“My wife’s family has owned this house for generations.”
I knew that this guy was going to be nothing more than a mine of misinformation. Every movement was measured, calm, and resolute. His goal was to suck in far more information than he let out. Best guess? The subject of the hour was Stephanie Nelle. He knew about her, just not enough. So why not corral the new guy, stick a gun in his face, then drag him into this sorry excuse for a library and wait for him to crack.
Yeah. Good luck with that plan.
I’d rather take my chances with the gators.
The study door opened and Jansen appeared.
“They’re here.”
Oliver nodded.
“Are we having a party?” I asked.
He grinned, still trying to rattle me.
“Something like that.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Jansen laid the waterproof case on the hardwood floor a few feet from where I sat. Atop it rested the 1933 Double Eagle inside its plastic sleeve. That coin was certainly making the rounds. Jansen left again, closing the library door behind him.
“He’s well trained,” I noted. “You do it yourself, or send him to obedience school?”
“Are you always so disrespectful?”
“Only to those I really like.”
“Your new friends have arrived,” Oliver said, ignoring my humor. “Foster, his daughter, and her husband.”
Good to know.
Like with Desi and Lucy, the reverend had some ’splainin to do.
“Did you make a deal with Foster?” I asked. “To get that case and coin?”
“Reverend Foster understands the gravity of this situation. He wants this contained, as I do. I’m hoping we can all come to an understanding and end this matter quickly and quietly.”
“You have the files, which makes you and Foster happy. You have the coin, which will make Valdez happy. What will make Stephanie Nelle happy?”
Oliver laid his drink down and continued puffing the pipe.
“Without the files or Valdez, she has nothing but a bunch of unsubstantiated talk. I’m trying to keep this at that level and avoid the taking of any drastic measures.”
“Which would only bring more attention. Better we ramble like idiots on things we can’t prove.”
“Something like that.”
I wanted to know, “Were you listening in at the house by the lake?”
He shook his head. “For what? No need.”
“Because the guy who came to the cemetery was your bird dog?”
“He once worked for me, if that’s what you mean.”
Foster did not want the files inside that case seen by Coleen. So he’d used the situation to reverse what she’d managed to set in motion, allowing Jansen to be led straight to the files. But why not just destroy them himself? Why involve Jansen at all? Only one answer made sense. This guy wanted to see them first.
“What’s Bishop’s Pawn?”
“How much of the files did you read?”
“Enough,” I lied, trying to alter the situation.
“That operation is classified. But it was something of great concern to this country.”
“That’s what this is about? We’re concerned for the country? You’re retired. That’s not your problem anymore.”
“This country will always be my concern. I started with the bureau in 1959, back when the Soviet Union and communism were our greatest threats.”
“And how many communists did you find? Never mind. I know the answer. Not enough to get excited over.” I paused. “If any at all.”
“You have no idea what we faced.”
“Actually, I do. I can read. The threat of a communist infiltration was total bullshit, used by guys like you to keep a job and further your own paranoia. The CIA, which actually dealt with communists, determined that King was no threat to national security whatsoever. Yet the FBI decided otherwise. Did you really think that the Soviet Union was behind the civil rights movement? Trying to destroy us from within?”
“Stanley Levison was a member of the Communist Party of the United States.”
I knew that name. A close friend and confidant of Martin Luther King Jr., he was a white lawyer from New York who helped draft some of King’s most famous speeches and organize events. He also raised money for the SCLC. True, history noted that Levison had once been a member of the Communist Party, but he ceased all connection to it long before he and King ever became linked.
“Levison was called to testify before the Senate Committee on Internal Security,” Oliver said. “Parts of that testimony are classified to this day.”
“What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?’
That’s what my mother used to ask me when I tried to bullshit her.
“There was a genuine concern that Levison might influence or manipulate King into causing widespread political unrest,” Oliver said. “That was standard operating procedure for communist organizations back then. They wanted to bring this country down. King himself was on the FBI Reserve Index. People to be detained in the event of a national emergency.”
“King was no communist.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Yes. We do. You used that nonsense to justify illegally wiretapping not only Levison and King, but too many other people to even count. The sad part is even both Kennedys and Lyndon Johnson allowed that to happen. They all three loved getting the inside scoop on people, including King. Not a one of them ever told Hoover to stop. All of you were crazy as hell.”
“Easy for you to say, sitting here now, reaping the rewards of our caution.”
I’d had enough. “Stanley Levison was a progressive liberal who believed that the blacks of this country were getting screwed. And by the way, they were. He stood up for what he believed and helped the man at the tip of the spear do his job. J. Edgar Hoover hated King and everyone associated with him. That’s a fact. So Levison became a target. It’s just that simple. I agree, it was a different time with different values. But that doesn’t make what you did right.”
This guy was getting on my last nerve.
“I’ve heard your criticisms many times before. They don’t affect me. We did our jobs. I make no apologies.”
I recalled something else I once read. “There was an internal FBI report, from 1963, I think, that concluded the civil rights movement was not communist-controlled. I’ve read parts of it. Hoover would not accept that report, so its author changed the conclusion and instead proposed targeting the SCLC by COINTELPRO.”
“I wrote that report.”
The revelation took me aback.
“Hoover was brash, brilliant, full of self-esteem, cocky as a rooster, and totally amoral,” he said. “I agree, he institutionalized totalitarianism within the FBI. He was in total control. I witnessed that control for many years. In some respects that was good.”
I could not imagine how.
“Presidents, congressmen, cabinet officers. They all thought the FBI was their own personal police force to be used on their enemies. But we were anything but that. Partisanship was strictly forbidden. Hoover worked hard to keep us out of politics. We were then, and still are, an investigatory agency, not a police force. Big difference.”
“That didn’t prevent Hoover himself from using his agents like the police.”
“There is some truth to that. We worked in a vacuum with no oversight from the executive or legislative branches. That wasn’t intentional. It simply happened over time, thanks to Hoover’s longevity and the reputation he forged as someone who didn’t require supervision.”
“A big mistake.”
“Yes. It was. Hindsight is always twenty/twenty.”
“As long as it’s not viewed through a filter.”
“Again. I agree. Hoover became dangerously autonomous. None of us challenged him. And for good reason. He convinced Congress to exempt the FBI from civil service laws. So every agent’s future rested entirely in his hands. Disagreeing with Hoover was the worst thing you could do. Believe me, I know.”