FBI Secrets: An Agents Expose (ISBN 0896085015)

Swearingen's Choice: The Grey Zone:
After a lifetime of devoted service conducting illegal wiretaps, break-ins and burglaries, known as "black bag jobs" former FBI agent Wesley Swearingen decided to tell all about an FBI that few people really know. To be fair, government employees, no matter what agency employs them, are awash in an ocean of fraud, waste, corruption and general mismanagement perpetuated by their so called "supervisors." These individuals are generally unemployable, mediocre and incompetent. Thank God for government service, the largest, most pernicious public employment and welfare system in existence next to the Pentagon and its arms suppliers, or they'd be on the streets. "FBI Secrets" does more than expose specific secrets documenting COINTELPRo-type programs designed to deny and destroy the rights of American citizens to actively engage in political dissent, it exposes the moral dilemma faced by those who perpetuate them. Admittedly, this agent waited until after retirement to expose what he knows; but he reveals to the reader the torment of an agent who became disillusioned with the agency yet had a career to protect. Swearingen could have simply walked away. it would not have stopped these invasive violations of American's civil liberties but, at least, he would nt have been involved. With hindsight, and through the work of many investigative journalists and authors, information concerning how the FBI violates the civil rights of American citizens is abundantly avaialble. The history of the founding of the FBI, beginning in 1908 with the corrupt Bureau of Investigation, the Palmer raids, orchestrated by Attorney General Mitchell Palmer and executed by an unknown federal bureaucrat named J. Edgar Hoover, stands in stark contrast to the James Stewart inspired cinematic travesty, "The FBI Story." Certainly, the author's slim, yet powerful volume, stands as a beacon of truth next to this cinematic garbargio. The peculiarities of the Director, his life-long homosexual relationship with Clyde Tolson, his liasons with other rich and pwerful gay men, such as Lewis Rosenthiel of Schenley, the red baiting Roy Cohn and New York's Cardinal Spellman made, in large measure, what the Bureau what it is today, the nation's political police.

Caution: This book is bias and one author is a fired professor.:
If you believe everything you read, you should not read this book. Look into the background of Ward Churchill and decide if he is a person who is fair and balanced when it comes to his version of events.

FBI SECRETS:
A person purportedly named C. Cumming gave FBI SECRETS a one star review thirteen years after publication based upon the Forward, which was written by Ward Churchill. Over the objections of the author, South End Press insisted the forward be written by Churchill because South End Press had published some of Churchill's books. The author had suggested the forward be written by noted authors such as William Turner or Curt Gentry, author of Helter Skelter. Ward Churchill had absolutely nothing to do with writing or editing FBI Secrets. South End Press asked Churchill to read the book for his comments. Churchill is not one of the authors as claimed by C. Cumming. This book is a must read for everyone who wants to know what the FBI is capable of doing to their civil rights. The author knows what he is writing about because he lived through most of what is reported.

Credibility is missing...:
Certainly there have been incidents and events in the FBI's history that given the opportunity it would have done things differently and better. However, this does not negate the hundreds of thousands of successful prosecutions of federal cases handled both efficiently and professionally by tens of thousands of current and former FBI agents who have devoted their lives and careers to ensuring that America's citizens are protected and criminals prosecuted. Whether Swearingen's "FBI Secrets" is a valid measure for that review remains to be seen. The real test of credibility about anything Swearingen has to offer the reader must be based on his own words and personal firsthand accounts. What follows is but one example of many where he reduces the nexus of his reliability to a mere two very important paragraphs. If the reader is to accept the premise of just this one event, then all of Swearingen's "FBI Secrets" must stand on its own; otherwise, like a house of cards, or in this instance a stream of fabrications, it all must fall of its own weight. Chapter 12 "Perjury Before Congress," Swearingen relates the 1975 testimony of W. Raymond Wannall, then Assistant Director (A.D.) of the FBI's Intelligence Division before the Church Committee investigating governmental operations regarding intelligence activities. Swearingen is not taken out of context or misquoted because he is clearly accusing Wannall of lying under oath before Congress: "SOON after Raymond Wannall testified before Congress, he traveled to Los Angeles, where he held a BRIEFING for AGENTS in the Security Division of the Los Angeles FBI field office, WHICH I ATTENDED. Wannall EXPLAINED how he and other TOP FBI OFFICIALS had CONSPIRED to ALTER TESTIMONY before the Church Committee." "Mr. Wannall SAID "When it came to (testifying about) black bag jobs, WE SELECTED agents who had NO FIRSTHAND KNOWLEDGE of the ILLEGAL BREAK-INS to conduct a search of the (FBI) files." HE SAID that those agents who had had no experience in bag jobs WOULD NOT KNOW WHERE TO LOOK for information on bag jobs. WANNALL SAID that the only documentation they could find was what existed in the indices for surreptitious entries, WHICH WAS NOT MUCH. WANNALL SAID that no effort was made to interview agents who, based on information in their PERSONEL FILES, might have had any knowledge of bag jobs. WANNALL SAID, "We did a GOOD JOB of CONCEALING THE EXTENT of black bag jobs."" (p. 101; Emphasis Added) It is curious that Swearingen quotes Wannall (even providing parenthetical details) but then goes on to editorialize or paraphrase what he said at this briefing. Why not provide the entire text of the Wannall's speech, or better yet, since Swearingen was nearing the twilight of his career and had already demonstrated his loathing for the FBI in his book, that he wouldn't have secretly recorded such a devastatingly indicting presentation. After all, Swearingen was an FBI agent and allegedly familiar with secret monitoring and the like and certainly could have memorialized this meeting in some more definitive way, or at a minimum, fully quoted Wannall. Swearingen doesn't state how many agents were at this briefing, however, the agent population of the Bureau in 1975 was about 8500 and the Los Angeles Division was then, and remains, one of the FBI's largest field offices. It is reasonable to estimate that the Intelligence Division must have comprised at least a significant percentage of agents assigned to the L.A. office. But for illustration purposes lets put that number on the low side, fifty, or maybe even less, twenty-five agents who attended the briefing by A.D. Wannall along with Swearingen. The reader has to accept, as prima facie evidence, that A.D. Wannall deliberately lied under oath before the Church Committee under penalty of contempt at a minimum and certainly of a potential perjury charge, and then held a briefing of ordinary street agents in Los Angeles to tell them exactly HOW and WHY he lied. This then, if the reader is to accept Swearingen's recitation of the incident, was not a briefing by Wannall at all, but was, in every sense of the word, a confession to a felony. For this to be true, A.D. Wannall must have felt compelled to unload this terrible burden of lying to congress about the suspected illegal deeds of the FBI to a roomful of agents he did not personally know, any one of whom (including Swearingen himself) could have picked up the phone at the end of the briefing and called someone, anyone in the press, or from the Church Committee, and in the parlance of the street "dropped a dime" on the Assistant Director. Certainly there would have been another agent in the room who would not want to hear something so distasteful coming from the mouth of a senior FBI official. Or in the alternate, maybe carry a grudge against Wannall or any senior FBI official and want to even the score a bit. Why would have Wannall felt comfortable enough to confide in a group of agents he did not know, or worse, know whether they would keep his confidence to themselves? Wannall must have been an incredibly stupid, naïve, or trusting individual. But perhaps the agents present would never have spoken about Wannall's confession because they were afraid of the repercussions as Swearingen repeatedly claims for himself. But, J. Edgar was already gone and the Bureau had been changing monthly since his death in 1972. However, since A.D. Wannall's career, pension and retirement were in jeopardy, along with a potential indictment, staggering and ruinous legal fees, and quite possibly a prison sentence, confessing would have been a major leap of faith for the Assistant Director. No, Wannall was no fool, but we have only Swearingen to contest that at this point. Because, he tells the reader, he was there at the time and heard the confession himself. Swearingen tells us that Wannall's confession contained the details needed to have him charged with obstruction of justice, and with the witnesses in the room at the time, certainly all of whom if called upon to testify under oath, would have told the truth about hearing that Wannall had not only lied to the Church Committee but how he had pulled it off. Wannall, according to Swearingen's account, even implicated other "top FBI officials" in the same breath, creating the groundwork for a conspiracy and telling those present why the committee was looking in the wrong place. Unwittingly, Wannall, if he said these things, was broadening the potential witness list against himself or making the agents present at the briefing potential defendants' after-the-fact for remaining silent, or at a minimum, subject to an internal FBI disciplinary investigation. Swearingen reports this exceedingly significant and specific event as if it actually happened; but the reader has only his word that it even occurred. If Swearingen were able to produce the tiniest thread of corroboration it could add even an ounce of credibility to this tale. Further, there are no footnotes (other than Swearingen's own editorial comments), no proper sourcing of any factual claims or even a bibliography with which any intelligent reader could further test Swearingen's factual accuracy on other claims made in the book. This becomes then no more than a first-person running narrative, a diary of hatred and fabrication where everyone connected with the FBI is a complete fool or incompetent; it suggests only of retribution for a less than illustrious career. Swearingen's hatred for the FBI is obvious from cover to cover, for example: When only in the Bureau a matter of weeks he states, "But no matter how ridiculous New Agents class seemed, I could not bring myself to get up and leave." (p. 9) "In just a few short months of being in the FBI I had observed a dark side of cheating and bigotry that made me uncomfortable. Still, I did not want to quit a well-paying job that commanded worldwide respect. " (p.17) "This and other intimidation tactics of Hoover's FBI, such as the weight requirement, were pushing me more and more toward leaving the FBI." (p.48) (After resigning from the FBI and being reinstated) "I thought of resigning again but decided to stay because I could not afford to be bouncing around from one job to another. My employment résumé would look terrible." (p.51) "I was afraid to say or do what Turner had the guts to do. I wanted job security. I was ashamed of what I had become." (p.55) "After witnessing twenty years of FBI wrongdoing, I had accepted it as a means to survive in the Bureau." (p.1) And, there are many more examples. This event allegedly took place in 1975, "FBI Secrets" came out in 1995. The reader must then also believe that in those intervening twenty years (or even up to now, 2008, thirty-three years later) that Swearingen couldn't convince just one of those in attendance at A.D. Wannall's confession to step forward and offer even a hint of corroboration. Swearingen though, has been consistent in his lack of timely reporting of significant events (see Swearingen's 2008 book, To Kill a President; Finally---An Ex-FBI Agent Rips aside the Veil of Secrecy that Killed JFK, at amazon.com), written over four decades after the fact. The reader need only apply a modicum of judgment and a very simple test to decide whether Swearingen's reporting is plausible at all. Where is the logic? Where is there a gram of common sense in Swearingen's claim to such a fanciful event as A.D. Wannall making these dreadfully self-incriminating statements to a roomful of agents? There isn't any. It makes no sense because it never happened and Swearingen cannot prove otherwise, and the reader need not be compelled to accept only his word for it. A briefing by Wannall may have indeed occurred, but devoid of Swearingen's fanciful rhetoric and concocted dialogue. If just this one instance of a specific event cannot be proven in any manner, then the entire book and its author lack credibility. If the reader is inclined to accept this seminal event as factual, then so be it; everyone is entitled to their own opinion. If not, then nothing Swearingen offers can be taken at face value and "FBI Secrets" collapses under the weight of the author's fabrications.

As the worm turns:
I am sure some of the stories told by this author are true. However, his "path to redemption" seems just a bit far fetched. If he could lie with a very straight face to the FBI to save his pension, who is to say, that he is now telling the "truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" now that book royalties are involved. His flip flopping loyalties continue to amaze me, and that does not even get to the strange logic he employs to reach each shifting conclusion.