FBI nears 100, revs up spin machine

Andrew Zajac

Earlier today, the FBI press operation unveiled a link to publicity materials in anticipation of the bureau's 100th birthday in July.

Admire them or despise them, G-men have a rich history and much of it's laid out in various stories, archived press releases, photos and old case files on the new web site.

The selection of material underscores the bureau's conflicted view of itself.

There are references to dark chapters, such as the 2001 arrest of Special Agent Robert Hanssen for spying for the Soviet Union and Russia and President Clinton's 1993 removal of Director William Sessions for ethical lapses.

But other unhappy events get a very light touch. The biography J. Edgar Hoover, whose 48-year-tenure in many ways laid the foundation for the modern bureau, doesn't mention any of the investigative excesses that marked his stewardship.

The bureau presents itself as something close to a victim in the turbulent 1960s, explaining that it didn't have explicit guidelines for "national security investigations", so it relied on methods employed against Communists and the Ku Klux Klan, for use against the "New Left". That would be a mix of criminal investigations and counterintelligence techniques, like domestic wiretapping. (Known to history as Cointelpro)

Here's a chunk from the bureau history of the 1960s:

No specific guidelines for FBI Agents covering national security investigations had been developed by the Administration or Congress; these, in fact, were not issued until 1976. Therefore, the FBI addressed the threats from the militant "New Left" as it had those from Communists in the 1950s and the KKK in the 1960s. It used both traditional investigative techniques and counterintelligence programs ("Cointelpro") to counteract domestic terrorism and conduct investigations of individuals and organizations who threatened terroristic violence. Wiretapping and other intrusive techniques were discouraged by Hoover in the mid-1960s and eventually were forbidden completely unless they conformed to the Omnibus Crime Control Act. Hoover formally terminated all "Cointelpro" operations on April 28, 1971.

The U.S. Senate's Church Committee, convened in 1975-76 to examine FBI and other government actors' domestic spying activity, viewed it a bit more astringently:

It reported that "the Bureau conducted a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment rights of speech and association, on the theory that preventing the growth of dangerous groups and the propagation of dangerous ideas would protect the national security and deter violence....Many of the techniques used would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity, but COINTELPRO went far beyond that. The unexpressed major premise of the programs was that a law enforcement agency has the duty to do whatever is necessary to combat perceived threats to the existing social and political order."

Perhaps because it's been humbled repeatedly over the years, the FBI has shown a willingness to look at itself and make occasional reforms.

But one gets the feeling that introspection does not come naturally and is typically forced on the bureau by crisis.

That's unfortunate because a government agency that admits and corrects mistakes actually inspires more confidence -- and probably makes fewer missteps -- than one that deflects scrutiny and refuses to acknowledge error.