My experience has shown me that the FBI in its pursuit of blacks, the antiwar movement, and college activists was not an impartial, disinterested finder of fact but rather a relentless guardian of orthodoxy, a police force which sought to cause harm to movements that boldly questioned the policies of the government. It engaged in these activities not simply because of the political prejudices of the director and his staff, but, to a large extent, to justify its own existence. Each attack on any outspoken critic of American institutions was intended to show the FBI as the indispensable protector of the public. To each slanderous name-calling or alarmist leak to the press, Hoover added a soft-spoken if tendentious appeal to Congress for more money and additional personnel. Enemies of the public were created to justify the bureau’s role as defender of the “National Security” against domestic foes who sought, according to Hoover’s propaganda, to subvert the country.
This is not to say that an effective federal investigative agency is not needed to deal with crimes or that the FBI itself has not done efficient and honest criminal work (although it has for years been reluctant to act vigorously against organized crime). But my years in the FBI convinced me that most of what the bureau does in matters of internal security consists of investigations and rumor mongering that are foolish, pointless, and time-wasting so far as protection of the public from violation of criminal laws is concerned; while the agency is all too effective in harassing legitimate political activity. At the same time, all of the investigations I have referred to here have resulted in adding more names and dossiers to the millions in the FBI’s files. The FBI is thus creating a proliferating store of secret police files on innocent people, often based on bizarre allegations and dubious information, and sometimes on nothing at all.
What I saw and did as an agent for the FBI exposed for me the wisdom of the old question: Who will watch the watchers? I have no easy answer to it.