Insufficient Evidence

...Unfortunately, this book-Made up largely of critical comments from a conclave sponsored by the Committee for Public Justice at Princeton in June, 1971-offers a picture of the former number one U.S...

...When auto theft, Dillinger and kidnappers fascinated the populace-while the power of organized crime grew apace-Then the Bureau was there dutifully grinding out the statistics to confirm our worries...

...This volume does not resolve any of these dilemmas because its perspective is too narrow, and the questions it raises are not basic enough...

...With no attempt to assess Hoover as either an ideologue or a power holder, it ignores his influence in shaping public attitudes toward crime and Communism, and concentrates instead on a catch-as-catch-can welter of grotesque, irrelevant stories about his character and personality traits...

...Indeed, it may well have been Gray's fate to contribute unwittingly to Hoover's reputation as a "dedicated professional" and an "objective law enforcer" only peripherally concerned with either politics or power...

...On the one hand, we want the FBI to be "professional," to function independently of "politics," at least "partisan politics...

...professional") corner...

...If we are going to have an investigative agency that is to operate secretly, if that organization is to perform intelligence as well as other functions, and if its inquiries are bound to deal with (and therefore inhibit) free speech, can we have anything better than the FBI...

...Most people are ambivalent about the precise nature of the Bureau's role, and that ambivalence is reflected in this volume...

...discussion at this moment should focus on a much more fundamental problem: the role of a secret police force in an open and (hopefully) still democratic society...

...Even the eminently sane proposals that came out of the conference-for example, separating "crime solving" from "intelligence gathering," and requiring prior judicial authorization for the planting of informants into political movements-Do not meet the problem...

...Reviewed by Isidore Silver Professor of Law, John Jay College In the course of his confirmation hearing, and in his revelations after withdrawing as acting head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, L. Patrick Gray III made one thing perfectly clear: He is no J. Edgar Hoover...

...Hoover, for all the criticisms in Investigating the FBI, did maintain a delicate balance between "professionalism" and responsiveness to political pressure...

...If the Bureau generally observes fair procedures in conducting its criminal investigations, as Earl Warren has declared, where do we draw the line of "legitimacy...

...In addition, as many of the participants rightly noted, the complexity of surveillance issues is increased by the numerous political offenses on our statute books...

...Of course, if that control threatens to be repressive to civil liberties, liberals demand that the FBI retreat to a "neutral" (i.e...

...On the other, we feel it should be subject to Executive control, although, given our national propensities, this necessarily means "political control...

...When, to the eve of World War II, Communism rather than Fascism bedeviled Americans at large, it also vexed the FBI...

...Clearly, there is more to Hoover than meets the eye...

...Finally, how do we cure excesses that are due, not to bureaucratic structures, but to: (a) American snoopiness, (b) the parochial background of the agents, (c) the "investigative mentality" of professionals in the field, and (d) pressures from above...

...lawman that is woozy, narrow and peculiarly un-historical...

...When the wind direction changed, as it did not too long ago under the Kennedys-who brought the Federal government into the fight for civil rights and against organized crime-The FBI chief tacked...

...Yet Hoover's quirks, his testiness, fussiness, bureaucratic caution, and almost cosmic inability to direct his (and the Bureau's) energies to the right enemy at the right time and in the right place are well known to any reader of the New York Times...

...Hoover constantly bent with the wind, whatever his personal inclinations, and whatever his individual penchant for chasing Communists and small fry "rats...

...A case can certainly be made against the FBI, and against the man who commanded it for 50 years...

...A meaningful investigation of his lifework remains to be done...

...Not, however, on the evidence in this book-Especially when the FBI is measured against the "red squads" of various local police forces and the "dirty tricks" division of the CIA...

...Anyone familiar with law enforcement in contemporary America knows that criminal investigation and intelligence gathering activities will always blend, no matter how they are carried on, and that judges will grant warrants to the FBI to authorize informants virtually at request...

...For liberals, too, are elevating his legend yet another notch, rushing, in the light of recent disclosures, to proclaim the "old man's" virtues...

...But what is repression to one man may be a reasonable exercise of Executive authority to another...

...Perhaps inadvertently, investigating the FBI reveals how quintes-sentially American Hoover and his Bureau were, intruding upon the lives of those citizens perceived by the "silent majority" to be threats to the national security...