Red Scare: FBI and the Origins of Anticommunism in the United States, 1919-1943The anticommunist crusade of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and its legendary director J. Edgar Hoover during the McCarthy era and the Cold War has attracted much attention from historians during the last decades, but little has been known about the Bureau's political activities during its formative years. This work breaks new ground by tracing the roots of the FBI's political surveillance to the involvement of the Bureau's predecessor, the Bureau of Investigation (BI), in the nation's first period of communist-hunting, the "Red Scare" after World War I. The book is based on the first systematic and comprehensive use of the early BI files from 1908 to 1922, which have only survived on difficult-to-read microfilms deposited in the National Archives, as well as numerous collections of personal papers. The FBI's political surveillance was not a result of popular hysteria, such as scholars used to claim, or a rational response to communist spying and the Cold War confrontation, such as a number of historians have recently argued. Instead, it was an integrated part of the attempt by the modern federal state, rooted in the Progressive Era, to regulate and control any organized opposition to the political, economic and social order, such as organized labor, radical movements and African-American protest. The detailed reconstruction of the BI's role in the Red Scare during 1919 and 1920 shows that the federal intelligence officials played a crucial role in initiating the anticommunist hysteria in the United States. Despite its small staff, the BI was able to influence national events by exchanging information with a network of patriotic groups, assisting local authorities in drafting antiradical legislation and prosecuting radicals, and using congressional committees to spread its message. The Bureau also strove to discredit the strike wave and race riots of 1919 as the work of communists. The account also throws new light on such dramatic and controversial events as the Seattle General Strike, the Centralia Massacre, and the deportation of the famous anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman. The book shows how entrenched political surveillance had become by the early 1920's and how it continued until World War II and the Cold War. Regin Schmidt, PhD, is a research fellow in the Department of History at the University of Copenhagen. Selected for the Choice Outstanding Academic Books 2002. |
Contents
Introduction The FBI and the Politics of Anticommunism | 9 |
The Literature on the FBI | 10 |
Theories on the Development of the FBIs Political Role | 14 |
The Theses | 18 |
The Sources | 20 |
The Origins of the Red Scare | 24 |
An Apathetic Opinion | 28 |
The Business Offensive | 32 |
The Surveillance of Black Radicals | 195 |
Strikebreaking | 204 |
Protecting the National Economy | 212 |
The Boston Police Strike | 216 |
The Steel Strike | 218 |
The Coal Strike | 227 |
The Surveillance of Organized Labor | 234 |
The Palmer Raids Deporting Political Ideas | 236 |
The Patriotic Right | 35 |
The Sensationalistic Press | 36 |
The States Crack Down | 38 |
The Search for Order | 40 |
The Bureau of Investigation and the Administrative State | 43 |
The Federalization of Political Surveillance | 50 |
Controlling the Aliens | 55 |
The Betrayal of the Blacks | 59 |
The War Against Radical Labor | 69 |
The Wilson Administration and the Red Scare | 72 |
The Bureau and the Red Scare | 83 |
The Personification of Social Unrest | 86 |
The Bureau Network and Political Associationalism | 95 |
The Bureau and the Patriotic Right | 96 |
The Bridgman Affair | 102 |
The Centralia Massacre | 105 |
The Destruction of the World War Veterans | 109 |
The Bureau and the States | 115 |
The Bureau and the Lusk Committee | 123 |
Constructing the Red Scare | 126 |
The Overman Committee | 136 |
Keeping the Files Up to Date | 146 |
The Bombscare of 1919 | 148 |
The Bureau and Congress | 152 |
Organizing the Red Scare | 158 |
1919 Containing the Social Unrest | 167 |
Defending the Racial order | 179 |
The Red Summer of 1919 | 183 |
The Poindexter Resolution | 237 |
The Origins of the Deportation Campaign | 244 |
A Vigorous and Comprehensive Investigation | 251 |
Banishing Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman | 257 |
The URW Raids | 262 |
Publicizing the Radical Menace | 271 |
The Sedition Bill | 276 |
To Protect the Governments Interests | 278 |
The January 1920 Raids | 290 |
The Decline and Fall of the Red Scare | 300 |
The Labor Department Insurrection | 301 |
The Bureau Strikes Back | 308 |
In Defense of Civil Liberties | 312 |
Congress Investigates | 313 |
The Bureau Oversteps the Line | 317 |
Aftermath The FBI and Presidential Politics | 324 |
The Bureau and the Origins of White House Intelligence 192133 | 331 |
The Threat From the Right | 340 |
The Dies Committee 193843 | 349 |
A Suicide Squad Against the Fifth Column | 355 |
The FBI and Political Surveillance From the Red Scare to the Cold War | 361 |
The FBI and the Federalization of Political Surveillance 191943 | 362 |
FBI and the Second Red Scare | 365 |
The Most Dangerous Agency in the Country | 368 |
Abbreviations | 369 |
Bibliography | 370 |
389 | |
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Common terms and phrases
According administration agitators aliens American anarchists anti-radical April arrests Attorney August authorities Bielaski Bolshevik Bolshevism Bowen Bureau of Investigation Bureau officials Bureau's political Caminetti campaign Charges of Illegal Coben Committee Communist Party confidential Cong Congress December Department of Justice Department's Edgar Hoover example FBI Records FBI's political FBI/FOIA February February 17 field office Frank Burke hearings Herbert Hoover ibid Illegal Practices immigration January July June Justice Department Labor Department leaders letter March Memorandum microfilm Miles Poindexter Mitchell Palmer movement Murray National Negro November November 28 October October 18 Overman Palmer on Charges Palmer raids Papers Poindexter political activities political surveillance president Progressive Era propaganda radical activities Radical Division Red Scare revolutionary riots role Roosevelt Russian Seattle Secretary sedition Senate September Sess social Socialist Special Agent strike subversive Theoharis union unrest Washington William Wilson Workers York