Washington Window

Perils of FBI gossip files

By Richard G. Zimmerman

Plain Dealer Washington Bureau Chief '

WASHINGTON

The idea of grown FBI agents carefully squirreling away juicy tidbits of gossip about congressmen's drinking habits and sexual proclivities might be funny if it were not for the fact that it reflects a monstrous police state mentality that has not gone away with Watergate.

Last week, after playing a semantics game for months, the FBI owned up to the fact that it does file away "volunteered" information (volunteered by whom?) relating

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to the private lives of members of Congress. But just as FBI Director Clarence Kelley has repeatedly said, the bureau doesn't keep dossiers on congressmen, mind you, because the information is not filed in one place under a particular congressman's name. Rather, the information is cross-indexed on the basis of source or subject or in some other manner and would have to be pulled together to create would have to be pulled together to create

a true dossier.

This distinction may be important to the bureaucratic mentality, but it hardly calmed down Congress. Neither did the White House's defense that such facts are saved in case a senator or congressman might some day be nominated for an important federal post and become the subject of a full background check. Obviously, this rationale can be used to justify maintaining files on any well-known person, be he public official, business leader, journalist or social activist.

Director Kelley says he knows of no misuse of such information (described as mostly "junk" by two former FBI officials) during his stewardship of the bureau, and there is no reason not to believe him. Kelley generally has proven more sensitive to rights of privacy than most

cops.

But Kelley did make one intriguing statement in defense of his gossip files. He was quoted as saying that whenever the FBI gets a noncriminal but potentially damaging report involving a congressman, the congressman is notified at once. This is done, Keiley said, "so the congressmen can protect themselves when such reports start coming in."

Exactly what Kelley meant by “when such reports start coming in" isn't clear, threat in letting a congressman know that although he insisted there was no implied the FBI had received damaging information. There might not be any implied

threat if the information were untrue. But an implied threat would be very real if the damaging gossip happened to be true.

Kelley's remarks bring to mind a story that had often circulated on Capitol Hill. The story is widely accepted as true, although I couldn't prove it to be.

The report is that in breaking up an interstate homosexual extortion ring, the FBI discovered that a member of Congress from an eastern state was among those being blackmailed. This information, of course, immediately went to J. Edgar Hoover.

Hoover, it is said, contacted the congressman and let him know that this damaging information was in FBI hands, but not to worry. It would be safe with Hoover.

tion was tucked away in Hoover's file and Needless to say, knowing the informaknowing that the gossipy old man was quite capable of leaking such material if it suited his political schemes, the congressman became one of the FBI's staunchest supporters on Capitol Hill.

(Don't bother checking the voting records of eastern congressmen. In Hoover's heyday, EVERYBODY supported the FBI.)

hell out of Congress. The old man used to It is the ghost of Hoover that scares let Cabinet members know how much he knew about the personal lives of their top subordinates, the implication being he knew a lot about everybody-including the Cabinet members. Stories abound of Hoover regaling presidents with tales of the sexual habits of the well-known.

Policies established by the FBI also influence other law enforcement agencies. Just this month it has been revealed that both the Baltimore and Houston police departments maintain noncriminal files on politicians (especially black politicians), newsmen and other prominent persons.

Regardless of how well protected such files are, the possibility of abuse is present, the climate of police tyranny omnipresent.

Let the FBI make background checks after a nomination has been made. There simply is no reason for the FBI to maintain such noncriminal files on anybody.