When I was a kid, I listened on the radio to “The FBI in Peace And War.” Because of its influence, I wanted to be a G-Man. I’d forgotten about that dream until, years later, when the FBI appeared on the community college campus, in Los Angeles County, where I taught political science.
In 1968, I was a first year instructor at Citrus Community College in Glendora, CA. I was the faculty sponsor of a group of students called the “Student Committee on Political Education.” It was our intent to provide a forum for speakers from the political left and right. Our first presenter was conservative (reactionary?) congressman John Rousselot, our second guest was neanderthal state representative Gordon Browning. The third speaker was the Black wild man, Frank Greenwood, author of the play “Burn Baby Burn.”
I expected the local members of the John Birch Society (they’re like today’s Tea Party Express folk, if you don’t know them) as well as the super duper patriots of the local American Legion to raise hell when Greenwood’s coming to campus was reported by the local newpapers.
Nothing happened. Silence.
Next to appear was Frank Wilkinson.
As Wikipedia reports: "[He] was a lifelong progressive political activist. Wilkinson was caught up in the McCarthy Era when he defended a major public housing project, Elysian Park Heights, for the Chávez Ravine section of Los Angeles. Instead, Dodger Stadium eventually occupied the site. Wilkinson, in 1952, was the assistant director of the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles. Critics of the plan claimed that public housing was part of a socialist plot. Wilkinson, called before the House Un-American Activities Committee, cited the First Amendment as his reason for not answering: the Committee had no right to ask. Cited for contempt of Congress, Wilkinson, was fired from his job in connection with his unwillingness to affirm or deny his political party membership. He served a term in jail.
"After his release, Wilkinson became a leading opponent of the House Un- American Activities Committee, and, in 1960, helped form the National Committee to Abolish HUAC, which evolved into the National Committee Against Repressive Legislation."
When the word that Wilkinson was coming to the college was publicized, the American Opinion Book Store in Covina (home of Harold Teen if you have ever heard of him), opened its “subversive files” and, yes, you guessed it, the name Frank Wilkinson’s was there (Greenwood hadn’t been in the files). The American Opinion Book Store, by the way, was run by the Birchers.
The Birch Society, the local American Legion Post, The VFW Post and other local supporters of True American Values called the College President, the Board of Trustees, and their friends on the faculty. They demanded that Wilkinson’s appearance be cancelled and that I should be fired from my college teaching position.
To this day, I still can’t believe it, the College President, Glen Vaniman and the somewhat conservative Board of Trustees held firm: Wilkinson would come and make his address in the auditorium. The response of the Birchers and the Veterans was to skulk about on the Citrus College campus, appending sheets of paper to trees and garbage cans demanding that I be fired. Older guys in suits, whom I'd never seen, began coming to my political science classes. I let them stay, hoping they'd learn something about the American Constitution.
On the night of Wilkinson’s appearance, I walked over to the auditorium and parked directly across from the east end of the building were Legionnaires, with their uniform caps on and sitting on the hoods of their cars (in the parking lot of the local hamburger joint), began taunting me. I was soon joined by a colleague of mine, Gene Pribble, an army veteran himself, six feet one and 210 pounds of mostly muscle.
Gene went inside the Citrus Auditorium and retrieved, from the prop area, a baker’s cat and a broomstick. He marched up and down on the street in front of the vets, hat on head and broom held like a rifle. He challenged them to “come over have a talk” but no one moved.
Wilkinson arrived. We went on stage to a filled auditorium. I’d estimate that the audience was divided into thirds: Faculty and students, curious citizens from the community, and, mostly fat, Legionnaires and VFW guys. In those days, before the adulation of the military, after 9/11, the vets were often allied with various state Un-American committees and certainly not admired by the progressive community.
Wilkinson and I came out on the stage to a chorus of boos. I, as moderator, led the Pledge amid catcalls from some in the audience, some of whom suggested that Wilkinson and I move back to the U.S.S.R. I introduced him, giving part of his biography, and stated his topic, “Why The House Un-American Committee Should Be Abolished.” Wilkinson went to the microphone and, after the catcalls and boos had diminished, suggested that anyone, who wanted to debate him on the topic, should come up on the stage and do so.
Silence. People looked at one another to see if there was a patriotic person of courage there. Finally a young man, with military posture, who later introduced himself a William G. Kirsten, strode up to the stage, grabbed the microphone, and most sincerely spoke about loving America, its values its traditions, the flag, and other true American stuff. The audience mostly loved it. Kirsten sat down.
Wilkinson, in turn, ignored his remarks and gave cogent reasons and facts as to why HUAC should be abolished. During the question and answer period, I wandered thought the audience, microphone in hand, and the audience asked questions. Then a person wondered, “Mr. Kirsten, are you a member of any political party?” I walked to the stage and gave Kirsten the mike and he announced, chest stuck out, “I’m proud to say that I am a member of the American Nazi Party!”
I looked at the audience and viewed the open mouthed faces of the crowd, many of whom had strongly cheered the Nazi.
The local American Legion Commander rushed to the stage and pronounced, “He doesn’t represent us or the way we think!”
But, of course, a lesson had been learned.
But, what about the FBI, where this story began?
Before the meeting I had told several students in SCOPE, to look for its agents and see what they were up to. I had learned from Bill Wingfield, of the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, that, wherever Wilkinson went to speak in public, he had been followed by FBI agents. And they were there at Citrus! My students in SCOPE set them up: they told them that they didn’t like me, that I was way too left wing and indoctrinated them. Reportedly the G-Men’s response was to the effect that, yes, they had many complaints about my being a communist.
Supported by the Social Sciences Department and many students, some who were sons and daughters of prominent community members, I wasn’t fired and was able to corrupt the youth for the next 35 years.
Today, when I read books like “The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century; A Social Justice Hall of Fame” (Peter Dreier), the antics of the FBI jump out on many of the pages. They are depicted sometimes as Keystone Kops, sometimes as agents of the worst kinds of repression.
Of course, I’m an old guy, and although, now it’s a long time ago, I see the FBI in terms of an image of its Director, Edgar J. Hoover, a transvestite, in a dress, his ghost moving furtively about Southern California campuses, searching, searching for Frank Wilkinson and his fellow subversives.
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