Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group

Religious Freedom and the Obama Contraceptive Mandate

By Stephen V. Monsma

An on-going controversy concerns the Obama administration’s attempt to mandate that under the new Affordable Care Act employers’ health insurance plans must include contraceptive coverage.  And contraceptive coverage is defined broadly enough to include sterilization procedures and what some consider abortifacients.  This has aroused the strong opposition of the Catholic Church—which has long opposed artificial birth control as a violation of its religious beliefs—and some evangelical Protestant groups, largely on the basis of the inclusion of what they consider abortifacients. 

Those who oppose the contraceptive mandate are claiming their religious freedom rights are being violated, since the mandate would require them to act in violation of their deeply-held religious beliefs.  Others claim that this a public health issue, not a religious freedom issue, since  assuring that contraceptives are readily available will protect women from unwanted pregnancies and reduce the number of abortions.  As a recent columnist in the New York Times wrote, “[T]he provision of preventive services without a co-pay does not interfere with a religious practice or ceremony.” 

This controversy—which has generated much heat and is likely to continue to do so throughout this election year—largely turns on one’s understanding of what constitutes a religious organization or a religious practice.   We all cringe at the thought of a government edict telling St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York how it is to celebrate the mass or who may or may not officiate at the mass.  We all recognize this would be a violation of the religious freedom rights we all hold dear.  The organization in this example (St. Patrick’s Cathedral) is clearly accepted by all as a religious organization and the practice (the celebration of the mass) as a religious practice. 

 But this agreement breaks down and the controversy explodes when the organization is not a religious congregation in the traditional sense and the practice does not involve a religious ritual or ceremony.  What about a nonprofit spouse abuse program that was begun by an evangelical Protestant church, is still largely supported by church members, and explicitly states that it is providing services in obedience to Jesus Christ and in his name?  Is it a religious organization?  And are the volunteers and staff who counsel with and offer help to women who have been abused and preyed upon engaging in a religious act? Or what about a Catholic college that takes its religious commitment seriously and seeks to understand the world within the context of historic Catholic thought and reflection?  Is it a religious organization?  And is a professor who seeks to apply Catholic social teaching in her sociology course engaged in a religious act?

As I explain in my book, Pluralism and Freedom: Faith-Based Organizations in a Democratic Society, for historic reasons Americans, and especially the educated elite, tend to exclude as religious organizations and religious practices organizations and practices outside of religious congregations and their core religious rituals and ceremonies.  But such a narrow view of religion is untenable.  It is inaccurate to say that when the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., led African American demonstrators out of their churches and into the streets in defense of racial justice he changed from a religious leader to a secular leader.  An official statement the National Association of Evangelicals testifies to its belief that its faith not only encompasses acts of love and mercy but demands them: “Jesus said that those who do not care for the needy and the imprisoned will depart eternally from the living God.”  The nature of religion as extending beyond the confines of church and synagogue was clearly summarized by Robert Bellah and his associates in their classic, Habits of the Heart, when they wrote:  “Yet religion, and certainly biblical religion, is concerned with the whole of life—with social, economic, and political matters as well as with private and personal ones.” 

To me, this means that when a governmental edict clashes with faith-based organizations’ thought-out, long-held, religiously-based beliefs and practices, our public policies should do all they can to accommodate those beliefs and practices.  This is what protects the pluralism and diversity to which we as a society claim to aspire.

Coming back to the current controversy over the contraceptive mandate, this means no church should seek to force its view of contraceptives onto all of society; no government mandate should seek to force faith-based organizations to provide contraceptives in violation of their religious beliefs.  Religious liberty and religious freedom rights are indeed at stake here.  We as a people have long lived together with our deepest differences by each group respecting those with whom it does not agree and allowing them, to the fullest extent possible in keeping with public health and safety, to follow their beliefs.  My book mentioned earlier suggests that we need to renew this commitment and broaden it to include the host of educational, health, and social service faith-based organizations that continue to contribute much to our life together.

 

About the author:

Stephen V. Monsma is a senior research fellow at the Henry Institute at Calvin College and professor of political science emeritus at Pepperdine University. He is the author of numerous works for faith-based organizations and church and state relations, including Faith, Hope, and Jobs and Putting Faith in Partnerships.

The Messages in President Obama’s Spotify Playlist

By Benjamin S. Schoening and Eric T. Kasper 

Now that 2012 is upon us, so is another presidential election. Barack Obama is seeking a second term as the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for president, and four candidates are currently vying for the Republican Party nomination. There are many strategic decisions which these politicians make to promote their candidacies, including crafting inspiring speeches, offering eloquent answers to interview questions, and creating patriotic backdrops at campaign events. For as long as there have been American presidential elections, one of the candidates’ quadrennial considerations has also been selection of the right music.

President Obama made news on February 9th when he announced his campaign’s Spotify playlist. For those not familiar with Spotify, it is an online music service that streams songs to members of the website. President Obama released his playlist in 2012 in much the same way that he announced his iPod playlist during his 2008 candidacy. Playlists such as this can send powerful messages to the electorate, as they can transmit political ideas or associate a candidate with a notable musical celebrity. With this in mind, let’s have a look at a few of the 28 songs on President Obama’s Spotify playlist.

One of the more notable selections is Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together.” President Obama previously sang the first few bars of this song at an appearance in the Apollo Theater in New York City on January 19th. Although originally written as a romantic song when first released by Green in the early 1970s, the song’s title and hook offer a powerful message from an incumbent president to the voters: vote for me, so that we can mutually continue along the path we are on now.

A second song choice by President Obama that musically asks for another opportunity to serve the country is U2’s “Even Better than the Real Thing.” In multiple places the overarching message is that the listener will be satisfied by giving the singer one more chance. The song goes on to refer to its audience as the real thing and even better than that. This can be interpreted as a way to “pump up” supporters of the President. Again, like “Let’s Stay Together,” the lyrics of “Even Better than the Real Thing” were clearly originally written with romantic intent, but the key catchy parts of the song can be co-opted to express relevant political messages.

REO Speedwagon’s “Roll with the Changes” exemplifies another important political theme for President Obama. The title of this tune harkens back to one of the President’s major campaign slogans from 2008: Change we can believe in. The lyrics go on to tell the listener that the singer is available when the listener is ready to move along with the changes that lay ahead. The lyrics also tell the listener that the tables have turned, and they imply that the darkest hour has passed. Certainly, one could see this as a message from President Obama that the economy is on the mend and things are getting better because of the changes he has implemented.

The songs a campaign chooses can also be used to thwart the message of the political opposition. One song on President Obama’s playlist that does this is “No Nostalgia” by Ages and Ages. Recently, Republican candidates have expressed a message that the country is on the wrong path, and only they can restore America to its past greatness. The hook of “No Nostalgia” takes aim at this notion, claiming that instead of looking to the past we should concentrate on the promise of what our country is now and can become in the future.

Of course, one must be careful not to read too much into these lyrics and song choices. Still, there is no doubt that President Obama and those working on his reelection campaign thought long and hard about which songs to release. Ultimately, song choice is an important consideration for presidential campaigns. The right song can become a memorable way to express important political messages. On the other hand, the wrong songs can muddle a campaign message, and key song omissions can lead to hurt feelings among those who were musically snubbed.

____________________

About the authors: Benjamin S. Schoening and Eric T. Kasper are the authors of Don't Stop Thinking about the Music: The Politics of Songs and Musicians in Presidential Campaigns.  Benjamin Schoening is Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Wisconsin-Barron County and music director of the Red Cedar Choir in Rice Lake.  Eric T. Kasper is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Barron County and the municipal judge in Rice Lake.

Tobias Matthay: Injuries of a Forgotten Master Teacher

By Stephen Siek

In the mid-1850s, Sigismund Lebert and his colleague Ludwig Stark issued a popular series of piano method books, formidably entitled Theoretical and Practical Piano School for Systematic Instruction in all Branches of Piano-Playing from the First Elements to the Highest Perfection. True to their Germanic heritage, their approach was systematic and thorough, though their advice was confined to the mere insistence that all pieces be practiced loudly and repetitively—to obtain “a firm style of playing.”

When Lebert and Stark published their books, the piano had undergone dramatic changes from the time of Mozart. It had grown in size and power, so that by the mid-nineteenth century that “firm style” became an obsession to many. When the American pianist Amy Fay arrived in Berlin in 1869, she complained in her correspondence about the draconian methods of her teacher, Louis Ehlert:

You have no idea how hard they make Cramer’s Studies here. Ehlert makes me play them tremendously forte. … My hand gets so tired that it is ready to break, and then I say that I cannot go on. “But you must go on,” he will say.

Yet even as many clung to the old ways, some teachers in Europe began to notice how unsuitable rigorous drills with stiffly held fingers (however effectively they may have served the harpsichordist) were for extracting artistic effects from the modern piano—and could even lead to incapacitating injuries.

But in 1903 a new era dawned when Britain’s Tobias Matthay (1858-1945) published The Act of Touch. This major work emphasized a more enlightened approach to piano performance. Matthay lived at a time when many believed that science could unlock the secrets of artistry, and that even virtuosic playing could—and should—be effortless. He disavowed the age-old credo of mind-numbing drill and calisthenics. Instead he stressed that all real practice demanded analysis of the causes of technical problems—analysis that rested on a study of the piano’s mechanisms and human physiology. Between the Wars, Matthay’s influence flourished on both sides of the Atlantic, spurred on by the successes of such noted pupils and master pianists as Dame Myra Hess, Sir Clifford Curzon, and Dame Moura Lympany.

How ironic today then to observe over 100 years later, in a blog posting from September 2009, a prominent teacher echoing the hortatory advice of Lebert and Stark than the thoughtful Matthay:

First have the student play each run slow, heavy, digging in. Repeat 3 to 5 times with the right hand alone. I play along emphasizing playing loud, slowly … If the hand gets tired during the slow, heavy, digging in practice, have the student practice the left hand chords.

Such advice is not unusual for piano teachers today in light of how Matthay’s ideas have all but vanished from the mainstream. And yet…and yet… not so coincidentally, nearly every piano blog today devotes a generous amount of space to the discussion of the injuries that Matthay’s lessons on piano technique studiously sought to avoid—begging the question of whether a re-discovery of Matthay’s teachings might not well be less expensive than physical therapy sessions or even surgeries some pianists undergo.

Stephen Siek is the author of England's Piano Sage: The Life and Teachings of Tobias Matthay. A pianist and musicologist with an extensive background in Matthay teaching principles, he is a professor of music at Wittenberg University.

Surveillance Directed at Critics of the FBI

By Ivan Greenberg (first published on Ivan Greenberg’s blog 5/16/2011)

J. Edgar Hoover’s conception of free speech did not include criticism of the FBI. Public expressions that challenged the supremacy of political policing should be monitored and, if possible, sabotaged. The “free press” was not free enough to question the validity of the government’s domestic intelligence system. A chief example of intolerance of press criticism is the FBI’s relationship to the Nation magazine. The magazine’s FBI file totals about 2,000 pages with the largest portion covering the late 1950s when the FBI believed it faced growing opposition to its spying practices. The Nation directly challenged FBI power when it devoted the Oct. 18, 1958, issue to a single article on the FBI by Fred J. Cook. The FBI viewed the article as “vicious” and “destructive” and began to track Cook interviewing his friends and family and opening his mail. Hoover wrote in a memo, “I think we should discreetly get a line on this man and his background and associations for current article just didn’t ‘bloom’ – it is planned literary garbage barrage against FBI by a dedicated [Alger] Hiss apologist.” The FBI also identified Nation editor Carey McWilliams as someone “long publicly identified with the activities of a number of subversive organizations.”

The Bureau investigated Nation contributors and leaked negative information about the magazine to members of Congress and friendly press sources to undermine its reputation. In 1959, the bureau produced a 180-page monograph, “Smear Campaign Against the FBI,” which focused exclusively on the magazine. The FBI feared the view that it should be restricted to investigations of criminal conduct and FBI critics run “the risk of being considered an enemy of the nation.” The FBI argued, “Cook’s article represents a manifesto for intensified attacks against the Bureau which can be expected in the future.” Only Communists (and their allies) wanted to limit FBI power. “The strategy of the smear campaign is now transparently revealed. With the FBI discredited and disposed of, communists and other subversive operatives would be able to flourish with relative impunity.”

Another FBI critic, historian Henry Steele Commager, often wrote for the popular press with negative views of the Red Scare. His FBI file (457 pages) covers more than 20 years. In 1947, the FBI opened an investigation after Commager’s article to Harper’s magazine (“Who is Loyal in the U.S.?”) attacked emerging McCarthyism. Commager’s defense of liberalism and criticism of the Director led top officials, such as assistant director William C. Sullivan, to view him as “a too vocal, bombastic and misinformed liberal or ‘fellow traveler.’” The FBI questioned his loyalty after an article for the Nation was distributed by the Communist Party to attract members. When Commager argued in the New York Times that the CP had a constitutional right to exist, the FBI noted that he “was making Communistic addresses and remarks which appeared to be harmful and not to the best interests of the Government of the United States.” In another article, Commager denounced loyalty tests (“Where Government May Not Trespass”) prompting the Bureau to compare him to the National Lawyers Guild. They continued to condemn him for how others used his work: Commager “has long been considered a ‘darling’ of the Communist Party.” The Bureau expressed anti-intellectual sentiments: “Commager’s article illustrates that the real danger to needed Governmental authority is from the pseudo-intellectual realm.” By the early 1960s, the FBI had placed Commager on its “Not to Contact” list because “he has been a long-time critic of the FBI.”

New York Post columnist and editor James Wechsler challenged Hoover’s leadership and defended FBI critics. Wechsler began his career working for liberal-Left publications: the Nation during the late 1930s; and the newspaper PM during the early 1940s. While at PM, the FBI placed him on its “custodial detention” list and Hoover described him (and his wife, Nancy) as “radicals and leftists of the most dangerous type.” At the Post during the 1950s and 1960s, Wechsler criticized the FBI in three key areas. He viewed the infiltration of the CP as counterproductive. He criticized the Bureau’s failure to protect black civil rights workers in the South. In this regard, he proposed stripping the FBI of its jurisdiction for civil rights. Lastly, Wechsler wrote against FBI surveillance of student activism at the University of California, Berkeley. Wechsler’s FBI file grew to about 530 pages with critical notes about his journalism. One memo indicates: “His hostility to Mr. Hoover and the FBI actually renders a negative service to the cause that Wechsler supports.”

In 1962, a Post article featured historian Howard Zinn, who had authored a report critical of the FBI’s civil rights enforcement in Albany, Georgia. A memo in Zinn’s FBI file says his views were “slanted and biased” but “expected from an individual of Zinn’s background.” The FBI identified Zinn as a former Communist. In response to the Post article, Hoover directed agents to discredit Zinn by spreading information about his CP associations and sympathy for Cuba. “Suggest our friends on Georgia papers be alerted.” An FBI official also wrote: “Zinn should not be dignified by contact by this Bureau.” After an article appeared in the Boston Globe in 1964 again quoting Zinn, FBI officials noted: “This is the second time the “Boston Globe” has published distorted articles concerning the FBI… the Crime Records Division [should] attempt to set the record straight through other friendly news sources in the Boston area.” Hoover approved this recommendation with a short note -- “yes and promptly.”

The FBI demonized media criticism even in the form of satire. The Director called Washington Post columnist Art Buchwald a “sick comic” and directed agents to monitor his writing. As an example of Buchwald’s satire, in 1964 he suggested that President Johnson was unable to fire Hoover as director because the lawman actually did not exist. “What happened was that in 1925 the Reader’s Digest was printing an article on the newly formed Federal Bureau of Investigation and as they do with many pieces they signed it with a nom de plume,” Buchwald wrote. “They got the word Hoover from the vacuum cleaner – to give the idea of a clean-up. Edgar was the name of one of the publisher’s nephews, and J. stood for jail.” An interview with Buchwald in Playboy magazine elicited a long FBI memo about the writer’s subversive Cold War humor. “Buchwald has previously come to the Bureau’s attention in connection with his writings,” the FBI noted.

"Spoke of FBI informers in the Communist Party and the possibility that ‘someday soon J. Edgar Hoover will be elected Chairman of the American Communist Party.’ Buchwald also commented that ‘you’re allowed to make fun of the FBI because they have such a good sense of humor.’ ‘They never get upset when you make fun of them. You may get a call from two FBI Agents the morning after the column appears, at 3 o’clock in the morning, but it always is a friendly call. It is the one organization in Washington that doesn’t mind being laughed at.’

"This particular issue contains no other references to the Bureau or the Director and the entire issue is the typical trash which has characterized Playboy since it inception."

In a separate file, the FBI monitored Playboy for carrying on “a campaign of snide innuendoes against the FBI and at times was outright critical of the Bureau and the Director."

The FBI infiltrated writer’s organizations (American Newspaper Guild, Radio Writers Guild, and American Authors League) and focused surveillance on a broad segment of allegedly “anti-American” book authors: E. B. White, Sinclair Lewis, John Steinbeck, Upton Sinclair, Carl Sandburg, Theodore Dreiser, John Dos Passos, Pearl S. Buck, Dorothy Parker, H. L. Mencken, Edmund Wilson, John Kenneth Galbraith, Norman Mailer, Irving Howe, Betty Freidan, and Studs Terkel. The FBI developed informants in the publishing world. The best known case involves Henry Holt and Company. As scholar Claire Culleton notes, for several decades Hoover reviewed manuscripts and the firm sought “his explicit approval on authors and his advanced sanction on works and topics under consideration by the press.” Once the FBI approved a book for production, it obtained advanced copies of page proofs and played a central role in designing Holt’s advertising and marketing campaigns.

Three books critical of the FBI prompted efforts at suppression. In the case of Max Lowenthal’s The Federal Bureau of Investigation (1950), Hoover obtained an advance copy and tried to plant anti-Lowenthal editorials in newspapers. In an effort at censorship, agents tried to discourage booksellers from stocking the work. In order to counter the book’s impact, the FBI distributed a reprint of a Reader’s Digest article, “Why I No Longer Fear the FBI,” by ACLU leader Morris Ernst, who doubled as an FBI informer. Hoover also obtained an advance copy of Fred Cook’s The FBI Nobody Knows (1964) and helped delay publication for several years. Cook’s book built on his Nation article and the FBI believed the negative depiction of Hoover’s relationship to others in government posed a challenge to its organizational integrity. The FBI told its agents:

"Cook claims that official Washington is intimidated by Mr. Hoover, citing a situation in which the publisher of the New York Post had found that ‘some of the most distinguished figures in the Hill simply will not be quoted on the subject of Hoover.’ In addition, Cook, through quotes from unnamed liberal Congressman who express fear of Mr. Hoover, attempts to make Mr. Hoover responsible for an atmosphere of conformity. It can be said that the unnamed Congressman seem to be feeble carriers of the liberal tradition if they are afraid to express their views."

The FBI tried to suppress Peter Matthiessen’s In the Spirit of Crazy Horse (1983), which offers a sympathetic history of the American Indian Movement (AIM). The book focuses on the FBI’s role in the flawed prosecution of AIM leader Leonard Peltier, which Matthiessen compares to the Sacco and Vanzetti case of the 1920s. Matthiessen hoped his book “might become an organizing tool in his [Peltier] fight for justice,” while the FBI sought to limit the book’s circulation. Within a year of publication, an FBI special agent cited in the book filed a $25 million libel suit against Matthiessen and his publisher, Viking Press. Although the FBI lost the case after eight years of litigation, the lawsuit substantially delayed paperback and foreign editions. In the Peltier case, two FBI agents had been killed in the line of duty and the Bureau’s pursuit of justice included legal misconduct.

For Further Reading:

FBI monograph, “Smear Campaign Against the FBI: The Nation,”1959.

Fred J, Cook, Maverick: Fifty Years of Investigative Reporting.

Richard Lingeman, “The Files’ Tale: Redbaited by the FBI,” The Nation, Jan. 11, 2010.

W. C. Sullivan to A.H. Belmont, Feb 19, 1955. Nation FBI file

D.M. Ladd to Director, “Henry Steele Commager,” June 29, 1949. Commager FBI file

W. C. Sullivan to A.H. Belmont, Jan. 29, 1957, Commager FBI file

A. H. Belmont to L.V. Baordman, “Henry Steel Commager, Central Research Matter,” Nov. 35, 1957. Commager FBI file

M. A. Jones to Mr. Nease, “Request for Information Regarding Porfessor Henry Commager,” June 13, 1958. Commager FBI file.

M. A. Jones to Mr. Deloach, “Henry Steel Commager,” Nov. 15, 1963. Commager FBI file.

FBI Liasion [name redacted] to White House, July 10, 1967. Commager FBI file.

Department of State report, “Henry Steel Commager,” Oct. 19, 1968. Commager FBI file.

SAC Boston to Director, “Henry Steel Sommager,” Nov. 21, 1976. Commager FBI file.

Murray Polner, “James Wechsler: The Editor Who Dared Challenge J. Edgar Hoover,” Jan. 5, 2004, http://hnn.us/articles/2869.html.

FBI monograph, “The FBI in Our Open Society,” June 1969. http://www.governmentattic.org/docs/FBI_In_Our_Open_Society_1953.pdf.

M. A. Jones to Mr. DeLoach, “Howard Zinn,” Nov. 27, 1962. Zinn FBI file.

A. Rosen to Mr. Belmont, “Racial Situation Albany, Georgia,” Nov. 15, 1962. Zinn FBI file.

A. Rosen to Mr. Belmont, “Howard Zinn,” Jan. 8, 1964. Zinn FBI file.

David Carty, “Art Buchwald Couldn’t Make This Man Laugh,” CBSNews.com, June 25, 2008, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/25/national/main4207013.shtml.

M. A. Jones to Mr. DeLoach, “’Playboy’ Magazine, April,1965,” March 3, 1965. Buchwald FBI file.

Hugh Hefner- Playboy Magazine FBI files, http://www.paperlessarchives.com/playboy.html.

Herbert Mitgang, Dangerous Dossiers: Exposing the Secret War Against America’s Greatest Authors (New York: Ballantine Books, 1988).

Natalie Robbins, Alien Ink: The FBI’s War on Freedom of Expression (New Brunswick: Rutgers University, 1982).

“FBI Tracked ‘Working” Man Studs Terkel,” NY City News Service, Nov. 15, 2009.

John Rodden, “Wanted: Irving Howe FBI No. 727437B,” Dissent (Fall 2002).

Claire A. Culleton, “Extorting Henry Holt & Co.: J. Edgar Hoover and the Publishing Industry,” in Culleton, ed., Modernism on File (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).

Stephen J. Whitefield, “Civil Liberties and the Culture of the Cold War, 1945-1965,” in Raymond Arsenault,ed., Crucible of Liberty: 200 Years of the Bill of Rights (New York: New Press, 1991).

Peter Matthiessen, In The Spirit of Crazy Horse (New York: Viking, 1991).

Ivan Greenberg is a former adjunct instructor in the City University of New York college system and the author of The Dangers of Dissent: The FBI and Civil Liberties since 1965.

Martin Luther King, Jr. and Today’s Confessional Politics

By Brian T. Kaylor

Twenty-five years ago, the third Monday in January was designated a federal holiday in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday. Born on January 15, the Baptist pastor led one of the most significant social movements in the history of the United States, transforming American politics, society, and religion. More than four decades after King’s assassination, the fruits of his work continue to reverberate throughout society. When Barack Obama placed his hand on the Bible two years ago and took the presidential oath of office, it symbolized a partial fulfillment of King’s dream.

However, King’s influence on American politics today extends far beyond opening doors for minorities to find political success. King and the civil rights movement also impacted the relationship between religion and politics. Few political figures invoked God and cited scripture as explicitly and eloquently as the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. In many respects, King’s civil rights movement—and to a lesser extent the anti-Vietnam War movement that he was also part of—brought religious rhetoric squarely into public policy debates and created a model for later religious activists seeking political influence. King built a movement that urged religious leaders and citizens to leave the church sanctuary and march into the streets. He directly served as a primary instigator for today’s liberal evangelical movement and an inspiration for today’s conservative evangelical movement—even among those who initially criticized his political mission.

Many politicians join religious leaders in pointing to King as justification for infusing God and scripture more heavily into their political discourse. While arguing the importance of connecting one’s faith to one’s policies during the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama pointed to King and other religious-political activists: “Look, Martin Luther King, the abolitionists, the suffragettes, Dorothy Day—we have a long history of reform movements being grounded in that sense, often religiously expressed, that we have to extend beyond ourselves and our individual immediate self-interests to think about something larger.” As Obama correctly noted, King and his movement demonstrated how religious faith can inspire people to make the world a better place. To attempt to excise faith from the public square would be to isolate society from the influences of individuals like King.

Yet, the reverse problem can also develop—one where politicians attempt to become preachers and use the government to enforce their specific sectarian goals. King, the prophet calling out the powerful interests, demonstrated the healing power of faith. But those same aspirations could backfire if used instead by those in power to maintain their positions. In the age of confessional politics in which we live, too often religion is used to gain power and strip minority religious groups of their civil rights. What we need is not necessarily more or less religion in politics, but a different kind. We need the faith that King preached, the faith that shows love for all one’s neighbors, the faith that empowers the down trodden, the faith that fights for justice for all.

Dr. Brian T. Kaylor (www.BrianKaylor.com) is an assistant professor of communication studies at James Madison University. He is the author of Presidential Campaign Rhetoric in an Age of Confessional Politics.

PTSD is not a modern phenomenon

By Dennis W. Brandt

Loss of courage.” “Battle fatigue.” “Shell shock.” These are just some of the historical names for a debilitating psychological condition inherent to warfare. Modern psychiatrists call it “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” a condition brought to the public’s attention in a post-Vietnam world but one that hardly began in the rice paddies of Southeast Asia. The recent HBO documentary, Wartorn: 1861—2010 includes the tragic story of a young Civil War soldier named Angelo M. Crapsey. I chronicled Angelo’s slip into mental torment in my book Pathway to Hell: A Tragedy of the American Civil War and was honored that HBO included a Civil War segment partly because of the book. I also served as a consultant for the show.

PTSD is a relatively neglected aspect of Civil War research. Obviously, no one can interview those involved, and people then were reluctant to discuss the matter and thus left little documentation. Moreover, historians by nature have little or no training in psychology and are understandably reluctant to psychoanalyze the dead. But what became clear during my research was that those who experienced Antietam, Gettysburg, or Shiloh felt no less terror and were no less psychologically debilitated than those who stormed the beaches at Iwo Jima and Normandy, endured the Tet Offensive, or are fighting now in the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan. The Civil War became romanticized even during its veterans’ lifetimes, but it is critical to remember that those photos of reunions depicting former adversaries shaking hands across a stone wall they once tried to kill each other to possess occurred decades later and cannot expose private torments. Angelo’s case is an ideal illuminator because it is founded on extensive primary accounts.

As the U.S. military is no longer ignoring the problem, history, too, must become engaged.

Dennis W. Brandt is a freelance author-historian and the author of Pathway to Hell: A Tragedy of the American Civil War (Lehigh University Press), From Home Guards to Heroes: The 87th Pennsylvania and its Civil War Community, and Shattering the Truth: The Slandering of Abraham Lincoln.

Katyn - Step-by-Step Gradualism

By Joanna A. Gorska

Katyń is one of the most notorious issues in Polish history and Polish-Russian relations. The incident involved the execution of 22,000 Polish prisoners of war by the Soviet NKVD at Katyń and other camps in 1940. Russian authorities have repeatedly refused to recognize those killed at Katyń as victims of political reprisals and to rehabilitate them. In March 2005, the Russian investigation was officially closed, with no one charged, and without identifying the Katyń massacre as genocide or a war crime. As expected, the inconclusiveness of the Russian inquiry and its failure to establish a chain of responsibility provoked a public outcry in Poland.

A potentially new chapter in Polish-Russian relations on Katyń opened in April 2010 with the tragic plane crash that took the lives of Poland’s top officials, including President Lech Kaczyński, who were travelling to Smolensk to attend Katyń commemoration ceremonies. Russia’s quick response to the accident, particularly its involvement in an investigation into the plane crash and the support that it offered to relatives of those killed, appeared to have provided a new impetus for the bilateral dialogue on the events of 1940. The plane crash raised the visibility of the Katyń massacre in the Russian media and within Russian society. More broadly, on the policy front, Russian authorities showed growing willingness to accommodate Poland’s preferences on Katyń. For example, the Russian Supreme Court ordered the Moscow City Court to consider an appeal by the Polish group Memoriał to declassify the decision of Russian military prosecutors to close the Katyń investigation. Russian officials also agreed to release additional documents pertaining to the Katyń killings, which were handed over to the acting Polish president, Bronisław Komorowski, in May 2010. Significantly, in late November 2010, Russia’s State Duma proposed a resolution to recognize the events of Katyń as a crime of the Stalinist regime.

However, this shift in Russia’s policy on Katyń will likely be limited in scope. On the strategic policy level, Russian authorities are likely to continue the policy of opposing the equation of the Katyń killings with genocide or war crimes and refusing to grant compensation for crimes committed by the Soviet Union. Indeed, in a note submitted to the Strasbourg Court of Human Rights, which is considering a claim from relatives of the Katyń victims, Russian authorities have argued that they are under no duty to explain the ‘Katyń events.’ Likewise, the Polish authorities are unlikely to deviate from the established policy course on Katyń, which aims at concluding the investigation, obtaining financial compensation for the wrongs suffered from the Soviet Union, and commemorating those killed by the NKVD. The persisting conflict of primary objectives between Poland and Russia on Katyń and the countries’ limited willingness to make substantial policy adjustments on the issue will allow only for incremental and limited changes. Indeed, as President Komorowski stated with reference to Katyń in the run-up to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to Poland in December 2010: "This issue requires considerable effort and a consistent policy aimed not only at reconciliation but also setting some conditions, which would make this reconciliation and cooperation credible."

Joanna A. Gorska currently works for London-based risk management consultancy Control Risks, previously taught at Oxford University, held research positions at NATO Parliamentary Assembly as well as the European Commission, and is the author of Dealing with a Juggernaut: Analyzing Poland's Policy toward Russia, 1989-2009.

Deep Throat and Government Records

By Ivan Greenberg

The ongoing publication of secret U. S. Department of Defense and State documents by Wikileaks points once again to the important role that government records can play in documenting abuse of power. But there are other ways to obtain important government documents without relying on unauthorized disclosures. Using the Freedom of Information Act, I recently obtained the 3,500-plus page FBI file on W. Mark Felt, who died almost two years ago. The file suggests new ways of looking at the demise of Richard Nixon and the role of the FBI in American society.

To begin with, when Felt’s role as Deep Throat first was made public in 2005 few in the media, with the exception of the Albany Times Union, adequately appreciated that he did not act alone. At least three other top-level FBI officials or agents worked with him to coordinate the leaks to the press. What might properly be called a “coup” inside the government, led by Felt, forced the President to resign. The actions of this FBI faction were extraordinary. Instead of targeting political liberals or radicals, they went after the chief executive using information as a weapon.

Felt’s motives have been discussed at length. He saw himself as a patriotic whistleblower acting to preserve the integrity of government. Nixon broke the law during Watergate and so the President should be exposed. Critics see less noble purposes. Felt resented being passed over for the Director’s job by Nixon after J. Edgar Hoover died in early May 1972. In addition, Felt acted as a vigilante against Nixon because the President wanted to run “dirty tricks” intelligence operations directly out of the White House bypassing the FBI altogether. The latter point is critical: Felt hoped to preserve the dominant role of the FBI to spy on Americans in domestic politics. Felt called it preserving the FBI’s “independence.”

FBI files show that the Felt faction engaged in a high-level of deception within the Bureau to protect its secret contact with the press. Soon after the Watergate break-in, Director L. Patrick Gray III put Felt in charge of finding sources of FBI leaks to the press. In short, the fox had been put in charge of protecting the chickens.

On several occasions, Felt and his collaborators investigated others knowing they had no part in the leaks. For example, in the summer of 1972 an agent working with Felt conducted several dozen interviews of FBI personnel in the hunt for the leaker. In another instance, Felt wrote a bogus memo suggesting that the source of leaks to the Washington Post came from outside the Bureau. In a third memo dated Sept. 11, 1972, Felt told one of his conspirators to “forcibly remind all agents of the need to be most circumspect in talking about this case with anyone outside the Bureau.”

By the fall of 1972, Nixon suspected Felt as the source of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s articles. When Nixon in early 1973 urged Gray to make Felt submit to a lie-detector test, Gray refused. Nixon later recalled the conversation:

’Pat,” I said. ‘I want you to check these leaks.’

“He said, ’Oh, they couldn’t be from the Bureau.’

“I said, ‘Yes they are…some are.’ And I said, ‘We have from very good authority that they’re from Felt.’

‘Oh, they could not be from Felt.’

“I said, ‘Dam it, they may be’ and I said, ‘You ought to give him a lie-detector test.’

“’Oh, we can’t do that,’ he said. ‘But,” he said, ‘I vouch for Felt.’”

In his 2008 memoir, Gray described this meeting with the President as a 30-minute “tirade” against leaks coming from the FBI. Gray refused to accept the President’s view of the source of the leaks. But Gray’s successor, Clarence M. Kelley, started a formal investigation the next year to ascertain if Felt had served as Deep Throat. On June 20, 1974, Felt -- now retired -- wrote a personal letter to the Director defending himself in false, blunt terms. “My contacts with the press have been limited. On only one occasion did I ever ‘leak’ information and that was years ago and on instructions from the Bureau….I am not ‘Deep Throat.’”

That this deception lasted for so many years is not too surprising. In early 1975, agents inside the Bureau suspected Felt continued to engage in press leaks despite his retirement. Felt again wrote the Director to deny it. “I want you to know that I am not the source of the unfortunate [text redacted] stories appearing yesterday and today in the ‘Washington Post,’” he said. He admitted a reporter had called him. “I tried to talk him out of writing the story but we both know that front page by-lines sometimes become more important to reporters than the facts.”

Felt’s declassified FBI file helps us understand the great lengths he went to cover-up his role in bringing down the President.

Ivan Greenberg is the author of The Dangers of Dissent: The FBI and Civil Liberties since 1965.

Civil Rights Photojournalist Named as FBI Spy

By Ivan Greenberg

The recent revelation by the Commercial Appeal newspaper in Memphis that prominent civil rights photojournalist Ernest C. Withers worked for the FBI as a paid informer should not come as a complete surprise. During the 1960s and early 1970s, the FBI spied widely on African-American leaders, organizations, and community life. Withers was one of at least several thousand African-Americans recruited to spy for the government and he circulated within the highest levels of black activism, reporting to the FBI as he also took some of the best pictures of key actors. Withers covered both civil rights and black power groups, getting close to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as well as the Invaders, a Black Panther-styled organization in Memphis.

There has been wide comment on the Withers case. Most civil rights leaders from the 1960s condemned him and felt betrayed. I would like to address several issues raised by Withers’ collaboration. First, the case offers further evidence of the FBI’s extraordinary animus toward the civil rights movement and efforts for racial justice. Under the FBI’s COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program), the section devoted to “black nationalist/hate” carried out some of the most disruptive acts executed in this period to impede social mobilization. There is little doubt that Withers provided information that aided these efforts. The declassified FBI files document he reported on both people and protest and his photographs helped the FBI identify new activists to investigate. He even acted as a spy during King’s funeral in Atlanta by providing intelligence on the on-going Memphis sanitation strike.

While Withers’ photography, which is collected in several books, is recognized as an important visual source for documenting the past, it seems pertinent to ask how his collaboration influenced his vision as a photographer. How was the focus of his lens shaped, if at all, by police employment? When the new Withers Museum opens next month, it will be possible for the public to study the photography and to consider its importance for political intelligence purposes.

The Withers case also raises the issue of state interference with an independent media. In 1976, the U.S. Senate Church Committee documented several ways the FBI tried to manipulate television, newspapers, and radio. While the number of known cases is not large, the Bureau planted false information on political subjects to “friendly” media contacts. In other instances, the FBI refused to cooperate with reporters critical of the Bureau or its Director and in select cases targeted them for hostile surveillance. Under J. Edgar Hoover, agents had posed falsely as reporters. The recruitment of working journalists, like Withers, provided another type of access, which the government exploited to pursue its own conservative political agenda.

Ivan Greenberg is the author of <em>The Dangers of Dissent: The FBI and Civil Liberties since 1965.

The Life and Times of Francis Cabot Lowell: 1775-1817

By Chaim M. Rosenberg

Despite the Declaration of Independence, the United States continued for many years to rely on manufactured goods from abroad. As a young merchant based in Boston, Francis Cabot Lowell imported silks from China, cotton textiles from India, and wines, sherry and brandy from Europe. Lowell and his associates built the imposing India Wharf and its warehouses to handle the expanding trade with the Orient. The French Revolution followed by wars at sea and on the Continent, as well as the Embargo of 1807 and the War of 1812 greatly disrupted international trade, making the United States hostage to conflicts abroad. Analyzing these events, Francis Cabot Lowell concluded that the United States needed to free itself of its dependence on foreign goods by becoming a manufacturing nation, using American entrepreneurship and finance, the power of its fast-flowing rivers, its own raw materials and the skills of its workforce.

During a trip to Great Britain from 1810 to 1812, Francis Cabot Lowell saw first-hand the tremendous changes brought about by the ingenious water-powered spinning and weaving machines. He resolved to bring the industrial revolution to America, starting with the manufacture of textiles using cotton grown in the American South. On his return to Boston he raised the capital, erected a dam, built a factory and designed the machinery to suit the conditions at home. By 1814 the Boston Manufacturing Company on the Charles River at Waltham started to turn out cotton fabrics as good and as cheap as imports. The Boston Manufacturing Company was efficient enough to withstand the dumping of British textiles on the American market at the end of the War of 1812.

Francis Cabot Lowell died in 1817 at age forty-two and did not live long enough to see his dream fulfilled. His associates expanded the manufacture of textiles to the powerful Merrimac River. The great industrial town of Lowell (named in honor of Francis Cabot Lowell) was based on the Waltham model. Lowell's factory system for cotton textiles was applied to shoes, metalware and all manner of manufactured goods. Within forty years New England moved from trade to domestic manufacture. By the close of the nineteenth century, the factory system had spread to the South and the West and America had become the manufacturing colossus of the world. Offering higher salaries, these efficient factories attracted millions of immigrants seeking a better life in America.

America began to shed its factories after World War II as its lead in textiles and footwear was rapidly eroded by low-wage factories abroad. By the close of the 20th century these once great American industries were moribund. The decay of America's industrial base has extended to automobiles, refrigerators, radios, television sets and even electronics. We have become a vast service economy and are again depended on China and other countries to make our clothes, shoes and other consumer goods. This transformation has resulted in a vast trade imbalance and massive borrowing, again undermining American self-reliance and security.

Francis Cabot Lowell showed two centuries ago that determination, innovation, a brilliant business plan and a dollop of luck could overcome opposition and transform the American economy from trade to domestic manufacture, from dependence to self-reliance. It is time again to follow Lowell's example to invent the machinery and employ new sources of power to manufacture goods at home, cheap in price and excellent in quality, and to restore America to industrial independence.

Chaim M. Rosenberg is author of The Life and Times of Francis Cabot Lowell, 1775-1817.