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.

A Night at the Supreme Court with fellow Courtwatchers

By Darcy Evans

Wednesday night was an eventful night for Rowman & Littlefield. Our Senior Executive Editor of Political Science, Jon Sisk, was recognized on the floor of the Supreme Court. No, he wasn’t presenting an oral argument, but he was there to hear one, or at least the reenactment of one. In celebration of our recently published book by Clare Cushman, Courtwatchers, and as part of the third annual Frank C. Jones Reenactment lecture, Mr. Sisk and about two-hundred of D.C.’s legal elite, watched as Justice Antonin Scalia presided over the reenactment of Texas v. White, a Supreme Court case from 1869 that dealt with the complicated issue of the legality of secession and the legitimacy of Confederate governments during the war.

                                       R&L's Jon Sisk, Darcy Evans, and Lynsey Weston

While the court case was intriguing, the book party afterwards is where all the fun was had. Clare was there to sign copies of her book which was sold at the Supreme Court gift shop. People were buying two or three at a time. That is exactly what her humble publisher likes to see! The party was very well attended. Sandra Day O’Connor even dropped in for a while. I suspect some people were there for the wine and fabulous food, but hopefully they bought a book as well, or at least thought about buying a book and will buy it later.

                               Darcy Evans, Gregory P. Joseph, and Jon Sisk

We are indebted to the Supreme Court Historical Society, not only for all their help with the book, but for putting on a wonderful event. Pictured here with Darcy Evans and Jon Sisk is the president of the Organization, Gregory P. Joseph, who was kind enough to present Justice Scalia and the Court with a copy of the book. Perhaps we will find the Justices reading it between cases.

Courtwatchers is now available. Click here to learn more.

Will She or Won’t She?: Sarah Palin and the Other Splashy Maybe Candidates and the Equal Time Rule

By Paul Siegel

Political pundits have recently been focusing on those possible Republican presidential contenders who would be giving up highly lucrative media and public relations careers were they to join the 2012 presidential race. First, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum were let go from their Fox News gigs, followed by Glenn Beck, then Mike Huckabee used his Fox program to take himself out of the race. Donald Trump – the day after NBC announced it would renew The Apprentice, also bowed out of 2012 contention. Attention has switched to Sarah Palin--- would she give up her Fox role, Sarah Palin’s Alaska on TLC (as well as her lucrative lecture business, which would be at least unseemly for a presidential candidate)?

Most news stories about who’s in and who’s out have suggested that these media celebrities are weighing dollar signs and considering the limited number of waking hours in a day as they decide whether to run. Missing from most accounts is the fact that one of the few remaining federal laws regulating political content on the airwaves plays a major role.

Section 315 of the Federal Communication Act, referred to more colloquially as the Equal Time Rule, tells broadcast stations (legal scholars are divided as to how strictly the Federal Communications Commission would apply the rule to cable stations) that if they allow one candidate for office to “use” their airwaves, they must invite all candidates for the same office to enjoy equal time in a similarly prominent spot at a future date, prior to the election. When Ronald Reagan was a candidate (both for governor and president), Bedtime for Bonzo had to be put to bed for the duration of the campaign. If Fred Thompson decided to run again for senator or for some other office, reruns of his Law & Order and many movie appearances would disappear from broadcast and likely from most cable stations too.

The rule applies not only to federal elections, but local ones as well. When The Tonight Show failed to realize that they had conducted an interview with the Mayor of Burbank when he was a candidate for re-election, the NBC affiliate in Los Angeles had to give free airtime to the other 11 candidates for that much-sought-after office. Similarly, when William Branch decided to run for a town council seat in Loomis, California (population 4,000 at the time), he had to give up his on-air duties as reporter for a local Sacramento station.

Thus it is that Fox News’ not having pushed Sarah Palin out the door (at least as of this writing) has suggested to some pundits that network management may know something we don’t know—that Ms. Palin may, like Mr. Trump before her, be teasing us with the possibility of a presidential run only to drum up publicity for her various media interests, that the Equal Time Rule will be invoked against her or her Alaska.

Paul Siegel is professor of communication at the University of Hartford. He was the founding executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Kansas and Western Missouri office, and he has served on the ACLU's affiliate boards in Illinois; Washington, D.C.; and Connecticut. He is the author of Communication Law in America: Third Edition. Go to www.paulsiegelcommlaw.com for more information.

Mental Illness Does Not Erase Your Dreams: The Little Metal Box

By Randye Kaye (parts first published on Ben Behind His Voices blog)

Mental illness makes news. Usually sensational news. CNN reports that Jared Lee Loughner is unfit to stand trial. Last month, Catherine Zeta-Jones spoke openly about her bipolar diagnosis. Charlie Sheen? Anybody’s guess. (But I say: get that man into treatment, stat!)

But what about the people who don’t make the news? What about the large proportion of consumers who are managing their lives somehow, or trying to, without shooting anyone or landing on the cover of People? Those who have been diagnosed with mental illness deserve respect - and help. Their courage is enormous, the obstacles often beyond comprehension for those who don't understand.

My son, Ben, earned another six college credits this semester, and is still on the Dean's list. Plus - in the past two months - a new job, and a move to his own small apartment. All this after seven hospitalizations, seven years in a group home, eight years unemployed. Amazing! He's getting his life back in small steps. But there’s no news coverage for people like Ben.

Why did it take so long? Ben has paranoid schizophrenia. That kind of messes up your path to maturity. Never, never compare his progress to someone else his age whose brain functions without illness. There are other yardsticks to use.

Ben spent lots of time dealing with an illness whose onset confused us all, and then lots of time learning to recover. He’s still learning to recover. But years ago, when all was in confusion and chaos, he’d still had dreams, which he wrote down and kept in a little metal box. I discovered these seven years after his fifth trip to the Emergency Room for psychiatric admission.

When I cleaned out Ben’s last apartment seven years ago, I’d found a little metal box. At that time, I peeked at its contents: more scraps of paper, obviously precious enough to be stored in this place of honor. I couldn’t bring myself to open these papers then. What crazy ideas would I find written on them? He was so desperately ill, his schizophrenia so in charge of his mind at that time. I’d seen enough; I’d heard enough. I threw the box in with the rest of his “desk supplies” and stored it away with more evidence of his disastrous attempt to live on his own that year.

Recently, I rediscovered that old metal box in a storage bin in Ben’s childhood bedroom. It had originally held mints: “Organic Cinnamon Snaps! Over 100 snaps per box,” reads the cover. The hinges are covered in duct tape now; the picture of forests and volcanoes under the words has faded. Ben’s little treasure box, now seven years old.

I open it. Inside are pages ripped from a small spiral notebook, carefully folded to fit. I hesitate. I do – and I don’t - want to open these.

What will I find? What secrets has he kept in here? I hold the box in my hand, a key to the things my son considered sacred when he was 20 years old.

I take out the first paper and unfold it. I expect to see what I have found before in his writings from that period: grandiose ideas, poetic phrases, delusions that guide my son when his symptoms flare up.

But I’m wrong. It’s only a list of phone numbers, readable, organized. His friends, our family, his most recent employers. At the bottom of the list, the names of some old friends – from high school days – with no numbers listed.

People he hoped to get in touch with again, I think. I’d almost forgotten how many friends he used to have. So many friends. Would they even talk to him now?

I open the next paper. It’s another list, with “Stuff” written across the top, then: candles, lawn chair, blank tapes, phone card, origami paper. The list goes on; it’s a “want” list, or a shopping list. Things he’d like to have for his birthday, perhaps. The simplicity of these small desires touches me.

The next sheet is a to-do list. Again, the handwriting is legible and the columns organized. There are about seventy-five items on this list. Most are written in blue ink, a few in green, black or red. I stare at this for a long time.

Among the plans he’d made:

• Write letters (with a list of over twenty people, including me, Ali, other family, old friends, our rabbi, his old therapist – what had he wanted to say?)
• Write play
• Write animal language dictionary
• Make gifts: Mom pillow, Dream Catchers, Ali cookbook (for his sister)
• Compose college essay
• Build a drum
• Make chess set

More lists: movies he wanted to see, videos he wanted to rent, books he wanted to read, CDs he wanted to buy.

I’d almost forgotten that he used to have dreams. So many dreams, such simple ones. Any dreams at all. It’s not fair! He had all of these plans. Will he ever get to do them?

At the bottom of the pile is a last piece of folded paper. This one is messier, but I can still read what it says. It is full of quotes, ideas, and plans that are more internal. Written here are ideals Ben wants to live by, almost like New Year’s Resolutions:

• Listen a lot.
• Blow nothing up out of proportion.
• Simplify, don’t be hypersensitive.
• Don’t judge people.
• Don’t use your muscles, use your mind.
• Don’t use big words.
• Think before I speak or act.
• Don’t try to control others, let them be.
• Reach out to people, lovingly.
• Hear and consider others’ points of view.
• …and the list continues.

I’d had no idea Ben was trying to change himself all the time I was desperately trying to change him.

Plans for his life - a life at a standstill for so many years. A life worth living; a life worth saving; a life stolen from him. Will he – will we -ever get it back? My boy, my precious boy. I know you’re still in there. Come back to us. Come back to you.

I wipe my eyes, carefully refold the papers and put them back in the little metal box. I wish I could sleep with it under my pillow, like a lost baby tooth, and have my wishes – and Ben’s – come true.

Randye Kaye is an actress, broadcaster, voice talent, and speaker. She is the author of Ben Behind His Voices: One Family's Journey from the Chaos of Schizophrenia to Hope.

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.

What Is Going on in Wisconsin?: Scott Walker, Union Busting, and Fighting to Protect Workers' Rights

By Kim Scipes

Tens of thousands of people surrounding the State Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin for days; Democratic legislators leaving the state and hiding out; unions upset: what is going on in Wisconsin?

Wisconsin has a budget crisis, and the Republican Governor, Scott Walker, wants to make public sector union members pay more for their health care and pension costs. But, much more importantly, Governor Walker also wants to basically gut public sector unions’ collective bargaining rights—and he has the Republican votes in both the Assembly and the Senate to get his way, once he has a quorum.

The problem for Walker is that he has 19 Republicans in the Senate—and needs 20 for a quorum. The Democrats, so far, have refused to give him his quorum, disappearing over the land (and presumably over state borders!). As long as the Senate Democrats stay away, Walker is stymied. Tens of thousands have mobilized around the state to try to convince the governor to change his mind.

The key thing to realize here is that the issue is NOT about the budget—Walker himself helped create much of the $137 million deficit by cutting business taxes $134 million! Strangely enough, raising taxes on corporations to cover state budget deficits is never on the table—Wisconsin’s corporate tax rate hasn’t been raised since 1972.

In what is an obvious, coordinated attack, Republican governors in states including Indiana and Ohio have launched attacks on the collective bargaining rights of unions representing school bus drivers, public health care workers, teachers, etc. This is especially pernicious because both houses of these states’ legislatures are controlled by Republicans. This has been coupled with legislative efforts to pass “Right to Work” laws in a number of other states, which, ostensibly to help workers, in reality only undercut unions.

What we are seeing is a full-powered attempt to weaken unions, and their ability to represent their members. Yes, this is an attack on wages, benefits and working conditions that have been previously negotiated, but more importantly, these attacks are intended to do away with negotiation processes entirely.

There are two reasons for this. The first, as is well known, is that unions usually contribute substantial amounts of monies to Democratic politicians. More importantly, however, is the hours of volunteer labor union members contribute—whether phone banking or going door-to-door for endorsed candidates. Labor still has a strong electoral impact on elections. Destroying these forces can only help the Republicans.

More importantly, however, is the role that unions play in our larger society. While there are a number of problems plaguing the labor movement, the fact remains that unions are the ONLY institutions in US society that even potentially represent the interests and well-being of working people, both in the workplace and the larger society. In fact, their importance is even greater today, as unlimited amounts of political donations make our government “the best money can buy”—and the labor movement is the only institution between plutocracy and (popular) democracy.

Unions oftentimes don’t assert themselves in this position, but when members can motivate them to do so, unions CAN fulfill this important role.

In face of the Governor Walker’s intransigence, the question on the table is what next? Will Walker get his way? Will the unions prevail? Or, in face of Walker’s ideological assault on unions, will union members force their leaders into backing their demands by escalating their actions…. Stay tuned!

Kim Scipes, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Purdue University North Central in Westville, IN. A long-time labor activist, he is the author of AFL-CIO’s Secret War against Developing Country Workers: Solidarity or Sabotage? (Lexington Books, 2010).

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.

Nigeria: Closer to the Brink?

By John Campbell

The breakdown of an elite power-sharing agreement in the run-up to the Nigeria’s 2011 presidential elections increases the risk of regional and ethnic confrontation. The key to avoiding this tragic outcome is for the country’s political elites to forswear self-serving appeals to ethnic, religious, or regional identities and to ensure credible elections.

Africa’s most populous nation, Nigeria was created by the British in 1914 by cobbling together people never before part of the same entity, including some 350 ethnic groups, each with its own language. Despite an Islamic presence since the Middle Ages, the country is also now roughly divided between the two religions, causing tension in some regions, especially where religious and ethnic boundaries coincide.

After the 1998 death of the last military dictator, the ruling elites operating within the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) developed an unwritten power-sharing understanding, called “zoning,” to manage these divisions. The PDP presidential candidate came to rotate between elites from the predominately Christian South and the predominately Muslim North. If the presidential candidate was Christian, then the vice-presidential candidate was Muslim, and vice versa. The elites ensured that their candidates always won elections, and the Nigerian public increasingly stayed home.

Zoning has been challenged before. Olusegun Obasanjo, a Christian Yoruba from the southwest and president from 1999 to 2007, tried twice to change the rules. In 2003, when the presidency was first to revert to a Northern Muslim, he used the powers of the presidency to “renegotiate” the terms of zoning to every eight years instead of every four. In 2006, he tried again to set aside zoning and retain the presidency. Although this time he was blocked by the elites, he managed to impose on the PDP his chosen presidential candidate, Umaru Yar’Adua, a sickly Hausa-Fulani Muslim from Katsina in the North. He also selected Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from the South, to be the PDP’s vice-presidential candidate. The PDP rigged them into office in 2007, leaving indifferent a public already largely alienated from the political process.

However, in May 2010, Yar’Adua died, making Jonathan the president. Under zoning the North should hold the presidency until 2015. Many expected Jonathan to fill out the rest of Yar’adua’s term and then stand aside for a Northern candidate.

Instead, Jonathan is running in 2011, making it an electoral race of one or more Northern Muslims against a Southern Christian, dividing the elites. Unlike in 2007 when all of the principal presidential candidates were Northern Muslims, voting and election results will matter to a population for whom ethnicity and religion—not national identity—are paramount, and there will be a choice.

Thus, it is imperative that the elections be credible. The new chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission commands respect, and following his recommendations, Election Day will likely be postponed to April to allow for more preparation. But, in a huge country with a deteriorating infrastructure where elites—not voters—usually determine political outcomes, there are enormous challenges. With the end of zoning, the elites are fragmenting and their behavior is harder to predict in a country where politics can be violent. Yet if political figures appeal to ethnic and religious identities for their own short-term advantage, they risk igniting a tinderbox of rivalries that could lead to widespread violence serious enough to challenge an already very weak state. That scenario raises the potential for intervention by the military “to save the state.”

John Campbell is the Ralph Bunche Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. He entered service twice in Nigeria, from 1988–1990 as political counselor and from 2004–2007 as U.S. ambassador. He is the author of Nigeria: Dancing on the Brink (Rowman & Littlefield, 2010).

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.