FBI releases files on columnist Jack Anderson

Critical comments from readers
In a Jan. 15, 1967, appearance on the "Long John Nebel" radio show, Anderson described himself as a liberal but urged so-called right-wingers to let Hoover and the FBI investigate handle investigations of suspected communists.

"I think he's been pretty careful about not violating civil rights," Anderson said of Hoover. "I have no quarrel with his investigation of communists. I would urge the extremists of the nation to let him continue to do it and not to interfere with him — not to try to do it themselves."

Among the readers of Anderson's columns were Hoover defenders or administration loyalists who let the journalist know exactly how they felt in language even more candid than Anderson would have used in his columns. Copies were obtained and filed away by the bureau.

A profanity-laced letter from a reader to Anderson in 1971 says that "your rhetoric regarding the Honorable Richard Nixon" proves that the columnist was doing "everything in your power ... to tear this country apart."

"I demand, by copy of this letter to J. Edgar Hoover ... that you be put out of print," the letter concluded.

After Hoover's death, Anderson drew critical comments from readers.

"To be very frank I am getting tired of all the derogatory remarks being made about the FBI ... and now that Mr. Hoover is deceased, it is only right that you let his name rest in peace," one correspondent wrote in 1972.

In a way, the feud between Anderson and the bureau continued after his death on Dec. 17, 2005.

Following his funeral, FBI agents called Anderson's widow to say they wanted to search his papers. At the time, the FBI confirmed it wanted to remove any classified materials from Anderson's archives, located at George Washington University, before they are made available to the public.

The government eventually backed off.

The ‘dark days of J. Edgar Hoover’
Anderson's biographer, George Washington University journalism professor Mark Feldstein, said he was pleased the FBI was finally releasing its files on the journalist. "I'm still not convinced this is all of it," Feldstein added.

The documents, which were released Sept. 30, are heavily edited and some names have been removed.

"Why they would still need to censor these documents after he's dead and his sources are gone, at this stage, seems pretty questionable to me," Feldstein said Friday. "But this new material is a good thing for historians, scholars, and ultimately, the public, to find out what the FBI was up to in the dark days of J. Edgar Hoover."

One of Anderson's early appearances on Hoover's radar came in December 1951, after then-President Truman was told of an apparent leak of information from a high-level White House meeting on Korea. Truman wanted Hoover to find who revealed details to Anderson.

"Secretary of Defense (Robert) Lovett called me this afternoon and stated that the president wanted him to discuss with me what appears to be a rather serious leak on what occurred at a meeting last Monday at the White House. He said that the president was desirous of trying to trace out the source of this leak," Hoover wrote in a Dec. 13, 1951, memo to FBI aides.

Hoover went on, saying the defense secretary had recounted how "an individual by the name of Anderson, who appears to be a leg-man for Drew Pearson, went up to (Undersecretary of the Navy Francis) Whitehair and said, 'I've got a story of the Monday meeting; thought you would like to take a look at it.'"

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