The late, great Studs Terkel scared the beejeesus out of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI--and for another 18 years after Hoover's paranoid reign--as did a bunch of other writers, musicians and their fellow artists. Just what the hell was the big, bad Bureau so scared of, anyway?
From an item in the Los Angeles Times:
Studs Terkel, the American storyteller, author, radio host, actor and activist, sought a job at the FBI, according to recently released documents.
Terkel, who died last year, applied for a job in the FBI's fingerprints division in the 1930s. "It's a non-agent position," FBI spokesman Bill Carter said. "You would have to go through a background investigation, the same as you would for an agent, but you don't have arrest powers."
Instead of hiring Terkel, the agency ended up amassing a file on him. The FBI spent 45 years tracking him as a suspected communist, according to the 147 pages released from his 269-page dossier. The file was obtained by the City University of New York's NYCity News Service under an act that requires the FBI to release certain documents to the public after an individual has died.
Terkel's paper trail started in 1945. It references Terkel speaking at a Paul Robeson rally at Chicago's Civic Opera House and quotes a source who questioned Terkel's "loyalty to the United States" because he worked with a BBC on a piece about the "sordid side of life in Chicago."
His file ends in 1990, when agents cut and pasted a Wall Street Journal article quoting his reaction to financier Michael Milken's junk-bond scandal.
"We live in a corrupt, amoral moment," Terkel said. "There are a million Milkens. He's reflective of our society at this time. People have lost their sense of outrage."
Studs wasn't disloyal to his country, of course. And because of Hoover's many abuses of power over parts of five decades, FBI directors are now limited to 10-year terms.
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