"The phone was ringing. I answered it. My dean said, "Don't be upset." He explained that my pictures and address had been found on the arrested man. I felt the tears welling up in my eyes. My body started shaking and I knew that I had lost control... maybe for the very first time in my life.
I was to meet the FBI in his office as soon as possible. " - Jodie Foster, 1981
"...and that's when I found out I was next in line to assassinate Jimmy Carter..."
David Duchovny,
Someone who isn't Fox Mulder,
Zoolander, September 2001
FBI Hostage Rescue Team Tank brings down the back wall and roof of the Mount Carmel gymnasium.
19 April 1993
"The question remains: Did the FBI or Nashville’s criminal court system drop the ball in 1980 when [John] Hinckley was caught going through Nashville International Airport’s south concourse with three pistols, a pair of hand cuffs and a box of hollow-nose bullets inside his suitcase?
More precisely, did American Airlines personnel fail to act appropriately, when they, according to an official Federal Aviation Administration investigative report, advised Hinckley to “check himself,” which was not uncommon, through an X-ray machine because he was reportedly running late for his scheduled flight to New York? "
Murfreesboro Post,
January 1st 2012
The Post-Hoover Bureau, Freemasonry and the Popular Myth of Serial Killers.
Were I to have put forward this analysis of this particular area of historical scholarship and research as a full, book-length study in the recognised format of mass-marketed non-fiction, where titles, and moreover subtitles for the work more often practically write themselves (often as a qualifying remark appended to a partial, germaine quotation of something older, the obvious and clear subtitle that would inevitably adhear itself to that book would surely be "The 30 Year Battle for the Soul of the Bureau."
This description, of course, woul be a Double-Lie, if not actually totally misleading -The Bureau of course, as everyone knows, has no soul, not in any sense; it never had one, it was never intended to have one, it never has had one, it never will have one, and never, not in any sense, is that what it was ever for...
The statement however, though being a Double-Lie, is not therefore in and of itself wholly untruthful - it would perhaps then be better to say that the phenomenon it describes and refers to is indeed of course very real, and reflects a series of very protracted, major upheavals and realignments of forces in the American Power Structure, however in terms of contextualising those events and that history, and interpreting the relevance of their meaning... To call such fluctuations in recent historical trends "a battle for the soul" of the FBI, anyone seeking to apply such a description to this phase of history would certainly have to qualify for doing so wholly in bad faith - which is why I haven't, although I certainly was initially inclined to follow such an obvious course as to initially do so.
The basic question, really is the same one that has always hung over the organisation:
"What is the FBI actually for?"
And this, of course, is a difficult and complicated question - it doesn't seem that way superficially of course, that is at least until you actually think about it - not being a US Citizen is also of great help in this regard.
And like all the most challenging and fundamental political and social questions, the more time and thought one commits to consider the question, the more complicated it becomes, not less.
The FBI is a problem ; always is, always has been - we know, and can say for certain that it is a problem, since it is such a world-class source and centre for confusion and the almost industrial mass-production of legal, cultural and social paradoxes within the Society.
FBI investigators are not policemen, they are agents of the Judiciary - FBI Directors are selected for the task by tapping (pun intended) generally the brightest prosecutorial high-flyers from the amongst the top-echelon talent-pool of Judges. They are typically addressed, according to protocol, before and even after appointment to their term as Director as "Judge Sessions", or "Judge Freeh".
Which is a clear indication, also, that from the perspective of the American Power Structure, that person's status achieved status as a Judge is automatically consider to be far more deserving of respect for their peer group than that of Directorship of the FBI - even the formalised structures of the American Power Structure regard the FBI itself with contempt and considerable hostility and resent it's assigned role, reach and influence within the society - which is of course, precisely how Hoovef himself envisioned the Bureau's role in Government and in American Society, set out to create it in that image and achieved that intended aim he set for himself and his staff to a truly remarkable level of success.
Hoover himself, and those parts of his personal machine deserve great respect for that, even though they themselves are The Enemy, and of course rarely receive even such tacit acknowledgement of just how GOOD they were in fulfilling the role and tasks as Hoovef himself had dictated them to be.
Because someone whom you hate does something well, really well, which inevitably you do not like, that's cause for respect, it had by that point been *earned* and quite often been quite costly won in part of of the process of working toward that point.
"The FBI soon officially rubber-stamped the order promulgated by the cabinet that no conspiracy be found: “there was no conspiracy and Hinckley acted alone,” said the bureau. Hinckley’s parents’ memoir refers to some notes penciled notes by Hinckley which were found during a search of his cell and which “could sound bad.” These notes “described an imaginary conspiracy–either with the political left or the political right [...] to assasinate the President.”
Hinckley’s lawyers from Edward Bennett Williams’s law firm said that the notes were too absurd to be taken seriously, and they have been suppressed.
In July 1985, the FBI was compelled to release some details of its investigation of Hinckley under the Freedom of Information Act.
No explanation was offered of how it was determined that Hinckley had acted alone, and the names of all witnesses were censored.
According to a wire service account, “the file made no mention of papers seized from Hinckley’s prison cell at Butner, North Carolina, which reportedly made reference to a conspiracy. Those writings were ruled inadmissible by the trial judge and never made public.”
The FBI has refused to release 22 pages of documents concerning Hinckley’s “associates and organizations,” 22 pages about his personal finances, and 37 pages about his personality and character.
The Williams and Connolly defense team argued that Hinckley was insane, controlled by his obsession with Jodie Foster.
The jury accepted this version, and in July, 1982, Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity."
No comments:
Post a Comment