FRIENDS OF THE BUREAU: PERSONAL CORRESPONDENCE AND THE CULTIVATION OF JOURNALIST-ADJUNCTS BYJ.

EDGAR HOOVER'S FBI

By Matthew Cecil
Beginning in the mid-1930s and continuing throughout his tenure, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover used staff-written letters to convert his fame and his bureau's authority into a powerful public relations tool. Journalists like The American Magazine's Courtney Ryley Cooper, Fulton Oursler of Reader's Digest, and Jack Carley of the Memphis Commercial Appeal came to believe that they were close confldantes of the iconic FBI director. The relationships built and maintained through personal correspondence provided the FBI with a community of journalist-adjuncts, friends of the bureau who stood ready to promote and defend the FBI in their publications.

The January 1955 edition of The American Magazine included a series of letters to the editor commenting on an October 1954 article, "The Communists Are after Our Minds." One of those letters caught the eye of an FBI public relations official, Milton A. Jones, in Washington. "Thank God that a man like J. Edgar Hoover is the head of the FBI," John P. Foster of Topeka, Kansas, wrote. "He is our greatest bulwark against the insidious Communist menace that is casting a shadow over this great land of ours."' Ever watchful for published opinions about the FBI, Jones highlighted Foster's comments in a memorandum to Assistant Director Louis B. Nichols, head of the FBI's Crime Records Division and the Bureau's top public relations official. "It is believed that Foster's letter is the only one which would merit a letter from the Director thanking him for commendatory remarks," Jones wrote. "We have no address for Fosterthe current Topeka, Kansas, directory reflects no listing of his namehowever it is believed that an address could be obtained through Sumner Blossom, editor of American Magazine."^ Blossom was a friend of the FBI, included on the bureau's "Special Correspondents" list. In addition. Blossom was described in bureau documents as a "close personal friend" of Hoover. Nichols contacted the
Matthew Cecil is an associate professor in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at South Dakota State University. J&MC Quarterly Vol. 88, No. 2
Summer 2011 267-284 2011 AEJMC
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editor, addressed in FBI correspondence as "Bios," and requested Foster's mailing address. Blossom replied: Now and then in the Letters column, when we want to make a specific point in connection with a published article which no one of our correspondents has made as directly or pointedly as we like, I drag out old "John P." and let him say his say. So I guess you will have to tell Edgar that I am "John P." or at least that the sentiments which "John P." expressed are mine.' Nichols enjoyed Blossom's misrepresentation, replying over Hoover's signature that he could fully appreciate the excellence of the letter from the "old master." Blossom could be comfortable knowing, the letter said, "there will be no investigation of John P. Foster."" The sources of Hoover's power to build and maintain advantageous relationships with journalists like Blossom can be traced to the director's iconic cultural status and the popular appeal of FBI crime stories. Beginning in the mid-1930s and continuing throughout his decades-long tenure as director. Hoover converted his fame and authority into a powerful public relations tool by creating the illusion of personal relationships with individual reporters and editors, members of Congress, local officials, and others. These relationships were built and maintained through the mountains of personalized letters that poured forth from Hoover's staff, bearing the director's signature with the actual author identified by his initials on the original, filed copy. Beginning in the 1930s, the FBI developed a sophisticated public relations office, the Crime Records Division, leveraging access to its indemand crime stories to create close relationships with dozens of reporters, broadcasters, and editors. Crime Records included a five-agent Correspondence Unit.^ A review of more than 300 FBI files on journalists and their publications shows that Hoover's letter-writers churned out thousands of friendly, personal letters signed by the director. Journalists' files, obtained using the Freedom of Information Act, typically include dozens or, in some cases, hundreds of personal letters signed by Hoover. In his memoirs, disgruntled former-Assistant Director William C. Sullivan derisively labeled the FBI as the "greatest letter writing bureau in the history of the United States": "Letters went by the thousands to the Jay cees, the newspaper editors, the movers and shakers so carefully cultivated as FBI contacts by our agents in the field."^ Hoover's correspondents were carefully selected from people who initiated contact with the FBI, held influential positions, and were considered "friendly." Correspondents were typically placed on one or more mailing lists, including a Special Correspondents list that included seventy-five newsmen in 1954, a Special Service Contacts list that included journalists willing to surreptitiously gather information for the Bureau, and a SAC [Special Agent in Charge] Contact list of prominent individuals, including journalists, with whom the SACs in offices around the country were to maintain frequent contact.^ In addition, the FBI maintained lists of
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critical journalists and those thought to have subversive connections in their pasts.* In most cases. Hoover met with his correspondents only a handful of times in person, if at all, with each meeting typically lasting less than one-half hour. Yet his correspondents, particularly those in the media who were favored with FBI "interesting case" tiles and personal attention from other bureau officials, came to believe they were very much a part of Hoover's inner circle. And, in exchange for Hoover's interest in them, his pen pals rendered a service to the FBI, publishing laudatory articles, providing access to information, and staging a spirited defense against bureau critics when asked.' For the purposes of this study, public relations is defined as pubPublic lic communication seeking to build and maintain communities of meaning, essentially shared understandings of an organization, situation or Relations: policy, among groups of strategically important individuals. These rela- Definition tionships are presumed to contain the potential for action on behalf of and History the communicator by the public. Voters may vote. Supporters may come to an organization's defense in a crisis. Common understandings create an atmosphere more conducive to change that is in the organization's interest.'" In a 1947 essay, public relations pioneer Edward Bernays described this two-way communication process between an organization and its strategic publics as the "engirieering of consent."" According to scholar Ewen, Bernays' innovation, in addition to coining the term "public relations counsel," was to recognize the power of messages based on insight into the understandings and beliefs of the audience members.'^ Bernays' 1923 book. Crystallizing Public Opinion, set out the parameters of public relations practice in substantial detail for any organization that wished to change public opinion by creating messages based on an understanding of its publics: "How does the public relations counsel approach any particular problem? First he must analyze his client's problem and his client's objective. Then he must analyze the public he is trying to reach How will his client's case strike the public mind?"" Recent scholarship provides a construct for understanding the historical development of public relations and for placing Hoover's use of correspondence as a public relations tactic into that timeline. Lamme and Russell reviewed existing scholarship in public relations history and offered a framework that categorizes pioneers of the practice based on the "scale at which tactics were employed."'" Furthermore, the authors identified rules of engagement that developed over the course of public relations history, including the application of research and employment of feedback mechanisms to enhance the persuasiveness of public relations messages." They found that research or insight into the audience's motivations, defined loosely as any effort to seek out feedback, was first practiced by a handful of nineteenth-century politicians and businesses.'^
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Russell and Lamme's framework emphasizing the deployment of a variety of public relations tactics as a useful indicator of strategic intent (and, thus, modern-style public relations) helps in placing pioneers of the practice in context. To understand the impact of those public relations efforts on society at large, though, it is important also to understand the development of the organization being studied.

History

Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte created a Bureau of investigation within the Justice Department in 1908. In creating the FBI's precursor agency, Bonaparte was acting against the wishes of Congress, which had rejected an earlier effort to create an investigative agency in the Justice Department, citing fears of federalized police power."" Controversy over the potential for what opponents labeled an American secret police or Gestapo dogged the FBI throughout the Hoover era. Overcoming opposition to the legitimacy of a federal police force was a key motivator for FBI public communication efforts."* Hoover became director of the Bureau of Investigation in 1924, one year after Bernays published his guide for using public relations to engineer consent." As late as 1934, when Hoover had been director of what was then the Division of Investigation (renamed as the FBI in 1935) for ten years, the agency's work remained relatively unknown. A few years later, however. Hoover and his special agents, christened "G-Men" by George "Machine Gun" Kelly in 1935, were cultural icons, and Hoover's agency was a high-profile success story of the New Deal-era war on crime. Thanks in part to hundreds of dramatic media reports on Bureau exploits, Hoover's FBI moved from the fringes of the public mind to the center of politics and popular culture in America. President Eranklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal had centralized economic power within the federal government and also included an emphasis on centralized federal law enforcement.^' By 1936, the FBI had grown from fewer than 100 agents in 1930 to nearly 900 agents stationed in Washington and in fiftytwo field offices nationwide.^ The once unknown Hoover and his FBI had become, according to historian Richard Gid Powers, "reassuring symbol[s] of security and stability for most Americans."^' For decades, dramatic reports of FBI exploits fed by the public relations work of the Crime Records Office, captured the public imagination as the agency grew in size, in jurisdiction, and as a source of public interest. The FBI particularly valued its relationships with Special Correspondents in the news media, and the bureau's Correspondence Unit carefully cultivated those relationships for decades. This study examines three cases where Hoover and his public relations team employed personal correspondence as a strategic public relations tactic, building and leveraging relationships with journalists who were particularly close "friends" of the bureau. Journalist and author Courtney Ryley Cooper helped establish the FBI's public relations message in the 1930s. Reader's Digest Editor Fulton Oursler provided the FBI with access to the pages of the most widely read periodical of the midJOURNALISM & MASS COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY

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twentieth centijry in the 1940s and 1950s. Memphis newsman Jack Carley became an important southern source of information and defender of the FBI during the tijrbulent 1950s and 1960s. Between 1933 and 1940, Hoover developed a working relationship Coutiney with journalist and author Courtney Ryley Cooper that resulted in two Ryley dozen magazine articles, three books, and four motion pictures.^" Cooper: Cooper's FBI tile, totaling more than 4,000 pages, chronicles the development of their relationship and exemplifies the early stages of the FBI's Creating use of personal correspondence to build beneficial relationships with the FBI strategically important individuals. Crime Story Cooper's introduction to the FBI came in April 1933 when he was directed by editor Sumner Blossom to rewrite a story that had been botched by another reporter for The American Magazine. Cooper reported in his initial letter to Hoover that the article merely required, "human touches and high-lighting [sic] by which you and your work can be brought more clearly before the reader."^ Born in Kansas City in 1881, Cooper was an unlikely adjunct "GMan." He ran away from home at age 16 and became a circus clown and then a publicist for Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show. He moved into circus management and dabbled in press agentry before leaving the circus to become a newspaper reporter, writing features for the Kansas City
Star, New York World, Denver Post, and Chicago Tribune.'^'' In 1933, Cooper

began writing crime stories, churning out 750 circus-themed stories and winning an O. Henry Award in 1930 for the trite morality tale, "The Elephant Forgets."^^ Cooper's correspondence with Hoover was informal and chatty, featuring unpretentious phrasing and always ending with, "Samezever [same as ever], Ryley." Hoover's early letters to Cooper were businesslike, even brusque, with "Dear Mr. Cooper" in the salutation and the letter bodies dealing quickly with Cooper's request and ending with a "Cordially yours." By September of 1934, Hoover's letter-writing crew, led in those early days by his closest confidante Clyde Toison, greeted Cooper as "Ryley" and included more personal and contextijal information.^" A year later, Hoover's letters, again authored by Toison, greeted Cooper as "My dear Ryley."^^ By October of 1935, the correspondence became more personal as one of Hoover's ghost-written letters included a health update on his close confidante Toison (the author of the letter): "Clyde has returned to the office and is feeling much better."'" As Hoover's collaboration with Cooper became more substantive, the FBI provided their "dear Ryley" with more and more material, edited his stories before publication, and provided him with several tours of the Bureau." Tolson's letters under Hoover's signature began asking about Cooper's wife. Gen, and, on behalf of Hoover, declined invitations to visit the Coopers at their vacation home.'^ Gen Cooper even struck up her own correspondence with Hoover." For his part. Cooper began referring to Hoover as "Edgar," and in one very informal letFRIENDS OF THE BUREAU

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ter, he casually described renovations at his Florida home, "... by about June we should have a place to lure the Gstring men for some The character of Hoover's letters to Cooper became dramatically more intimate when Nichols took over authorship of correspondence with members of the news media. On October 31, 1938, for example. Cooper wrote that he and his wife had added three puppies to their household, bringing their total to four.'' "I enjoyed very much reading of the birthday presents which Gen and you bought yourselves and undoubtedly the name 'Four Barx Brothers,' is quite appropriate," Nichols wrote on Hoover's behalf.'^ Throughout the 1930s, Hoover's correspondence with Cooper reflected the success of their collaboration. Cooper's value to Hoover as a co-author, ghost-author, and public relations adviser grew throughout the decade, mirroring Hoover's rise to public prominence.^' Their exchanges were always cheerful and businesslike. They corresponded as close friends, although Cooper's flle indicates that he and Hoover only met in person perhaps a dozen times, and never for more than a few minutes. It wasn't until one of their collaborations created controversy that their relationship and correspondence cooled. In 1939, Cooper ghost-wrote Hoover's article for The American Magazine, "Camps of Crime," describing tourist camps, the popular and rudimentary motels located throughout the country at the time, as notorious criminal hideouts.^'' Within days of the release of the article, angry letters from the tourist camp industry started arriving, and they continued in great numbers for more than six months. At first, Hoover's letter writers greeted the complaints with deance. "I am sure that a careful reading of my article will clearly point out that there are reputable tourist camps operated in an efficient and decent manner by business men of recognized integrity," Hoover wrote to a California tourist camp owner.'' A few weeks later, after receiving dozens more complaints, including several from members of Congress, Hoover's tone changed. "I regret exceedingly that anything I have said, either in the article entitled 'Camps of Crime,' or otherwise, should be at any time a source of loss, annoyance, or humihating to any law abiding citizen of this country," Hoover wrote to a Florida tourist camp owner."" From late 1939 to September of 1940, Hoover forwarded copies of every single letter of complaint and every FBI response to Cooper and his editor. Blossom. Around the same time, Hoover's correspondence with Cooper ceased. They had corresponded regularly for nearly seven years with only brief interruptions. On September 29, 1940, Cooper's body was found in the closet of a New York hotel, an apparent suicide. His widow claimed that Cooper, who owed his fame and success to the FBI, had been snubbed by Hoover, leading to the depression that resulted in his suicide. Hoover denied the charge, and no evidence was ever produced suggesting that the director had written off his longtime collaborator: "There could have been no snub because we did not know he was back [from a trip to Mexico]," Hoover scrawled on an offlce memo."' Within days, Hoover's former friend was erased from FBI booklets and other publicly available
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texts. And his fingerprints were removed from the FBI exhibit room and replaced with those of Walt Disney."^ Before his death. Cooper, the beneticiary of Hoover's ghost-written friendship, provided a bit of correspondence advice to Nichols regarding the bureau's exchanges with Sumner Blossom. Letters from Hoover to Blossom had been going out with a "Dear Sumner" salutation and one letter slipped out with a "Dear Sir," greeting. "Ryley suggested that sometime in the future the Director write Blossom a letter and sign it 'Edgar'," Nichols told Hoover in a memo. "He also suggested that you address Blossom as "Dear Bloss ISIC As Cooper's relationship with Hoover was winding down, anoth- Fulton er journalist, Fulton Oursler, began a collaboration with the FBI that con- Oursler: tinued for fifteen years. A Baltimore native, Oursler became editor of A BureauLiberty magazine in 1931. In 1942, he moved to Reader's Digest as a sencratic ior editor and began a very successful career as an author and freelance Friendship writer, penning news and feature stories and writing thirty-two books, including the religious tome The Greatest Story Ever Told, a best-seller published in 1949 that ultimately sold 1.5 miUion copies."" Oursler spoke several times at FBI National Police Academy graduation ceremonies on the topic of public relations and lunched with Hoover on at least two occasions. But other than a few short visits to FBI headquarters, Oursler's relationship with Hoover, whom he considered a close friend, was conducted primarily through their frequent letters. Oursler's written exchanges with Hoover were frequent, highly personal, and written by Nichols. As he did with Cooper's wife. Gen, Hoover became a frequent correspondent with Oursler's wife, Grace. Finally, Oursler's correspondence with Hoover led him to become a prolific advocate for and defender of the FBI. Within months of their initial contact, Oursler had become "Fulton" and Hoover "Edgar" in their written salutations. Oursler was invited to speak at the FBI National Police Academy graduation ceremony. Soon after that, Oursler invited Hoover to his Massachusetts home, Sandalwood."^ Hoover, in a letter written by Nichols, declined the invitation to visit Sandalwood, but replied that the Ourslers' friendship was an inspiration to him, and added, "you may rest assured that if I am not the victim of circumstances and continued overwhelming pressure, I am certainly contemplating a visit sometime in the near future.""^ The following day, in a letter that was marked "read to Director" indicating that Hoover was made aware of the contents, Oursler reported that he had assigned a Liberty reporter, Frederick L. Collins, who would soon thereafter arrive to do a series on the FBI."' Even before Collins visited the FBI for his story, Oursler forwarded a story of his own titled "Inked Out," that urged reporters to defer to police on matters of crime. "Newspaper men must come to realize that crime means that our society is engaged in a civil war," Oursler wrote. "In that war there can be no neutrality.""" His letter to Hoover noted, "You promised to check it over for me, and I shall appreciate any time you can give to
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it.""' Hoover replied with a two-page letter detailing the series of edits he (actually Nichols) suggested.'" That exchange was typical of Hoover's correspondence with other reporters. The personal touch often led to laudatory coverage for the bureau in the correspondent's publication." And more often than not, the reporter-friend of the bureau allowed the FBI to edit the final version of the story. After Collins visited the FBI on February 6, Oursler wrote: "Thank you for your kind offer to review the articles when they are ready. I was hoping you would be willing to do this, both from a factual standpoint and for any other suggestions you might care to make."'^ When the edited articles appeared in Liberty, Hoover thanked Oursler, prompting an emotional reply from the editor: "My admiration for you is so deep, my enthusiasm for the work you are doing so profound, that I have to restrain myself from expressing my full thoughts for fear of seeming a sentimentalist."" In subsequent correspondence, Oursler forwarded a letter he received from H,L. Mencken in which the "Sage of Baltimore" expressed his admiration for Hoover.'" In a telegram on September 15,1939, Hoover expressed his condolences upon the death of Oursler's mother." A month later. Hoover, through his ghost-writers, struck up a correspondence with Oursler's young son, Fulton Jr. (Tony) that continued for decades.'^ Meanwhile, Liberty continued to publish articles that lauded the bureau and evangelized suspicion. Oursler's "Every Sheriff a Sherlock Holmes," which touted the value of the FBI National Police Academy, was edited by the FBI in late 1950." The FBI reviewed and edited a lecture Oursler gave in New York in 1941,'" When Oursler left Liberty in 1942, moving to Reader's Digest as a top editor, their collaboration and correspondence continued unabated. When the two men did not meet in person for more than three years, Oursler complained to Nichols: Oursler "stated that he had not had a chance to sit down with the Director for over three years and that while he could get information from me, he had to see the Director to get a little of his personality," Nichols reported." Oursler pleaded for an opportunity to collaborate with the bureau. "He stated that we could absolutely control anything he wrote and it would be handled in any way we desired," Nichols told Toison.*"" Citing Reader's Digest's circulation of 11 million, Nichols arranged an in-person meeting for Oursler with Hoover, With the publication of Oursler's best-selling novels, the relationship lapsed for a few years. In 1950, though, when Max Lowenthal published a book about the FBI, criticizing the centralization of police power within a federal agency. Hoover turned to his Special Correspondents for what appeared to the public to be an objective defense. Oursler was convinced by Nichols to publish "Why I No Longer Fear the FBI," by ACLU General Counsel Morris Ernst in Reader's Digest. Ernst's article was the result of years of courting the ACLU official through infrequent personal meetings and voluminous personal correspondence from Hoover's Crime Records letter-writers." The article's publication provided Hoover with cover from the left that the Bureau cited for decades thereafter as evidence of its restraint in civil liberties matters. As a reward for publish274 JOURNALISM & MASS COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY

ing the article, Oursler was invited to return for the second time to speak at the FBI National Police Academy graduation in September of 1950*^ Their flnal exchange of correspondence occurred just days before Oursler's death. Oursler forwarded some letters he had received from a prison inmate through Nichols to Hoover, and on May 2,1952, Hoover thanked him for making those letters available." Oursler died of a heart attack on May 25, and Hoover sent a letter to his widow, Grace, on May 27. "His friendship over the years has meant more than words can express," Nichols wrote for Hoover. "While in recent years we did not have the privilege of being together as much as I would have liked, I always knew he was as close as the nearest telephone and he, I am sure, felt the same as far as I was concerned."" Oursler's detailed and comprehensive FBI file includes no indication that any telephone conversations between Oursler and Hoover had ever occurred. Nichols also penned a tribute to Oursler that was published under Hoover's byline in the July 1952 issue of the Bureau's internal publication. The Investigator "His friends in the FBI mourn his passing. The FBI has lost a great friend and a staunch booster."*' Beginning with a trickle of letters between 1939 and 1942 that Jack Carley: became a flood by the late 1940s, Hoover struck up a friendship with Special another journalist, Memphis Commercial Appeal Associate Editor Jack Service Carley, that lasted into the 1960s. In contrast with Cooper, Oursler, and many of Hoover's other correspondents, the director authored two or Contact three of the thousands of letters to Carley himself, and their friendship seems to have become something valued by both men, albeit not equallyJohn Ogden Carley joined the Commercial Appeal staff in 1923 and served as editorial page editor as well as associate editor for more than twenty-five years. Carley's obituary described Hoover as "a close friend of many years," and noted that friends referred to Carley as "The Inspector" in honor of his relationship with the FBI.*'* Carley's nearly 1,000-page FBI file chronicles a relationship based almost entirely on correspondence. As with Oursler, Hoover's letter writers flattered and promoted Carley's interests, inviting him nearly eyery year to succeed Oursler as public relations lecturer at the FBI National Police Academy. In exchange, Carley provided a running commentary on events in the South, defended the FBI against critics in his publication and ultimately found his relationship formalized as an important covert source for the FBI. It is Carley's work as a so-called Special Service Contact for the FBI that distinguishes his friendship with Hoover. Special Service Contacts were formally identified as helpful amateur sleuths who could obtain information too sensitive for FBI agents to request. As early as 1943, Hoover considered Carley an important resource for the FBI, so important that he advised him not to enlist in the armed forces. "I think he [Carley] is of more value on the home front," Hoover
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wrote on a memorandum. "He is a part of the FBI and therefore in the war effort very directly."*"' For his service during the war, Carley was presented with an FBI Meritorious Service Award. In his nomination letter, the SAC in Memphis described how Carley made himself helpful to the FBI during the war: "On numerous occasions during the war period, he discreetly secured information which this office desired and would have experienced great difficulty obtaining but for his assistance."^" Carley's assistance continued in the postwar years, as he published two anti-communist booklets with testimonials from Hoover, authored dozens of supportive editorials and spoke at fifteen FBI National Police Academy graduation ceremonies. Carley met briefly with Hoover seven times during those years, but their primary contact was through the mail. By 1945, Nichols had taken on the majority of Hoover's side of written conversation. Carley provided assistance whenever asked. In 1950, for example, several US senators had held up the FBI's appropriation in committee. "Try & have Jack help us on our appropriation problems," Hoover instructed Nichols.^' Carley immediately called the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Kenneth McKellar of Tennessee, and the hold on the appropriation was lifted. Toison wrote a thank you letter to Carley that was signed by Hoover. Also in 1950, Special Agents in Charge were asked to provide memoranda justifying their local Special Service Contacts (SSCs). The Memphis SAC nominated both Carley and his Commercial Appeal colleague Frank Ahlgren." SAC Hostettler's memo further clarifies the services that Carley, designated "Special Service Contact Memphis* 1" provided: He has access to much information which is not ordinarily available to Special Agents. Bureau records will also reflect that he has access to certain Congressional leaders at Washington. On a daily basis, he immediately evaluates all local, state-wide, national, and international news which appear to be pertinent to our work. I am sure that he will make an effort to secure any information which the Bureau might desire in connection with National Security.'^ In 1951, Carley wielded his SSC influence again, advocating at the request of Nichols for an executive salary increase for FBI administrators. "These men are not only my warm personal friends of many years," Carley wrote to Sen. McKellar, "but they are richly deserving of every consideration that Congress can give them."" The warm correspondence between Hoover and Carley, punctuated by an in-person meeting with the director from time-to-time, continued into 1954. A memorandum for Nichols from an aide includes a notation that summarizes the strategic, bureaucratic nature of the "personal" friendship between the two men: "Correspondence with Carley has been most cordial and he addresses his letter to the Director with the saluta2 76 JOURNALISM & MASS COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY

tions 'Dear Edgar' or 'Dear Director' while correspondence to him always uses the salutation, 'Dear Jack.' On October 4, 1954, we wrote a most cordial letter to him in remembrance of his birthday, which was October 6,1954.'"" That same year. Special Service Contacts were re-designated as SAC Contacts, and Hostettler nominated Carley for that status, noting that, "He supports the Bureau against all attacks of every description. He is a personal friend of the Director and many others at tbe Bureau. ... be has performed the above services and many special favors for the Bureau."" Between 1954 and Carley's death in 1962, Hoover continued to rely on his friend for information about the burgeoning civil rights movement. Hoover praised Carley for his "objective analysis of the problem," and Carley relied on Hoover for guidance as to "what he should do" about civil rights.'" In 1956, Carley was called upon to help the FBI after the Mississippi legislature passed a bill that attempted to prevent FBI investigations of civil rights matters in the state. First, Carley published a strong editorial asking "Does He Want Amateurs?" suggesting that Mississippi would get amateur investigators if they blocked the FBI from the state. Next, Carley traveled to Jackson, Mississippi, to meet with Governor James P. Coleman and argued the FBI's case. "It appears now that it is up to Carley to convince Governor Coleman not to sign the bill," Nichols reported." Apparently, Carley was convincing. Coleman vetoed the bill.'" Beginning in the early 1950s, Carley's health began to fail. On eight occasions, he canceled planned appearances at academy graduation ceremonies. Still, he continued defending the FBI from his base in Memphis. In 1958, a member of the bureau's enemies list, journalist Fred J. Cook, published a blistering critique of the FBI in The Nation.'''' Hoover's public relations staff quickly characterized the critique as part of a coordinated "smear campaign" and engaged its army of pen pals in newsrooms around the country to attack the critics."" Carley was one of those friends, and he promised to draft an editorial "to have in readiness" if called upon to attack Cook."' Carley's health continued its decline in 1959 and 1960, and the pace of his correspondence with Hoover slowed. Carley's declarations of friendship became sentimental. "As long as I can writeand I hope to be doing that for a long time yetI will count myself a member of the Bureau family, the Bureau team," Carley wrote to Hooyer in 1959. "It just couldn't be otherwise. It never will be otherwise.""^ Hoover seemed to take a paternal interest in Carley's well-being. When Nichols invited Carley to speak at the fall academy graduation ceremony, the bureau had to ship oxygen canisters to stops along Carley's train route. "I think it is an imposition to have set this up," Hoover wrote on a memorandum detailing the arrangements for Carley's trip. "Carley is a very sick man & such an arduous trip & strain might well end his life.""' Indeed, it was Carley's last visit to the academy. Carley died on February 20, 1962. Hoover's public relations staff authored a statement for the Commercial Appeal: "Like others who had
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need of his services, we in law enforcement found him ready at all times to answer the call," Nichols wrote for Hoover. "It was an honor to be among Jack's close friends. I feel a deep personal loss at his passing."""

LonclUStons

Pubhc relations pioneer Edward Bernays referred to persuasive communication based on an insight into the audience members' motivations as the "engineering of consent." Hoover's public relations team understood what motivated its audience of supportive journalists. Access to information from the FBI had professional benetits, allowing journalists to write and publish stories about the Bureau that were sometimes edited by agents in the Crime Records Section. At the same time, Hoover's iconic status and personal fame made a friendship with the director a powerful personal motivator for those who admired him. The FBI was not alone in its efforts to cultivate beneficial relationships with reporters, editors, and publishers early in the era of twentiethcentury public relations. The World War I Committee on Public Information undertook a coordinated effort to feed government information directly to journalists."^ In 1922, Walter Lippmann outlined the role of publicity agents communicating with the news media to shape public opinion.""" Bernays had engaged the press in his early 1920s theatrical and corporate promotions."^ By the late 1920s, large organizations like AT&T were employing public relations tactics to build strategic relationships in communities around the country, including relationships with members of the press."" No other contemporary organization, though, could match the cultural capital of Hoover's FBI, with its carefully vetted and very popular stories of crime, heroism, and the triumph of good over evil. During Hoover's forty-eight-year tenure as director, thousands of FBI stories appeared in newspapers, magazines, comic strips, radio programs, and motion pictures, and ultimately on television. Most of those stories were produced with the assistance, and often with the pre-publication editing, of the Crime Records staff."" Also, no other organization had a leader who could match the public profile of the iconic Hoover, a bureaucrat turned law enforcement giant, whose name became synonymous with his bureau. Hoover's status as an American institution and his bureau's reputation as America's indispensable law enforcement agency spanned decades, ending only with the director's death in 1972." Hoover and the work of his bureau became the stuff of legend, a legend maintained by the FBI's tight control over the flow of information from its investigative files. The idea of a friendship with Hoover was exclusive and glamorous and carried implications of being part of a small group of insiders 'at the center of the government. A review of the FBI files of more than 300 American journalists and publications of the twentieth century, both friendly and unfriendly to the FBI, reveals tens of thousands of letters over Hoover's signature that were produced by the Correspondence Unit in the Crime Records Division. The tone of the letters ranged from vituperative to cloying. The most friendly
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and personalized exchanges, often including declarations of friendship or references to health and family, were reserved for friendly journalists like Cooper, Oursler, and Carley, who were designated as Special Correspondents, Special Service Contacts, and SAC Contacts. Lamme and Russell offered a framework permitting an organization's strategic intent to be discerned from the nature of the public relations tactics employed. The genius of bureau public relations lay in the way the writers of the Correspondence Unit harnessed the FBI's enormous cultijral capital and Hoover's personal appeal to engineer quasipersonal relationships with reporters like Cooper, Oursler, Carley, and many others. Friends of the bureau became, in essence, journalistadjuncts to the agency's public relations staff, uncritically amplifying the bureau's message. Some even became adjunct investigators, providing information as Special Service Contacts, The friendly relationships built through personal correspondence paid signiticant cultural dividends for the FBI. Journalists' reputations as independent reporters of facts no doubt gave the FBI stories they told additional credibility with the public. For readers unaware of the personal relationships involved, these were the stories of reliable journalists who could generally be trusted to stick to the facts. Throughout the tinal four decades of Hoover's tenure at the bureau, friendly correspondents in the media provided an uncritical reiflcation of the bureau's preferred image of itself. They also stood ready to attack critics of the FBI when asked. The relationships created and maintained through public relations tactics, like the personal correspondence employed by the FBI, encourage the individual targets of messages to draw lines identifying members and non-members of a community of meaning. Members of a community of meaning share a similar set of understandings about the organization and, ideally, are willing to act upon those beliefs. The quest for excellence in the practice of public relations may be seen as an ongoing search for the perfect tactic and the perfect message to create those shared meanings. By fabricating the impression of close friendships with Hoover, the letter-writers of the FBI strategically engaged a powerful community of meaning to promote and defend the bureau. NOTES 1. Letter to the Editor by John P Foster, The American Magazine (October 1954), 11. 2. M.A. Jones to Louis B. Nichols, January 3,1955, FBItile94-4-5977unrecorded, 3. Sumner Blossom to Louis B. Nichols, January 11,1955, FBItile944-5977-18. 4. J. Edgar Hoover to Sumner Blossom, January 18,1955, FBItile944-5977-18. 5. Athan Theoharis, Tony Poveda, Susan Rosenfeld, and Richard
Gid Powers, eds.. The FBI A Comprehensive Reference Guide (New York:
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Oryx Press, 2000), 229. 6. William C. Sullivan and Bill Brown, The Bureau: My Thirty Years in Hoover's FBI (New York; W. W. Norton & Co., 1979), 85. 7. [Redacted], to Louis B. Nichols, March 26, 1954, FBI file 62-215311093. 8. William C. Sullivan, "Molders of Public Opinion in the United States," to Alan H. Belmont, March 18,1959, FBI file 100-401767-7. 9. For example, Matthew Cecil, "'Monotonous Tale'; Legifimacy, Public Relations, and the Shooting of a Public Enemy," Journal of Communication Inquiry 28 (April 2004); 157-70. 10. There are myriad definitions of public relations. This study relies on a composite definition produced by the author after reviewing popular public relations textbooks and scholarly papers. It is assumed in this paper that public relafions, as defined by the founder of the field, Edward Bernays, must include the gathering of insight into the audience, whether that be produced via formal or informal means. For an exploration of public relafions definitions, see Dean Kruckeberg and Kenneth Starck, Public Relations and Community: A Reconstructed Theory (New York; Praeger, 1988), 16. 11. Edward Bernays, "The Engineering of Consent," in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 250 (1947); 113. 12. Stuart Ewen, PR! A Social History of Spin (New York; Basic Books, 1996), 163. 13. Edward Bernays, Crystallizing Public Opinion (New York; Liveright Publishing, 1923), 166-67. 14. Margot Opdycke Lamme and Karen Miller Russell, "Removing the Spin; Toward a New Theory of Public Relations History," Journalism & Communication Monographs 11 (winter 2010); 354. 15. Lamme and Russell, "Removing the Spin," 354. 16. Lamme and Russell, "Removing the Spin," 341-42. 17. Theoharis et al., eds.. The FBI: A Comprehensive Reference Guide, 141 42; Athan Theoharis and John Stuart Cox, The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the Great American Inquisition (Philadelphia; Temple University Press, 1988), 43, 84, 88, 99. 18. Theoharis et al.. The FBI: A Comprehensive Reference Guide, 102-03; 141-42. 19. Theoharis et al.. The FBI: A Comprehensive Reference Guide, 362-63. 20. Richard Gid Powers, Secrecy and Power: The Life ofj. Edgar Hoover (New York; The Free Press, 1987), 227. 21. Kenneth O'Reilly, "A New Deal for the FBI; The Roosevelt Administration, Crime Control, and National Security," Journal of American History 82 (December 1982); 642. 22. Theoharis and Cox, The Boss, 157. 23. Powers, Secrecy and Power, 227. 24. Richard Gid Powers, "The FBI in American Popular Culture," in The FBI: A Comprehensive Reference Guide, ed. Athan Theoharis, Tony Poveda, Susan Rosenfeld, and Richard Gid Powers (New York; Oryx Press, 2000), 270. 25. Courtney Ryley Cooper to J. Edgar Hoover, April 22, 1933, FBI file
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62-21526-9. 26. Cooper obituary, Nero York Times, September 30,1940, p. 36. 27. "Aide of Buffalo Bill Sketches 'Circus Days' for Radio's Big Top," New York Times, October 22,1933, sec. B, p. 2. 28. For example, J. Edgar Hoover to Courtney Ryley Cooper, September 27,1933, FBI tile 62-21526-unserialized. These and other early letters include a notation that "CT," Clyde Toison, was the author. Later, Louis B. Nichols, "LBN" authored most of the letters to reporters, editors, and publishers. 29. J. Edgar Hoover to Courtney Ryley Cooper, September 11, 1934, FBI tile 62-21526-82. 30. J. Edgar Hoover to Courtiiey Ryley Cooper, October 11,1934, FBI tile 62-21526-83. 31. J. Edgar Hoover to Courtney Ryley Cooper, April 16,1935, FBI tile 6-21562-171. 32. J. Edgar Hoover to Courtiiey Ryley Cooper, October 15,1935, FBI file 62-21562-235. 33. Clyde Toison to Gen Cooper, October 19, 1935, FBI file 62-21526236. 34. Courtney Ryley Cooper to J. Edgar Hoover, January 21,1936, FBI tile 62-21526-254. 35. Courtney Ryley Cooper to J. Edgar Hoover, October 31, 1938, FBI file 94-3-4-20-491. 36. J. Edgar Hoover to Courtney Ryley Cooper, November 9, 1938, FBI file 94-3-4-20-491. 37. For an extensive discussion of Cooper's work for Hoover, see Richard Gid Powers, G-Men: The FBI in American Popular Culture (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1983). 38. Draft of "Camps of Crime" attached to: Courtney Ryley Cooper, letter to Louis B. Nichols, Nov. 4, 1939, FBI file 94-3-4-20-529. 39. J. Edgar Hoover to A.C. Hanson, January 22,1940, FBI file 94-3-420-538. 40. J. Edgar Hoover to [Redacted], Gainesville, Florida, March 11, 1940, FBI file 94-3-4-20-639. 41. Clyde Toison, memorandum detailing a telephone call from a New York source, September 30,1940, FBI file 94-3-4-20-675. 42. Louis B. Nichols, Memorandum for Mr. Toison, October 4, 1940, FBI file 94-4-4667-1. 43. Louis B. Nichols, Memorandum for Mr. Toison, September 12, 1939, FBI tile 94-3-4-20-519. 44. "Fulton Oursler, Editor and Author of Books on Religious Themes," Washington Star, May 25, 1952, sec. A, p. 32; "Fulton Oursler, Author, Dies at 59," New York Times, May 25, 1952. 45. Fulton Oursler to J. Edgar Hoover, August 18,1938, FBI file 94-4692-20; J. Edgar Hoover to Fulton Oursler, August 19, 1938, FBI file 944-692-17. 46. J. Edgar Hoover to Grace Oursler, November 25,1938, FBI tile 944-692-23X.
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47. Fulton Oursler to J. Edgar Hoover, November 26,1938, FBI flle 944-692-23X1. 48. Oursler, Fulton, "Inked Out," original manuscript, FBI file 94-4692-30X, 11. 49. Fulton Oursler to J. Edgar Hoover, January 20, 1939, FBI flle 94-4692-30. 50. J. Edgar Hoover to Fulton Oursler, January 31, 1939, FBI flle 94-4692-30. 51. The author has reviewed the FBI files of more than 200 individual reporters and approximately 100 publications, all obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. 52. Fulton Oursler to J. Edgar Hoover, February 20,1939, FBIflle94-4692-32. 53. Fulton Oursler to J. Edgar Hoover, February 20,1939, FBIflle94-4692-48. 54. Fulton Oursler to J. Edgar Hoover, May 19,1939, FBI flle 94-4-69251. 55. J. Edgar Hoover telegram to Fulton Oursler, September 26, 1939, FBIflle94-4-692-53. 56. J. Edgar Hoover to Fulton Oursler, Jr., October 26,1939, FBI File 944-592-60. 57. Fulton Oursler, "Every Sheriff a Sherlock Holmes," original manuscript, FBI flle 94-4-692-74. 58. Fulton Oursler to J. Edgar Hoover, January 14, 1941, FBI flle 94-4692-78. 59. L.B. Nichols, Memorandum for Mr. Toison, December 17,1945, FBI flle 94-4-692-117. 60. Nichols to Toison, December 17, 1945. 61. For a full account of Hoover's relationship with Ernst, see Curt J. Gentry, Edgar Hoover: The Man and His Secrets (London: W.W. Norton & Co, 1991); Theoharis and Cox, The Boss; Harrison E. Salisbury "The Strange Correspondence of Morris Ernst and John Edgar Hoover," The Nation (December 1, 1984: 575-89). 62. Louis B. Nichols to Director, FBI, September 29,1950, FBI flle 94-4692-162. 63. J. Edgar Hoover to Fulton Oursler, May 2, 1952, FBI flle 94-4-692211. 64. J. Edgar Hoover to Grace Oursler, May 27, 1952, FBI file 94-4-692212. 65. "Great Friend of FBI Passes Away," draft article for The Investigator, June 23, 1952, FBI nie 94-4-692-214. 66. "Death Ends Career of Jack Carley," Memphis Commercial Appeal, February 21, 1962, p. 1. 67. J. Edgar Hoover, handwritten note on Louis B. Nichols to Clyde Toison, January 5, 1943, FBI flle 94-4-6119-4X. 68. D.S. Hostetter to J. Edgar Hoover, October 16, 1945, FBI flle 94-46119-(not recorded). 69. J. Edgar Hoover, handwritten note on, Louis B. Nichols to Clyde Toison, June 22, 1950, FBI flle 94-4-6119-129.
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70. J. Edgar Hoover to Jack Carley, July 7,1950, FBIfile94-4-6119-131. 71. SAC Memphis to J. Edgar Hoover, December 2, 1958, FBI file 944-6119-896. 72. D.S. Hostettler to J. Edgar Hoover, August 7, 1950, FBI file 1447554-(unserialized). 73. Jack Carley to US Senator Kenneth McKellar (D-Tenn.), undated transcription from August 1951, FBI tile 94-4-6119-155. 74. M.A. Jones to Louis B. Nichols, October 28, 1954, FBI file 94-46119-227, 2. 75. D.S. Hostettier to J. Edgar Hoover, November 15,1954, FBIfile944-6119-229X. 76. L.B. Nichols, telephone conversation with Jack Carley, reported in Nichols to Clyde Toison, February 14, 1956, FBI file 94-4-6119-(unserialized). 77. Louis B. Nichols to Clyde Toison, February 16,1956, FBIfile94-46119-265X. 78. Louis B. Nichols to Clyde Toison, February 21, 1956, FBIfile94-46119-266. 79. Fred J. Cook, "The FBI," The Nation 187 (18 October 1958): 221280. 80. Matthew Cecil, " 'Press Every Angle': FBI Public Relations and the 'Smear Campaign' of 1958, American Journalism 19 (winter 2002): 3958. 81. G.A. Nease, telephonic conversation with Jack Carley, reported in G.A. Nease to Clyde Toison, October 31,1958, FBI file 94-4-6119-315. 82. Jack Carley to J. Edgar Hoover, May 12, 1959, FBI file 94-4-6119329. 83. J. Edgar Hoover, handwritten note on Edward A. Tamm to Clyde Toison, October 22,1959, FBI file 94-4-6119-342. 84. J. Edgar Hoover, statement on the death of Jack Carley, February 20,1962, FBIfile94-4-6119-405. 85. Kevin Stoker and Brad L. Rawlins, "The 'Light' of Publicity in the Progressive Era: From Searchlight to Flashlight," Journalism History 30 (winter 2005): 183. 86. Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion (1922 reprint. New York: Free Press, 1922), 218. 87. For an extensive exploration of Bernays's campaigns, see Larry
Tye, The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays and the Birth of Public Relations

(New York: Holt, Winston and Company, 1998). 88. Arthur W. Page, "What Publicity and Advertising Can Do to Help Operation," speech presented at the AT&T General Operating Conference, May 1927 (Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communications). 89. A concise review of the FBI in popular culture may be found in Theoharis et al.. The FBI: A Comprehensive Reference Guide, 261-308. 90. After Hoover's death, the staff-authored personal letters continued to flow under acting directors L. Patrick Gray and William Ruckelshaus, but became less frequent during the tenure of Clarence Kelly and subsequent FBI directors. During the post-Hoover period, the
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cultural values that lent power to personal relationships with reporters were greatly diminished. The FBI lost some of its luster in the 1970s as revelations about the excesses of Hoover's FBI trickled out. Moreover, directors like Gray, Ruckelshaus, and Kelly could not match Hoover's outsized public persona and iconic cultural appeal.

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