A Career-Spanning Archive of FBI-Related Material Collected by Special Agent Arthur Lea, Including Official Bureau-Produced Bulletins an
Mostly Washington, D.C. and North Carolina: 1940s-1970s. First Edition. Various formats including bulletins, magazines, and photographs, comprising one linear foot in total. Near Fine. Item #List1202
The F.B.I. under J. Edgar Hoover showed a willingness to surveil and harass American citizens, perhaps most famously in the COINTELPRO program, while at the same time investigating some instances of domestic terrorism, such as some K.K.K. activities, and some of the racially charged murders in the south. Collected here is a group of materials - agent memos, magazines, anti-Communism papers penned by Hoover, and various bureau publications - that show a time capsule of the bureau in the 1950s-1970s (the group does not include any original casework, internally-circulated photographs or bureau files). The material reflects the volatile time period, with several memos relating to unrest, the murder of Malcolm X, anti-war protesters, and other issues relevant to the Civil Rights era - as well as the degree to which the bureau was still investigating bread and butter crimes - bank robberies, wire frauds, counterfeit currency, and the like.
The material was collected over a period of several decades by Special Agent Art Lea, a sharpshooting pistol specialist who had given up a career playing professional football to join the bureau in the 1940s. Lea was a lifer agent who remained loyal despite the various controversies that surrounded Hoover, stating in a career retrospective in the Charlotte Observer that “when the essentials are sorted out John Edgar Hoover will go down in history as one of the great men in the country.” The group contains nine letters written to Lea by Hoover. Lea led pistol training for other agents, with twenty photographs of these events collected here. He would engage in stunts to make the training more interesting, including shooting cards in half behind his back using a diamond ring as a mirror, and splitting bullets in half on an axe blade.
He once foiled an airline cargo smuggling plot mid-air, and kept the container that the perpetrators had been hiding in to use for a dog house.
There are thirty-eight agency memos present, ten of which deal with matters relating to the Civil Rights movement or unrest, including one detailing the rift between Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam, another on weapons possession by Klan members, several stating the need to infiltrate Civil Rights groups, one stating “there must be a continuing, intensive investigation into all facets of subersive activities relating to the racial movement… Black Nationalist groups, such as the Nation of Islam and the Revolutionary Action Movement, must receive diligent attention because of propensity for violence.” Of the other memos, some of the language is surprisingly vivid, one for example describing a suspect as “described by acquaintances as a ‘nut’ who would shoot his best friend if his back were turned.” Other crimes are farcical, such as the theft of $40,000 worth of spark plugs from a fireproof storage facility in Knoxville.
The other material consists mostly sixteen published pieces by Hoover, mostly anti-Communist diatribes, as well as public service flyers warning against the dangers of hitchhikers (one is pictured with the caption ‘Death in Disguise?’), and another shows a would-be abductor offering candy to an unsuspecting child. Also included are [count needed] magazines and various publications, including a copy of Marihiana: Its Identification (1948).
Overall a very interesting and illuminating group, showing the breadth of work of the agency during the Hoover era.
Price: $1,500.00