THE FBI: Of Hoover and Clark

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Democratic congressional leaders were still hard at work last week trying to keep alive the surveillance issue surrounding J. Edgar Hoover and his bureau. In a speech delivered at Lewis-St. Francis College in Lockport, Ill..., Senator George McGovern accused the FBI of attempting to "destroy the career" of a Trans World Airlines pilot who had criticized the bureau's handling of the 1969 Minichiello hijacking case. Damning the FBI as the "Federal Bureau of Intimidation," the Senator said: "Despite Mr. Nixon's words, I cannot believe that he can any longer with a straight face profess his confidence in Mr. Hoover." In fact, the mounting campaign against Hoover has probably forced the White House to defend the FBI chief at a time when it privately would have welcomed his resignation.

Revelations. Still the most vocal of the Democrats was the man who touched off the controversy, House Majority Leader Hale Boggs of Louisiana. Three weeks ago, Boggs accused the bureau of wiretapping. Last week, having promised corroborating evidence, Boggs steamed into the fray. On the House floor he insisted during an impassioned, hour-long speech that his contention was true and went on to intimate that electronic surveillance devices may have been used against other Administration critics, among them former Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon, Republican Senator Charles Percy of Illinois and Democrat Birch Bayh of Indiana.

Despite the incandescence of his rhetoric, Boggs did not offer substantive evidence, but said only that a telephone company investigator had told him that his line had been tapped. Another telephone company spokesman, Fred Lang-bein, said, however, that he had checked Boggs' phone at the time and that there had been no evidence of wiretapping. (Langbein noted that the phone company had handed over a record of Boggs' long-distance calls to the Justice Department under subpoena in a case involving a Government contract scandal.)

Republican critics were ready for Boggs. He was attacked by Congressman Lawrence Hogan of Maryland, a former FBI agent. Hogan charged that Boggs had "failed completely" to produce any proof. Nonetheless, Boggs' speech contributed to the growing impetus in Washington for an investigation of the nation's premier investigators.

"Possibly." Ironically, there is a sub-dispute revolving around former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, one of Hoover's most severe critics. A devoted advocate of liberal causes, Clark must now contend with embarrassing revelations concerning some of his actions as Attorney General. In a 1967 memorandum to Hoover, reports TIME Correspondent Sandy Smith, Clark urged FBI investigators to "use the maximum available resources, investigative and intelligence," to determine whether conspiracies had triggered rioting in urban ghettos. The memo also said: "As a part of the broad investigation which must necessarily be conducted . . . sources or informants in Black Nationalist organizations, S.N.C.C. [Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee] and other less publicized groups should be developed and expanded to determine the size and purpose of these groups and their relationship to other groups, and also to determine the whereabouts of persons who might be involved in instigating riot activity in violation of federal law."