FBI papers: Informing on informers By ALAN LENHOFF PERHAPS THE GREATEST absurdities of American ele- mentary education are its chau- vinistic history books, which dra- matically extol the virtues of democracy as juxtaposed to the "horrors", of living under Com- munist rule - with its 1984-type surveillance and its networks of agents who harrass the citizens. Of course, its a serious matter when you're twelve years old and you still haven't sorted out the difference between your teacher, your parents and the Bible. But even a twelve year-old might become suspicious of his text after being asked by an FBI agent to become an informer. Sounds like an unbelievable situation, perhaps? On the con- trary, 20,000 Boy Scouts in Ro- chester, New York can tell you what its like to become the ex- tended eyes and ears of the FBI. According to an FBI Police In- structors Bulletin, the scouts were recruited by the Rochester Police Department and were asked to note "suspicious acts- persons loitering in secluded 420 Maynard Street, Ann Arbor, Mich. Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan Editorials printed in The Michigan Doily express the individual opinions of the author. This must be noted in all reprints. Thursday, June 10, 1971 News Phone: 764-0552 NIGHT EDITOR: JONATHAN MILLER n memory ARNOLD KAUFMAN was a man who earned great respect on this campus. Kaufman was a political philosopher - and was respected as a political man, as a philosopher, as a colleague - and perhaps most importantly, ag a teacher. He was a leading organizer of the 1965 teach-in on Vietnam held here-the first of its kind in the nation, and one of the first major manifestations of opposition to the war. He was a leading organizer of the New Democratic Coalition and the movement to deny renomination to Lyndon Johnson in 1968, and was long involved in the civil rights movement. On this campus, he was known as an excellent teacher, and one who reaffirmed the centrality and importance of teaching. As one colleague said, "he was immensely willing to give of himself," After 14 years on the faculty here, he left two years ago to accept a position at UCLA. HIS DEATH SUNDAY in an airplane crash at the age of 43, is a loss which will be keenly and widely felt. -S.K. places, strangers loitering around s c h o o 1 s, neighborhoods and parks," and to investigate "un- usual situations" including "un- usual activity or lack of activity in-neighbors' homes." This and dozens of other start- ling realizations about FBI oper- ations are rapidly becoming pub- lic klowledge, as a group known as the Citizen's Commission to Investigate the FBI continues to distribute copies of hundreds of documents which were stolen from an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania on March 8. The documents show that the practice of employing young peo- ple in para-police roles is hardly limited to Rochester. Here in Michigan, the Police Youth Serv- ice Corps operates in Detroit and Pontiac, and "is specifically de- signed to provide for adolescent needs during those time periods when the juvenile is not in the classroom environment." The goal of the program, in es- sence, is to select juveniles from the street "with anti-social be- havior problems" and to expose them "to an orientation and re- education program" for the pur- pose of providing them with a fa- vorable image of the police. The stolen memo on this pro- gram warns that: "A thinking police department does not en- ter into a police-youth service program with completely al- truistic motives. In other words, there has to be some so)rt of 'payoff' to the policing agency" -the payoff apparently being increased rapport between "cri- minal elements" and the police, with the possible discovery of re- liable informers, BUT THE RECRUITMENT of informers and "friends" for the FBI of such a young age is of minimal value when compared to the activity at other levels- the most obvious being directed at universities and other "hot- beds" of radical activity. The Media documents reveal that across the country there are dozens, perhaps hundreds of FBI informers working among the administration and staff of vari- ous universities. The informants range from a secretary at Swarthmore College to a popular professor and de- partment head at Ohio State Uni- versity. Students, however, appear t provide the bulk of 'nfornsation about campus radical activities. The stolen documents show that some students are paid as much as $400 a month for their infor- mation-the cost of which is la- beled "for personal expenses." Another document urges local agents to "take advantage of the paranoia endemic in (radical) circles that there is an FBI agent behind every mailbox," by har- rassing radicals through re- peated interrogations. One widely circulated story comes from a fugitive in Canada named Robert Alexander Harris, who claims he was recruited by the FBI three years ago while he was an engineering student at the University of Illinois. Harris apparently was contact- ed by-the bureau after he turned in a campus neo-Nazi leader to the local police. He served the bureau for 11 months, attending radical political meetings and phoning in his information from a laundromat pay phone, or oc- casionally meeting his "contact" in restaurants. The end of his career came after he arranged housing for 100 SDS leaders attending a re- gional meeting. Harris provided the FBI with the address of each radical and he identified photos of potentially "dangerous" ones, but balked when he was asked to find out which SDS members slept together. It is doubtful if Harris was a particularly important agent to the bureau-his pay was only $75 a month. Also, it is probably safe to as- sume that Harris was not the only FBI informant on campus at that time., One government source recently told a national newsmagazine that all agents are required to carry at least 12 in- formants: six criminal, three na- tional security, three racial. THE MEDIA PAPERS also included information about a spe- cial task force assigned to inves- tigate New Left groups on com- puses. One memo about the squad acknowledged that some agents had actually assaulted policemen during demonstrations - appar- ently acting as agent provoca- teurs. But above all, it seems that the best understanding of the FBI comes not from studying their investigative tactics, but in con- sidering what the bulk of their actions are focused on. The impression gained from the stolen "documents is that a main portion of FBI surveillance is performed on groups which could hardly be classified as be- ing "dangerous." For example, last week, the Detroit Free Press photographed three men who they suspected of being FBI agents at a public hearing on Michigan Bell's request for a $60 million dollar rate increase. One of the men admitted. he was an agent, but later denied it when he found out that his two companions would not talk to re- porters. FBI spokesmen later de- nied that they have any interest in the rate hearings. But then why were they there? The same question was raised by Sen. Edmund Muskie (D- Maine) when he discovered that FBI agents had observed Earth Day rallies across the country last year. There is also evidence that the FBI watches every civil rights group in the country and even has been spotted at film festivals. Furthermore, the FBI has its nets cast for any individual who has even the most remote poten- tial for being subversive. Exam- ples from the Media findings in- clude an Iowa scoutmaster who wanted to take his explorer scouts camping in Russia, a Michigan carpenter who corres- ponded regularly with a Polish relative, a fourteen year old boy who spent a summer at a youth camp in East Germany and a Quaker couple who invited a Czechoslovakian professor to come to the U.S. to give lectures. LAST WEEK, U.S. Atty. Gen. John Mitchell said that should FBI director J. Edgar Hoover re- tire-a situation he does not for- see in the immediate future- he would want as a replacement "another J. Edgar Hoover. "As long as Mr. Hoover is in good health and continues to car- ry out the functions of his office in the commendable way he has been carrying them out, I'm sure he will continue to have the full confidence of the President and he will stay," Mitchell said. A rather astute analysis of the problem, one might say. I deep greens and blues Searching for the All-America AMERICAN WAY DEPT.: MY HANDS WADED through the piles of mail on my desk. Like a well-oiled machine, I moved smoothly, steadily, checking out the envelopes with a cal- culated glance as I swept them one by one in a wide circular motion from the desk into the wastecan. I was just beginning to pick up speed when a certain envelope caught my eye. In the bottom left-hand corner, printed proudly in blue, I saw the slo- gan: "The 70's - Decade of the Fam- ily." This was worth looking into - ob- viously a step above the usual bids by the Kiwanis Club for publicity. Slowly, the machine whirred to a halt. Gripping my pencil with determination, I tore open the envelope to see the words f 1 a s h out at me from the top of a news re- lease: DEADLINE NEARS FOR ALL- AMERICAN FAMILY SEARCH. I had to read on. "Families who wish to compete for the honor of becoming the All-Ameri- can Family of their state and join the nation's other state-selected families who will be awarded a ten-day expense paid trip to Florida in August for the All-American Family Pageant, must fill out an official entry form before June 25." June 25, I though instantly; t h a n k God, I still had time. I took out my note pad and scribbled down the date. "The wonderful world of the Amer- ican family comes alive during the wind- up ceremonies of the Fourth Nation- wide All-American Family Search, Aug- ust 5-14, 1971, at the corhmunity of Le- high Acres, on the West Coast of Flor- ida. "The purpose and program of the Search and Pageant, conducted each year by the All-American Family Search, I had been thinking for week cally about just that - the greater America. At times I ev had my fingers on the answ couldn't quite grasp it. And no impressed on my mind the p the bottom of the page: "Fai ity for a Better Community - Better America." I LET MY imagination go wi 51 forthright finalist families triumphantly, carrying the ba their states. I saw the met that Number One Family, hug other madly before a nation audience, after winning a "$3t high Acres Florida Vacation Vil 1972 Dodge Polara, a Grolier 1 learning library, scholarships, Savings Bonds," Hot damn - the Miss Ameri eant was a mere trifle compare Here was Middle America - found it, almost lost in the mail upon my desk, wedged in a set of news releases from th Dept. and an offer to subscribe emoiselle. s I leaned back and daydreame Bless America" ringing in my e a sudden doubt assailed me - h the judges, engulfed by such a worthy Middle Americans, ever decision? . But I was reassured as I read lection of families is made wit gard to race, religion, or natit gin and is based on criteria t n Family bhLrry kempert s specifi- from research by Dr. Lynn R. Bartlett, key to a University of Miami." en felt I er but I I NORMALLY LIKE to mull over the ow . . I, big decisions that confront me e a c h ihrase at morning when I sort the mail. I like to mily Un- sit back and think about that sub- - For a scription to Mademoiselle; I like to pon- der those releases from Atty. Gen. Mit- ild. I saw chell. marching But that morning there was no doubt nners of in my mind. Not everyone was as for- mnersaof tunate as I was - not every one was Bing each aware of this opportunity. And my im- wide TV mediate impulse was to share my good 0,000 Le- fortune with others. la plus a .1-volume Naturally, I kept the entry form that and U.S. came with the news release - I wanted to enter my own family (although, since ica p a g- my father keeps telling me I'm a little d to this. bastard, we would probably be disqual- - I had ified as tarnishing the All-American piles of Family image). between But don't miss your chance at that e Justice home in Florida -- send in and ask for to Mad- an entry blank. Or make up y o u r own. Just give them all the usual in- d; "Go d frmation, such as: grs, until ibw could Do you save regularly? Yes No host of Do you invest in stocks, bonds? Yes No reach a Do you own U.S. Savings Bonds? Yea No Enter today '- perhaps a h o me in on. "Se- Lehigh Acres, Florida is waiting for you. thout re- Now is the time to be rewarded at last onal ori- for your contribution towards a greater developed America. which seeks to further national unity through rededication of family unity, is explained by its founder and president, Jay E. Kashuk." I closed my eyes and I could almost hear Jay E. Kashuk addressing t h e crowd, "We believe in the institution of the American family as the backbone of the spirit, stability and security of our country. We are confident 'that we are witnessing a reawakening of the vital role of the family in building a better' environment' for a greater America." Make a note of that, I said to myself.