The Nation's Pulse / G-Men in the Dock
Rusthoven, PeterJ.
networks should pay plenty!" "But then, Sanjay, the truth will have to come out--about what a softie I am, about how I did it out of love for you, how I was forced into it, how I was too kind to...
...It serves them right...
...Bell has also stated, in a rather curious pronouncement, that although the government "should" pay for the defense of those currently being prosecuted for obeying official instructions, it will not in fact do so...
...The FBI's wiretappings and break-ins were thus not aimed, despite the contrary implication of current reportage, at peaceful and well-meaning college students, voicing their sincere and troubled concern over American participation in an "immoral" war...
...297...
...Thus, prosecuting Kearney "will clearly...signal that violations of the law will not be tolerated even when committed in the name of the law...
...Moreover, it is possible that Kearney's alleged actions were legal even by today's criteria, since the Supreme Court has held off from ruling on whether warrants are required in cases involving foreign powers, and since there is good evidence that Bernardine Dohrn, one of the Weathermen's leaders, fled to the KGB in Moscow when sought for prosecution in America...
...A host of young men who either deserted or refused to serve their country in wartime have been welcomed back with open arms, absolved of blame for acts which were straightforwardly illegal, and virutally lauded for their moral foresight and fortitude...
...In the meantime, though, we should proceed full-speed against Kearney...
...According to Wicker, the decision to prosecute is "vitally necessary," since "no belief among the poor and the disadvantaged and the politically dissident is more powerfully held than that there is a tough and punitive law for them but virtually no law at all for the police agencies, the politically powerful and the economically privileged...
...28 The Alternative: An American Spectator June/July 1977 Kearney and his colleagues bore a healthy and justifiable enmity for the Weathermen, but the suggestion of a personal vendetta along the line of Bobby Kennedy's campaign to "get" Jimmy Hoffa simply ignores facts that were all too obvious just seven or eight years ago...
...In fact, those Weathermen and others who were brought to trial were not "politically prosecuted" as that term has always been understood in the past: They were prosecuted not for their political beliefs, but for engaging in bombings and other violent activities for which anyone would have been prosecuted...
...Meanwhile, Mr...
...For the Weathermen and other veterans of the SDS, who directed ,in unparalleled campaign of bombings and assorted violence during the late 1960s and early 1970s, these must be days of surprising satisfaction and unexpected vindication...
...Or perhaps endure...
...It is only the "terrible Bureau record of lawlessness [which] explains why the Justice Department has been moved to act against someone in its own investigative arm, as it has not done before and was surely hesitant to do now...
...But Daddy and I always knew that...
...intelligence agencies...
...But memories are so short in this country that we have already begun to forget the chilling catalog of what was done...
...Kearney, in other words, is being prosecuted for acts which were not held to be illegal until after he had committed them--an arguable violation of the Constitutional prohibition on ex post facto laws...
...The "illegality" of FBI tactics is so obvious, they suggest, that the only real issue is whether we should let the Bureau get away with acts which we would readily condemn if committed by anyone else...
...Pottinger's crusade against the Bureau has received support in predictable quarters, from individuals who advance predictable arguments...
...But the problem is not that we have "begun to forget the chilling catalog" of half-truths and distortions pasted together by Frank Church and his eager young aides in their crusade against the Bureau and the Central Intelligence Agency...
...Rather, we--or at least Messrs...
...Lewis voices similar sentiments, but ties them more explicitly to Pottinger's presumed ultimate objective of getting the men at the top...
...The "real issue," say both Wicker and Lewis, is "the rule of law...
...Moreover, Wicker goes on to say, "A lot of persons prosecuted politically in recent years thought they were acting in the best interests of their country, too...
...It is, all in all, a disgusting set of developments, and one hopes that Attorney General Bell or President Carter himself will put a stop to it...
...If anyone is being prosecuted for political motives in this situation, it is John Kearney...
...Since World War II, the Bureau has used wiretapping, mail-openings, and the like in any number of national security cases, with the full blessing of Presidents and Attorneys General...
...Moreover, we should remember that the "purpose" of "what was done" was "to punish, without trial, citizens whom FBI officials disliked...
...and during the 1969-70 school year, by what Sale labels "an extremely conservative estimate," there were no less than 174 on-campus bombings and at least 70 more off-campus incidents...
...It's just a fact of life, mom...
...Having attempted to fight, as he was told to do, a group of murderous and destructive thugs who may well have had ties to foreign governments, Kearney is now told that the methods he and his colleagues had employed for years no longer pass muster under the "moral" standards established in the aftermath of Watergate...
...The Justice Department itself refused to prosecute CIA personnel who took part in mail-openings, precisely because the illegal nature of such activity was not established until fairly recently...
...As Lewis reminds us, "It is just a year since a Senate Committee reported on the crimes and abuses committed by U.S...
...Besides totally ignoring the context for the FBI's domestic surveillance actions, Wicker and Lewis are equally inaccurate in blandly invoking respect for "the rule of law" as justification for the Kearney prosecution...
...But, Lewis wonders, "is it fair to prosecute a middlelevel FBI man and do nothing about higher-ups...
...Riding a crest of anti-FBI sentiment, and cheered on by the likes of Wicker and Lewis, Mr...
...Nonsense...
...Listen, ma, you can't get all that money for some television interviews and then not expect your reputation to be damaged in some way or other...
...Having thus loaded the quesion, they further suggest that the answer is obvious to any citizen who cares about law and individual rights...
...In fact, that "tough and punitive law" has permitted thousands of self-proclaimed political dissidents to escape sanction for draft-dodging and desertion...
...The Kearney prosecution is apparently the brainchild ofJ...
...Lewis' assert/,-_", that the purpose of wiretaps and surreptitious entries was "to punish, without trial, citizens whom FBI officials disliked" is grossly and laughably inaccurate...
...We must find out, therefore, "what exactly did Kearney's superiors know...
...that fall there were 41...
...Lewis is correct in saying that memories in this country are short...
...The foregoing is of course a huge distortion of the legal context in which the FBI's acts should be judged...
...In particular, Tom Wicker and Anthony Lewis, the New York Times' sanctimonious knee-jerk twins, have been at their pontificating best on this matter...
...Pottinger seeks in the name of "justice " and "the rule of law" to extract a full pound of flesh from Kearney for this distressing lack of foresight...
...now that you're out of office, the trains don't run on time...
...You won't forget to write ?" [] ~ii~00Q~00gmQO0Io9Q~QQQQ00QI00DIDO~0oai0U0OQ0O~QU04it0~QQ000QQiQ9QQ0QoQiB0QqI~m0Q00OI0a0i~U~0~QQmQ~iQQ0O0QOQQggiiDII~0QOOQ0QQ~eQI00Qi~QiO606~OI0QQg0 THE NATION'S PULSE by Peter J. Rusthoven G-Men in the Dock Even in an era when principles of common sense and simple justice are so often turned on their heads, the Government's decision to prosecute former FBI official John J. Kearney stands out as truly remarkable...
...It takes forever to get to your place these days...
...I have no doubt that Mr...
...Sanjay, you'll never know what it means to me to have a son like you to rely on...
...Pottinger and Bell--have apparently forgotten the activities against which the now-condemned domestic surveillance program was directed, and the general consensus on the legality of that program that prevailed when it was in effect...
...These bombings-which Sale suggests may represent "only a sixth of actual number"--were accompanied by literally thousands of protest incidents, involving damage to property at 410 locations and physical violence in 230 instances, during the 1969-70 school year alone...
...To date, Attorney General Bell has backed PotPeter J. Rusthoven is an Indianapolis attorney...
...Pottinger's punctilious concern for the civil rights of the Weathermen is at bottom a silly and unfair expression of that peculiar phenomenon known as "postWatergate morality...
...FBI statistics on this period (compiled long before the current brouhaha) reveal property damage from such incidents running into several millions of dollars...
...In a free society," he intones, "the police cannot be above the law...
...Decision on the issue of whether warrants were necessary in cases involving foreign subversive or intelligence activity was expressly reserved...
...Rather, such actions were undertaken in an effort to defuse an organized and well-financed band of revolutionaries, embarked on a calculated and systematic program of disruptive violence...
...Yeah, well maybe some other time...
...Consider the following data from Kirkpatrick Sale's sympathetic and even laudatory history, SDS: In the spring of 1968, there were 10 bombings on college campuses...
...o There j _9 LI C ~L,~ _9 rq Sarkes Tarzian Inc...
...Kearney faces a possible prison sentence for using tactics which had been presumed legal for some 25 years, as part of a battle against well-organized, armed, and dangerous cadres of adolescent terrorists...
...Stanley Pottinger, head of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department...
...You'll come this weekend...
...There was no hint of judicial challenge or disapproval of such tactics until 1972, when the Supreme Court decided United States v. United States District Court (402 U.S...
...Wicker's defensive comments that the "politically dissident" face a "tough and punitive law," and were "prosecuted politically" even though they "thought they were acting in the best interests of their country, too" is a further illustration of the same nonsense...
...next spring, 84 on campus and 10 off campus...
...That's one of the costs of being in the arena--the Indian people will have to learn how sweet you are...
...Kearney is accused of violating the civil rights of members of the Weather Underground Organization, by supervising supposedly illegal wiretaps, break-ins, and mail-openings...
...You're a sweet boy, and you must come visit me...
...Why is that, darling...
...In that case, the Court held simply that in the future, in cases involving a purely domestic group, electronic surveillance would require a warrant...
...As Sale puts it, "Political violence at the end of the decade, in other words, may not have brought about a revolution--but it was the closest thing to it that an ongoing society could imagine...
...Pottinger seems to view the prosecution of Kearney as a means of getting enough information to indict higher-ranking FBI officials...
...tinger's efforts...
...Bloomington, Indiana The Alternative: An American Spectator June/July 1977 29...
...But then, Sanjay, the truth will have to come out--about what a softie I am, about how I did it out of love for you, how I was forced into it, how I was too kind to say no...
Vol. 10 • June 1977 • No. 9
