THE RESPONSIBLE PERSON who gains an understanding of communism knows that such understanding should lead to the question: “But what can I do about it?”
My answer is that we can do a lot.
1. First and most important is to make sure that we do not permit the communists to fool us into becoming “innocent victims.” Our defense? First, to know the answers to the “Five False Claims of Communism” given in Chapter 7. Next, to know the ways to “spot” deceptive communist fronts, listed at the end of Chapter 17.
2. Members of a trade union or any civic, fraternal, or social organization can help by spotting, exposing, and opposing communist efforts to infiltrate and capture that organization. How this can be done is told in Chapter 16.
3. And, finally, there may well be occasions when everyone might have the opportunity to help expose and prevent attempts at espionage, sabotage, and other types of subversive activity.
“Yes,” one might say, “but I’m just a private citizen. Isn’t spy-hunting a job for the FBI?”
Of course it is a job for the FBI, one given it by Presidential directives, acts of Congress, and rulings of the Attorney General. But the FBI can’t do it all alone. The FBI has jurisdiction over more than 140 violations of federal law, and in a country with over 170,000,000 inhabitants there are fewer than 6200 agents of the FBI. Hence, all of these agents are not available for the investigation of subversive activities. We need the help of all loyal Americans.
Furthermore, in a democracy like ours, citizenship carries with it not only rights but obligations. One of these is to do our part to preserve, protect, and defend the United States against all enemies, whether domestic or foreign. The President of the United States, for example, in issuing directives giving the FBI the responsibility over matters relating to espionage, sabotage, and subversive activities, specifically called upon all patriotic citizens and individuals to assist us.
Therefore, those individuals who place information they have regarding the communist conspiracy into the proper hands are making a contribution of great value to the security of their country.
“But,” one may say, “what can I do? I lead an ordinary life. I don’t know any communists. So how can I be of any help?”
My answer to that is: You never know! Here is a case history of another average American who thought he “didn’t know any communists.”
This incident might be called the Case of the Forgotten Rubbish.
It was on a Saturday. A man telephoned one of our field offices. “I’ve been cleaning out my garage,” he said, “and I’ve found some old rubbish there.”
“Yes,” said the special agent.
“I guess I’m crazy calling about this, but I thought you might be interested. The stuff doesn’t belong to me. It was left here by some roomers who moved a month or two ago. There’s a box with a lot of cards.”
“What kind of cards?”
“Don’t know,” the man answered. “I never saw any like them before. There are no names on them. Have words like ‘club’ and ‘section’ and some different colored tabs on them. Guess I should have burned them and not . . .”
“We’re certainly glad you called,” the agent said. “Mind if we come to see you?”
That telephone call enabled the FBI to secure the membership records of a complete section of the Communist Party. Marked for destruction by the section membership secretary, they had, by mistake, found their way into the forgotten rubbish.
Now an alert, patriotic citizen had placed these records into the fight against communism, helping to identify many of the most dangerous subversives in his very own community.
In this way he, like many others who report information to the FBI, was helping protect his own home, family, and nation.
Don’t think one must have evidence establishing the identity of a spy, the hide-out of an underground Party leader, or the location of stolen blueprints before he can report information. Many cases start with very small clues, a scrap of paper, a photograph, an abandoned passport. Then, bit by bit, the entire picture is developed by investigation.
Here are a few suggestions of what Americans can report to the FBI:
1. Any information about espionage, sabotage, and subversive activities. The FBI is as close to every person as the nearest telephone. See the front of any telephone book for the FBI’s number.
2. Don’t worry if the information seems incomplete or trivial. Many times a small bit of information might furnish the data we are seeking.
3. Stick to the facts. The FBI is not interested in rumor or idle gossip. Talebearing should always be avoided. The FBI is not interested in what a person thinks but what he does to undermine our national security.
4. Don’t try to do any investigating yourself. Security investigations require great care and effort. The innocent must be protected as well as the guilty identified. That is the job for the professional investigator. Hysteria, witch hunts, and vigilantes weaken our internal security.
5. Be alert. America’s best defense lies in the alertness of its patriotic citizens.
As we have seen, identifying communists is not easy. They are trained in deceit and trickery and use every form of camouflage and dishonesty to advance their cause.
For this reason we must be absolutely certain that our fight is waged with full regard for the historic liberties of this great nation. This is the fundamental premise of any attack against communism.
Too often I have seen cases where loyal and patriotic but misguided Americans have thought they were “fighting communism” by slapping the label of “Red” or “communist” on anybody who happened to be different from them or to have ideas with which they did not agree.
Smears, character assassination, and the scattering of irresponsible charges have no place in this nation. They create division, suspicion, and distrust among loyal Americans—just what the communists want—and hinder rather than aid the fight against communism.
Another thing. Time after time in this book I have mentioned that honest dissent should not be confused with disloyalty. A man has a right to think as he wishes: that’s the strength of our form of government. Without free thought our society would decay. Just because a man’s opinion is unpopular and represents a minority viewpoint or is different he is not necessarily disloyal. Hence, one should have the facts before accusing anyone of propagating the Party line.
One of the chief jobs of the FBI, fully as important as tracking down spies, is to protect the civil rights of individuals.
In the FBI our objective in any investigation is to secure the facts which will establish the truth or falsity of a complaint or allegation. We do not evaluate nor do we make recommendations for a course of action as to whether a man should be prosecuted, hired, or removed from a job. The FBI is strictly a fact-gathering agency, responsible, in turn, to the Attorney General, the President, the Congress, and, in the last analysis, to the American people. The investigative and adjudicatory processes simply do not belong in the same organization.
When the clouds of World War II began to lower, large segments of our people became conscious for the first time that America was confronted with an enemy from within. One of the disgraces of our era is that it was ever necessary to question the loyalty of Americans. The record, however, is clear: There were some who, using the protective cloak of the rights of all Americans as a cover, sought to conceal traitorous and subversive activities.
In carrying out our responsibilities we soon became very conscious of the fact that each allegation and complaint had to be carefully checked. There are literally thousands of people in this country who have been the target of accusation and thousands whose loyalty could be established only by investigation. Most have been grateful. Some have been resentful that they were investigated at all; but we had a job to do, and it was done with impartiality and a zealous regard for the rights and reputation of the individuals involved. One of the happiest moments in our day-to-day activities is when we can establish the innocence of a man wrongfully accused.
Here are a few illustrations of the outcome of investigations which have given us a feeling of satisfaction:
“A New York man changed his name to one that was more pronounceable. He was with the Merchant Marine and the accusation was made that he was a member of the Communist Party; that he had been educational director of a Party section and had signed a Communist Party petition. We investigated. We found that the man in changing his name had taken the name of a Communist Party member who was an educational director of a section of the Party in New York. Beyond that, we secured handwriting specimens of the man with the changed name, and our laboratory technicians established that he had not signed the Party petition.”
“A scientist was seeking a job with the army. The accusation arose that he had signed a communist petition. We investigated and found that a man with the same name and initial had signed such a petition but he was not the scientist.”
“A government agency received a letter bearing a fictitious signature stating that a government employee was working with the Communist Party. We investigated. Our inquiry revealed that all comment concerning the employee was highly favorable, except for the statement of a seventy-two-year-old woman residing in Philadelphia who was a neighbor of the government worker. This woman advised she had overheard the employee say, “I’m working for the Communist Party” but admitted the employee said she had made the statement in jest. The neighbor said she had never written any agency of the government concerning the employee. During the investigation we secured specimens of the elderly neighbor’s handwriting and determined she had written the defamatory letter out of spite.”
“An allegation was made that a former army officer was the nephew of a French communist leader and maintained a close relationship with him. Our investigation disclosed that the two men had the same name, but were not related. The only contact the army officer ever had with the French communist leader was when he met the Frenchman on one occasion and inquired as to his ancestry.”
When a citizen thinks he has been wrongfully accused of communist activity, we, as a matter of long-standing policy, are more than happy to receive any statement he might care to make. Then, if we receive a future allegation, his statement will be on file and can be considered in connection with any investigation we are called on to make.
As I have stated, time after time FBI investigations exonerate the innocent. The latest scientific knowledge, fingerprints, new investigative techniques, careful training of our special agents in the mechanics and ethics of conducting good investigations—all these represent the assurance that the FBI is zealously protecting not only the internal security of the nation but also the rights, life, and property of the individual.
There are some who feel that a national police agency should be established to meet and handle all phases of the communist menace, since under the present structure of government many agencies have a responsibility for internal security. This, they say, would cut through the “red tape,” centralize all investigations and determinations, and make for more “efficiency.” I disagree. This nation has no need for a national police. Such an agency would be contrary to American tradition. The present system of cooperation among the nation’s law-enforcement agencies is completely adequate to meet the needs. Weaknesses do exist. They lie not in the system itself but in its implementation. These weaknesses can be and are being overcome.
What can one do in the fight against communism?
I repeat: a lot. Always remember that this fight is something which must be carried on soberly, seriously, and, above all, responsibly. Our best weapons are facts and the truth. “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Don Whitehead in his book, The FBI Story, in concluding his study of the FBI and its problems stated the case most accurately when he said:
“The top command of the FBI have no illusions that communism can be destroyed in the United States by the investigation, prosecution and conviction of Communist Party leaders who conspire to overthrow the government by force and violence. That is merely one phase of the job to be done in a world-wide struggle.”
“The FBI knows that the bigger job lies with the free world’s intellectuals—the philosophers, the thinkers wherever they may be, the professors and scientists and scholars and students. These people who think, the intellectuals if you please, are the ones who can and must convince men that communism is evil. The world’s intellectuals themselves must see that communism is the deadliest enemy that intellectualism and liberalism ever had. They must be as willing to dedicate themselves to this cause as the Communists have been to dedicate themselves to their cause.”