© Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI, Inc. 2007
Interview of Former Deputy Director of the FBI
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach (1942 – 1970)
Interviewed by David G. Binney
On May 1, 2007
Edited for spelling, repetitions, etc. by Sandra Robinette on June 7, 2007. Final edit from Mr.
DeLoach’s corrections by Sandra Robinette on June 25, 2007. Final edit with all corrections on
July 6, 2007.
David G. Binney:
Today is May 1st, 2007, and I am in the process of
interviewing Deke DeLoach. Good morning sir. I appreciate
you taking the time. This is very, very important.
DeLoach:
Good morning to you. And I‟m sorry you had to come such a
long way but I appreciate the opportunity to be with you.
Binney:
Good. As I said, we‟re going to cover the Civil Rights
Program. Let me begin by saying that I don‟t know where you
were at the time when the Civil Rights Program really started.
When the Civil Rights issue started to emerge in the United
States; and, I assume, that was probably late 1950s early 1960s,
as far as the Bureau goes.
DeLoach:
I think you‟re right. I was an Inspector in the Inspection
Division under Hugh Clegg, in the early „50s. And then, after
two years of being on the road, was transferred to Tolson‟s
office. Clyde Tolson was the Associate Director. Then after a
period of time, I was transferred to the Crime Records
Division, where Lou Nichols was Assistant Director. He
retired after a period of time and went with Schenley
Industries. Gordon Nease was Acting Assistant Director for
only a short period of time. He didn‟t make it, and he was
transferred over to Mr. Hoover‟s office as an Inspector. I was
made Acting Assistant Director and …
Binney:
In Crime Records?
DeLoach:
In Crime Records. After a few months, [I] was made Assistant
Director. After being in the Deputy Director‟s job for a
number of years, Al Belmont retired. I was appointed to his
job and I was placed over John Mohr as the Number Three man
in the Bureau as Deputy Director, with four Assistant Directors
reporting to me.
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 2
DeLoach:
One Assistant Director was William C. Sullivan, of the
Domestic Intelligence Division. Another was Al Rosen, a real
good friend, who was Assistant Director for the General
Investigative Division. Another was Jim Gale, who was head
of the Special Investigative Division, which involved
Applicants, Organized Crime, and things of that nature. The
fourth one was Bob Wick, who was my old Number One man
when I was in the Crime Records Division. So with four
experienced good Assistant Directors. Well, I‟ll say three, with
only one turncoat; and that was William C. Sullivan.
Binney:
Yeah. He sort of went south, I guess.
DeLoach:
He went south, in my opinion, because he had more ambition
than he had loyalty or common sense.
Binney:
Yeah. Yeah. That was a sad chapter in the Bureau, the way it
was … I guess an ugly scene. There‟s been little written about
that too, I guess.
DeLoach:
That‟s very true.
Binney:
They sure tried to hang Hoover out to dry on that. But …
when you look at what he was doing … Sullivan was doing …
DeLoach:
Well, he went back and he cooperated with a few of the Nixon
associates at the White House and committed many acts which
Mr. Hoover was very much against; one of which was
preparing a paper along with a White House associate, giving
authority for wholesale wiretapping, usage of microphones,
opening mail, etc. Some of which, i.e., wiretapping and
microphone usage, had been done sparingly, with the approval
of the Attorney General.
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
Mr. Hoover was almost always against such usage, except
when it was an absolute necessity. Kidnappings, when life was
in danger, espionage, matters of that nature. But Sullivan went
ahead without Mr. Hoover‟s authority and cooperated with the
White House.
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Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 3
DeLoach:
The Attorney General and the President, after receiving
Sullivan‟s treatise and that of the fellow in the White House,
called Mr. Hoover over and asked him if he would approve the
proposals and put them in motion. Mr. Hoover looked at the
suggestions very carefully, and I think he was very wise in
saying, “I‟ll do this if you order me to do it and put it in
writing.” Well, the Attorney General and the President ran like
scared rabbits. They would not put it in writing and as a result
the proposals were not put into practice. But Sullivan was
responsible for that and his motives, of course, was getting Mr.
Hoover out of office and becoming Director himself.
Binney:
Uhm-hmm.
DeLoach:
He sent anonymous letters out on me, behind my back. He sent
letters out on Mr. Hoover. He did many things which would
cause us embarrassment. So, it‟s always been a thorn in my
side. I prayed for him. I‟ve asked forgiveness for him, you
know, but he did some pretty nasty things against the both of
us.
Binney:
It was really … really strange guy. Strange time for the
Bureau. Strange actions, inexplicable reactions for a fellow
that high up in the Bureau, who had had, up to that point, such
a great career.
DeLoach:
That‟s very true.
Binney:
Really different. So where did Civil Rights, that would fall
under Mr. Rosen in the Criminal Division?
DeLoach:
Yes, it did. And Mr. Hoover, before consulting with the
Department of Justice, initiated what was then called the Civil
Rights Section.
Binney:
About what time frame? Roughly?
DeLoach:
I believe it was early 1950s or mid-50s.
Binney:
Oh. Okay.
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Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 4
DeLoach:
But I remember that Lou Nichols, who at that time was head of
the Crime Records Division, was asked by the Director to write
a White Paper that the Director could use in briefing President
Eisenhower‟s Cabinet.
And Mr. Hoover did brief the President and Cabinet. The
thrust of it was that Civil Rights was going to be a powerful
force in the United States. That, in many instances, violations
of Federal law might be committed. That many individuals
who believed in strong racial conflicts, in other words, did not
believe in including Afro-Americans, including them in all
laws, giving them equality, from a racial standpoint, would
rebel against it. But Mr. Hoover read the paper to the Cabinet.
By no means was it against equality, to the contrary, it pointed
out that many things that were equal both to people of color, as
well as to the white individual. But that … that naturally there
would be a conflict rising as a result of all this. And that‟s, you
know, much what happened.
Binney:
Oh yeah. It was very prophetic because …
DeLoach:
Yeah.
Binney:
It was Brown v. Board of Education in ‟54 and then things just
started to happen. I mean, there were some riots …
DeLoach:
You‟re right.
Binney:
Integrating the schools, I think, was the first thing back in the
„50s.
DeLoach:
Yes. You‟re right.
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
I‟d like to point out two things now, at the beginning of our
interview. One was that, in my own humble opinion and …
despite the good job the FBI has done, it has not received
anywhere near sufficient credit for doing all the tremendous
investigative work … all the sacrifice, the labor, the blood, the
sweat, the tears … to put it proverbially … that we have done,
we have been not given credit.
Binney:
Yeah.
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Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 5
DeLoach:
The investigative process in the United States and the
investigative process in the minds and eyes of many civil
libertarians, principally the extreme civil libertarians, including
the ACLU, who believe the necessary investigations are
intrusive.
Some of the more liberal newspapers in the United States will
always be against the FBI simply because of the fact we
represent the investigative process.
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
In their opinion, we take civil liberties away from people
because of investigating their backgrounds. And that‟s not
true. You‟re always going to need an FBI. You‟re always
going to need an intensive investigative process in order to
protect civil liberties. But they don‟t look at it that way. They
look upon us as invaders, intrusive, which is absolutely not
true.
Another thing, there‟s a false perception among many people
today who haven‟t checked into the complete process, that the
FBI makes a decision concerning prosecution. To the contrary,
we make investigations into civil rights investigations and,
frankly with my years as Deputy Director and as Assistant
Director, and Inspector, I don‟t know of any instance where the
FBI has ever blindly swayed a report one way or another
insofar as telling the truth is concerned. The reports have
always been thorough. Now, there have been many instances
where the Department of Justice has asked us to go back and
interview so-and-so once again concerning a specific point but,
at no time, has the FBI been, in my opinion, or knowledge,
accused of falsely making statements in a report to sway
opinion one way or the other.
But the American public doesn‟t understand that we
investigate, and we investigate only. The Department of
Justice makes opinions as to prosecutions. The public believes
we‟re both the investigator and the prosecutor.
Binney:
(Chuckling)
DeLoach:
And the judge, which determines these investigations.
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Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 6
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
We never have been. And we never should be placed in that
position. We‟re simply an investigative organization and we
always have been and always will be. But when somebody
wants prosecution, specifically down South, in civil rights
cases, the relatives or the people who are familiar with the
victim; when that prosecution is entertained by the Department
of Justice or Hill, and the prosecution is denied, they fault the
FBI.
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
It‟s the Department of Justice who makes the determination.
But we‟ve tried to get that point across. And despite the fact
that extreme liberals and, particularly those in the journalistic
field, think that we‟re intrusive and invasive of the civil rights
movement, we‟re not. I think we should still continue to fight
back and spread the truth as much as possible; which is what
you‟re doing.
Binney:
Uhm-hmm.
DeLoach:
You‟re putting it on the record. We‟ve got to continue doing
that. But too many of our ex-Agents today just lie down and
take it and say, “Well, why fight?”
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
“Why should I spend two hours writing a letter.” And that‟s …
that‟s not fulfilling our destiny … I think we‟ve got to do
better. The Society has, I think, been very commendable in
starting a group that meets quite often and thinks of ways and
means to assist the Bureau in these matters. But, I still think
we have to do even more.
Binney:
Well, it was a very difficult time for the Bureau because, not
only did, as you pointed out, where you had to get the opinion
from the United States Attorney, or the Attorney General, then
you had juries, all white juries, who, even in the face of
insurmountable evidence, were just automatically giving a “not
guilty” [verdict] …
DeLoach:
Right.
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Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 7
Binney:
… on a case. And then trying to bring it out of a say, local
jurisdiction in to a Federal jurisdiction, sometimes we were
running into the same thing with some of the Federal judges,
which, you know, they weren‟t standing up to …
DeLoach:
Exactly.
Binney:
… to the plate. And it was a difficult time. It must have been
very frustrating for the Agents to have mounds of evidence and
then just go into that bureaucracy of the prejudice down South.
DeLoach:
When you look at the murder of the three civil rights victims in
Mississippi, and look at all the great effort the FBI put into that
case, Agents, along with military personnel loaned to us at the
time, wading through swamps and rivers, and creeks and
ponds, and trying to find the bodies of those three civil rights
workers. And when we finally, not only through investigation,
but by paying money to an informant who … a preacher, as a
matter of fact, who gave us the information concerning the
exact location of the bodies. Yet you had … it was a local
crime, at the time, and you had to bring it before a local
committing magistrate; and the case was dismissed.
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
Why? Because of racial beliefs in Mississippi at that particular
time.
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
I went down there several times. I went a day ahead of the
time when Mr. Hoover went down. I met him at the airport
and had the Chief of the Highway Patrol with me. I‟d already
arranged an appointment with the Governor‟s office for Mr.
Hoover to come by. Governor [Paul] Johnson was a very kind,
and understanding individual. During the conference with
Governor Johnson … why Mr. Hoover turned to the head of
the Highway Patrol and the Governor, and he said, “I have the
names of two Mississippi State Highway Patrolmen who are
members of the Ku Klux Klan.” And he handed the Governor
and the head of the Highway Patrol those names.
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Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 8
DeLoach:
But we caught hell as a result of that committing local
magistrate turning down prosecution, but later on the Federal
Government stepped in, as it has on a number of times,
concerning cases that are considered to be akin to civil rights or
involved in civil rights, and instituted the prosecution. The
individuals, whom we had ample proof of, were convicted and
sent to Federal prisons.
Forgive me for rambling on, but in the case of John F.
Kennedy, President of the United States, and the case of Martin
Luther King, and the case of the three civil rights workers …
sometimes the federal government has to overstep local
boundaries and step in and give us, not only jurisdiction in
investigating a case, but also they take jurisdiction insofar as
prosecution is concerned. They didn‟t in the JFK case because
the man, Lee Harvey Oswald, was murdered shortly following
the assassination.
But in each instance, we received a memorandum from the
Department of Justice. I immediately called it to Mr. Hoover‟s
attention, particularly the one concerning Dr. King. We swept
into action. But sometimes those crimes were out of our
jurisdiction and considered to be local murders, or local crimes.
We were not even supposed to be in the investigation.
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
Yet, we never shirked our duties. There have been many
instances when the FBI has not had recognizable jurisdiction
where we had to step in; particularly in civil rights cases. And,
why did we do it? Because to protect the general public. We
had to do it, being the Federal Bureau of Investigation. And,
consequently, we did do it and we had a head start in doing it.
The three civil rights, the death of Dr. King. When that
occurred, the SAC Memphis, Tennessee; the SAC in Memphis
…
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
… got in touch with me. And indicated Dr. King had been shot
and most likely mortally wounded. And I told him to keep me
constantly advised; and he did. He called me when the doctors
had pronounced Dr. King dead.
8
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 9
DeLoach:
I called Mr. Hoover and Mr. Hoover said, “Keep in mind it is a
local murder and we‟re not to be involved.” The President
called me at my home, where he had placed a private line right
next to my bed. He said, “Deke, I want you to go down to
Memphis tomorrow and use a small White House jet out at
Andrews Air Force Base.” He said, “I‟ve ordered the Attorney
General to go with you.” And, he said, “Please take care of the
Attorney General. Don‟t let him talk too much.”
Binney:
(Laughing)
DeLoach:
He said, “Hold a press conference, you be with him, and go see
the various leaders of the town.”
Binney:
Who was that?
DeLoach:
Ramsey Clarke.
Binney:
Ramsey Clarke. Oh, yeah. (Laughing)
DeLoach:
Ramsey Clarke. “The Bull Butterfly”, as Mr. Hoover called
him.
Binney:
Yeah. (Laughing)
DeLoach:
So I called Mr. Hoover back and I told him what the President
ordered and he said, “Alright.” He was somewhat disturbed
but he said, “You watch yourself. Don‟t let Ramsey take
advantage of the FBI or put us in an impossible position. Tell
him we will conduct the investigation and we‟ll do a thorough
job.” And that‟s exactly what happened. But the point being
that in some instances we didn‟t have jurisdiction but we were
ordered into it anyhow …
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
… and it‟s a good thing.
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
Because in all probabilities it might never be solved in those
cases.
9
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 10
Binney:
What did the Bureau react to, as far as getting up in front of the
Hill and trying to explain the lack of jurisdiction? Was there a
move by Mr. Hoover to say, “Hey, in these cases, they‟re local
matters, we may be able to find some Federal jurisdiction, but,
primarily, it‟s a local matter.” Did the Congress react to
anything like that?.
DeLoach:
Well, the way we overcame the possibilities of confusion
arising … there was one powerful Senator, Jim Eastland, from
Mississippi, who was a very good friend. I was up to see him
quite often. If it was late in the afternoon, he‟d always say,
“Let‟s go in the next room here, my anteroom, and we‟ll have a
little brandy and talk things over.” And we did. He was fair.
And he called several Congressmen in from Mississippi into
his office at the beginning of the investigation into those three
civil rights workers and I explained why we were handling the
case.
Binney:
Well, you had a series … you had the church bombings, you
had several murders and hangings …
DeLoach:
Lynchings.
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
There was a series of very bad criminal acts that were going
on.
Binney:
Yeah. Many in Mississippi, too.
DeLoach:
That‟s right. And, of course, the Bureau was already heavily
immersed in those investigations.
Binney:
Uhm-hmm.
DeLoach:
So it became natural for us to enter into the murders of the
three civil rights victims. But anyhow, I explained to Senator
Eastland that the President had ordered us into it; that the
Attorney General had ordered us into it; that, even though it
might be of a local … a murder of local jurisdiction … that we,
nevertheless, were going to handle the case.
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Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 11
DeLoach:
The Department of Justice always used the old statute that an
individual had been deprived of his civil rights. Now, well,
that might have been stretching it a bit, nevertheless, it was
necessary.
Binney:
That‟s the old “44” matter, isn‟t it?
DeLoach:
I‟m not certain. But we entered on that basis. Now, Lee
Harvey Oswald, who murdered President Kennedy … Of
course, the laws been changed now, murdering your
President‟s under Federal jurisdiction …
Binney:
Yeah. Yeah.
DeLoach:
If that case had gone to trial, at the time, the Dallas authorities
and the local county prosecutor would have had to try the case,
not us. But, nevertheless, we entered into it and we
accumulated all the evidence, after a struggle with the Dallas
Police, but it initially would have been a local murder case
trial. Now it‟s different … Federal jurisdiction. But the three
civil rights workers was … the public will never know what a
great job the FBI did; and what credit the FBI deserves, despite
the fact that a payoff brought us [the information], of clues
where the bodies were buried.
Binney:
Did you ever see the Movie, “Mississippi Burning?”
DeLoach:
I have not. Right after the book, which was titled, Attack on
Terror, upon which that case was based. Attack on Terror is a
well-written book; it‟s factual and, as a matter of fact, Don
Whitehead, the author, wrote an inscription in it on the front
page of that book. “To Deke in his final days in the FBI …this
is a case which you had a lot to do with …” and so on. It was
nice and he gave me, when I left the Bureau, he gave me a snub
nose Detective Special .38 which I appreciated and …
Binney:
Uh-huh.
DeLoach:
… he has on it, “To Deke, number one shot.”
Binney:
(Laughing)
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Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 12
DeLoach:
(Chuckling) Which was not true but sounded good.
Binney:
(Laughing) Yeah. We touched on relationships with the police
and you‟ve also brought up the fact that the military was a
great help in that particular case. The Marshals, did we have a
close relationship with the Marshals on some of those school
issues, maybe? Or any other cases that you can think of?
DeLoach:
There was acrimony in every case, not with the Marshals, but
because the Federal authorities were taking over.
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
Also because of the racial conflicts involved in the three civil
rights murders case. The local authorities down there were
very much against the so-called Federal Bureau of
“Integration” taking over.
Binney:
Uh-huh.
DeLoach:
As an example, racial feelings were so intense and so much
hatred against the Bureau, that several things occurred and I‟m
sure you‟ve heard these old stories before, but they‟re true.
The four Ku Klux Klan members who took a black box, which
looked like a coffin, and took it up to the door of where an
Agent and his wife, and one child were living. They knocked
on the door and the Agent was not there, of course, and they
knew that. But the wife came to the door, and they dropped the
coffin on the floor of the front porch and said, “Your husband‟s
been killed in an accident and his body‟s in this box.” And
they walked out.
Or, the fellow that owned the dry-goods store down in
Mississippi, in Philadelphia, Mississippi, and also owned a
farm … and he said, “If any FBI Agent ever steps on my
property, he‟ll be killed.” We called Mr. Hoover at the time
and told him about this and he used one of his famous words,
which he used from time to time, “Stand your ground.”
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Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 13
DeLoach:
Well, that afternoon, late, two Agents went out to the farm to
see this man and one of them had a shotgun with double-ought
buckshot. Of course, the man didn‟t know what it was loaded
with. The other one had his revolver. The Agents said, “You
indicated that you‟d kill us if we ever stepped on your property.
We‟re on your property; kill us.”
And the man just looked at them and just sank to his knees and
started crying. His wife and three children were standing in
back of him, as was an Afro-American, who worked on his
farm. But we didn‟t have that trouble anymore, after that. But
that‟s a good example.
In Mississippi, in Philadelphia, and some segments of Jackson,
we had difficulty with the local authorities. We knew that
some of the members of the sheriff‟s department were
“Kluckers” and they had great influence over the people.
There were instances where Agents would walk down the
sidewalk and local townsmen, who probably were “Kluckers,”
would try to shoulder the Agents off the sidewalk into the road.
There was one famous incident where an Agent stepped into
his Bureau car after conducting an interview, and there were
three rattlesnakes on the floor of the driver‟s side, which the
“Kluckers” had put there.
It was so bad down there that Roy Moore, the SAC at Jackson
went out and made an arrangement for confidential telephone
service, after the preacher had been paid off and led the Agents
to the bodies which were located 25 feet under a new dam in
the countryside there. We knew that our phones had been
tapped by the Ku Klux Klan, according to Roy Moore. So we
made an arrangement. I was Assistant Director of the Crime
Records Division at the time … we made an arrangement that
when the first body was uncovered he‟d call me and say,
“Deke, we‟ve uncapped an oil well.” And second name, same
thing; third name, the same thing. And, so when he did the
final thing, I called Mr. Hoover and said, “The payoff has paid
off and I plan to call the President to tell him if you don‟t
mind.” And he said, “Go ahead and do it and do what he
says.” So I called the President, the White House, and I got
Walter Jenkins on the phone, rather than the President. Walter
Jenkins was the Chief of Staff at the time.
Binney:
Uhm-hmm.
13
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 14
DeLoach:
And I said, “Walter, this thing is going to leak out any time
because the newspaper men are all over the nearby area of this
dam and they know that something is going on.”
Binney:
You had bulldozers and heavy equipment moving around there
…
DeLoach:
That‟s exactly right. And when the reporters would see those
bodies leaving or, you know, seeing that heavy equipment
working in there, they knew something was going on. I called
and got Jenkins on the phone and I said, “Walter, this is going
to break out and we need to release it to the papers as soon as
possible so they get the straight facts.” And he said, “Well,
you‟re right.” He said, “The Presidents in a Cabinet meeting.
I‟ll call you back in 15 minutes.” Well, hell, 15 minutes went
by, 20 minutes went by, a little longer than that and I finally
got on the phone and asked to speak to Walter. Mildred
Stiegel, one of the Presidents three secretaries, she was a great
family member that the President worked more closely with on
personal things. She got who I thought was Walter on the
phone and I said, “Walter, dammit, this thing is breaking. You
promised you‟d call me back in 15 minutes and you haven‟t
done it.” And I said, “We‟ve got to take action. What the
hell‟s wrong?”
Binney:
(Laughing)
DeLoach:
And he said, “Deke, this is not Walter. This is the President.”
(Laughing) I‟ll never forget that. And he said, “I‟ve delayed
calling you back or having Walter call you back because I
wanted to notify the families first.” But, he said, “I want you
and Edgar” and I don‟t know why he didn‟t mention Tolson …
Binney:
(Laughing)
DeLoach:
He said, “I want you and Edgar over here.” I think he said
11:30 or 12:30 … “I‟m going to hold a nationwide press
conference and I want you standing by me at the time.” Well, I
called Mr. Hoover and told him and we went over there.
Tolson was with us. He took me to lunch at the Mayflower
afterwards. He was in a very exultant mood because the case
had been solved and he would get good credit for it.
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Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 15
DeLoach:
But, you know, the credit died down considerably, particularly
when the local prosecutor refused to prosecute.
Binney:
Yeah. Yeah.
DeLoach:
And, to some extent, the FBI was blamed because of what
some segments of the general public, particularly the
Libertarians, felt that we had not conducted a thorough
investigation; and as a result, there could be no prosecution.
But we had. So, thank goodness, the Justice Department did
step in later on and took over the case as far as prosecution is
concerned.
Binney:
My understanding was that Roy K. Moore was appointed SAC
down there …
DeLoach:
That‟s right.
Binney:
… but prior to that we didn‟t have an SAC in …
DeLoach:
We didn‟t have an office.
Binney:
No office in … in …
DeLoach:
We didn‟t have an office in Jackson, Mississippi, and President
Johnson felt that we should put an office there. He had Walter
Jenkins call me, and I wrote a memoranda to Mr. Hoover and
Mr. Hoover agreed to putting an office there and said, “Hurry it
up!” or words to that effect. So I called Roy and I told him we
had to build a new office and we had to get it done almost
immediately … Agents were going to be transferred in there.
Well, you know, it‟s just very difficult to get contractors and
line up carpenters …
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
But we had to have an office. So Roy Moore recommended we
take square footage on the second floor of an old empty
building. I talked to John Mohr about it and he recommended
sending Agent C.P. Smith, a well-known Agent to work with
Roy in setting up the building. Well, after a few days time, I
called Roy and I told him the Director was coming down there
and the building had to be finished.
15
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 16
DeLoach:
And he said, “Alright, Deke.” He said, “We‟ll have one office
completed and that‟ll be the SACs office. But don‟t lean
against the walls because you‟ll fall in because there‟s nothing
on the other side of them.”
Binney:
(Laughing)
DeLoach:
And he said, “There‟ll be one other office which will be
partially completed, and that‟ll be across the hall and that‟ll be
the ASACs office.” And so Mr. Hoover, as you know, went
down there … and Clyde Tolson … and he spent the night
there in the old Sand and Sun Motel. Several things happened
during that night, as far as telephone calls are concerned, but
that‟s beside the point.
Anyhow, all the press representatives had gone down a day
earlier and I had an off-the-record press conference with them
at the Sun and Sand motel and told them what I thought should
be brought up. I gave, in writing, questions to one or two very
treasured friends among the press, such as, Jerry O‟Leary; I
was the godfather to one of his children. Jim DeLuca of
Scripps-Howard and a reporter from the New York Daily News.
I had taken those three men down with me, in the President‟s
small jet, the day before. We had a chance to talk on the way
down there and on the way back. I told two of them that they
could not come back with us; they had to go commercial. But I
told O‟Leary, who wanted to interview the Director personally,
that he could come back with us. And so it was Mr. Hoover,
Tolson, O‟Leary, and myself on the plane coming back and
Bill Gunn, who was an Agent in the Crime Records Division
and a good record keeper. But those were trying times.
Binney:
Yeah. Yeah. Prior to establishing the field office, then they
were run as Specials, most of the cases?
DeLoach:
I don‟t know the answer to that. I think that those that had
been transferred there that felt it was a permanent transfer and
they brought their families in.
Binney:
Prior to the establishment [of the office]… did we have an RA
somewhere in Mississippi?
16
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 17
DeLoach:
You‟re right. It was an RA and it was greatly enlarged because
of all the occurrences that were happening of a criminal
violation nature. But it [was] at the President‟s request and
also because the great volume of matters or crimes occurring,
requiring our investigation, it was made into a permanent
office.
Binney:
And was there anybody else that headed up the field-side of
any of the investigations that you can recall, other than Roy
Moore?
DeLoach:
Yes. Inspector Joe Sullivan was sent down from New York.
Binney:
Oh yeah. I worked with him out in Milwaukee.
DeLoach:
Yeah. And he was a good, good, investigator.
Binney:
I‟m not supposed to digress, but he had my first Special, which
was the Milwaukee Bombing in 1970.
DeLoach:
Um-hmm.
Binney:
You guys sent him out there and I was astounded. I was
awestruck. I mean I never … I was in the Bureau probably
four or five months, at the time, and I was like wow! This is
amazing because he was a genius and what an investigation.
And, I mean, within a week of that bombing we had
successfully indicted and identified these guys. It put them on
the Top Ten. I was like “this is amazing.” (Laughing)
DeLoach:
The cases in Mississippi became so intense throughout the
world and so much pressure was put on us by the White House,
the Congress, journalists from all over the world that,
eventually, Mr. Hoover felt it was necessary to send Al Rosen
down.
Binney:
Uhm-hmm.
17
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 18
DeLoach:
And I worked principally Roy Moore and Al Rosen, mainly, as
did Al Belmont, at the time. Roy Moore was a … now here I
am digressing. Roy Moore was a standup guy; a former
Marine. He would take instructions and talk things over very,
very well. Al Rosen was a real close friend of mine, as was
Moore. I didn‟t know Sullivan that well and he sort of stayed
in the background. But Rosen and I, on many cases, would go
to lunch together about three or four times a week and we‟d
just walk the streets of Washington discussing these cases and
what we could do. Particularly in the problem with catching
James Earl Ray, who killed Martin Luther King. The next
investigative steps to take, but we worked hand-in-glove. He
recently died at a hundred years old.
Binney:
I had heard that. They never did interview him. He was
scheduled to be interviewed and he died before the interview.
DeLoach:
And I had a letter from him about two weeks before he died.
We corresponded quite frequently in these last few years and
his handwriting was just as good as ever.
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
His mind was sharp. He was always most interested, and most
grateful to hearing good news about the Bureau.
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
He was a great help to me and he was very loyal, as well as Jim
Gale, who, I have been told, committed suicide later on.
Binney:
Oh … oh, I didn‟t know that.
DeLoach:
As was Bob Wick. They all defended me when Sullivan, who
hated anybody that was above him, tried to do me in on several
occasions and …
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
He tried that against Mr. Hoover too.
18
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 19
Binney:
That‟s shooting yourself in the foot.
DeLoach:
Well, the relationships that the Bureau had with civil rights
leaders, such as Martin Luther King, and other prominent civil
rights leaders of the time were somewhat tense. Many wanted
protection and we could not do this. Many desired immediate
protection of course, and this was a matter for the Department
of Justice. Thurgood Marshall, because he was still, I think, an
attorney with NAACP before he became a Supreme Court
Justice.
Binney:
What was the Bureau‟s relationship with people that came
from the civil rights movement?
DeLoach:
Mr. Hoover had a good relationship with Justice Marshall, who
was the Deputy Attorney General at one time, before going on
to the Supreme Court. Mr. Hoover, sometimes was styled by
journalists as being the best toe dancer in Washington.
Binney:
(Laughing)
DeLoach:
I don‟t mean that from a feminine standpoint. I mean that he
recognized the rise and swell of public relations throughout the
United States, particularly in the newspaper field. And when it
did not come to threatening the Bureau, he could dance with
the best of them. He knew public relations. He knew the
journalistic field. He knew that Thurgood Marshall had been
placed there by President Johnson. He knew that President
Johnson was a good friend of the Bureau‟s and he used the
Bureau far more than any other President in history. So he
accepted Thurgood Marshall and got along with him.
Binney:
Uhm-hmm.
DeLoach:
I‟ve attended meetings in the Attorney General‟s Office when
Thurgood Marshall … we‟d be going over … a situation would
be arising from a civil rights standpoint in some city and
Thurgood Marshall was would speak up and say, “Well, I‟ll
just call several of my boys in these towns and have them take
care of the matter.” And he would and have them go one way
or another concerning the needs of the situation.
Binney:
Uh-huh.
19
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 20
DeLoach:
And to quiet it down. So he was used effectively by the
administration. He was made … eventually made a Justice of
the Supreme Court and I think, in many instances, he not only
was used effectively by the administration, but he also
performed good deeds for the administration and for the
general public, as well. So, I enjoyed working with him.
Binney:
There was no accusation, then, coming from him that the
Bureau wasn‟t stepping up to the plate on these civil rights
matters?
DeLoach:
With one exception. He and Katzenbach tried to defend Bobby
Kennedy one time, when Katzenbach wanted to write a letter to
the Supreme Court complaining about the fact that the FBI had
used a microphone in the Black case and effectively what
might have caused the Supreme Court to rule that the FBI
could not use electronic equipment in such cases.
Thurgood Marshall and Katzenbach wrote the letter together.
Thurgood Marshall used his name in the letter and Mr. Hoover
found out about it and we, effectively … well, forgive me
again for digressing, but I went to the Supreme Court and saw
Justice Abe Fortas. I went in and told him what was
happening. He was the President‟s attorney at the time …
unbeknownst to the American public, he would guide the
President legally, while at the same time being a member of the
Supreme Court.
Binney:
Hmm! Uhm-hmm.
DeLoach:
He said he would talk to the President and put a stop to any
such letter going up there and he did. But Thurgood Marshall
came out against us in that because of his relationship, at the
urging of Bobby Kennedy, he and Katzenbach both.
Again, to digress just a second, to give a basis for that. When
President Eisenhower was in the White House, he had an
Attorney General, Herb Brownell, and the Deputy that
succeeded Herb Brownell, who later became Secretary of State,
was William P. Rogers.
Binney:
Right.
20
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 21
DeLoach:
They gave the Bureau authority to use microphones without
clearing with the Attorney General, stating that if we needed to
use such devices, we could put them into effect and they would
approve it when they got back in to town. They never turned
one down. Mr. Hoover always used electronic coverage very,
very sparsely. We never had over a hundred at any one time
throughout the entire world. And when we‟d get close to
seventy-five to one hundred, he would tell us very firmly,
“Okay, knock it down some.”
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
One time he said take „em all off because he felt there was
going to be criticism from the general public or journalists.
But the Justice Department gave us blanket authority for usage
of such devices. I still have a memorandum in my files written
by Mr. Hoover when the referenced letter was written by
Katzenbach and Thurgood Marshall and was to be sent to the
Supreme Court, which would have effectively taken us out of
the field of electronic usage.
Mr. Hoover sent me to see William P. Rogers and told me to
take a statement from him, which was, you know, a rather
embarrassing thing to ask for a former Secretary of State …
former Attorney General. I had John Malone with me; the
Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Office at the
time, as a witness.
We went to see Rogers, in his office, in a New York law firm.
We told him the circumstances and he said, “Well, let me talk
to Edgar.” And he picked up the phone and he called Mr.
Hoover. He said, “Mr. DeLoach is in my office.” He didn‟t
mention Malone‟s name, he should have. But he said, “Mr.
DeLoach is in my office and he‟s inquiring about Herb
Brownell and me giving you authority to use microphones.”
He said, “I really don‟t think it‟s necessary to mention our
names …”
Binney:
(Laughing)
21
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 22
DeLoach:
… “in any letter he might send over to the Department or to the
Supreme Court.” But, he said, “It‟s true. We did give you
such authority.” He said, “I think Katzenbach and Thurgood
Marshall will be quiet and let this die down.” And he said, “I
don‟t believe in raising a ruckus.”
And Mr. Hoover said, “I disagree.” He said, “You gave us
authority to use them; we‟re defending ourselves; and we‟ve
got to indicate that we had the authority of the Attorney
General.” And Rogers replied, “Well, on final analysis, you‟ll
have to do it. Go ahead and do it.” So, that‟s how that
happened. But that‟s the instance when Thurgood Marshall
turned on us. He did it at the instigation of Bobby Kennedy.
Binney:
Uh-huh.
DeLoach:
Who denied ever allowing us to use microphones, which was
an absolute lie because he, in New York and Chicago, he had
as many as seventeen Agents around him on one occasion …
listening to microphones on the Mafia, Organized Crime.
Binney:
Yeah. Yeah.
DeLoach:
And he said, “The reception is a little raspy. You should have
better equipment.” And later on he denied ever doing that.
And … so those are things we had to put up with.
Binney:
Yeah. There‟s been some criticism, I guess, among civil rights
leaders. But, as you pointed out before, they don‟t understand
the difference between investigations and prosecution.
DeLoach:
That‟s right.
Binney:
And I was just wondering if there was anybody prominent?
Did Hoover ever meet with Martin Luther King?
22
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 23
DeLoach:
Yes. The feud between the two of them, which was initiated
by Dr. King in Albany, Georgia, where Chief of Police Laurie
Pritchett, was head of the police department. King came into
Albany, he had not gotten any publicity for a considerable
period of time; his money was running low from the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference, so he initiated matters of a
racial nature down there, which could have resulted in a serious
conflict.
But Chief Pritchett, who was very public relations-minded and
a good Chief of Police, met with King and stopped such
activities. Not by enforcement but indicated in a very decent
way, “We don‟t have any trouble down here and so let‟s leave
matters alone.” King, nevertheless, issued a press release that
the FBI, in effect, was not doing its job. He stated that every
time he saw an FBI Agent he was in company with a police
officer, therefore, the FBI sympathies lie with the police and
not doing its job under federal jurisdiction.
Mr. Hoover was always very jealous of our jurisdiction and
jealous of the FBI‟s reputation. He knew, better than anyone,
and I hope I did, but not as well as he or as good as he did, that
you‟ve got to have the support of the public in order to conduct
your investigations from a thorough standpoint. So those
screen doors will swing open more easier, when you go in to
interview someone. With smears coming from Dr. King, it
hurt our reputation, and Mr. Hoover was infuriated; possibly
more so than he should have been.
But he issued a press release indicating that a thorough check
and investigation or inquiries had been made, inspections of
our activities and that, where King said that all of the Agents in
that area were Southern-born, reared and educated, Mr. Hoover
proved that four out of five were Northern-born, reared and
educated. He went on to say there was nothing against
Southern Agents because they did as thorough a job as any
other Agent. But he wanted the public to know of Dr. King‟s
misstatements.
23
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 24
DeLoach:
Mr. Hoover also conducted a survey going back a number of
years, of all civil rights investigations in that area, none of
them had ever been criticized by the Department of Justice.
The Agents had always done a thorough job and Mr. Hoover
issued a press release to that effect. I remember, because I
handled it. But King, then, came back and said, “Mr. Hoover‟s
mental faculties are getting bad in his old age and …”
Binney:
Whew. (chuckling).
DeLoach:
… therefore, he, in effect, doesn‟t know what he‟s talking
about.” Mr. Hoover came back and he said, “Dr. King is the
most notorious liar in the United States.” And King, then,
came back again about the attack on his character and how he
was trying to protect the civil rights people and so on.
But it developed into a crescendo. My office was getting
called every two seconds about the matter. But it became so
intense that the President, through Walter Jenkins, urged that
perhaps we might like to get together with Dr. King and let this
thing die down a little bit. He felt it was hurting the civil rights
situation.
Mr. Hoover told me, with some regrets, that I should call Dr.
King and ask him if he‟d like to have a meeting. Dr. King
refused to return my call. Several days later, Andrew Young,
who was a minister …
Binney:
Yeah. Andrew Young?
DeLoach:
Andy Young.
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
Later became Ambassador to the United Nations under
President Carter. He returned my call several days later and
indicated that King had been tied up and not able to call; and
he was calling. Young suggested a meeting with Mr. Hoover
in Mr. Hoover‟s office. He said, first they were going to meet
with the Attorney General, and then he‟d come around to Mr.
Hoover‟s office. And suggested it might be 10:30 or 11
o‟clock in the morning of the day required.
24
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 25
DeLoach:
Well, Mr. Hoover told me to be with him and to make notes of
everything that happened; and later on dictate a memorandum
for the record. But we waited, and we waited, and we waited
… and I felt like maybe I‟d gone to the wrong area to meet Dr.
King and his representatives. I waited in front of Mr. Hoover‟s
office, thinking King would come around from the Attorney
General‟s Office, but suddenly I thought that maybe he‟d come
in the Ninth Street entrance.
So I raced down there and no sign of him. So I went back to
Mr. Hoover‟s front office door, and about an hour to an hour
and a half late, they came. King came with Walter Fauntroy, a
minister, and Ralph Abernathy, and Young … the three of
them. I burst through all the reporters standing around me and
I almost knocked one down, in order to get by him, and came
up to Dr. King. I said, “Mr. Hoover‟s waiting for you …” and
to come on in. And I also motioned for his assistants to come
in with him. We were ushered into Mr. Hoover‟s office right
away. They shook hands; we all sat down.
King opened the conversation by saying two of his assistants
would talk first … Abernathy and then Fauntroy. Abernathy
expressed admiration for Mr. Hoover, for the FBI, indicated
that the reported allegations against us by Dr. King and his
people were not true; that they had not criticized the FBI …
which Mr. Hoover and I knew was false. King, instead of
Fauntroy, next spoke up and said that, “We appreciate all your
efforts to aid us in the civil rights battle.” He went on and on
to praise the FBI and indicate that the allegations reported to
him, being made by him, were false, again; and that he
appreciated, very much, the work of the Bureau … and Mr.
Hoover. And he said he would continue to insist that the civil
rights activists cooperate with the FBI.
He then asked Mr. Hoover a question. He said, “I would hope
that in the forthcoming march …”on Alabama or Mississippi,
one or the other; I forget which … “that you will protect civil
rights workers.” And Mr. Hoover said, “The FBI will not.” He
said, “It‟s not our jurisdiction to do it; we don‟t have sufficient
manpower to do it.” He said, “We will stand by and take
photographs and conduct interviews later on in any
investigation which results in a violation of Federal law. But
he said, “We will not protect them. We just don‟t have enough
manpower or jurisdiction.” Dr. King acquiesced in that.
25
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 26
DeLoach:
Then Mr. Hoover talked for about an hour and seventeen
minutes straight.
Binney:
Really?
DeLoach:
And he laid down the law. He was very stern, very
cooperative, very diplomatic, very respective, but he was very
firm. King got up to leave, as did the people with him, and he
said, “Mr. Hoover, I‟m going to conduct a press conference out
in your reception room. Will you join me in conducting the
conference?” Mr. Hoover said, “I will not.” He said,
“Whatever you say is entirely up to you.” I then ushered Dr.
King and his representatives to Mr. Hoover‟s Reception Room.
Throngs of reporters were there. King pulled out a previously
prepared press release, already typed out, which he had
prepared hours before, not knowing how the outcome would
be, and said he had a very favorable meeting; they had a
meeting of the minds, this and that and so on. And then they
left. But that was almost the end of the feud.
Binney:
(Laughing) No. This is exactly what they want to hear, Mr.
DeLoach. Exactly what they want to hear.
DeLoach:
Well, my first name is Deke. Call me that.
Binney:
Yes. (laughing).
DeLoach:
But it really lit up the feud when the Women‟s National Press
Club contacted the Bureau. They had been fighting for years to
be made members of the National Press Club but had been
denied the privilege but they finally had made it. They were
granted access to the National Press Club membership. There
were twenty-two of them all total, led by Miriam Ottenberg, of
the Evening Star. She was very cooperative with the FBI but
she was very feisty and boy, she was vigorous. Her folks
owned the Ottenberg Bakeries, which was a very prominent
bakery in Washington, DC.
But anyhow, Mr. Hoover reluctantly agreed to holding a press
conference in his office. All twenty-two of them showed up.
Boy, I‟m telling you, they were really vociferous in wanting
information. Mr. Hoover read to them, from his notes, subjects
captured, automobiles recovered, all the usual material.
26
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 27
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
Eventually, they thought it was boring as hell. Some of them
were almost falling asleep and Mr. Hoover recognized that. So
he came out and said, “I want to talk to you about Dr. King.”
He said, “Dr. King is the most notorious liar in the United
States.” And he went on to back that up. And, I‟m telling you,
that room became alive. I sent him a note saying wouldn‟t you
like to consider this off the record. He put it down and I sent
him three notes all in total, saying that. On the third note, he
said, “Ladies of the Press Club, Mr. DeLoach tells me I should
make this off the record. I will not. You may print it as you
see fit.”
They didn‟t even wait for him to adjourn the meeting. They
got up and left; rushed to the phones. And that‟s when the stuff
once again hit the fan.
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
It was an unfortunate feud. I can respect Mr. Hoover
defending the FBI. From a public relations standpoint, it was a
disaster. We lost the support of many people who would have
helped us. By the same token, on the Right, Conservative side,
we gained the respect of many people. So while it was
unfortunate that it happened, nevertheless, in many respects,
you‟ve got to admire Mr. Hoover for hitting it head-on.
Binney:
Yeah. Yeah. Was this meeting with the women before or after
the meeting with King?
DeLoach:
The members of the Ladies Press Club?
Binney:
Yes.
DeLoach:
That was before the meeting with King.
Binney:
So then the King meeting calmed the feathers back down, I
guess.
27
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 28
DeLoach:
It did. Until W.C. Sullivan, secretly we found out later, sent a
tape, an audio tape of King‟s meeting with twelve of his
supporters, in the old … I believe it was the old Raleigh Hotel
… where they were drinking Black Russians, vodka and
Kahlua. That was taped by microphone and Sullivan sent a
copy of it, without Mr. Hoover knowing it, without Tolson or
me knowing it, to Mrs. King.
Binney:
Hahh.
DeLoach:
Mrs. King listened to it. She and Reverend Abernathy listened
to it, and they both cast suspicions that it was sent by J. Edgar
Hoover. It was not right. It‟s not true today. Many journalists
think that Hoover sent that purposely to defame Dr. King.
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
He did not. It was strictly Sullivan. Sullivan had former agent,
Lish Whitson, who was formerly the head of the Espionage
Section, who‟d retired, fly down to Miami and mail the tape
from there to Mrs. Coretta King in Atlanta.
But Mr. Hoover was astounded. He was angry about it. He, at
that time, didn‟t suspect Sullivan, but later on he did. He knew
that Sullivan had sent it. Particularly when Ray Wannall found
evidence in Sullivan‟s old office, and in the files, that Sullivan
had sent the tape to Mrs. King. And it was good evidence.
Binney:
Wow. (Laughing) I can‟t even imagine, can‟t even imagine the
Assistant Director doing that. That‟s just … wow. When did
he … he must have removed Sullivan pretty shortly after that.
DeLoach:
Well, not until he found out that Sullivan was making speeches
on certain subjects, which he had been instructed not to make;
when Sullivan was cooperating with the White House and had
[written] the suggestions concerning widespread usage of
microphones and wiretaps, opening the mail, etcetera. All, in
Sullivan‟s mind, to endow him in President Nixon‟s mind and
make him Director.
Binney:
Uh-huh.
28
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 29
DeLoach:
Mr. Hoover, at times, read letters to me that Sullivan had
written to him. Some of them were eight, nine pages long.
Comparing Mr. Hoover with Conrad Adenauer, Charles de
Gaulle, the leaders of various countries at that time, saying that
Mr. Hoover would undoubtedly go down in history as a great
leader like they were. I would almost regurgitate. I knew they
were false and what Sullivan was trying to do. But Mr. Hoover
was a little susceptive to egotism at that time …
Binney:
A little flattery …
DeLoach:
… and he believed Sullivan.
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
But later on, to his dismay. When I retired, my last day in
office, he called me and he said, “I‟m naming Sullivan in your
place.” He said, “Gandy and Tolson tell me that I shouldn‟t do
that; that they don‟t trust him. What do you think?” And I
said, “I agree with Gandy and Tolson. He can‟t be loyal to
anyone and he‟s going to turn against you.” “Well,” he said,
“I‟ve already done it and I‟ve got to live with it.” And he said,
“I think he‟ll be alright.” Well.
Binney:
Heh … wow. And you think it was just the flattery was the
thing that was covering it up … Mr. Hoover‟s ability to see the
true character?
DeLoach:
Dave, almost all of us were guilty of that to some extent.
Binney:
Yeah. Yeah.
DeLoach:
But not to the great extent like Sullivan.
Binney:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
DeLoach:
But he couldn‟t see through Sullivan because Sullivan
constantly flattered him.
Binney:
Sure.
29
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 30
DeLoach:
Tolson flattered him on a constant basis. Tolson was never his
own man because he was slavish to Mr. Hoover‟s dictates …
what Mr. Hoover wanted. Many of the times I‟ve been to an
Executives Conference where we had voted unanimously on
such and such a subject and Mr. Hoover would be against it;
Tolson would call us back in again and said, “Obviously we
were wrong.” (Laughing)
Binney:
(Laughing)
DeLoach:
So it had to be Mr. Hoover‟s way or no way at all.
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
In many ways, that was good from a standpoint that it
promoted discipline. He was the engine that pulled the train.
Our job was made much easier in dealing with Congress,
newspapers, the White House, because of Mr. Hoover‟s
reputation; and, in some respects, their fear of him. But, I
never knew him to use blackmail and he never did.
Binney:
Yeah. Contrary to what the public believes that …
DeLoach:
Exactly.
Binney:
… he always had the file and …
DeLoach:
Exactly.
Binney:
… you know. Well, it‟s quite an era for the Bureau and I think
that, you know, to start off with exactly what you said at the
beginning, we just never get credit … sufficient credit … for
what the Bureau did during that time frame.
DeLoach:
And we will never be allowed to have credit. Even though
we‟ve got to keep on fighting to spread the truth and then set
out the true facts. I write letters. I wrote a letter, not too long
ago, to the editor of the Wall Street Journal, and told him he
was wrong on such and such a story. And he never even
replied to it.
Binney:
Yeah.
30
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 31
DeLoach:
And I had all the true facts in there.
Binney:
In addition to the three civil rights workers, which was 1964,
there were other significant cases at that time. The bombing of
the church where the four girls died … the four little girls; did
the Bureau get involved in that one, as well?
DeLoach:
Yes, …
Binney:
… to the same extent?
DeLoach:
… we did. We conducted a thorough investigation. We gave
considerable information to the State‟s Attorney General, the
local prosecutor, and the local police and we were denied
prosecution in the case at the time, but our investigation was
very thorough. I once wrote a letter to a national newspaper
and sent a copy to the FBI Investigator. It appeared in the
second page, behind the cover, front cover of that newspaper,
about that investigation. The title of it was “Take One More
Step.” I mean, the newspapers and the State Attorney General
and the local prosecutor taking one more step to determine
whether or not their allegations against the FBI were true.
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
And they were not true. It was just a case again of somebody
trying to get publicity or trying to make money at the expense
of the FBI.
To digress one more time … and you‟re probably getting tired
of my digressing.
Binney:
Not at all.
DeLoach:
There are forty-seven different variations, today, about how
President John F. Kennedy was killed. And of the forty-seven
different variations, you find that the General Counsel of the
Warren Commission probably summed it up at best as it can be
stated. A reporter was asking about the John F. Kennedy
movie and he said that it reminds him of the code word MOLD
… Misstatements, Omissions, Lies and Deceit.
Binney:
(Laughing)
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Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 32
DeLoach:
And he said that‟s the best way I can sum it up.
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
The movie. The same thing is true of the FBI‟s work in the
civil rights field. People, the extreme civil libertarians are
never going to accept us because we represent the investigative
process.
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
But, again, we‟ve got to keep fighting.
Binney:
Yeah. Just to touch on a couple others. The Medgar Evers
murder … Byron De La Beckwith … it took us probably, I
guess, twenty years to finally prosecute that guy. And that was
done with the Bureau‟s investigation.
DeLoach:
That‟s correct.
Binney:
Again, it was a local matter; but we did a parallel investigation,
and De La Beckwith finally was convicted, based on FBI facts.
DeLoach:
And yet we don‟t get credit for them.
Binney:
No. No.
DeLoach:
In some instances, a crusading prosecutor or prosecutorial
authority get great credit for being brave and so on but they at
times do it on our facts.
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
We investigate it; the Department of Justice sometimes did not
follow through, for some reasons. Yet, later on, local
authorities handle it, in a different society, a society of
correctness, much more so than, back in those days when we
were laughed at because of the intense investigations we were
doing. And the prosecuting authorities, who were politicians in
the first place, would not follow through because they felt they
might endanger their own reputations. It‟s a shame.
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Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 33
Binney:
Let‟s go back to Katzenbach … well, Kennedy, Katzenbach
and Ramsey Clark. The three that held that office, the
Attorney General‟s position, for that time frame we‟re talking
about . Those mid-1960‟s when all hell was breaking loose, I
guess. What was the Bureau‟s relationship with all three of
those AG‟s? Kennedy. Was he concentrating on civil rights or
was he more worried about Jimmy Hoffa and organized crime?
DeLoach:
Well, I think to correctly answer your question you have to
look at the backgrounds of the three of them. I‟ll try to be
brief.
Kennedy first came to fame when he was Counsel of the old
McCarthy Commission investigating Communism.
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
Well, the McCarthy Commission, as you know, came into
shame, embarrassment as a result of McCarthy overstepping
the boundaries, making false accusations. But Kennedy got a
job through political muscle, from his family, as Counsel of the
McCarthy Commission.
He disagreed considerably with General Counsel Roy Cohn.
They were jealous of each other. Roy Cohn was a homosexual.
It wasn‟t widely known at the time. I knew him in
Washington. I knew him in Greenwich, Connecticut, when I
retired and went to work for PepsiCo. He was a very capable;
a very sharp, intense attorney; and he was very sharp in trying,
initially, to guide Senator Joe McCarthy. As I say, Kennedy
was very jealous of him. They had a fist fight once in the halls
of the Senate Building of the Congress.
Kennedy, recognizing that McCarthy was falling into discredit
in the eyes of the people in our country, left McCarthy. When
John F. Kennedy became President, former Ambassador Joe
Kennedy told Bobby he thought that his brother should
nominate him as Attorney General. Bobby really didn‟t want
the job. He had no experience. He had never practiced law to
any extent. Consequently, he felt he was not capable of
handling the job, from a legal standpoint, particularly.
33
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 34
DeLoach:
Joe Kennedy called Mr. Hoover and asked him if he would see
Bobby and encourage him to take the job. Bobby did come in
to see Mr. Hoover. Mr. Hoover told him, explicitly, that “your
brother is going to need someone on the Cabinet who he can
depend upon … talk to, and who will agree him … will agree
with him and support him on very sensitive matters.” Bobby
didn‟t agree to it or went against it, but he listened to Mr.
Hoover. But he did go back and tell his brother that he was
willing to accept the appointment as Attorney General.
Almost immediately, when Bobby became Attorney General,
he started trying to take over the FBI, as well as everything
else. He immediately switched from what he‟d done on the
McCarthy Commission to organized crime matters. He also,
while up on the Hill, to go back just a little bit, had been
General Counsel for the old McClellan Commission.
Binney:
Uh-hmm.
DeLoach:
That Commission was supposed to look into criminal
violations involving Pullman porters, embezzlement, etcetera,
etcetera … among Pullman porters. Bobby got a lot of fame
and acclaim there. But when he came in office he had a small
background, insofar as organized crime was concerned. He
hated Jimmy Hoffa and I guess he had good reason to do that.
He made that a primary mission of his intentions in office, to
get rid of Jimmy Hoffa.
But between Bobby Kennedy and Mr. Hoover, there were
mixed feelings. Mr. Hoover regarded him as somewhat of a
young, inexperienced individual. Bobby immediately began a
campaign to discredit Mr. Hoover. His wife, for example, later
on admitted publicly that she had stuffed a suggestion box in
the FBI, with notes “get rid of J. Edgar Hoover … he‟s too
old,” so on, so on.
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Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 35
DeLoach:
Bobby had a good press relations officer, by the name of Ed
Guthman. I worked with him very closely. But to give you an
example of the relations back at that time; one of the biggest
revelations that occurred early in Bobby‟s years as Attorney
General, brief years, was the fact that there was a centralized
Mafia controlling organized crime. A centralization with one
group as the head and spread throughout the entire United
States. Mr. Hoover did not believe this at first. We kept trying
to tell him that there was central organization. And he didn‟t
believe it. He felt it was city-to-city-to-city with no heads of it.
He came to our point of view and I was just among many that
tried to steer him into that. With Appalachia, where all the
heads of organized crime of the various cities got together …
Binney:
Oh yeah.
DeLoach:
And also with Valachi. Valachi, who was a member of the
New York family and who really sang like a songbird …
Binney:
(Laughing)
DeLoach:
… about his connections in centralized Mafia government, and
organized crime. Mr. Hoover immediately came over to the
side of all of us who were voicing that belief. But he talked to
me and said, “Now, this is a great move of Valachi singing to
our two Agents.” And the Agents, they did a great job of
breaking him down. They did it in Atlanta. They moved
Valachi down there so they could talk to him. And he really
gave many facts. But Mr. Hoover wanted to get that out to the
press so the FBI could get credit for it. Let the press know,
while he had not believed there was centralization, we had
been making investigations into the leading figures of
organized crime all along. Which we did with great success,
Binney:
Uhm-hmm.
DeLoach:
… beginning in 1957 with the top hoodlum movement …
investigations. Mr. Hoover asked me who I thought we should
reveal the information to. And I said, “Reader‟s Digest.” I
said they have millions of subscribers; it‟ll be spread in a
dignified way and we‟ll get a lot of credit out of it.” He said,
“Fine. Go ahead and do it.”
35
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 36
DeLoach:
So, as usual, I went around to the Attorney General‟s office, to
clear it with Ed Guthman. He said, “No. No.” He said, “I‟m
not going to approve this.” He said, “Bobby is going to do this.
Bobby‟s going to take credit for it.” He said, “Bobby has
already promised a writer for the Saturday Evening Post that he
will have full facts concerning the matter and can write a story
giving Bobby the credit.”
I said, “Bobby doesn‟t deserve the credit on this. The FBI did
it.” He said, “Nevertheless, that‟s the way it‟s going to be.”
He said, “Wait a minute.” So he went next door and showed it
to Bobby, the Attorney General, what we had prepared. He
came back. “Oh, I‟m right,” He says, “Bobby‟s going to do
this and it‟ll come out in the Saturday Evening Post.”
So I argued with him, to no avail, and went back and I told Mr.
Hoover. And he said, “What do you think we should do?”
And I said, “I think we should leak it so that we get credit, not
Bobby.” Well, I called Sandy Smith … of the Chicago Sun
Times, I believe it was … or Daily News and I said, “Can you
come to Washington. Don‟t let anybody know you‟re here.
Use an alias.” And so he did. He called me from a hotel and I
went over to see him, and I gave him what we were going to
give to the Reader‟s Digest. Well, two days later his front page
article really made an explosion in the United States. And
Guthman came around to my office and he was livid.
Binney:
(Laughing)
DeLoach:
He said, “Why did you do this against Bobby‟s wishes?” I
pretended ignorance.
Binney:
(Laughing)
DeLoach:
“Well, how did Sandy Smith get this?” I said, “He‟s one hell
of an investigative reporter, I guess.” And we never admitted it
and he never found out.
Binney:
(Laughing) That‟s a great story.
36
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 37
DeLoach:
But we got the credit for that. But that‟s a suggestion as to
how Bobby … Bobby wanted all the credit. Bobby wanted all
the information we could get concerning organized crime. He
listened to microphones, as I indicated previously, in both
Chicago and New York. He had seventeen Agents around him
in New York, listening with him … Agents who had some
supervision or investigative jurisdiction concerning those
matters. That‟s where he complained about the quality of the
material and microphones.
He had one of his aides ask him, at the time I was traveling
with him, “Isn‟t this illegal?” And Bobby spoke up and said,
“They‟re all illegal.” But later on he denied such a thing. He
denied ever giving the FBI authority to use microphones, but
he did. He was a politician.
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
And he was going to obey the necessity of the politics first …
before playing fair with the FBI.
Binney:
Well, if he was the AG when some of the really bad acts, the
civil rights acts came about. The 1963, ‟64, ‟65 era where …
DeLoach:
That‟s right.
Binney:
…the church bombings, the murders, the lynching. What was
his reaction to all of this? Was he, did he grab the bull by the
horns? Or did he do anything to …
DeLoach:
There was very little activity on his part. There was
considerable activity in the Civil Rights Division of the
Department of Justice, in cooperating with the FBI, in working
with the FBI, and asking that investigations be made into all
those matters. But Bobby didn‟t pay too much attention to the
individual acts. He was looking at the big picture, more or
less. He did pay attention to the situation in Mississippi and
Alabama, particularly to the Freedom Marches.
Binney:
Yeah. Yeah. What about Katzenbach, after him, then. Was he
more involved?
37
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 38
DeLoach:
The President told me one day, when Bobby had resigned, that
Bobby had been to see him, the President. And, of course,
there was bad feeling between the two of them. Bobby wanted
to be Vice-President. The President made the statement that no
member of his Cabinet shall be placed on the ticket as VicePresident. That made Bobby more of an enemy of Lyndon
Johnson, as he had been all along; even when Johnson was
Vice-President. They were like two old cats circling each other
with fangs bared.
But Bobby did hide his egotism. He went over to see the
President, according to the President, and indicated that
Katzenbach could demand a much larger salary if he had the
title of Attorney General, and he and the Kennedys would
appreciate the President making Katzenbach Attorney General.
Katzenbach and Kennedy, both, respected, admired and
disliked Mr. Hoover. Kennedy was very jealous of him. He
kept saying at meetings, and I attended several of the meetings,
that he hadn‟t even been born when Mr. Hoover took office.
Or Mr. Hoover had great [ac]claim and fame … or that his
Agents had solved such and such a case. He tried to make Mr.
Hoover look old. He tried to take over the FBI and Mr. Hoover
resented that very much. And in some respects, Mr. Hoover‟s
egotism showed through. He didn‟t want to be subjected to the
whims and demands of an Attorney General who was much his
junior and of little or no experience.
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
Katzenbach exhibited more respect for Mr. Hoover than
Kennedy. Except, he secretly did prepare the letter that was
supposed to go to the Supreme Court concerning usage of
microphones. But he never sent it, as I said previously. But,
for the most part, outwardly he cooperated and he worked with
us. But, by the same token, he had all the old loyalty to
Kennedy, to the Kennedy factions … both in Congress and the
White House.
And, secretly, I think very much did not like Mr. Hoover or the
FBI. He also asked us for a number of favors such as meeting
his mother and accompanying her on the train to Princeton, and
various other things which we did.
38
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 39
DeLoach:
Ramsey Clark. Mr. Hoover, earlier, tagged him as the “Bull
Butterfly”. And he would write on memoranda …
Binney:
He had some great quotes. (laughing)
DeLoach:
… concerning the “bull butterfly. “
Binney:
(Laughing)
DeLoach:
I got along very well with Ramsey Clark, up to a point.
Ramsey had dinner out at my house the same day that
President Johnson announced his appointment as Attorney
General.
How he became Attorney General? Justice Tom Clark,
Ramsay‟s father, was a member of the Supreme Court, and
very favorable towards the FBI. He cooperated fully when
Attorney General. When I was a Resident Agent in Akron,
Ohio, he came to Akron one time by an old-fashioned prop
plane, and I met him at the airport. I said, “Mr. Attorney
General, we‟ll take you right to your suite at the hotel and we‟ll
do anything else you want us to do.” And he said, “Well, why
don‟t you get a couple of the Agents and let‟s play poker
tonight?”
Binney:
(Laughing)
DeLoach:
But he was friendly.
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
Ramsey was married to a woman that occasionally padded
around his office barefooted. She was somewhat of a “flower
child” of a different society. He was that way too, very liberal,
but he feared Mr. Hoover. He feared Mr. Hoover for several
reasons.
Number one, because of Mr. Hoover‟s reputation and his
support by the Congress and the general public. And also,
President Johnson‟s feelings towards the FBI and Mr. Hoover.
And so he didn‟t want to go against us. But, one thing
occurred which I distinctly remember.
39
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 40
DeLoach:
When Bobby was assassinated and they had his funeral at the
Cathedral in New York City, St. Patrick‟s, the same day we
had arrested, or the British had arrested James Earl Ray in
London. I told the Agents to go to a payphone when they
thought the funeral was just about over, and get Ramsey Clark
the minute he came out the door of St. Pat‟s. Take him to that
payphone and I‟d be on the phone, holding it ready to explain
to him about the fact that James Earl Ray had been identified
and was being held by the British authorities. And we were
going to send two people over there to bring him back.
And I said, “We want to give out a press release concerning the
matter and the Bureau‟s lengthy investigation. We‟ll put your
name up in the initial lead paragraph,” as we always do with
the Attorney General, “and then we‟ll describe the
investigation.” He said, “That‟s alright.” He said, “Show it to
the deputy” … the Deputy Attorney General, who later on
became a Secretary of State. But he said, “Show it to him and
get his approval.” But he said, “I‟m sure it‟ll be alright.”
Well, I took it over there, got the approval of the Deputy
Attorney General, came back, told Jerry O‟Leary of the
Evening Star to come to my office so he‟d have a lead start.
Then we issued it worldwide. And, I‟m telling you, the
heavens came down.
Binney:
Oh yeah.
DeLoach:
Everything broke loose.
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
And the Bureau got great credit for that. But Ramsey Clark
came back into town on the Kennedy funeral train and he asked
me to come over to his office. I did. I took a witness with me.
Previous to that, Mr. Hoover had me serving as liaison with the
Attorney General.
40
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 41
DeLoach:
And I met him on frequent occasions; I kept feeding him
information concerning the progress of our investigation
because I thought he, as Attorney General, deserved to know
about it. Lord knows he was calling my office frequently
enough asking for any progress. But he said, “I guess this is a
standard press release?” I said, “Yes, it is.” And his wife was
padding around barefooted and making occasional comments.
Binney:
(Laughing)
DeLoach:
… looking over his shoulder, and he said, “Well, did you clear
this?” I said, “Yes. I cleared it with your Deputy, as you asked
me to do, and he agreed with it and we‟ve issued [the press
release].”
So, with that, I left his office. But fifteen minutes later I got a
call and he said, “This press release did not give me enough
credit.” And he said, “What‟s the matter with you? Don‟t you
think the Attorney General deserves more credit?” He said,
“This is one of the biggest cases that‟s ever occurred in
American society and you‟re not giving me sufficient
attention.”
And I reminded him that I told him what it was all about … his
name was issued in the initial paragraph when released, and
that we cleared it with his Deputy at his instructions. He said,
“That‟s not good enough.” He said, “Who the hell do you
think you work for?” I said, “I work for Mr. Hoover, the
Attorney General, and the President.” He said, “Well, you
better keep that in mind.” And with that, I‟d just taken it
enough. I‟d worked half the night and the whole day. So, I
just hung up the phone on him. I called Mr. Hoover at the
Waldorf Astoria and Clyde Tolson answered the phone and he
said, “What‟s going on?” And I told him, and I told him I‟d
hung up on the Attorney General; that the Attorney General
was angry and I just wanted he and Mr. Hoover to know about
it. Mr. Hoover got on the phone and said, “Stand your
ground.” (Laughing)
Binney:
(Laughing) Did he really! (Laughing)
41
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 42
DeLoach:
The following day, Ramsey Clark called Mr. Hoover and asked
that I no longer serve as liaison to the Department of Justice, to
get rid of me. And Mr. Hoover said … well, I don‟t know
what he said, but he sent me a note saying, “Al Rosen, who
reports to you, will, in the future, serve as liaison with the
Attorney General.” So I was replaced. But that was the
situation with Ramsey Clark.
Mr. Hoover, Tolson, and I would often go over and have lunch
at the Attorney General‟s invitation in the Attorney General‟s
large office. He had a big, large office … which he never used
… none of them did … and then a small office next to it. And
there he would serve us a drink; and he would have his Deputy
with him. He‟d ask us if we had any recommendations.
And Mr. Hoover, and Tolson and I would meet ahead of time.
Mr. Hoover would always want me to be the spokesman … any
blame occurred, it‟d be on my shoulders. Well, I‟d tell the
Attorney General that his attorneys and various divisions of the
Department were not answering our inquiries fast enough;
particularly in civil rights cases; that we needed to have
opinions, as to the prosecution or to further investigation as
rapidly as possible, because sometimes we were waiting weeks
not getting an answer. So he promised that he‟d take care of
that.
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
But, that was our relationship with the Attorney General. In a
lengthy way. I regret taking so long to give you the facts.
Binney:
No. That‟s exactly what I think we needed, is some insight
into these characters. Obviously, ego plays a great part in all of
their lives. Didn‟t it? I mean, that is sad when, when personal
ego …
DeLoach:
I have to reiterate that Mr. Hoover‟s great reputation, and that
of the FBI, as given to us by good work on the part of both him
and the Agents in the Bureau, and various friendly journalists
made the job easier for us in most respects. Mr. Hoover was
somewhat subject to egotism. He was subject to wanting to
hold onto his job.
42
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 43
DeLoach:
That, and the need to make a better salary for a wife and seven
children, one of whom had been very ill, were the principal
reasons why I left in 1970, to be a Vice-President of PepsiCo.
I thought he was going to live forever and he never would
leave the job. And he told me that one day. He said, “I‟ll
never leave this job!” And I don‟t think he would until he, you
know, died in 1972.
Binney:
Yeah. Yeah.
DeLoach:
But you‟ve got to give him credit, while, at the same time, to
be truthful, admit his faults of egotism.
Binney:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, he created an amazing organization and,
from my experience in Washington, when I would visit other
agencies and see how inefficient and … not corrupt but, you
know, just not as good as the Bureau. I just used to shake my
head and say …
DeLoach:
Yeah.
Binney:
… you know, he might have had his quirks but he created an
amazing organization.
DeLoach:
He was a great leader.
Binney:
Yep.
DeLoach:
But he did have his quirks.
Binney:
And we, you know, there are times when you could go back in
those files and … remember the old three by five card files and
find a case from ten to 15 years ago and you‟d just be amazed
at the recordkeeping system, and how precise it was. You go
to any other organization and you know, the guy would be
scratching his head, “Yeah, I remember something about that
case.” (Laughing)
DeLoach:
(Laughing)
43
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 44
Binney:
It was just so impressive. My whole career I just used to be
astounded at some of the things, some of the processes and
procedures that he had put into place that were still there and
still just as effective as they were the day he started it.
DeLoach:
Dave, we have been criticized about many things. We didn‟t
let enough fresh air in the Bureau at the time. We were a
monolithic organization. I recall so vividly writing Mr. Hoover
a memorandum one time and suggesting we have a pro and con
section in the, not only the Investigator, but the Law
Enforcement Bulletin. And he said, “No.” He wrote in blue
ink, on the memorandum, “No.” He said, “Our Agents know
well enough. We don‟t have to bring any outsider in.”
Well, that was wrong and I felt let‟s let some fresh air in every
once in a while; get differing opinions, though we don‟t have to
be taken up with them. We should listen to other people too.
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
And I think it would‟ve helped. But that‟s just a small
example.
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
He didn‟t want anybody else.
Binney:
Well, what was workin‟ was workin‟ fine, I guess.
DeLoach:
Yes, it was.
Binney:
Let me ask you one more question, and that is about
informants. You touched on the fact that we paid that minister
in Mississippi. He, Mr. Hoover was really, or at least it came
down … I came in the Bureau in 1970 and, I mean, we all had
to have informants. It was pushed …
DeLoach:
Right.
Binney:
from the top down … you had to have informants. You had to
meet them regularly, etc., etc. What role, other than that one
you cited in the three civil rights workers case, did informants
play in that whole civil rights era? Were they important?
44
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 45
DeLoach:
It was very difficult to get informants back in that time because
of the racial attitude on the part of many individuals in
Mississippi. They played a small part. Not a big part.
Binney:
Uh-huh.
DeLoach:
The specific individual, a Minister, Al Rosen told me that this
individual would come and park near the Sand and Sun Motel,
at night, and just sit there. And Rosen and the Agents knew
that, so one time they approached him. Mr. Hoover, Tolson,
Rosen and I had dinner together the night that Mr. Hoover was
down there at the Sun and Sand Motel. Rosen broke the news
to us. I didn‟t know it at the time. I‟d just come down the day
before that. This man would give us the information we
needed as to the location of the bodies, and also the individuals
involved … for twenty-five thousand. Well, later on it turned
out to be thirty thousand.
Binney:
Uh-hmm.
DeLoach:
But Mr. Hoover turned to me and said, “Get the money and
give it to Rosen right away.” So when I returned the next day,
I put that in process. But that was a good informant. The man‟
conscience hurt him and I don‟t know whether he was a
minister or an Evangelistic minister, or not. I think he was just
a country preacher. But, anyhow, his conscience hurt him to
the extent that he wanted to give it up. But he also was
mercenary enough to want money out of it.
Binney:
Yeah. Yeah.
DeLoach:
There also was a possibility that a state trooper who had the
information, was of assistance to us as an informant. And I
don‟t recall paying him anything but he did give the Bureau
some information at that time.
But informants were not only hard to come by but they were
very few in number. And we had good Agents working down
there.
Binney:
Yeah. Yeah.
DeLoach:
They busted their butts trying to solve that case.
45
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 46
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
They all knew to a man what we were up against and what the
Bureau had to do in order to maintain its status with the
American public. And they just killed themselves working.
They were a very good group of Agents, excellent Agents.
Roy Moore is now suffering from Alzheimer‟s. We
corresponded quite frequently; he made telephone calls to me
through the years, and we‟d talk quite lengthily. As I said
previously, he was an excellent man. Now, he wouldn‟t even
know me if I walked up on the front porch.
Binney:
That is sad. I met him, oh gosh, I was just an aide on the
Inspection Staff years ago. When we went down to do
Jackson, he came by and said hello to all of us. He was a sharp
man then, but this is, oh boy, gotta be early „80s probably.
DeLoach:
Yeah. But what a good Agent he was.
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
Very disciplined-minded; very military-minded. But Al Rosen
was the same way. He‟s not cut out of the same cloth but he
was a very capable, very loyal, very disciplined and he was a
good man. I didn‟t know Joe Sullivan that well, but he had an
excellent reputation.
The three of them headed it up, with Al Rosen being the head
of it ...
Binney:
Yeah. Yeah. You know they still use that process today. I
mean on the specials. We still call in SACs from …
DeLoach:
Is that right!
Binney:
… and you and you and you got the lead but these guys are
going to relieve you. Because it was twenty-four hours, you
know, many 24-hour operations. And, same process today that
they were using back then. Yeah.
46
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 47
DeLoach:
Mr. Hoover approved a memoranda that I wrote suggesting we
name two Inspectors, among the ranks of SAC or Supervisor at
the Bureau, who would be roaming Inspectors in major cases.
He used me for that for some period of time before I was
transferred to Lou Nichols office. But, I named Roy Moore
and Joe Sullivan and they were both excellent men. And both
did a great job in that regard.
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
And they traveled quite extensively.
Binney:
Well, they were the Efrem Zimbalist, Juniors of the Bureau,
weren‟t they?
DeLoach:
(Laughing) That‟s exactly right.
Binney:
That‟s exactly what that movie was made for …
DeLoach:
Exactly right.
Binney:
… was these two guys traveling around and handling cases.
(Laughing)
DeLoach:
(Laughing) And I still talk to Efrem. He‟s 93-years-old now.
Binney:
Is that right. Yeah.
DeLoach:
Last time we talked, he said, “Deke, I‟m the oldest actor in
Hollywood.” (Laughing)
Binney:
(Laughing) God love him. That‟s the reason I went in the
Bureau. (Laughing)
DeLoach:
He was so good.
Binney:
Yeah.
DeLoach:
I had a hard time getting Mr. Hoover‟s approval for that series.
Binney:
Oh boy, that paid off.
DeLoach:
Oh, it did. Nine and a half years.
47
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
May 1, 2007
Page 48
Binney:
Yeah. Yeah.
DeLoach:
Nine and a half years. Efrem enjoyed every minute of it.
Binney:
Well, we have taken up two hours, sir. And I‟ll tell you what,
that‟s a great two hours.
DeLoach:
Let‟s go to lunch.
48
© Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI, Inc. 2005
Interview with Former Special Agent
And Deputy Director of the FBI
Cartha “Deke” DeLoach (1942-1970)
on November 11, 2005
By Susan Rosenfeld, Ph.D.
Consultant to the FBI Oral History Project
Edited for Mr. DeLoach’s corrections by Sandra Robinette on July 10, 2007. Final edit on July
20, 2007
Susan Rosenfeld, Ph.D./
R:
If you don‟t mind I‟d like you to read the release and make sure that it‟s working
for this recorder.
Cartha “Deke” DeLoach/
D:
“We, the undersigned, convey the rights of the intellectual content of our
interview on this date or dates to the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI.
This transfer is in exchange for the Society‟s efforts to preserve the historical
legacy of the FBI and its members. We understand that portions of this interview
may be deleted for security purposes. Unless otherwise restricted we agree the
acceptable sections could be published on the world-wide-web and the recordings
transferred to an established repository for preservation and research and may use
some information given in this interview and other interviews for articles, books
written by me, or speeches given by me.”
Signed “Cartha D. DeLoach” on November 11, 2005.
R:
Thank you very much.
Now we‟re just going to go ahead with the interview. What we do is, because
we‟re doing a whole series of interviews for the Society, we start out all of them
the same way. No more than a half an hour just getting some basic background
about you.
D:
Yes.
R:
If you can start out for just a few minutes telling me about where you were born,
where you were raised, went to school.
D:
Okay. Was born July 20, 1920, in a little country town not too far from Hilton
Head, Claxton, Georgia. Claxton had about three thousand people, and my high
school graduation class was composed of a total of about thirty-seven.
Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 11, 2005
Page 2
D:
My father died when I was eight years of age and my mother and I had a very
difficult time economically. She took in high school teachers as boarders in our
very old nine-bedroom home and attempted to make a living that way. I worked
in a place called Brown‟s Drug Store for a number of years, particularly my
sophomore, junior and senior years in high school, both Saturdays and Sundays,
making a dollar. I worked all day Saturday, and made seventy-five cents by
working on Sunday afternoon.
After graduating from high school I attended Gordon Military College, with an
intent to study pharmacy after I‟d worked in a drug store, for as I said previously,
some period of time. However, eventually came to the realization that
pharmaceutical matters were not in my best interests.
Consequently I changed over after being on the debate team at Gordon to the
study of law. I couldn‟t get the preliminary courses at Gordon Military College,
even though I loved playing football there when the coach would allow me. He
was afraid that two previous incidents where I broke my collarbone in high school
football would be against me insofar as playing junior college ball was concerned.
But the following year I transferred to South Georgia College at Douglas,
Georgia, where they had a broader variety of academic courses. I started out on
the courses that would lead up to, hopefully, admittance to law school. I played
football at South Georgia College for two years and then received a full
scholarship in football to Stetson University in Deland, Florida.
R:
Thanks. If you can continue?
D:
Sure. I played football at Stetson, and after my graduation, well, during my junior
year at Stetson I was allowed - at that particular time when you entered your
senior year you could enter your first year of law school simultaneously. So
consequently I enjoyed doing that and getting into law school. I stayed in law
school for approximately two years at Stetson. When World War II came along
and it was necessary to either get into military service or else some other branch
that would appeal to me at that particular time.
I found out about the FBI at that time by journeying to a fraternity meeting at the
University of Florida for a meeting with the Pi Kappa Phi brothers at that
institution, and heard on the radio about the FBI apprehending the eight Nazi
saboteurs within a seventy-two hour period of time.
The allurement there was the danger involved, the interest in the investigative
process. I didn‟t have any desire whatsoever to enter into the practice of law, so
consequently I chose the FBI rather than military service at that time.
2
Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 11, 2005
Page 3
D:
That proved to be a wise decision, but after a period of getting in the FBI, and
graduating from the FBI Academy at Quantico and going to Norfolk as my first
office of assignment, and later on to Cleveland, my second office, and serving as
a Resident Agent at Akron, Ohio, a decision was made in the Bureau that all
single Agents under twenty-five years of age, not having any dependents, would
be placed in the service.
I therefore volunteered for the United States Navy. I played football for the Navy,
was a physical ed instructor at Bainbridge, Maryland, where I trained, and was
later shipped to Norman, Oklahoma, where they had a fairly good football team at
the Naval Air Station. I served there as a welfare officer and had various other
responsibilities at that particular time. They played football there only one more
year. The football team was abandoned because it appeared that the United States
Navy could sense the ending of World War II.
It was a good stay in the military but I could not see having the military as a
career, so came back to the FBI just as fast as I could. The FBI was my first love.
R:
May I stop you here to go back a little bit over your earlier career. First of all,
when you first started with the Bureau you were a clerk, right?
D:
Yes, [for] six weeks.
R:
Was that standard?
D:
No, I was determined not to be a clerk. I applied for an Agent position and was
turned down because of my age. I was only twenty-three years old at the time and
so I took the position that was offered as a clerical employee and trained in the
Identification Division for approximately six weeks. And then applied for the
position of Agent.
I went in to see Stanley Tracy, who was an Assistant Director at the time, and told
him of my desires to become an Agent, and my law school training, athletics, and
academic average. He told me at the time, “No, he said, “you‟re too young,
you‟re too baby-faced. You‟re not ready for Agent‟s class yet.”
Well I think this rather spurred me on. It was a challenge that I wasn‟t going to
give up. And so then I attempted to see Clyde Tolson who was the Associate
Director. He refused to see me but referred me to Bob Lee who served as an
Inspector in his office.
3
Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 11, 2005
Page 4
D:
Lee and I seemed to hit it off quite well and he later wrote a memorandum in
indicating that I seemed to be a former young college football player, rugged in
personality, and looks, and that he felt that I would make a good Agent. Tolson
and Mr. Hoover approved and I started Agent‟s class the following week. So
that‟s how I started out in the FBI.
R:
Can you tell me a little bit about your training, that you had to become an Agent?
D:
Well, the very day that we reported we were shipped down to the FBI Academy at
Quantico. At that time we were in the seven-story red brick building and there
were about anywhere from six to seven Agents to one bedroom. One large
bedroom. We all ate in the same dining room there at the Academy. We all used
the same gymnasium and firearms training.
The Academy courses at that time were sixteen weeks long. Then we were
shipped out to our first offices. The training was courses on federal procedure,
etc. Two weeks in firearms. Considerable training in how to speak, how to use
the typewriter, how to take notes, investigative procedures, collection of evidence.
Many things like that to prepare you as an interrogator on the outside. We had a
lot of physical instruction training. Not so-called judo, but defensive tactics at
that particular time. The instruction in defensive tactics was to some advantage
later on when attempts at arrests were made.
Sixteen weeks was a grueling session, starting at nine o‟clock in the morning and
ending up at usually nine o‟clock at night with intervals, of course, for lunch and
dinner at night. On Sunday, you would report at one o‟clock in the afternoon
after being given an opportunity to go to church, or to study, or prepare your
lessons ahead of time.
You were given three exams during these sixteen weeks and you had to make an
average of eighty-five on each exam or else you were kicked out. They were easy
exams simply because of the grueling courses of study where you had to keep up
with them on day-by-day basis. The lecturers were largely in-house veterans of
the FBI, Assistant Directors, Inspectors, Section Chiefs, what have you, from FBI
Headquarters in Washington.
During the sixteen weeks you were brought into Washington for at least one week
of actual work on minor cases. You were placed under the tutorship of an older
Agent in the Washington Field Office. You would go out with him and listen to
his interviews and then a day or so or several days later you would be put on your
own handling very minor cases. “Old dogs” so to speak in the FBI that had been
left in a pending status for some period of time.
4
Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 11, 2005
Page 5
D:
It was good training, good thorough training. However, I do think that a new
Agent entering the field back at that particular time did not have all the experience
he needed insofar as the rugged life of an Agent in the field was necessary for
him. I mean by that the actual arrests you‟re making, many things that happen
during the build-up to an arrest or during an arrest. You did learn the professional
techniques and academic techniques of interrogation and conducting
investigations, but what I‟m trying to say is that practical experience learned in
the field and associating with other Agents in the field, associating with
experienced police officers in the field, were things that came to you later on and
would prove to be of great value.
While academic professionalism taught at Quantico was excellent and needed, it
still lacked the practical experience that you got in the field. I think of the three
thick manuals that we were issued at the Academy at Quantico that, when I left
Washington and was transferred to the field as a first-office Agent, they were
placed in a briefcase that was also issued to us at the time, under lock and key,
and they continued in that category for the rest of my career. I never did consult
them. Never did look at them. Never did examine my notes. Neither did I need
to because it was ingrained in me by the depth of education received at Quantico
and the additional practical experience that was received almost immediately in
the field.
R:
Well, now, for your first office. Can you tell us a little bit about your experience
there? What kind of cases you handled? If you worked with someone else to help
you?
D:
In your first office you were placed under the supervision of an older Agent. You
would go out with him. You would handle interrogations with him. And I knew
a little French at the time, so I was used somewhat in going out to ships in the
harbor and interrogating immigrants who wanted to come in, those particularly of
French background.
I assisted in one or two sabotage cases, particularly in a case involving a young
Afro-American over in Newport News, Virginia, where I was sent as a Resident
Agent in my first office. He indicated that he had been paid $25,000 by a German
espionage Agent to place an incendiary bomb aboard a Liberty Ship being
constructed at that time by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock
Company.
We put a surveillance on him. In fact I was the only one surveilling him and lived
practically in his shadow without him knowing about it for a week. Going to
theaters in the afternoon. Working close to him in the Shipbuilding and Dry
Dock Company at night.
5
Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 11, 2005
Page 6
D:
And finally after a week and no contact had been made by a German espionage
agent, we called him in and interrogated him thoroughly and he would not admit
that he had lied. He would not show us the $25,000 he supposedly had received
from the Germans either. He received a polygraph test. We flew him into
Washington. Gave him a polygraph test. And it turned out that according to the
polygraph he was telling the truth. Later on he broke down and admitted that he
was lying in order to impress his girlfriend and the case was closed. But it was a
week-long investigation that required much work to no avail.
There were a number of other cases that I handled as a first-office Agent but the
Bureau had a policy at that particular time which I thought was wrong. Letting a
first-office Agent stay in his office three months. But [that was] the Bureau‟s
policy, backed up by the fact that the FBI felt that you had to get experience in
several cities in order to prepare for the future. In other words, if you were on a
special squad, you had to go to a specific city other than the one assigned, you
might know something about that part of the country or that particular city.
But after three months I was transferred to Cleveland. Still single. After two
months in the Cleveland Office I was ordered to Toledo undercover. My
assignment there was to take charge of wiretaps on the head of the Communist
Party for the State of Ohio. The wiretaps had been approved by the Attorney
General.
My apartment was just across the corridor from his. He had a wife and two
children. He would go to work in the morning, and I would head out too, dressed
in old clothes as if I were working someplace. Sometime I would meet him in the
elevator. But at night he would come home and immediately get on the phone
and start arranging for meetings, start arranging to carry out the policies of the
Communist Party as concerned for propaganda purposes.
We received much information which I would get over the wiretap, type it out,
and transmit it to Cleveland, on daily basis.
I stayed in this capacity for six months until someone in the apartment house told
the apartment manager that it appeared that I was single, that I looked like I was
an athlete, nothing wrong with me, and why wasn‟t I in the military service. He
reported this to me, and I dutifully, as we were told to do, sent it in to the Agent in
Charge Lee Boardman of Cleveland.
The day following the SAC had received this message, he sent SA John Matter,
the electronics expert of the Cleveland Office to Toledo to order me back to
Cleveland. And the undercover operation was over as far as I was concerned. It
was taken over by someone else and the receipts of the wiretap messages were
taken to another building.
6
Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 11, 2005
Page 7
D:
We did have a good run of receiving good information. The wiretap was badly
needed and justified and consequently it was a success, as far as I was concerned,
for six months.
After going back to Cleveland, I was sent down to Akron, Ohio, as a Resident
Agent, and handled the general run of criminal-type cases, some that I‟ll never
forget as a matter of fact.
One of the most bizarre cases at that particular time was a matter involving Theft
of Government Property from the L.E. Shunk Latex Company in Akron. I
hesitate to tell about this because of the nature of the products involved. But
anyhow, the L. E. Shunk Latex Products Company made condoms for the military
service. There were 12,500 pounds of these products that were defective in
nature. They had taken them, putting them in one large bundle, and deposited
them in a warehouse.
Why? Because the United States Government had a contract with this company
that all such disposable products would be given back to the Government for
mastication and then made into various rubber products needed by the military at
the time. Twelve thousand five hundred pounds were stolen from the warehouse
and were taken to Chicago to be sold there for good products even though they all
had pinholes in them and were disposable products.
After finding out, after a lengthy investigation of about six days mostly at the
factory of this warehouse, I found out that one of the employees had stolen these
and had sold them to an outsider. He had taken them to Chicago and was selling
them there as “good” products.
I made a call to this individual under an assumed name and told him I wanted to
buy all his products and for him to bring them back to Cleveland so I would buy
them there on site. He did, he had them in several different sheets and he arrived
in Cleveland. He placed them all on a warehouse floor there where we had agreed
to meet. I looked at them and I checked the ink pattern or numbers on several of
them to make sure they were the stolen ones from the Akron company. They did
check out.
I placed the man under arrest and we turned the matter over to the United States
Attorney. After considerable deliberation the US Attorney‟s Office indicated it
was a clear violation but, by the very nature of the products involved, they
decided not to prosecute in Federal Court.
That was a bizarre case among many others I had in Cleveland at the Resident
Agency in Akron.
7
Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 11, 2005
Page 8
R:
So you got the condoms before any unwanted children were produced?
D:
Some of them were still on the streets in Chicago.
R:
Oh my.
D:
I don‟t know how many women became pregnant as a result of that. Luckily we
got 12,500 pounds back.
R:
Yes. You went into the Navy, you returned from the Navy and, without going
into too much detail, because I want to do a quick capsule of the rest of your
career before we get into the rest of the interview. Didn‟t your experience in the
Navy make any kind of a difference or how you worked, your attitude with the
Bureau?
D:
No, I loved the Bureau and I was delighted to return to the Bureau after military
service. In military service, I had applied for consideration as an intelligence
officer or at least an administrative officer of some type, considering my
background, but the Navy decided they needed a football player or an athlete at
Norman, Oklahoma, and they sent me out there. As far as I was concerned it was
a unique experience but a considerable waste of time. So I was happy to get back
to my first love, the FBI.
After reporting to the Cleveland Office upon return, I then received instructions to
attend an In-Service class for approximately two weeks. I beg your pardon, I was
told I had to go through New Agent‟s Class all over again. (chuckle). And of
course I despaired at that. However, they changed this almost immediately and
indicated that the only thing I needed to do was to go to the In-Service Class of
two weeks and that would be sufficient retraining.
And so I went back to Washington for the two weeks in Quantico and then
reported back to Cleveland and was immediately assigned as a Resident Agent in
Akron again. So it was a place I knew. I knew the people and I enjoyed being
there tremendously.
R:
Can you continue, just very briefly, just for the purposes of comparison, when you
left the field, why you left the field, and then your progressive promotions?
8
Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 11, 2005
Page 9
D:
Sure. After being in Akron in 1946 and mostly in 1947 and handling several
cases of no great repute, but anyhow I enjoyed being there. I had married while in
the service and had one child. Hugh Clegg, the Assistant Director in Charge of
the Training and Inspection Division, was invited by the Akron Police
Department --. The Chief of the Police there by the name of Thomas Linnett and
I were good friends -- and he invited Hugh down to make the speech at a
graduation class for new police officers.
Clegg did make it, and I invited Clegg and the Chief of Police out to my little tiny
postage-stamp apartment afterwards to have a drink. And had a very good
conversation. Later on that evening I put Clegg back on the train to Washington.
For some reason we seemed to hit it off and he seemed to be impressed by the
operation of the FBI there in Akron, and the cases we handled, the administrative
handling of the office and so on.
One week after he was back in Washington, I received a letter from the Director
transferring me to Washington as an Agent Supervisor. I reported there and then
later reported to the Atomic Energy Section of the Domestic Intelligence
Division.
R:
I‟m going to stop you again. We‟re going to get some interesting conversation on
this machine. Don‟t go into much detail because we‟re going to go into a lot of
detail on all of this. This is basically just your introduction. Okay, you‟re going
to tell us just a little bit about Atomic Energy and then go through a little bit
basically about your career in the Bureau and I think we‟ll stop there and go back
to the real interview.
D:
My duties in the Atomic Energy Section were very simple, such as reviewing
reports sent in by Agents from the field who had investigated individuals who
needed entry into the various atomic energy installations, and to employees of
various atomic energy installations. Actually much secrecy because of the nature
of the atomic energy bombs operation at that particular time was very tight. As a
result the Congress passed laws instructing the FBI to handle such investigations.
Many of them were very simple in nature. Truck drivers, vendors, merchants,
people like that who wanted access to the various installations. As I say they
were quite simple investigations and they were very easy to examine and
supervise and to make sure that the Agents in the field had covered all angles.
I was in that job for particular, oh I guess for approximately a year and a half to
two years, then I was transferred to the old Loyalty Section.
9
Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 11, 2005
Page 10
D:
After being in the Atomic Energy Section for approximately a year to year and a
half, I was transferred to the Loyalty Section of the Domestic Intelligence
Division where they needed additional Agents to supervise the so-called loyalty
investigations that were being conducted in the field set forth by the Truman
administration at that particular time.
Those were very meticulous type investigations insofar as the politics of the
matter were concerned. President Truman was not a man who appreciated or
understood intelligence in my opinion. He was a very courageous man. He, of
course, ordered the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which took
considerable courage and he did many other things that showed courage, but there
was a great deal of cronyism there, and he had disliked Mr. Hoover from the very
start, simply because of the fact that when Truman was chairman of the Truman
Committee in the Senate, he demanded to see FBI files and Mr. Hoover refused to
give those files to him. So as a result he thought that Mr. Hoover was his enemy.
He treated him that way when he was President.
Truman refused to read files on our reports or memoranda on intelligence. Mr.
Hoover saw him very, very rarely. Hoover was summoned to the White House
very rarely. But, that‟s another story which I‟ll get into later on. But, the loyalty
investigations as a result of the situation involving Truman and Hoover and the
pressure put on by the FBI at the particular time by the Congress, made those
investigations very intense and you had to make sure all the “t‟s” were crossed,
the “i‟s” were dotted. I know numerous Agents who were transferred to the field
for disciplinary reasons because of not detecting errors in the investigations.
Some of them went over to CIA at that particular time.
But anyhow, one of the units or sections within the Loyalty Section was the
Liaison Section. I had always enjoyed associating with individuals of other
agencies. To make a long story short, the Agent who was handling liaison with
CIA and Naval Intelligence decided to leave the Bureau. I was assigned in his job
to handle liaison with CIA and then the Navy.
I did that for a number of years. One of the things that happened at that particular
time was that I was asked by the Admiral in charge of Naval Intelligence to go to
an intelligence conference, in Frankfurt, Germany, at the I.G. Farbin Building.
There members of CIA, military intelligence, the three branches, and various
other intelligence agencies were involved, including the Department of State.
I was asked to give a speech at that particular conference, and it seemed to go off
well enough but that‟s not important.
10
Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 11, 2005
Page 11
D:
The important thing is the information I learned from talking with other
individuals at the conference and from talks and conferences there. I came back
and wrote about a six, seven-page memorandum to Mr. Hoover concerning
Russian operations, Russian espionage, and the Russian Army at that particular
time. He called me into his office to discuss the memorandum written on the
conference.
I had a good conversation with him for approximately thirty to forty-five minutes
and then went back to my Section thinking that, you know, that was the last I
would see of him for some period of time. I was thrilled by the meeting. I
enjoyed talking to him and we seemed to hit it off okay. He started giving me
assignments. He seemed to have a great deal of trust in me and he gave me
undercover assignments or various investigations to be made in foreign countries,
such as the investigation of a US Federal Judge in Panama which I went down
and investigated, and later the Judge was told to leave the bench.
There were investigations into the disciplinary activities of Agents. Two in
Honolulu who had interviewed a member of the Communist Party thinking to turn
him over to our side. But instead the Communist Party leader had taped the
interview of the Agents and Mr. Hoover was infuriated that the Agents had been
taken in by this. I handled that investigation.
I handled the investigation of a clerical employee in Chicago who was reporting
information from FBI files to her brother-in-law, who was a union chief at that
time, and who was spreading FBI information throughout the union.
I handled many types of investigations of that nature. One day Mr. Hoover called
me in and he said, “You‟ve done a very good job. I appreciate the confidential
matters you handled.” And he said, “I‟m going to make you an Inspector right
away.” And I said, “Well, I haven‟t been an Assistant Agent in Charge or SAC.
That make any difference?” He said, “You‟re now an Inspector.”
So I was thrilled by that but later on he assigned me even more responsible type
investigations such as the Legal Attaché at London, England, John Cimperman,
who‟s now passed away. Mr. Hoover received a letter from a Senator indicating
that he had damaging information concerning Cimperman that he had been
frequenting houses of prostitution in four nations‟ capitals, London, Paris, Berlin
and Rome. And that he would give Mr. Hoover ten days to investigate this
matter. And if Mr. Hoover would not do it, he would expose it to the New York
Times and various other newspapers.
11
Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 11, 2005
Page 12
D:
Mr. Hoover ordered me to be in London, England, in the office of our Legal
Attaché there by 8:30 the next morning. And he said --. It was already ten
o‟clock at that time of the day before. He said, “I don‟t care how you get there,
but, I want you there.”
Well I caught a plane and walked in the office the next morning at 8:20 and Mr.
Hoover was on the phone. He then proceeded to read to me parts of the damaging
letter, and he told me he wanted an investigation made in all these houses of
prostitution to determine whether or not Cimperman had actually been
frequenting those places.
I got in touch with the Legat service there at FBI Headquarters. I found out the
names of various foreign police officers who had been to the FBI Academy. I
quickly discovered that the Legat Cimperman had married a very lovely young
girl from New York and he was on the Isle of Capri.
After conducting --. Well, let me put it this way. I didn‟t mind the investigation
at all. I was looking forward to it, to either clear his name or find out the true
facts, but I wondered what I was going to tell my wife about being in the
bordellos of Europe for the next several weeks!
But, anyhow, I conducted the investigation. I had good help from several
National Academy graduates and I called Cimperman on the Isle of Capri and
instructed him to meet me at the Excelsior Hotel in Rome. He did. He brought
his bride along and I laid it out before him. I took a signed statement from him in
which he indicated that the charges were absolutely false and malicious.
His wife took a look at the charges. I showed her a copy of the letter. And she
said, “I know who wrote this. This is a man that has pursued me for a long time.
I didn‟t love him. He professed his love for me. He‟s an individual who‟s very
vengeful. He‟s a brother of the New York City police commissioner.”
After taking a signed statement from Cimperman, I flew back to New York and
we made an investigation of the alleged subject. We found out the same type [of]
stationery that the letter to the Senator had been written on. The same typing.
And that he had the type personality as described by Cimperman‟s wife.
The Agent in Charge of the New York Office and I called this man in and while
he refused to admit it, he did reveal that there was more than sufficient evidence
to indicate it was him. He stated he would tell his brother of the charges against
him and he thought his brother would want to retaliate against the FBI. I told him
to go right ahead and do it. We never heard from his brother. To the contrary
there were no further letters. I wrote a full report to Mr. Hoover. He reported to
the Senator and the matter was dropped completely.
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Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 11, 2005
Page 13
D:
There were investigations of Agents in trouble at that particular time. I became a
full time Inspector for some time but still going out on personal assignments
given to me by the Director.
R:
Yes. I‟m going to stop you again because I do want to get on to your career, and
what I‟d like to do is cut off part of the introductory things and go into more
detail.
One of the things that we do in our program is not necessarily to go
chronologically but give certain items priority. And you can continue talking
about your career, but I‟d like to go back in general to three important areas. One
of them is going to be about Mr. Hoover. You‟ve got to know him probably as
well as anybody. Also, Mr. Tolson and his role. I want to know particularly how
the Executives Conference ran and kind of day-to-day things that would not
duplicate what you had in your book.
D:
Fine.
R:
And I‟m interested in your relationship and your opinion of the various Presidents
that you worked with, but particularly President Johnson because you were very
close to him. And working between him and Mr. Hoover was particularly
challenging I think for you. So what I‟d like to do is have you talk first about Mr.
Hoover, but pull in anything you want and then over the next couple of days go
into some more specifics about the cases --
D:
Okay.
R:
-- that you were involved in. I‟m very interested in your work in the Loyalty, the
surveillance that you did as an Agent and going into several of the other things
that you did which actually dovetailed pretty well with some of the interviews that
we‟ve done with other Agents and hear them from your perspective.
D:
What do you wish me to discuss first?
R:
Well, I‟d like you to just talk about Mr. Hoover, maybe starting out how you,
what you knew of him when you first came in and then going through to maybe
covering some important cases and some other things where you dealt with him
just as you were doing now. But what it was like to work with him.
D:
What was it like to work with him?
R:
Right. And it sounds like you had some, even as a fairly young Agent, some
unique experiences with him.
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Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 11, 2005
Page 14
D:
I guess it was as close to it as you could think, rather a father and son relationship.
However, Mr. Hoover would never acknowledge such closeness. He was too
formal for such acknowledgements. But it was a friendly thing and even though
he always kept his distance from me. He was very formal. Very aloof. Except,
we would tell each other jokes from time to time. One time before I was
scheduled to go out and make a speech he called me in. Told me several jokes
which he thought I might give in advance of my speech to get the attention of the
audience.
Mr. Hoover was a genius in many ways. He was a genius at public relations. He
was a genius at holding the rapt attention of an audience.
He probably insofar as politics and public relations are concerned, was the best
toe dancer in Washington. I mean by that he could tiptoe to this and get away
from that and tiptoe to that and so on and get away with it.
But his great power came from the early gangster days when he captured the
imagination of the American public. He never did lose that power throughout his
entire career. That power was greatly enlarged by World War II, the investigation
of communism and the great publicity that ensued as a result of the gangster days
and the fight against communism. So he built a platform and there was some
purpose in building his platform based on those things which gave him protection
against an eager ambitious publicity-hunting Attorney General, Congress, or
President. That can‟t happen today.
But, nevertheless, he had such support from the American public as a result of the
platform that he, I think purposely and many other ways came about through
actual work by him and by the Agents. But it was something which was badly
needed. “We need an engine to pull the train.” And any, in my opinion, in any
intelligence organization or criminal-type investigative agency, it‟s got to be
semi-militaristic. If you don‟t have strong discipline, there‟s always a chance for
leaks by someone turning traitor, or various acts which would damage the
reputation of the organization.
Mr. Hoover always felt, and I agreed with him, that for an Agent to get on the
witness stand he had to be able to tell all facts, in a good fashion, to make a good,
good impression based on his investigation, his knowledge of the case at hand.
But also he had to have sufficient credentials, reputation and background to
withstand any attack by a vicious defense attorney trying to make the FBI look
bad. He always told me that those screen doors open much easier, those front
doors, front entrance doors, open much easier when you have general support of
the public. In other words, when people believe in you and want to support you
and help you, they‟re much more eager to give that support by opening those
doors effortlessly and with intent to help out.
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November 11, 2005
Page 15
D:
If you have bad publicity, you don‟t have the support of the public to a great
extent. You don‟t have the support of the Congress. It‟s very difficult to get
something through the Congress, to get such support from the general public, if
they don‟t believe in you. So for those reasons he carefully built the organization.
It was why the Bureau was so great at that particular time, and I think still is,
because of that support and the platform that he built.
In later life he became a little egotistical. He accepted favors from friends, none
which had any dealing whatsoever or anything to do with cases being handled by
the FBI, but anyhow in today‟s society you just don‟t accept free hotel rooms or
free lunches or things of that nature from individuals in private industry or any
other source or else, the liberal newspaper group will come down on you one
hundred percent as will members of the Congress.
But, in later life, he unfortunately developed the idea that he was impervious to
deep criticism or severe criticism. As a result he did accept gratuities from time
to time from close friends. Nothing as I say which would hurt any FBI
investigation or cause those people to think that by him accepting those favors he
would do something for them. Far to the contrary is true.
Mr. Hoover was a great practical joker. He pulled many practical jokes on
friends. He pulled them on me. He did have a good sense of humor.
R:
Can you tell us about a couple of things that he did?
D:
Sure. Julius Lully was one of his good friends at Harvey‟s Restaurant. The
manager and owner of Harvey‟s Restaurant. Next to the Mayflower Hotel in
Washington. Julius Lully had a wife, who Mr. Hoover knew, and Mr. Hoover had
dinner in there occasionally with Clyde Tolson and on rare occasions he invited
me to go to the Mayflower with him for either lunch or Harvey‟s for dinner.
But Mrs. Lully at one time came over to Mr. Hoover‟s table and told him that
among other things that her husband had refused to give her a mink coat, and that
she knew he had money enough for it but he was too tight to do it. So Mr.
Hoover says, “Let me take care of that.”
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Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 11, 2005
Page 16
D:
So the following week Mr. Hoover came to dinner there. He called Julius Lully
over to his table and he said, “I want to show you something, Julius.” Lully sat
down, and Mr. Hoover handed him a file. Lully looked at him and turned white.
It showed Lully entering the apartment of his mistress in New York. It showed
Lully having dinner with his mistress at “21.” It showed Lully and various others
getting into a cab with his mistress and several other pictures. And he said, “How
in the hell did you get these?” And Mr. Hoover said, “Never mind. Your wife
very badly wants a mink coat.” And Lully immediately stated, “She‟ll have one
tomorrow.” (chuckle)
He had the FBI Laboratory place what we call a “weeper and wailer” on a
neighbor‟s bedroom window. You‟ve heard police sirens particularly in foreign
countries going “rar, rar, rar, rar” in France and England. His neighbor owned the
Little White Taverns. The hamburgers which Mr. Hoover enjoyed eating from
time to time. His house was right back of Mr. Hoover‟s. And at three o‟clock in
the morning he put this “weeper and wailer” on and the poor guy damn near died.
(chuckle) Jumped out of bed. But he knew who had done it. (chuckle)
R:
That‟s Mr. Duncan, correct?
D:
Duncan, that‟s right. Yes.
Mr. Hoover would go down to Miami and would take pictures of bathing beauties
with very scanty attire on. He‟d send them to my house, in his own handwriting.
“Dear Darling, I haven‟t seen you in such a long time in Miami. My arms are
aching to be around you. When are you coming down?”
My wife would get these things and think, “My goodness, who in the world is
this?” (chuckle). So I wanted to put a stop to that. And I sent him a letter. Not a
letter but a card saying, “Edgar, it‟ll be so nice to see you back in Washington.
Please don‟t let anybody know about our various rendezvous. I am so anxious to
see you again.” Signed “Lovingly, Dorothy Schiff” of the New York Post. He
disliked her.
Well, he knew where it came from so he stopped sending me cards like that.
(chuckle) But he would put --. For instance, Mervyn LeRoy, when we made The
FBI Story, the movie, starring Jimmy Stewart, he sent out a poster on Mervyn
LeRoy, a „wanted” poster, a Top Ten Fugitive Poster. (chuckle) And Mervyn
liked to have had a fit out.
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Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
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Page 17
D:
Again, the manager of Harvey‟s, he had a nice farm over in Maryland just outside
of Washington. Mr. Hoover was invited to dinner there one night and before
going into the house for dinner, he placed on telephone poles outside the farm
“wanted” posters on Julius Lully. The man almost went crazy trying to answer
questions from various police officers.
And (chuckle) there was another time when Julius Lully called Mr. Hoover and
indicated that he was in Miami and that he knew that Mr. Hoover was at the same
hotel. Well, the hotel owners, hotel management, had been instructed any calls
from Lully to Mr. Hoover should be transferred to Washington.
So, Julius said, “Mr. Hoover, I‟m down here. I know you‟re here and in the same
hotel. I‟d like you to come down and have dinner with me tonight.” He said,
“You and Clyde.” And he said, “I‟ll have it catered and I‟d appreciate it very
much if you could do it.” Mr. Hoover said, “I‟d be glad to, Julius.”
Well, the time came and thirty minutes passed, an hour passed, an hour and a half.
Julius called Mr. Hoover and Mr. Hoover said, “Julius, I‟m in Washington. I‟m
not down in Miami.” (chuckle)
This went on quite a bit. He was a good practical joker. And he would, he would
pull some good ones. But to me and to all personnel while there were moments of
levity occasionally at telling jokes, some of them, you know, a little off color, but
to most, ninety-nine percent of the people he was very aloof and very strict. But
as I said earlier, he, in his older age, seventy, seventy-one, seventy-two, thought
he was just a little impervious to severe criticism. I‟ll give you a good example.
TWA, Trans World Airlines. They had a hijacker in, I believe, Chicago. The FBI
went aboard the plane. To make a long story short --. The hijacker had a gun.
The FBI shot him in the hand and took the gun away from him and the hijacking
was over. The TWA plane flew on to Rome, Italy. There in Rome, the pilot of the
plane gave a press conference and indicated that he thought it had been a very
serious and sad mistake for the FBI to board that plane and to shoot the hijacker.
He said that the bullet could have gone in the gas tank, or something like that, and
cause a conflagration.
Mr. Hoover was infuriated and he gave instructions to me --. At that time I was
Assistant to the Director, or Deputy Director, as Mr. Hoover called it. He gave
instructions to me to never assist TWA again if there was a hijacking or any other
incidents going on which required FBI assistance or investigation.
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Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
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Page 18
D:
Two weeks later there was a hijacking at a Washington Airport. Anyhow, the
hijacker was aboard. They landed there in Washington. The plane was to refuel
and take off again for Cuba. We were told that we could be there while it was
being refueled. FBI assistance was requested immediately. I told the Washington
Field Office at the time that we were under restrictions not to be of any assistance
to TWA.
The Agents in the field were a little taken aback by my instructions, but I told
them that it was necessary because of the Director‟s personal instructions. I said,
“Get out to the airport and have the Agents ready to take over the plane and
capture the hijacker in case the instructions are changed.”
Well, I received a call from the White House, Peter Flannigan, who was Assistant
to the President, said, “Deke.” And Peter and I were good friends from many
years back and still are. Peter indicated that, “Deke, you‟d better do this. The
President personally is interested.” I said, “Peter, I‟m instructed not to do it.”
And he said, “Well, don‟t forget that I warned you.” I said, “Okay, that‟s a
chance I‟ll have to take.”
Ten minutes later I got a call from John Mitchell, the Attorney General. He said,
“Deke, the President‟s getting a little anxious about this thing. You‟d better let
those Agents loose, let them handle it.” I said, “General, I‟ll call you right back.”
So I called Mr. Hoover. And he said, “All right. If you‟re going to violate my
instructions, go ahead and do it.”
Well, I gave the Agents instructions to proceed. They captured the hijacker and
did a great job. But that illustrates the point that he thought that he was
impervious to criticism to some extent in his later years. In his early years, he
never thought like that.
R:
Just one point on that. Am I correct that there was absolutely no publicity about
that hijacking? There was no publicity about that hijacking? Nobody learned
about it until many years later if at all. I‟m trying to think of where I learned
about it. Just fairly recently.
D:
For a while the newspapers --. We didn‟t request them to do it, but the
Department of Justice did. Requested the newspaper industry not to report
hijackings. Later on when the hijackings had died down, that request was
rescinded and they start reporting them again.
I think there was. But there was no mention made of Mr. Hoover‟s refusal to
initiate investigation or action.
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Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
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Page 19
R:
Well now, you said that this was something that happened later in his life, but, for
example, if, going back at least to the 1950s, if a police department, for example,
crossed him, such as happened with Los Angeles, then he cut off their people
coming to National Academy.
D:
Well, that was done with the Dallas Police Department after the assassination of
John F. Kennedy because of the actions of the Chief of Police in Dallas who
indicated that the FBI had been warned that Lee Harvey Oswald might cause
some incident because we were surveilling Oswald. It was a false statement.
We later learned that Lee Harvey Oswald had come by the Dallas Office and had
left a note for Special Agent Jim Hosty saying that he was going to destroy the
FBI building or do something to it if we didn‟t quit harassing his wife. His wife
was Russian born, reared in the Soviet Union and was, of course, an immigrant to
this country and Hosty simply wanted to interview her.
But the Chief of Police indicated that we were surveilling Oswald, and that
reached the papers and television stations. And I called Mr. Hoover and told him
about it and he was infuriated. He said, “You call this Dallas Chief of Police and
tell him that if he doesn‟t retract that statement, that we would cut off all relations
with the Dallas Police Department.
Well, I did that. The Chief did go back on television and in a half-hearted way
retracted part of the statement. But he left nothing to the imagination of the
newspaper people that we had some fault in the matter.
We did cut off all relations. We refused to take police officers from Dallas in the
National Academy. We refused to handle lab exams for them. We refused to
handle fingerprints.
Several weeks later, I went down to Dallas to make a speech. The mayor of
Dallas who at that time was chairman and CEO of one of the largest industries in
Dallas, asked if he could have breakfast with me. I told him, “Yes, I would be
joining you.”
And, so I had breakfast with him. He was a very gentlemanly individual. He
said, “What would it take to have Mr. Hoover lift those restrictions?” And I said,
“Well, one of the principal things it would take would be to fire the Chief of
Police.” And he said, “That will be done.” He said, “This is in the process right
now.” And I said, “Well, this may put a new color on the entire thing.”
And as a result, to make a long story short, I went back and wrote a
memorandum. The Chief was fired. We did resume relations.
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Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
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Page 20
D:
That has happened on a very rare number of occasions but it did happen again
from time to time. When Mr. Hoover became particularly exasperated about
some slur against the FBI or a refusal to assist us in an investigation, or in great
corruption in a police department, he would cut off relations. But it was very rare.
Extremely rare.
And I don‟t know to this day whether it was the proper thing to do cutting off
liaison, a relationship. We cut off a relationship with an ally that needed our help
in order to solve crime and, you know, better protect the public. But it was a whip
hand that he used and he used it, I say, very rarely and Dallas, I guess, was the
best example.
R:
Yeah. When you were with Mr. Hoover for something that you may not have
agreed with, did you ever offer an opinion, did you ever offer an opinion to him
that contradicted what he wished?
D:
Yes. A good example was Agents being wiretapped in Honolulu by the
Communist Party. I came back, after making the investigation, and indicated that
they were both good Agents. They had good backgrounds. Good experiences.
And recommended that they be censured and placed on probation and transferred
but no further action be taken.
Mr. Hoover sent me a letter of censure because of being “too soft.” He wanted to
cut them a thousand dollars in pay. Well, that was a great hardship and I just
didn‟t think that the Agents, in addition to my recommendations, making a
mistake, even though it was serious and caused us great adverse publicity in
Honolulu at the time in the papers, and newsreels. But, nevertheless, Mr. Hoover
felt that I was being too soft on them and censured me by letter.
There were other times we disagreed, but I never won the battle. Let me put it
that way. But mostly my, our, my disagreeing was about the handling of
personnel. And I often suffered as a result of it. But, again, he felt that any
damage to the FBI was damage to him, was a damage to him personally. Was a
damage to the structure of the great support the public had for the FBI and the
Congress, and he didn‟t want anything to come up which would cause damage.
That‟s one of the principal reasons why I believe that he was never a homosexual.
I traveled with him. I stayed in the same suite with him. With he and Clyde
Tolson. I went out to dinner with him occasionally and rarely. I was invited to
his home on a number of occasions for dinner. Usually with John Mohr. I knew
him well and knew of his home. I knew his habits, his propensities, and his great
desire to avoid any bad publicity with the public or the Congress because he knew
it would hurt the Bureau and hurt him personally.
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Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
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Page 21
R:
You said you were in his home. Is it true that John Ehrlichman had written in a
book that he had pictures I guess of nudes in his basement or his stairway?
D:
No, there was no truth to that whatsoever. He had one painting of Marilyn
Monroe which was on his staircase leading upstairs from the first to the second
floor and that was the only nude in the entire place. There were never any
portraits of nudes throughout his house, books on nudes or anything like that.
He abhorred homosexuality. That‟s why so many homosexuals were dismissed
by the Bureau. He felt that for them to get on the witness stand and the defense
counsel might bring out the fact that this individual, this representative of the FBI
who was offering opposing testimony, had a homosexual character. That‟s why
he was against it.
There was another old myth that he was against women. That‟s so false. He had
many, and I say many, good women friends. I know because I was asked to write
letters to them sometimes under his signature. But he felt that every woman was
an image of his mother, so to speak, and he loved his mother very dearly. But he
felt that for a woman to be an Agent would be placing her in harm‟s way and as a
result he didn‟t want to see any woman harmed in any way whatsoever or killed
or injured.
So, Helen Gandy, his longtime Secretary, was a Grade 14 and later on went up to
the Super Grades. Seventeen and eighteen. She was very close to him and
handled many matters which were very sacred to him, but he placed other women
in responsible positions. He was not anti-woman. He had an old fashioned
worship of women and wanted to see no harm come to someone who may be like
his mother. That‟s about as simple a way I can put it. He liked Dorothy Lamour
very much. She called him “Speed” and he called her nicknames. For a while he
dated the mother of Ginger Rogers.
R:
Ginger Rogers, yes.
D:
He wrote her letters. He wrote Dorothy a number of letters, and a number of
other women he knew. But this fact that he was anti-women or he was a
homosexual, that‟s totally false. Really.
R:
Well, I‟m interested in your relationship with Clyde Tolson. You mentioned that
if you needed, at least in your book you said that if you needed to speak to Mr.
Hoover about something, you would first go to him. And I think his role is not
very well known.
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Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
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Page 22
D:
You‟ve asked me about Clyde Tolson, the Associate Director. Clyde
Tolson was an excellent athlete. He played first baseman for the Bureau FBI
baseball team. He was involved in other athletic activities. In his younger days
he would go down to the gym considerably.
He was one, probably one of the sharpest men that I knew in the Bureau. In many
ways he was, from an intelligence standpoint, he was smarter than Mr. Hoover.
Mr. Hoover was by far a better public relations man and good administrator. But
to give you an example of Clyde Tolson, he was always --. You never found a
piece of paper on his desk. He would read something hurriedly, make up his
mind, initial it, and send it on into Mr. Hoover, or send it back to me or to the
administrative side of the house to John Mohr.
Any criticism I received in the Bureau came to me from Mr. Hoover in writing.
And it was very rare. I won‟t say that braggingly. In some instances, Clyde
Tolson would call me in and criticize me verbally about mistakes in
correspondence. About acceptance of this speech or that speech. About how to
handle various policy matters. I don‟t think we ever had any arguments
concerning investigative matters.
But I respected Tolson highly. I regarded him as a first-rate man and I guess
Clyde Tolson‟s greatest faults, if he had any, was his slavishness to Mr. Hoover.
To give you an example, if we had an Executives Conference and there were
eleven men there including Tolson, eleven Assistant Directors and Tolson would
be twelve, if we voted unanimously on some particular policy matter and it came
back from Mr. Hoover saying, “No, I disagree.” Well, Tolson would call us back
into conference again and say, “Obviously we were wrong, the Director‟s right.
He knows more about this than we do. So consequently let‟s rethink it.” Well,
we‟d rethink it and we‟d all vote “okay.” You know, in line with Mr. Hoover.
He had a slavish obedience to the Director when in many instances I think that he
should have discussed the matter with Mr. Hoover and possibly come to a, a
better conclusion. But that was his, I think, principal fault if any. But he was an
excellent administrator. A sharp Associate Director. He knew public relations
backwards and forwards. He knew Mr. Hoover‟s mind very well.
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D:
When I was --. Before I was made Deputy Director, I was an Assistant Director
for eight years of the old Crime Records Division. I would go in to talk to Tolson
on matters concerning public relations often. For instance I wanted the FBI to
have a television program. I thought it would help us greatly from a public
relations standpoint. And I went into him one day and I said, “Look, we‟ve got
this book Masters of Deceit which had been written by my own Division, Fern
Stukenbroker who had a Ph.D. in my Division and he was the Agent who did the
principal work. But Mr. Hoover liked it. He made several changes in it in order
to add a personal touch, so it was his work.
I mentioned to Tolson, “Let‟s, let‟s, let‟s take this book and use it as a basis for a
television series.” And Tolson told me, he said, “Nobody wants that book. It
doesn‟t have any adventure to speak of.” And I said, “Well, you know, in the first
place it‟s been popular. Not overwhelmingly popular. But quite popular. And
Mr. Hoover‟s signed many copies of it, but it doesn‟t have to be the exact replica
of what‟s going to be shown on television. They can stray far from it. And we
can give them interesting case histories.” I said, “We‟ve got three thousand of
those downstairs in the Crime Records Division in files and we‟ll just feed them
the good ones and let them build TV shows based on that.”
“Well, he said, “the boss won‟t do it.” He says, “You‟re just wasting your time.”
I said, “What about if I sell this Masters of Deceit to Jack Warner of Warner
Brothers, whom I knew very well, Mr. Hoover knew, Clyde Tolson knew. But I
guess I knew as well as anybody but additionally I knew their executive vice
president, Bernie Goodman, who was an old friend of mine. I knew Ben
Kalmenson who was the president of Warner Brothers and Jack Warner was the
chairman and was controlling stock owner. Kalmenson and Bernie Goodman had
both been in my home in Virginia.
So, I got together with Goodman and Kalmenson. I had them out to my house for
lunch one day. And they had drinks, and lunch and, and I put the proposition to
them. They said, “I‟ll give you $25,000.” And I said, “That‟s too damn low.” I
said, “You know, this book is worth far more than that.” I said, “Your television
series is going to make you millions.” And Kalmenson says, “No.” He said,
“Twenty-five thousand is tops.” And I said, “Well you don‟t mind if I go over
your head, do you?” And he said, “No. Go ahead, but Jack Warner is tighter than
I am.”
Well, there was scheduled the famous Mutual of Omaha Golden Plate Award
Dinner at the Mayflower. They were honoring Mr. Hoover and giving him a
$10,000 check from Mutual of Omaha. Jack Warner was invited to attend. He
flew into town. And I arranged to get an apartment for him and had an Agent
drive him around.
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Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
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D:
After the dinner that night, several things happened. I‟ll get back to the other
things later on. But Jack Warner and I met out in the hallway of the Mayflower. I
told him of meeting with Ben and telling him that Ben had made me a ridiculous
low offer and wouldn‟t budge. And Jack said, “Well, what will it take?” And I
said, “Seventy-five thousand.” And I said, “Ten thousand dollars for a bonus, for
the seventy-five thousand.” He said, “It‟s a deal.”
R:
What, what year was this? Do you remember that? Do you remember about what
year this all occurred?
D:
You can look in my book and see the date of Golden Plate Award.
R:
Okay.
D:
But anyhow, I went into Tolson about three days later and I said, “Look. Warner
Brothers is willing to pay us $85,000. We can give it to the FBIRA and go
forward with the series.” He said, “Well, I don‟t know. Let me present it to the
boss.” Well, he called me that afternoon and he said, “I‟ll be damned.” He said,
“You did pull it off. Go ahead.”
So we got the checks, $75,000 and $10,000. And gave it to John Mohr. Mr.
Hoover gave me a meritorious award of $2,500 and he said, “Be damn sure you
pay the income tax on this.” I said, “Of course, I will,” and I did. The rest of the
money was given to the FBIRA.
But that‟s how the television series started and I supervised the scripts and some
actual production until I retired in 1970. Ford Motor Company started off with a
$15,000,000 sponsorship and it was a good series. It helped the Bureau out
greatly from a public relations and recruitment standpoint.
The Golden Plate Award --. I went in and told Tolson that I had a call from a vice
president of Mutual of Omaha and they were offering Mr. Hoover $10,000 if he‟d
accept the so-called Golden Plate Award at a special dinner at the Mayflower
honoring him. Invitations will be sent to the Joint Chiefs, to the heads of
Congress, people like that.
It was a very, very, very, splendid affair. But that afternoon, I got a call from the
vice president of Mutual of Omaha. And he said, “Can you take care of Dr.
Charles Mayo?” And I said, “What do you mean?” And he said, “Well, you
know, off the record, he, he loves Scotch, and he sometimes gets loaded. He‟s
supposed to be master of ceremonies tonight.” So I said, “Okay, I‟ll have a
couple of Agents take him around Washington and occupy his time up until a
couple of hours before the dinner.”
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Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 11, 2005
Page 25
D:
Well, what happened --. Mr. Hoover and Clyde Tolson and I got to the dinner.
Well first though, when I learned that Chet Huntley and Bob Considine, the
famous columnist …
R:
Oh. Yeah, it‟s in your book, right?
D:
Yes. They were going to edit the film taken that night and show it the following
Sunday afternoon on nationwide TV. I told Mr. Hoover, “You‟d better let me go
to New York with them the night of the banquet around midnight and let me edit
the film with them tomorrow morning.” He said, “You don‟t have to do that.
Those people are professionals. They know how to do things like that.”
We got to the affair that night. We went up to Dr. Mayo‟s suite. He met Mr.
Hoover very effusively but he excused himself about every, I guess, five to ten
minutes. I watched him going in the kitchen and getting a bottle of Scotch and
just turning it up and drinking it. By the time he got downstairs that night and we
were in the reception line, he was loaded. He could hardly stand up.
By the time he got to the platform, he got up and started introducing Mr. Hoover.
He said, “Damn it, where are my notes. I can‟t find them anywhere.” But he said,
“We‟re here to, to honor Hoover.” He said, “I don‟t know whether it is the
vacuum cleaner Hoover, or Herbert Hoover, but (he said) I guess it‟s Edgar
Hoover.” And he said, “I‟m here to give him a check for $10,000” And he said,
“I guess the poor bastard needs this check because he‟s been a public servant all
his life.” And with that he almost fell down.
Tolson looked at me and said, “Do something right away. Get him off the
platform.” I said, “I can‟t get him off the platform.” Going out that night, Mr.
Hoover looked at me and he said, “You know that conversation we had
concerning editing that film?” I said, “Yes, sir.” He said, “Get to New York right
away.”
R:
Yes. That‟s right..
D:
So Bob Considine was loaded too and was asleep on a sofa in the lobby of the
Mayflower. The vice president of Mutual of Omaha and I got his shoulders and
feet and loaded him into a taxi, got on a Mutual of Omaha plane and flew up to
New York getting in there around two o‟clock in the morning. We stayed at the
Waldorf. We got up early and edited the film and I was back the next afternoon.
But that‟s how that happened.
R:
Right. Going back to the Executives Conference, I heard that the rumor was that
people would sign the memos in pencil and then if Mr. Hoover disagreed you
could erase the initials. Is that true? (chuckle)
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Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 11, 2005
Page 26
D:
I don‟t recall anyone ever doing that. I do recall one instance, and I admit it at
this late time in life. Mr. Hoover would not look at a memorandum if it did not
have my initial on it. He didn‟t want to see a “D” with a little “d” underneath it
saying that Inspector Sterling Donahue, my assistant, had handled it.
But mail was in such great volume that was sent in to Tolson, and part of it he
sent on in to Mr. Hoover. It was a physical impossibility for me to review all the
mail coming in. Some from John Mohr‟s office who was the Number 4 man and I
was the Number 3 man, and some from all four of the Divisions, under me,
including the Domestic Intelligence Division.
But, Donahue and I devised a plan where the less serious of the memoranda he
would go ahead and sign, copying my “D.” And he could copy it without any
trouble at all. But it had to be done. Otherwise Mr. Hoover would send it back.
Say, “Review this before I review it.” Period. I don‟t recall any Agent taking his
name off the blue ink memorandum. I do recall some of the caustic comments
made by Mr. Hoover.
R:
Oh there are some wonderful ones.
D:
The one example I remember. The Agent is dead now. He later became SAC in
Seattle. Earl Milnes. “Mulehead Milnes” we called him. The reason we called
him “Mulehead” was because he wrote this very excellent memorandum, and I
sent it on in to Tolson and Mr. Hoover, concerning members of the Communist
Party who had fled the United States and the need for investigation in foreign
countries of these individuals who had been under arrest for the Smith Act.
The memo went on in to Tolson. He approved it. It went in to Mr. Hoover. Mr.
Hoover wrote on it, “Who is the muleheaded supervisor that prepared this
memorandum?” (chuckle) So Milnes automatically became “Mulehead” from
then on. (chuckle)
One time Mr. Hoover found that his limousine had a, a rattle in the right front
fender. He asked John Mohr to take care of it. At least Tolson asked John Mohr
to take care of it. Mohr turned it over to Callahan, Assistant Director of the
Administrator Division, and they said it was repaired. It went back. Mr. Hoover
still heard the rattle.
Well, it happened three times. He still heard the rattle. So finally, finally being a
little impatient, he called me and said, “I want you to handle this. At least I can
trust you to do it.” I didn‟t want to get that damn limousine and drive it over to
the mechanic, so I had two Senior Agents of the Washington Field Office take
care of the matter. I gave them very specific instructions as to how to handle that.
They were specifically instructed, “For God‟s sakes, get rid of the rattle if there
was one.”
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Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 11, 2005
Page 27
D:
On the way over there somebody ran into them. I had to report it to Mr. Hoover.
On the memorandum he wrote, “Not only are you a fool, but you‟ve also wrecked
my car.” (chuckle) I can tell you a thousand things like that.
R:
Yeah. We‟ve been going for about an hour and a half. Would you like to take a
break?
D:
I can fix you a sandwich here or we can go out to a local place and have a quick
lunch and come back.
R:
Okay. This is Susan Rosenfeld. I am continuing interviewing Cartha “Deke”
DeLoach in his home in Hilton Head, South Carolina, on November 11, 2005.
D:
Well, lead me into it.
R:
I will lead you into it. You mentioned that it was very important, one of the
things that you wanted to make sure we talked about, was the role of the FBI
during the civil rights era which I think we usually think of as the early 1960s
during the Kennedy Administration. And so, I‟m particularly interested in, first
of all what your position was during that time and your particular role, your
particular observations. In other words, not the story of what other people have
done, but rather what you were doing.
D:
Well, initially I was Assistant Director in charge of the Crime Records Division of
the FBI and later on became Assistant to the Director, Deputy Director, in the
Number 3 position in charge of, or supervising all investigative responsibilities as
well as public relations and liaison responsibilities to the Congress and the White
House.
Civil rights was a very important issue at the time. Mr. Hoover felt that it was
one of the most important issues, particularly with the public and the Congress
considering all the rioting, pillaging, and the revolutionary tactics. And, you
know, to be absolutely honest, the efforts put on by, particularly some of the
Afro-American segments of our society to establish equal rights, which was most
important.
Consequently Mr. Hoover felt very keenly that our investigative efforts should be
very thorough, very intense, so that no accusations could be leveled against us by
Afro-American groups and many white groups involved in civil rights matters, as
well as the Congress or the Department of Justice.
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Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 11, 2005
Page 28
D:
So he meticulously set forth, long before the 1960s occurred, a Civil Rights
Section in the General Criminal Division of the FBI. I think, Sue, that I‟m right
in saying that there were more Agents disciplined because of some shortcomings.
Not intentional shortcomings. Not an intention to sway the case one way or the
other. But from the standpoint of not putting in the proper language, using
incorrect language. Things of that nature. More disciplinary action taken in that
particular segment than any other, any other phase of our investigative work at
that time. We had over 380,000 investigative cases of all types at one time during
1963 and 1964.
But Mr. Hoover was very concerned that we should put our best foot forward and
handle those cases as thoroughly as possible. I recall that once I became the
Number 3 man in the Bureau it became more important on my part to make
certain those cases were handled properly before I sent any memorandum in or
any investigative report in to Clyde Tolson, the Associate Director, or to Mr.
Hoover, the Director.
We were lambasted by many segments of society on false premises. One of the
main accusations was the fact that we didn‟t protect civil rights workers. People
claimed that Agents were standing by with cameras or notebooks and taking notes
when they should have been protecting them.
We had no authority to protect civil rights workers. We were strapped as it was
with Agents putting in four hours a day overtime in order to keep up with their
pressing responsibilities. And we didn‟t have the manpower to protect civil rights
workers and handle our case load which had been originally initiated by the
Congress and the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice when the
question was put up to them indicated that “No, under no circumstances should
the FBI be expected to protect civil rights workers.”
But we did take meticulous notes or pictures, in all instances where we thought
civil rights, or civil rights violations occurring. But, still people felt, including Dr.
Martin Luther King in a statement to Mr. Hoover on one occasion when he and
Mr. Hoover were together, and I was there at the time, indicated that he would
like for us to protect civil rights workers on their scheduled march into Alabama
and Mississippi, and marches in those areas. Mr. Hoover succinctly told him that
in the first place we had no jurisdiction to do it, as laid down by the Department
of Justice, and, secondly, we didn‟t have the manpower to do it. But that we
would definitely take notes, take pictures. We would conduct thorough
investigations of Civil Right violations, and let the chips fall where they may.
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Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 11, 2005
Page 29
D:
To my knowledge, I don‟t know that the Department of Justice has ever sent back
a single investigative report where they indicated that the Agents did not do a
good job, did a bad job, or there were shortcomings in the report, etc. In order to
establish prosecution, there were instances where the Civil Rights Division of the
Department of Justice would send additional requests after a report was received
asking for investigation of some particular phase inasmuch as they planned to use
the results of that investigation, and phases of evidence, in Federal Court.
There were many instances where, I say many, some instances where there was
no Federal law covering specific incidents. For instance, the assassination of Dr.
Luther King. That was strictly a local murder case. We had no authority to enter
that case, but the Attorney General indicated that anyone who takes civil rights
away from a person has committed a Federal violation, and, therefore, we were
allowed to enter that investigation and we did very, very forcibly.
That also happened in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. It happened in the
assassination of Viola Liuzzo who was assassinated by Ku Klux Klan members.
We were in a position at that time where we were “damned if we do” and
“damned if we don‟t.” The more forcibly we conducted civil rights
investigations, as they were always handled very thoroughly, the more we were
condemned by anti-civil rights people, and some segments of the civil rights
people, particularly in Alabama and Mississippi.
Our Agents went through hell in some investigations because of various false
accusations and acts made against them. But still they conducted those
investigations to the letter of the law and submitted reports, thorough reports, to
the Department of Justice. But, nevertheless, we were criticized, particularly by
southern newspapers at the time because of our investigations in the civil rights
field. Some northern newspapers criticized us also.
But eventually they came around to the point that our investigations were
absolutely necessary in order so that everyone could lead an equal life and have
equal freedom in the United States. Much of that criticism stopped. There is still
some criticism of the FBI in this field. Ninety-nine and nine-tenths percent
absolutely without merit.
But, speaking of Mr. Hoover and his attitude towards these investigations. It was
his absolute desire to see thoroughness done and efficiency in these cases.
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Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
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D:
I recall one incident where a poor mountain man in Puerto Rico claimed that an
Agent had beat him physically in order to get a confession out of him. Mr.
Hoover became incensed about this and sent me all the way to Puerto Rico to
prove or disprove the allegations of this man. I went there, and the Special Agent
in Charge went up the mountain to get in touch with the man. He refused to come
down and talk to me. And I asked the SAC, “Why?” He said, “Well, the man
didn‟t have any shoes.” I said, “Well, buy him a pair and I‟ll pay for them.” I
did. And I‟ve never been reimbursed yet for those shoes. But anyhow, he came
down from the mountain. I interrogated him and I was convinced that he was
telling the truth. The SAC fortunately spoke fluent Spanish and was able to assist
in the interrogation. So I came back and recommended that our Agent be
transferred, the Agent be transferred. Mr. Hoover added additional disciplinary
action on it.
We took these investigations very seriously. I know in the matter concerning the
assassination of Dr. King, we received a lot of unnecessary criticism. Again,
going back to the fact that Mr. Hoover wanted to keep the FBI‟s operation
unsullied, so we could continue to get the support of the public and the Congress,
he became incensed when Dr. King went to Albany, Georgia, and upon having
any difficulty there with the police, or not having any difficulty whatsoever, in his
attempt to stir up publicity for civil rights causes, he became quite angry and
issued a statement, that “the FBI does not conduct thorough investigations
because they‟re constantly seen in the presence of police officers and fraternize
with them. The FBI has Agents in Albany, Georgia, who are all southern-born,
reared, and educated.”
Well, Mr. Hoover immediately caused a survey to be made and four out of the
five Agents in Albany, Georgia, were northern-born, reared and educated. We
conducted a survey of civil rights investigations, not only involving Albany,
Georgia, but also about fifty percent of all files concerning that area of the South
including Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina and various other states. We
found no derelictions whatsoever. Mr. Hoover issued a press release indicating
that Dr. King was wrong and Dr. King issued a press release on his own critical of
Mr. Hoover, further intensifying the situation.
It happened in Washington at that time that the Women‟s National Press Club was
just coming to power. They had been trying for years to gain access to the
National Press Club without success. But finally they were given those
privileges. They asked Mr. Hoover, when they were feeling their oats, for a
special conference with him.
30
Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
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Page 31
D:
He wanted to turn them down, but thought it over and finally he gave in. Bob
Wick, who was my Number 1 man at the time and an Inspector in the Crime
Records Division, came to me and said, “Why don‟t we suggest having coffee at
the conference?” And I said, “You got to be out of your mind. The old man‟s not
going to allow that.” But strangely enough he did. They had coffee and cookies
for the ladies. So we had the press conference. I was seated to the left of Mr.
Hoover and Bob Wick was seated among the ladies.
But, at the height of the press conference, he sensed that the twenty members of
the Women‟s National Press were getting a little tired and bored hearing of
statistics concerning fugitives, cars stolen, this case solved, and that case solved.
One or two of them were sort of nodding off a little bit to sleep. So he decided to
do something which would shake them up. He came out with a statement that
“You‟ve heard about the argument between Dr. King and myself.” And he said,
“I want to tell you and I‟ll back it up.” He said, “Dr. King is the most notorious
liar in the United States.”
Well, we were all struck with amazement. I passed Mr. Hoover a note saying,
“Don‟t you want to indicate to the ladies that this is off the record?” And he took
it and put it aside. I passed him three notes all total saying the same thing. And
finally he told the ladies, he said, “DeLoach tells me this should be off the record,
but it‟s not, it won‟t be, you may use it as you see fit.” Well, that ended the press
conference. They all jumped up to grab a telephone. And so the feud between
Dr. King and Mr. Hoover continued.
Many people who were champions of Dr. King, and he was a champion of his
people and champion of civil rights causes which needed to be brought to a
favorable conclusion, but many people felt that because Mr. Hoover was arguing
with Dr. King, the FBI had been remiss in its civil rights responsibilities and,
therefore, they bore ill will towards the FBI and Mr. Hoover. But that assumption
was not true. Not true at all because we were strongly continuing our civil rights
investigations while all this was going on. There were no criticisms whatsoever
of our investigations or their usage in court as evidence, or the testimony of our
Agents in each individual case.
But people wonder today why this came about. As an upshot of the whole thing, I
told Mr. Hoover that this was getting so serious it was causing us to lose public
support, that he should have a meeting with King. He turned me down.
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Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 11, 2005
Page 32
D:
Later on he called me back and he said, “All right, go ahead and give Dr. King a
call.” I called him and I didn‟t get him. I got one of his assistants on the
telephone, and told him that he and Mr. Hoover and Dr. King might want to get
together and discuss this matter. He said, “I‟ll get right back to you.” That was
Andy Young who later became Ambassador to the United Nations and later was
mayor of Atlanta. And I enjoyed being with him on occasion. I met him later on
several times and enjoyed talking to him.
But, I didn‟t hear from Young, Mr. Young, for three days. And then he finally
called back and suggested 3 p.m., the following Wednesday afternoon.
I was invited to sit with Mr. Hoover, and Dr. King had with him Mr. Fauntroy,
who later became the Congressman-at-large from Washington, Rev. Ralph
Abernathy, and Andrew Young, who was later on to become Ambassador. We
waited on the appointed day. Finally thirty to forty-five minutes late, Dr. King
still hadn‟t shown. I went down to the Ninth Street entrance to the Department of
Justice Building and waited for him there.
Suddenly the thought struck me that he might be coming the circuitous route from
the Attorney General‟s office to Mr. Hoover‟s office. So I tore back upstairs real
fast, and sure enough here were Dr. King, and Young, Abernathy and Fauntroy
coming down the hall. Well, the reporters tore at them like tigers. I told the
reporters that it would be up to Dr. King if he wanted to make a statement
afterwards, but no statement was to be made at this time. And I ushered them
right on into Mr. Hoover‟s office.
Dr. King first introduced Rev. Abernathy who incidentally later turned against Dr.
King and wrote a very vicious book on him about his sexual escapades.
Nevertheless, at that time they were very close to each other. Dr. King turned to
Ralph, Rev. Abernathy, and told Mr. Hoover that he would lead off first, and Mr.
Hoover said, “Fine.” Rev. Abernathy came forth with some very favorable
remarks concerning the FBI and Mr. Hoover, and how grateful the black people
of the United States were to the FBI for handling good civil rights investigations,
talking to their people and as a result they felt very secure insofar as the FBI
investigations were handled.
Dr. King then came on and talked, said pretty much the same thing that Rev.
Abernathy stated, although he was even more intense, in saying they were
supportive of the FBI and saying that any statement attributed to him which were
personal against Mr. Hoover, or the FBI, had not been made by him. He stated
that it was totally false that he had made those statements.
Dr. King and Rev. Abernathy talked for about seventeen minutes. Mr. Hoover
then talked for about an hour and forty-seven minutes, all told. Later on I wrote a
six and one-half, seven page memorandum covering the entire episode.
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Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 11, 2005
Page 33
D:
They shook hands. Dr. King assured Mr. Hoover that the FBI would have the
complete support of his organization, the Southern Conference Leadership group,
and of the black people that he dealt with, and that there should be no worry on
our part.
He then asked Mr. Hoover if he would make a joint press statement with him out
in the lobby or vestibule of Mr. Hoover‟s office where all the reporters were
gathered. Mr. Hoover said that he would prefer not to, that Dr. King should feel
free to do it on his own if he so desired.
Dr. King, when he walked out of Mr. Hoover‟s reception room, pulled a statement
from his pocket that had already been typed prior to the conference, and read it to
the assembled reporters there. He stated, “Everybody had a favorable meeting
with Mr. Hoover, that they reached some real good conclusions, the AfroAmericans would be able to support Mr. Hoover in the future” and, that was it.
We should go back and mention that during or shortly after that period of time,
the SOLO Operation. The SOLO Operation which was constituted by the Childs
brothers in Chicago and New York were two very influential members of the
National Board of the Communist Party in New York. One of the brothers was
very involved with the Communist Party, was handling their finances and
cooperating with Stanley Levison, an attorney in New York who also was a
member of the Communist Party. And he, the same brother, was handling many
principals and activities of the Communist Party. He also had very strong ties
with the ruling hierarchy of the Soviet Union.
The FBI had tried for months and months to get next to these brothers and appeal
to them from a patriotic angle to turn over to our side and become FBI informants.
They, at first, reaped little success. But later on the brothers changed their minds
and did become very valuable informants.
One brother in particular would travel to the Soviet Union once each year. There
he would be wined and dined by the Soviet Union. He would have special
conferences with the ruling hierarchy. He would be given, at first he was given
$250,000. Later on he was given up to a million two hundred and fifty thousand
dollars, the last year he went over there.
He brought this money back to the United States for the operation of the
Communist Party in the United States.
R:
Now that, that was Morris Childs?
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Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
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Page 34
D:
Yes. And the FBI later on, when they became informants. the FBI would meet
him upon each visit to the Soviet Union,, take him into a special room at the
airport which was checked very carefully for microphones and wiretaps, and there
the FBI would take a look at the money, count it, give it back to him, and he
would go on to New York very secretively and operate the Communist Party for
the coming year
So you might say not only was the Soviet Union definitely operating from a
financial standpoint the Communist Party, which represented a very fertile
propagandistic ground for Soviet propaganda and for Soviet espionage.
So we knew by that, that Morris Childs was doing an excellent job. He would
bring back information which we would pass on to CIA and the Department of
State and they would wonder, “What is your source of information?” We never
gave it to them until later on when the Childs‟s had outlived their mission.
But it was good intelligence as to the goings on and planning of the Soviet Party,
the Communist Party, what their activities were, what they planned to do in the
United States. The information was extremely valuable. But we refused to give
our source of information, and properly so. It was delicate.
But during the course of all that, Morris Childs told Agents of the New York
Office, who were handling him in a very, very secretive fashion, that Stanley
Levison was a member of the Party and that he had a great deal of control over
Dr. King; that Stanley Levison was handling his financial matters, was writing
speeches for him, that he definitely wrote the speech that Dr. King gave before the
AFL-CIO, that he was guiding Dr. King insofar as appearing in press conferences,
parades or marches, and many other things.
So the FBI became very concerned about the influence that Levison and the
Communist Party and Levison‟s guiding of Dr. King in some instances, not all,
but the impact that would have on the civil rights movement. The Director, Mr.
Hoover, genuinely felt, as did many Agents, that if this became known, it might
completely disrupt the civil rights movement and cause ruination of it. But it
didn‟t.
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Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 11, 2005
Page 35
D:
Levison soon disappeared from the picture. We told Bobby Kennedy, the
Attorney General at the time of all the facts. We sent information over to the
White House, both to John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. The known facts
caused us to initiate a thorough investigation of Dr. King. Not from any personal
revenge on our part, activity on our part, but to find out, as Bobby Kennedy
instructed, the extent of control the communists had on Dr. King. That was the
basis of the wiretaps which Bobby Kennedy approved. It was department policy,
Department of Justice policy --.
There were Dr. King‟s episodes in Los Angeles and New York City with the wife
of a dentist and with other women. These files have all been hidden under a
Federal Court order for fifty years. I think soon the time will come when a
determination has to be made will they be made public or not. There‟s much
more that I don‟t think I should say concerning that investigation or the results of
wiretapping or microphone usage. But that was the basis of that investigation.
That was the basis of the wiretapping and microphone usage.
I was asked by a Congressional committee about these matters. All total, I had
seventeen appearances before Congressional committees after I had left the FBI.
I began to think that my civil rights were also being violated. But, anyhow, I did
make those appearances based either upon request or a subpoena, and at times I
was asked why did the FBI continue listening to the sexual escapades of Dr. King
when they had nothing to do with the point of the investigation to determine the
extent of communist control over King.
And my answer would always be “An FBI Agent listening to a wiretap or a
microphone can‟t turn it off because information other than the point of the
investigation is being offered.” He can‟t just turn it on and off because it might
destroy the evidentiary tie-in when he came back on with other information or
made some statement during the recitation of sexual matters. But the
Congressional committee which was largely made up at that time of Rev.
Fauntroy and a number of other individuals didn‟t pay too much attention to my
explanation.
The FBI had no recourse but to investigate Dr. King. If we had not investigated
him, we would never have known his relationship with Levison and many other
incidents which did occur at that time. At one point, as a college professor put it,
the FBI had no alternative but to investigate King. We would have been wrong if
it had not been done. But the public today really doesn‟t understand the basis of
that investigation.
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Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
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D:
I mentioned a few minutes ago that, that the FBI initiated microphone usage in
cases involving where a person was going to be killed by the Mafia or by
espionage agents, where a life was at stake, where a big tragedy was to occur,
whether an espionage situation was going on from an international standpoint.
Those policies were approved by Former Attorneys General William P. Rogers
and Herbert Brownell. I have a seven-page memorandum, which Mr. Hoover
wrote after a discussions with the then Attorney General William P. Rogers. Such
policies were also approved by Bobby Kennedy and …
R:
Nicholas Katzenbach?
D:
Nicholas DeBelleville Katzenbach, at Kennedy‟s instructions obviously, was
responsible for sending a memorandum to the Supreme Court. Later another one
was stopped, but both indicating that the FBI‟s usage of microphones was
independent in nature and should be curtailed.
Well, Mr. Hoover sent me to see former Attorney General Rogers, who had also
been Secretary of State, he was a partner in a large firm in New York City. Mr.
Hoover asked me to interview him and to take a signed statement if he would
allow it. Rogers indicated that they had established a policy of the usage of
microphones from the Department of Justice and that the FBI did have authority
to use them. He and Herbert Brownell had both approved such policies. Rogers
called Mr. Hoover when I was sitting in his office. Told him I was there, that I
had pitched a question to him, and that he wanted to talk to Mr. Hoover about it.
In the conversation he admitted very definitely that he and Brownell had
established that policy for the Department of Justice. Mr. Hoover wrote the said
seven-page memorandum. I still have a copy of it. Mr. Hoover told me to keep a
copy in my possession, in case I ever needed it. But that was the establishment of
the microphone policy for the FBI by Brownell, Rogers, and the Department of
Justice. But Rogers definitely admitted that he and Brownell established the
policy and it was the one which we were guided by.
Kennedy, as I stated previously, also granted authority for usage of such devices
as microphones. Kennedy very definitely signed authorization that wiretaps could
be used on Dr. King. Later on he tried to deny part of that and also denied he had
ever allowed the FBI to, to use microphones on the Mafia involved in organized
crime. But he did. And we had ways of proving it.
But it seems very strange that when something gets to be a political football that
people will back away from it in order to save their political hides. And this was
very true in, I think, in Bobby‟s case who was constantly trying to save his
political hide because he eventually, after his brother‟s assassination, definitely
wanted to run for President.
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Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
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D:
Civil rights has been a troubling issue for our democracy, for our country, but a
necessary troubling issue and the Supreme Court has ruled wisely, and
accordingly, the FBI has been very instrumental in bringing about good civil
rights. I will defend to my dying breath the fact that FBI investigations were
thorough, that the FBI has been criticized very wrongly. The FBI did a very good
job in that field.
R:
Uh, huh. A couple of things I‟d like to ask you about. One of them is, are you
aware of Mr. Hoover‟s relationship with Roy Wilkins of the NAACP?
D:
Very good. And so was my relationship. I have a picture taken of Roy Wilkins in
my office. He came to see me. He set up the meeting by getting in touch with a
friend of mine who was Washington head of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Had dinner at his house quite frequently. He had dinner at my house. He invited
my wife and me to go to New Orleans with he and his wife. And we stayed with
his wife‟s mother and father and had a good time in New Orleans. His name was
Irving Ferman.
Roy got in touch with the head of the American Civil Liberties Union in
Washington. Had him call me and set up the appointment.
R:
Right.
D:
At the time of the appointment, I wrote a memorandum. I don‟t know whether
it‟s been taken out of Bureau files or not. We had an excellent conversation. He
told me that if the Bureau would not expose Dr. King and his sexual escapades,
that after a short period of time, he, Roy Wilkins would see to it that the NAACP
made Dr. King President of the Morehouse College and take him out of the
picture. I told him that I was in no position and neither was Mr. Hoover to make
any such arrangement. That we had no plan whatsoever to expose Dr. King and
as a matter of fact would fight against doing it.
And he said, “Well, I‟ve heard rumors.” I said, “Yes, you may have. I‟ll tell you
how they came about.” Mr. Hoover appeared before the House Appropriations
Subcommittee chaired by Congressman Rooney. Following his testimony,
Rooney asked him the question, “I‟ve heard reports, whether they‟re true or not I
don‟t know, but about Dr. King being associated with a communist.” And he
said, “I want you to tell me, Mr. Hoover, whether this is true or not.”
Mr. Hoover told them, off the record, about the association with Stanley Levison,
and speeches, activities, and ended up by saying, “I hope you gentlemen will keep
this quiet and there‟ll be nothing further said of it.” Next day everybody on
Capitol Hill knew about it.
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Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
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Page 38
D:
The chairman of the House Rules Committee, who was a Virginian, called me up
to his office and he said, “I want the same thing that Hoover told John Rooney.”
And I said, “Well, what did he tell him?” He said, “I don‟t know. That‟s what
I‟m asking you.” And I came back and told Mr. Hoover, “We can‟t tell him
because it‟ll be attributed to us again.” And he said, “That‟s right.” He said,
“You go up and tell him we just can‟t do it.” So I did. He got very angry at me
and swore at me a couple of times but I just had to take it.
That‟s how the information on Dr. King got out. That‟s how it got to newspapers.
And while it was true, we never substantiated it, and where it said that I offered,
or Bob Wick offered, or somebody in my office offered, to play the tapes on King
for a newspaper man is absolutely a lie. It‟s not true at all.
Ben Bradlee, managing editor of the Washington Post, at times would call me and
say, “Hey, I‟ve got a new secretary” or “the publisher has a new secretary. We
want to know if they‟re okay. Can you run files on her, or them, and get back to
me.” I would do it on an off-the-record basis. Never did I tell him that I‟d play
the files on King. I didn‟t have them in the first place. Those files and those
tapes were kept over in William C. Sullivan‟s office. Sullivan had more ambition
than he had common sense. But, nevertheless, he was the Assistant Director of
the Domestic Intelligence Division and Sullivan reported to me as one of the four
Assistant Directors.
But he kept those and I never had them in my possession. I never asked for them.
Never wanted them. I didn‟t want the responsibility of having them. The only
time that I came close to those files was when Lyndon Johnson, President
Johnson, called and had Walter Jenkins call me and say, “The President‟s read
these. He doesn‟t want to keep them on file at the White House. Next time
you‟re over here, will you pick them up and take them back to the Bureau?” And
I did. That was the only contact I ever had with those files.
R:
I just wanted to know, are you aware of the article that Dave Garrow wrote in The
Atlantic Monthly in 2002, I believe, June Atlantic Monthly.
D:
Oh, David Garrow.
R:
Garrow. He got, he got the SOLO files finally from the Bureau where saying
pretty much what you‟ve described here. And he wrote an article about it
explaining this was why King was first wiretapped.
D:
I haven‟t seen that article. I didn‟t read it
R:
I‟ll see that you get a copy then.
D:
I have talked with David Garrow I think once or twice but I didn‟t see that article.
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Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
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R:
Okay. I‟ll show it to you.
D:
I did read the book on SOLO written by John Barron.
R:
John Barron, right.
D:
It was not a well written book. The SOLO case was the best espionage case the
FBI ever handled. The Bureau should have gotten much more credit for that.
We have the J. Edgar Hoover Foundation files at the Masonic Temple in
Washington. We have the complete papers of Morris Childs. Someday I wish
somebody would take those papers, read Barron‟s book first, and write a good
book concerning the true facts of that case. They never have been brought out.
The value and importance of the information given the United States Government
by Childs and later the FBI has hardly been mentioned. And it‟s a shame.
Critics of the FBI today, particularly some of those in the Congress, have
indicated that “the FBI is not an espionage agency, it‟s not a counterespionage
agency, it‟s strictly a police agency.” CIA and State Department, no one, military
intelligence, any defense intelligence agencies have ever had a case that was so
well handled and done so well as was the SOLO case by the FBI.
R:
I agree. Before we leave Martin Luther King completely, there are a couple of,
well, major things is one reason I asked you about Roy Wilkins is because it was
my understanding that his relationship with the Bureau was pretty good.
D:
It was very good. It was started out by Lou Nichols whose job I later took as head
of the Crime Records Division. It was excellent. Nichols and Roy Wilkins talked
quite constantly. I enjoyed talking to Wilkins frequently.
Roy Wilkins was an antique auto enthusiast. He used to drive old antique cars. I
have a picture of him in one of the cars. The Afro-American groups didn‟t
consider him to be aggressive enough in some instances but he was the thing that
held them together. And I thought he did a good job. It‟s a shame that he died so
early but he was an excellent man.
R:
The reason I‟m asking that is because it seems to me that Hoover had a personal
vendetta, if you want to use that word, against Martin Luther King, not against the
civil rights movement. And if you‟d like to comment on that, but also if that‟s the
case, why do you think he had it with Martin Luther King, this particular
animosity?
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Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 11, 2005
Page 40
D:
To begin with, because of King‟s criticism of the FBI in Albany, Georgia, which
was unwarranted. But criticism drew large amounts of publicity and the FBI lost
support among the Afro-American groups in the country as a result of that. But
later on, King issued a statement indicating that Mr. Hoover was growing
mentally older, he was bowing under the pressures of his office, and that perhaps
he should be removed from office.
Well, that ignited the fuse. But, you‟re right. Mr. Hoover never wavered in his
support of civil rights investigations and their handling with the Department of
Justice, but he did feel that King, as the feud wore on, when information came out
about King‟s sexual escapades, Mr. Hoover was upset over these facts. You
know, here‟s an old-fashioned Puritan so to speak. A man who loved the majesty
of the law, grew up in the law even back in the ‟20s when the Department of
Justice, and before he‟d taken over as Acting Director of the Bureau in 1924. But
here was a man who hated to see a preacher who, a minister of the gospel, that
would stand up and proclaim the glory of God on Sunday and yet during the week
he would have sexual interludes with women other than his wife. This I think
troubled him.
R:
You said, “You think.” Did he ever talk to you about anything like that?
D:
No, we never did talk personally about it except, after the King interview, he
didn‟t change a word in my six or seven page memorandum reporting the
interview.
R:
Now you mentioned that the tapes were kept by William C. Sullivan. That brings
us to the famous letter that Hoover is often accused of, or instigating, sent, that
Coretta King opened saying, you know, you have so many days --. And the usual
explanation of that letter is that they‟re saying King should commit suicide. Can
you comment on that entire incident?
D:
In the first place, Mr. Hoover, Clyde Tolson, nor I knew anything about the tape
that was sent to Coretta King. If we had known about it, we would have stopped
it. Sullivan on his own --. Well, let me go back a little bit. Sullivan had
grandiose thoughts about becoming Director. He didn‟t like or couldn‟t stand
anyone above him because he wanted to take their job. Move up one step at a
time. He wrote anonymous letters on me. One he sent to the Attorney General,
and the Attorney General turned it over to me. I knew Sullivan had done it and I
was just quietly biding my time. I knew eventually he would saw off the limb
that he was sitting on. And he did.
But earlier Sullivan was anxious to please Mr. Hoover in any way possible. He
thought in his own twisted mind that this would please Mr. Hoover to do that. At
the same time he was writing Mr. Hoover eight and nine page letters comparing
him with Konrad Adenauer, Charles De Gaulle, and other famous individuals.
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D:
Mr. Hoover would call me over in the late afternoon. He would read the letters to
me. I would almost regurgitate. I knew they were false. But Sullivan would
bring me sweet potatoes from his home in Maine. He would bring me honey or
jam and maple syrup. But at the same time he‟d turn around and try to stab you in
the back. Like he did later to Mr. Hoover.
And we all knew what Sullivan was doing. Tolson couldn‟t stand Sullivan.
When I retired, Mr. Hoover called me on the phone and said, “I have decided to
put Sullivan in your place.” He said, “Do you think that that‟s a good idea?” And
I said, “It‟d be the worst move you could ever make.” And he said, “Well you
know, Gandy and Tolson tell me the same thing.” He said, “The three of you
can‟t be wrong, but I thought I‟d give him a chance.” Well, he gave him a chance
on it and Sullivan turned on him like a rattlesnake.
Sullivan at the time he was serving as Assistant Director of the Domestic
Intelligence Division was assisting Tom Huston over at the White House on The
Houston Papers. President Nixon was insatiable in his desire for intelligence.
Nixon was afraid and knew that he was losing support by the thousands for the
continuous rioting in the United States. So, he would constantly ask the FBI for
more and more intelligence to prove that the riots in our country were being
caused by insurgent groups in foreign countries. And they weren‟t. The only
connection they had, well, one telegraph from Cuba which was in code which we
broke and indicated sympathy with their cause, but this meant that Cuba was
asking the students to come over and letting them cut cane while they taught
revolutionary tactics to them.
But those were the only things. We kept telling Nixon that. But he wasn‟t happy.
He wasn‟t satisfied. He was being urged on by Haldeman, Ehrlichman, George
Liddy, and so some smaller extent, Jeb McWhorter. And also I think John Dean
had something to do with that too, although he later denied it.
But anyhow, Houston and Sullivan got together and Sullivan started helping
Houston form The Houston Papers which were drawn up on the basis that there‟d
be wide-scale wiretapping, usage of microphones, opening of mail, and many
other steps to gain additional intelligence.
The day came when Nixon approved the Houston Report. He sent it to John
Mitchell. John Mitchell approved it. Then the President and the Attorney
General both called Mr. Hoover over to the White House and asked him to read
the report. He did and they said, “Will you approve this and put it into action
right away?” Mr. Hoover said, “I will if you will order me to do it, and if you will
put it in writing.” Well, they backed off real fast. Under no circumstances did
they want the public to know they were trying to force this on the FBI.
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Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
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D:
Well, Mr. Hoover found out later on that Sullivan had a lot to do with preparing
The Houston Papers. Sullivan outwardly criticized Mr. Hoover and later
criticized him to his face.
Later, after my retirement, Mr. Hoover called me in my office in New York at
Pepsico early one morning. He said, “I‟ve taken all I can, I‟m going around to see
John Mitchell, the Attorney General, and tell him it has to be either Sullivan or
me.” And he said, “What do you think?” I said, “I think it‟s the only thing to do.
And I‟m sure that John Mitchell, knowing the support that you have of the
American public, will agree with you.” He did.
And Hoover came back from Mitchell‟s office and called me two hours later. He
said, “Mitchell did agree with me. I will make Sullivan go on leave right away.
Then I‟m going to change the locks on his door and force him into retirement.” I
said, “I think that‟s a good idea.” Shortly thereafter Sullivan was killed in a freak
hunting accident but I think Sullivan became a very unfortunate personality as far
as the FBI was concerned.
R:
And you do believe that his death was accidental?
D:
Yes, I do. The shooting of Sullivan was by the son of the chief of police in New
Hampshire. No connection with the FBI whatsoever. I think it was very
definitely an accident. He was shot him in the neck and he bled to death right
away. It apparently cut an aorta or something like that leading up to the brain.
But to go back to the sending of the tape to Coretta King. We didn‟t know about
it until it was leaked out from Atlanta. Tolson, himself, called Sullivan and
Sullivan admitted doing it. But we had absolutely nothing to do with that and we
were astounded when it happened. Sullivan did that strictly on his own.
Sullivan used COINTELPRO on his own to a considerable extent sending
anonymous letters to Hollywood movie stars indicating what was in FBI files on
them. That has brought great displeasure on the part of segments of the American
public against the FBI, but yet in many instances Hoover had nothing to do with
it. Tolson didn‟t. I didn‟t. But it was a loose cannon by the name of Sullivan. He
was brilliant in some respects particularly on the subject of communism. He
made a good speech. But common sense, no.
R:
What I‟d like to now go back to is your relationship with President Johnson. You
first were appointed as liaison to him as President and also in telling me about
your relationship with him, about Hoover‟s relationship with him. They were
neighbors, were they not?
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Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
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Page 43
D:
They were neighbors across the street from each other. Mr. Johnson‟s house, as
you looked down the street, his house was a little bit further down the road on the
left, and Mr. Hoover‟s on the right The Johnson girls, Lynda Byrd and Luci
Baines, would to go over and pick flowers from Mr. Hoover‟s rose bushes and
give them out to friends and say this came from J. Edgar Hoover‟s yard.
Mr. Hoover and the Johnsons would have drinks together sometimes in the
afternoon. They respected each other. I think one part of the respect was the fact
that they more or less feared each other.
Clyde Tolson asked me one day, “Mr. Hoover, after he retires, wants to receive
his salary for life cause he hasn‟t saved up any money much and he said it‟ll take
an act of Congress to do it.” He said, “The boss and I want you to handle it.”
And I said, “Well, you know, Congress is going to adjourn in ten days.” He said,
“That doesn‟t make any difference. That doesn‟t make any difference. We want
you to do it.” You know, always asking for the impossible. But I went up to see
Speaker John McCormack. Upon seeing him, he asked, “Who do you think you
should handle this matter in the Senate?” And I said, “Well, Lyndon Johnson”
(who was a Senator Majority at the time). And Richard Russell. And he said,
“Those are good suggestions.” He said, “See them right away.”
So I went up that afternoon and talked to Mr. Johnson. We had a good talk. He
said, “I want you to go over and see Walter Jenkins, my administrative assistant.”
I told him also I thought we should have Senator Styles Bridges in on it inasmuch
as he had been a close backer of the FBI and supporter or Mr. Hoover. And so I
went up to see Styles Bridges and Lyndon Johnson. I saw Walter Jenkins and he
threw cold water on it. He said, “It‟s only ten days and they adjourn. They can‟t,
they‟re not going to put through any law like this in the last few days.” I said,
“Walter, please for my sake, do it, will you? And at least write it up. And if it
fails, it fails.”
I went to see Styles Bridges and he said, “I‟m all for it.” He said, “I have a lot to
do, a lot of traveling in New Hampshire for the next several days but if you‟ll
keep me advised, I‟ll handle my part.”
I went to see Dick Russell, Senator from Georgia. He agreed to back it. And then
I went over to the House to see an old former judge, a Congressman, I forget what
his name was. He said, “Hell, yes. If the Senate can pass it, I can handle it in the
House.” He said, “I‟ll go ahead and write up their version now.” And he did.
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D:
But, you know, I kept talking to all parties and expressing haste so I thought it
was pretty much in the bag. So I told Tolson I wanted to go out to Cincinnati to
make a speech before a big police conference and some industrial leaders. And
he said, “Go ahead.” He said, “I think things look pretty good.”
I went to Cincinnati and I got a call after I made the speech indicating that, that it
sounded like the matter was lost. And I said, “Well why?” And he said, “Well,
Styles Bridges is out of town. Lyndon Johnson, the Majority Leader, is having
trouble getting it on the floor and many other things.”
I made thirty-eight calls from my mother-in-law‟s house from Cincinnati to
Washington talking to various members of the Congress. I went to dinner late
that night and I got an exuberant call from, I believe it was Styles Bridges, saying,
“Deke, it just passed unanimously. There‟s no problem.” He said there was one
vote against it, but I forget who it was. It didn‟t matter, but --. “It‟s passed in the
Senate. It‟s over in the House. The House is going to meet on it tonight.”
So I called the Judge who was a Democratic leader and he said, “Don‟t worry
about it. I‟ll take care of it.” And he did. He took care of it that night. He got it
passed by the House with only a few dissenting votes and it went to the White
House for signature.
I received a call from Walter Jenkins while I was having dinner with an old friend
of mine, Boris Litwin, who was a famous jeweler. He owned seven different
jewelry stores and he was a good friend of Mr. Hoover‟s and good friend of mine
and Ed Mason, who was SAC of Cincinnati at that time. I got a call to the phone
and it was Walter Jenkins. Said, “Deke, I‟m sorry, but we did everything we
could, but it just didn‟t pass.” And I said, “Walter, excuse my language,
„bullshit.‟ Yes, it did pass. And as soon as the President signs it, it will be a
matter of law.” The President wasn‟t Lyndon Johnson then, it was John F.
Kennedy, who dared not pass it. But Jenkins said, “Well, I‟ll be damned. You
know more about the Senate than I do.” And I said, “Well, not really, but this
passed.”
I called Clyde Tolson then before going back to the dinner table and I said, “It‟s
in the bag. It passed. It‟s passed, the Senate and the House, and we‟re home
free.” He said, “I don‟t believe it.” And I said, “Well hell, check the Hill if you
want to but it did pass tonight and he‟ll get his salary for life.” He didn‟t make
any check, but the next morning it appeared in all the newspapers and Tolson
called said, “Well, you really pulled it off, didn‟t you?” I have yet to receive
thanks from Mr. Hoover or Clyde Tolson or pay the thirty-eight phone calls. I
had to pay for those myself from Cincinnati. But that‟s how that passed and
Lyndon Johnson was a great mover and shaker.
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D:
Johnson, then the Vice President, later called me up on the Hill and he said, “I
have a man that I want to have a responsible Government job but the Kennedy
people are bucking it. Can you suggest any way that we can get the Kennedys to
back down so that I can get this man in office?
I said, “Yeah, sure. Tell the FBI to interview the Kennedy people who are against
it and we‟ll get them on record. And I said, “Knowing of your power and so on in
the Senate right now, (well he was Vice President then), knowing of your powers
as Vice President, they‟re not going to buck you unless they tell the President
about it and he‟ll tell them it‟s trivial, go ahead and let it pass. But he said,
“Okay.” He said, “Go ahead and do it.”
So we had Agents interview the Kennedy people who were against it and they
backed down completely. And the man went into office almost immediately
following the FBI investigation. I think he developed some trust in me at that
time. It developed further when it was indicated that Billy Sol Estes embezzled
so many funds from agricultural organization in Texas.
R:
Billie Sol Estes?
D:
Estes claimed that he had paid for Lyndon Johnson‟s personal plane. Johnson had
a special strip that the plane could land on at the LBJ Ranch, and Estes claimed
that he had paid for the plane and paid part of the expenses on the strip. And so
Senator Yarborough from Texas, who was an enemy of Lyndon Johnson‟s …
Yarborough never wanted to see him become President, claimed he knew
something about this. So I asked Yarborough if he‟d come down to my office and
we could talk about it. And he said, “Yes.”
I had an Agent in with me at the time, and I also had Walter Jenkins in with me.
Yarborough didn‟t say anything about it even though he knew Jenkins. But he
came forward with the allegations. I said, “Okay, now let‟s have the proof. And
I‟d like to take a signed statement from --.” “Oh, I‟m not going to give you any
signed statement.” I said, “Well let us have the proof then of your allegations.”
He said, “I don‟t have any proof.” He said, “It‟s all hearsay.” And it was, you
know, proved to be totally false.
Well, the President appreciated that a great deal because nothing came of it.
Billie Sol Estes hadn‟t paid a penny for that plane or the landing strip, and he was
just trying to start something which would be totally against Johnson. That also
helped build stock in my favor with Johnson.
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D:
After President Kennedy was assassinated, actually the day after he was
assassinated, Johnson came back into Washington, the night before, and called
Mr. Hoover and said, “Edgar, I want you to assign Deke DeLoach to my office as
liaison between the FBI and the White House.” And Mr. Hoover said, “Very
well, Mr. President.”
But I became liaison. They gave me a White House card. I saw the President two
or three times a week. Barbara and I were invited to State dinners and things of
that nature and parties at the White House.
The first weekend that the President was in office I got a call from the White
House saying, “The President would like to see you and your wife this afternoon.
Just come on in the private entrance and you‟ll be taken up to his living quarters
right away.” So I wondered what was going on but we went there. We had a very
pleasant afternoon, had a few drinks and we looked at television. One of the
programs on was a press conference the President had just a day before. A repeat
of that.
And, oh, we were friendly, but he would also berate you and humiliate you if he
felt that you‟d done something wrong or lost his temper. One time he did that to
me in front of a bunch of about fifty people in the West Wing of the White House.
No basis for it. I hadn‟t done anything wrong. And he had heard some rumor or
gossip and boy he laid into me.
But looking into it he found out that it was false and he called and said, “This
coming weekend is Easter weekend.” He said, “Lady Byrd and I and the children
are not going to be up at Camp David.” And he said, “I want you and Barbara
and the children to go up there and spend the weekend.” He said, “You can stay
in the President‟s cabin or use another cabin, as you wish. You‟ll see movies.
You‟ll have good food. You can shoot skeet on the range. You can play golf on
the Eisenhower three-hole course back of my cabin. Go up and have a good
time.” He said, “I want you to relax a little bit.” So I thanked him and we did go
up. We had a wonderful time.
He would make speeches at American Legion conventions and he would call
down ahead of time and say, “I want no one to meet me and the Presidential plane
except Deke DeLoach and he will meet me at the foot of the plane. We‟ll ride by
car together to the convention. I‟ll make the speech and he‟ll come back with
me.”
Well, you know, those are pretty heady things for a country boy like me and I was
treated very royally when I, you know, go in the White House and had this special
pass.
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D:
But I had a good friend that was Director of Secret Service, Jim Rowley. He‟d
been an FBI Agent for a short period of time and he left us to go for a higher
position with Secret Service. He understood Lyndon Johnson and he understood
all these things. He wasn‟t jealous. As a matter of fact, we‟d often sit down and
discuss matters as there were accusations made against Secret Service and the FBI
after the Kennedy assassination. Secret Service felt that the FBI had instituted
some of those allegations. To the contrary, we hadn‟t, but there still was ill
feeling between Agents and Secret Service. So Father Dan Power, SJ, who was
an old friend and head of the History Department at Georgetown University,
called me one day and said, “I want you and Jim to have lunch with me today.”
So we both showed up and in his private quarters and lunch was laid out. And
Father Power, after eating, said, “Okay, I‟ve leaving. Now you and Jim talk this
thing over. Work it out.”
We did talk it over. We ironed out our differences. I came back and wrote a
memorandum to Mr. Hoover. I had two subsequent lunches with the Director of
Secret Service, Jim Rowley. As I say, we were very good friends and continued
on that way. I have a painting downstairs in one of our guest rooms, that when I
retired, Jim Rowley and the Secret Service group had flown from Paris and gave
me as a gift. A retirement gift. We always saw eye-to-eye and worked things out.
There were good feelings that resulted from both agencies as a result of it.
Lyndon Johnson was mercurial. He would lose his temper sometimes. But he
was also compassionate. I entered his office one morning to give him a briefing
on organized crime and Soviet espionage. It was 8:30 in the morning. He had his
head in his hands and was crying. And I said, “What‟s wrong, Mr. President?”
And he said, “Well, look at this.” And he showed me the list of soldiers in
Vietnam that had been killed a few days before that and said, “This just can‟t go
on.” He said, “It just kills me.” But it did go on for a period of time and, but it
hurt him very deeply.
He was a man that twisted arms to get civil rights things done. He was a very
forcible man at times. But he passed more legislation while in office as President
than any other President I‟ve ever known or heard about. Kennedy only passed
one law in the Congress when he was there to my knowledge and that was the
anti-crime legislation.
Johnson passed numerous pieces of legislation for the benefit of the elderly, the
poor, the underprivileged, but unfortunately today he is known mainly because of
the Vietnam War. It‟s unfortunate because he thought he was doing the right
thing.
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D:
He inherited the Vietnam War, beginning slowly with Eisenhower then later on
on a much larger scale with Kennedy and he took over Kennedy‟s more or less
stewardship of the situation. And, admittedly he did escalate the war to some
extent at Secretary McNamara‟s recommendations. And his own Security
Director‟s recommendations.
But hardly anytime is he mentioned as a compassionate man of great feeling for
his fellow man. I know as a matter of fact that when he was a teacher at the West
Texas State Teachers College, he would take money out of his own small salary
and buy lunches for poor Mexican children who were attending that college.
I know of numerous instances like that. He was kind to my children. He would
send us deer sausage at Christmas time. My daughter had a serious back
operation at one time and he sent her a beautiful Rose of Texas in a nice crystal
vase with the White House etched on it. He did a lot of things which were very
compassionate. He was very nice to my wife. Yes, there‟s lots of criticism for
him today, but I tell you that when push came to shove, he was a good American.
I guess one instance will stand out in my mind concerning him as well as many
others, but again, Clyde Tolson called me to his office one afternoon, and he said,
“Mr. Hoover will have reached mandatory retirement in a few weeks.” And he
said, “Mr. Hoover wants to stay on. He‟s seventy years of age now and he, well,
sixty-nine, and he has to leave when he‟s seventy.” He said, “I want you to go
over and see your friend Lyndon Johnson (chuckle) and get this waived so that
Mr. Hoover can stay on indefinitely.” He said, “How well do you know
Lyndon?” I said, “You know that as well as I do with things we‟ve been able to
accomplish.” And he said, “Well, go over and see him.”
So I went over to see him and I told him the situation. And he looked at me and
he said, “You know what you‟re doing to yourself?” He said, “I wanted to name
you Director when Edgar left.” And I said, “Well, I‟ve had a mission to do and
I‟d appreciate it if you would honor it.” He said, “All right then. If you know
what you‟re doing to yourself, go and see Mildred Stegall my old-time secretary
who handles my taxes, and dictate to her in secrecy an Executive Order. We‟ll
have a Rose Garden ceremony next week and you [make] sure and be there.”
And I said, “I will.” And he said, “I‟ll waive it and he can stay on indefinitely.”
Then (chuckle) to put it crudely, he looked at me again. He said, “I guess, Deke,
it‟s better to have the old bastard pissing inside the tent rather than outside.”
48
Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 11, 2005
Page 49
D:
He told me once, “There are only three people in Government that I trust.” That‟s
when he was mounting a tirade against leaks at the State Department. He said, “It
seems that every time I have a cabinet meeting, things get back to the State
Department and the leaks occur. Especially to the New York Times and the
Washington Post. He said, “My God, there are only three men in Government I
trust. He said, “One is Dean Rusk, the Secretary of State.” He said, “I don‟t think
the leaks come from him.” He said, “Tom Johnson, my press secretary, and you,
Deke DeLoach.” And I said, “Why the three of us?” And he said, “Well, all of
you come from the clay hills of Georgia, you had a poor beginning, and it just
hardened you and made you people that I can trust.” (chuckle) Which I
appreciated.
R:
What about the story that Bobby Kennedy was going to replace Hoover. The
article by Ben Bradlee.
D:
I do not recall the article.
R:
Okay.
D:
President Johnson never did consider replacing Mr. Hoover except for the
mandatory age requirement. And he would have done it then. But, you know, the
same day that Mr. Hoover died, I had a call out in Indianapolis where I was giving
a talk. It was Dick Kleindeinst, the then Attorney General, who was an old friend
of mine. When I was still in the Bureau, he would call me at five o‟clock in the
afternoon and say, “The old man gone home yet?” And I said, “Yeah, left about
ten minutes ago.” “Well, come on over and let‟s get the affairs of the day done.”
Kleindeinst and John Mitchell didn‟t like dealing with Mr. Hoover. Lyndon
Johnson called me once and said Mr. Hoover talked so fast and so long, “I can‟t
get a word in. That‟s why I keep calling you.” And I said, “Will do me a favor,
Mr. President?” And he said, “What‟s that?” “Call him once in a while. I think
this should be done.”
But, Kleindeinst called me and said, “Would you come to Washington?” He told
me about Mr. Hoover dying and said, “Don‟t say anything about it until twelve
noon today when the White House will make a press release.” But added, “Will
you come to Washington immediately and take over the FBI?” And I said, “Dick,
you know, you‟re asking me to do a lot. When I left the FBI my salary was
$38,000 and Mr. Hoover‟s was $41,000.” And I said, “I don‟t think those salaries
have risen since then.” He said, “Well, you‟re the man for it. We want you. I
know you. I know we deal very well together. And I want you to do it. And he
said, “I‟ll talk to the President and get it done.”
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Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 11, 2005
Page 50
D:
Well, he did talk to the President and the President said, “No, I don‟t think so.
This is a man that tried to put a microphone on my campaign plane,” which was
totally false. And Kleindeinst knew it was false. I knew it was false. So I called
Kleindeinst at his instructions at twelve noon that day and told him that I‟d talked
with my wife, I talked with the chairman of the board of Pepsico and they both
encouraged me to stay. My salary then was four times greater than what I was
making in the FBI with bonuses and everything else thrown in too.
So I had to forego that thing. It appealed to me, but it‟s a good thing that I didn‟t
go back. But a short time later when Nixon‟s appointee who was a former captain
in the submarine corps of the navy and had been in the Department of Justice was
L. Patrick Gray.
R:
L. Patrick Gray.
D:
Yes. He died recently. But the Senate Judiciary Committee indicated that they
would not confirm him, so he also had the difficulty involved with Ehrlichman
telling him to destroy some papers. He did destroy those papers at his home. He
claimed they didn‟t have anything to do with Watergate but who knows.
But John Mitchell called me in my office in Purchase, New York, and asked me if
I would meet him at the Wall Street Club in New York City for lunch. And I told
him, “Yes, I‟d be glad to.” I said, “Should I prepare for anything?” He said, “No,
just come here.”
When we sat down, he said, “You know, Dick Nixon has been looking at all
possible candidates for the Directorship and he always comes back to you. He‟s
looked at the sheriff of Los Angeles County who is a former Agent but he is
getting a little up in years. He‟s looked at even Shirley Temple‟s brother. He‟s
looked at his secretary‟s brother who was a former Agent. And he said that he
doesn‟t like any of them. Would you take the job?” He said, “He‟ll offer it to
you if you‟ll take it.” I said, “Well, can I think about it and meet you back here a
week from today?” He said, “That‟s too far. Meet me back here on Friday.”
This was Wednesday.
I went home. I talked it over again with the chairman of the board and with my
wife Barbara. Barbara had tears in her eyes. She didn‟t want me to have any part
of it, knowing what the political situation in Washington was at that time. And
going back to government with seven children living on a shoestring from
paycheck to paycheck. So, we had lunch again at the Wall Street Club. I told him
that I just couldn‟t do it and “I‟ll show you why.” I showed him the list of income
figures and so on. He said, “Well, I thought you‟d say that and I‟ll tell Dick, but I
sure wish you‟d do it.” But, but I didn‟t want to do it. I couldn‟t do it.
50
Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 11, 2005
Page 51
D:
And Nixon would have tried to involve the Director, particularly a new Director,
n Watergate. And I would have had to say “No” and I would have been kicked
out anyhow. So, I think I was steered wisely by the good Lord.
R:
I want to ask you more about Johnson but that brings me to something else and
that was Mark Felt.
D:
Sure.
R:
He made some claim that the reason he became „Deep Throat‟ was because he
wanted to become Director. Did you know Mark Felt particularly?
D:
I knew him well. Extremely well. I knew him when he was Assistant Director in
charge of the Training and Inspection Division. Much of his mail, even though he
was on the administrative side of the house, John Mohr would necessarily send
much of Mark Felt‟s mail through me, particularly of a policy nature, and I would
read it and send it on in to Tolson, if necessary, and to Hoover.
Mark Felt was a very professorial, straight-laced individual, that could best be
described somewhat as a Baptist minister. You would never hear him swear. He
was a good disciplinarian. He was loyal to the Bureau, and to the Director, and to
me, to Tolson, to Mohr. He never raised his voice at the Executives Conference.
Later on when Nick Callahan was forced to retire, John Mohr had already left,
already retired, there was nobody left on that particular level that could take over
the job of Tolson‟s assistant, which Mark Felt did at the time. And when Hoover
and Tolson died, Mark Felt was appointed Associate Director, in Tolson‟s place.
He didn‟t have the intelligence to be Director, and he couldn‟t have lasted very
long, but he was a good man. He was a solid man.
I must confess I have no idea what his motives were in talking to Woodward or
Bernstein of the Washington Post. But I do know that the credit given to him
today about all the information that he supposedly released to them is not true.
He had some of that information, yes, which was given to him by Charlie Bates,
who was an old friend on mine. Later became, after I left, the Assistant Director
of the General Criminal Division, and afterwards, became the SAC in San
Francisco. Barbara and I went out there once to visit him and he had been a
neighbor and friend for many years.
Bates necessarily furnished information to Felt, and Felt would send it on up to
the new Director. But nothing nearly as vast as Woodward and Bernstein claim.
But he did obviously talk to them. He gave them some information. I don‟t think
there‟s any doubt about that. But not nearly the information they claim he gave
them.
51
Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 11, 2005
Page 52
D:
Mark‟s son called me recently and indicated that his father had wanted to rejoin
the Ex-Agents Society. And his son said that “I don‟t know what caused him to
let his membership lapse but you with your prestige or being a Bureau legend, if
you would back him, I think he could regain his membership.”
I told him “no,” that I wouldn‟t back him for that. That I knew his father and had
liked him. We worked together very well. I thought he‟d been a good Assistant
Director, but I would not attempt to let the Society be used for the purposes he
wanted it to be used. And that was the additional publicity for a book and a
movie.
Almost simultaneously I received a call from a lawyer who is a writer for Vanity
Fair magazine. I think his name is Donovan if I‟m not mistaken. But he wanted
to know would I participate with people in writing a script for their movie which
was coming out, by Universal Studios, very soon extolling Felt‟s great
supervision of organized crime and espionage matters.
I told them that I didn‟t know of any great feats that Felt had accomplished in that
regard, organized crime or espionage. I told them I didn‟t know he had anything
to do with those categories. That he was in the Training and Inspection Division
and prior to that he was SAC in Salt Lake City, which was a very small office,
and so far as I knew had little to do with espionage or organized crime. He said,
“Well, we‟ve got to write it so it will be attractive to the public.” I said, “Well,
you‟re not going to use me in that regard because it‟s not true.”
I started getting inquiries from members of our email group and I think there‟s
eight or nine hundred former FBI Agents. I sat down and wrote a general
statement and indicated that the call from Felt‟s son and the call from this lawyer,
Donovan, who‟s handling all the rights to the book and the movie and so on, and I
said that I knew Felt. I liked him. I knew him as a straight arrow. I didn‟t know
what his motives were. I had heard from substantial sources that he suffers from
lack of recognition of things in the past. He doesn‟t recall anything. That he uses
a walker in getting around. And that, frankly, that I just couldn‟t be a party in
using the Society for their own mercenary gain.
I had, I guess a ton of letters back, emails back from the Agents saying “thank you
for doing that. It helps us out. We know now how to act,” so on and so on.
I hated to do it. I have never cast a vote against anybody in the Society. But I
would vote against the Society being used for mercenary gain like this.
52
Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 11, 2005
Page 53
R:
I‟d like just to wrap up in the next ten minutes or so I think for today. But getting
back to both Johnson and the relationship with civil rights, the item that you
opened your book with that I think is not too well known … there are a lot of
controversies. And [this] was the 1964 Democratic Convention.
D:
Yes.
R:
I‟d like, again, not to rehash what you have in your book particularly. Actually I
have some specific questions --
D:
Yes?
R:
Beginning with the 1964 Democratic Convention. Why did you open your book
with it?
D:
The publisher did that in realigning the chapters prior to printing..
R:
Oh, okay.
D:
I guess it was a clincher. But, you know, it was word for word what I had written,
but I didn‟t know he would use it up front. We took it out of the chapter on
Johnson and put it up front. I guess he used it as a clincher. I can‟t think of any
other reason. I never asked him.
R:
Okay. Well, that‟s interesting that that‟s the way they went. But for one thing,
that chapter illustrates, I think, a point that you made a number of times in the
book and that was that a lot of things that Hoover has been held responsible for
actually were initiated elsewhere, either from Congress or from the President.
And that this put you personally --
D:
Yes.
R:
-- particularly when it was Johnson, when you were liaison with him, in a very
difficult, shall we say challenging, situation. And first of all I‟d like you to
explain briefly what the situation was and then I have some specific questions
about that whole operation.
D:
The Convention?
R:
Right. The FBI‟s role in the Convention.
53
Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 11, 2005
Page 54
D:
Well, let me explain this first. Mr. Johnson was a great believer in the FBI. He
also was a great believer in using the FBI. He was deathly afraid of being
assassinated following John F. Kennedy‟s death. The red rug that John F.
Kennedy had installed in the Oval Office, Johnson ordered it immediately
removed the day after he became President because it reminded him of blood.
And he told me he didn‟t want to take any trips. He said, “Any time Air Force
One leaves Andrews Air Force Base, I want you on the plane or one of your top
assistants.” And he said, “I prefer you.”
Well, I started using Agent Orin Bartlett who had been on the plane once or twice
before. We put him on there with previous Presidents. But about Atlantic City.
Walter Jenkins called and said that the President is deathly afraid that something
is going to happen in Atlantic City to him or one of us. There were three top
assistants going to Atlantic City. There were more but these were the guys
handling it, Walter Jenkins, Billy Moyers, and Cliff Carter.
Walter said, “I want to know of anything which might cause a tragic event, a
murder or assassination or something like that.” I said, “Okay, we‟ll keep you
advised.”
So the Lab provided a two hundred and fifty watt radio transmitter, which is old
now but at that time was, you know, a good thing to use and we connected it with
a receiver in Walter Jenkins‟ and Billy Moyers‟ offices there in Atlantic City.
And we had an Agent by the name of Don Hanning, who was a good friend of
mine in the Bureau, a war hero, a prisoner-of-war of the Japanese for three and a
half, four years. Married his wife in prison camp. Came back and became a good
Agent. But anyhow, we had Don Hanning manning the radio.
I took thirteen hand-picked men who had been trained to keep files, write reports,
investigate things immediately, undercover work, etc. We --. I had one that was
a former Assistant Attorney General in the State of New Jersey. He was an AfroAmerican Agent. And I had another Afro-American Agent from the Washington
Field Office. Had an informant who handled Afro-American affairs for the FBI.
A paid informant, XXXXXXX, I believe, was his name.
R:
Okay. We don‟t name informants. Did he ever go public?
D:
Oh, oh, he died.
R:
Okay, even if they‟re deceased. Okay?
D:
It‟s in the book.
R:
You didn‟t put his name in the book?
54
Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 11, 2005
Page 55
D:
Oh yes, I did.
R:
You did?
D:
Yes.
R:
Okay. We‟ll keep going.
D:
He was a good straightforward man and he didn‟t report on racial matters. He
reported on matters concerning unrest and robberies, you know, people who were
going to commit criminal incidents.
We arrived on a Sunday afternoon and set up a place to live. I set up assignments
for everyone and got in touch with Jenkins and Moyers. I told the Agents that the
first thing we did was to, even before I left Washington, was get in touch with Jim
Rowley, Director of the Secret Service, and let him know the President had given
us this assignment and we didn‟t want to compete with them on anything. And,
I‟d keep him advised of everything. Which I did.
Also got in touch with the Atlantic City Police and the New Jersey State Highway
Patrol and told them of our assignment by the President. Later on a disgruntled
Agent claimed that I had sworn everyone to secrecy that we were not to tell
anyone. Well, I‟d already told all these people that we were to work with.
We did uncover a number of incidents, thirteen all total, where the loss of life
could be expected or some serious incidents involving bodily harm. All these
were reported to Moyers and Jenkins, and later on in a special report that Mr.
Hoover wrote to the White House.
It was a successful venture. We were asked by, particular Moyers, to do one
matter that we thought was out of line and we refused to do it. One thing was the
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party that came to the Convention. They didn‟t
have credentials. They had not been elected delegates but they wanted to force
their way into the hall and take over the seating of the regular delegates. They did
come in and sat down. Moyers called me frantically and practically ordered me to
come in and use Agents to get them out of the Convention Hall. And I told him
we wouldn‟t do it. Just not our job.
But anyhow, we did not unseat those people. We refused to enter the auditorium.
Some of the people that went in and attempted to physically harm other
individuals, so we told Jenkins how to change the admittance procedures so that
these people would not be allowed.
55
Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 11, 2005
Page 56
D:
But before the Senate Committee on Intelligence, the Church Committee, they
really berated me because of this assignment. I tried to explain to them. And I
had the seventeen incidents in front of me even though I was no longer in the
Bureau, I knew of them. And I‟d copied them down. I told the Senate Intelligence
Committee, but old Senator Philip Hart who was known as the “Conscience of the
Senate,” just shook his head sadly and said, “Perhaps the FBI needs a politician in
order to recognize when they‟re being used for political purposes.” And I said,
“Senator, that‟d be the worse thing we could do. To get a politician in the FBI.”
Well, he didn‟t like that at all. And he continued to berate me as did several
others.
But later that day when that session was all over and they grilled me for I guess
two and a half to three hours, Walter Mondale came out and told a good friend of
mine who at that time was head of the American Civil Liberties Union in
Washington. “We couldn‟t lay a glove on him.”
R:
Now in your book among other places that you do mention that your immediate
thought when you were asked to become involved with the Convention was that it
was for political purposes. That Johnson was very afraid of having an incident,
particularly one involving African-Americans.
D:
I suspected that. And I think it was true to some extent. But I did have to admit
that Johnson again was deathly afraid of being assassinated or some physical
attempt to do away with members of his staff. And that was the principal reason
he wanted us over there. The other things were incidental. We picked up
evidence of physical violation attempts and disseminated them to the White
House.
I think we did a good job in that regard. I don‟t think we should be asked to do
things like that but we handled the assignment. The President ordered it done.
We did it. And we tried to keep things at a minimum.
R:
You had people under cover? You were concerned with not just the Mississippi
Freedom Democratic Party, but also CORE. You were concerned about, I don‟t
remember if SCLC planned violence.
D:
That‟s right. CORE had indicated that they were going to have a riot and they
were going to use clubs to beat people over the head. We wanted to find out more
about that. And so, yes, we had an undercover Agent in the Mississippi Freedom
Democratic Party. At one point the Agent told me, “The woman in charge won‟t
tell me unless I sleep with her.” (chuckle)
R:
You had that in the book, right.
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Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 11, 2005
Page 57
D:
I said, “Man, you‟re on your own here.” He came back the next day and he said,
“It really wasn‟t worth it.” (chuckle)
R:
Okay, I think we‟ll end here for today.
57
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
November 12, 2005
Page 58
Interview with Former Special Agent and
Deputy Director of the FBI
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach (1942-1970)
on November 12, 2005
By Susan Rosenfeld, Ph.D.,
Consultant to the Oral History Project
Edited with Mr. DeLoach’s corrections by Sandra Robinette on June 9, 2007. Final Edit on July 20, 2007.
Susan Rosenfeld/Rosenfeld:
Please go ahead. You said you wanted to answer me [about] Mark Felt, Mr.
Hoover.
Cartha “Deke” DeLoach/DeLoach:
Yes. I think that when considering the life, career, personality and background of
J. Edgar Hoover, we should always take into consideration the fact that he had a
compassionate side of life also. Besides providing toys for my children at
Christmas time and gifts for them occasionally and letters to them when they were
ill, and asking me about them quite often, although he was very stern and very
aloof, and never did get, allow any FBI personnel to get close to him including, I
think, Clyde Tolson, but nevertheless he did have a compassionate side.
I recall when the movie The FBI Story starring Jimmy Stewart was completed and
Warner Brothers sent two copies of the film back to us --. They sent two copies
simply because of the fact that they had to be run on separate projectors. Two
separate projectors simultaneously, the voice - audio - on one and the video on the
other.
We didn‟t have the proper equipment at FBI Headquarters so --. Contrary to
some reports in various books about the so-called “Green Room,” there was no
“Green Room” at FBI Headquarters, but we had to use the facilities of the
Pentagon to show the movie. Mr. Hoover, Clyde Tolson and I went over to the
Pentagon. The movie was already set up for us. We sat in a very small screening
room. The movie started rolling and actually Mr. Hoover‟s almost entire life
rolled out in front of him. He had refused to appear in the movie, however, he did
allow a voice to be heard which supposedly was his and that was in connection
with an espionage case in New York which Jimmy Stewart had handled as an
Inspector. When the case was completed, Mr. Hoover‟s voice supposedly could
be heard saying, “Nice job, Inspector.”
That was not Mr. Hoover‟s own voice. That was Mervyn LeRoy‟s voice. Mr.
Hoover not only refused to appear in the film, but also he refused to have his
personal voice be used in the film
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
November 12, 2005
Page 59
DeLoach:
But back to the film itself being rolled out for the first time for FBI
personnel, Mr. Hoover, Clyde Tolson, myself. When Mr. Hoover saw many of
the cases that he personally had supervised by telephone from FBI Headquarters,
or on the scene, tears started rolling from his eyes. It was the first time I had ever
seen that happen. He was very compassionate about it. He loved the movie and,
as a matter of fact on the way back in his car, in his limousine, he turned to me
and he said, “Tell Mohr that I said to give you a $250 reward for your part in this
film.” Well, you know, $250 bucks back in those days was a big, big prize, and I
appreciated it very much. Ed Kemper of the Crime Records Division was also to
receive $250.
Also insofar as compassion is concerned, many a GS-2 clerk would come in and
tell him a sob story about their old mother dying back home, or a dear old aunt
dying back home, or dear father seriously ill, and he not only would tell them to
take immediate vacation time and go home and take care of their family, but he
also would see to it that they were loaned sufficient funds in order to pay for their
transportation and expenses home.
Many a time, an Agent would go in and indicate that their wives were ill or they
needed to be transferred to another office because the weather in that particular
location would be much better than the office they were in at the current time.
And he would transfer them immediately. Sometimes the Agents took advantage
of that. Very few times, however.
But the point is that there was a compassionate side to him insofar as his
personnel and friends were concerned. And I think that should always be brought
out in consideration of his personality and his background.
Rosenfeld:
It was my understanding that the hard-nosed person was actually Mr.
Tolson. That if something got to him before it got to Mr. Hoover, that sometimes
he would say, “No.” Or that he was the person who would transfer someone for
disciplinary purposes. Is that accurate?
DeLoach:
Mail always went into Mr. Tolson first, from my office to Tolson, to
Hoover. And John Mohr‟s side on the administrative side, the Number 4 man in
the Bureau, some of his mail would go through my office to Tolson to Hoover.
But most of it is administrative in nature, such as budget, payroll matters,
testimony before the Congress, etc., etc. That would go straight to Tolson, then to
Mr. Hoover. In a number of instances, Tolson would make a recommendation.
But in a number of instances, Mr. Hoover would overrule him and indicate “No.”
Mr. Hoover wanted so and so done. That was nothing unusual.
59
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
November 12, 2005
Page 60
Rosenfeld:
How did Miss Gandy figure in the access through the mail? Where, where
did she come into the pipeline for mail that was coming in?
DeLoach:
Well, each Assistant to the Director or Deputy Director as Mr. Hoover
called us … John Mohr had five Assistant Directors under him, all of an
administrative nature, such as the Administrative Division with Nick Callahan as
Assistant Director, budget, payroll, things of that nature. Les Trotter had the
Identification Division, fingerprint cards, fingerprint searches. Mark Felt had the
Training and Inspection Division which originally had been held by Hugh Clegg.
That was the inspection of field offices, training of personnel at Quantico, and so
on. Files Division upstairs all reported to John Mohr. And there was one other
division also that reported to him.
But the Crime Records Division which concerned all public relations, liaison with
the Congress, the White House, dealing with the press, etc., was under my office
as were all investigative matters. The General Criminal Division with Al Rosen
as Assistant Director. The Domestic Intelligence Division with the turncoat,
William C. Sullivan. The General Investigative Division under Jim Gayle
handled organized crime matters. Top flight applicant investigations of White
House appointees, Cabinet officers, things of that nature. The old Atomic Energy
Section was in that particular Division for a while.
But those four Divisions reported to me. We had a staff meeting once a week
with the four Assistant Directors and then we had an Executives Conference for
all eleven Assistant Directors at least once a week in Clyde Tolson‟s office. There
was a well-organized administrative setup.
Rosenfeld:
I was interested initially [in what] you were telling me how you would
send your materials through Clyde Tolson and I was wondering where Miss
Gandy came in. Did she review things or just be a conduit?
DeLoach:
Mail would come in from me to Clyde Tolson and he would send the mail
he thought Mr. Hoover should see to Hoover‟s office. Mr. Hoover usually had an
Agent reading mail, who had the title of Inspector, who would proofread much of
the mail and screen much of the mail instead of sending everything to Mr.
Hoover.
Miss Gandy would see very little of it going in, but she would see some of it
going out and to see if anything copied should be placed in Mr. Hoover‟s files in
his office. Mr. Hoover‟s personal files were kept in back of Helen Gandy. Two
and a half drawers of personal and confidential files were kept there.
60
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
November 12, 2005
Page 61
DeLoach:
It was a smooth flow of mail. It was a steady flow of mail. It was a very
difficult task to keep in touch with all the mail, to read all of it. Tolson was a
speed reader and a very sharp administrator. He read the mail very fast and sent it
on into Hoover‟s office. But Mr. Hoover would read it quite fast also. He usually
cleared his desk by five o‟clock in the afternoon and sent the mail out again and
most of it would reach my desk before I‟d leave to go home at seven, eight, or
nine o‟clock in the afternoon, or evening. It was a very smooth flow of mail.
There were confidential files, two and a half file drawers marked “personal and
confidential.” But they were files that originally had been up in the files,
Communications and Files Division. And for safe keeping, those on very
prominent individuals or celebrities, Mr. Hoover ordered that they be taken from
the files in the Communications and Files Division and placed in the two and half
drawers back of Helen Gandy‟s desk. That was done only as I say for
safekeeping purposes.
There came a time when we heard gossip that young GS-2 clerks coming in from
various states or the hinterlands, the first thing they would do upon reporting to
duty would go take a peek at the files of prominent individuals. And gossip
would get out from them about what was in those files. So as a result, extremely
prominent individuals, not enemies of the FBI by any stretch of the imagination,
would be placed in those two and a half file drawers back of Gandy‟s desk.
I checked those files on many occasions, sometimes at Mr. Hoover‟s instructions,
sometimes at Clyde Tolson‟s instructions, in view of the fact that if they were
coming into contact with these individuals and they wanted to know something
about them. I guess the most famous incident was when Clyde Tolson called me
from New York and indicated that Mr. Hoover, who was sitting there with him,
wanted me to check the file on the then Presidential nominee John F. Kennedy,
just prior to his entering office. Mr. Hoover wanted to see what we were up
against.
So I checked the files and I found [out] about his various rendezvous and trysts
with women. There was nothing in there at that particular time concerning Judith
Exner, the gun moll of Sam Giancana, who Kennedy later slept with in the White
House or Helen Rometsch who was reported to be a German espionage agent and
who was investigated by the FBI, and who Bobby Kennedy later told Mr. Hoover
he had had her kidnapped and flown back to Berlin. He wanted Mr. Hoover at
that particular time to contact two Senators and prevent the two Senators from
holding a hearing concerning Bobby‟s activities in getting rid of Helen Rometsch.
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DeLoach:
John F. Kennedy had reportedly lured her to the White House and had
slept with her on a number of occasions while Jackie was out of town. We knew
for a fact that the escapades had gone on concerning Judith Exner because phone
calls would be made from the White House to her in Chicago, even the living
quarters of Sam Giancana, where she spent considerable of her time. The White
House asked her to come to Washington, and said a certain party wanted to see
her. In other words, she was summoned to Washington because of the President
wanting to have another affair with her.
There were files on Sumner Welles who had a homosexual incident aboard a train
going to Tennessee for the funeral of a Senator.
There were files on Richard Nixon who had applied for the position of Special
Agent after graduating from law school. He was actually offered the position of
Agent because the investigation turned out that there was nothing in his
background which would indicate he should not be accepted. But he turned it
down when the appointment was made.
There were files on Eleanor Roosevelt concerning Mr. Hoover‟s receipt of a
request from Franklin D. Roosevelt asking for an investigation into her
association with a New York state trooper and with a young twenty-two to
twenty-three year old man that she had staying in the White House living quarters.
After FBI investigation, his draft notice was withdrawn. He entered the service
and later on went to the South Pacific.
There were files on a number of other individuals but none of those files were put
there for the purpose of blackmail or trying to prevent individuals from talking
against Mr. Hoover or the FBI. They were there simply for the purpose of
removing them from prying eyes, from young clerical employees up in the Files
and Communications Division. The myth today that these files were kept for
blackmail purposes is absolutely false. One hundred percent false. And it‟s
disgraceful the way that some would-be authors and individuals have claimed that
they were kept for blackmail purposes.
Rosenfeld:
What I‟d like to do is now [is] move from discussing specifically Mr.
Hoover to the general field dealing with security investigations. Uncovering, I
hope, going from when you were a first-office, or not a first-office Agent, I guess
a second-office back in Cleveland, to your own personal experiences and see if
we can cover going [from there] up through the counterintelligence programs.
DeLoach:
Cover what?
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Rosenfeld:
Counterintelligence programs. The COINTELPRO. And I‟d like to start
with your experience in Ohio. You said that you went undercover in Ohio. First
of all, I didn‟t know anyone --. I thought Hoover never sent Agents undercover in
those days.
DeLoach:
Oh yes. Many instances of that.
Rosenfeld:
Well, can you tell me about your experience with the head of the
Communist Party in, was it Cleveland?
DeLoach:
Well, no, it was Toledo, Ohio. Actually the FBI needed intelligence
concerning Communist Party activities in Ohio. The party‟s activities were very
strong, and a number of individuals, some unsuspecting, were being recruited into
the Party for the purposes of using them as propaganda instruments and to curry
favorable opinions concerning the Soviet Union against the United States and for
other purposes. So the FBI needed to have as much information as possible.
As a result, my assignment was to go to Toledo and pose as a young worker, a
factory worker, and, at night, listen to the wiretap conversations. A wiretap was
placed on the head of the Communist Party in the State of Ohio by John Matter
who was an electronics expert in the Cleveland Office. He later was transferred
to the FBI Laboratory as an electronics expert. But he placed the wiretap on this
individual and my job was to listen to the so-called fruits of the wiretap.
The head of the Communist Party, secretary and leader of the Party in the State of
Ohio, living in Toledo, was working at the Willys-Overland plant, the Jeep plant
there in Toledo. He would go to work early in the morning and come home at a
fairly reasonable hour, three or four o‟clock in the afternoon, after his eight-hour
shift and then he would immediately start calling members of the Communist
Party throughout the state and getting them to organize various meetings and
various activities. It was a very fruitful wiretap and it paid off considerably
insofar as obtaining the innermost secrets of the Communist Party in the State of
Ohio.
Some individuals today look upon the FBI, some people without understanding
FBI jurisdiction, are delving into the necessity of our investigating the Party, feel
that the FBI wasted considerable time in investigating the Communist Party.
They feel that compared to the Ku Klux Klan, the Party at that time offered no
physical violence towards the United States. They won‟t go so far as to say that
the Communist Party would, if they had an opportunity, overthrow the
government of the United States by force, by violence, which was one of the
particular aims of the Communist Party.
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DeLoach:
But the Party was never strong enough to do that even though at one time
they had many thousands of members in the United States, as did the GermanAmerican Bund during World War II and before that. But back to Toledo and the
leader of the Party in the State of Ohio. He was very voluble in his conversation
with members. It proved the point that they were planning considerable
propaganda against the best interests of the United States Government during the
very considerable war effort we were trying to mount against the Germans. The
party was highly in favor of anything the Soviet Union did, and they were highly
against anything that the United States might propose doing to stop the
communist movements throughout the world.
I was there approximately six months and as I said earlier, because of a comment
made by someone in the old apartment building on Cherry Street, which was
somewhat of a disreputable part of town, made that I looked to be of draft age and
that they wondered why I wasn‟t in the service. So Lee Boardman, the SAC, who
was a little apprehensive because of that statement, called the undercover
assignment over and reassigned me to Akron as a Resident Agent. But another
Agent came up and did take over the wiretap in another part of town away from
that particular building. And it proved to be successful for some period of time.
Rosenfeld:
Now we were allied with the Soviet Union at that time. Did you ever have
any question about why the FBI would be wiretapping someone because of their
relationship with a supposed ally?
DeLoach:
I never had any question personally. This was done with the Attorney
General‟s approval. I was firmly convinced and later this was proven by the
SOLO Operation and by the Bentley espionage case, the Rosenberg case, and
many other cases, that the Soviets were using the Communist Party as a fertile
field for not only propagandistic efforts against the United States but also using
the Communist Party as a field for espionage recruits. So consequently, I never
had any misgivings or ill feelings whatsoever about the fact that because they
were allies, we should not investigate them. No. However, people to this day
don‟t understand the situation that the Communist Party was a fertile field for
espionage and also to support propaganda favoring the Soviet Union in the United
States. Once you dig into it and you find out that those are the true facts, any
misgivings you might have concerning a supposed ally would go glimmering.
The Soviets needed us for armaments, finance. They needed us for considerable
materials to support their efforts against the Germans. And we in turn needed
them because of their fight against the Germans. It probably saved many
American lives in the long run because of the many Germans that the Soviets
killed during World War II.
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DeLoach:
But, nevertheless, all the time they were plotting to take over various
countries from a communistic standpoint, and would have taken over the United
States if they‟d had sufficient support. So I have no misgivings whatsoever.
Rosenfeld:
Do you remember any specifics? You said that they were planning
propaganda. Do you remember any specifics about some of the things that you
did over here that were of particular value? I know it was a long time ago.
DeLoach:
There were a number of instances in which the secretary of the
Communist Party in Toledo would tell members to spread the story about what
the United States was doing wrong, and what the Soviet were doing right doing
right in their battle against the Germans, and what the Soviets need, and to spread
the virus of communism throughout the entire country as much as possible. And
so, sure, there are numerous instances. Very difficult after so many years to recall
specific instances, but, nevertheless, there were instances that I recall very
vividly.
Rosenfeld:
Can you have, you know, some specifics?
DeLoach:
You‟re going back over sixty years.
Rosenfeld:
Sixty years, right.
DeLoach:
I haven‟t looked at the files since then.
Rosenfeld:
Yes, a little bit more, more general?
DeLoach:
But I did know in general of what happened.
Rosenfeld:
Those were the years of the popular front, and it‟s claimed, and I think it‟s
true that a lot of members of the Communist Party thought of themselves, this is
the American Communist Party, and not as an arm of the Soviet Party, they didn‟t
think of themselves as representing the Soviet Union. At least that‟s what they
said themselves. How about the leader?
DeLoach:
That would be --.
Rosenfeld:
Was he very clear that that they were taking direction from the –
DeLoach:
It was certainly most indicative.
Rosenfeld:
-- from the Soviets?
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DeLoach:
At all times they adhered to the ideals of the Soviet Union. The
communists in the United States were absolutely always loyal to, to the
communists. Down in Akron we photographed behind closed doors several
meetings of the Communist Party and taped their proceedings. There were also
“black bag” jobs which were approved judicially by the Attorney General, prior to
their being handled, but “black bag jobs” where we would go in and get the
membership rolls to the Communist Party, and they turned out to be very very
good for us because later on we could detect who were weak members and
contact them and turn them over to our side.
The FBI, unbeknownst to many people, has been very successful in obtaining
general informants both in the Communist Party and particularly was very
valuable in the Ku Klux Klan during the Mississippi days of the 1960s.
Rosenfeld:
Yes. Did you, yourself, run any informants while you were a field Agent?
DeLoach:
Yes, in Akron I did. In the Communist Party. I had one very good strong
informant who was a schoolteacher.
Rosenfeld:
Okay. Don‟t tell us any names.
DeLoach:
He was a very good informant. A paid informant.
Rosenfeld:
Was this someone who you had turned, someone who came voluntarily to
you, or someone you just placed in the Party? Do you recall?
DeLoach:
Someone whose name I came across as a member of the Party and I saw
he was a schoolteacher, that he was a good father to his children. So I approached
him and talked to him, and talked him into becoming an informant. And he was a
good informant for many years. And I say many years during the short time I was
a Resident Agent in Akron. And I was there twice as a Resident Agent.
But, yes, I had informants. I had informants in, one in bank robbery matters
which didn‟t turn out too well, but, nevertheless, gave some information.
But there were a number of instances. Obtaining informants is a hard thing.
Rosenfeld:
Yeah. I was going to ask you --
DeLoach:
You never know when --
Rosenfeld:
-- yeah, how you did that.
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DeLoach:
You never know when they‟re going to turn on you. First you have to
look at the situation very carefully. You have to determine their background,
their leanings, what professional opportunities they‟ve entered into, whether there
appear to be --, might have a tendency to turn to be an informant.
Then you have to detect the way to approach them. Do you approach them from a
financial standpoint? Or do you approach them from a loyalty, patriotic
standpoint? Now, sadly enough, the loyalty patriotic standpoint sometimes can be
very weak. And money will mean more than anything else. But, once you check
out the informant before approaching him and to find out which way to go, is he
in debt, does he need money badly, has he told the truth in the past, what‟s his
credit rating which you check ahead of time, and so on. Then you know.
Agents have been very successful particularly during the Klan years, the
communist years, the espionage years, the Soviets, and in the organized crime
efforts. They‟ve been very successful.
There on many cases where we could have used women Agents to great
advantage, although we would have been putting them in harm‟s way. But we did
use women employees in many cases, particularly espionage surveillance cases.
Extortion types of surveillance cases. Things of that nature. But they were never
Agents unfortunately.
Rosenfeld:
Yeah, you used support people for, for those.
DeLoach:
Beg your pardon?
Rosenfeld:
Support people. Clerks?
DeLoach:
Exactly. Secretaries, administrators, etc.
Rosenfeld:
Yes. Now you mentioned that sometime after this you worked Atomic
Energy cases. When was that? What was your position when you started doing
that?
DeLoach:
What was what?
Rosenfeld:
The Atomic Energy. Were these background investigations that you were
doing?
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DeLoach:
Well, the Atomic Energy Act as passed by the Congress included the fact
that the FBI would conduct investigations of individuals who would come into
close proximity of the manufacture of elements of the atomic bomb. But that
became the sublime to the ridiculous. It included from the sublime standpoint top
scientists and people of that nature who were working on it. Their background
investigations. But it also included the Pepsi Cola delivery man who would enter
the, come into the vending area and fill in the vending machine at the installations
where the manufacturing of energy was being handled. So I say it was sublime to
the ridiculous. And, it became such a stressful burden that Mr. Hoover asked that
the Congress remove us from this phase of work and that it be handled by the
Civil Service Commission. That was done at a later date.
Rosenfeld:
So what you did basically then was to do background investigations on
people when, when you were assigned to that?
DeLoach:
No. My connection with the Atomic Energy Program was [as] an Agent
supervisor at FBI Headquarters, reading the reports and supervising the results of
the investigations, and seeing if further work needed to be done in connection
with these investigations prior to the report being forwarded elsewhere. It was a
very minor part of my supervisory experience.
Rosenfeld:
You said you [also] conducted some of the loyalty investigations. And if
you would say a little bit about this. And Truman‟s Loyalty Program and
Eisenhower‟s, or just Truman‟s?
DeLoach:
Well, I was assigned to the Loyalty Section. I had a very brief stint of
reading loyalty investigations and reports sent in by the field. But shortly after I
reported to the Domestic Intelligence Division, I was assigned to the Liaison
Section, the Liaison Unit of that Section and handling liaison with CIA and, and
the Office of Naval Intelligence. So I had only a brief stint insofar as loyalty
investigations were concerned.
That, as I said previously much emphasis was placed on the perfectionist part of
those reports. Mr. Hoover, because of the considerable notoriety given the
Truman Loyalty Program, and to make sure that Truman had nothing against or
on the FBI or him, wanted to make sure that those reports were perfect and the
investigations were very thorough. So woe to any Agent who allowed
discrepancies or errors to appear and didn‟t catch them before he sent those on
through for final consideration. But my main activity in the Loyalty Section was
the Liaison Unit.
Rosenfeld:
Okay. So you were not out actually conducting investigations.
DeLoach:
No. I was a supervisor at FBI Headquarters at the time.
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Rosenfeld:
Oh, I was on a project as an archivist and I read a lot of loyalty
investigation files. Were they sent, just sent right on to what was then the Civil
Service Commission to, for, because the Civil Service Commission was in charge
of the Loyalty Board. Do you recall how that worked?
DeLoach:
I‟m not sure of the specific department they were sent to after we finished
with them.
Rosenfeld:
Okay, if it was the other way that if there was derogatory information,
then you investigated that and other determinations were made.
I‟d like to, before I go on and ask you a little bit about your work in the Liaison
Section --. You had talked about Truman and his animosity towards Mr. Hoover
but, and this is public, the transcripts are out and public. He requested that the
Bureau “bug” Tommy Corcoran.
DeLoach:
I beg your pardon?
Rosenfeld:
That the FBI put a “bug” on or wiretaps, I don‟t remember which now, on
Tommy Corcoran who was one of --. He had been one of Roosevelt‟s brain
trusters and he was involved in people, I believe, it had to do with, what were they
called, the Amerasia Case where CIA had gone into a State Department employee
and found documents there that he should not have had. I don‟t know if you
recall that case.
DeLoach:
I‟m not aware of that.
Rosenfeld:
And you don‟t know about the Thomas Corcoran situation, okay.
DeLoach:
I know that Mrs. Claire Chennault, was very close to Tommy Corcoran
and would visit him occasionally in his apartment but this was learned because of
a wiretap and a surveillance put on her at the instructions of President Johnson.
Rosenfeld:
Well, I think that made the, was going to say the gossip columns, they,
they were a couple in, in the late 1960s. Very definitely. Mr. Corcoran and Mrs.
Chennault.
Okay, I‟d like to have you tell me a little bit about your work in the Liaison
Section. -- work with CIA in particular.
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DeLoach:
That was a troubling time to some extent but also a, from my personal
standpoint, caused a lot of knowledge in the FBI and to me personally. Insofar as
CIA is concerned, CIA was just coming into being at that particular time. CIA
started, as you know, in 1946 as a result of President Truman bringing them into
being and also established the National Security Council at that time. CIA had a
number of Directors in quick succession. First you‟ll have to go back a little bit
and find out that there were many good CIA people. There were some FBI people
who because of disciplinary reasons and other personal reasons left the FBI and
went in the CIA. I can name a number of them.
William “Bill” Harvey was one of them who left the FBI because of disciplinary
reasons. Getting intoxicated at a party and going to sleep in his car in the middle
of a mud hole on a road and being found the next morning. He was transferred to
Louisville, Kentucky. But instead of taking the transfer, he went over to CIA. He
was formerly an Agent in the Espionage Section of the Domestic Intelligence
Division.
There were a number of former Agents. Some of them were still friendly with the
Bureau, but some of them bore a distinct grudge against the Bureau.
I say in my opening remarks concerning my liaison with the CIA it was a very
troubling time because they were getting started, they were very jealous of their
initiatives.
On the other hand, Mr. Hoover was still very bothered about the fact that the FBI
had been removed from the Western Hemisphere. SIS operation. And mostly
because of Truman‟s hatred towards Mr. Hoover and the FBI.
But the Agents who bore a grudge against the FBI because of their experiences in
the field in CIA rose quite rapidly and became either Section Chiefs or Assistant
Section Chiefs, or had somewhat of a large voice in the forming of CIA‟s
operations.
Bill Harvey rose quite rapidly. I was quite insulted one time when I was in his
office in CIA. I had gone there for the purpose of trying to get CIA to do
something for us overseas. He received a phone call, and he told the caller in my
presence, I was seated right across the desk from him. He said, “Be careful of
what you say or what you have to ask of me because there‟s an FBI Agent sitting
in my room here at the present time.” Well, he was always sarcastic that way.
He later became somewhat of an alcoholic. He became Station Chief in Berlin
later on and he was known as “Old Two Gun.” He had two .45 caliber pistols
strapped to his waist anywhere he went.
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DeLoach:
I recall very vividly one morning, Mr. Hoover received simultaneous
telegrams from London, Paris, Berlin and Rome. The Legal Attaches there. They
indicated that they had been called upon personally by the Station Chiefs of CIA,
and the Station Chiefs had demanded that the FBI quit conducting foreign
intelligence investigations, and number two, the FBI should quit using the title
“Legal Attaché.”
Their cablegrams came in to us by code naturally, and after they were decoded,
Mr. Hoover called me. I was an Inspector at the time going out on various
assignments for him. He called me to his office and he called Section Chief Vic
Kay also, and he told us, “I want you to go over and see Bedell Smith.” That was
Lt. General Bedell Smith who was Chief of Staff to Eisenhower during World
War II and who became Director of CIA when he returned to the United States.
He said, “I want you to go over and see Bedell Smith and tell him to „put up or
shut up‟. That if he insists on this, what his men have demanded, that we will
withdraw, we will close all our offices and Legal Attaché places and will not send
them any further reports concerning operations. And we‟ll have it dumped,
everything dumped in his lap.”
Well that included our strong liaison with foreign police, the National Academy
graduates, and so on and it would have been quite a blow to CIA, particularly
because they would not have intelligence coming in that we‟d been furnishing
them. But it was such a vendetta by the group of former FBI Agents, who had
departed for disciplinary reasons and gone to CIA, that they were trying to hurt us
in any way they could.
I went over to see --. Vic Kay and I went over to CIA, and we got an immediate
audience with Bedell Smith. He was initially very friendly. We had coffee. We
talked about things. But eventually we told him what the circumstances were.
We told him what the Director had indicated and that if Bedell Smith wanted,
CIA wanted it that way, we would immediately withdraw all our Legats.
Smith became quite angry. He had a cup of coffee in his hand and his hand
shook. He had to take both hands to put the coffee down in his cup which had
slurped over with coffee in the saucer. And he looked at me and he stated, “Deke,
you may be a good friend and a good Agent, but you‟re a lousy liaison officer.
You‟re not a very good liaison officer.” And he said, “I‟ve got a good mind to
throw you out of my office.” And I said, “General, neither you or anyone in your
outfit are man enough to throw me out of your office.” And Kay and I walked
out. Forty-five minutes later, I had an official from CIA who handed me an
envelope written in hand by Bedell Smith, General Smith. He invited Mr. Hoover
and me to have luncheon with him the following week in his private dining room
there at CIA Headquarters.
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DeLoach:
Well, we prepared an immediate log for Mr. Hoover by getting all the
background and everything and previous difficulties we‟d had with CIA. Mickey
Ladd, who had the job that I had later as Assistant to the Director, or Number 3
man and Tolson --. The four of us went. And we were received very graciously.
Bedell Smith had with him his Deputy Director. We sat down. We had coffee to
start out with. We had a brief luncheon which was very good. Then after the
luncheon Bedell Smith handed all four of us a folder which contained a statement
signed by him saying, “You may, (it said) it‟s up to you. You may use the title of
“Legal Attaché” as long as you wish. You may continue to conduct the
investigations that you‟re doing at the present time and your liaison with police
and National Academy graduates.” In other words, he folded completely.
Mr. Hoover looked at Tolson, looked at me, looked at Ladd, we all nodded. And
he said, “This will be very satisfactory.” With that the meeting was over and we
walked out. And that was one of the big incidents we had with CIA.
Rosenfeld:
What do you think --?
DeLoach:
Well, let me finish this. Another difficulty arose when we insisted that
CIA, before they interviewed any one in the United States, contact us first and
indicate why they were interviewing, the identity of the person they were
interviewing, and the purpose thereof. And the reason for that was in some
instances they were interviewing people that we were investigating either in
espionage or criminal type investigations and for them to go in would blow the
thing sky high by them interviewing that person. After all, the domestic field was
our jurisdiction.
General Smith called me one day and he said, “Don‟t you think we can do without
this request made of you each time we interview some person?” And I said, “No,
I don‟t, General. (I said) I think it‟s very valid and should continue” and I
explained to him why. I wrote a memorandum to Mr. Hoover and Mr. Hoover
wrote on the bottom of it, “Give this man a merit award of $250 right away.”
Which I appreciated.
But things like that cropped up. Let me say on the positive side. There was
jealousy on the part of Mr. Hoover towards CIA. There was jealousy on the part
of the old OSS crowd and the new recruits including some of the Bureau Agents
in CIA against the FBI.
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DeLoach:
That‟s why I said it was a troublesome time beginning. There were many
good people within CIA. There were many good activities within CIA. They had
some unfortunate individuals who were too steeped in their own importance and
their own desire for intelligence that their entire feeling was “screw the FBI.”
But, nevertheless, there was a very smooth flow of intelligence despite the
obstacles, despite the troubles on each side, and later on, most of it was ironed
out. There were still difficulties insofar as distribution was concerned because
CIA might blow an informant we had if we sent them such and such type
information. And the same thing was true of them.
So, CIA has grown, I think, into a very important department of the United States
Government. The FBI has consistently kept pace insofar as their distribution of
intelligence towards each other is concerned. As I say, there has been some lack,
but, nevertheless, that‟s my sum of liaison with CIA.
Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, the Director of CIA, whom I knew, liked very
well, went to lunch with quite often at the Army-Navy Club. He was a good man.
I liked him.
Admiral Souers was a good man before Hillenkoetter. I liked him and got along
very well with him.
Bedell Smith, with the exception of one or two instances, we got along very well.
He asked me one time, he said, “I need badly a, a maid in my home. Can you get
me one?” And I said, “Sure.” And so I got one and he was very happy with her.
You know, things like that.
They would make preposterous requests to us from time to time. Like one
instance, Bedell Smith asked me if we could provide twelve prostitutes for
foreign dignitaries. Intelligence dignitaries who were coming into town. I told
Mr. Hoover about that, and he hit the ceiling. He said, “Hell, no, what does he
think we are? Madams of a whorehouse?” (chuckle) He said, “Tell him no, we
won‟t do that.” I did. And Smith backed down.
But for the most part it, --. While we both had many bumps in the road, it was a
good liaison.
ONI, Naval Intelligence, which is now the, I believe, the Office of Intelligence of
the Navy, had very likeable people and I enjoyed immensely my operation with
them. We had a very smooth operation.
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DeLoach:
They had one director who turned out to be a burr in the saddle and who
disliked the FBI and Mr. Hoover. We had difficulty with him from time to time
but ninety-nine percent of the time the liaison with ONI was very good.
On one occasion I had to go over and indicate to the Navy, there was a Soviet
espionage agent in their midst and that they had to be very wary of him in the
future. Well, that caused one hell of a hullabaloo, but they immediately handled
the thing very smoothly. I enjoyed dealing with ONI. It was a good outfit and
there was a good distribution of intelligence between the two of us.
Rosenfeld
Was that the, I think it was called the Wemen case?
DeLoach:
I don‟t recall that.
Rosenfeld:
Okay. But did you come across instances for example where either CIA
was looking at someone who the FBI had, had doubled or vice versa?
DeLoach:
There were requests to interview people who we had doubled or were
using as informants or were the subjects of investigations. We told them we
didn‟t want them to interview these people at the time but later on when the case
was over we‟d get back in touch with them and say go ahead. But I don‟t recall
the names of individuals, but there were instances of that nature.
Rosenfeld:
Now, in your book you talk about a very notorious case where the FBI and
CIA had very different opinions and that related to Fedora and Nosenko. Do you
have any comments about that that go beyond what you wrote in your book?
DeLoach:
Well, Fedora, or Top Hat, had given us very good intelligence. He had
furnished us intelligence concerning Soviet intelligence operations in the United
States and the identity of Soviet operators, Soviet agents. He had given us much
valuable information. On the other hand, CIA felt that some of the information
furnished had ramifications overseas, had not been borne out, and, therefore, he
was possibly a double agent working for the Soviets and us at the same time.
Bill Sullivan, W.C. Sullivan, became convinced by CIA reports, particularly one
CIA executive, Jim Angleton, who was in charge of certain phases of CIA
espionage operations. He wore a derby and a black overcoat, was a hulking
individual and was always steeped in the darkness of espionage and intelligence.
It was very hard for him to cooperate with anyone, particularly anyone outside,
including the FBI.
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DeLoach:
But Angleton caused Sullivan to think that Fedora might be a double
agent. They would not come out and say for sure. They had no concrete facts.
On the other hand, my review of the file several times, thoroughly, and, Agents in
the Domestic Intelligence Division, talking with them, convinced me that Fedora
had flaws, but, nevertheless, he, at the same time, had furnished considerable
information to us, which had proven to be very valuable, and, therefore, I thought
we should continue him. I even made a trip to New York and talked to the man.
And I became even later, convinced, more strongly convinced, that the man was
bona fide.
I regret that we had this disagreement in our own midst, but, nevertheless, I was
determined as Sullivan‟s superior that we were not going to get rid of a valuable
informant simply because one or two individuals over at CIA had indicated their
suspicion, deep seated suspicions, that he was a double agent without proof. So
that was put to rest after I indicated that while we should be wary of him, and
should check everything out carefully, that the operation was not to cease.
Rosenfeld:
Now I want to get back to surveillance questions. In 1966, when Nicholas
Katzenbach was Attorney General, there was a Supreme Court case involving an
organized crime figure named Black. He claimed that the FBI had illegally
wiretapped him. Thurgood Marshall was the Solicitor General at that time and
said, “Yeah, he was wiretapped.”
Now the FBI at that time claimed that it was not illegal. We went into that a little
bit yesterday, and I‟d like to talk more about the background, the BrownellRogers memorandum, the rationale behind the wiretapping, which actually
preceded the Brownell memorandum going back to when you were a field Agent
and were involved in wiretaps. And your general commentary on what happened
after that.
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DeLoach:
Well, first let me start on the premise that Mr. Hoover disliked the usage
of electronic devices whether wiretaps or microphones. But, he also, because of
the extreme value of these devices --. In other words, consider the fact that one
device is worth fifty Agents in some cases, because it gives you direct
information, wherein the Agents would have to sloggingly conduct the
interrogation and considerable investigation to get the same facts that the wiretap
would furnish almost immediately.
But there came a time, particularly brought about by the Black case, in which a
memorandum was sent by the Department of Justice to the Supreme Court
indicating that the information as furnished in the Black case, and Mr. Hoover got
wind of the fact that another memorandum was being prepared to be sent up by
Katzenbach and Thurgood Marshall which would recommend that there was
sufficient information in their opinion to have the Supreme Court indicate that all
such devices were illegal, unlawful and should not be used by the United States
Government.
That would have cut our throats in cases where life was threatened, kidnapping
cases, espionage cases, sabotage cases, many matters of that nature where
wiretaps and microphones were invaluable. The old German espionage case, the
Duquesne case, where we had a microphone, where we had wiretaps and
microphones on German espionage headquarters there in New York, and had a
camera which gave us photographs of the principals involved in German
espionage. This was a direct example.
There were many, many cases where the FBI has saved lives as a result of
receiving information. For instance one case where we had a microphone in a, a
certain place in Chicago located in a table. The members of the Mafia would
meet there occasionally to discuss their operations. In one instance they declared
they were going to kill someone. Well, we were able to put a stop to that by
getting the man away from there and his life was saved.
There has been information in kidnap cases in which we received considerable
information as to what was going on.
In a broad smatter of cases particularly those involving organized crime, it has
saved the FBI countless hours. Saved lives. Has been of great value. But let me
hasten to say that in reporting to the Attorney General who was a politician, there
was a danger always inherent in the FBI using such devices. Particularly the
matter of Bobby Kennedy who was political minded and wanted to continue the
Kennedy dynasty, wanted to be President. There was a danger involved in him
giving approval and then, later denying that he had allowed usage of such devices,
whether he had approved them by signature or verbal to one of our Agents
handling liaison with him.
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DeLoach:
Mr. Hoover received information that Katzenbach, who had always been
very friendly with Mr. Hoover and never had attempted to wrongly usurp FBI
jurisdiction or to claim FBI publicity, as Bobby Kennedy did on a constant basis.
But Thurgood Marshall, the Solicitor General, and Katzenbach who was Attorney
General at the time, in order to keep the monkey off Kennedy‟s back, who was
then a Senator from New York, to keep from allowing any blame to be placed on
him for usage of particularly microphones, had wrongly criticized us in a letter to
the Supreme Court, to carry out their, their motives of protecting Kennedy. As a
matter of fact, they sent a draft of that letter over to Mr. Hoover. It was totally
irresponsible insofar as their attempting to escape criticism insofar as usage of
microphones was concerned.
So after we wrote back strongly and told them that they were wrong in their
assertions, that we had been given that privilege, Mr. Hoover in order to tie down
our proof and convictions about usage of microphones as allowed by the
Department sent me up to see William P. Rogers, the former Attorney General
and the former Secretary of State, and to question him concerning the fact that he
had allowed such usage, as had Herbert Brownell, the Attorney General before
him.
He listened to me and SAC John Malone, who accompanied me. He then called
Mr. Hoover on the phone while I was in his office. He squirmed a little bit by
saying he thought that the matter would die out and that no blame would be
placed on the FBI, that the Supreme Court might not take any action. Mr. Hoover
would not listen to that. He told him he thought that action would be taken and
that the usage of electronic devices, even though they were abhorred in a
democratic state, were sometimes necessary for the preservation of lives and the
ability to solve espionage and other type very serious cases. Rogers then took the
tact that “Well, I hope that Mr. Hoover would not say anything,” but, yes, that he
and Brownell “had told the FBI that it was departmental policy that the FBI
should be able to use microphones, particularly, in instances where someone‟s life
was at stake or espionage type cases.”
Mr. Hoover dictated a memorandum to Helen Gandy. It was about seven pages. I
still have a copy of that memorandum, which he gave me just before my
retirement saying, “This is something you should keep.” It was a confidential
memorandum which he kept in his files. A copy was also sent to Tolson. But it
definitely proves that the Departmental policy concerning usage of microphones
was given to the FBI. Rogers went so far to say one time, “If I‟m out of town,
you don‟t have to get my permission. Just tell me about it verbally when I get
back into town.”
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DeLoach:
Kennedy approved microphones. Kennedy was insatiable in his desire to
gain intelligence for evidentiary purposes on organized crime. He pushed the FBI
unmercifully to gain as much intelligence as possible.
At one time Kennedy visited our New York Office and had seventeen Agents
around him, and also a number of his own staff including Courtney Evans who
was with the FBI at the time and was serving as FBI liaison to Kennedy. But he,
Kennedy, demanded to listen to the take on microphone usage against the Mafia.
And he did listen to those devices, the tapes. And he indicated, “They‟re a little
scratchy, aren‟t they? Can‟t we get better material?” And, the FBI Agents said,
“Well, we‟ll certainly try, Mr. Attorney General.” But one of his own aides asked
him, said, “Aren‟t these illegal?” Kennedy says, “They‟re all illegal.”
He went to Chicago and the same thing was repeated there. He listened to devices
there on Sam Giancana and other mob leaders at that time.
Later on he came back to Washington and he denied that he had ever allowed
usage of such devices. This was an absolute lie. And we all knew it, but
Katzenbach was trying to protect Kennedy in his run for the Presidency and his
political aspirations. As I say, Kennedy was then a Senator from New York and
obviously he didn‟t want this to come out.
We had this interview with William P. Rogers. He told us very definitely that
they had allowed usage of electronic devices, including microphones, and it was
Departmental policy to allow the FBI such usage. I guess, within the FBI, we‟re a
little bit too straitlaced. But we couldn‟t understand how anyone could lie to the
FBI and to the Supreme Court, to anyone else, about the fact that they had given
authority for the usage of microphones and then later denied it.
Katzenbach, before the Church Committee --. He appeared the afternoon after I
was there for an appearance that morning. He was asked about the wiretap
coverage of Dr. Martin Luther King. And whether he had approved it in writing
or not. He was shown documents where his initials were on the right-hand
margin of the memoranda approving it. And he said, “Well, those look like my
initials and that‟s where I usually place my initials approving memoranda, but I
don‟t think that I could have done something like that.”
Politics again. It‟s dangerous for the FBI. That‟s why I say it‟s, it‟s a good thing
that today the FBI not only gets the approval of the Attorney General but also gets
the approval of a three-court judge panel for the usage of electronic devices. It‟s
absolutely necessary to protect the FBI not only for the FBI‟s reputation, but
principally so that the evidence may be used in Federal court later on, or any type
court. So, it‟s been a sad episode but the sadness has been brought about mostly
because of the antics of politicians.
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Rosenfeld:
What you just commented relates to the controversy that just really
became a well-known controversy this week, or last week, and that had to do with
the national security letters in which intelligence agencies of which the FBI is the
most public can under the Patriot Act … The national security letters have been
around since 1996 and that Counterterrorism and Anti-Death Penalty Act in 1996.
But since the Patriot Act there‟s been very little supervision. There‟s no judicial
involvement in issuing these national security letters. An SAC can approve them.
That would contradict what Mr. Hoover was insisting on that he had Attorney
General authority for wiretaps or the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court
permission.
DeLoach:
I don‟t think there‟s any contradiction at all. These are different times in
our society.
Rosenfeld:
So you don‟t think it‟s necessary today?
DeLoach:
We wanted the Attorney General as our superior to approve usage of
electronic devices. We needed the approval of our superior to conduct such
activities. But as I say, considering the fact that all Attorneys General are also
politicians, it‟s necessary to get firm approval and better approval through the
panel of judges. But I don‟t consider it a contradiction.
Rosenfeld:
No, but the national security letters --. There is no approval level above
the Special Agent in Charge. There is, there‟s no --. They don‟t have to go to any
kind of judicial body or to the Department.
DeLoach:
… for the approval of electronic device?
Rosenfeld:
No, no. This is a letter to conduct, to look into personal records, bank
account records, phone records --. The biggest controversy is computers and
libraries.
DeLoach:
Well, I can see the necessity to do that.
Rosenfeld:
But, this is --
DeLoach:
But that‟s not a contradiction.
Rosenfeld:
But there‟s no, there‟s no approval level above the Special Agent in
Charge.
DeLoach:
Again, due to the changes in the times --
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Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
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Rosenfeld:
You --
DeLoach:
-- the necessity for obtaining information as rapidly as possible in order to
protect the American public -Rosenfeld:
You --
DeLoach:
-- and preventing such things as 9/ll, I can readily understand that in some
instances SACs have to be the last resort to have such things done. But electronic
devices still, I think it‟s best, particularly for evidentiary uses in Federal court to
obtain the permission of the, not only the Attorney General, but also this panel of
judges. The Congress approved such actions, recognizing the need to protect the
public. The President signed the bill.
Rosenfeld:
Well, I‟d like to move onto the counterintelligence programs. Those
began in 1956 against the communists and you certainly had some authority there.
I don‟t know, in 1956 were those cases something that you dealt with that early?
And I‟d like you to start to talk about the anticommunist program where you have
personal knowledge of it, then we‟ll move into the Klan.
DeLoach:
COINTELPRO, COINTELPRO was, came about as a result of Bill
Sullivan talking to the Agents in the Atlanta Division of the FBI, a conference
that he had concerning domestic intelligence matters in the Atlanta Division. He
claimed that one Agent brought up the idea, the usage of counterintelligence.
There was considerable frustration at the time particularly insofar as the Ku Klux
Klan was concerned.
Rosenfeld:
Yes.
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© Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI, Inc. 2005
Interview with Former Special Agent and
Deputy Director of the FBI
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach (1942-1970)
on November 13, 2005
By Susan Rosenfeld, Ph.D.,
Consultant to the Oral History Project
Edited with Mr. DeLoach’s corrections by Sandra Robinette on June 12, 2007. Final edit on July 20, 2007.
Susan Rosenfeld/Rosenfeld
:
Okay. This is Susan Rosenfeld. It is November 13, 2005. I‟m interviewing
Cartha “Deke” DeLoach in his home in Hilton Head, South Carolina.
And I‟d like to ask you a couple of questions and -Cartha “Deke” DeLoach/DeLoach:
Sure.
Rosenfeld:
-- we will get to what you had requested to talk about, the origins of the
new National Academy in a few minutes, okay?
DeLoach:
Oh sure, certainly.
Rosenfeld:
Some other questions that I would like to ask you first. A couple of quick
questions and then one that‟s maybe a little bit longer.
DeLoach:
Okay.
Rosenfeld:
When you were talking about Mr. Hoover‟s opinion of President Truman--
DeLoach:
Yes.
Rosenfeld:
Is this something you heard from him personally or is it something you
picked up elsewhere? His animosity against Truman.
DeLoach:
Well, I think frankly it wasn‟t so much Mr. Hoover‟s animosity towards
Truman as it was President Truman‟s –towards Mr. Hoover.
Rosenfeld:
Yes, right.
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach
November 13, 2005
Page 82
DeLoach
Truman at one time, as a Senator, was chairman of the Truman Committee
looking into the corruption and embezzlement within labor unions, particularly
the Pullman Porters‟ Union.
Rosenfeld
Right. You‟d gone into that. I just wanted to know if Mr. Hoover had
talked to you about how Truman felt about the FBI.
DeLoach
Yes, he made a number of --. In conversations with him over the years, he
made a number of comments concerning the animosity of President Truman
towards the FBI, not so much about himself, but about the FBI. It came about as
a result of Truman asking Hoover for FBI files on the subject matter involved by
his committee in Congress. Mr. Hoover refused to give him those files. Truman
went behind his back to the Attorney General and was able to get some
information from either the Department of Justice files or FBI files.
Rosenfeld
Okay. And the next question that I wanted to ask you about --
DeLoach
If you let me finish this --
Rosenfeld
Oh, I‟m sorry.
DeLoach
But when Mr. Hoover refused, Truman gave vent to some very bad
feelings concerning this situation. When he became President he started acting
out those feelings. (Go ahead)
Rosenfeld
Okay. I‟m sorry. Some of the questions I‟m going to ask you today are
based on some of the things that we had talked about the past couple of days.
And so that‟s why it just raised other questions.
DeLoach
Right.
Rosenfeld
And this is also one. You became an Inspector. And that‟s something I
want to ask you quite a bit about. But you had said to Mr. Hoover at the time
you‟d not been an ASAC, you‟d not been an SAC. Do you think that affected
your --? Well, how, if at all, did that affect your knowledge of the field,
relationship with the field, just how you felt about doing your work?
DeLoach
It didn‟t affect my knowledge of the field in the least. And neither did it
affect my relationship with Agents in the field, simply because of the fact that I
had been an Agent, a Resident Agent, an undercover Agent, but a Resident Agent
more than anything else on two different occasions in Akron, Ohio. I had a good
relationship with Agents in that particular area and also in my first office,
Norfolk, Virginia, where I had been a Resident Agent at Newport News, Virginia.
So it didn‟t affect my relationship at all or my knowledge of the field at all.
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DeLoach:
I was “green and wet behind the ears” insofar as inspection of field offices
were concerned. But I had had a short training session in the Training and
Inspection Division. I think mainly that Mr. Hoover made me an Inspector
because of having sent me out on a number of occasions and having successfully
solved the problems involved, coming back and reporting to him and, therefore,
he trusted me and indicated that he was going to make me an Inspector. I believe
that he did that because it would give me more leeway in talking with Special
Agents in Charge and even the public by saying “I‟m Inspector So and So and I
want to ask you a few questions.”
So I guess that was uppermost in his mind in doing it, but I had no idea about it. I
hadn‟t asked for it. I was astounded. And I appreciated it a great deal, but I had
to learn fast.
Rosenfeld
Can you describe what it was like to go on an inspection, what a typical
inspection entailed?
DeLoach
Inspection of field offices?
Rosenfeld
Yes.
DeLoach
Well, you were supposed to arrive unannounced of course. And that
always happened. But once you arrived, you called at the SAC‟s office and, if he
was in, the secretary would show you in immediately. You would indicate that
you were there for an inspection, and that you needed rooms for “x” number of
men, who would be your Inspector‟s Aides, and ask him for recommendations
insofar as a hotel or motel or any place where you could get inexpensive housing
for FBI personnel. At that time you were allowed $6 a day subsistence over and
above your salary. And that meant for meals, hotels, and everything else. So it
was, it was hard. It was tough. It was an economic sacrifice.
After you announced yourself to the SAC, and after your Inspector‟s Aides
arrived, and you had them settled comfortably, you had a lengthy opening
meeting with them giving them assignments. For instance one Agent would
handle domestic intelligence matters, espionage. Another Agent would handle
general criminal matters; another Agent would handle applicant-type matters;
another Agent would [handle] physical condition and maintenance which
included the condition of the office including the file room, Chief Clerk‟s office,
the automobiles, including all equipment. Another Agent would handle personnel
matters.
I
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November 13, 2005
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DeLoach:
It was all divided. They would all report back to you. Usually I
established a Number 1 man who would handle much of the paperwork, an
experienced person who‟d been an ASAC or an SAC. He would handle the
paperwork and then after he reviewed them would show them to me.
An inspection would usually take about ten days to two weeks. Some of them
would take more. For instance, the New York Office would take a much longer
time and with a much larger number of Agents assisting you. But after everything
was finished, you‟d read all the reports, you‟d summed up all of the errors, the
good points, and you told the SAC you would like to see him. The two of you
would sit down and then you‟d go over everything with him.
I made it a point of always telling the SAC “You‟ve got a good office. Keep
running it. You need to do two or three little things.” Or I‟d tell him “There‟s so
many mistakes occurred here, so many errors found, that I‟m recommending you
be placed on probation.” It had to be approved by the Director. “I‟ll be back to
see you in a short period of time for a recheck of your office to see whether you
should continue on probation or whether your probation should be removed.”
That happened in all instances. There were hardships involved in that because
Clyde Tolson and Mr. Hoover never had any children of their own or families.
They had a rule that you would go on out on an inspection, you would inspect at
least five, six, seven offices. Be gone for three months and then you‟d come back
to, report back into FBI Headquarters, Washington, and have consultations with
the Inspector in charge, or the Assistant Director, who at that time was Hugh
Clegg. Then after spending a weekend at home, a weekend, you‟d go back again
for three months.
Well I did this for about seventeen months all total and it got to be a little wearing
and tearing on the family. I remember one time that my grandfather died while I
was inspecting the Boston Office and I was asked to come home and attend the
funeral, and also be a pallbearer at the funeral. He was ninety-eight years old.
Lived a long life. Died very peacefully. I wanted to go home to pay my respects
to him out in the country there, in Georgia.
So I called the Inspector in Charge and got approval to leave Boston on a
Thursday afternoon late, go to Savannah and from there go out in the country to
my grandfather‟s home. The funeral was on Friday at a little country church.
DeLoach‟s Church. He built the church himself.
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DeLoach:
After the funeral, I left there on Friday night and took a train that took me
to Washington and was supposed to go on to Boston. But when I arrived in
Washington I had a short layover, and I called home to check with my wife
concerning her and the children and things at home. And she‟d been ill and was
in bed. So I decided that I would spend Friday night there and then Saturday
afternoon late catch the train on back to Boston to be in there on Sunday. I did
that. I didn‟t think anything of it because it was a weekend. We‟d still be
working in the office, but I had permission to go home for the funeral and I
thought one night away wouldn‟t harm anything, particularly when my wife was
ill.
But Tuesday morning in the Boston Office, a letter of censure from Mr. Hoover
arrived, indicating that I was being censured because I didn‟t get permission to
spend the night at home.
Well, I resented that but, nevertheless, I got over it. But that‟s how tough it was
back in those days. It was a tough routine. And you had to be on the road all the
time.
After, I think, seventeen months, I went in to see Mr. Hoover and told him that
during those seventeen months I‟d been on quite a number of special assignments
and inspected “x” number of field offices, and that being a family man I thought
that I should spend a little bit more time at home if I could. And he said, “Well,
fine.” He said, “I hate to see you leave the Inspection Service, but would you like
to take over a SAC‟s job in one of the offices?” And I said, “No, I prefer to stay
here because I bought a home and I have these children in school, and it would
represent somewhat of a hardship to leave at this particular time.” I said, “Later
on I‟d certainly welcome the opportunity.” He said, “Well, okay.” He said, “I‟ll
assign you to Tolson‟s office and you handle things, things in there for him.”
Well, that was fine. I served in Tolson‟s office, as an Inspector, for a number of
months. And then Tolson told me as Mr. Hoover did later that he thought I had
some of the talents that Lou Nichols had. That he wanted to assign me over to be
Nichols‟ assistant. John McGuire was Nichols‟ Number 1 man and I was the
Number 2 man.
I stayed there until 1961 when Nichols retired. Gordon Nease was made acting
Assistant Director, but never could handle the job. Then, Mr. Hoover made me
Acting Assistant Director and then later made it a permanent appointment. So
that‟s how I came about getting into the Crime Records Division.
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Rosenfeld
I‟d just like to ask you a couple of things about the field inspections and
then we‟ll get to some of the other areas that you were interested in talking about.
Had you [been told what to look for] before you would go to a field office? Were
you given any instructions as to anything in particular to look for? For example,
that a concern that the SAC‟s personal contacts weren‟t what they should be or
that they weren‟t doing enough bank robbery cases or that they weren‟t filing
things in a timely manner, or something like that, specific to the field office you
were inspecting?
DeLoach
You reviewed the files on all previous --. Not all previous inspections, but
some of the more recent inspections of that office. You reviewed the personnel
file of the Special Agent in Charge and a number of his supervisory personnel, if
he had any, in any given office. So you were pretty well prepped as to what to
look for before, before you left FBI Headquarters in Washington. Those files
usually gave you a lot of information in what to expect.
Rosenfeld:
When you were a field Agent in Ohio or in Virginia did you undergo any
field inspections?
DeLoach
Yes, several. And I was apprehensive about all of them. Not because I
felt I‟d done anything wrong, but, you know, in any field office, an Inspector
comes in and not only does he, he or his top aides, interview all of the Agents in
the office including the SAC and ASAC, and supervisory personnel, but all the
Agents. But you additionally take a written exam and you have to make an
average of eight-five on that, or else you would get a letter of censure and your
raises would be held up for a period of time.
So you always feared the exam, even though you always passed it. And in the
inspection of automobiles, you were afraid that some Inspector might find
something wrong with your car. You weren‟t taking good care of it or there was a
dent on it or your oil change hadn‟t been made on time.
You had to make sure that your .38 revolver or any other gun you carried, .45
automatic, a .357 magnum, was in good order and not rusty. You had to take a
look at your badge and make sure that it was shiny and in good shape. Your
credentials. When you were interviewed by the Inspector, you had to answer his
questions explicitly. There were many things that would, could cause a bad mark
on your record.
So, yeah, I underwent several, underwent several inspections, but like any other
Agent I was always, always apprehensive about them.
Rosenfeld
When you did the inspections yourself, what kinds of questions might you
ask or your aides asked?
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DeLoach
Of any Agent in the office?
Rosenfeld
Of a field Agent. Right.
DeLoach
Oh. Well, first I‟d go over his record, his personnel file, and, if I saw
some letters of censure in there concerning derelictions, I would discuss those
with him, or if the inspection had turned up other matters. For instance, if a
Resident Agent had not been sending in a daily report as to his investigations, had
not been reporting, furnishing his reports in time, and his reports had not been
good, I‟d go over all those things with him.
I‟d look him up and down to see how he looked physically. An Agent in Boston
used to wear a pork pie hat all the time. I made him quit doing that. He looked
ridiculous. Those personal things. I always made a point to discuss his, even
though it was none of our business to speak of, to discuss his wife and children
and how the children were doing in school and how he was doing physically.
What were his firearms scores? How was he doing case-wise? How was his
overtime? Was his overtime average with the rest of the office or if it was under
that, why was it under that? Didn‟t he have enough cases assigned to him?
In many instances I found that Agents were not submitting their reports or were
not handling their cases, were loafing on the job, and, you had to jack them up,
and [I] did recommend letters of censure or probation and transfer and, you know,
things of that nature.
Again, back to the fact that the FBI in my opinion, then and now, even with the
changes in society, has to be a semi-militaristic organization in order to continue
to be the world‟s top flight law enforcement agency and a good counterespionage
agency. The FBI must have semi-militarism and discipline in their makeup, or
else human nature being what it is, Agents are going to make mistakes.
There have been a lot of mistakes in the so-called „new‟ FBI. We‟ve had three
Agents that have gone over to the other side committing espionage against the
United States. You have Agents that beat their wives, stole ammunition and sold
it on the open market. You had one Agent that committed a robbery of a credit
union.
There have been a number of derelictions within the past ten to fifteen years. I
think mainly that it‟s not only the changes of the times and the differences in
society today, but I think it has been a lessening of discipline because of the
changes in society.
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DeLoach:
The Bureau has to change. There‟s no doubt about that because our
jurisdiction changes. But you always come back to the fact that when I left the
Bureau we had, I think, three hundred and eight matters of Federal law violations
under our jurisdiction. They were from the sublime to the ridiculous. The tough
ones, the necessary ones, were espionage, counterespionage, sabotage, bank
robbery, kidnapping, many matters of that nature. On the other hand you had the
Migratory Bird Act, cattle rustling, trivial things, but anything that comes up
before the Congress which is a cause celebre at the time and needs to be handled,
why, they‟re going to slap it on the FBI.
So we had many things to do which really weren‟t necessary. We got out from
under some of them, such as applicant-type investigations, atomic energy type
investigations, deserter type investigations. And I handled many deserters. I had
three arrests of deserters in one night from beginning at twelve o‟clock on until
about three o‟clock in the morning.
The FBI, as well trained as they are, as well educated, including support personnel
of the FBI, should deal with things commensurate with their education and
background and not smaller matters.
Rosenfeld
Okay.
DeLoach
Excuse me for rambling but I --
Rosenfeld
No, that‟s okay.
DeLoach
-- feel strongly about that.
Rosenfeld
Yes. Because we don‟t have a lot of time, I may at some time interrupt
you, particularly if you‟ve repeated something that we talked about the past
couple of days. But one other question about the inspections. You‟ve described
the negative things that happened. Were you also tasked with looking for
someone with administrative talent, someone who you think might be groomed to
become an SAC or to send back to Headquarters as an Inspector‟s Aide or
something like that?
DeLoach
Absolutely. Many times the Special Agent in Charge would indicate in
your initial conversation with him that he had one or two people among his
personnel, Agent personnel, who would make good supervisors or good recruits
for FBI Headquarters going up the ladder. And that was particularly true of some
of his supervisory personnel. So yes, to answer your question. I would interview
those people particularly at some length in order to determine if this was correct.
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Rosenfeld
Okay. Thank you. Now I have a number of questions that sort of go
chronologically but you had said to me that you wanted to tell me about the
origins of the new National Academy at Quantico. It was opened just a few days
after Mr. Hoover died in 1972.
DeLoach:
Okay. I think this should be, should be a part of the Oral History
collection. Clyde Tolson called me to his office one morning and indicated, in his
usual manner, when the Congress had only a few days to go before adjournment,
that “the boss wants to have a new academy. That old seven-story building down
at Quantico is not sufficient anymore. Can you get a bill through the Congress
which will allow for one and also pay for it?” I said, “Well, they have only a few
days to go and it‟s going to be tough.” He said, “Well, the boss wants it done.”
So I went up and I saw John McCormack, the Speaker of the House, whom I had
known for some period of time, and I told him what I wanted and how tough it
was going to be. And he said, “Sit in that chair, right over there.” This was in his
office. So I sat in that chair and he successively brought in six leading members
of the Senate and six leading members of the House, all in one day. He would
introduce them to me by saying, “I want you to listen to this young man. He‟s
going to tell you how we‟re going to stop crime in the United States.” And so I‟d
go ahead with my song and dance about the great value of the Academy, training
additional Agents, training additional police, training international police --. And
what a great thing it would be for domestic and internal relations.
To make a long story short, within a matter of days they passed the bill giving us
forty million dollars for a new Academy. Well, that wasn‟t --. Proved to be later
on not nearly enough, but then it was an immense sum. So I went back and I
reported to Tolson and he said, “Well, you better watch it carefully.” He was
always negative about things happening. He said, “It may not happen.” I told
him, “It‟ll happen.”
It did pass. It went to the Office of the President and I contacted Mr. Johnson
several times about it and he said, “Oh, I‟ve got an austerity program going on.
I‟m making all the Federal agencies turn out their lights at night. And I‟m doing
it at the White House.” And he said, “We‟re trying to save money. We‟ve got to
do it. We‟ve got to cut this deficit.”
Well, I kept after him, kept after him. One night around midnight my phone rang;
I was still in my office, thank goodness, and he didn‟t say, “How are you?” as he
usually does or “How are things going?” Some easy thing. But he said, “Deke,
do you want that Academy?” And I said, “Yes, sir, in the worst way.” He said,
“All right.” He didn‟t mention that again.
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DeLoach:
He said, “I have an old time secretary. She does my taxes. She does a lot
of personal things for me. She‟s been a babysitter for Lucy Baines and Lynda
Byrd. She does a lot of things for my wife Lady Bird. And I have had her with
me for many years. Her husband worked for me even when I was a
Congressman. He was my top aide. But she doesn‟t make any money here in the
White House, in a clerical capacity. She‟s getting a little up in years and she
needs to hook on to a much higher salary so that she‟ll get a better retirement.”
He continued, “Do you think maybe you might put her on the FBI payroll at a
Grade 14?” And I said, “It will be done tomorrow.” (chuckle) He said, “Okay,
then, okay then, you‟ve got your Academy.” He signed the bill the next day. We
got the Academy.
Mr. Hoover called me in. He said, “I want you and John Mohr to go down to the
Marine base at Quantico. See if you can get somebody to take you up in a
helicopter. And, you go over that Marine base and you try to find the best place
you think would be for an Academy.” And he said, “Make it large enough
because we‟re going to have to have several buildings.” And I said, “All right,
sir.”
So Mohr and I did that. Hank Sloan, who was the SAC down there at the time,
had already picked out a place and he tipped us off to it. And we went there first,
and thought it was ideal. It was on a hill, beautiful surrounding countryside, and
large enough place for the firearms ranges. We looked at other areas too. But, we
finally decided on the one that Hank had recommended.
So we came back and wrote a memorandum to Mr. Hoover and he approved it.
And that was the new FBI Academy. That‟s how it came about.
Rosenfeld
Wow.
DeLoach
Today hardly anybody realizes that. Maybe they won‟t even believe it.
Rosenfeld
But that is a good story and shows how things get done in Washington.
(chuckle)
DeLoach
Exactly. It‟s true too. Every fact in there is true.
Rosenfeld
Wow. Okay. What I‟d like to do now is go back over some of the areas
we were talking about earlier and to clarify points that we talked about in the past
couple of days and some new material.
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Rosenfeld:
Civil rights area, which you indicated was, was so important to the
Director and to yourself. You had mentioned about the Department of Justice
which of course had its own Civil Rights Division. The Department of Justice
laid out very, very specific rules for how these civil rights investigations were to
be carried out. And that‟s an area of some controversy. There are complaints
particularly coming from people who reviewed the record that Agents would only
ask those questions --. There was no follow-up. They didn‟t --. Criticism that
the Bureau didn‟t probe deeply enough in asking some of these questions.
On the other side, from the Bureau‟s side, it was that the Department had said
that‟s what they were supposed to do. Only ask those questions that the Civil
Rights Division in Justice, main Justice, prepared for them. Are you aware of the
controversy and what, the way things actually worked between you and the Civil
Rights Division in main Justice?
DeLoach
Sue, obviously there was controversy in that particular field. But when I
was still in the Bureau, the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice
gave us few instructions insofar as how those cases should be carried out in those
investigations.
As I said earlier, the biggest misnomer, the biggest false claim that you find
among civil rights people insofar as the FBI is concerned, and particularly true
back in the early 1960s, late ‟50s, and early ‟60s, and to some extent in the early
‟70s, but the FBI would conduct the investigation. They would turn the results
over to the Department of Justice. And the Department of Justice would
determine whether of not there would be any prosecution.
Well, the FBI was left there, just hanging. And the people involved in the
investigation who wanted some of the action taken would blame it on the FBI.
And you could explain to them as clearly as possible, the fact that we hadn‟t
determined the prosecution. We were strictly an investigatory agency.
But insofar as the specific questions were concerned, the Department of Justice
told us what to do insofar as prosecution was concerned. They relied heavily
upon us to conduct those investigations. And in some instances the Department
of Justice would adopt the rules of civil rights according to their own desire, or
gain, or political gain. For instance as I mentioned earlier, we didn‟t have the
authority to investigate the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Today we do. The
Congress has given us that authority. But back then, that was a local murder.
Rosenfeld
Right.
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DeLoach
But the Department of Justice declared that if you violate someone‟s civil
liberties it‟s a Federal violation. They did that in the assassination of Dr. Martin
Luther King. We didn‟t have jurisdiction to do that. Again, that was a local
murder.
So the rules were bent from time to time in accordance with the desires of the
Department of Justice, but I don‟t recall any specific instances where they laid
down the law as far as specific questions to be asked or to refrain from asking
specific questions. It could be in some instances they would send the reports back
and say, “Please see so and so again” and ask him if he went to specific places,
such and such a night. If he was present there, did he observe anything unusual or
did he attend the mob meeting of the Ku Klux Klan on such and such a date, so
on, so on. That happened definitely. But there was no pressure on the part of the
Department of Justice to avoid the possibilities of the infraction of civil rights
rules in those days. They depended upon us heavily to conduct the investigations
and get the reports to them as rapidly as possible. There were delays in making
decisions.
Rosenfeld
Okay. I‟ve actually read correspondence between the FBI and Burke
Marshall‟s aides in the Kennedy Administration discussing those questions going
back and forth between the Bureau and main Justice and I don‟t recall who it was.
But it sounds like you were not involved in that particular area. But it did, it did
go on that Mr. Hoover wanted to, as you had said earlier, it seemed as if he
wanted outside authority, outside of the Bureau itself, so that, particularly, I
guess, in relations with the local police. I‟m not sure it helped, but he would say,
“Well, we‟re doing what the Department is telling us to do.”
DeLoach
That could be. Burke Marshall incidentally was in my opinion a good
Assistant Attorney General. He was straightforward. He was honest. He was the
first one to step up to the plate and indicated that Bobby Kennedy had asked for a
wiretap on Martin Luther King. And his reason for that was that Kennedy wanted
to find out the extent of communist control over King. In many other instances he
was very friendly and helpful to the FBI.
Rosenfeld:
Do you happen to know, well first … the first black Agents to have been
recruited and gone through the National Academy. It occurred in 1962. There
were black Agents in the Bureau who functioned as regular Agents. Sometimes
some of them also chauffeured Mr. Hoover when he visited various offices but
they also, because I‟ve read their files, conducted investigations. They had to
qualify in firearms, whatever it was, every six months. And basically functioned
the same as any other Agent did out in the field.
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Rosenfeld:
But these were people, I guess, who had had support positions earlier and
weren‟t in the field, were made Agents. But the first two, Aubrey Lewis and
James Barrow. I know Aubrey Lewis passed away a number of years ago. I
don‟t‟ recall if Mr. Barrow is still alive, but he‟s been very ill. They didn‟t come
in till 1962. Do you happen to know why there were no Agents who were hired in
the regular course of events before 1962?
DeLoach:
Your assertions are wrong. There were Agents before that. The Struthers,
out in Los Angeles. Father and son.
Rosenfeld:
Oh. Yeah. There were Agents.
DeLoach:
That‟s right. And, they were trained. The Struthers were trained in many
different ways. They were very successful Agents in handling bank robberies in
Los Angeles. I knew Aubrey Lewis. He was a backfield star at Notre Dame. A
good one. But I didn‟t know the second one you mentioned.
There was another Agent who had been the Assistant Attorney General of the
State of New Jersey and he worked with me on cases. He had been to law school
and he was a good Agent. Excellent Agent before that.
Rosenfeld:
Excuse me. Did you say he was in the Bureau before 1962?
DeLoach:
Yes, before 1962. Yes. I can‟t think of another --. But let me put it this
way. There was no hesitation to acquire a black Agent anytime, anywhere, if he
had the qualifications. Bobby Kennedy, the Attorney General, came over to Mr.
Hoover and said, “Perhaps you should consider lowering the requirements of
blacks to enter the FBI as an Agent.” Mr. Hoover said, “I will not.” And he said,
“They have to be the same just as any other Agent. As white Agents.” So
Kennedy gave in and didn‟t push the matter.
But you would be astounded at the number of law schools where I‟ve made
speeches trying to recruit black Agents. And I would get the excuse, “No, I know
the reputation of the FBI. I know the long hours they work. And I‟m not as --. I
don‟t feel like I should have to carry a gun in my chosen life‟s work. I can get
much more money from the business sector than I can from the FBI. Why should
I want to go into the FBI?”
I got these excuses all the time. I was able to recruit a few, but it was tough. I
made speeches all over the country trying to recruit black Agents. There was no
hesitation on the part of Mr. Hoover or the FBI to recruit black Agents if they had
the eligibility requirements.
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Rosenfeld:
Uh, huh. Now I‟d like to jump to an area that we did talk about a little bit
yesterday. The Counterintelligence Program. You talked about the Klan
program, but as you said that one of the reasons that actually the President and
members of Congress actually were saying, “We‟d like the Bureau to do with the
Klan the same techniques that they used for the Communist Party.” And I‟d like
to ask you a couple of questions concerning the Communist Party
Counterintelligence Program which actually began in 1956. The first
counterintelligence program -DeLoach:
First counterintelligence program?
Rosenfeld:
-- and it was against the Communist Party, USA. And they also had one
going against the Socialist Labor Party who were bitter enemies with the
Communist Party.
DeLoach:
The old Trotskyites vs. the Lenin group.
Rosenfeld:
Right. And that animosity was actually used by the Bureau. Are you
familiar with that program at all?
DeLoach:
I‟m not, with this specific phase of the program.
Rosenfeld:
You‟re not.
DeLoach:
I‟m sure it could have happened.
Rosenfeld:
Okay.
DeLoach:
But I‟m not familiar --. Not at this stage of the game.
Rosenfeld:
Okay. You did supervise though William Sullivan at some point when he
was carrying out some of these counterintelligence programs. And we talked
about that yesterday. Do you know if Agent provocateurs were ever used? In
other words, having an informant of the FBI encouraging a violent activity to see
if other people would go ahead and -DeLoach:
I don‟t recall the FBI asking any informant to encourage physical
violence. We definitely encouraged Agent provocateur relationships insofar as
telling an informant to spread the word around that so-and-so member of the
Klansmen was sleeping with so-and-so‟s wife as I mentioned earlier which caused
a big ruckus. This was done in Mississippi to counter Klu Klux Klan activities.
Rosenfeld:
Did you have anything to do with the Black Panther or Black Extremist
counterintelligence programs? Were you supervising at that time? Or --
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DeLoach:
I recall that there was one. But I don‟t recall any faces.
Rosenfeld:
I thought that may have been after, after --
DeLoach:
What --.
Rosenfeld:
When you left in general, was that after your time?
DeLoach:
Well, it was under my supervision naturally. But I had at one time, three
hundred and eighty thousand cases under my supervision. So it generally was left
up to the Domestic Intelligence Division. They would send reports or memoranda
through me, to me, but I don‟t recall specifics concerning that program.
The Black Panther program has been highly confused in the minds of the
American public. Why? Because the Black Panthers were successful in getting
many celebrities to espouse their causes. Leonard Bernstein, for example, in New
York giving them parties. The great conductor. Other individuals. Movie stars
helping them out.
The Black Panthers put up a program especially for public relations reflecting
“Breakfast for Poor Children.” They didn‟t care anything about breakfast for
poor kids. All they wanted was to rampage, pillage, riot, murder. And they did.
Particularly in the Chicago area. It was a very, very bad situation.
But I recall very specifically one informant who --. He was not an informant
actually, but the Black Panthers thought he was. He didn‟t have any relationship
with the FBI, but they sat him in a chair, drove nails up under his fingers. They
cut him. They threw boiling water over his head. And, trying to make him
confess that he was an informant for the FBI, but he wasn‟t. Later they murdered
him and threw him out to the backyard. This place where they were staying. But
that‟s an example of the, of the personalities of the Black Panther Society.
Rosenfeld:
Another question back about the communists. And you may be able to
answer this one. By the late 1960s, the Communist Party, USA, was just a small
group of people. The violent group actually looked down upon the Communist
Party. Now that was the Old West. They were the New West. And groups like
the Students for a Democratic Society for example. And certainly the
Weathermen. The violent groups. Yet, anyone who was on the security index, if
I‟m correct, that Agents still had to make reports on members of the Communist
Party, a lot of whom were fairly elderly by the late ‟60s. And I‟m curious why
that continued, if you happened to have any personal knowledge of that.
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DeLoach:
To some extent. The Communist Party unlike the Ku Klux Klan did not
possess a threat of violence to the United States even though they wanted to
overthrow the United States Government by violence or force. The more
stringent ones did. But to answer your question, there were, back in the ‟60s,
there were approximately eighty-six thousand members of the Communist Party.
Rosenfeld:
In the late 1960s?
DeLoach:
Yes, early ‟60s.
Rosenfeld:
Yes. I‟m really curious about the late Johnson Administration, beginning
of the Nixon Administration, when you had a lot of other violent activity going on
that had nothing --. The Communist Party was considered irrelevant by the
people.
DeLoach:
In the ‟60s there were as stated above, there were thousands of members.
A communist who believes in the principles of communism, whether they‟re
committing physical violence or whether New Left or Old Left or what have you,
are still communists. And the Communist Party, as I indicated yesterday, was a
very fertile ground for propaganda activities for the Party and for the Soviet
Union. Also a fertile ground for espionage. And the cases investigated proved
that.
Rosenfeld:
By the time that, the late ‟60s and, I may be incorrect on this but I don‟t
think so, that the Chinese communists were recruiting. This was during the
Vietnam War and you had some Maoist groups in this country.
DeLoach:
There were some groups like that and they were heavily investigated by
the FBI at the time. Yes.
Rosenfeld:
And can you talk about that or is that something you don‟t want to talk
about it.?
DeLoach:
I don‟t remember any violence that was instigated by them, but I do know
there were such groups and they were investigated, heavily investigated, by the
FBI at the time. Also, as I mentioned yesterday there had been a communication
from Cuba heavily coded which was intercepted indicating favoritism with the
rioters, rioters in the United States at that time, in the early ‟60s. But we don‟t
know of any money that was changed. Just indicated sympathy.
Rosenfeld:
You know, there are a couple of informants who went public and again
this may be after you left the Bureau. Informants who both CIA and FBI were
running in some of these groups. For example, the Progressive Labor Party. Are
you aware of any?
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Page 97
DeLoach:
I don‟t remember that.
Rosenfeld:
Okay. I‟d like to ask you again to clarify something you talked about
yesterday that was a little confusing to me.
DeLoach:
Uh, huh. Sure.
Rosenfeld:
Okay. This was when Lyndon Johnson was Vice President. And I think
you were a little unsure about the timing, so maybe you can clarify that a bit,
where you said the Kennedy people wanted, Johnson wanted someone appointed
to a position. The Kennedy people were against it. And that seems confusing to
me because I thought only the President really would have any authority to
appoint.
DeLoach:
No.
Rosenfeld:
Okay. Can you explain in a little more detail?
DeLoach:
Johnson was Vice President at the time and he had an office in the Capitol,
and he also had one in the Old Federal Building across the street from the White
House. But he was Vice President at the time. We talked in his office at the
Capitol. I distinctly remember that because Jack Valenti‟s wife was his secretary.
She was in the office at the time we had the conversation.
Rosenfeld:
But this was someone that the Vice President wanted to appoint. Was it
on his staff? That the Kennedys were against it.
DeLoach:
No, he wanted to appoint an outsider as a member of the Administration
and some of the Kennedy people were against the appointment. He wanted my
advice as to how he could overcome that. And I said, “Well, let‟s have Agents
interview the Kennedy negative people and more or less tell them to put up or
shut up.” They all backed down and this man got his appointment.
Rosenfeld:
Okay. I‟m just going to push this a little further because I‟m still confused
that by interviewing them, why would, what can you, can you indicate the area of
the appointment with --?
DeLoach:
I interviewed him concerning something totally foreign and distinct from
the issue at hand, his desire to have an appointment in the White House. Place
this man in the White, in the Administration. Our interview was about something
else totally distinct from that.
Rosenfeld:
Okay, but it was a success, successful.
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DeLoach
He brought that up.
Rosenfeld:
Okay. And, but you were able to help him gain this appointment?
DeLoach:
I just gave him advice.
Rosenfeld:
Okay.
DeLoach:
Uh, huh.
Rosenfeld:
Okay. I‟m confused about that but we‟ll go on to something else.
(chuckle)
DeLoach:
I don‟t see why you should be.
Rosenfeld:
Well, I‟m confused because first of all I thought the, you know, for most
position the appointment would come from -DeLoach:
No.
Rosenfeld:
-- from the President
DeLoach:
No, no that‟s not true. Not true then or not true now. The Vice President
can make recommendations to the President.
Rosenfeld:
Okay. So --
DeLoach:
Of people he wants in the Administration.
Rosenfeld:
-- and
DeLoach:
I don‟t think he‟s given a certain allotment, but he certainly has the
wherewithal to do that if he wants to.
Rosenfeld:
Okay.
DeLoach:
Kennedy depended greatly upon Johnson for Texas and various other
places in the South for his strength. Johnson was able to provide that strength. So
despite Bobby‟s hatred and dislike for Johnson and his continued snubbing of
Johnson and making unkind remarks concerning him, Johnson still had great
strength with John F. Kennedy.
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Rosenfeld:
Okay. I understand that a little bit better. Going on a little bit
chronologically, you said that, from Headquarters, you handled the FBI public
relations aspects of the Kennedy assassination. Could you go into detail -DeLoach:
Well, as Assistant Director --
Rosenfeld:
-- yes, about their functions --
DeLoach
-- of the Crime Records Division, yes, I handled all that.
Rosenfeld:
Can you tell us a bit about that?
DeLoach
Well, as any cause celebre, when the FBI is involved, as they usually are,
if it‟s a murder of a high-ranking individual, questions are going to be asked of
the FBI. In this particular case I was having, the day the assassination occurred, I
lunched at the World Bank with Erle Cocke, former National Commander of the
American Legion. He was the Deputy Director of the World Bank at that time. I
got a call from my secretary. She asked me to come back immediately and said
the Director wanted to see me right away.
I left the World Bank and went back to my office as fast as I could. All hell was
breaking loose. Questions from reporters, the Congress, the Pentagon --. I had
one general call me from the Pentagon saying, “Hey, can you tell me what‟s going
on? Are we going to be invaded?” I had calls from the Congress saying, “We
understand that several other people are marked for assassination. Can you tell
me who they are?” On and on.
I had to field those questions along with my assistants. Inspector Bob Wick was
one, a very good one. He was an excellent Inspector and Number 1 man. Don
Hanning, Bill Gunn, other assistants.
So we all had to stay, you know, pretty much around the clock in handling those
questions. Then we had the questions from the site of the assassination in Dallas
where the District Attorney and the Chief of Police were making assertions that --.
Some of them just weren‟t true or weren‟t correct. And we had to counteract
those. I was in constant touch with Tolson and Mr. Hoover throughout the day
and into the night.
It was a matter of juggling those things, not only correcting the record by trying to
answer the questions of all the reporters and news sources, TV sources who were
calling us. It was a most difficult time. And as I say, we were working almost
around the clock for several days and nights there trying to handle the situation.
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DeLoach:
Al Belmont was the Assistant to the Director, or Deputy Director at the
time and Number 3 man in the Bureau and I was working with him. He was
handling the investigative side and I was handling the public relations side. It was
a tough time.
Rosenfeld:
Did you go to the files on Lee Harvey Oswald as soon as he was
identified?
DeLoach:
Belmont had that done almost immediately. But, I saw the fruits of that
right away. I had to. But I couldn‟t say at that particular time that he was “the
one” until we had further evidence. We knew he was the one, but further
evidence confirmed that fact. Such as the palm print on the waxy paper which
enclosed the rifle was his palm print. Such as fingerprints. It was Oswald, as we
found out later, that had ordered that particular rifle himself. It was his
handwriting. He had used the assumed name of “A. J. Hidell” and there were
many other confirmatory reasons why, or facts, which proved that he was the one
and the only one who had fired that shot.
But we had to be careful as to what we said, you know, until we were sure of our
own facts. Just as we were in the King case.
Rosenfeld:
Were you handling Crime Records when the Warren Commission --
DeLoach:
Beg your pardon?
Rosenfeld:
-- when the Warren Commission Report came out, were you still in Crime
Records? Was that --? Did you have any dealings with the Warren Commission
Report.
DeLoach:
Oh, I was, I was still Assistant Director in the Crime Records Division. I
wasn‟t promoted to the Number 3 man spot until Al Belmont left. That was 1969.
Rosenfeld:
Okay. How did you handle that? Do you recall anything about when the
Warren Commission Report itself came out, there was criticism within a year?
DeLoach:
There was some criticism of the Bureau. But it was mild criticism which
could be handled without any difficulty. The Warren Commission attempting to
establish its own image spread the word far and wide that they had not depended
on the FBI report. They had done all of this strictly on their own. That was
absolutely false. They depended heavily upon the FBI report. They did have --.
Well, let me put it this way. Gerald Ford was a good friend. I used to see him
quite often. That‟s long before he became President. The Congressman from
Louisiana who later died in a plane crash in Alaska –
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Rosenfeld:
Hale Boggs.
DeLoach:
Yeah. He also was a good friend. Ford and Boggs often said they were
giving me all the information that was going on concerning the Warren
Committee activities. I loaned Jerry Ford or gave to him an Agent‟s briefcase to
carry the heavy material back and forth from the Warren Commission meetings to
his office. So we knew what was going on all the time.
Rosenfeld:
Right. He let you know --. They would, he would talk to you about what
was --.
DeLoach:
Yes.
Rosenfeld:
Both of them?
DeLoach:
Right.
Rosenfeld:
Were you able to help them at all with anything or did they just report?
DeLoach:
The Warren Commission?
Rosenfeld:
Right.
DeLoach:
I personally --
Rosenfeld:
Personally with your relationship with Hale Boggs and Gerald Ford.
DeLoach:
They asked me questions from time to time and I‟d tell them the true facts
and they would take it back to the Warren Commission. We weren‟t controlling
the Warren Commission but we were trying to protect our own reputation, in
keeping the true facts in perspective. There were many factions reporting to them
and testifying before them.
I‟ll tell you the greatest misservice or disservice that Hollywood, I think, has done
to the FBI among many others but, or the American public, is the movie JFK.
Oliver Stone. I agree with the General Counsel of the Warren Commission, who
put out the report, in answer to a press statement that the JKF movie can best be
referred to as the codeword “Mold.” He said “M” stands for misstatements of
facts. “O” stands for omissions. “L” stands for lies.” “D” stands for deceit.
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Interview with Former Special Agent
Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach (1942-1970)
on November 13, 2005
By Susan Rosenfeld, Ph.D.,
Consultant for the Oral History Project
Edited for Mr. DeLoach’s corrections by Sandra Robinette on June 12, 2007. Final edit on July 20, 2007.
Susan Rosenfeld/Rosenfeld:
I’m interviewing Cartha D. DeLoach in his home in Hilton Head, South Carolina.
It is November 13, 2005, and we’ve been discussing Oliver Stone’s movie, JFK,
how it’s harmed the knowledge of the Kennedy assassination.
Cartha “Deke” DeLoach/DeLoach:
There were at least forty-seven different variations or distortions. I have in my
library here books called such things as Rush to Judgment made by some chicken
farmer over in Maryland. He may have been an author otherwise, but, anyhow,
that was full of distortions. There was the District Attorney in New Orleans, who
caused a large number of distortions. He had been an FBI Agent for four years.
Rosenfeld:
That was Jim Garrison.
DeLoach:
Garrison, right. And Garrison concocted the scheme that two wealthy
celebrities in New Orleans, one of them in particular had relations with the Mafia,
and had concocted the scheme of assassinating John F. Kennedy because Bobby
Kennedy’s relations with the Mafia in trying to get Fidel Castro assassinated over
in Cuba.
Rosenfeld:
May I interrupt you here? Just again because we have not much time, I
think that that information about Garrison’s investigation is pretty well known.
DeLoach:
Okay.
Rosenfeld:
So unless you have an observation that --
DeLoach:
No, no.
Rosenfeld:
I would like to move on.
DeLoach:
No, I just wanted to put the truth to Garrison’s activities. His case was
thrown out of court because of lack of facts.
Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
November 13, 2005
Page 103
Rosenfeld:
Yes. And, the Oliver Stone movie of course had been based on Garrison’s
reports not on -DeLoach:
That’s correct.
Rosenfeld:
-- the Warren Commission.
I’d like to move to another incident that occurred during the Johnson
Administration that we’ve interviewed a number of Agents who were involved in
the actual investigation and the unearthing of Barbara Jane Mackle who was
kidnapped in 1966. And I believe you supervised that case from Headquarters.
And because we’ve got a field perspective on that case, I would like to get your
perspective from Headquarters a little bit on the Mackle case. We’d like to get
yours from Headquarters. And I know you wrote about it a little bit in your book.
DeLoach:
Well, Al Rosen came in to see me one morning. Rosen was the Assistant
Director of the General Criminal Division, Investigative Division. He was an
excellent long time Assistant Director. He reported to me. He said, “Deke, I
think we have something which is quite bizarre here. I don’t know whether the
facts will bear up or not.”
But then he proceeded to tell me about Barbara Jane Mackle having been ill, a
sore throat. Her mother came up from Florida and took her to a private room in a
motel and attended to her there. But during the early morning hours there was a
knock on the door, and a tall, burly looking man there and a woman. They
proceeded to tell Mrs. Mackle that Barbara Jane Mackle’s boyfriend had been
injured in an accident. They wanted to take her with them right away.
But then they overcame Mrs. Mackle and tied her up with cord from the drapes in
the motel room, laid her across the bed and put plastic tape across her mouth.
They took Barbara Jane Mackle out in her nightgown, and proceeded to tell her
don’t worry and so on and so on.
They took her off in the woods where they already had a large, wooden coffin.
The coffin was to be buried three feet in the ground. It wasn’t buried yet. And
they had an air pump which was to last for seventy-eight hours. And she --. They
told her that don’t worry, that the pump would provide air. They gave her an
apple and one or two other things to eat. They made her lie down in that coffin,
then they buried her alive three feet underground.
Rosenfeld:
Can I, can I jump to how you, what you did in Headquarters dealing with
the case? Because the facts of the case are very well known.
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DeLoach:
Rosen eventually told me all this as a result of teletypes and telephone
calls from the Atlanta Office. I immediately reported the facts to Tolson and
Hoover. We immediately began an investigation just to determine if all these
facts were correct or not.
It also turned out that Mr. Mackle at times had provided Mr. Hoover hotel
quarters down in Miami, where Mr. Hoover spent his vacation. They were fairly
good friends. That caused immediate additional pressure that he put on that
specific case.
But I have to tell you this if I transgress just a second or two. Rosen was a top
flight Assistant Director. He was one of the best and had been for a long time.
We had an excellent relationship. We were close friends. When a tough case like
this came along, he would bring it to my office and I’m just the type of guy that
wants to jump in and handle it pretty much on a personal basis. Supervise it. I’ve
never wanted to shy away from things like that.
So Rosen and I would work cases of this nature and we worked many very
closely, but it was being directed from my office. I spent the first night in my
office on a sofa because the phone was ringing all night long from Atlanta and
from Agents. Rosen would be calling down the hall from his office or would
come up to see me. Rosen was at my side all the time. I can go into the details of
the case if you wish, but -Rosenfeld:
Just like the kind of thing you were describing right now is what we’re
interested in. As I say, we’ve got interviews with people who actually
participated in the investigation of the case. We have oral histories from them.
So I wanted to get your perspective and you’re doing just fine on what you did in
Headquarters.
DeLoach:
The second day I thought the case would reach such ramifications that I
sent one of the Inspectors from FBI Headquarters down to Miami to handle the
case. To supervise it on the ground there. And he was to report back to me every
fact that came up. So I’m sure that the world knows and it’s in my book to a great
extent the fact that when the first call came in it was taken by either Mr. Mackle
or Billy Vessels who was an All-American halfback from Oklahoma who worked
for Mr. Mackle. The kidnapper told the representative of the family how much
money, half a million, and where to take it. But unfortunately when they took the
money out there and dropped it, Mr. Mackle did the first trip, the police who were
patrolling in the area came across suspicious looking circumstances and they
completely disrupted the case. The Miami Police Department.
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DeLoach:
The second call came in from a priest, and the priest later referred it to the
Mackle family concerning the ransom and, of course, the ransom was repeated in
a place. This time the kidnapper, who had been a student at the University of
Miami School of Marine Biology, and his assistant, who was a native of, I
believe, Venezuela, Venezuela or Honduras.
Rosenfeld:
How, how, when, when the negotiations with the kidnappers were going
on, were you aware of what was happening and were you keeping the press at
bay?
DeLoach:
Oh, I kept a direct line open for hours between FBI Headquarters and the
Miami Office, giving me a blow-by-blow as to both the first attempt to give the
kidnapper the money and especially the second attempt. In fact I got so provoked
with the SAC at the time that I told him to get off the phone and put an Agent by
the name of Vincent Stacey on the phone. I played football with Stacey in college
and I knew he was a real steady, excellent Agent. I got him to give me a blow-byblow of the progress of the Mackle car towards the second placement of the
ransom.
The kidnapper in the first instance had tried to get the money and get away from
the Miami Police, jumped a barbed wire fence, and I don’t mean to be crude but
the barbed wire, sharp barbed wire, not only tore his pants but tore a hole in his
scrotum. And it was very painful but he managed to get away.
Second attempt, he got the ransom and we began the long trail to find him in the
Florida swamps. But he took the ransom, went to a boat place and bought a small
boat, motor, and put the ransom bag in it and eventually was caught in the
swamps by the Agents and by a deputy who was one of the law, local law
enforcement people assisting the FBI.
The Agents placed the Subject in an FBI car. Driving him back to a local office, I
was put through to one of the Agents in the car. And I asked him, “How do you
know this is your man?” He said, “Deke, I don’t have any fingerprint equipment.
I can’t know until I get him to the office.” He said, “Wait a minute. No.” He
said, “There’s one thing I can tell you that would be a positive identification.”
And I said, “What’s that?” So he took the man’s pants down. He looked at his
scrotum and he said, “Yeah, this is the guy. He’s got a tear in it all right.”
(chuckle)
I had numerous calls from Tolson and Mr. Hoover throughout every day of this
investigation and it went on for three or four days, but there are several things that
stand out in my mind. Number one, Tolson calling me and saying, “You’re never
going to get that girl. She’s already dead.” Or Mr. Hoover calling me and saying,
“Why is it taking so long? Why haven’t you found her yet?”
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DeLoach:
Well, to the Agents’ credit, when the kidnapper called the receptionist in
the Atlanta Office on the telephone and said, “You’ll find her so and so many
miles on such and such road.” Completely irregular conversation and, you know,
completely crazy.
But the Agents descended en masse upon the big vast area. They fanned out. To
their credit and God knows they deserve it, they just started looking everywhere.
They’d take sticks and they’d throw over leaves and branches and piles of trash.
Everywhere. And finally one came back to a place that he’d already looked at but
he wanted to check it one more time. And the heard the thumping of a small
motor. And the Agents with their bare, bare fingernails and fingers started
digging. They dug through three feet of dirt. They didn’t have any shovels or
anything else. They just did it with branches and fingernails. Their own bare
hands. And they reached down and found the coffin and Miss Mackle.
When they pulled open the coffin, she was very disheveled. She’d been in there -. That pump, I think, had only about another thirty minutes or hour to run or she
would have suffocated. She looked up at them and she said, “I knew the FBI
would find me.” (chuckle)
They took her to a nearby Agent’s home. They called her mother. They called
me first. I called Mr. Hoover. He called Mr. Mackle. Her mother was already in
Atlanta. She went to the home and the girl was placed in bed. And she was a
beautiful girl. She was deeply religious. She’s a mother of three children today
and she is perfectly normal. Everything’s fine.
Rosenfeld:
Okay. Thank you. I’m just going to change this disk and then I’ve got
some more questions.
DeLoach:
Sure. That was a bizarre case. Do you know that the man who
perpetrated that case?
Rosenfeld:
The Mackle case?
DeLoach:
Served only, I believe, eight years. Seven and a half or eight years. And
he went back to his native Canada, came back to the United States, went to
medical school and now he’s a doctor in the United States.
Rosenfeld:
I did not know that.
This is Susan Rosenfeld and I’m interviewing Cartha “Deke” DeLoach in
his home in Hilton Head, South Carolina. And what I’d like to do now is to move
onto some other areas. One of them involved the “black bag” jobs. Planting bugs
in, in homes and offices. “Black bag” jobs.
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DeLoach:
What about them?
Rosenfeld:
Okay. I should let you know that after the Black case in 1966, Mr.
Tolson, Mr. Hoover asked William Sullivan to write some extensive memos about
wiretaps, electronic surveillance and “black bag” jobs. And those memos are all
public. They’ve been released completely to the public. So just to let you know
that you can speak pretty freely about them.
Now you had said that when you were talking about bugging members of the
Communist Party back in the, I guess it would have been the 1940s, that you did
have Attorney General or Department of Justice or maybe judicial authority for
them. Can you, can you go into --? And, William Sullivan in this memo makes
the statement that this is clearly illegal.
Could you explain about the authority that the FBI was using to conduct these
surveillances? And also if you’re aware of the different ways that they didn’t
necessarily have to break into a place to conduct them. There were other ways of
getting access to a place if they wanted to plant a bug.
DeLoach:
That may have happened. I don’t recall any specific incidents where they
went into a place without having the authority of the Department of Justice. But it
may have happened. To obtain records. But, in the first place no field office
could conduct a “black bag” job without the authority of the Bureau. And those
were extremely rare throughout my entire career. Extremely rare.
Rosenfeld:
Okay.
DeLoach:
And he had, he put that always in writing. He approved or disapproved
but had it in writing. And it was my belief he always sent a memorandum himself
over to the Attorney General to get the authority for the “black bag” job.
Mark Felt and Edward Miller were executives of the Bureau. After I left, they
were tried in Federal Court and convicted because of the illegality of “black bag”
jobs. It was stated then that they did not have the authority of the Department of
Justice. I don’t know because I’d already left the Bureau at the time and
shouldn’t even be commenting on such subjects, but they did have the authority
for the placement of microphones under Department of Justice policy as laid
down by Herbert Brownell and William P. Rogers. So there was no illegality as
far as microphone usage is concerned. And microphone usage of course usually
determines going into a place without authority.
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DeLoach:
I can recall specific “black bag” jobs of Communist Party headquarters in
both Cleveland and, also one other place. But I don’t recall any “black bag” jobs
over and above that, even though some may have crossed my desk. I do know
that in some instances “black bag” jobs were made on embassies or consuls of
nations who were enemies of the United States, or suspected to be enemies, or
those embassies were being used strictly as espionage and propaganda posts for
those countries. But that’s been years ago and I don’t recall any specifics.
Rosenfeld:
You mentioned testimony before the Church Committee and I believe you
may have also testified before the Pike Committee in the late 1970s. Did they ask
you anything like that? Do you recall?
DeLoach:
Not to my knowledge. They were --. I felt that they would ask things like
that and I would have answered had they asked, but they were mainly interested
in the Dr. Martin Luther King assassination and how the programs on the part of
the FBI were used to discredit Dr. King. Mostly by W.C. Sullivan. They
questioned me concerning the Atlantic City Convention and various other matters
but I don’t think they got into the “black bag” jobs.
Rosenfeld:
Yeah. Just an aside on the Atlantic City, the 1964 Democratic
Convention. The informant that you mentioned was XXXXXXXX and that was
very public and you do have it in your book -DeLoach:
Yes. Yes, he was a good man.
Rosenfeld:
Yes. I guess at the time that that came out which was in the late ’70s and
it was quite public knowledge.
We have about fifteen more minutes. And I’m going to ask you about some
people and -DeLoach:
Sure.
Rosenfeld:
-- relationships and then leave about five minutes. I do want to ask you
about the J. Edgar Hoover Foundation that some of you worked. The first person
I want to ask you about you’ve mentioned a number of times and sadly he passed
away before we were able to interview him. But he was a pretty important person
in the Bureau. And that’s John Mohr.
DeLoach:
Yes.
Rosenfeld:
And I’d like you to tell us a little bit about him.
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DeLoach:
John Mohr was a very handsome man. He had a tough personality. But
he was a very capable administrator. He had a lovely wife and two children. He
came up the hard way. He was Tolson’s assistant for many years. Eventually he
was moved over and in charge of the Administrative Division. Nicholas P.
Callahan was his Number 1 man or Inspector.
Later on Mohr was made Assistant to the Director and Don Parsons, who was
Assistant Director in charge of the Laboratory Division, was made Assistant to
the Director at the same time. Parsons was made Number 3 man and Mohr was
made Number 4 man. Mohr was demanding. He was tough. He was very tough
in disciplinary matters probably because of the fact he expected, that Tolson
expected, and the Director, expected him to be tough in those matters.
I was under Mohr’s office at one time as Assistant Director in charge of the Crime
Records Division. When he would go on vacation or leave town or take vacation
days or was ill, I would take over his office as Assistant to the Director or
Number 4 man and read all the mail from the Identification Division, Training
and Inspection Division, Crime Records Division, and Laboratory.
He was difficult to get along with at times because of his abrasive personality, but
he always demanded perfection from those who worked under him or with him.
He was absolutely loyal to Mr. Hoover and to Clyde Tolson. He later on loved to
go out on two-and three-hour lunches with Nick Callahan and have a few martinis
and Tolson would get very irritated and call me and said, “Do you know where
they are?” And I said, “No, sir,” for my stock answer. He said, “Well, I’m going
to fire both of them.” He never did. (chuckle)
But Mohr had cronies. He had friends. He got into a little difficulty at the very
last because of buying electronic equipment from a friend whom he also played
poker with, and had social events at this fellow’s cabin in the mountains. But
basically he was a good administrator. A tough administrator. And had a good
head on his shoulders.
I liked him. I had numerous arguments with him. After I was promoted over him
as the Number 3 man, and he probably didn’t like it, and I can understand that,
but we got along very well. I think frankly that he was a good administrator and a
good FBI executive.
Rosenfeld:
And actually I’m going to ask you a different question.
DeLoach:
Sure.
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Rosenfeld:
You said, both President Johnson and eventually President Nixon, both
considered you as a potential FBI Director. And in your book you say you did
have some ideas had you gone that route. What changes you might have made.
Can you tell us in about five minutes how you might have run the Bureau?
DeLoach:
I would let more “open air” into the Bureau. Mr. Hoover used our own
personnel for the purpose of teaching Agents at the Academy to a large extent.
Things that were written that the Agents would read and sent out to the field. I
am reminded of the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin. I wrote a memorandum once
and asking that we have a pro and con section, and that an outside authority each
time report one phase of the subject and an Agent or Bureau official would report
on the other side concerning law enforcement. He said, “No, we have our own
experts.”
He operated strictly. As I’ve said earlier he was quite old fashioned. He had a
strong sense of discipline and authority and that was what was badly needed at the
time. But I would have strongly encouraged the usage of outside individuals both
as instructors, lecturers, coming into examine our facilities every once in a while
to tell us what we needed. Let me give you an example, and I’m sorry to take up
so much time.
Rosenfeld:
No, no, please.
DeLoach:
But when I was still in the Crime Records Division, Inspector Jerry Daunt
came in to see me one day and he was in charge of computerization of payroll and
other administrative matters handled electronically. He was under my Division
with the exception that the Administrative Division really furnished all the facts
and he would computerize them and get them ready and send out the checks and
so on. He was an idea man and he was a good man. A good Agent. He came to
me one day and said, “I have an idea, I’ve got an idea how we can assist the
police to a much greater extent.” And I said, “What is it?” So he in a short brief
time, he said, “We will establish a bank here at FBI Headquarters, of computer
outlets here at FBI Headquarters. Computerization. Each police department
would have a computer set up. When they had a stolen car they would put it on
the computer to our computer and we would immediately report results back to
them. I’d set it up to the perimeter file. Jewelry, shotguns, fugitives, many things
like that. He said it would be a godsend to the police rather than our telephoning
out there and telling the SAC to get in touch with them or what have you.
“Well,” I said, “it sounds good to me if it will work.” And he said, “Well, I’ll
prove it to you.” So he set up a computer in my office and had one in New York,
and it worked back and forth.
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DeLoach:
And so I went in and told Tolson about it. Also John Mohr. I think he
was Tolson’s assistant at the time. Mohr didn’t agree with me. Mohr said, “Well,
I’ll tell Tolson and he’ll send it on to Mr. Hoover.” Mr. Hoover wrote on the
bottom of the memorandum, “No, I don’t want anything to do with it.” Didn’t
like it. Didn’t think it was a good idea.
But I kept after him. I thought it was a good idea and I didn’t want to disappoint
Daunt who had really worked on it. Several days later, Mr. Hoover gave in and
said, “Okay. DeLoach should appear before a committee of Mohr, Clegg, and
Harbo. Harbo was the Assistant Director in charge of the Laboratory at the time.
One hundred percent slavish in support of Mr. Hoover. Anything he wanted,
Harbo wanted. Well, Clegg was the same way and Mohr was the same way of
course.
So I appeared before them and had Daunt with me. Afterwards they wrote a
memorandum to Tolson and Hoover saying, “Let’s give it a trial.” And that was
arranged. But Hoover wrote on the memorandum that they had sent in, “Okay,
give it a trial but if it fails, the expenses involved should be taken out of
DeLoach’s salary.” “Well,” I said, “I’ll risk that.” And did. That was the
beginning of the NCIC. It wasn’t my idea. It was Jerry Daunt’s idea.
But it’s an example how Mr. Hoover had so much faith in his own people that he
had trained, had known over the years. But, he was afraid to let people come into
the Bureau. He was apprehensive of raiders. I would have tried my best to get
new ideas in order to keep pace with society. I thought we had to do that.
So the answer to your question, there would be many ways in which I would have
encouraged usage of outside sources to better our own situation in many quarters.
Rosenfeld:
And today that’s done. For example, I lecture at the FBI Academy.
DeLoach:
Yes.
Rosenfeld:
The present historian does.
Before I get to that last question, to clear up some things, you had mentioned
several times a former judge who was in Congress who was the head of one of the
Congressional committees you dealt with. Would that have been Howard Smith?
DeLoach:
Yes, Judge Howard Smith, of Virginia.
Rosenfeld:
Okay.
DeLoach:
Yes, he was adamant about trying to find out about King.
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Rosenfeld:
And a rather powerful person as I recall, Howard Smith was. You also
cannot recall the name of the third Johnson aide during the Democratic
Convention in 1964. In your book you mention Cliff Carter.
DeLoach:
Cliff Carter.
Rosenfeld:
Right. Just wanted to get that on the record. And we have about four
more minutes. I promised your wife we would finish at a quarter to one --.
DeLoach:
You go right ahead.
Rosenfeld:
You certainly have managed to have rather a significant career after you
left the Bureau. And I did want to get something about your work with the J.
Edgar Hoover Foundation. In 1971 you resigned?
D:
1970.
R:
’70.
D:
I had a two hour and forty-seven minute meeting with Mr. Hoover. He didn’t
want me to go and after I requested retirement, for ten days he wouldn’t send mail
to my office. But later on he showered me with gifts. We remained friends, and
we had lunch at the Waldorf one week before he died.
R:
Can you very briefly tell me about the work of the J. Edgar Hoover Foundation.
You’ve just started a new phase with that. The Law Enforcement --. Is it
Education Group?
D:
Law Enforcement Center?
R:
Right. Just in about two minutes.
D:
The Foundation was started earlier in the late 1950s when Lou Nichols brought
Lewis Rosensteil over to the Bureau. Rosensteil offered to give $850,000 in
Schenley Debentures to a Foundation named in Mr. Hoover’s honor. And we also
had donations from many other organizations.
And so the Foundation was started. Mr. Hoover would have nothing to do with it,
but yet he wanted to rule it, say who could be on the board and so on, but he
would not attend meetings. But it started off very small because Nichols was
very, very conservative in his principles. He wanted to give scholarships only to
Southeastern Accounting School there in Washington where a number of Agents
had graduated from and became Agents. He had his own lawyer serve as a lawyer
of the Foundation.
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D:
Nichols who was a good public relations expert. but I don’t think his handling of
the Foundation was too brilliant. When he died we had John Bugas, who was
Vice President of the Ford Motor Company, Harvey Foster who was Vice
President of American Airlines, Bill Simon who was an attorney in Los Angeles
and former SAC in LA, and myself as members of the board. We met. They
elected me chairman and we went from there.
But then we started broadening out. We started a scholarship program where each
Director would give five or six scholarships each year to worthy, what we
considered worthy students. Now over the years the scholarship program has
grown where we’ve given almost four million dollars. Three million nine
hundred thousand dollars on scholarships. Fifty-two percent of those have been
given to minorities. Been carefully selected. And we have thousands of letters to
show the receipt of those.
It’s a 501(c)(3) organization. We’ve given money to the Boy Scouts. We’ve
given money to various universities. Mostly to Notre Dame in view of Harvey
Foster being the captain of the football team at Notre Dame and president of the
alumni society.
It’s been a good foundation. Three years ago we started the --. Well, let me back
up just a little bit. We were given all the memorabilia left by Mr. Hoover.
R:
Yes. I’m afraid that we’re running out of time.
D:
Okay. Do you have any other questions?
R:
I just wanted to know about the latest endeavor. But perhaps we’ll save that for
another time.
D:
Okay. And if you have any questions after you listen to all of this, let me know
and I’ll write a report and send it to you.
R:
Okay. Well, I appreciate it very much. Thank you.
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