Prime Time FBI

THERE'S A NEW SHOW on prime time this season about the FBI By all accounts it's pretty tame stuff--the basic shoot-out, book em Danno approach to television police drama. There's nothing wrong with such shows (at least compared to what they compete with except that they have so little to do with the way the FBI actually works Garrow's book, on the other hand, although perhaps too well-written and well-documented, would make an excellent pilot episode for Hoover's FBI. The Real Story.

The show would open with the dossier of this week's criminal. One Martin I King Jr. His official FBI classification through most of the sixties was Section A of the "reserve idea," a list of people "in a position to influence others against national interests or...likely to furnish financial or other material aid to subversive elements."

The first scene would show our heroes huddled around a telephone lap, listening to King's private conversations. The suspect is discussing an up coming trip to San Francisco where he will lobby for civil rights and fundraise for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The G Men jump into action, and soon technical experts from the San Francisco branch are wiring King's hotel room with taps and hidden television cameras.

The score would then switch to J. Edgar Hoover describing the complex rationale behind his efforts to get King's nighttime activities on film. As Hoover wrote in a confidential FBI memo when King won the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize. "King could well qualify for the 'top alley cat' prize. "Of course, Hoover was not concerned only with the sexual practices of King to whom he referred consistently in internal FBI memos as "that moral degenerate." As was revealed shortly after Hoover's death, one of the chief's greatest pet projects was using FBI agents to closely monitor the sex lives of famous people.

After about four commercials, the scene would switch to the media end of the FBI operations. To show young viewers the multiplicity of talents needed by today's FBI, we could watch a real FBI media manipulator at work. See the media manipulator talk to his buddies at certain newspapers across the country that were known as friendly to the FBI. See him leak 'a pre-written story about alleged communist infiltration in King's operation to the network of papers. The next day, see them all print the identical story, all repeat the same factual errors, and all attribute the story--as the FBI requested--to a "highly authoritive source."

THE SHOW would such its climate with the special guest appearance of the FBI's anonymous hate-letter department, a division that just doesn't seem to make it into prime time. The camera would pan across an office, and focus in an William C. Sullivan, hand of civil rights investigations for the FBI, busily penning a latter. The camera then peers ever his shoulder at the words as he writes them.

"King look into your heart. You know you are a complete fraud and a great liability to all of an Negroes." Going on to call King a "dissolute, abnormal moral imbicile," the anonymous letter concludes, "King, there's only one thing left for you to do. You have just 34 days in which to [kill yourself]."

Livening up the show would be candid footage of the real FBI at work. Cut to Hoover reading the daily paper and writing in the margin of a news story, "I am amazed the Pope gave an audience to such a degenerate. "Cut to Sullivan expounding on the Bureau's standards of proof; "It may be unrealistic to limit ourselves as we have been doing to legalistic proofs or evidence that would stand up in court." Cut to a G-man calling up the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and under the pretext of being a potential contributor, pumping them about their future plans.

VOYEURISM, HATE MAIL, LYING, DECEIT--the real story of the FBI's behavior in tracking King seems to have everything a show needs to take it to the top of the Nielson's. But this time, the FBI comes off as the heavy.

There's a lot of talk these days about how unfairly the FBI's been treated. Covert operations, both domestic and abroad, have suddenly regained their chic. Congressional investigations and requests under the Freedom of Information Act that seek to discover how the bureau operates are losing favor as counterproductive and possibly motivated by suspect loyalties to this country.

Garrow's book is not only an excellent piece of scholarship. It is also a very timely reminder of what the FBI has done when it did not think anyone was watching. Ideal educational television, in fact. At the end of an hour, no viewer could fail to see exactly which side was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Book'em, Danno.