Of G-Men and Eggheads: The FBI and the New York Intellectuals

149 Pages·2017·9.429 MB·English

by  John Rodden

Of G-Men
and Eggheads
The FBI and the
New York
Intellectuals
John Rodden
Of G-Men
and Eggheads

published with aid of grant
Figure Foundation
reading the meaning of reader

Of G-Men
and Eggheads
The FBI and the
New York
Intellectuals
John Rodden
© 2017 by the Board of Trustees
of the University of Illinois
All rights reserved
1 2 3 4 5 c p 5 4 3 2 1
∞ This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Cataloging data available from the Library of Congress
isbn 978-0-252-04047-4 (hardcover)
isbn 978-0-252-08194-1 (paperback)
isbn 978-0-252-09890-1 (e-book)
Contents
Preface ix
Prologue: The Tradition of the New 1
Chapter One
Intellectuals and Intelligence Services:
The Partisan Review Writers under the
Watchful Eye of the FBI 5
Chapter Two
An Unlikely Suspect: Lionel Trilling,
Stalinist Fellow Traveler? 19
Chapter Three
From FBI Nose-Tweaker to CIA “Stooge”
to LBJ’s Nemesis: Dwight Macdonald,
a “Critical (Un?)American” 37
Chapter Four
Wanted by the FBI? Irving Horenstein, #7384A
aka “Revolutionary Conspirator” Irving Howe 71
Epilogue: The Orwellian Future? 87
Acknowledgments 93
Notes 97
Index 129

Preface
When I first broached the topic of this book to a friend years ago, a
onetime Partisan Review editor who knew the subjects of this book person-
ally, he registered surprise that the FBI had kept such distinguished critics
under surveillance for quite some length of time. He had doubted the pos-
sibility, he said, for two reasons: first, because their influence was limited to
a small circle of other intellectuals; second, and more important, because
after their early, sometimes brief involvements with the Left, each figure
spotlighted in my triptych—Lionel Trilling, Dwight Macdonald, and Irving
Howe—became a fierce anti-Stalinist and anti-communist. (So too did Alfred
Kazin, the fourth Partisan Review subject discussed in passing here.)
These circumstances turn the G-men’s doggedly insistent if sporadic pur-
suit of this intellectual quartet into a bizarre, risible paradox and point to the
twin themes of this book. First, the Bureau had a huge blind spot in deal-
ing with the American Left and had trouble making even obvious distinc-
tions. Second, FBI agents had an equally large mental block in dealing with
that strange species, the intellectual.1 Oddly, although agents occasionally
conducted interviews, did physical surveillance, and clipped journalistic
pieces about a suspect—sometimes assiduously combing press reports for
tidbits about which political meetings he attended or which protest letters she
signed—rarely did they do the obvious, which was to read what these writ-
ers actually wrote. That “oversight” accounts partly for a comic aspect to the
pattern of amusing mix-ups and ludicrous misunderstandings that recur in
the FBI files. More significantly, some real issues also emerge about domestic
espionage during peacetime, especially concerning Americans whose main
activity is the free expression of opinion rather than the seditious organiza-
tion of revolution.