F.B.I. Is Seeking to Search Papers of Dead Reporter Jack Anderson

[cynatnite]

The F.B.I. is seeking to go through the files of the late newspaper columnist Jack Anderson to remove classified material he may have accumulated in four decades of muckraking Washington journalism.

Mr. Anderson's family has refused to allow a search of 188 boxes, the files of a well-known reporter who had long feuded with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and had exposed plans by the Central Intelligence Agency to kill Fidel Castro, the machinations of the Iran-contra affair and the misdemeanors of generations of congressmen.

Mr. Anderson's son Kevin said that to allow government agents to rifle through the papers would betray his father's principles and intimidate other journalists, and that family members were willing to go to jail to protect the collection.

"It's my father's legacy," said Kevin N. Anderson, a Salt Lake City lawyer and one of the columnist's nine children. "The government has always and continues to this day to abuse the secrecy stamp. My father's view was that the public is the employer of these government employees and has the right to know what they're up to."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/19/washington/19anderson.html?hp&ex=1145505600&en=ba1614ccd2cc0a5f&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[gardenista]

1. He must have some great stuff on Iran Contra.

This is about protecting the reputation of Daddy Bush.

[Old and In the Way]

10. Gotta agree.

Must be getting desperate to sweep the trail, in case they lose control of the government.

[The Doctor.]

31. When did Jack Anderson die?

I heard that about ten years ago Jack said he was going to 'get to the bottom' of the mysterious 'suicide' of a personal friend of his who was investigating mob links to congressmen.

From what I heard, that reporter was the second one to die, in a bathtub in his hotel room, with wrists slashed, no suicide note, and all his papers and notes missing.

How did Jack Die?

[mirandapriestly]

35. Well, he was in his eighties and had parkinson's

but that's the first thing I thought, too. That's ALWAYS the first thing I think with this crew.

[Canuckistanian]

23. Yup, sound like some of the "old hands" are trying a CYA

They must suspect something very damaging in those files.

Say, didn't Jack Anderson write a lot during the Reagan-Cheney-Rumsfeld years in the '80's?

Just askin'.

[gardenista]

38. Yes, he was very active during that period, and hard-hitting

I hope his family fights this tooth-and-nail

[Timbuk3]

34. Bush's first executive order...

...was sealing the records of Reagan right as they were about to be opened up under the Presidential Records Act.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/11/20011101-12.html

and

http://www.rcfp.org/news/2001/1105execor.html

I thought the same thing then that I thought when I read your post.

If those records are ever made public I have a feeling we'll be renaming some airports and aircraft carriers. I hope we're not dynamiting a head off Mt. Rushmore...

[The Doctor.]

40. Which would explain the desperation to get Bush selected. n/t

[Hekate]

2. Let me be the first to K&R this.Doesn't the FBI have a librarian to abuse?

Jack Anderson was one of the greats -- and greatly missed in these parlous times. I suppose it could be seen as a kind of backhanded tribute that the FBI hounds him even in death.

Hekate

[katinmn]

11. Oh, they are abusing librarians. Anderson's papers are archived at

George Washington University. The librarian there strongly objects to what the FBI is seeking to do.

snip

The George Washington University librarian, Jack Siggins, said the university strongly objected to the F.B.I.'s removing anything from the Anderson archive.

"We certainly don't want anyone going through this material, let alone the F.B.I., if they're going to pull documents out," Mr. Siggins said. "We think Jack Anderson represents something important in American culture — answers to the question, How does our government work?"

[EST]

3. My outrage gage just pegged again, for the umpteenth time

today. The brazenness of the crooked republicans is (again) astounding.

[lostnfound]

5. You're not kidding.

Outrage fatigue. What the heck is the antidote?? The man is dead and they consider that an occasion to engage in searching his papers?

To remove "classified materials"?? What are there grounds??

I don't believe that's even the reason. More likely they want to identify sources of leaks.

[EST]

9. There is a bunch of powerful crooks with every reason to

fear too good a look at their histories.

[formercia]

21. Find the leakers

that was my thought too.

This is nothing but a fishing expedition and illegal.

[silverweb]

4. Anderson was a great investigative journalist.

My father loved him and read every word he wrote. His son, Kevin, sounds like a chip off the old block and I hope successfully fights off this abuse of power.

"The government has always and continues to this day to abuse the secrecy stamp. My father's view was that the public is the employer of these government employees and has the right to know what they're up to."

How true, how true!

[Supersedeas]

24. and he discovered something that they don't much like.

[newswolf56]

6. As I said earlier, this is undoubtedly because Anderson laid bare the...

effectively top-secret records of the Congressional hearings c. 1948-1949 that uncovered the Big Oil/Big Automotive conspiracy to destroy public transport in the United States: to shut down fast, efficient electrically powered trolley and rail systems and replace them with slow stinky herky-jerky petroleum-fueled buses offering only the most minimal service -- all this to force the U.S. public into maximum dependence on privately owned automobiles and petroleum fuels. Anderson wrote extensively about this uniquely capitalist atrocity during the fuel crises of the 1970s, but few people paid any attention, and the outrageous practices continued: hence the fact the U.S. has the worst, most viciously discriminatory, least efficient, most expensive transport system on the entire planet -- one that is also uniquely (and obscenely) profitable for the ruling class. Hence too the present crisis: the bitter fact millions of U.S. workers are being ruined because we cannot afford gasoline despite the fact there is no functional alternative to the automobile -- nor (because of now-totally-prohibitive costs) will such alternatives ever be built.

Given the speed toward which the U.S. is hurtling toward post-Peak-Oil socioeconomic collapse -- especially in the deliberate total absence of any programs to soften the blows or equalize the hardships -- no doubt the Bush Administration in service to its corporate masters has sicced the FBI on Anderson's estate to suppress this information: particularly the undeniable implicit proof that Enron conspiracies are THE defining characteristic of capitalism. The ruling class fear is obviously that such material -- especially the "lost" (that is, deliberately suppressed) records of the Congressional hearings -- will surface to further support the quietly growing conviction that capitalism is essentially nothing more than infinite greed elevated to ultimate virtue: Enron personified. Especially since the petro-dayctls are now vampire-winging home to roost.

[lovuian]

26. There has been a campaign going on to get rid of papers

in the archives and now this man ... I believe its Poppy Bush's
campaign to get rid of all the evidence that he has been the puppet master pulling all the strings ... and the American public has been so duped ...

[Jose Diablo]

27. There is some serious stuff in those notes

In light of the crashing political center underway, the bombshell of a clear view of what 'capitalism' is really all about will finish the Republican Party.

These papers should be archived on the net, so the internet bloggers/researchers can digest what is in there.

It's time for all the 'masks' to come-off, the party is over.

Good observations, newswolf56. You got these guy's number. To bad you cannot get AJC to blow this wide open.

[happydreams]

33. He broke that story?? WOW!

If you have any links I'd love to see them. I'm researching similar scandals.

[newswolf56]

36. No links because it's way pre-Internet:

If I remember c. 1977-1980; maybe before that, too: c. 1973-1974.

(I had clips of Anderson's reports on this subject as background files because at the time one of my beats was public transport, but those files -- and much else including all my writing and photography up until then -- were destroyed in a house fire 23 years ago.)

[Pachamama]

7. My suggestion: If the FBI gets to see, so does the entire public!

Make it all public....bet the Bush cabal doesn't want that! :eyes:

[Tsiyu]

8. Don't those goons have enough to worry about?

Our nation is going to hell in a handbasket and they want to wash yesterday's laundry.

[The Backlash Cometh]

12. He was probably a great patriot. I don't know for sure.

But I do know that sometimes, when good people do the right thing, sometimes they hurt other people who think they're doing the right thing too. Living overseas, we met someone who was "exiled" because of his semi-encounter with Jack Anderson. I think his name was Nickerson. This happened over 40 years ago and is now well declassified. Basically, the Navy was trying to compete against the Army for some long range missile program. The Navy was way behind the Army in the program, but politics being what it was... Anyway, Nickerson was selected to send a manila folder to Andersen that would explain the facts of the situation. The Army's program would have cost the public far less because it was so much further ahead. But nobody told Nickerson that the information he was passing on was classified. So, he went to the newsroom, and not finding Anderson around, just left the manila folder behind for the newspaper man. Nickerson didn't know what was inside. Anderson opened it and realized he had classified information and turned it in. I don't know why he did, but that's what I've been told. Doesn't sound like something a ball-buster like Anderson would do, but this information was probably folklore by the time it got to me.

Anyway, Nickerson got exiled. I understand he and his wife were wonderful people and they both later died in a car crash somewhere in the U.S.

I think that's how all these stories end. Like I said, it could have been folklore.

[malaise]

13. These men are scary

Damn.

[yy4me]

14. Might be some incriminating info re GHW ****, Need that to be

sealed away for a lifetime. No use exposing any info on something questionable about Papa ****. I hope the family fights this for all its worth.

[The Backlash Cometh]

15. Of course it has to do with the Bushs, Rumsfeld and Cheney.

This Administration has been more secretive than Nixon. They've been trying to hide information from the public ever since they got into office. And my guess is that the FBI is probably doing their dirty work for them because the FBI probably did some things that would be considered heinous by today's standards, and probably were in cahoots with those three dark lords at one time or other.

[izzie]

16. I think when Regan opened up the nut houses these people ----------

ended up behind the fence at the White House. These people running our gov. are really scary. Congress is not much better as they are to watch what is going on.The wrong God must be speaking to Bush.

[rateyes]

17. Why does't the family go through it...

and release the stuff to the public?

[DemonFighterLives]

18. Good for his son- hang on tight

This regime will stop at nothing to whitewash the past, present, future.

[Minnesota Libra]

19. I wish Jack Anderson's family would start making his files..............

....public.:patriot: I doubt that we'd commentary from anyone, just the cold hard files. We lost a true national treasure when we lost Jack Anderson.:patriot: The term :patriot: can't be used too often when it comes to Jack Anderson.

[Coexist]

22. kick

[Gman]

20. If anyone else were in office now this wouldn't be happening

There is a whole lot of revenge going on here toward Anderson. He had the goods on a lot of people both in Watergate and Iran-Contra. Iran-Contra has got to be the biggest motivation here because that whole convicted felon bunch is in the WH now.

[Imagevision]

25. Looks like the clean-up crew has arrived!!

[Emit]

28. May relate to AIPAC Spy Scandal

NPR had a report on this earlier:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5350365

Said FBI wanted some documents to take fingerprints from pro-Israel lobbysists who allegedly took documents from government officials. FBI won't confirm they want the docs for the spy case.

[annabanana]

30. my first thought.. . .there are some o-o-o-old bones

lying around.

[annabanana]

29. BOY! I hope they have those papers in a safe place...

They should publish them immediately, before the admin closes them down into a black hole. I hope they're not just sitting in boxes in the garage or anything...

[silverweb]

32. My thoughts precisely!

I hope they're locked up tight in a very secret, very safe place!

[orleans]

37. unreal! n/t

[ThoughtCriminal]

39. When I die

I'm leaving a few thousand terrabytes of random numbers on cryptically labeled Ultra-DVDs.

That should keep them busy :evilgrin: