“Which would only bring more attention. Better we ramble like idiots on things we can’t prove.”
“Something like that.”
I wanted to know, “Were you listening in at the house by the lake?”
He shook his head. “For what? No need.”
“Because the guy who came to the cemetery was your bird dog?”
“He once worked for me, if that’s what you mean.”
Foster did not want the files inside that case seen by Coleen. So he’d used the situation to reverse what she’d managed to set in motion, allowing Jansen to be led straight to the files. But why not just destroy them himself? Why involve Jansen at all? Only one answer made sense. This guy wanted to see them first.
“What’s Bishop’s Pawn?”
“How much of the files did you read?”
“Enough,” I lied, trying to alter the situation.
“That operation is classified. But it was something of great concern to this country.”
“That’s what this is about? We’re concerned for the country? You’re retired. That’s not your problem anymore.”
“This country will always be my concern. I started with the bureau in 1959, back when the Soviet Union and communism were our greatest threats.”
“And how many communists did you find? Never mind. I know the answer. Not enough to get excited over.” I paused. “If any at all.”
“You have no idea what we faced.”
“Actually, I do. I can read. The threat of a communist infiltration was total bullshit, used by guys like you to keep a job and further your own paranoia. The CIA, which actually dealt with communists, determined that King was no threat to national security whatsoever. Yet the FBI decided otherwise. Did you really think that the Soviet Union was behind the civil rights movement? Trying to destroy us from within?”
“Stanley Levison was a member of the Communist Party of the United States.”
I knew that name. A close friend and confidant of Martin Luther King Jr., he was a white lawyer from New York who helped draft some of King’s most famous speeches and organize events. He also raised money for the SCLC. True, history noted that Levison had once been a member of the Communist Party, but he ceased all connection to it long before he and King ever became linked.
“Levison was called to testify before the Senate Committee on Internal Security,” Oliver said. “Parts of that testimony are classified to this day.”
“What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?’
That’s what my mother used to ask me when I tried to bullshit her.
“There was a genuine concern that Levison might influence or manipulate King into causing widespread political unrest,” Oliver said. “That was standard operating procedure for communist organizations back then. They wanted to bring this country down. King himself was on the FBI Reserve Index. People to be detained in the event of a national emergency.”
“King was no communist.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Yes. We do. You used that nonsense to justify illegally wiretapping not only Levison and King, but too many other people to even count. The sad part is even both Kennedys and Lyndon Johnson allowed that to happen. They all three loved getting the inside scoop on people, including King. Not a one of them ever told Hoover to stop. All of you were crazy as hell.”
“Easy for you to say, sitting here now, reaping the rewards of our caution.”
I’d had enough. “Stanley Levison was a progressive liberal who believed that the blacks of this country were getting screwed. And by the way, they were. He stood up for what he believed and helped the man at the tip of the spear do his job. J. Edgar Hoover hated King and everyone associated with him. That’s a fact. So Levison became a target. It’s just that simple. I agree, it was a different time with different values. But that doesn’t make what you did right.”
This guy was getting on my last nerve.
“I’ve heard your criticisms many times before. They don’t affect me. We did our jobs. I make no apologies.”
I recalled something else I once read. “There was an internal FBI report, from 1963, I think, that concluded the civil rights movement was not communist-controlled. I’ve read parts of it. Hoover would not accept that report, so its author changed the conclusion and instead proposed targeting the SCLC by COINTELPRO.”
“I wrote that report.”
The revelation took me aback.
“Hoover was brash, brilliant, full of self-esteem, cocky as a rooster, and totally amoral,” he said. “I agree, he institutionalized totalitarianism within the FBI. He was in total control. I witnessed that control for many years. In some respects that was good.”
I could not imagine how.
“Presidents, congressmen, cabinet officers. They all thought the FBI was their own personal police force to be used on their enemies. But we were anything but that. Partisanship was strictly forbidden. Hoover worked hard to keep us out of politics. We were then, and still are, an investigatory agency, not a police force. Big difference.”
“That didn’t prevent Hoover himself from using his agents like the police.”
“There is some truth to that. We worked in a vacuum with no oversight from the executive or legislative branches. That wasn’t intentional. It simply happened over time, thanks to Hoover’s longevity and the reputation he forged as someone who didn’t require supervision.”
“A big mistake.”
“Yes. It was. Hindsight is always twenty/twenty.”
“As long as it’s not viewed through a filter.”
“Again. I agree. Hoover became dangerously autonomous. None of us challenged him. And for good reason. He convinced Congress to exempt the FBI from civil service laws. So every agent’s future rested entirely in his hands. Disagreeing with Hoover was the worst thing you could do. Believe me, I know.”
“That’s why you rewrote the report?”
He nodded. “My career would have been over. Hoover believed King to be an immoral, lying hypocrite. He hated the man. So everyone else within the FBI was required to hate him, too. I knew what he wanted to hear. Once a policy was set by Hoover, it could not be undone. You either played ball or went home. Your choice. I chose.”
“The whole ‘I was just following orders thing’ went by the wayside at Nuremberg.”
“This country was different then. The public supported the FBI. They loved Hoover. He was their hero. There was a respect for law enforcement that’s gone today.”
“All thanks to people like J. Edgar Hoover, who certainly did his part to make people distrust the police.”
“Again, I can’t disagree with those conclusions. Hoover built an empire. He worked mainly in secret and masked his actions behind a totally crafted public image that he went to great lengths to create. But you’re right, he waged a war on civil liberties and, unfortunately for Martin Luther King, by the time the civil rights movement came into existence, Hoover was at his zenith.”
My anger was growing. This guy was no moralistic saint. Repentant. I knew his type. Official vigilantes. Self-appointed Boy Scouts of the heartland with their perfect suits and brush-cut hair, possessed of values and beliefs that could justify anything, telling you precisely what you wanted to hear while driving a knife into your back.
“You personally knew there was no connection between communism and King, yet you went ahead and tried to destroy him.”
“We tried to destroy a lot of people. But Hoover and King’s relationship was different. King had the audacity to openly question the FBI’s own civil rights record. He pointed out there were no black agents and he leveled that there was a southern bias, on our part, with investigations. He was right on both counts, by the way. Hoover forbid the hiring of blacks and we did cater to southern law enforcement. We could not have functioned without good relationships with the local police. Those southern cops hated King and everything he stood for. When it came to choosing between civil rights prote
stors and the cops, that was no choice at all.”
I was going to enjoy kicking this old man’s butt. And I intended on doing just that. I was rapidly becoming real comfortable with a devil-may-care attitude. But the presence of Foster and the Perrys added a level of complication. So I decided to keep fishing while this guy was still nibbling at the hook.
“In ’64 King attacked Hoover again on the communist angle,” Oliver said. “His quote was that there were as many communists in the civil rights movement as there were Eskimos in Florida. That’s when Hoover held his famous press conference and called King the most notorious liar in the country. After that it was total war for Hoover. My marching orders were clear. Destroy King.”
“What was your role in COINTELPRO?”
“I was head of domestic intelligence. I ran the entire counterintelligence operation under Hoover. Then I headed its dismantling, after he died.”
At least I was speaking to the man at the top. “Only it’s not dismantled, is it?”
“That depends. As far as active and current? It’s gone. Times have changed.”
“Yeah. People actually try to follow the law now.”
“But as to guarding against threats from the past? We must remain vigilant to those.”
I motioned to the case. “Like what’s in there?”
He glanced at the waterproof case. “I truly believed that Juan Lopez Valdez was dead. He hasn’t been heard from in over twenty years. Instead, he’s not only alive, but went to the Dry Tortugas to meet with Benjamin Foster’s daughter and bring her documents that should no longer exist. I assure you, Lieutenant Malone, nothing good would have come from anyone seeing what’s inside there.”
“Then it’s lucky for you I came along and screwed everything up.”
He gestured with the pipe. “There is an element of fortuitousness in your presence.”
“Along with a pain in the ass?”
He chuckled. “Oh, yes. Jansen wants to kill you.”
“Let him try.”
“You’re an interesting man. A young naval officer. Fighter pilot. Law school graduate. JAG lawyer. Now a special operative with the Justice Department, whatever that means. And all before you turn thirty.”
“I’m having my résumé printed, can I include you as a reference?”
I could see I was getting to him. This guy was accustomed to giving orders, then people bowing as they backed from the room to follow them. But he’d heard two words that he hadn’t wanted to hear.
Bishop’s Pawn.
My lawyer sense told me he was now more than a little annoyed. Killing me remained a problem. Others knew about me, and he was no longer running with the big dogs. He didn’t call the shots. Instead, he was retired, living here in Shangri-la with his marble FBI emblem in the entrance hall floor, dependent on people still in positions of power to cover for him.
Those were the ones Stephanie Nelle was after.
The folks in DC whose strings this guy pulled.
So I decided to get with the plan and help her out.
“Why am I here?”
“I was hoping we could solve this problem together. I know what Foster wants.” He pointed at the case. “Those to be burned. I get that. People are motivated by a variety of reasons. Ideology, passion, duty, loyalty. Some by personal gain. What do you want?”