effective curtailment of America's internal security system, no better way could be found than to undermine public confidence in the FBI. And to achieve this objection one must first destroy its "lengthened shadow," the Director. For others who have added their voices to the anti-Hoover chorus let them be cautioned that regardless cf who ultimately follows in Mr. Hoover's footsteps he, too, may expect to be on the receiving end of much vicious vilification. That this is true is evidence in other security areas, for example, in the attacks upon former President Johnson for his Vietnam policies, attacks which were quickly transferred to Mr. Nixon when he assumed the highest office. It is the American defense system, internal and external, which is at stake – not the personalities who command the system except insofar as the latter is the avenue to the former.
THE M'GOVERN ATTACK
On February 1 and February 10, 1971, Senator McGOVERN also took Mr. Hoover to task over the Director's handling of a personnel case involving a former FBI agent. Mindful of this admittedly sorrowful episode involving a family man who recently felt keen personal tragedy, the fact is that the Director has the authority to hire, fire, and transfer Bureau employees just as the Senators and Congressmen making these charges have similar authority regarding their own aides.
The disturbing issue in this incident, however, is the treatment accorded the press to Senator McGOVERN's latest attack on the Director. The Senator's remarks, with accompanying photo, seem to appear in the media with the regularity of a syndicated columnist. On the other hand, one searches in vain for the statement made by Senator ROMAN HRUSKA on February 17, when he revealed notable inaccuracies in Senator McGOVERN's charges, as follows:
Senator McGOVERN charged Mr. Hoover with contempt of Congress for refusing a request by the Senate Subcommittee on Administrative Practice and Procedure chaired by Senator EDWARD KENNEDY, to explain his action in the John F. Shaw case noted above. Mr. Hoover's ground for refusal was that–
The Attorney General has advised that since the courts have assumed jurisdiction of this matter it would not be appropriate for me to use any forum to contest Mr. Shaw's charges.
Senator McGOVERN subsequently learned that Mr. Hoover had previously stated his position on the Shaw matter in a letter to the editor of the Atlanta Journal & Constitution who published it. Senator McGOVERN's key point in his February 10 remarks, was that the Director had written this letter "after" he had refused to appear before Mr. Kennedy's subcommittee. To the Senator this was an affront to the Congress and an abdication of constitutional responsibility by a high official of Government.
Senator HRUSKA's research on the sequence of events revealed, however, that Mr. Hoover had written to the Atlanta newspaper's editor on January 26, while Mr. Shaw's lawsuit was filed in Federal court on January 27. Therefore, concluded Senator HRUSKA, the Director was not in contempt. The gentleman from Nebraska concluded that the Senate provides proper procedures for assessing the actions of administration officials. The motives of those who prefer, he said, to bypass those procedures for trial on the floor of the Senate should be seriously questioned.
Mr. Speaker, only if one was a reader of the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD would one have been aware of Mr. HRUSKA'S comments on Mr. McGOVERN's research procedures. The press which was so eager to discredit Mr. Hoover gave little or no play to the less bombastic but well-documented rebuttals to these charges.
THE EARTH DAY CHARGES
And the following is another instance of the omissions of the mass media. On April 14, 1971, Senator MUSKIE delivered a speech on the Senate floor highly critical of the FBI's presence at an Earth Day rally held on April 22, 1970, in Washington, D.C. The Senator had come into possession of an FBI intelligence report, which he said was unclassified, and which had been written by an agent covering the rally at which Mr. MUSKIE had spoken. The Bureau's report raises far-reaching questions, he said, over the present surveillance operations of the FBI. Mr. MUSKIE's main concern was:
Why does the FBI need to know who attended and what was said at Earth Day rallies across the Nation?
The Bureau's threat to "our privacy and freedom" was "shockingly and dramatically demonstrated" he said, by the intelligence report.
After reading the FBI's report which the gentleman from Maine had placed in the RECORD following his remarks – I was equally shocked – shocked by the stellar cast of societal misfits who had the gall to pass themselves off as Earth Day apostles and who shared the speaker's platform, shocked that an Earth Day program could be perverted into an anti-Navy, anti-Vietnam, anticapitalist, antiestablishment; prodrug rally. But I was especially shocked by the fact that the Senator did not apparently challenge those who shared his platform, neither on the spot, nor subsequently on the floor of the Senate.
Thanks to the coverage of the rally by the FBI, I was able to observe an aspect of that rally which I never would have had by merely reading the Senator's discourse of it. If, for no other reason, his inclusion of the FBI report more than answered the question for me which he had raised, "Why does the FBI need to know who attended and what was said at Earth Day rallies across the Nation?" After reading the distinguished Senator's comments my only concern at the moment is that the dedicated experts in the antipollution field who have worked hard to conserve and extend the lives of fish, fowl, plant, and animal life or this planet may have their highly proposed movement polluted by revolutionary radicals and beatniks whose sole relationship to the soil may be found in the gamey apparel they wear.
Senator MUSKIE's comments, like Senator McGOVERN's were given ample play in the press in keeping with the policy of certain newspapers to print all the news that fits their views. On the other hand, only through recourse to the CoNGRESSIONAL RECORD again could one discover the rebuttal of Senator ROBERT GRIFFIN. He noted that the FBI had a "duty and responsibility to keep track of those who have the avowed purpose of destroying our “system of government."
Referring to the charges made in this House recently, the distinguished Michigan Senator noted that there has been no evidence whatsoever that the FBI has either refused or neglected its responsibilities.
Mr. Speaker, I wish to examine now, Mr. MUSKIE's speech in somewhat more detail because of the construction that he saw fit to place upon warranted and routine FBI practices. If there were even the smallest of tempests in the Senator's rhetorical teapot, I clearly failed to observe one.
But non sequiturs, yes. First. He said that the Bureau's report was a threat to our privacy. What, one must inquire, could be less private than a public march and rally, beginning on Federal property on the Mall at 9 a.m. and ending at 1 a.m., the next day, attended by hundreds of participants including enthusiastic university students who were addressed by speakers employing microphones and bullhorns.
Second. After asking why the FBI needs to know who attended and what was said at the Washington Earth Day rally, Senator MUSKIE implied that there was no reason for FBI attendance by stating:
No crime or threat of crime was involved nor was any violence threatened.
But the FBI report itself, as the Senator initially volunteered, "mentions no hint of violence, no threat of insurrection, and no foreboding of illegal behavior." All Mr. MUSKIE could support on this point would be that the Bureau accurately reported the event as it and as the Senator observed it; that is, no violence. What the Senator failed to grasp was that the Bureau was there because of the highly developed and tested riot-provoking skills of those who shared the speakers platform with the Senator, such as Rennie Davis – Davis, the Senator should recall, is one of the seven ringleaders who were convicted for their riotous activities in Chicago in August 1968 in attempting to disrupt the Senator's party convention in Chicago. The Government is right now considering prosecution of Davis for his part !p the. May 1971 planned disruptions and demonstrators in Washington which resulted in several million dollars worth of damage and added expense to the taxpayers. I would say that the FBI would be negligent to not keep such an avowed troublemaker under surveillance.
But what if there had been violence during the Earth Day program and the Bureau had failed to cover it? Would the Bureau be equally chastised for its absence as it is now for its presence? I think so. Think back to Lee Harvey Oswald, to name only one example. Many of these same liberals were asking why the FBI did not have Oswald under observation at that time or why his potential as an assassin had not been uncovered. Mr. MUSKIE's hindsight inference that because there had been no violence the FBI should not have been there is a fallacious bit of reasoning on other counts. Violence as such, moreover, is the direct responsibility of local police authorities, not the Bureau's which is an intelligence and investigative agency. In this capacity it was fitting and proper, given the circumstances and the types of speakers, that it provide observers and, if need be, gather any pertinent evidence in the event of violence, for its parent body, the Department of Justice, for purposes of possible prosecution.
Third. The FBI report contained no classified designation, said the Senator, and therefore he felt "free to discuss it in detail – which he did not – and insert it in the RECORD" – which he did.
Prudence should dictate, it would seem, that not all unclassified data is necessarily not confidential. Surely "unclassified" senatorial or House memos and letters between the officers or Members thereof are kept in confidence excepting in the case of their release by their authors. Certain correspondence between the executive branch and the legislative bodies, unless otherwise designated, are usually not made the subject of a speech by a Member on the floor without good reason.
Fourth. The Bureau's report was sent to other members of the intelligence community, he said. It being the property of the FBI, why should it not? This revelation is no mystery to anyone who follows national security affairs as the Senator surely is aware. In fact, the exchange of such data among intelligence organizations is sound practice for at least two reasons: (a) it rounds out the picture of certain events of movements for those who have a. need to know but lack the facilities to acquire complete information and it assists in eliminating incorrect material present within the intelligence community by the process of comparison and evaluation.
Fifth. The Senator complained that such reports also were sent to persons in policymaking positions. Should those in charge of determining policy make the same in an intelligence vacuum? Would the Senator himself, in making a speech for or against a given policy, do so without the benefit of routine research on the issue?
Sixth. Senator MUSKIE stated that it was his understanding that this was but one of about 40 to 60 FBI reports on Earth Day rallies held on April 22, 1970, in various localities. He did not volunteer how he obtained this bit of information. Nevertheless, if true, it would appear that an approximately similar number of agents or agent sources were assigned to the detail in question.
This number is but an infinitely small fraction of 1 percent of the 7,000 or 8,000 agents employed by the FBI. The ranch was hardly left unattended if that is the concern of the distinguished Senator. Nor would the coverage of the various rallies appear excessive.
What possible purpose could this revelation by the Senator have served other than to unnecessarily expose an operational feature of the Bureau's method of operation to many who have no desire to know, and a few who have no need, but an illicit interest, to know everything about our intelligence system for the express purpose of destroying it.
Seventh. The Senator was quick to indicate that the FBI report in his possession was not taken from the Media, Pa., Bureau files and was in no way connected with that heist. In the final analysis, this is little comfort because the net effect was the same; that is, the public broadcast of privileged information. On this score Congressman SAM DEVINE had this to say half facetiously about FBI reports, stolen or otherwise:
But we must do something to protect persons named in FBI reports from having their privacy invaded by ambitious politicians and newspapers which act as fences for stolen documents and spread their confidential information over the entire world.
The Senator from Maine appeared to be only mildly disturbed that his name was incidentally mentioned as a speaker at a large public rally it the report. What was in this semiconfidential report that he had not already said in public to his audience? Nothing. Had it not been discussed on the Senate floor who would have been the wiser that his name was contained within the report. But he did bring it up on the floor and proved only that he appeared somewhat piqued that the FBI knows what his stand is on the issue of pollution. But who does not? The report said no more, perhaps much less, than a reporter's notes would contain. For what it is worth, I doubt if the Bureau knows or cares what my position or Mr. DEVINE'S position is on the pollution question.
Eighth. The Senator's regard far the operational practices of intelligence agents is matched only by his apparent disregard of the behavior patterns of those on whom the agents gather intelligence. What credentials on the subject of antipollution matters did Rennie Davis bring to the Earth Day ceremony? His past activities in the Students for a Democratic Society and in the Communist-influenced Antiwar Mobilization Committee and his frequent visitations to his Vietcong and North Vietnamese coaches in Hanoi and Paris reveal where his heart lies, and it is not in antipollution matters. The Senator should surely be aware at this late date how revolutionaries and radicals, who cannot cut it on their own, insinuate themselves into legitimate causes and movements. It has been observed before in other movements such as labor, student, and civil rights. Their purpose is to penetrate such groups and pervert the aspirations and platforms of persons in them for ends inimitable to American traditions. Would the following qualify as honest concerns for pollution and Earth Day matters?
First. I. F. Stone, who made antimilitary remarks?
Second. Dennis Hays who also made antimilitary remarks?
Third. Phil Ochs who made antiwar remarks?
Fourth. Rennie Davis who said he opposed all pollution except "light up a joint – marihuana cigarette – and get stoned – high,” whose interest in matters of pollution could be gleaned from the following:
One way to fight for ecology is to go to New Haven on May 1 to stop Bobby Scale's trial.
Referring to the Black Panther leader; who called for tearing down the capitalist structure, and who believed the ecology issue might divert the attention of the people from the war in Vietnam.
Roger Priest, a Navy journalist, then undergoing court-martial proceedings on charges of making disloyal and seditious statements in his antiwar publication "Off" – read ‘kilter' – also spoke. He said, after his verdict, that the slogan would be "Sink the Navy."
Pete Seeger, perpetual entertainer of antiwar and radical causes.
It must be asked was this a rally on ecology or a rally in support of North Vietnam?
Ninth. Senator MUSKIE stated:
We can continue ahead, brushing aside the delicate and immense requirements of liberty. This choice will cost us much of our freedom. Or we can pause and examine our course to see that it will destroy much of what we value most.
Only in the following context do I share the Senator's viewpoint: The "immense requirements of liberty" – since about 1965 with the rise of the New Left and the black nationalist movements – have severely overloaded the network of intelligence. Liberty requires that a vigilant intelligence complex be maintained at full strength. To choose otherwise would indeed "cost us much of our freedom" and "destroy much of what we value most." Only the most naive person could believe that these radicals have "freedom" in mind. Anarchy at best, communism at worst, would be more accurate.
FBI personnel, it appears reasonable to assume, and its dedicated Director, are as much interested, in their capacity as citizens, in resolving the pollution problems as are the rest of us.
But professionally they are charged with monitoring the activities of subversives and potential subversives regardless of where the trail may lead. The Bureau's professional interest in this instance was not in Earth Day or the Senator's presence there, as such, but in the appearance of Rennie Davis and others whose background clearly warranted the presence of Bureau observers.
The Senator's inferences noted throughout his speech were unfounded, unreasonable, and most unbecoming an official of that august body of the Congress.
Tenth. Following the summary of the Earth Day program, there appeared two other items in the report both of which were background data on two organizations: the SDS and the Progressive Labor Party, a Marxist-Leninist group which, in the Sino-Soviet estrangement, leans to the former. In the FBI agent's report no connection nor hint thereto was made between these groups and the Earth Day rally.
The Senator from Maine chose, however, to make a connection:
What is the inference? ... the inference is that Earth Day, Senator Muskie, and many thousands of Americans who gathered together to protest pollution were somehow related to SDA and the Progressive Labor Party.
A reading of the Bureau report could, it seems to me, warrant an entirely different and more logical interpretation than that drawn by the Senator. The first part of the report was prepared on the basis of personal observation. The second and unrelated portion about the two groups was provided by others as stated in the report; for example, "a source has advised" or a "second source has advised." From a point of content nothing appears in the two background documents relating to Earth Day, pollution, or subjects pertaining thereto. The only reasonable inference which could be drawn was that the Senator had an unprocessed report prepared apparently by an agent who had been given three assignments.
Mr. Hoover has been the backbone of America's security system. He is, in a sense, the George Patton, or the Vince Lombardi of the intelligence industry. If he finds it difficult to compromise with error and inadequacy, it is because of his zeal for perfection and integrity in a thankless profession. He has created an organization which necessarily brushes against the sorry sides of American life, from subversion to seduction, embezzlement to espionage, drugs to dynamite. A steady diet of this fare, day-in day-out, for 47 years would, humanly speaking, try the endurance of a St. Michael. As dean of the intelligence community he has elevated professional excellence above personal popularity or politics.
If those who serve under him selflessly relinquished a portion of their own freedom and family time, it is to preserve a fuller freedom for others. The distinguished Senator's desire for freedom is felt as keenly by Mr. Hoover as the following excerpt from his work, "A Study of Communism," clearly underscores:
America was founded on freedom. It has grown and prospered, spiritually and materially, under freedom. And, in its deep and abiding faith in the ultimate triumph of freedom, America still holds the key to the future of mankind. With faith in the inherent dignity and worth of the individual, America can face the future with vitality and resolute purpose.