Fair Game

...Fair Game BYWALTER GOODMAN How Not to Take on the FBI Last month I attended part of a meeting in Princeton having to do with the Federal Bureau of Investigation Co-sponsors of the two-day gathering were Princeton's Wood-row Wilson School and the Committee for Public Justice, formed in the spring of 1970 "m the belief that this country has entered one of its recurring periods of dangerous repression " The committee announced its arrival under a headline notifying the nation that the Bill of Rights was being killed and over the names of several score estimable citizens Ttie executive council alone featured Ramsey Clark, Robert Coles, Norman Dorsen, Lillian Hell-man, Burke Marshall, Robert B Silvers, Telford Taylor, Jerome Wiesner, and Harold Willens, the membership list contained everybody else, from Warren Beatty to Adam Yarmohnsky Some weeks after this debut, perforce performed as a full-page advertisement in the New York Times, the committee's chairman, former U S Assistant Attorney General Roger Wilkins, contributed a statement to the Op Ed page of the Times in which he seemed to be arguing that poverty is incompatible with freedom—an argument of some cogency, though not in his presentation Among the questions he raised was this one "But how can a woman or a man be considered tree when he is shot in his bed as he sleeps at 5 a in by his local police7" I don't think that sentence was phrased with humorous intent Anyhow, Wilkins concluded with a pledge (after his committee had already fingered the Administration as being responsible for the "dangerous trend") that "we have not come together against anyone" and that "we will take great care in making our findings ' This theme reappeared in the announcement of the October 29-30 Conference on the fbi "The conference was conceived and planned as a scholarly effort to understand the structure of the fbi and its powers and role in American society The fbi has frequently been the subject of the type of public discussion that is calculated more to have a political effect than to contribute to an intelligent understanding of the Bureau and its work The co-sponsors [will] conduct the conference in a nonpartisan and scholarly manner " Good How surprising, then, to turn to the program of the meeting and discover that the greater part of the two days was to be taken up by men whose associations and writings over the years left them with no taint of objectivity about the subject they were to examine as nonpartisans Here were Thomas I Emerson of the Yale Law School and the National Lawyers Guild (nlg), Vern Countryman of the Harvard Law School, the nlg and the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, Frank Donner of the nlg and the American Civil Liberties Union (aclu) , Aryeh Neier of the aclu, William Turner, an ex-FBi agent who had previously exposed his ex-employer in Ramparts and elsewhere, I F Stone of both the Weekly that carries his name and the New York Review of Books, Robert Shernll of the Nation, Fred Cook, author of The FBI Nobodv Knows An odd cast to call together in the cause of scholarship (Think of the jokes these gentlemen would have permitted themselves if William Buckley, David Lawrence and Russell Kirk proclaimed they were getting together for a scholarly look at the fbi ) As a matter of fact, it was just the sort of group one might convene if one wanted to put on a conference calculated "to have a political effect" The men who came to Princeton unquestionably held a certain reputation in the area of civil liberties They were known to hold strong and unfavorable opinions of the fbi It may be that their opinions are justified, it may be impossible to find a dozen educated persons who do not hold strong and unfavorable opinions of the fbi Even so, one ought to resist billing such a gathering as a scholarly enterprise Can the chairmen of the meeting (Burke Mai-shall, former U S Assistant Attorney General, now at Yale Law School, Duane Lockard, head of Princeton's Political Science Department, and Norman Dorsen, professor at NYU Law School) really have failed to appreciate that elementary point7 And, no, it did not clear the an to send out invitations to Attorney General Mitchell or to J Edgar himself One knew they would not accept and if, out of some suicidal impulse, they had sent a representative, that might have resulted in a debate or a lynching, but not an exercise in scholarship Anyway, Mitchell and Hoover were probably tied up that weekend presiding over a scholarly discussion of the Black Panthers Well, the meeting was held, and the performers, good troopers all, came through Former fbi man Turner gave examples of the imperious narrow-mindedness of Director Hoover Professor Emerson charged the Bureau with jeopardizing the First Amendment Fred Cook decried its failure to deal with organized crime Robert Sherrill decried its success at self-celebration I F Stone delivered a paper on "The fbi as a Political Police" Frank Donner, an energetic researcher whose notion of scholarship is to lay on fact, allegation and supposition in any manner that will serve his preconceptions, handled "The fbi and the Use of Informers" Donnei mocked the Red-hunter's habit of ascribing social dissent to sinister individuals, but himself credited informers with astounding feats, such as sowing division among peace groups and within the Black Panthers The real trick would be to prevent such divisions Donner brought with him two young ex-informers to tell then tales The first had been assigned to watch open meetings of peace and civil rights groups for $15 a report That is, the fbi was paying $15 for what it might have picked up for lOif in a local newspaper Moreover, frequent attendance at these meetings seems to have awakened the young fellow's social consciousness Thus the fbi may have been an accessory to the radicahzation of at least one American youth Will the Subversive Activities Control Board kindly investigate7 The second young man told a moie dramatic story He claimed that he and another former informer had been directed by two fbi agents, whom he made a point of naming, to engage in bombings and other criminal activities In this roomful of professional civil libertarians, it remained for Vincent Brodenck, former New York City Police Commissioner, to voice shock" at having specific charges of illegal actions made in such a forum Frank Donner letorted, in practically the words of Martin Dies, that the truth must out—whereupon Chairman Burke Marshall cut him off and replied, somewhat uncomfortably, that the charges ought not to be received as anything but charges Balance of a sort was injected by a few of the invited observers, notably a pair of Americans for Effective Law Enforcement, who kept bringing up the radical threat More substantively, John IN Doar, who headed the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division in the 1960s, told how favorably impressed he was with the fbi's use of informers for tracking down murderers of civil lights workers in the South Is it possible that one or two or all of the major participants would have been happy with the fbi if it only used its informers and electronics on the kkk and not on the sds7 An engaging view—but inescapably political Scholars on a Spree One would have to know Professor Lockard better than I do to determine whether his assurance that the orgamzers had "no vested interest in reaching a particular result" was disingenuous The celebrated lettei in which Directoi Hoover declined to send a delegate to Piince-ton was long-winded and self-serving, yet his deduction that he and the fbi had been prejudged and found guilty did not demand the faculties of Sherlock Holmes Still, the conference might have served a worthwhile purpose The anti-Red mania and political punch of Hoover's Bureau do make a disquieting combination, and many of the criticisms aired at Princeton do merit wide attention Is it, then, mere quibble to complain about a perhaps useful meeting because of a dash of poetic license in its advertising7 Permit this quibble The shield of the scholar, I believe, is not his brilliant mind or his good heart, it is his commitment to truth That is what sets him apart from the politician or the editorialist or the public official The scholar, ideally, tries to use language not to score points but to clarify He tries to use facts not to bludgeon but to analyze The peculiarity of his profession is that he seeks not to win but to understand If the professors Emerson and Countryman and Lockard and Dorsen wished to come together to arraign the fbi, that might have been entirely laudable For them to do so under the name of Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School, and to promote their meeting as nonpartisan" and "objective" and, God save us, "scholarly," was most unscholarly We have had too much oppoi-tunity in the past few years to witness and lament the vulnerability of the university What strength it has resides in its sense of mission Although that may not be enough to save it, without that there is no special reason for it to be saved An exhibition such as the one put on in Princeton around Halloween is scholarship as understood by Maik Rudd and Ronald Reagan Idaiesay that J Edgar Hoover understands it For scholars to take part in tins kind of sport is demeaning of themselves, demoializing for the university, and a shameful perveision of a high calling...