M. WESLEY SWEARINGE 6

INTERVIEW WITH M. WESLEY SWEARINGE

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INT: Now we talked about him creating, you know, informing the public. There was a... Could... Were the FBI making films during this period and what sort of use were these films being put to?

WS: [laughs] There were films that we saw in training school and when I, you know, at the time, they were exciting, because I hadn't seen these spy movies and I thought, well, this is great. But, you know, after forty years, I see some of these things and I just laugh at them and I saw a programme just this last week on the FBI, it was titled 'FBI dash Smear' and they had... Walter Kronkite was narrating it and Hoover was giving these speeches, you know, Communism isn't nice and I'm sitting there thinking, boy was I stupid, you know. [laughs] In my late sixties now, I can laugh at it, but back then I thought Hoover knew what he was talking about and it... when I see what they were playing, what Hoover was passing out in the forties and fifties, I just laugh at it now, because he was a one-man campaign and a lot of agents in Chicago, even on the 'black bag job' squad thought it was nonsense.

INT: It became a sort of cult during this period, didn't it, sort of a cult of a, the informer was a hero, you know, the spy, you know the man who caught spies was, became a hero in sort of popular culture in America, don't you think so?

WS: Yeah, there werea a couple of movies made on spies and they were strictly Hollywood production. Some of the statistics they used, the FBI said, well this is what happened, but a lot of it was phoney material and just right out of Hollywood with Hoover's approval. And of course, the people in Hollywood wanted to make Hoover happy, so they would do whatever he wanted in a movie, just like Don Whitehead used to write books on the FBI and I remember one comment that Don Whitehead made about Hoover, said he was just under six feet. Well, he was a lot under six feet. I mean, he was about five eight in elevated shoes. But, you know, most people reading a book by Don Whitehead, just under six feet, that means he's five eleven and a half. Well, Hoover came up to about here, when I saw him, when he wasn't standing on a platform. But when we went through training school, he was on an elevated platform that was oh probably six to eight inches high. That was because he wanted to be able to look into the eyes of someone who was my height, which is six one, barefoot. So that when we shook hands, I had the impression that he was six one. I didn't know that he was standing on a box!

INT: The Hoover cult. Now it seems that there might be a... I think there's probably a certain sense in which what you could be in America was narrowed down at this time, you could only be a certain type of America. Do you think there was any truth in that at all?

WS: Oh definitely. About the only thing you could be was a flag-waving American, who pledged allegiance to the flag and Hoover back in those days.

INT: OK.

(Interruption)

INT: So what sort of American could you be during this period? How was that reflected in the films and useful to the Cold War?

WS: Well,, the idea I got in the films that Hoover had us see in training school, the idea was that to be a good loyal citizen, you're supposed to inform on anybody who's doing something a little differently than maybe what Hoover believed in. You know, if someone gave a political speech and he wasn't right down the far right narrow path, you know, maybe if he gave a speech that was a little liberal, has nothing to do with subversion or anything else, just open to new ideas and that's what I consider a liberal, someone who can accept something new, Hoover thought that was bad and so he was trying to create an image that everybody has to think the way Hoover does, otherwise you're in trouble, you get on the list, maybe you go to jail or whatever.

INT: What sort of American could you be during this sort of period and how did that help the war effort?

WS: Well, being blindfolded was certainly a help! I don't know whether that's a very good answer, but that's...

INT: No, it just seems useful to use the phrase, you know, you'd got to be a sort of patriotic American and...

WS: Well yeah. Hoover definitely wanted everybody to be patriotic and help what might be the coming war effort, just show good faith by pledging allegiance and believing the way he believed.

INT: Right, great.

(Atmos to cover interview)

INT: Great, thank you very much.

(End of tape)