The Last Word
Rothschild, Matthew
THE LAST WORD Matthew Rothschild G-Man at the Wedding After the white-gowned Catholic ceremony, the wedding party repaired to a nearby American Legion hall. Around long tables designed for...
...I just read about it," I shrugged...
...I've always done what I thought was right, and I just wasn't going to get messed up in that stuff...
...Yeah, that's right," I said, surprised to find recognition...
...It was a shot in the dark, referring to the counterintelligence program the FBI conducted in the 1960s that spied on antiwar and civil rights activists...
...I grabbed a paper plate and helped myself to sausage, mashed potatoes, turkey, and creamed corn...
...I got in line behind him...
...What does the security division do...
...Have things changed since Hoover...
...You must have your hands full these days, with E.F...
...By now, we'd eaten our cake and twice-drained our coffee cups...
...How much longer do you have at the Bureau...
...Sort of, I guess...
...I'm near retirement now, just one year left...
...Matthew Rothschild is an associate editor of The Progressive...
...Nice ceremony," I offered...
...Have you always worked in the white-collar division...
...We bantered some more, and he joined our table...
...Finally, we were given the nod to approach the buffet...
...I'm in the white-collar division...
...I wish them the best...
...It handles counterintelligence and subversive groups...
...Left haplessly to suffer as all the other tables beat us to the buffet, my wife and I crept into conversation with our fellow refugees...
...Then I'm going to start drawing my pension...
...Yeah, it wasn't the proudest moment of my life," he said, almost apologizing...
...The conversation drifted to other, safer, subjects, and my wife and I said goodbye to our new acquaintances, congratulated the bride and groom, and headed home, talking all the way about the travails of the man in the corduroy suit...
...No, before that I was in security...
...I've had enough...
...The subject quickly turned, as it does in the parched world of adult conversation, to occupations...
...It was in the 1960s, and it was my task to make sure that two black militant groups—the Zulus and the Liberators—didn't blow up a certain city...
...That was under Hoover...
...Around long tables designed for costumed patriots, two hundred friends and relatives gathered to hear nuptial toasts and partake of the Earth's bounty...
...Yeah, they're great kids," he said...
...What branch of the FBI do you work for...
...But people forget we'd done a lot of good things under Hoover, too...
...But after he died, and after Watergate, I decided I wasn't going to do that kind of thing again...
...I followed his glance over to the next table and saw a fit, middle-aged man dressed in a tan corduroy suit, the kind that crops up at high-school graduations...
...I asked...
...he said, leaning forward suddenly...
...Is that Robert LaFollette's old paper...
...They sure have...
...How did you know about that...
...We hardly knew anyone, except for the groom, so small talk exercised its usual tyranny...
...What is its politics on a scale of one to ten, one being conservative and ten being liberal...
...But I did it...
...Hutton and all the rest...
...Watergate changed my life, too," he said...
...After that, I decided I was going to follow my own conscience...
...I asked, hoping to draw him out...
...You're a child of Vietnam and Watergate, I bet...
...I tried to get them to blow each other up instead...
...Late eaters are quick eaters, and I was no exception...
...Were you involved with COINTEL-PRO...
...This young man works at The Progressive magazine," the guy next to me said...
...We soon discovered we were in the bride's territory, surrounded by lesser aunts and uncles and assorted stock...
...He acted as a tour guide for me, explaining who the other guests were, where they worked, and how they were related...
...Yeah, John Edgar Hoover," he said, pausing...
...You wouldn't believe some of the stuff that goes on," he said, shaking his head...
...The bride's uncle over there is the brains in the family," he said...
...I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with that publication," the FBI man answered...
...We never get any credit for that...
...I work at The Progressive magazine in Madison," I told the man next to me, who was employed, I had just learned, at a local brewery...
...I declined to pick a number, saying only that the magazine was to the left of the Democratic Party and to the right of Marxist-Leninist, my standard dodge...
...When I looked up from my plate, I saw the corduroy suit serving himself seconds...
...He works for the FBI...
...We made sure that some of the Southern states were enforcing the antidiscrimination laws when no one else was looking into them...
Vol. 50 • January 1986 • No. 1
