I Was a Communist for the FBI

I Was a Communist for the FBI PDF Author: Daniel J. Leab
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271038381
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
Who is Matt Cvetic? Hero? Scoundrel? Mole? The man who loosely provided the inspiration for the B-Grade cult movie I Was a Communist for the FBI had a life that was marred by alcoholism, damaged expectations, and greed. Cvetic, at the request of the FBI, joined a Pittsburgh branch of the CPUSA in 1943. He became one of many plants in the Party during that decade and gained the nickname &"Pennsylvania&’s most significant mole.&" However, because of his erratic behavior, the FBI fired him in 1950, at which time he surfaced and suddenly became a celebrity through his testimony before the HUAC hearing. Journalist Richard Rovere described Cvetic as a &"kept witness,&" a term that fits those who &"made a business of being witnesses,&" thereby &"befouling due process.&" Cvetic was the subject of a multipart series in the Saturday Evening Post. The articles bordered on fiction, but they gave Cvetic the national exposure he needed to secure a screen deal. Warner Brothers bought the story, made the movie, and enhanced Cvetic&’s celebrity as pop icon. In the mid&–1950s, Cvetic was discredited as a witness by the courts. His career ended and he found a new niche on the Radical Right, yet he died in 1962 after years of fighting to uphold his image with the media. Today Cvetic&’s image is dimly remembered as he continues to fight &"the Red Menace&" on late-night television. Leab juxtaposes Cvetic&’s real life with his reel life. He chronicles his fall from grace, yet admits that Cvetic&’s life offers fascinating and useful insights into the creation, merchandising, and distribution of a reckless professional witness. Leab also writes about Cvetic&’s life prior to his involvement with the FBI, his glory days, and shows that there is much to be learned from the story of an &"anti-Communist icon.&"

I Was a Communist for the FBI

I Was a Communist for the FBI PDF Author: Daniel J. Leab
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271038381
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 194

Get Book Here

Book Description
Who is Matt Cvetic? Hero? Scoundrel? Mole? The man who loosely provided the inspiration for the B-Grade cult movie I Was a Communist for the FBI had a life that was marred by alcoholism, damaged expectations, and greed. Cvetic, at the request of the FBI, joined a Pittsburgh branch of the CPUSA in 1943. He became one of many plants in the Party during that decade and gained the nickname &"Pennsylvania&’s most significant mole.&" However, because of his erratic behavior, the FBI fired him in 1950, at which time he surfaced and suddenly became a celebrity through his testimony before the HUAC hearing. Journalist Richard Rovere described Cvetic as a &"kept witness,&" a term that fits those who &"made a business of being witnesses,&" thereby &"befouling due process.&" Cvetic was the subject of a multipart series in the Saturday Evening Post. The articles bordered on fiction, but they gave Cvetic the national exposure he needed to secure a screen deal. Warner Brothers bought the story, made the movie, and enhanced Cvetic&’s celebrity as pop icon. In the mid&–1950s, Cvetic was discredited as a witness by the courts. His career ended and he found a new niche on the Radical Right, yet he died in 1962 after years of fighting to uphold his image with the media. Today Cvetic&’s image is dimly remembered as he continues to fight &"the Red Menace&" on late-night television. Leab juxtaposes Cvetic&’s real life with his reel life. He chronicles his fall from grace, yet admits that Cvetic&’s life offers fascinating and useful insights into the creation, merchandising, and distribution of a reckless professional witness. Leab also writes about Cvetic&’s life prior to his involvement with the FBI, his glory days, and shows that there is much to be learned from the story of an &"anti-Communist icon.&"

Red Scare

Red Scare PDF Author: Regin Schmidt
Publisher: Museum Tusculanum Press
ISBN: 9788772895819
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
The anticommunist crusade of the Federal Bureau of Investigation did not start with the Cold War. Based on research in the early files of the FBI's predecessor, the Bureau of Investigation, the author describes how the federal security officials played a decisive role in bringing about the first anticommunist hysteria in the US, the Red Scare in 1919 to 1920. The Bureau's political role, it is argued, originated in the attempt by the modern federal state during the early decades of the 20th century to regulate and control any organised opposition to the political, economic and social order.

I Was a Communist for the FBI

I Was a Communist for the FBI PDF Author: Gus Payne
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1468516647
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 96

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Book Description
When asked to join the Communist Party as an informant in the FBI, Cvetic was told he would have to give up his life as he knew it. He infiltrated the party and served in his undercover role from 1941-1950. He endured nine torturous years during which he never had a minute of peace or confidence that he would not be discovered as a mole and killed by his comrades in the party. What were the secrets of his survival? Cvetic was what he had to be to do what he had to do. Cvetic could be cruel and kind, violent and gentle, petty, generous, cheap, cunning, naïve, crude, and frankly, dishonest. He learned to live a life of lies. Truthfully, self-preservation was the essence of his existence. www.theendofalldiseases.com www.repayne.com

Undercover Girl

Undercover Girl PDF Author: Lisa E. Davis
Publisher: Charlesbridge Publishing
ISBN: 1623545226
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
At the height of the Red Scare, Angela Calomiris was a paid FBI informant inside the American Communist Party. As a Greenwich Village photographer, Calomiris spied on the New York Photo League, pioneers in documentary photography. While local Party officials may have had their sus-picions about her sexuality, her apparent dedication to the cause won them over. When Calomiris testified for the prosecution at the 1949 Smith Act trial of the Party's National Board, her identity as an informant (but not as a lesbian) was revealed. Her testimony sent eleven party leaders to prison and decimated the ranks of the Communist Party in the US. Undercover Girl is both a new chapter in Cold War history and an intimate look at the relationship between the FBI and one of its paid inform-ants. Ambitious and sometimes ruthless, Calomiris defied convention in her quest for celebrity.

The Naked Communist

The Naked Communist PDF Author: W. Cleon Skousen
Publisher: Izzard Ink
ISBN: 1630720585
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
A timely update to the phenomenal national bestseller. Soon after its quiet release during the height of the Red Scare in 1958, The Naked Communist exploded in popularity, selling almost two million copies to date and finding its way into the libraries of the CIA, the FBI, the White House, and homes all across the United States. From the tragic falls of China, Korea, Russia, and the UN, to the fascinating histories of Alger Hiss, Whittaker Chambers, Elizabeth Bentley, and General MacArthur, The Naked Communist lays out the entire graphic story of communism, its past, present, and future. After searching unsuccessfully for a concise literature on the communist threat, W. Cleon Skousen saw the urgent need for a comprehensive book that could guide the American conversation. So he distilled his FBI experience, decades of research, and more than one hundred communist books and treatises into one clarifying, readable volume that became a touchstone of American values and earned praise from the likes of President Ronald Reagan, Glenn Beck, and Ben Carson. Lauded by one reviewer as “the most powerful book on communism since J. Edgar Hoover’s Masters of Deceit,” this text draws a detailed picture of the communist as he sees himself: stripped of propaganda and pretense. Readers gain a unique insight into the inner workings of communism—its appeal, its history, its basic and unchanging concepts, even its secret timetable of conquest. Among the many questions The Naked Communist answers are: * Who gave the United States’ nuclear secrets to the Russians? * How did the FBI fight communism after it was forced underground in 1918? * Why did the West lose 600 million allies after World War II? * What really happened in Korea? * What is communism’s great secret weapon? * What lies ahead? * What can I do to stop communism? * How can we fight communism without a major war? Now updated for 2017, this edition includes a chapter on the forty-five Communist Goals, detailing how forty-four of those goals have been achieved in the U.S. already, as well as a chapter on the making of The Naked Communist, shedding light on how this book has sold almost two million copies. As relevant now as it was sixty years ago, Skousen’s groundbreaking work provides a renewed understanding of one of the greatest threats facing America today. Praise for W. Cleon Skousen: “No one is better qualified to discuss the threat to this nation from communism. You will be alarmed, you will be informed, and you’ll be glad you heard him.”—President Ronald Reagan “I have never given any volume such an unqualified endorsement.”—CBS national broadcaster Paul Harvey “I went back and I read The Naked Communist, and at the end of that, Skousen predicted [that] someday soon you won’t be able to find the truth in schools or in libraries or anywhere else because it won’t be in print anymore. So you must collect those books. It’s an idea I read from Cleon Skousen from his book in the 1950s, The Naked Communist, where he talked about [how] someday the history of this country’s going to be lost because it’s going to be hijacked by intellectuals and communists and everything else. And I think we’re there.”—Glenn Beck, host of the nationally syndicated Glenn Beck Radio Program “The Naked Communist lays out the whole progressive plan. It is unbelievable how fast it has been achieved.”—Dr. Ben Carson (The Sean Hannity Show; May 23, 2014) “I feel certain that your efforts on this important subject will receive widespread attention and consideration.”—J. Edgar Hoover, first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation “We believe in a moral code. Communism denies innate right or wrong. As W. Cleon Skousen has said in his timely book, The Naked Communist: The communist ‘has convinced himself that nothing is evil which answers the call of expediency.’ This is a most damnable doctrine. People who truly accept such a philosophy have neither conscience nor honor. Force, trickery, lies, broken promises are wholly justified.”—Ezra Taft Benson, United States Secretary of Agriculture under President Eisenhower

Operation Solo

Operation Solo PDF Author: John Barron
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1621570991
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 397

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Book Description
Operation Solo is America's greatest spy story. For 27 years, Morris Childs, code name "Agent 58", provided the United States with the Kremlin's innermost secrets. Repeatedly risking his life, "Agent 58" made 57 clandestine missions into the Soviet Union, China, Eastern Europe, and Cuba. Because of his high ranking in the American communist party and his position as editor of its official paper, the Daily Worker, he was treated like royalty by communist leaders such as Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Mao Tse-tung. Through first-hand accounts, Operation Solo tells the story of the conflicts within the FBI and American intelligence about the operation, and how the FBI, through extraordinary measures, managed to keep that operation hidden from everyone, including the CIA. Operation Solo will appeal to movie audiences looking forward to Steven Spielberg's upcoming blockbuster movie, Bridge of Spies.

The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr.

The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr. PDF Author: David J. Garrow
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1504011538
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
The author of Bearing the Cross, the Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of Martin Luther King Jr., exposes the government’s massive surveillance campaign against the civil rights leader When US attorney general Robert F. Kennedy authorized a wiretap of Martin Luther King Jr.’s phones by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, he set in motion one of the most invasive surveillance operations in American history. Sparked by informant reports of King’s alleged involvement with communists, the FBI amassed a trove of information on the civil rights leader. Their findings failed to turn up any evidence of communist influence, but they did expose sensitive aspects of King’s personal life that the FBI went on to use in its attempts to mar his public image. Based on meticulous research into the agency’s surveillance records, historian David Garrow illustrates how the FBI followed King’s movements throughout the country, bugging his hotel rooms and tapping his phones wherever he went, in an obsessive quest to destroy his growing influence. Garrow uncovers the voyeurism and racism within J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI while unmasking Hoover’s personal desire to destroy King. The spying only intensified once King publicly denounced the Vietnam War, and the FBI continued to surveil him until his death. The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr. clearly demonstrates an unprecedented abuse of power by the FBI and the government as a whole.

A Threat of the First Magnitude

A Threat of the First Magnitude PDF Author: Aaron J Leonard
Publisher: Watkins Media Limited
ISBN: 1910924725
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Book Description
Discover the inner workings of FBI counterintelligence in this untold story of the FBI informants who infiltrated the Communist Party, the Black Panther Party, and other threats to US security. A Threat of the First Magnitude tells the story of the FBI’s fake Maoist organization and the informants they used to penetrate the highest levels of the Communist Party USA, the Black Panther Party, the Revolutionary Union and other groups labelled threats to the internal security of the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. As once again the FBI is thrust into the spotlight of US politics, A Threat of a First Magnitude offers a view of the historic inner-workings of the Bureau’s counterintelligence operations—from generating “fake news” and the utilization of “sensitive intelligence methods” to the handling of “reliable sources”—that matches or exceeds the sophistication of any contenders.

The Age of Eisenhower

The Age of Eisenhower PDF Author: William I Hitchcock
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451698437
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 672

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Book Description
A New York Times bestseller, this is the “outstanding” (The Atlantic), insightful, and authoritative account of Dwight Eisenhower’s presidency. Drawing on newly declassified documents and thousands of pages of unpublished material, The Age of Eisenhower tells the story of a masterful president guiding the nation through the great crises of the 1950s, from McCarthyism and the Korean War through civil rights turmoil and Cold War conflicts. This is a portrait of a skilled leader who, despite his conservative inclinations, found a middle path through the bitter partisanship of his era. At home, Eisenhower affirmed the central elements of the New Deal, such as Social Security; fought the demagoguery of Senator Joseph McCarthy; and advanced the agenda of civil rights for African-Americans. Abroad, he ended the Korean War and avoided a new quagmire in Vietnam. Yet he also charted a significant expansion of America’s missile technology and deployed a vast array of covert operations around the world to confront the challenge of communism. As he left office, he cautioned Americans to remain alert to the dangers of a powerful military-industrial complex that could threaten their liberties. Today, presidential historians rank Eisenhower fifth on the list of great presidents, and William Hitchcock’s “rich narrative” (The Wall Street Journal) shows us why Ike’s stock has risen so high. He was a gifted leader, a decent man of humble origins who used his powers to advance the welfare of all Americans. Now more than ever, with this “complete and persuasive assessment” (Booklist, starred review), Americans have much to learn from Dwight Eisenhower.

Subversives

Subversives PDF Author: Seth Rosenfeld
Publisher: Picador
ISBN: 9781250033383
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"Electrifying."—The New York Times Book Review "Encyclopedic and compelling."—The New Yorker A New York Times Bestseller A Christian Science Monitor Best Non-Fiction Book of the Year A Kirkus Reviews Best Non-Fiction Book of the Year Winner of the PEN Center USA Book Award Winner of the Ridenhour Book Prize Winner of the Society of Professional Journalists' Sunshine Award Winner of Before Columbus Foundations's American Book Award Subversives traces the FBI's secret involvement with three iconic figures who clashed at Berkeley during the 1960s: the ambitious neophyte politician Ronald Reagan, the fierce but fragile radical Mario Savio, and the liberal university president Clark Kerr. Through these converging narratives, the award-winning investigative reporter Seth Rosenfeld tells a dramatic and disturbing story of FBI surveillance, illegal break-ins, infiltration, planted news stories, poison-pen letters, and secret detention lists all centered on the nation's leading public university. Rosenfeld vividly evokes the campus counterculture, as he reveals how the FBI's covert operations—led by Reagan's friend J. Edgar Hoover—helped ignite an era of protest, undermine the Democrats, and benefit Reagan personally and politically. The FBI spent more than $1 million trying to block the release of the secret files on which Subversives is based, but Rosenfeld compelled the bureau to reveal more than 300,000 pages, providing an extraordinary view of what the government was up to during a turning point in our nation. Part history, part biography, and part police procedural, Subversives reads like a true-crime mystery as it provides a fresh look at the legacy of the 1960s, sheds new light on one of America's most popular presidents, and tells a cautionary tale about the dangers of unchecked secrecy and power.