FBI Surveillance of Mexicans and Chicanos, 1920–1980 9781793615800, 9781793615817

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FBI Surveillance of Mexicans and Chicanos, 1920–1980

Latinos and American Politics Series Editor: Henry Flores Editorial Board: Tony Affigne, Edwina Barvosa, Benjamin Marquez, and Rodolfo Torres Latinos and American Politics is concerned with the role Latinos, of all national origins and races, play in the American political process. Latinos are the largest minority group in the United States and have become the single most important group in presidential politics. This series, interdisciplinary in nature, seeks to advance the knowledge of Latino politics in the academy. The series includes works that focus on racial identities and their impact on intra-Latino relations and politics, Latina politics broadly defined to include the politics of gender, institutional and identity politics, electoral politics, community level politics and activism, the shifting types of politics Latinos have played in order to have their agendas entertained by political institutions, the behavior of Latina/o politicians, and the effects of the Civil Rights Acts on the political participation of Latinos. Contributors are encouraged to submit book length manuscripts that encompass besides the above named topics those focusing on gender, identity, racial politics, and all areas of public policy. Titles in this Series Latinas in American Politics: Changing and Embracing Political Tradition, edited by Sharon A. Navarro, Samantha L. Hernandez, and Leslie A. Navarro, 2016 Assault on the Mexican American’s Collective Memory, 2010–2016: Swimming with the Sharks, by Rodolfo F. Acuña, 2017 Racism, Latinos, and the Public Policy Process, by Henry Flores, 2019 FBI Surveillance of Mexicans and Chicanos, 1920–1980, by José Angel Gutiérrez, 2020

FBI Surveillance of Mexicans and Chicanos, 1920–1980

José Angel Gutiérrez

LEXINGTON BOOKS

Lanham Boulder • New York • London •

Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com 6 Tinworth Street, London SE11 5AL, United Kingdom Copyright © 2020 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data ISBN: 978-1-7936-1580-0 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN: 978-1-7936-1581-7 (electronic) The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

DEDICATION I dedicate this work to the many heroic figures who were targets of surveillance and repression for protesting, dissenting, and engaging in civil disobedience. One such known heroine was 17-year-old Carmelita Torres, a maid from Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. Beginning on January 28, 1917 the U.S. Customs and Public Health Service officials demanded the right to spray her and all Mexicans before crossing into the U.S. with Zyklon B, DDT, kerosene, and cyanogen gas while standing nude. Carmelita refused to disrobe, stand nude, and be sprayed. This civil disobedience led to two days of “Bath Riots” by the Mexican women who joined her in protest. The U.S. officials, with the assistance of Juarez police, repressed women and some men with beatings and executions. Carmelita was never found or heard from that day forward. Photos of some nude Mexican women were posted in bars in El Paso, Texas. Under the Bracero Program the spraying of Mexican workers entering the United States with DDT continued until 1964.1 A year earlier, El Paso city jail officials doused over 200 inmates—almost all were Mexicans—with kerosene and vinegar to delouse and disinfect their clothing. Someone lit a match, and an explosion followed with flames that engulfed the inmates. Instantly, 18 died and several more died within days, with a total of 27 dead, mostly unknown.2 I also want to dedicate this work to each member of my large and extended family who have put up with me for decades—my boxes of files; piles of papers; constant admonishments to leave my stuff alone; and, my long periods of absences to Rosarito, Baja California, Mexico to write from time to time while working on the FBI files and manuscripts related to them. I especially thank my wife, Natalia Verjat, mi preciosa Colorada. I am glad all of you, but for the new grandchildren and great grandchild, still remember me. José Angel Gutiérrez Redlands, California, USA Rosarito, Baja California, Mexico 1.  David Dorado Romo, “Crossing the line,” The Los Angeles Times, February 27, 2006, at https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-feb-27-oe-romo27-story .html and the El Paso Morning Times, January 30, 1917, 1. 2. Stu Beitler, “El Paso, Tx, Jail Gasoline Explosion,” Associated Press wire story, March 1916, at www.gendisasters.com/texas/17987/el-paso-tx-jail-gasoline -explosion-mar-1916.

Contents

Acknowledgments ix Onomasticon xi Introduction 1 PART I:  THE FIVE PERSONS 1  Diego Rivera, the Mexican Muralist

25

2  Ernesto Galarza, the First Chicano Activist Scholar

45

3  Carlos Fuentes, the Mexican Novelist

67

4  Hector “El Pecas” Marroquin, the Young Socialist

95

5  Y  olanda Garza and Walter Birdwell of the Houston, Texas Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) Chapter

115

PART II:  THE TWO ORGANIZATIONS 6  T  he League of United Latina Mexican Citizens (LULAC), the Oldest Civil Rights Organization

147

7  T  he Young Citizens for Community Action (YCCA) aka Brown Berets

191

PART III:  THE ONE EVENT 8  O  peration Wetback: President “Ike” Eisenhower’s Ethnic Cleansing Program vii

243

viii

Contents

Appendix

315

Bibliography

319

Index

337

About the Author

359

Acknowledgments

First, to Armando Gutierrez (no relation, deceased) who first teamed with me in 1976 to get FBI files in the defense of Ramsey Muñiz, former Texas gubernatorial candidate of La Raza Unida Party in 1972 and 1974. Second, to the many others who helped me find and obtain numerous FBI files from their own collections such as Ricardo Lopez and Ernesto Vigil on finding files on Mexican American Militancy, a COINTELPRO on Chicanos; the Socialist Workers Party USA and the lawyers of their Political Rights Defense Fund; Yolanda Garza and Walter Birdwell (deceased) of Houston MAYO; and especially Milton H. Jamail, who provided me the first Border Coverage Program (BOCOV) documents, another COINTELPRO on Mexicans and Chicanos. Third, to Henry Flores, who helped me find a publisher, and the many folks at Lexington Books of Rowman & Littlefield who came up with my pages made up into a book, Volume 1.

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Onomasticon

List of abbreviations, terms, names, codes, numbers, locations, titles, and agencies used in some of the chapters of this book. AAG. Assistant Attorney General of the United States also sometimes referred to as the AUSA. AD. Assistant director of the FBI. ADEX. The Administrative Index initiated in 1971. When the Emergency Detention Act was repealed, the FBI incorporated names from the Agitator Index, Security Index, and Reserve Index. It was kept at FBI headquarters and twenty-nine field offices of the time, computerized in 1972, and allegedly discontinued in January 1976. ADIC. The assistant director in charge of a huge FBI field office such as Los Angeles and New York. SACs are under an ADIC in these offices. Agent. A member of the investigative and administrative staff, not a clerk, located in a field office. Also referred to as a SA, special agent. Airtel. An internal FBI communication term for a message sent typically from a field office to the director or Washington, DC, FBI office. AG. U.S. attorney general. Agitator Index or ADEX or AI. Formerly the Rabble Rouser Index; it changed names in March 1968. AQ. The FBI Albuquerque field office. ARA. The State Department designation for Inter-America. Aztlan. The name for the Southwest in the Nahuatl language of the Meshicas/ Aztecs, meaning “land in the north,” referring to that part of present-day United States, the western side of the Mississippi, although some limit this territory to that identified by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848. xi

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B. Informal language used by field agents and others to refer to the FBI for Bureau. BB. The Brown Berets as they were commonly known for the color of their berets they wore. In 1966 the group was named Young Citizens for Community Action and changed its name in 1967 to Young Chicanos for Community Action, based in Los Angeles, California. The Brown Beret name came from their attire when in public: brown beret, military-style field jacket and pants, combat boots, and insignia patch. BIA. U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. BLM. U.S. Bureau of Land Management. Block stamp. Found at the bottom right corner of the front page of most FBI documents, it indicates which FBI office the document is filed in and date of handling by clerks. The clerks will check off appropriate words: searched, serialized, filed, or indexed. BOCOV. A COINTELPRO operation aimed at preventing dialog and association between Chicanos in the United States and Mexicans in Mexico, particularly along the border. BOP. Federal Bureau of Prisons. BP. Border Patrol, which is the enforcement and police force utilized by the Immigration and Naturalization Service or INS and created in 1924. Bracero Program. The lawful importation of Mexican labor into the United States. First such agreements between Mexico and the United States began in the 1920s. These agreements over the decades greatly increased the number of men contracted as well as the length of time of the agreement. The last one in 1942 lasted until 1964. BUDED. Bureau deadline. BUFIL or BUFILE. The FBI’s term for the bureau file located in Washington, DC, FBI headquarters, not the Washington, DC, field office, the WFO. Bureau. The FBI headquarters, but often used in general for the FBI. Caption. The subject matter title or name for an FBI file. All documents have a caption or a reference to a caption and are to be filed under that subject heading or caption. Case file or main file. The name or caption or designation of a file where all relevant material is placed for that subject. Case number or classification number. The assigned number in the classification scheme used by the FBI to distinguish and categorize files. In the late 1960s and into the 1970s, when the Alianza was most viable, the FBI had 210 classification numbers. From time to time new numbers are added or changes made to descriptions of categories. Chicano. The ethnic self-descriptor of the activist generation among the U.S. population of Mexican ancestry that emerged after World War II.



Onomasticon xiii

Chicano Movement. The civil rights era roughly between the end of World War II and the Gulf War, the late 1940s to the early 1980s, propelled by the political generation of activists of Mexican ancestry who called themselves Chicanos. CIA. Central Intelligence Agency that monitors activities of the targets of interest outside the United States. Classified information. Material or information that is deemed to require protection from unauthorized disclosure. See Executive Order 12065. Before 1975, the FBI did not classify material not intended to be disseminated to other agencies; pre-1975 information now is designated exempt from disclosure under (b) (1), the national security exemption. Clubs. FBI locations, not in or near FBI field offices, where electronic surveillance is monitored. COINTELPRO. FBI Counter-intelligence operations aimed at disruption, character assassination, neutralizing, destroying, immobilizing, and other dirty tricks against groups and individuals. Adapted from military operations for domestic use, COINTELPRO targeted groups and individuals beginning in 1956 and allegedly ceased in 1971. COINTELPRO-style tactics by the FBI have continued since then. Commissioner. The title of the person heading the Immigration and Naturalization Service or INS from inception of this agency until the name change and moved the Department of Homeland Security after 9/11. Communist. A term used by the FBI since the 1920s and defined broadly to mean persons that adhere to the principles of the Communist Party USA and other groups such as the Socialist Workers Party and the Progressive Labor Party. It also meant an occult force of influence that could infiltrate groups and the thinking of individuals and referred to as COMINFIL. Communist Index. The list of names of known Communists in the United States kept by the FBI since 1948. In 1956, the list was expanded to include persons associated with groups beyond communist or socialist political parties. In 1960, the name was changed to Reserve Index. Confidential informant or CI or CS. A person who provides information to the FBI. Other names are snitch, informant, source, and PSI, for “person supplying information.” DAS. The deputy assistant secretary in the Department of State. Dataveillance. The gathering of intelligence information based on what a person voluntarily submits to private companies servicing their accounts while using electronic technology, particularly credit cards, cell and smart phones, computers, and social media postings. These providers in turn forward requested data to the government’s intelligence agencies.

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DEA. The Drug Enforcement Administration, a branch of DOJ, established in July 1973. Declassify. Remove security classification from a document, such as top secret, confidential, secret. Such a document has been declassified. DCM. The Departamento Confidencial de Mexico is equivalent of the FBI and operates under the Secretaria de Gobernacion or Attorney General in Mexico. DETCOM. FBI code for detention of Communists. In 1969, this was replaced with PAP, for Priority Apprehension Program, to include all persons/subjects on the Security Index whose apprehension is a high priority. DID. The Domestic Intelligence Division of the FBI; during the Tijerina years of first surveillance, William Sullivan was the director of this division, then Mark Felt. DOB. Date of birth. DOJ. U.S. Department of Justice. “Do Not File.” Refers to files that are kept out of the Central Records System. EP. The FBI office in El Paso, Texas. FBI. The Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI does not forward all their files to NARA. In August 15, 2015 the FBI destroyed more than 7,500 pages on communist activities in the subfiles. Some six subfiles have been identified and in need of declassification: All begin with 64-HQ then 211 for Soviet Diplomatic activities; 309 for smuggling; 4123 for informant files; 4984 of monthly Legat reports (then add the country subfile code); 29833 on police matters; and this number for labor conditions 100-HQ341561 then add the country subfile. For example, smuggling in Mexico files would be 64-HQ-309 Subfile 221. FBI HQ. The FBI’s main headquarters. FD. A designation used by the FBI for a document to be used for a specific purpose. For example, FD-4 is a routing slip; FD-28 is a daily report; FD73 is an automobile record form; FD-128 is for a change in the “Office of Origin” for a case; FD-330 is an itinerary form; and FD 340 is for a 1A envelope. A more extensive list of FD’s is found in Buitrago and Immerman (see Bibliography), p.177-179. Field office. The main FBI office in a state or city. There are also resident agencies and liaison offices. File number. A three-part series of numbers for an FBI file. The first group of numbers, say 100, before the first hyphen (-) is the classification number for domestic security, the type of case it is. The second set of numbers, between the hyphens (-), is the individual case number and is sequential, as in 922 being the 922nd investigation in that office. The last set of numbers is the serial or document number; 32, for example, would be the thirty-second



Onomasticon xv

document in that specific investigation. Hence, 10092232 means domestic security, the 922nd investigation out of that office, and document 32 in the file on that subject. Not all documents are serialized, and more than one file can exist on any given person or group or event. There were 210 classification numbers in 1968. FOIA. The Freedom of Information Act. Also referred to as FOI/PA, for Freedom of Information and Privacy Act (1974). See the Appendix for a list of exemptions to declassification of documents. Four Horsemen. The term made popular by historians Matt Meier and Feliciano Rivera, during the Chicano Movement for the four principal leaders by region: Cesar Chavez in California, Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales in Colorado, Reies López Tijerina in New Mexico, and this author in Texas. GAO. Government Accountability Office, it was also named the General Accounting Office in the 1960s. GIP. The Ghetto Informant Program. It began in October 1967 to recruit informants for the FBI to monitor activity in ethnoracial groups such as Puerto Ricans, African Americans, Chicanos, and Native Americans. It allegedly ended in July 1973, but the FBI still recruits and maintains informants. In 1972 the FBI had seventy-five hundred such “ghetto informants.” GOM. A CIA term for the Government of Mexico. HUMINT. Human intelligence, referring to a source of information or the process of intelligence gathering and/or analysis that originates with a person. Huston Plan. Drafted in 1970 by Tom Huston, aide to President Nixon. It renewed and expanded domestic surveillance activity after Hoover ended his COINTELPRO operations. The plan was eventually disapproved by President Nixon and continued until July 1973. IES. The staff of the Intelligence Evaluation Committee, established January 1971. It prepared studies and evaluations issued by the IEC; it terminated July 1973. Intelligence Community. Executive Order 12333 under President Ronald Reagan created what is now the complex of intelligence agencies under the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). There are, at last count in 2011, seventeen (17) such agencies and over 1,271 other government programs plus 1,931 private contractors collecting, analyzing, storing, archiving, and reporting on such activities as assigned. For comparison purposes, in 1964 there were six (16) such agencies plus three (3) military ones. INS. The Immigration and Naturalization Service began as the Bureau of Immigration in the Department of Labor and was moved into the Department of Justice in 1933 along with the Bureau of Naturalization. These two agencies were merged into the new name of INS. In post-9/11 years, No-

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vember 2002, its name changed to Immigration Control and Enforcement Agency (ICE) and it became part of the new cabinet-level, Department of Homeland Security (DHS). IRS. The Internal Revenue Service. IS. Internal security. IS-1, IS-2, IS-3 are the sections within the Internal Security Branch of the FBI, for extremists, subversives, and research, respectively. IS-C. Internal Security–Communist. La Migra. Spanish language slang for the Border Patrol. Legat. The FBI office attached to the U.S. embassy in another country. It assists domestic investigations by providing liaison in other countries. These offices are also referred to as legal attachés, resident agencies, and liaison offices. When SIS was moved to the CIA, the FBI created the Legal Attaché offices in US embassies and consulates throughout the world. Each Legat produces a monthly report and those can be requested under file number 64-HD-4984 Subfile 221. LHM. A letterhead memorandum sent from a field office to the director of the FBI or the Washington, DC, FBI office, comprising a cover letter and a detailed report covering a period and disseminated to other FBI offices and other agencies. Liaison Program. The former, perhaps current, mandate to each FBI field office to contact, visit, and create goodwill with all airlines, banks, military and defense entities, hotels, schools and universities, stockbrokers, truck companies, news media, federal agencies, and civic organizations at least once every six months. Its purpose was to ensure the FBI would receive information from these sources when requested. Limited investigation. A type of domestic security investigation to determine the need for a full investigation. It lasts only ninety days unless extended by FBI HQ. LULAC. The League of United Latin American Citizens. Founded in 1929 and is the oldest civil rights organization among persons of Mexican origin in the US. Mail Cover is the interception by the postal authorities and even opening of the target’s correspondence and regularly reporting to the FBI who by name and place of origin for the mail piece is communicating with the target. MAYO. The Mexican American Youth Organization primarily based in Texas during the late 1960s and was the precursor to the Raza Unida Party. MH/CHAOS or just CHAOS. The code name for a CIA program initiated during the late 1960s during the Johnson administration. It was exposed by the New York Times in 1974, which led to congressional investigations. I



Onomasticon xvii

have not been able to find what the “MH” designation as prefix means or represents. MID. During World War I, the Military Intelligence Division of the War Department, later to become the Department of Defense conducted such intelligence and counter-intelligence activity. Mojado. Derogatory word in Spanish for Wetback to refer to an illegal entrant to the US from Mexico. MPD. The Metropolitan Police Department, Washington, DC. It is not to be confused with the Capitol Police, with jurisdiction over federal buildings and properties. NARA. The National Archives and Records Administration is the keeper of all federal documents and records of intelligence agencies. The designation 64-HD-200 is for communist activities of people from outside the US. The Mexican file is 64-HD-200-Subfile 221 and contains 151 sections. Each section can be from 150-200 pages. NISO. The Naval Investigative Service Office. NITEL. An internal FBI communication sent typically from a field office to the director or Washington, DC, FBI office after “normal” working hours, meaning in the evening into the night. NRA. National Rifle Association founded in 1871, considered one of the top three lobbying entities in the country which began lobbying in 1975 with a political action committee named Political Victory Fund. It is a non-profit agency advocating for gun rights under the 2nd Amendment. NSA. The National Security Agency; it is exempt by statute from FOIA requests. OEO. The Office of Economic Opportunity. It was the administrative arm of the War on Poverty. OIP. Office of Information Policy within the Department of Justice which issues a report on FOI/PA requests. See www.justice.gov/oip/ OO. The office of origin. Only in FBI HQ do each of the 210 classifications used in 1968 have an O or an OO placed in front of the file drawer. For example, 136 is the classification for the American Legion contact program. This program began in the 1940s and assumed Legionnaires were unpaid sources for the FBI on domestic security matters in their communities. “136-O,” in this case, is used for complaints and miscellaneous nonspecific data relating to this classification. The OO is used to house policies and procedures that pertain to that classification. Operation Wetback. National initiative by President Dwight D. Eisenhower beginning in 1953 to apprehend, detain, and deport Mexican laborers who entered the United States without lawful documents and those Braceros who walked off the job prior to their contract ending and remained in the US.

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PCM. Partido Comunista de Mexico. Mexican Communist Party (MCP). POB. Place of birth. POCAM. The FBI’s code name for the Poor People’s Campaign, held in Washington, DC, in the summer of 1968. POTUS. President of the United States. Rabble Rouser Index. Established in August 1967 by Hoover to identify and list individuals with a propensity to foment violence or racial discord. The name was changed to Agitator Index in March 1968. In 1970 the list contained 1,131 names. RC. Resurrection City, the name given to the location of the Poor People’s Campaign. It was also referred to as Tent City because the residents temporarily stayed in tents. Reftel. A CIA term for reference to a prior teletype. Relet [date]. Reference to a letter of [date]. RUP. La Raza Unida Party, a political party founded in the 1970s in Texas and expanded to 17 states plus the District of Columbia. SA. (1) A special agent, a member of the regular staff in an FBI field office. (2) The San Antonio FBI office. SAC. Special agent in charge, the person leading a local or field FBI office. SCOTUS. The Supreme Court of the United States. SDS. Students for a Democratic Society, an organization of radical, counterculture, white youth. Service. Used here to apply to employment at two different federal agencies very closely related the INS, now ICE, and the Border Patrol. SIS. Special Intelligence Service was an FBI department that monitored Axis activities in South America until 1946; most of this work was taken over by the CIA created in 1947. SNCC. Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, an organization of black youth. SOG. Seat of Government, Hoover’s self-description of his FBI HQ office. Special agent. Any FBI agent. Stat. U.S. statutes. Subfile. A subdivision of a main file. It can be lettered or numbered and usually contains newspaper clippings, prosecution summaries, and handwritten notes. Subj. The subject or the target. SWP. The Socialist Workers Party USA. T-[number]. A confidential informant or source, as in T-1 or T-5, who is temporary. The designation applies to that informant that one time only. The same number, therefore, can appear multiple times but may not be the same informant.



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Teletype. An urgent communication typically from a field office to the director or Washington, DC, FBI office before the advent of the internet and reliance on telegraphing messages. TGP. Theft of government property. UACB. “Unless advised to the contrary by the Bureau.” USA. A U.S. attorney or the U.S. attorney general’s staff in a given area/city. USC. (1) U.S. Code, federal laws. (2) U.S. court. USDC. A U.S. district court, the lowest and local federal court in a jurisdiction. USG. A CIA term for the U.S. government. W.A.S. or was usually following the name of the subject in the title of the case document. It stands for “with aliases.” WDC. The FBI abbreviation for Washington, DC. Wetback. Derogatory word for Mexican laborer who crossed into the US without lawful documentation. The 1918 Passport Act made it illegal for an “alien” to enter the United States without a passport or visa. WFO. The FBI’s Washington, DC, field office. YSA. The Young Socialist Alliance, a youth subsidiary of the Socialist Worker’s Party USA.

Introduction

My first book on the FBI surveillance of Mexicans and Chicanos began with The Eagle Has Eyes: The FBI Surveillance of Cesar E. Estrada of the United Farm Workers Union of America, 1965-1975. The metaphor of “The Eagle Has Eyes” is better stated by “The Eagle Has Claws” because it is not just the looking at prey but the hurting of that target that comes after the looking. When I finished my second book utilizing FBI files obtained on Reies Lopez Tijerina and the land recovery movement, I thought three things. First, I realized this pace of production would not suffice.1 I would physically die before exhausting the treasure trove of FBI files in my possession. Second, it occurred to me to produce instead of a single-leader and organization books, a multi-chapter book featuring various persons, organizations and events. This is this first effort. The title suggests I am writing only about Mexican people in Mexico. This is not the case. I am writing about Mexican origin people in this first volume, some were Mexican nationals such as Diego Rivera and Carlos Fuentes, but others naturalized into U.S. citizens and identified themselves as Chicanos or Chicanas as in the case of Hector Marroquin and Yolanda Garza Birdwell. These were the people the symbolic American eagle dug its claws into. Third, given the amount of FBI documents I have in my possession, I will attempt to produce several more volumes on this subject featuring dozens of targets: people, organizations and events. The period of study covered by these files on these subjects begins as early as the late 1920s with Diego Rivera into the 1930s and 1940s with Josefina Fierro and the League of United Latin American Citizens followed by Operation Wetback in the 1950s. The review of subject files gets the reader into the 1960s with the chapters on Carlos Fuentes, the Brown Berets and Yolanda and Walter Birdwell. The chronology ends in the 1980s with the analysis of material on Hector Marroquin. Obviously, the FBI interest in monitoring 1

2

Introduction

Mexicans and their Chicano progeny is extensive over time. Why? I have pondered this question for many years. ARE MEXICANS PERCEIVED AS THE HISTORIC ENEMY? Born in the United States during World War II to a Mexican father and Chicana mother, I have searched for answers as to the maltreatment of persons like me at the hands of Anglos most of my life. Why the racist bias and violence against my kind? The question still lingers in my mind in 2020 and is why I began writing about my decades-long research into FBI files and other documents from U.S. intelligence agencies that shed light on this Gordian knot, if you will. My research into government surveillance of the more prominent leaders of the Chicano Movement of the late 1960s and others brought my personal question to the fore once again, more specific and focused. Are Mexicans and their progeny born in the United States seen as the historic enemy by the government of the United States, and by extension, the general white public? The answer may not lie completely in FBI surveillance documents and those of other intelligence agencies utilized in this volume. But why the government surveillance if the targets have not broken any laws; conspired or committed treason against the United States; and have conducted themselves and their business within permissible and constitutionally protected activities? Taken together, however, with the history of the United States toward Mexico and of what once was the totality of Spanish America the answer may begin to emerge more completely. CENTURIES OF CONQUEST Revisiting the history of what is now the United States of America I find a home to my question about being a historic enemy in the literature on the Doctrine of Discovery and Settler Colonialism. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s work on the latter term provides us with a clear view from the perspective of American Indians on these two concepts.2 The political work done by Chicano leader Reies Lopez Tijerina in the late 1960s early 1970s was in direct opposition and resistance of what became settler colonialism over the decades post the Homestead Act beginning with the first legislation during the Abraham Lincoln administration. Tijerina preferred to identify himelf as an IndoHispano, to highlight that he was first a progeny of First Nations and that of Spanish conquistadores’ intercourse with women from those nations.3



Introduction 3

The tribes and clans present during the first arrival of the British colonists in the Northeast had no clue that their lands would be taken by these illegal alien intruders as had been the earlier case with the Spanish conquistadores a century earlier. Under the Doctrine of Discovery, savages, as the Indians were perceived by Europeans, especially the Catholic Papacy, had no right to the lands on which they lived. Second, these tribes and clans were not sedentary peoples and did not hold claim to vast land areas. Their lands were those where game, fish, berries and roots were plentiful; then they moved elsewhere. Lastly, many violent rivalries existed between tribes and clans over competing claims to hunting, fishing, and gathering rights since time immemorial. First Nations did not have a concept of private ownership of property, much less land. All that Mother Nature provided belonged to humanity not individuals. The semi-nomadic lifestyle of First Nations did not change until the Spanish introduced domesticated animals to the Americas. To the Europeans coming to conquer and colonize beginning in the 1500s, discovery of these lands meant possession and ownership by the colonial power—England, Spain, and Portugal in this case. The Spanish, like previously the English and French, also had taken American Indian lands and began settlements under land grants allotted by their King in the Americas. They believed as did the British and later the colonists that under the Doctrine of Discovery the Indians as savages had no divine right to any lands.4 The Roman Catholic Papacy had long before issued Bullas on the matter to resolve land claims in the Americas between Portugal and Spain. Pope Nicolas V created the Doctrine of Discovery in 1452. In 1823, the U.S. Supreme Court adopted this doctrine as the law of the land in Johnson & Graham Lesee v. M’Intosh (21 U.S. 543). Under the reign of the Spanish king Philip II exploration of the Atlantic coast began in earnest, according to Robert Goodwin, the latest to produce such a history of exploration and reinforce the fact that Spanish North America was that many years prior to any other European sovereign staking a similar claim to those lands.5 The British colony that geographically spread to become the Thirteen Colonies eventually revolted during the reign of King George III of England. They took all the lands occupied by Indian tribes in the Northeast and of Spanish America to the south and west. “In 1750, the British Empire had 2 million free and unfree Europeans and Africans living in 23 colonies from Newfoundland to Jamaica.”6 Spain, and later France, however, controlled the mighty Mississippi River that dissected a major part of North America from the west. The Ohio Valley and the lands west had to be taken by any means necessary to westerly expand the new republic and into the south. The economic elites of the time,

4

Introduction

all well-off White males, experimented with their brand of democracy in the establishment of a loosely knit confederation of sovereign states which became known as The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, roughly from November 1877 to March 1789. The “Perpetual Union” was soon discarded in favor of a more centralized, federal republic, still run by the same propertied class of White, male, economic elites known as it is today as the United States of America. This document had a Bill of Rights, a constitution which included the separations of political powers, including a chief executive, and the power to police and tax the populace.7 By then, three gatherings had occurred, called the Continental Congresses (1754, 1775, and 1790). Ultimately, the states became a republic run by the same kind of elites by ratifying the present-day constitution on June 21, 1788. The economic elites in the thirteen colonies after their successful revolt against the monarch of George III had their eyes on the vast Spanish Empire covering almost half of the entire globe, certainly the Americas, Caribbean and Pacific islands. But, first, they legislated in 1790 who was a bona fide citizen of the new country; and, they opted for themselves only. It was decreed that only a “free, white person[s]” would become citizens.8 Everyone else had no claim to the rights and privileges of being a citizen. In the early 1800s the Spanish throne, having reached its apogee as an imperial global power, was having serious trouble holding rein over its colonies and territorial possessions. The bulk of the Spanish Empire was in the Americas, north and south.9 So was France. Both were losing grip on their empires. The French were losing their Caribbean holdings, Sainte Domingue (Haiti today) in particular. Slowly and surely counting on good intelligence, the United States consistently made overtures to the Spanish kings to buy their lands, especially those adjacent to the American colonies. Rebuffed time and again, the U.S. government was persistent. The United States pushed to acquire what became known as the Louisiana Purchase. The moment was timely and strategic. French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte in 1762 had ceded that land to Spain. France, however, asked Spain for the return of those lands with a promise to protect it from England as well. No sooner said than done, France turned around and in 1803 sold the Louisiana lands to the United States, placing the land hungry Americans at the eastern and northern border of what was to become Mexico in less than a decade. After France lost Sainte Domingue to the independence movement in 1804, it wanted that land back. Both France and Spain were facing a hostile England, and Spain was in financial troubles. The wax seal on the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 was not dry when President Thomas Jefferson the following year sent his private secretary, Meriwether Lewis, and an Army Captain, William Clark, across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Missouri, into the Northwest lands to map and explore. They reached



Introduction 5

the Pacific Ocean near Portland, Oregon on November 14, 1805. Upon return by 1806 loaded with information on the lands and its people reduced to notes and crude maps, it became a new frontier for the United States to conquer.10 France’s Napoleon Bonaparte had promised Spain protection from England and Portugal for the land that became known as the Louisiana Purchase. Instead, Napoleon once in Spain with thousands of soldiers decided to stay in the country and add it to his empire. He dethroned King Ferdinand VII and placed his older brother, Jose I, on the Spanish throne by 1808. THE MAKING OF A U.S. BORDER IN NORTH AMERICA That immense transfer of Louisiana Purchase land to the United States, 530,00,000 acres or 828,000 square miles, increased its size three-fold. In contemporary terms, the Louisiana Purchase included the fifteen states across the middle of the United States and two Canadian provinces. At the same time, this land sale diminished Spain’s holdings in North America by at least one-third. The Mexican move toward independence beginning in 1810 further pressured Spain for money and it was convinced by the United States to also sell it the southeastern part of what is now Florida, some of Alabama, and small parts of Georgia and Mississippi. This land transfer is known as the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819. Mexican independence from Spain did eventually succeed, as did other colonies in Central and South America. In 1824, the new Mexican government anxious to protect its northern boundary from the United States now just across the border with Louisiana began a colonization program that brought thousands of Anglos into Mexican Texas. Despite promises not to import slaves, become Catholic, and be loyal to Mexico, most Anglos began plotting revolt upon arrival and land acquisition. Within six years of inviting colonists into Mexican Texas, there were 7,000 Anglos to 3,000 Mexicans and thousands more African slaves. The United States sent troops to the border with Texas on the Louisiana side as the Anglo revolt began to take shape and engage Mexican troops. By sheer luck and after listening to his Texas Mexican revolutionaries, Sam Houston, as Military Head of the Texan Army who never fought a battle until San Jacinto, was able to capture the Mexican president, Antonio de Santa Anna. As a prisoner and hostage, Santa Anna was made to sign the Treaty of Velasco ceding Texas to the rebels in 1835. Santa Anna was then sent to Washington, D.C., for months while United States President Andrew Jackson unsuccessfully tried to persuade him to sell the Southwest to the United States. Within a decade, Texas joined the

6

Introduction

United States of America as a state in 1845. The next year the United States led by President Polk invaded Mexico and forced its capitulation by 1848. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo signed over to the entire Southwest and West of what is now the United States. Mexican scholar Alejandro Sobarzo argues in his book that the U.S. delegates browbeat the Mexican negotiators with threats of renewed military violence into signing the one-sided treaty. 11 The treaty ending official state violence was made even more one-sided when the U.S. Senate removed key articles pertaining to Mexican land claims and their cultural rights from the version ratified.12 The Mexicans lost their homeland, as John R. Chavez pointed out, but it “remains their patrimony although they inhabit in significant numbers only five of the states mentioned” (California, Nevada, Texas, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, parts of Oklahoma, parts of Wyoming, Kansas, and Oregon).13 This theft of the homeland led to almost two centuries of violence and bloodshed to this day, mostly that of Mexicans seeking to reclaim their lands, water, minerals, hunting and firewood gathering and grazing rights. Robert J. Rosenbaum documented this history, primarily of New Mexico with some discussion on Texas and California, in his 1972 doctoral dissertation and later published.14 Benjamin Heber Johnson followed up with a detailed history of the violence directed at all Mexicans in Texas.15 Despite the title of Johnson’s book, Mexicans becoming “Americans” was not a peaceful, welcoming, assimilationist process; on the contrary. As William D. Carrigan and Clive Webb document, the lynching of Mexicans across the Southwest was comparable to that of blacks in the South.16 Nicolas Villanueva, Jr. added more to the history of lynching Mexicans with his work.17 This type of prolonged historical record makes the case of viewing Mexicans as the historic enemy of the United States. In between land grabs, during the Civil War while President Abraham Lincoln had an absolute majority in Congress, the southerners in the House and Senate long departed pushed through the most important three pieces of legislation related to land grabbing. First, was the Transcontinental Railroad (1863–1869) that laid 1,912 miles of rail line across the western lands with alternating plots of sections of land (640 acres each) on opposite sides of track to investors financing such a massive undertaking.18 Second, were the successive laws authorizing another land grab by 1.6 million white European immigrants and 25,000 African slaves fleeing the South under the Homestead Acts, the last grant of which was made in 1989 (Alaska). Former Native, Spanish, and Mexican lands, 270 million acres, were carved from what was deemed the “public dominion” held in trust by the U.S. government (1862– 1989).19 Third, beginning in 1872 under President Ulysses W. Grant the first national park consisting of 2,219,823 acres was carved from the public



Introduction 7

dominion and became known as Yellowstone National Park located primarily in present day Wyoming, with parts in Idaho and Montana.20 The second to last U.S. land grab was the purchase of the Mesilla area between Tucson, Arizona, and the California border. For $10 million the United States acquired nearly 30,000 square miles of Mexican land on June 8, 1854. Over the next two decades the United States began spying and collecting information on Canada, Cuba, and Mexico with the appointment of Major Emory Upton to study Asian and European armies. Major Upton had analyzed the defeat of Napoleon III at the hands of the Prussian army in 1876, based on sound intelligence gathering of the enemy. He recommended the U.S. army engage in such surveillance particularly on its closest neighbors.21 The last U.S. land grab was the war against Spain in 1898 which netted all the Spanish holdings in the Caribbean and Pacific. By 1900, the United States had run out of frontier to conquer in its century of “fleeing forward” toward an endless conquest of other peoples and usurping their lands.22 Regrettably this more complete history of the making of the United States is not only ignored in the public and private schools of the country but also in the social science and humanities curricula of higher education. While most Americans will boast of living in the most powerful nation in the world, few can explain much less describe how the U.S. empire came to be and at whose expense it was built. Daniel Immerwahr does a very comprehensive job at this erased and ignored history, particularly events leading to the major conflicts described above and after World War II.23 COLLUSION WITH MEXICO: THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION OF 1910 On the Mexican side, the FBI’s counterpart is the Departamento Confidencial (DC), first established in 1920 by President Alvaro Obregon’s Secretario de Gobernacion, Plutarco Calles. Both were former military generals during the last years of the Mexican Revolution of 1910, and employed tactics and strategies gleaned from that military experience in setting the culture and scope of the DC. Prior to that time, other presidents and dictators such as Agustin de Iturbide, who took power just after the collapse of the Spanish Crown’s hold over Mexico in 1810, and Porfirio Diaz, who was in power from 1876 to 1911, had secret police and military intelligence units at their command.24 Diaz began to modernize Mexico during his 37-year rule at the expense of losing control of vast areas of agricultural lands, railways, mining, utilities, telephone, and vehicle transportation which he did willingly to U.S.-based companies and some German and British interests. And, he relied on the U.S.

8

Introduction

government to help him spy on those who would seek to topple his regime. Diaz contracted with the Furlong Detective Agency of St. Louis, Missouri to monitor and help arrest his arch-rivals of the late 1890s, the Magon brothers operating out of Baja California, Ricardo and Enrique.25 By 1917 the FBI, known then as the Bureau of Investigation, systematically began gathering intelligence in Mexico and the whole of Latin America. Since World War I the Military Intelligence Division (MID) of the War Department, precursor to the Department of Defense, in collaboration with the Joint Army Navy Board, later to become the Joint Chief of Staff, began making colorcoded war plans for the possible engagement with every major country in the world including civilians in the United States. This last war plan was called the White Plan in case of domestic insurrection and the U.S army’s best foot soldiers were the members of the American Legion. The Blue Plan was for military action to quell domestic disturbances in peace time. Green was the war plan color for Mexico.26 Military surveillance of Mexicans has a longer history dating back to at least the Mexican Revolution.27 In 1907, the Bureau of Investigation was in collaboration with Captain William S. Scott running special duty out of Ft. Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, whose job it was to “watch the Mexican immigrant.” President Howard Taft at the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution dispatched the first troops to the Mexican border in 1911.28 In Brownsville, Texas, in January 1912, the Justice Department and the Mexican Secret Service gathered enough evidence to file charges of conspiracy to violate the Neutrality Act; thirty-seven Mexican men under the orders of Mexican General Bernardo Reyes were convicted. On April 4, 1914 seven U.S. sailors were arrested by Mexican soldiers in Tampico, Mexico. Despite being released rather quickly, the naval commander demanded an apology and raising of the U.S. flag on Mexican soil which was refused. The following year, the U.S. Navy was ordered by President Woodrow Wilson to take and hold the Mexican port of Vera Cruz and asked Congress for more funding for MID so the instructed officers on duty along the U.S. Mexico border could gather intelligence data on disloyal Mexicans and Mexican ringleaders.29 Eventually, all this preparation and surveillance was discontinued by the end of 1915 because the new Secretary of War, Lindley M. Garrison, did not believe in the surveillance of civilians.30 Prompted by the disclosure of the Plan de San Diego, as in San Diego, Texas, calling for the execution of all white males over the age of sixteen in order to take back stolen lands in Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, California and Arizona, “Anglo-Americans violently targeted ethnic Mexicans along the Rio Grande border.”31 Miguel Antonio Levario states that the Plan de San Diego caused “Mexican



Introduction 9

residents on both sides of the border” to be “classified as subject ‘Others’ and designated as a threat to Anglo security and national sovereignty.”32 Francisco Villa’s raid on Columbus, New Mexico on March 9, 1916 added to the clamor for retaliation against all Mexicans in the United States and in Mexico and the need for reliable intelligence gathering by military professionals. As a result each department of the U.S. Army established an intelligence office with coordination of the War College.33 Within months, “Pershing led some 10,000 men into Mexico” and on June 18th ordered “some 100,000 men” after President Woodrow Wilson mobilized the National Guard for duty on the Mexican border.34 Between 1910 and 1920, the United States “mounted two major and one minor armed incursions into Mexican territory,” one in April 1914, Pershing’s hunt for Villa between 1916–1917, and June 1919.35 In 1921, FBI Director Hoover hired Gus T. Jones, former Texas Ranger, to be part of his San Antonio Field Office team. Jones proved invaluable for his knowledge of Mexican politics and its law enforcement personnel. By 1941, Hoover permanently assigned him to Mexico City, as his FBI man in Mexico became the first of many FBI legal attachés to come spread the world over.36 The transmissions from the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City to FBI Director Hoover about Diego Rivera, and later Carlos Fuentes, chapters in this volume, had to come from Gus T. Jones. THE INFAMOUS TELEGRAMS Two telegrams came to light five months later of the Santa Ysabel incident that cemented the notion among U.S. policy makers and the general public that Mexicans in the United States and in Mexico were their historic enemy.37 The first telegram was intercepted on June 22, 1916 in Dallas, Texas by a Western Union operator who “received a code telegram to relay from Mexico City to Tokyo discussing Mexican interest in aid from Japan.” The operator notified Adjutant General Frederick Funston, head of the Army’s Southern Department, who in turn notified the War College. The day before, Mexican troops had killed twelve U.S. soldiers and captured twenty-three more while they were scouting in Mexico. President Woodrow Wilson immediately mobilized the entire National Guard and federalized it to make ready with war on Mexico.38 The next telegram was sent by Germany’s Foreign Secretary, Arthur Zimmerman, to the German Minister in Mexico asking for an alliance to fight the United States in exchange for all the lands previously taken from Mexicans once the war was over.39 National Guard officers from around

10

Introduction

the country were summoned to Washington and trained in counterintelligence. The Bureau of Investigation formed a private citizens group, the American Protective League (APA), and organized chapters in major cities across the country. These events led the United States to change the mindset of military leaders and civilians on the need to institutionalize military intelligence. Hoover’s Bureau of Investigation was already in the business as of l917 with State Department, Secret Service, Army, and Navy in gathering intelligence in Mexico during its revolution. Mexican revolutionary Francisco Villa executed sixteen engineers from the United States with one survivor, Thomas H. Holmes, at Santa Ysabel, Chihuahua, Mexico on January 10, 1916. This event became known as the Massacre of Santa Ysabel in the U.S. media. Violence against Mexican origin people in El Paso, Texas as a result of this event forced the imposition of martial law to keep local Anglos from killing innocent Mexicans in the Texas city.40 About two weeks later, January 28, 1918, the U.S. counterpart to the Santa Ysabel massacre took place. It was the mass murder of all the grown men over the age of fifteen, all Mexicans, and many were U.S. citizens, at Porvernir, Texas by the U.S. Army and Texas Rangers on January 28, 1918.41 Subsequent legislative hearings in Austin, Texas conducted by the lone Mexican origin legislator, Jose Tomas Canales, found those murdered were innocent of any wrong-doing but being Mexican, and the killer Rangers and U.S. Army regulars guilty of murder. No charges were ever brought against any of them.42 But for World War I which the U.S. joined late and recalled the U.S. troops from the Mexican border, the incessant and escalating violence may have led to another war with Mexico. Two years ago, the placing of a state historical marker to remember the tragic event near the site generated heated political controversy between the proponents of such a descriptive sign and locals who want to forget the past.43 THE BORDER COVERAGE PROGRAM (BOCOV) By the 1940s under the program name of Special Intelligence Service (SIS), the FBI had about 700 agents in Latin American countries.44 In 1956 until about 1971, the FBI began its infamous counter-intelligence programs known as COINTELPRO.45 Included in the array of programs targeting all kinds of groups and individuals was the Border Coverage Program or BOCOV. The primary goal of BOCOV and method was focused on “disorganizing the Communist Party (CP) or related organizations is disruption from within,” according to one of the first documents, 5-page report, obtained dated January



Introduction 11

9, 1961 from the Director BBI to the SC, San Diego. This report summarized recommendations made at an earlier Border Coverage conference held in San Diego, California on November 14, 1960 (p.1). The recommended plan was to utilize informants that the Bureau had to approve and even train or in the words in the summary report: “plans should be laid to develop such informants” (p.2). Tactics enumerated in this report were redacted but not the “psychological tactics” or the “neutralizing of individuals” (p.3). The report also listed the border field office which should participate in BOCOV, regardless of how effective the Communist Party groups were in each locality, and also focus on “communist sympathizers, former CP members,” and “individual communists who, although not active members of the CP” (p.4). All field offices were to submit to the Bureau “their analyses of the counterintelligence potential in their areas” (p.5). The field offices listed as part of BOCOV were San Diego, Albuquerque, Phoenix, El Paso, San Antonio, and Mexico City; even the subfile numbers were listed for each of these. The Bureau file number was 100-434445 (p.5). An unstated goal of BOCOV was to prevent the coalescing of Chicano groups and individuals on the U.S. side of the border with Mexican groups and individuals on the Mexican side. However, in reviewing other FBI files it is clear, as in the case of the labeling and targeting of the American G. I. Forum (AGIF) as a communist organization, that the tag of being communist, former communist, independent communist, or member or sympathizer of a related group such as the Popular Socialist Party was very liberally applied to anyone active in politics along the border. BOCOV’s most successful tactic was to create division and suspicion between Chicanos and Mexicans.46 As the saying goes about the oldest profession in the world, intelligence gathering by spies and informants must rank equal if not first to the sexual favors trade. THE SURVEILLANCE STATE In many ways, the United States, as any other nation-state government structure, has always had a primordial focus on surveillance of enemies domestic and foreign with little distinction between those categories. The first rule of national security is to protect the government. Toward that end the national government needs an intelligence and security apparatus. Typically, the military branch of any government provides the security functions while the intelligence needs are met by an array of entities created for that purpose. After the September 11, 2001 attack on New York City by al-Qaeda operatives during which 2,997 persons were killed including 2,753 in the city alone the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) began as an official strategic plan crafted by the

12

Introduction

Department of Defense.47 From that day forward, more scholarly attention has been paid to the actual operations—budget allocations, personnel, activities, and programs—of the surveillance state growing in our midst. Adding to this body of knowledge are the exposés carried by investigative journalists on security leaks by whistle blowers such as Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, and Sibel Edmonds, to name a few for example. Ms. Edmonds, a former FBI translator, was fired in 2002 for exposing the fraud in contracting by Halliburton with the U.S. government. In 2004, she and others formed the National Whistleblowers Association (NWA). Since 1988, the National Whistleblowers Center (NWC) has assisted in educating the public, gathering data on whistleblowers, and advising them on their rights. The NWC also created a National Whistleblowers Legal Defense Fund to protect the legal rights of such persons often terminated as in the Edmonds case and accused of wrongdoing including treason and espionage. In the case of post-9/11 United States, the surveillance state is comprised of two branches, military and intelligence. In 2019 the budget allocations for these two branches, as has been the case for several decades, are divided into the National Intelligence Program (NIP) and the Military Intelligence Program (MIP); together they make up the United States Intelligence Program comprised of seventeen different entities. The 2020 proposed combined budget for NIP at $62.8 billion and MIP at $22.95 billion is $85.75 billion, several billions over what is proposed to be spent by any other department but for Health and Human Services ($90 billion) and Veteran Affairs ($93 billion). The total Department of Defense Budget is proposed at $718 billion or fiftyseven percent of the total budget of $1.3 trillion.48 The National Intelligence Program is dollar-wise larger than the military budget which mostly goes for payroll to 1,358,193 soldiers and another 1.1 million National Guards and Reserves soldiers. The U.S. military has the most and largest military bases in the world.49 There are other intelligence agencies at the local and state level, usually part of the law enforcement components, even within other national entities such as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) within the Department of the Treasury. President Richard Nixon relied heavily on the IRS to investigate and harass political enemies, as have done other presidents. President Donald Trump is using the Treasury Department and the IRS to hide his secrets documented in income tax returns from his political enemies and even Congress who has a constitutional right to know. This kind of exaggerated and imbalanced budget allocation for intelligence and military operations has been a historic trend in the United States since World War II and increased since 9/11’s Global War on Terrorism.



Introduction 13

It is during the period of 1920s to 1980s that this volume will focus on the Mexican and Chicano people, organizations, and event under surveillance by the U.S. government, namely the FBI and for the event, the Department of Justice’s other police agency, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). J. Edgar Hoover, as Director of the FBI, was obsessed with communism; his task was to eradicate the ideology and its adherents from the face of the earth. He was the strongest proponent of this surveillance. World War II gave Hoover’s obsession another giant boost when the U.S. Congress passed several espionage statutes codified under Title 18 of the United States Code. Hoover now had to look for not only communist sympathizers but spies and snitches. And, post-WWII Russia changed from being a U.S. ally to becoming the mortal enemy, so began the Cold War. Another major factor leading to the surveillance of Mexicans and Chicanos during this half-century era was U.S. immigration policy, specifically the many who fled the Mexican Revolution by crossing the U.S-Mexico border and then the Bracero Program of the 1940s to the 1960s. The Mexican Revolution and the Bracero program, according to many, brought unwanted Mexicans into the United States, and they stayed. This burgeoning Mexican population prompted the creation of the U.S. Border Patrol and this agency continues to expand in both personnel and budget annually. Today, fifty-one percent of all Border Patrol personnel are Hispanics. Given the substantial salary and benefits of this job, Hispanics seek the job and accept being paid to hunt, apprehend, and remove other Hispanics from U.S. soil.50 Immigration, the law enforcement aspect, has become a national political football since 1910 and increasingly alarming by the late 1920s early 1930s. President Herbert Hoover began a program he called “American jobs for real Americans” which was the beginning of massive raids and deportations of Mexicans from U.S. cities and the Southwest. In the 1950s President Dwight D. Eisenhower deported the most Mexicans under his program, insultingly called Operation Wetback. The surveillance and government monitoring of this event is the last chapter in this volume. Since the 1970s, every presidential race since has had as part of its national debate agenda between aspirants of the White House the topic of immigration reform. As a policy matter, initiative after initiative have been part and parcel of each administration. THE TWO BIG QUESTIONS IN 2020 Shortly after the 2000 census enumeration, Hispanics in the United States became the largest ethnic minority in the nation, surpassing the largest non-white

14

Introduction

racial African origin community by several million. Two decades later in 2020, the white population in the United States is projected to continue in rapid decline due to a falling birth rate and rising number of deaths. By 2030, all the baby boomers, predominantly white, will be over 65 years of age. By 2060, the U.S. Census estimates the white population will have declined to 179 million persons from 199 million in 2020. At the same time, the nonwhite, predominantly Mexican, Central American, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Vietnamese and other Asians and South Americans are rapidly growing by the decade. The black population is stagnant with a slight decline and that has been the pattern for several decades.51 This unprecedented demographic change in the kind of population, other than the traditional European white origin base, is of primordial concern to whites and particularly white nationalists. One of the big questions already being debated and discussed is about these heirs and descendants of these growing populations—upon learning their histories of being conquered peoples will they turn resentful toward whites? Will they want their stolen lands back with dollar reparations? Will they treat white people as whites historically have treated them? Will they make whites pay for sins of their Anglo ancestors? Is this why Mexican peoples are seen by whites as their historic enemies? Is this the reason for the continual surveillance regardless of any hint of treasonous, seditious, or criminal behavior? Is this criminalization and racialization the new norm of white behavior toward peoples of color? Is the ascendency of Donald Trump with his hateful divide and conquer politics into the White House tied to this century’s old malaise? The proposed Census Question in 2020 was the second biggest dilemma to be faced by Mexican origin people, the largest ethnic minority in the nation, and all others who have recent immigrant backgrounds. Without delving into the conspiracy as alleged in the federal lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York, behind including the question on citizenship on the census form, the fact remains that thousands of persons did not want to answer the question and perhaps not even respond to the questionnaire at all for fear of apprehension and deportation.52 The United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruled against the government and ended that specter of official repression.53 The endgame, however, was not to improve the efficacy of the Voting Rights Act as claimed by the Secretary of Commerce and Attorney General before SCOTUS justices for the question had never been asked before nor has the argument been made in the thousands of lawsuits over the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and its subsequent amended versions. The obvious result would have been an undercount of population; Latinos, to be sure, would have been severely disadvantaged in the redistricting process and allocation of federal dollars. The U.S. Census Bureau, not waiting for court decision on this question, moved forward in pilot test runs under the name of 2019 Census Test on



Introduction 15

480,000 housing units which included the citizenship question.54 Undaunted, the Trump administration via the Census Bureau requested citizenship data and eye color on all persons with driver licenses from the states.55 It remains to be seen how many states will comply and what litigation may result from this capricious affront to SCOTUS, whose decisions are supposedly the law of the land.56 More on point, it is against federal law as stated in Title 13 of the United States Code for the Bureau or any federal agency to make public names, addresses including GPS coordinates, Social Security numbers, and telephone numbers. Not one case has been brought against any agency for this Title13 violation.57 ORGANIZATION OF THIS BOOK The FBI files contain many abbreviations, codes, acronyms, and the like that make for difficult reading without a guide. On p. xi, the reader will find an Onomasticon providing the necessary explanation for these many entries that make no sense but are indispensable to understanding the content of each FBI file plus a few others not related to FBI matter but found in secondary sources.58 The Introduction above is a very brief history of U.S.-Spain and U.S-Mexico relations, violent wars to be clearer; the FBI’s interest in Mexicans; and, the post-9/11 beginnings of the Deep State and or the Surveillance State with a short description of the contents by chapter in the book. Then, in Chapter 1, the analyses of the persons surveilled begin with Diego Rivera. This is an examination of the FBI records on this Mexican artist that spent many years on commissioned work painting murals in the United States while the FBI was fixated on his on and off affiliation with Mexico’s Communist Party. Rivera befriended Leon Trotsky and aided in getting him political asylum in Mexico only to become a suspect in that murder despite his alibi of being in the United States. In Chapter 2, I focus on Josefina Fierro for an examination of the FBI records on her. She may have been a Mexican national that claimed U.S. citizenship or a U.S. citizen by birth, the secondary sources consulted are not clear on this point. She became a labor organizer and very active with El Congreso del Pueblo Que Habla Español (Spanish Speaking Congress) during the late 1930s into the ’40s. She and her husband, a successful Hollywood screenwriter, fled to Mexico during the years of congressional investigations by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA) and era of McCarthyism. Carlos Fuentes becomes the subject of Chapter 3, an examination of the FBI and State Department records on this gifted writer and widely acclaimed by the literary world to this day that reveal a capricious and intentional censorship of his ideas by repeated denials for visas to travel in the

16

Introduction

United States. Chapter 4 is about Hector Marroquin, with an examination of the FBI and Immigration and Naturalization Service records on this applicant for political asylum for his role in the student protests in Mexico during 1968. He joined the Young Socialist Alliance once in the United States and rose through the ranks to become a member and celebrity of the Socialist Workers Party in the United States during his successful fight against deportation based on political asylum and subsequently a U.S. citizen. The narrative moves to U.S. citizens by naturalization or birth such as Yolanda Garza Birdwell. This is an examination of the FBI records on her and Walter Birdwell, the husband, who was an Army spy during his military service on student groups in and around Austin and Houston, Texas. She was an active member of the Mexican American Youth Organization and participated in many civil rights protests and the student walkouts in Houston. The two organizations examined are next, beginning with the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC). An examination of the FBI records of surveillance on the first and largest of the civil rights organizations formed in the United States by persons of Mexican ancestry in 1929 is the stuff of Chapter 6. Next in Chapter 7 are the Brown Berets aka Chicano Youth for Civic Action, with an examination of the FBI records on this youth organization which formed in Los Angeles, California, at the time of the first Chicano student walkouts in the nation during the late 1960s. Their infiltration, harassment, and disruption by police agents and the FBI led to their demise and end with their occupation of Catalina island off the California coast. The narrative ends with Chapter 8, an examination of records, mostly from 1954, on Operation Wetback, an ethnic cleansing operation of Mexican removal. This is an examination of Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) records, particularly the police agency, the Border Patrol, and some FBI records from one year of Operation Wetback. The other records corresponding to final years was not made available with the excuse that those were not locatable. These records document the internal workings of a national dragnet to find, detain, and deport millions of Mexican laborers without lawful entry documents from the United States by bus, train, boat, and airplane. The last pages are for reproductions of actual documents in an Appendix, and a Bibliography plus an Index for name searches. NOTES 1.  Tracking King Tiger: Reies López Tijerina and the FBI, (E. Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2019) and my prior work was The Eagle Has Eyes: The FBI Surveillance of César Estrada Chávez of the United Farm Workers Union of America, 1965-1975, (E. Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2019).



Introduction 17

 2. An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, (Boston: Beacon Press, 2014). She also has somewhat of a combined, Indian and Hispano land tenure history in Roots of Resistance: Land Tenure in New Mexico, 1680–1980, (Norman: The University of Oklahoma Press, 2007, revised edition).  3. Tracking King Tiger: Reies Lopez Tijerina and the FBI, (E. Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2019).   4.  Robert J. Miller et al., Discovering Indigenous Lands: The Doctrine of Discovery in the English Colonies, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).  5. América: The Epic Story of Spanish North America, 1493–1898, (New York: Bloombury Publishing, 2019). See Chapter 6, “‘Hang all the Lutherans’ The Atlantic Coast”: 113–125.  6. For this quote and a brief survey of this era of history see www.ourameri canrevolution.org/ and go to the various links beginning with “Empire and Nations, 1750–1763” and “Roads to Revolution, 1764–1775.”  7. A recent work that traces this early history is George William van Cleve, We Have Not a Government: The Articles of Confederation and the Road to the Constitution, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017). For a much earlier work see Merrill Jensen, The Articles of Confederation: An Interpretation of the Social-Constitutional History of the American Revolution, 1774–1781, (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1959). See also a text version of the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union at https://wwwourdocuments.gov/rpint_friendly.php ?flash=true&page=transcript&doc=3&title=Transcript+of+Articles+of Confedera tion+%281777%29/  8. See 1 Stat.103 (March 26, 1790).  9. Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Our America: The Spanish History of the United States, (New York: W.W. Norton, 2014) and for a more recent history of Spanish Americas, see Robert Goodwin, América: The Epic Story of Spanish North America, 1493–1889, (London and New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019). In 2009, under the direction of Brian D. Joyner, the National Park Service of the United States government published a bilingual, Spanish and English, booklet, Hispanic Reflections on the American Landscape: Identifying and Interpreting Hispanic Heritage. The booklet not only traces the Spanish colonization of the Nueva España but also identifies the existing historical markers in the United States that preserve the past and present Hispanic presence in the country.The place of printing is not identified nor is the publisher but I assume it is the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C. as is the case for almost all governmental publications. 10.  See these writings in The Journals of Lewis and Clark, edited by Bernard DeVoto, (New York: Houghton and Mifflin Company, 1997). 11.  Deber y conciencia: Nicolas Trist, el negociador norteamericano en la Guerra del 47. (Mexico, D.F., Fondo de Cultural Economica, 1996). 12.  Richard Griswold del Castillo, The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990), explains the context and content of the treaty very well as well as detailing the excised Article IX and X from the final document. 13.  The Lost Land: The Chicano Image of the Southwest, (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1984), 1.

18

Introduction

14.  The dissertation was at the University of Texas at Austin. The published title became Mexicano Resistance in the Southwest; “The Sacred Right of Self-Preservation,” (Austin: University of Texas, 1981). 15.  Revolution in Texas: How a Forgotten Rebellion and Its Bloody Suppression Turned Mexicans into Americans, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005). 16.  Forgotten Dead: Mob Violence Against Mexicans in the U.S., 1848–1928, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013). 17.  The Lynching of Mexicans in the Texas Borderlands, (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2017). 18.  See Stephen E. Ambrose, Nothing Like It in the World: The Men who Built the Transcontinental Railroad, 1862–1869, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001). 19. Robert Fink, “Homestead Act of 1862,” www.britannica.com/topic/home stead/act/ Accessed October 23, 2019. 20. NPS.gov, “History & Culture,” www.nps.gov/yell/learn/historyculture/index .htm/ Accessed October 23, 2019. For a combined history of Indian removal and the creation of the system of National Parks see Mark David Spence, Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999) which does not delve into the taking of Spanish and Mexican lands. For a listing by state of all types of federal land held by the federal government up to that publication date see the National Geographic Society’s A Guide to Our Federal Lands, (Rockville, MD: Holladay-Tyler Printing Corporation, 1984). 21.  Joan M. Jensen makes such a point in Army Surveillance in America, 1775– 1980, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), 31 and provides her sources on Major Upton in three endnotes, 12, 13, and 276. 22. Greg Grandin, The End of Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America, (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2019) posits his concept of “fleeing forward” toward frontier that was insatiable and that once having run out of frontier, the United States is now trying to wall itself in to keep all others out. 23.  How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States, (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2019). 24.  Joseph A. Stout, Jr., Spies, Politics, and Power: El Departamento Confidencial en Mexico, 1922–1946, (Fort Worth, TX: TCU Press, 2012) has a first look at this agency and the other components of Mexico’s internal security apparatus. The Direccion General de Investigaciones Politicas y Sociales (DGIPS) continues to this day. 25.  Colin M. MacLachlan, Anarchism and the Mexican Revolution: The Political Trials of Ricardo Flores Magón in the United States, (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991). 26. Jensen, Army Surveillance, 197. 27. W. Dirk Raat, “US Intelligence Operations and Covert Action in Mexico, 1900-47,” Journal of Contemporary History, 22: 4, October 1, 1987, 615–638. 28.  Rachel St. John, Line in the Sand: A History of the Western U.S.-Mexico Border, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011), 129. 29. Jim Powell, Wilson’s War: How Woodrow Wilson’s Great Blunder Led to Hitler, Lenis, Stalin, & World War II, (New York: Crown Forum, 2005), 83–84. 30. Jensen, Army Surveillance, 125.



Introduction 19

31.  St. John, Line in the Sand, 129. 32.  Militarizing the Border: When Mexicans Became the Enemy, (College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 2012), 13. 33. Jensen, Army Surveillance, 128. 34. Powell, Wilson’s War, 87. 35. Alan Knight, U.S.-Mexico Relations, 1910-1940: An Interpretation, Monograph No. 28, (Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego, CA., 1987), 1. 36.  FBI.gov, “Field Office Histories,” www.fbi.gov /history/fieldofficehistories/san antonio/ Accessed June 19, 2019. 37. Tuchman’s Zimmerman was most useful in placing the Zimmerman telegrams when made public into perspective on generating anti-Mexican attitudes in the United States. The first edition of this work was published in 1958 by Viking Press which in and of itself informed readers of the danger posed by Mexicans in the United States and in Mexico should they align themselves with a foreign power against the United States. 38. Jensen, Army Surveillance, 130–132. 39. Tuchman, Zimmerman, 4. 40. Tuchman, Zimmerman, 89. 41. John MacCormack, “Findings shed new light on 1918 Porvenir massacre,” The Washington Times, April 4, 2016, www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/apr/4 /findings-shed-new-light-on-1918-porvenir-massacre/ Accessed June 23, 2019. 42.  Andrew Shapter, “Porvenir, Texas,” Austin Film Society, www.austinfilm.org /sponsored/the-massacre-at-porvenir/ for a brief documentary history of the event and hearings. Accessed June 23, 2019. 43.  See site above, Ibid., link to historical marker for written communications on the subject. 44.  Marc Becker, The FBI in Latin America: The Ecuador Files, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2017) 2, 8. 45.  Nelson Blackstock, COINTELPRO: The FBI’s Secret War on Political Freedom, (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1975, 1988, 2011 3rd edition) is first look at COINTELPRO. Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall, The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI’s Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States, (Boston: South End Press, 1990), is a collection of various documents from each of the programs they identified and were able to obtain documents. See my article with first mention in the next endnote, 46. 46.  “Chicanos and Mexicans Under Surveillance: 1940–1980,” Renato Rosaldo Lecture Series Monograph, Vol. 2., Ignacio Garcia, ed., (Mexican American Studies & Research Center: University of Arizona, spring 1986) 39–43. 47.  Dana Priest and William M. Arkin, Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State, (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2011) 5. 48.  Michael E. Devine, “Intelligence Community Spending: Trends and Issues,” Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, 7-5700, June 18, 2018. See www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/R44381.pdf or email author at [email protected]/

20

Introduction

49.  Department of Defense, “Base Structure Report-Fiscal Year 2017,” accessed October 29, 2019, https://www.acq.osd.mil/eio/Downloads/BSI/Base%20Structure %/Report%20Fy17.pdf/ and look at John Harrington, “America’s Largest Military Bases in the World,” accessed October 29, 2019, https://247WallSt.com/special -report/2019/04/08/americas-largest-military bases-around-the-world/; certainly more and larger that any of Russia or China and even both combined. 50.  Miriam Valverde, “Has the number of Border Patrol Agents Quadrupled since 2005?” See www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/feb/01/adam-smith /has-number-border-patrol-agents-quadrupled-2005/ accessed April 29, 2019. 51. Jonathan Venza, David W. Armstrong and Lauren Medina, “Demographic Turning Point for the United States: Population Projections for 2020 to 2060,” U.S. Census Reports, March 2018 at www.census/gov/content/dam/Census/library/publi cations/2018/demo/P25_1144.pdf/ Downloaded May 15, 2019. 52.  NYIC Plaintiff’s Motion for an Order to show cause in State of New York, et al, v. U.S. Department of Commerce, et al., 18-CV-2921 (JMF). In this case, it was alleged that Thomas Hofeller, a redistricting specialist for the Republican Party, conducted a study in 2015 in which the citizenship question was posed to a select group and the results were a huge undercount leading to giving an unsurmountable advantage to Republicans by diluting the traditional Democratic-leaning Hispanic numbers. Numbers are used to redistrict all political entities in the nation, federal to local governments, the year following the census enumeration. If the total population numbers used after 2010 are from heavily voting Republican precincts which are paired with low turnout in Democratic precincts the result will be a structural electoral victory for decades to come for Republican candidates. The results of the Hofeller study were first sent to the Department of Justice who in turn sent their own letter in December 2017 to Secretary of Commerce asking for the citizenship question and utilizing the Voting Rights Act enforcement rationale. Furthermore, in a state case, Common Cause v. Lewis, No. 18-CVS-14001, in North Carolina, Dr. Hofeller gave testimony to the effect that the question would disadvantage Latinos and benefit nonHispanic Whites. Additionally, Dr. Hofeller is the principal researcher for another study to determine the practicality and political benefit of utilizing voting age population as opposed to total population in the census for redistricting purposes. Surely, this will be another battlefront promoted by Republicans to dilute voter turnout and structurally disadvantage the Latino community. 53. See www.politico.com/story/2019/06/27/supreme-court-ruling-against-census -citizenship-question-1385304/ Accessed October 21, 2019. The case was styled U.S. Department of Commerce vs. New York. 54. This information was found in a press release issued Public Information Office, Census Bureau dated June 11, 2019 55.  See www.npr.org/2019/10/16/770648941/census-bureau-asks-states-for-driver -license-records-to-produce-citizenship-data/ Accessed October 21, 2019. 56.  Otherwise known as the “Supremacy Clause” is found in Article VI, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution which states that included in the law of the land are laws passed by Congress, treaties entered by the United States, and Supreme Court decisions.



Introduction 21

57.  United States Census Bureau, “Data Protection and Privacy Program,” Federal law-Title 13 USC, www.census.gov/about/policies/privacy/data_stewardship/federal _law.html/ Accessed October 30, 2019., 58.  Most helpful in preparing this Onomasticon has been the work of Ann Mari Buitrago and Leon Andrew Immerman, Are You Now or Have You Ever Been in the FBI File: How to Secure and Interpret Your FBI Files, (New York: Grove Press, 1981). Regrettably there has not been an update on the language, codes, programs, and acronyms used by the FBI post 9/11. For military codes and acronyms see William M. Arkin, Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Program, and Operations in the 9/11 World, (Hanover, New Hampshire: Steerforth Press, 2005). There is also the K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner, eds. Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security, 3 Volumes, (Detroit: Gale Group, 2004) in which a Glossary in Volume 3, 289–315, may be helpful.

Part I

THE FIVE PERSONS

Chapter One

Diego Rivera, the Mexican Muralist

The birthname of Diego Rivera is a long, long one, especially after his baptism: Jose Diego Maria de la Concepcion Juan Nepomuceno Estanislado de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodriguez. The last part of his name starting at Barrientos comes from his mother’s side. She was Maria del Pilar Barrientos Acosta y Rodriguez; his father was Rivera. It is customary in Mexico to add the mother’s maiden name after the father’s name to their children.1 There is no Junior (Jr.) category, as in English, to distinguish son from father with the same name. Kings, queens, and popes used the Roman numerals like I, II, III, to distinguish which was which but there is no such tradition in the Mexican culture for this either. Diego just went by two short names, Diego Rivera. He was born in Guanajuato, Guanajuato, Mexico. Chronologies of significant events in the life of Diego Rivera are provided by several authors.2 Bertram Wolfe was one of Rivera’s biographers, along with many others, who wrote on his art and incorporated some biographical data into their works.3 Rivera himself wrote an autobiography with the help of Gladys March.4 I gleaned important biographical data on some years from these secondary sources that could have been of interest to J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Bureau of Investigation (BI). In 1935, its name changed to Federal Bureau of Investigation. Hoover was interested in anecdotal data on Rivera, his travels and activities, which was in the BI files, and later, FBI documents. The FBI file number for Diego Rivera at the Bureau aka Headquarters later to be re-named by the Director as “Seat of Government” is HQ-100-155423. This ample file of about 300 pages, many of which are redacted and entirely withheld, begins with a “POSTA,” meaning a postal letter I assume, dated October 15, 1927 from Hoover to addressee “Daly” at the “Dept. Justice Sub-Treasury Bldg New York City.” The content, all in capital letters, however, reads like a telegram: 25

Chapter One

26

DIEGO RIVERA LEFT SAN ANTONIO NINE OCLOCK OCTOBER FOURTEENTH VIA SUNSHINE SPECIAL PENNSYLVANIA FOR NEW YORK STOP KEEP UNDER CLOSE BUT DISCREET SURVEILLANCE STOP INFORMATION SUBJECT IS LEAVIING COUNTRY. ADVISE IMMEDIATELY WHEN DE DOES SO OR IF HE DELAYS STOP GIVE CAREFUL ATTENTION AND HANDLE THOROUGHLY AND DISCREETLY HOOVER

And, Hoover sends a similar message to “Jones Dept Justice Federal Bldg San Antonio Texas” on the same day with the first sentence the same as above but the second and last sentence is different: “ENDEAVOR [ABOUT SIX WORDS REDACTED] AND WIRE NEW YORK STOP HANDLE WITH UTMOST SECRECY HOOVER”5 DIEGO RIVERA, THE CHILD Patrick Marnham asserts that Rivera was born as an artist at the age of thirtyfour in Florence, Italy. The two things that grabbed Rivera’s attention at that time were the fresco which depicted St. Peter finding a gold coin in the mouth of a fish, and the gigantic scaffold utilized to paint the huge fresco, from his perspective. “Como pintor siembre he tratado de ser fiel a mi vision sobre la vida, y frequentement estado en conflicto con los que querian que pintara no lo que yo veia sino lo que ellos queria que yo veira.”6 Rivera sketched the scaffold, not the fresco.7 Actually, Diego had begun drawing images at the age of two.8 Taught by his father to read by age four, Diego was enrolled in school where he excelled in artistic endeavors and was sent to Mexico City in his teen years to study art formally at the San Carlos Academy, the first art school in the Americas dating to 1781. Rivera was a twin. During the birth his mother went comatose and was thought dead by the attending doctor only to recover in time from the catalepsy, and not be pronounced dead. His twin died two years later in 1888 leaving Dieguito in the care of women—his mother, two wet nurses, two aunts, and a sister born in 1891. His father, largely absent at home due to work, was deeply involved in anti-Porfirio Diaz politics and anti-Catholic church doctrines when he wasn’t writing articles and essays in the local newspaper on those views. Meanwhile, Dieguito was being mentored by the best of Mexican artists of the era and began painting rich landscapes.9 The young schoolboy soon reached 20 years of age and left for Spain to study art. His 26-piece exhibition at San Carlos Academy had won him a scholarship to study in Spain. Between 1907 and 1921, he studied art in most



Diego Rivera, the Mexican Muralist 27

European capitals. He set up house with a Russian artist, Angelina Beloff, in Paris in 1919; they had a son in 1916. His daughter, Marika, was born in 1919, not from Angelina but another lover and artist, Marevna VorobyovStebelska. In 1920, Diego afforded by a grant from the Mexican government, studied in Italy until March 1921. That same benefactor, then Secretary of Education Jose Vasconcelos, recruited him to return to Mexico and paint murals. He left his children and women behind, never to see them again.10 THE FORGOTTEN MEXICAN LIFE RECOVERED When in Europe he ignored the world war around him and was completely uninterested in the happenings in Russia post–October Revolution. When the Third International convened in Moscow, most French Socialists attended.11 When they returned and formed the Parti Comunistee Franҫias, Rivera was still completely uninterested. However, upon his return to Mexico in July 1921 he began to take an interest in the activities of Mexican communists.12 When he visited Merida, the state capital of Yucatan, he was met and feted by Socialist Governor Felipe Carrillo and jubilant crowds of socialists and communists happy to have become freed men after ten years of bloody struggles with government forces of the Porfirίato and the security men of the Yucatán henequén (hemp) plantations.13 Rivera toured the archeological zones of Chichén Itzá and surrounding pre-Columbian sites. The images he saw became etched into his psyche and brain forever. This decade of his life was most transformative as reflected in his subsequent artwork and politics. He joined the Communist Party of Mexico in the autumn of 1922 and was issued membership card number 922; and, by the following year he had a seat on the Central Committee of the fledging political party; it never was multitudinous.14 He married Guadalupe (Lupe) Marin in June 1923 and thanks to Jose Vasconcelos began painting murals to great acclaim and income.15 He was busy painting and also organizing a labor union. He founded the Revolutionary Union of Technical Workers, Painters and Sculptors. One of his competitors in unionizing and socialist politics was Vicente Lombardo Toledano.16 His first daughter with Lupe Marin, also named Guadalupe, was born in 1923. He resigned from his own union in 1924 over petty disagreements and was forced to resign from the Communist Party (CP) of Mexico in 1925 by the actions of the unofficial international organizer for the Communist Party, Bertram Wolfe, who also had a seat on the Mexican CP Central Committee. Wolfe, who would become one of Rivera’s biographers, however, was expelled from Mexico the following year and Rivera returned to full membership in the Mexican CP.17 He fathered another daughter, Ruth, in 1927 who

28

Chapter One

was born while he traveled to Russia to be part of the 10th Celebration of the October Revolution. Rivera had begun to learn the Russian language from Angelina Beloff, one of his first lovers in Paris.18 While he was in Russia, Lenin died, Stalin took over, and Trotsky was expelled from Russia unbeknownst to Rivera. Stalin immediately began the persecution of intellectuals and eradicating opposition from the left.19 Soon, with the birth of the Stalin totalitarian state, Rivera was diplomatically urged to return to Mexico which he did by June 14, 1928.20 He began to oppose the Stalinist rule and sided with Leon Trotsky whom he saw as a real heir to Leninism. FRIDA KAHLO BECOMES “DE RIVERA” Upon his return from Russia, he left Lupe Marin to marry Frida Kahlo in 1929.21 She became his third wife, Frida Kahlo de Rivera.22 Her birth name, like Diego’s, is long: Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderon. She had just turned nineteen years of age, he was forty-three, already famous, and with money.23 Her birthday is July 6, 1907.24 As a child she contracted polio and was left with a withered right leg, and later, was severely injured in a bus accident on September 17, 1925 when she was 18 years old.25 She never recovered from those injuries which were severe and compounded: a pierced body by an iron rod that entered her abdomen and protruded out her vagina, broken pelvis in three places, broken 3rd and 4th ribs, broken spinal column in three places, broken collarbone, fractured the polio-stricken right leg in eleven places and foot dislocated and crushed, and her left shoulder dislocated.26 Her body repair took thirty-two surgical operations from date of accident to 1951.27 Part of the benefits of recovering from surgeries was to have time to draw, color and paint. She had been fascinated with drawing, much like Diego, at the early age of three.28 Frida learned about communism and the Communist Party in Mexico (MCP) while being in the circle of friends who gravitated around three figures, German de Campo, a fellow student, Julio Antonio Mella, an exiled Cuban Communist, and his Italian-born American photographer, Tina Modotti.29 Frida joined the Young Communist League of the Mexican Communist Party in June 1928.30 She met Diego during these years. IN AND OUT OF THE MEXICAN COMMUNIST PARTY During that winter of 1928–1929, Diego Rivera did not paint; instead he helped organize the presidential campaign of the Communist Party candidate



Diego Rivera, the Mexican Muralist 29

who was not allowed on the ballot because the MCP had been outlawed. Only the official candidate of the Partido Revolucionario Intitutional, Alvaro Obregon, was on the ballot and won only to be assassinated within a month of taking office as president. At this same time, Augusto Sandino was leading an uprising in Nicaragua. Rivera formed the Anti-Imperialist League of the Americas and another group to support farmers and workers in Mexico and Latin America, including the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. But his agitation bore little fruit; instead he was again expelled from the Mexican CP on September 17, 1929 or it might have been October 3, 1929 when he orchestrated his own expulsion.31 A month later, the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, Dwight D. Morrow, despite the negative publicity emanating from the left and the right surrounding Diego Rivera, commissioned him in 1929 to paint a mural at the Palacio de Cortés in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico for $12,000 USD.32 The courtship by U.S. authorities with Diego Rivera had begun as did the Rivera reliance on U.S. dollars to fund his lifestyle and work. But the U.S. State Department, Immigration Naturalization Service (INS), and the rather new Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) did not see more than a Communist in Rivera. The State Department at the urging of the FBI denied him his first visa waiver for entry into the United States in 1929. But for the intervention of Albert M. Bender, a patron who had been buying Rivera’s work along with his other friends, pressured the State Department to lift the ban. Among these “other friends” were Annie Meyer Liebman whose brothers and sisters were Eugene Meyer, editor of The Washington Post; Walter Meyer, officer of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway; Florence Meyer Blumenthal, whose husband was President of the New York, Metropolitan Museum; and, Rosalie Meyer Stern who contracted Diego to do a mural in her dining room in Atherton, California.33 The political pressure from this group of influentials worked out very well. Rivera became the talented, respectable, Mexican artist to the State Department, not the dangerous Mexican Communist he was for Hoover and his FBI. He remained an FBI target under surveillance and regular monitoring until June 10, 1953, a mere four years before he died.34 Beginning in 1930 and for the next four years, Rivera practically lived in the United States. He began accepting commissions to paint murals in the United States, first in the San Francisco Pacific Stock Exchange’s Luncheon Club (1930) and another at the California School of Fine Arts (1931). He exhibited in New York and began work on a mural in Detroit’s Institute of Art (1932). These commissions came of the friendship he established with Dwight Morrow who put him in contact with the Mellons, Morgans, and Rockefellers. In Detroit, the connection was Edsel Ford who was on the Board of Directors of the Detroit Institute and the New York Museum of

30

Chapter One

Modern Art.35 The controversial mural at the Rockefeller Center in New York was somewhat finished in 1933, but it was destroyed by the patron. Rivera, not to be denied his creative license, re-did the mural at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City (1934).36 TROTSKY AND THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL During these years, Vladimir Illich Lenin died, and Leon Trotsky was challenged by Joseph Stalin for control of the Soviet Communist Party. Trotsky, over the course of nine years, sought asylum in various countries ending in one of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera’s homes, Casa Azul, in Coyoacán, Mexico. The Riveras at that time lived in a Mexico City suburb, San Angel.37 Mexican presidential politics took a turn to the left in 1934 with the election of Lazaro Cardenas, last of the 1910 revolutionary generals.38 At the personal request of Rivera, President Lazaro Cardenas approved political asylum in Mexico for Lev Davidovich Bronstein aka Leon Trotsky and his wife, Natalia. President Cardenas offered political asylum to many persecuted intellectuals and popular leaders, including Sigmund Freud, for example, as fascism took hold in Europe and shortly after the fall of the Spanish Republic.39 In Freud’s case, it was the International Red Cross and many Mexican labor unions who cabled President Cardenas requesting the political asylum but not so welcoming was the Mexican Foreign Minister, Eduardo Hay, who replied to the Red Cross International that the Mexican president “had already offered to help all the Austrian political refugees.”40 The Trotskys arrived via the sea ship Veracruz on January 9, 1937.41 President Cardenas even dispatched a special train, “El Hidalgo,” to bring the Trotskys to Mexico City. A welcoming party, including Diego and Frida, met the Trotskys at a substation on the outskirts of the city, Lecheria, and from there by car to the Casa Azul.42 Diego Rivera knew them both from their days in Paris waiting for the revolution in Russia to take place; he had been there learning painting from European masters and colleagues.43 From those days on, Diego and Frida Rivera became the enemies of Stalin and the Soviet world-wide array of Communist Parties, including Mexico’s. But, the Riveras and the Trotskys became more than political comrades and friends—Leon and Frida became lovers.44 Stalin and Hitler had reached agreement before the beginning of World War II in August 1939 to work together in a non-aggression pact. This alliance now placed the United States in direct opposition to Russia as its future “allied” partner against Nazism. Stalin, taking advantage of the pact with Hitler and U.S. neutrality in the meantime, rolled into eastern European countries



Diego Rivera, the Mexican Muralist 31

as fast as he could to build a Soviet empire, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Hitler was doing the same thing but not on eastern European countries, he was targeting mainly western Europe. Rivera saw an opportunity and approached the U.S. Embassy about the possibility of testifying before the Dies Committee on Un-American Activities about Stalinism in Mexico. He hoped that the United States would see the advantage of the adage “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Trotsky was attempting the same strategy to have the United States protect him from Stalin. In the process, Rivera and Trotsky volunteered much information on Spanish Communists admitted into Mexico as political refugees after their defeat in their civil war, and the Mexican CP membership which included Stalin’s intelligence agents.45 To some of Rivera’s critics these maneuvers indicate he became an informant for the FBI; but the FBI documents do not even hint at that possibility given the uninterrupted surveillance and monitoring of his every move until the mid-1950s. THE RIFT WITH TROTSKY By 1939, Diego and Leon became bitter enemies over the infidelity of Frida with Leon Trotsky. On May 24, 1940 over twenty men dressed as police, some in military uniforms, invaded the San Angel house in hopes of murdering the Trotskys. A grandson, Vsevolod “Seva” Volkov, was slightly injured, Robert Sheldon Harte, one of Trotsky’s bodyguards, was killed, but Leon and Natalia miraculously escaped unharmed despite the rain of bullets fired.46 Investigators placed blame for the attack on fellow artist David Alfaro Siqueiros and the GPU, the Russian acronym for Stalin’s secret police assigned foreign missions.47 After the failed assassination attempt on Trotsky, Rivera immediately went into hiding with the help of Irene Bohus, a HungarianAmerican painter, and the American actress Paulette Goddard.48 Goddard was in Mexico seeking a divorce from Charlie Chaplin and Rivera was doing her portrait. Bohus helped him leave his house hiding in her car, once he was warned by Goddard.49 Goddard hid him in her apartment for a few days because the Mexican police suspected him of the assassination attempt and wanted to arrest him on those charges.50 Within days, Rivera succeeded in obtaining a border crossing card for entry to the United States.51 He flew to Brownsville, Texas and from there to California. He was given a one-year visa.52 The actual murderer, Ramon Mercader, was Frida’s acquaintance from the days in Paris. She had invited him into their home whenever he visited Mexico. Mercader, at first chance inside the Rivera home where the Trotskys were staying, plunged an ice ax into Harte’s skull. Frida also had become a prime suspect in the attempted murder of Leon Trotsky. Frida immediately

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came under suspicion after the murder, and was arrested but released after twelve hours of interrogation.53 Siqueiros was arrested several times and eventually imprisoned at Lecumberri prison in 1960 for his part in this crime and was released in 1964.54 When Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico, Rivera was on a scaffold painting a fresco in San Francisco, California.55 Actually, he painted ten murals for the Golden Gate International Exposition. When Frida was jailed she reached out to Diego for help, he invited her to join him in California. As part of the inducement, he suggested she could also be treated for her recurring ailments not cured in Mexico.56 He re-married Frida in San Francisco, December 8, 1940.57 The years between 1935 and 1943 were bleak economic years for Rivera. He had no work commissioned from the United States or from Russia to be sure—nothing anymore. More devastating was the fact that Mexico had no walls for his murals either. The American Communist Party labeled him the Communist “painter for millionaires.”58 Rivera sought re-admission into the Mexican CP in 1941 and again in 1952, to no avail; repeatedly he was denied. He even managed to offend the Catholics in Mexico with his portrayal of Cantinflas, the loved Mexican comic, as Robin Hood together with the Virgen de Guadalupe image, Mexico’s most revered patron saint. In this work, Cantiflas was Juan Diego, the indio native the virgin allegedly appeared to in the forest of Tepeyac. This work was commissioned to be on the walls of a new gigantic movie house that opened in Mexico City in 1963 owned by José Maria Dávila.59 END OF FRIDA Frieda died on July 13, 1954. Diego draped her coffin with the Russian flag contrary to what he promised Andres Iduarte, the director, he would not do in lieu of letting her lay in state at the Institute of Fine Arts (Palacio de Bellas Artes) in Mexico City. The coffin was surrounded by Mexican CP members and Communist union members of his former Artist, Painters, Sculptors group. Also joining Rivera in mourning and standing guard at one point was ex-President Lazaro Cardenas.60 In 1952, Rivera wrote in his autobiography that he began to be bothered by pain in his penis, it was swelling. He had trouble urinating. His doctor diagnosed cancer in his penis and wanted to amputate both his organ and testicles.61 This was like a death knell for Diego. Instead, he underwent radiation treatment for a few months until the symptoms disappeared. A subsequent biopsy showed no malignancy.62 Another source, however, claims he imme-



Diego Rivera, the Mexican Muralist 33

diately journeyed to Moscow with a new wife, Emma Hurtado, for treatments with cobalt, and without fear of Stalin’s agents.63 Rivera claimed he had a second bout with cancer in his penis some nine months after Frida’s death but was restored to good “pink of health” over the course of seven months in Moscow.64 Emma Hurtado, his wife at the time when he was hospitalized from September 1955 until end of January 1956, stayed at this bedside. Soon thereafter they traveled in Russia, to Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia before returning to Mexico and moving to live in Acapulco.65 Rivera was allowed to re-join the Mexican Communist Party in September 1954 mainly because Stalin had died in 1953.66 He vowed “Henceforth my sole service will be to Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism, the only just and true political line out of which alone can come good painting.”67 In other words, Rivera’s painting, the artistic, came first, the ideology was the canvas and background. END OF RIVERA At age 70, Rivera suffered a stroke in September 1957 and lost control of his right arm, but he returned to Emma and their home in San Angel, the same neighborhood in southern Mexico City with the ugly memories of Leon and Frida. He died two months later of a heart attack on November 24th.68 His ashes are at rest in the Rotunda de los Hombres Ilustres on orders of then Mexican President Adolfo Ruiz Cortines instead of next to Frida’s in Casa Azul, Coyoacán, her tomb which included her bed, as he had stated in his will.69 Bertram Wolfe, the former Communist who worked to expel Diego from the Mexican CP in 1926, had a change of heart after his death and wrote in the last pages of his biography that Rivera was a populist rather than a Communist.70 Wolfe added, None of the painters ever took the trouble to study the writings of Marx and Lenin whose names on occasion they invoked. Even Modigliani, whose brother was an outstanding leader of Italian Socialists knew nothing of the literature of Marxism. All Diego ever knew of Marx’s writings or of Lenin’s, as I had ample occasion to verify, was a little handful of commonplace slogans which had attained wide currency.71

THE FBI FILE ON LEON TROTSKY: 65-2916272 After months of filing my Freedom of Information Act requests, waiting, and finally paying, I received Rivera’s file in mid-December 2018. At the FBI’s

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open source site on the web I was able to view portions of the file on Leon Trotsky. Section 1 of the Trotsky file begins with a Memorandum from Special Agent A.D. Horn dated June 20, 1934 with address of Room 1403, 370 Lexington Avenue, New York City, to “Special Agent in Charge F. K. Fay.” A Naval Intelligence Unit officer, Captain [name redacted] telephoned Mr. McGrath and “requested that an Agent of this office be sent to interview him . . .” about Leon Trotsky. The Naval officer was reporting that Leon Trotsky was “residing in New York or over in New Jersey.” Trotsky had been avoiding detection because he was “disguised by shaving his beard, entered and and (sic) flew by airplane from Canada to New York.” Hoover cautiously jumped on this notice and sent a Memorandum to Assistant Attorney General Kennan on July 2, 1934 stating what his agents had reported and closing with, “No action, of course, is being taken by this Division in connection with this information.” Special Agent (SA) Fay on July 10, 1934 wrote to Byron H. Uhl, District Director, Immigration & Naturalization Service, Ellis Island, New York that Captain [name redacted] at Police Headquarters, Red Bank, New Jersey, had telephoned his office reporting “that a person believed to be Leon Trotsky came into the Molly Pitcher Hotel” in Red Bank at 3 a.m. on the 8th of July. “This is being transmitted to you for your information and such action as you deem appropriate.” These communications between these parties continued into mid-July and resumed on September 24, 1934 when Hoover once again wrote a Memorandum to the Assistant Attorney General Keenan about Trotsky’s suspected presence in the United States. Earlier on September 13, 1934 Lt. Colonel C. K. Nulsen in the War Department had advised Hoover that Trotsky posing as Baron Rothschild’s valet had entered the country through the Port of San Francisco and made his way to New Jersey. Letters from others dating into January 3, 1935 continued to come into FBI headquarters, then called the Division of Investigation for the U.S. Department of Justice, reporting that Trotsky was in New York at the Wellington Hotel. Even Walter Winchell reported having heard that rumor to Special Agent in Charge (SAC) F. M. Fay of the New York office. There is no record of Trotsky having been in New York or New Jersey in 1934. He was in New York for about ten months, in 1917 on the eve of the October Revolution.73 Max Eastman, who translated Trotsky’s The History of the Russian Revolution, also placed him in New York only after he was expelled from France and returned to Petersburg in time to join the Sixth Congress of the Bolshevik Party in July 1917.74 The grandson, Vsevolod, who survived the first assassination attempt on his grandfather, Leon Trotsky, also does not place him in New York in the 1930s. In fact, the grandson, who changed his name to Esteban and became a Mexican citizen, described recently how after his mother, Trotsky’s daughter Zinaidal Volkova, took her life, he went to stay



Diego Rivera, the Mexican Muralist 35

with an uncle who also was targeted for assassination by Stalinist agents. After his death, Esteban made it to Coyoacán, Mexico in August 1939 to stay with his grandparents. He recounts the years of these tumultuous and dangerous times for Leon Trotsky as leaving Russia in 1929, finding refuge on the island of Prinkipo, Turkey in the sea of Marmara for a few years, then expelled and went to France and Norway, and finally Mexico in 1937.75 Another source traces Trotsky’s routes during the early 1930s and states that after Stalin formally banned Trotsky from Russia in February 1929 he fled to Turkey. During this stay until July 1933, Trotsky completed his three-volume work, History of the Russian Revolution, then moved to the village of Barbizon near Fontainebleau at the invitation of the new leftist head of state, Edouard Daladier. While here he began work on the biography of Lenin which never got finished by him. His welcome in France was short lived given his positions against Nazi fascism and Stalinist Communists in France. Norway allowed him sanctuary in the spring of 1935, near Oslo where he wrote The Revolution Betrayed. This publication prompted Stalin to condemn him to death in Moscow. Either for Trotsky’s protection or in response to Stalinist pressure, the Norwegian government placed him under house arrest in 1936. By the end of the year, the negotiations with Mexico were successfully concluded for political asylum and the Trotskys left Norway for Mexico in January 1937.76 Either the FBI, along with Naval Intelligence, New York police, and the Ellis Island INS, at this early stage of their developing intelligence surveillance methods and analysis, were most inept, misinformed by their sources, and dead wrong about individual identification, or a very similar looking person was mistaken for being Leon Trotsky. How could a “double” have eluded U.S. airline officials or border guards at the Canadian airport to board a flight into the United States? It is possible with fake documentation, but highly unlikely. How could Trotsky’s double have passed immigration officials in New York or San Francisco without an entry visa? It is possible he used a fake U.S. passport but unlikely. Moreover, after the exchange of memorandums, the files indicate nothing was done to attempt to apprehend and question the Leon Trotsky in their midst. The ample file on Trotsky has buried information on Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo which is useful in understanding the scope, reasoning by the FBI, and methods used to conduct a prolonged surveillance of both for years. THE SURVEILLANCE FILE ON RIVERA What prompted Hoover to alert the authorities in New York about Rivera’s travel toward that city was a telegram from a San Antonio agent [name

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redacted], I assume was working for Hoover’s BI dated October 17, 1927 stating after the first line is redacted: “Party suiting description left on Texas Special Katy nine ten AM Sunday morning [redacted thereafter for one line].” The SAC, New York filed his 3-page report covering the period October 15 to 18, 1927. According to this report, Rivera arrived October 18th at 2pm at New York’s Pennsylvania station and was spotted by “Special Agent [name redacted] who took up the surveillance of Subject at this point.” Prior to this initial contact, there is some confusion as to which train Rivera had left San Antonio and which train, he was to arrive into New York (p. 2). This caused FBI agents in St. Louis to board the “Spirit of St. Louis” train and search for a Latin type which they found in “Car #8, Lower 7” who “was the only one that resembled a Latin.” An agent proceeded to sit in that car until Rivera and others left for the dining car to check his luggage and found his name on one bag. This agent described Rivera as 6', 225 lbs., about 40 years old, sallow complexion and smooth shaven, dark bulging eyes, dark long and bushy hair, broad face; Indian type with a high forehead and wearing a wide-brimmed, gray Stetson hat, dark gray suit, tan shoes, dark gray over-coat and a yellow slicker. Upon arrival into New York, another Special Agent [name redacted] took up the surveillance who reported that Rivera was met by three men and a woman and departed by taxi cab (p. 3). The next 2-page report dated October 20, 1927 from SAC, New York to Hoover that Special Agent [name redacted] had checked with the Alien Sailing Permit Office located at the Barge Office Room 7 and learned that Rivera had a permit to sail on the S.S. Mauretania, 3rd class bound for Cherbourg, France (p. 1). He boarded the ship at 10:30 pm, the gangplank was drawn up, and the ship began to sail at 11 pm (p. 2). October 27th the Director BI sent a copy of The Daily Worker issue of October 20th in which Rivera’s photo appeared above his interview and stated he was traveling to Moscow to attend the 10th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution. The article quotes Rivera as supporting President Alvaro Obregon over the seditionists “Gomez and Serrano” and makes mention of the Mexican Communist Party newspaper El Machete growing in circulation now at 10,000 copies in circulation in a country with an 85% rate of illiteracy. The copy of the Daily Worker in a separate article mentioned that novelist Theodore Dreiser also arrived in Russia aboard the “Mauretania” as had Rivera. On November 8, 1927 the Acting Director of the BI (no name provided on signature line) sent a letter to the SAC, San Antonio to change the case titled Diego Rivera on the report of October 26th from Mexican Radical Matter and to note that “radical matters are now to be carried under the caption of Treason.” I venture to guess that the Acting Director, whomever that was, did not realize or know that Subject Diego Rivera was a Mexican citizen and therefore incapable of committing treason to a foreign country.



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DROPPED FROM THE SURVEILLANCE RADAR From the 1927 trip to Moscow, Russia to May 15, 1931 no documents from the FBI were included in the release I requested. The first document is a newspaper article with above date taken from the open source, The New York Times. The article relates the conflict between competing groups of Communists, some with the John Reed Club who bore a grudge against Rivera for his murals commissioned by capitalists and those in favor of Rivera’s work, among them Trotskyites and Lovestoneites.77 Another document is a 4-page article from the July issue of Liberty Magazine under the title of “The Web of the Red Spider” written by George Sylvester Viereck. The content seems to push the reader to accept that Communism in Red Russia has inculcated Marx and Lenin into each child and seeks to convert youth the world over. The article cover features a photo of Diego Rivera at a student strike at Columbia University. Toward the end of the article it calls for the denial of Communist Party members becoming candidates for public office and outlawing of the party outright and denying the party use of the U.S. postal service. There is another photograph of Diego Rivera in the solo-page document dated 12/9/39 citing “N.Y. Herald Tribune” as the open source. Skipping to October 27, 1942 an impossible to read transmission from a redacted FBI source to another FBI person about Diego Rivera consists of photostatic material which are 4 pages entirely withheld and one too dark and redacted to read. Three years later, the FBI picks up the paper trail again with a one-page transmission from Director Hoover to Mr. Frederick B. Lyon, Chief of the Division of Foreign Activity Correlation for the Department of State about Diego Rivera. The first two paragraphs of this communication are redacted but the last sentence of the second paragraph reads: In 1942, he favored a closer alliance with the United States. In December 1944, in a newspaper interview he praised Stalin and the Russian Government and voiced extreme criticism of Prime Minister Churchill. This information has been made available to the American Embassy at Mexico, D.F.

Interestingly, for the first time in these documents U.S. military intelligence units were also copied. In this transmission, Hoover sent copies to the Navy Department Chief of Naval Intelligence; the Assistant Chief of Staff for G-2, War Department; and the Reading Panel, Military Intelligence Service, all three headquartered in Washington, D.C. On June 14, 1946 Director Hoover notified the Civil Attache, Gus T. Hall, in Mexico City by Secret Air Courier that The New York Times for June 6, 1946 had cited a Mexico City newspaper article from June 5th revealing the Mexican Communist Party was contemplating reinstating both Diego Rivera

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and David Alfaro Siqueiros as members.78 The second paragraph of this communication is redacted. The following month, the FBI recapped in a 20-page report to redacted source(s) with 5 more pages entirely withheld the history of surveillance reports on Diego Rivera. The first two entries are redacted and then a October 12, 1927 redacted two lines to the State Department; two more redacted lines to someone dated October 14, 1927 and the narrative of the trip by Rivera to Moscow along with the newspaper articles of his interviews; followed by more reference to clippings from Fortune Magazine, New York Times, and Washington Herald (p.2). The first FBI man in Mexico, Gus T. Hall, submitted many of the summaries in this lengthy report on Rivera’s activities against Stalin and Hitler and reporting that Rivera knew of Nazi operations in Mexico. The Martin Dies Congressional Committee investigating Communist Activity tried unsuccessfully to have Rivera and Leon Trotsky come to Washington, D.C. to testify. Rivera did offer anyone interested to take them to Campeche, Tabasco, and Quintana Roo and show them the German submarine installations. According to Hall, no one accepted the offer (p. 13). During the first Trotsky assassination attempt, Hall reported that Rivera had left Mexico for the United States (pp. 3–12). Rivera was also reported as speaking out against the Fascist-leaning government in Argentina (p. 15). Mexico City Legat reported in a 5-page memorandum to Hoover on September 24, 1946 that Rivera had not been reinstated as a member by the Communist Party of Mexico and listed the names of the Central Committee of the party (p. 3). SAC, Houston on October 5, 1950 reported a local newspaper, The Houston Press, stating Rivera might come to the city. Hoover responded a month later by sending to the Houston FBI Division lots of material on Rivera and asked “if you receive any information that subject has arrived in your territory, the Bureau should be promptly advised.” On December 30, 1952 another similar notice came into Bureau headquarters about Rivera maybe coming to Albuquerque, New Mexico. This office memorandum, which is heavily redacted, caused a flurry of activity across the nation, coast to coast, from San Diego, California to Newark, New Jersey, and New York City the following year because it mentioned “This address is located in the territory of the Newark Office.” Newark in turn on April 1, 1953 suggested the New York office had also questioned some person [redacted]. New York similarly suggested San Diego interview someone in their city and another person’s surname is given: “San Diego is also requested to question DE PUY concerning this matter.” San Diego on June 10th requests that Denver get involved and “attempt to locate and interview [name redacted].” On September 27, 1954 The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the Mexican Communist Party had reinstated Diego Rivera into membership.79



Diego Rivera, the Mexican Muralist 39

DIEGO RIVERA VS. THE UNITED STATES, CIVIL DOCKET NO. 8793 (1955) Sometime earlier on January 21, 1954 in a town named Juana Diaz, Puerto Rico, Diego’s son, Hector Rivera Colon, was injured by an explosion of a ground burst simulator belonging to the U.S. Army based at Camp Losey. The details of this event are provided in the first 5-page report on this matter dated February 15, 1955 from the San Juan FBI agent, Thomas J. Keenan, to the Director. Other minors were also injured it is alleged because U.S. Army soldiers provided the matches and incendiary device to the kids (p.2). Diego hired an attorney, Bolivar Pagan, and filed suit in the U.S. District Court, District of Puerto Rico. Pagan offered to settle the case for Hector Rivera Colon and other children for $1,650. According to Special Agent Maurice F. Farabee’s report dated May 25, 1956 and after months of haggling, the entire case was settled for $300 inclusive of attorney fees of $60 thereby averting a trial. On February 8, 1957 Special Agent Douglas G. Bills reported to Hoover that the compromise settlement was a “savings to U.S. Government of $9,700.” During this ordeal of an injured child and possible protracted litigation Diego Rivera traveled to Russia for cancer treatments and returned cured on January 26, 1956.80 It was not until July 28, 1957 that Hoover learned of these event from Legat, Mexico in a one-page note which is redacted for half a page at the bottom. This transmission placed the date of travel to Moscow as being August 1955 to April 1956. The next month on August 12, 1957 Hoover sent by courier service a one-page note with attachments. The note was addressed to Mr. F. Tomlin Bailey, Director, Office of Security, Department of State, 515 22nd Street N.W., Washington, D.C. but five more pages of this transmission were entirely withheld. One of the attachments was an essay signed by Diego Rivera, “Let all humanity clamor to end the bomb tests,” apparently published in The Guardian. The second attachment must have made Hoover gloat with joy. It was the notice of Diego Rivera’s passing, and laying in state prior to his burial among Mexico’s honored sons. This article was also attributed to New York’s The Guardian of December 9, 1957. TO WHAT END? After 30 years of surveillance of Diego Rivera what was the outcome? He never committed a crime. He never advocated the overthrow of the United States. He never was charged much less tried for treason in Mexico. He did advocate for workers’ rights. He was an off and on member of the Communist Party in Mexico. He did oppose Stalin and Hitler. He did have tumultuous

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love affairs and was not a good husband, father, Communist Party member, or friend to other artists such as David Alfaro Siqueiros. He did create magnificent art that lives on, along with the art of Frida Kahlo. I assume it was the content of his paintings of workers that made him a target of Hoover’s ultraphobia of Communism. NOTES 1. Bertram D. Wolfe, The Fabulous Life of Diego Rivera, (New York: Stein and Day, 1963), 17. 2. Patrick Marnham, in Appendix I in Dreaming with His Eyes Open: A life of Diego Rivera, 321–326 covers the year 1861 to November 27, 1957 and Andrea Kettenmann, 93–94 of her book, Rivera, begins with his birth on December 9, 1886 and that of his twin, Jose Carlos Maria Rivera Barrientos to his death. 3. Ibid., who claims he wrote about three books and several articles about Rivera. He lists some on 3–6. 4. Diego Rivera, My Art, My Life, An Autobiography, (New York Dover Publications, 1991) with English translation by Gladys March. The original text was published by Citadel Press, 1960. 5. Gus. T. Jones was the FBI field agent in charge of the San Antonio office at that time. 6. Andrea Kettenmann, Diego Rivera, 1886–1957: A Revolutionary Spirit in Modern Art, (Cologne, Germany: Benedikt Taschen Verlag GmbH, 1997) inside Front cover flap. Translation: As an artist I have always strived to be faithful to my vison of life and frequently found myself in conflict with those who wanted me to paint not what I saw but what they wanted me to see. 7. Marnham, Dreaming, 17. 8. Ibid., 321. 9. Some of these early works are reproduced in the pages of Kettenmann’s Rivera, 9–12. 10. Ibid., 14–20. 11. Marnham, Dreaming, 151. 12. The Mexican Communist Party began as the Socialist Worker’s Party in 1917 during the apogee of the Mexican Revolution that began in 1910 and shortly after the Russian October Revolution of 1917. It changed its name to the Communist Party of Mexico in 1919 and was outlawed in 1925 until 1935 when it was permitted to operate above ground during the presidency of Lazaro Cardenas until 1946 when it failed to meet the federal requirements for a political party such as 30,000 registered members in at least 21 states and the federal district (Mexico City). It never was much of an influence in Mexican electoral politics. In 1960, three years after Diego Rivera died, the U.S. State Department estimated the party membership at 50,000 or 0.28% of the voting age population of Mexico. Voter registration and voting is compulsory in Mexico. A couple of sources on Mexican Marxism and Communism are Barry

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Carr, Marxism and Communism in Twentieth-Century Mexico (Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1992) and Kathleen Bruhn, Taking on Goliath: The Emergence of a New Left Party and the Struggle for Democracy in Mexico (Penn. State Univ. Press, 1997). 13. Marnham, Dreaming, 160. 14. Ibid. 165. See Pete Hamill, Diego Rivera, (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 1999), 93–98 for a closer view of Rivera’s politics. 15. Marnham, Dreaming, 165. 16. In 1921 Toledano joined the teachers union which merged with the Confederacion Regional Obrera Mexicana (CROM) and the Labor Party and later co-founded the Popular Socialist Party. The CROM became the Confederacion de Trabajadores Mexicanos (CTM) which was closely aligned with the Mexican Communist Party as well as John Lewis’s Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in the United States. 17. Marnham, Dreaming, 186. 18. Hayden Herrera, Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, (New York: Perennial Harper Collins, 1984), 310. 19. Marnham, Dreaming, 199–200. 20. Ibid, 203. 21. Kettenmann, Rivera, 93. 22. Herrera, Frida, x. 23. Wolfe, Fabulous, 248. 24. Herrera, Frida, 10. 25. Ibid., xi. Her polio happened when she was six years of age, p. 14. 26. Ibid., 49. 27. Ibid., 62. 28. Ibid., 63. 29. Ibid., 79. 30. Ibid., 80, 94. 31. Ibid., 102. 32. Marnham, Dreaming, 225. Wolfe, 271. 33. Wolfe, Fabulous, 281–287. 34. This date is on the last FBI document released to me. This does not mean the surveillance stopped by any means, only perhaps the declassification of documents in his file. 35. Wolfe, Fabulous, 299. 36. Kettenmann, Rivera, 93. Wolfe, Fabulous, 331–340. 37. Wolfe, Fabulous, 238. 38. Herrera, Frida, 201. 39. See Ruben Gallo, Freud’s Mexico: Into the Wilds of Psychoanalysis, (Cambridge and London: The MIT Press, 2010) for this history, rich in detail as to the treatment of Freud at the hands of the Gestapo during the time when all exit visas were denied. 40. “How Mexico Tried to Save Freud From the Nazis,” Baja Times, June 16/30, 2019, 1, 5 book review by unnamed source utilizing quotes from author of book, Freud’s Mexico, Ruben Gallo.

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41. Marnham, Dreaming, 278. Hamill, Diego Rivera, claims the port of arrival was Tampico, 188l. Wolfe, Fabulous, notes Rivera’s personal intervention with Cardenas, 238. 42. Herrera, Frida, 205–206. 43.  Ibid., 97. 44. Ibid., 209–212. 45.  Ibid., 288. Hamill, Diego Rivera, claims Rivera was an informant and his handler was Robert MacGregor and that all reports filed by MacGregor went to the State Department. This relationship began on January 11, 1940, 192. 46.  Ibid., 295. 47.  Ibid., 280. Hamill, Diego Rivera, has a slightly different version of the attack, but also lays blame on Siqueiros, 191. 48. Rivera, Autobiography, 140. 49.  Ibid., 140–141. 50. Wolfe, Fabulous, 363. 51. Rivera, Autobiography, 143. 52. Marnham, Dreaming, 292. 53. Herrera, Frida, 297. 54.  Helga Prignitz-Poda, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera: Mexican Modern Art, New York: Skira Rizzoli Publications, 2015, 89. 55. Marnham, Dreaming, 292. 56. Herrera, Frida, 298. 57.  Ibid., p. 302. Wolfe, Fabulous p. 361, claims this time he was 54 and she was 30 years of age. 58. Wolfe, Fabulous, 341. 59.  Ibid., 391–393. 60.  Ibid., 400–401. 61. Rivera, Autobiography, 174. 62.  Ibid., 174. 63. Marnham, Dreaming, 313. Wolfe, Fabulous, claims it was cancerous warts on his mouth, not penis, 406–408. 64.  Rivera, 179–180. 65.  Ibid., 189. 66. Kettenmann, Rivera, 94. 67. Wolfe, Fabulous, 405. 68. Marnham, Dreaming, 313–314. 69. Wolfe, Fabulous, 413. 70.  Ibid., 416. 71.  Ibid., 419. Wolfe also makes the point that translations into French, Spanish, and English were not yet available in the 1920s so that it was impossible for many in the world to know what Marx and Lenin wrote. 72.  The way to Diego Rivera’s FBI file is via the Leon Trotsky files, 4-Sections, also under the name of Bronstein, Lev Davidovich. The file is over 750 pages divided into the four Sections.



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73. Kenneth Ackerman, Trotsky in New York, 1917, (Berkeley: COUNTERPOINT, 2016). 74.  London: Pluto Press Ltd., 1977: 10. 75.  See Wladek Flakin, “Leon Trotsky Was My Grandfather,” in www.jacobinmag .com/2017/11/trotsky museum-mexico-city-esteban-volkov-interview/ downloaded February 6, 2018. 76. See Richard Cavendish, “Trotsky offered asylum in Mexico,” in History Today, Vol. 61, No. 12, December 2011, 3–4; and, also at www.historytoday.com /richard-cavandish/trotsky-offered-asylum-in-Mexico/ downloaded February 6, 2018. 77. Jay Lovestone was the General Secretary of the Communist Party USA in 1929 who began to oppose Stalin and became known as the Opposition. This group was known as the Lovestoneites until it disbanded in 1941. 78.  The Civil Attache was Gus T. Jones, former Texas Ranger, recruited to become an FBI agent for the San Antonio, Texas office and later in 1941 became the FBI’s first Legal Attache or just Legat in FBI internal terminology. 79.  “Red Party Allows Rivera Back In,” 1. 80.  “Rivera! Cured,” Associated Press wire from Moscow, San Francisco Chronicle, January 26, 1956, 32.

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Ernesto Galarza, the First Chicano Activist Scholar

A major omission by those interested in the history of the civil rights struggles of persons of Mexican origin and their progeny, Chicanos, in the United States is an authoritative biography of Ernesto Galarza, particularly his labor organizing, scholarship, and community activism.1 His own age-limited autobiography does not tell us more than aspects of his early childhood up to a week before entering high school in Sacramento, California.2 Yet, all the literature on migrant farm workers, especially those of Mexican ancestry, published since the 1940s makes mention of the central role played by Ernesto Galarza in many such efforts. Almost every book credits Galarza not only with reforming the National Farm Labor Union (NFLU) and laying the groundwork for the ultimate success in the ending of the Bracero Program dating to the late 1940s but also getting the first documentary produced exposing the conditions of farm labor in California, Poverty in the Land of Plenty.3 As a member of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) which he joined after a brief stay with the National Agricultural Workers Union (NAWU), he helped the victory by Filipino farmworkers and Cesar Chavez over the Di Giorgio Corporation of California and the rise of the United Farm Workers of America union.4 ERNESTO GALARZA: A SHORT STORY He was born in a rural village near the outskirts of Jolocotan, Nayarit, Mexico by the Sierra Madre de Nayarit on August 15, 1905 to a family of Magonista supporters, the early revolutionaries rising against the Porfirio Diaz dictatorship in Mexico. The residents of that area referred to the big town as “Jalco.” By 1913 occurred the outbreak of full-scale war across Mexico, including 45

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the neighboring town to Jalco known as Iytlan del Rio where walls were plastered with “Viva Madero” posters and hand painted graffiti. Revolutionaries took that town from the hated federales, the Diaz loyalist army.5 The Galarza family left Jalco heading toward Mazatlan further north, “Ernesto, his mother, aunt Ester, and uncles, Gustavo and José. My father, Don Ernesto, senior, was not in the small caravan. He stayed behind.” Actually, his parents divorced just prior to the migration north.6 Working for periods of time where the uncles and Ernesto found work and walking when they had to the family caravan, they continued to Nogales at the border then ultimately into the United States, settling in Sacramento, California. He was 8 years of age.7 “Ernesto assisted his family during the harvest season as a farmworker while he attended school in Elementary and Sacramento high school.” It was during these early formative years that Ernesto learned first-hand the inhumanely terrible conditions he and all other farm laborers endured. “Because he had gone to school to learn English, the Mexican workers asked him to protest over polluted drinking water that had taken the life of one baby in the camp and was making others sick.”8 The Galarza formative years as a child and into his teen years seared in his brain a world view of rich and poor, the owners and the workers, and foreign interests in Mexico’s economy and social life. He saw the role played by corporations from the United States, England, Germany, France, and Spain that owned and controlled the people working in “haciendas, the railroads, the ships, the big stores, the breweries” all because “president Porfirio Diaz had let them steal it. They owned Mexico.”9 Additionally, not only did he see the world this way he lived it as a worker. He explains his experience with work in these words, Whatever the surprising differences between Mazatlan and the barrio in Sacramento, in one thing they were powerfully the same—trabajo. If you didn’t have it, you spend days looking for it. If you had it, you worried about how long it would last.10

In high school, he was a good student who managed to be among the few Mexican kids to graduate from high school and go to college. He learned of a scholarship opportunity at Occidental College, applied and got it. In his senior year at Occidental he applied and received financial help to participate in a travel abroad program of study; it was in Mexico City. While there he researched and wrote a paper on the Roman Catholic Church and the history of Mexico. He continued to help his family and earn for his expenses by continuing to work in the fields. He graduated from Occidental College and went on to obtain a master’s degree in History and Political Science from Stanford



Ernesto Galarza, the First Chicano Activist Scholar 47

University in 1929. He married a single mother, Mae Taylor, that same year. She had a 3-year old daughter from a prior marriage named Karla. Ernesto wanted to pursue a doctorate and Columbia University in New York accepted him, providing some financial support but not enough. He took a job as a research associate with the Foreign Policy Association. Mae started teaching at the private Gardner School in Jamaica, Long Island, New York. Between 1932 and 1936, both took jobs at the school and eventually bought into the school business. They were the co-principals of the school. Galarza began work at his job and dug into a topic that would also serve him as his doctoral dissertation, the development of electricity and the modernizing of Mexico, later published in Mexico.11 THE FBI FILE The FBI file on Ernesto Galarza is number 65-HQ-7286 and consists of 118 pages released to this author under a Freedom of Information Act request filed on November 19, 2014 and was assigned FOIA case number 44704. On September 23, 2018, I was notified that the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) had located the 118 pages mentioned above and charged $0.80 per page for copying or I could travel to College Park, Maryland, and look with one-week advance notice at the documents without charge. The file begins with a letter from D.F. Bryant, Commander, US Navy, at Chevy Chase, Maryland, dated 13 November 1939 to J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI about Ernesto Galarza. It is a short paragraph worth quoting because it contained the bait J. Edgar Hoover loved to bite: Subject resides at 1620 South Highland Ave., Arlington, Va., telephone Chestnut 5316. He is a Mexican, well educated, former instructor in Spanish at Harvard U., is a communist, (may not belong to the party); has made inflammatory speeches to negroes in Washington; close friend of Don Luis Quintanilla, Charge d’Affaires of Mexican Embassy and of Ambassador Najera, through whose influence he is expected to be made Chief, Division of Labor, Pan American Union (in process of formation)/ Subject is anti-American, anti-capitalist, thoroughly communistic. Has been with Pan-American Union several years [Copy has several lines underscored as indicated above but I suspect these were not the original writer’s intent].

Much like a lioness in the wild at prey stalks and readily pounces on its next meal, Hoover jumped at the chance to add one more target to his list of Communists. The FBI surveillance of Ernesto Galarza and his spouse continued until 1967, if we accept the total documents released to me as the complete

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file. I doubt it. For example, Galarza was most instrumental in organizing the protest against the White House Cabinet Committee Hearings held in El Paso, Texas during October 1967 for not inviting grassroots leaders of various Mexican American organizations and social movements. President L.B. Johnson had promised to hold a White House Conference on Mexican American Affairs to leaders of mainstream organizations, many of whom had walked out on his Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) hearings held in Albuquerque the previous year in March 1966. Only one commissioner of the EEOC showed up in Albuquerque; the rest were staffers without any power to affect any domestic policy change much less social change. The 1967 El Paso protest became known as the La Raza Unida Rump Conference promoted by local student groups from El Paso and the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO).12 Surely, the FBI was watching this gathering and Galarza, one of the main organizers and speakers along with Reies Lopez Tijerina and Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales, both FBI targets for some time.13 Yet, these files on Galarza’s role with the La Raza Unida Rump Conference are not included in the packet of documents released. “The El Paso Declaration,” mainly the intellectual product of Ernesto Galarza, boldly proclaimed a new political posture of “La Raza.” Here is the statement in its entirety as written on a flyer: On this historic day, October 28, 1967, La Raza Unida organized in El Paso, Texas, proclaims the time of subjugation, exploitation and abuse of human rights of La Raza in the United States is hereby ended forever. La Raza Unida affirms the magnificence of La Raza, the greatness of our heritage, our history, our language, our traditions, our contributions to humanity, and our culture. We have demonstrated, proved and again affirm our loyalty to the Constitutional Democracy of the United States of America and to the religious and cultural traditions we all share. We accept the framework of Constitutional Democracy and freedom within which to establish our own independent organizations among our own people in pursuit of justice, equality and redress of grievances. La Raza Unida pledges to join with all our courageous people organizing in the fields and in the barrios. We commit ourselves to La Raza, at whatever cost. WITH THIS COMMITMENT WE PLEDGE OUR SUPPORT IN: The right to organize community and labor groups in our style. The guarantee of training and placement in employment in all levels. The guarantee of special emphasis on education at all levels geared to our people with strong financial grants to individuals. The guarantee of decent, safe and sanitary housing without relocation from one’s community. We demand equal representation at all levels of appointive boards and agencies, and the end to exploitive gerrymandering.



Ernesto Galarza, the First Chicano Activist Scholar 49

We demand the strong enforcement of all sections of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, particularly the sections dealing with the land grants and bilingual guarantees. We are outraged by and demand an end to police harassment, discrimination and brutality inflicted on La Raza, and an end to the kangaroo court system known as juvenile hall. We demand constitutional protection and guarantees in all courts of the United States. We affirm a dedication to our heritage, a bilingual culture, and assert our right to be members of La Raza Unida, anywhere, anytime, and in any job.”14

Neither are the files from the FBI’s Legat, Mexico City on Galarza’s lastminute trip to Mexico City to advise President Luis Echevarria Alvarez against signing an extension of the Bracero Program as proposed by President Gerald Ford in 1973. Galarza was successful—Echevarria did not accept the accord. I know because I was there as was Mexican advisor and former graduate student of Galarza, Dr. Jorge Bustamante. SPY OR COMMUNIST OR BOTH? In the case of Ernesto Galarza, he was not only suspected of being a communist but also, he was working for the Congressional Committee on Education and Labor as the Chief Counsel on Labor. This committee was chaired by none other than the Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, the black representative from Harlem.15 Hoover quickly sent a note to his SAC in Richmond, Virginia asking him to investigate Galarza and designated his field division as the office of origin for this task. He warned the SAC, Richmond to conduct the investigation “along very discreet and guarded lines and in no way should the office or persons of foreign Government officials be approached in connection with this inquiry.” The letter was dated November 22, 1939 the same day Hoover also responded to Navy Commander Bryant. He thanked him for the “information concerning Ernesto Galanzo [sic].” He also promised that the matter would “be given appropriate consideration and attention.” Several months later, March 1, 1940, the Richmond FBI submitted a 3-page report conducted by Robert F. Ryan on “ERNEST GALARZA, with aliases ERNESTO GALANZA, E. GALARSA” responding to the Hoover letter of the prior November 1939. The character of the case was designated as “ESPIONAGE.” The first page of this 1939 report repeats word for word the language of Commander Bryant’s allegations. Richmond FBI interviewed Galarza’s neighbor, George W. Crump who provided information on the wife, children, license plate number, “324-853” on the “grey Plymouth Sedan of year 1939.” The local FBI also interviewed William H. Bacon, the landlord from which

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Galarza has rented for the past year and a month; he paid his rent promptly. Bacon also informed the agent that the 14-year-old was a stepdaughter and the baby was Galarza’s. Bacon made it a point to say that “Mrs. GALARZA is not a Mexican.” Bacon did speak highly of Galarza and commented that they had recently vacationed in New York and the prior year driven to Mexico. He described Galarza as being “38” years old, “5'9” with “Black” hair and weighing about “155” lbs. “Very sociable, scholarly type” (p. 2). The next person interviewed was Herbert S. Mills, “the Assistant to the Chief Clerk of the Pan American Union.” Mills reported that Galarza had been employed by the Pan American Union (PAU) for the past three years and was now the Chief of the Division of Labor and Social Information for the PAU. He believed “GALARZA is a citizen of Mexico and has heard rumors that GALARZA was Socialistic in his political beliefs.” He verified the license plate of the Galarza car and the FBI agent checked with the Arlington Police Department and “found to be registered in the name of E. GALARSA” [sic] (p. 2). Richmond FBI closed the report with promises to contact the Galarza superiors at the PAU “regarding subject connection with subversive groups, or activities indicating acts of Espionage” (p. 3). Just imagine the difference in attitudes and feelings toward Galarza and his family generated by the FBI questioning their neighbors, landlord, and employer about him from that day forward. How would our superiors at any college or university have reacted to such inquiries and pointed questions about any of us? How would they answer the questions of any “connection with subversive groups, or activities indicating acts of Espionage” they thought you or I have had or were having? These early defamatory allegations stem from his work with the Pan American Union (PAU). The PAU began in the 1900s as an organization “which would promote unity, peace, and economic trade among the other American nations.” In 1940 the PAU “created a Division of Labor and Social Information and appointed Galarza as its chief.”16 SAC, Richmond J.E. Lawler wrote Hoover a letter the following month, April 10, 1940, asking that he consider changing the “Office of Origin from the Richmond to the Washington Field Division.” This was a smart move on Lawler’s part given most of the Galarza work was out of Washington, D.C. with the PAU and this transfer would reduce his workload having been increased by this case. Hoover approved the transfer on April 20th by letter to SAC Lawler. By May 1, 1940, FBI SA G. A. Nicholson of the Washington FBI field office reported to Hoover, 2-pages, but still characterized the case as “ESPIONAGE.” Agent Nicholson put in the synopsis of the case that Galarza’s activities were normal and “reported less radical than average labor worker.” He had interviewed Dr. L.S. Rowe, the Director General of the PAU and the Chief Clerk, William Griffin. Dr. Rowe described Galarza as a



Ernesto Galarza, the First Chicano Activist Scholar 51

“very able and capable individual, whose integrity, in his opinion, is above reproach.” He works long and hard and his record is excellent, were more accolades stated by Rowe and quoted in the Nicholson report. Moreover, Dr. Rowe said, “he is quite certain that GALARZA, although loyal to his home country, would not engage in any subversive activities or act as an espionage agent in any way” (p. 1). Chief Clerk Griffin similarly was complimentary of Galarza. He had known and worked with him for over four years. Galarza, according to Griffin, was “reliable and dependable, and “apparently holds the United States in the highest esteem.” Galarza lives an exemplary life, spending the major portion of his time working at the office. The only criticism of the United States Griffin heard Galarza make was “that he feels that the Negro should be given greater privileges and more rights and that educational facilities in greater number should be made available to that race in order that eventually racial equality in the United States be more than just theory” (p. 2). Investigation of Galarza by the FBI did not quiet down for long because on February 13, 1941 SAC, McLean, Virginia, Guy Hottel, wrote to Hoover. Hottel, however, characterized this case as “Internal Security (C).” He informed Hoover that a PAU employee, Helen Waters, had become alarmed about “a number of persons employed at the Union . . . not favorably disposed to the United States form of government.” She had complained to their office about “CONCHA ROMERO JAMES” and “one GALARZA.” Mrs. Waters alleged “Miss JAMES is an avowed Communist . . . who has arranged for numerous other Mexicans of Communistic tendencies to be employed in the Intellectual Cooperation Bureau of the Union.” The home address for Mrs. James was provided as was Dr. Galarza’s. Mrs. Waters said that Galarza was “the worse offender of these Mexican brought in by Miss James.” She made more allegations against Dr. Galarza such as his organizing “in the colored section of Washington, where he has been spreading propaganda and holding negro Communistic meetings.” She also recalled a speech given by Galarza in the winter of 1938 which was a “particularly bitter speech against the United States.” Hoover wasted no time in writing a solo-page memo on April 17, 1941 to L. M. C. Smith, Chief, Special Defense Unit, recommending that “Ernesto Galanza [sic] whose address is 1620 South Highland, Arlington, Virginia” be “considered for custodial detention.” “Galanza, [sic] Ernesto” was placed on the Custodial Detention Index (CDI) as of April 30, 1941. On the CDI card he is described as: “Known miscellaneous dangerous suspect. Educated Mexican who is anti-American and anti-capitalist.” Two weeks later, May 19, 1941, the SAC, Richmond notified Hoover that a mail cover on “ERNESTO GALARZA with aliases: Ernesto Galanso, E. Galarsa. ESPIONAGE” has been placed on him at the South Highland address “for thirty days.” In a 5-page report dated June 24,

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1941 from Special Agent C. A. Evans of the Richmond FBI office to Hoover he stated various findings. They also ran a credit check and obtained a list of former residences for Galarza which they listed (pp. 1–2). His salary and that of his wife were verified as amounting to approximately $5,275 per annum plus another $400 from honoraria and an unspecified figure earned from a summer project, The Yearling School, which his wife and he operated at Jamaica, Long Island, New York. The police department at Arlington, Virginia, had no record on him. Results from the mail cover were reported and names of sender and addressor with postmarks and dates were provided the FBI by C. F. Simpson, Assistant Postmaster in Arlington, Virginia (pp. 2–3). Agent Evans closed with this conclusion: “subject is purported to be a Mexican and to be anti-American and anti-capitalist. There has also been some indication that subject is connected with the Communist movement. Previous neighborhood investigations and contact with his employer, however, fail to substantiate this” (p. 3). Because the credit bureau had provided prior addresses for Galarza, Agent Evans listed five of the FBI filed offices he asked to obtain information on Galarza (p. 4). The last page quotes Commander Bryant’s original allegation about Galarza. Summer 1941 must have been slow because the next 3-page report from SA R. Howard Calhoun with the Washington, D.C. FBI office dated September 18th has changed his name correctly to “ERNEST GALARZA” but sill used “alias ERNESTO GALANZA,” an obvious typographical error by someone not familiar with Spanish surnames. The Character of the case is “INTERNAL SECURITY (C)” which suggests the “Espionage” angle has been discarded and only the Communist label is relevant. The report begins by providing the Subjects Certificate of Citizenship no. 4549224 issued in Norfolk, Virginia on January 27, 1939 to” ERNEST GALARZA” (p. 1). His physical description is included as White male, age 33, medium complexion, black hair, brown eyes, 5'7" tall, weighing 148 lbs, Mexican for the prior nationality. He is married and has no distinctive marks. The search for a citizenship file by Mrs. Geraldine McQuay on the subject uncovered a duplicate copy. FBI, DC was going to keep looking for “rest of the file” in “the New York office of the Service” (p. 3). A copy of the Custodial Detention Index card was sent by Hoover to the Richmond FBI office on December 19, 1941. The card, however, was still under the name of “GALANZA, ERNESTO” and only was updated to reflect he taught Spanish at Harvard University and the latest allegations: “He is a Communist, but may not belong to the party; has made inflammatory speeches to negroes in Washington, D.C. He is anti-American, anti-Capitalist, and thoroughly communistic. He has been with Pan-American Union for several years.” SAC, Richmond, H. I. Bobbitt on December 29, 1941 wrote to Hoover recommending cancellation of the



Ernesto Galarza, the First Chicano Activist Scholar 53

Custodial Detention card on Galarza because none of the allegations from the past have proven to be true. But on February 9, 1942, Hoover advised the SAC Richmond against cancelling the Custodial Detention card on Galarza until they had heard from the Special Defense Unit on the matter. The New Year, 1942, arrived with report, 2-pages, from Special Agent R.C. Kopriva of the Washington, D.C. office to Hoover dated the 3rd. It reported to have received the entire file on naturalization records of Galarza. It seems from that investigation of documents that the subject came from Mazatlan Mexico “on foot” and arrived in Nogales, Arizona on May 17, 1927. In the details section of the page, the birthplace and date of Galarza as August 15, 1905 in Tepic, Mexico. He is married to MAE ROSEL GALANZA as of December 24, 1928 in Sacramento, California. She was born in Florin, California on January 3, 1902. The couple “have one child, ELIE LOU, who was born on August 6, 1937, at Washington D.C., and, at time of filing the petition, subject resided at 624 North Tazewell Street, Arlington, Virginia” (p. 2).17 Perhaps this January 3rd letter from the local FBI office jolted Hoover’s memory and he fired off a short, curt, memo that same day to the SAC, Richmond stating “your office has not submitted a report since June 24, 1941” on the subject. “This matter is extremely delinquent and should be given immediate attention.” Hoover reminded SAC, Richmond again on January 13th of no report being submitted on the matter. Special Agent B.E. Primm from FBI Baltimore dated January 6, 1942 reported to Hoover in a 3-page report that “Mrs. MAE GALARZA was not successful as teacher and not re-appointed for current year. Suspected of being Communist by one principal. Nothing definite as basis for this suspicion. Parent of one of her pupils, who entertained her and subject, believe their attitudes or beliefs not un-American” (p. 1) On the next two pages interviews by the FBI agents with Dorothy Nichols her teaching supervisor, and Kathryn Briker, fellow sixth grade teach with Mrs. Galarza, both commented on their beliefs and attitudes toward both Dr. Galarza and the wife, Mae. It seems the Galarzas were perceived as frugal and critical of middle-class life “for being too generous with their children.” Supposedly, proof of how spartan a life the Galarzas led was the treatment of the 14-year old stepdaughter who was made to work in the home for $10 a week “and then objected to her spending this money on clothes” (p. 2). Mrs. Briker suspected them of being Communists or having Communist leanings. “She described Mrs. Galarza as being a woman of a very glib tongue, one who knows all the answers and one who, on account of the influence of her husband, led a very frugal existence. She stated Mrs. Galarza never wore make-up and wore cotton stockings” (p. 3). Mrs. Marquise M. Childs, an acquaintance of the Galarzas, related how they entertained them in their home. Her husband knew and liked Dr. Galarza very

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much. They did not think the Galarzas were un-American. The agreed with their criticism “concerning the American middle-class child” (p. 3). On January 22, 1942, upon form memo from Hoover to the SAC, Richmond the Custodial Detention Index card on “ERNESTO GALANZO” was ordered to be changed downward from “Group A. Individuals believed to be the most dangerous and who in all probability should be interned in event of War” to “Group B. Individuals believed to be somewhat less dangerous but whose activities should be restricted.” Spring 1942, March 12th, SA R.W. Meadows from the New York FBI office sent Hoover a 3-page report on “ERNESTO GALANZA, with aliases.” The character of the case was changed to “INTERNAL SECURITY-R.” The synopsis of facts which open every FBI report before details are stated informs that the “NYC Police Department reflects that subject operated the Gardiner [sic] School” in “Jamaica, LI, NY, for about five years prior to 1936, at which time he gave up the school to accept a position with the Pan American Union., Washington, D.C.” According to Agent Meadows, the NYCPD’s Detective that interviewed persons with knowledge of the Galarza couple was “Edward J. Murtagh, Shield # 1923, Special Squad #1.” He interviewed Evelyn Wheaton (p. 1) and “Mrs. John Adikes” (p. 2). Both of them had children enrolled in the “Gardiner School” and had Mrs. Galarza as their teacher, sometimes Mr. Galarza. The two interviewees stated they “and several other mothers” removed their children because of the content of their teaching. Supposedly, both of the Galarzas expressed dissatisfaction with “the manner in which the world was being run and was continually sympathizing with the ‘underprivileged.’” The interviewees believed these were “Communistic leanings as he often spoke of the ‘deplorable conditions which had been caused by the enslaving of labor in California.’ Another reason stated those interviewed but not clearly tied to the removal of their children was this statement: “the subject accepted a colored boy as a student. Mrs. Wheaton could not recall the boy’s name. It had been rumored, however, that his mother, a New York City school teacher, was an active worker in the Communist Party” (p. 2) Attached to this report was a speech delivered by Ernesto Galarza at a conference of InterAmerican Affairs and provided to Mrs. Wheaton by U.S. Representative Jerry Voorhis of California. The Galarza speech was actually a lecture about the “Study of Latin America” delivered in his capacity as “Chief of the Division of Labor and Social Information of the Pan American Union.” (p. 3). March 11, 1942, SAC, Richmond despite case on Galarza being closed there wrote to Hoover a two-page letter informing him of an imminent reclassification by the Selective Service Local Board #2 in Arlington, Virginia of the status for drafting him into military service. FBI Richmond sent this notice and the Custodial Detention Index card on Galarza plus seven reports



Ernesto Galarza, the First Chicano Activist Scholar 55

and four letters about him to the Baltimore Field Division “for any action it may desire to take concerning the subject” (p. 2). On June 8, 1942, SAC, Richmond, H. L. Bobbitt, wrote to Hoover asking to close the Galarza investigation because “this file fails to reflect any definite information concerning the nationalistic tendencies of this individual.” He also asked to have the Newark Office “discontinue the investigation requested.” SAC, Richmond informed Hoover by 2-page report that Ernesto Galarza would probably be reclassified by the Selective Service Board from 3-A to “1-A in the near future.” This meant Galarza could be drafted into military service at a day’s notice. This report prepared by Agent D. E. Irwin was dated July 9, 1942 and it also included information on the voting behavior of Ernesto Galarza. He “had voted in 1938 and had paid his poll tax for that year but since that time had not voted nor did they have any record concerning him.” Galarza had notified his draft board, the Selective Service Boar Local #2 that he was going to Latin America. And, he reported by letter dated April 15, 1942 that “he had returned and that his address would be the Pan American Union, Washington, D.C.” (p. 1). THE PAN AMERICAN UNION Ernesto Galarza began employment at the Pan American Union in 1936. There were two major upheavals at the PAU and Galarza’s Division that ended his relationship with the organization after almost a decade of service. The first confrontation between him and his employer, the PAU, was over the tin strike in Bolivia by those mine workers. In 1942, the Bolivian government passed “fair labor legislation” that protected workers in all sectors much more so than ever. The U.S. Department of State through its Ambassador in Quito, Ecuador denounced the measure and pressured the Bolivian government to reject such reform. The miners went on strike. The State Department’s oppositional position was based on the negative impact higher costs for tin would have on the allies fighting World War II. Galarza argued this was a transparent ploy to protect U.S. mining interests in Bolivia. Later in life, Bolivia would honor Ernesto Galarza with its highest national honor as the recipient of The Order of the Condor of the Andes in 1956. The second confrontation finally upset the PAU applecart. In 1947, Galarza wrote and publicly campaigned against the new bi-lateral agreement between the United States and Mexico on the importation of Mexican labor. Popularly known as the Bracero Program, Public Law 45 passed by Congress in 1943 became like the intervention by the U.S. State Department that led to the tin strike as far as Galarza was concerned.18 He saw the Bracero Program as another U.S.

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agribusiness ploy that was clearly unfair, inhumane, and exploitative of labor on both sides of the border. Those working in agriculture in the United States would lose their jobs to these young, healthy, robust, men from Mexico. He said it as nothing more than a rent-a-slave program and resigned from the PAU.19 The State Department was pressuring Mexico to send these men to harvest their crops and in so doing support the war effort. The U.S. men were fighting World War II in Europe’s battlefields. Galarza’s report opposing the Bracero Program was contracted for publication by Harper & Row, but they ultimately decided against publishing it for being “too explosive.”20 Behind the scenes and unbeknownst to Galarza was the communication between the FBI in DC and the FBI’s contact at the U.S. Embassy with Pierre de L. Boal as U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia. They were both trying to figure out how Ernesto Galarza was getting the information on the mining industry in Bolivia and its source. A confidential 1-page memo, undated and unsigned by either sender or recipient but about “ERNEST GALARZA” states he traveled for four months around South American countries and “visited Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, and Peru, prior to visiting Ecuador.” He was “in Quito, Ecuador from March 19 to March 21, 1942.” During this tour, he “contacted labor unions throughout South America.” The source providing this information to the reporter of this memo “also stated that subject was a Communist, but, as previously noted, investigation has failed to substantiate this allegation” (p. 1). Sometime after Hoover decided that his headquarters needed more space and its own privacy from the daily hubbub of agents coming and going he authorized opening a Washington, D.C. office as an FBI Field division; thereafter to differentiate between his office and the DC office he began to add to his signature line on some transmissions, Seat of Government (SOG).21 The next transmission is dated January 2, 1943, a 3-page Memorandum sent from La Paz, Bolivia to [name redacted] and marked as “Item no. 101.” It makes references to seven cables and memos all dated during the month of December [redacted as to names sending and receiving such communication and just a one-line on subject matter]. Apparently, Hoover wanted to know if there “was any connection between the labor trouble in the mines and the plant survey program.” [The plant program actually was the Plant Protection Commission.] The La Paz source had already informed him of there being none as of January 1, 1943. However, this memo referred to the “relationship between the managements of various mining properties and labor have not been entirely harmonious at any time.” The memo then related a brief history of labor strife since September 1941 which was quelled “with soldiers of the Bolivian Army to protect these properties and prevent similar destruction.” This memo also identified “JAMES PATTON, president of the National Farmers Union” as who may have given the information about the mining strikes in Bolivia to U.S.



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newspapers who reported Ambassador Boal as having “interfered in the internal politics of the country and the labor troubles at Catavi” (p. 2). Admittedly, US Embassy staff were present at the Catavi mine location because, according to the memo, an American engineer had been abducted and held incommunicado by striking miners for “forty-five minutes.” At the bottom of this last page, in “Ad addendum: On December 30, 1942, the Ambassador advised the writer [name redacted under the signature line] that ERNESTO GALARZA . . . gave the information to PATTON which resulted in the newspaper publicity regarding the Ambassador’s interference in the internal affairs of this Government.” This writer closes with this last line in the addendum: “It is requested that the Bureau submit any information that it may have on GALARZA to this office” (p. 3). No other document was released on this specific incident. The next month on April 16, 1943 Hoover via diplomatic air pouch sent a personal and confidential one-page letter to [name redacted] but it must be his contact at the U.S. Embassy in Bolivia. Hoover sent “all pertinent information contained in the Bureau files relative to subject.” The FBI contact is advised to give the Ambassador “the information contained in the enclosed memorandum, but you are not to inform the Ambassador that the subject has been investigated by the Bureau in connection with alleged Communist activities. It is not deemed advisable to conduct an investigation in the United States at this time to determine whether subject is in correspondence with anyone in Bolivia” (p. 1). THE AG’S BOMB TO HOOVER The Custodial Detention Index program developed and relied on by Hoover since the Red Scare Days and perhaps in an earlier version since the Palmer Raids came to an end on July 16, 1943. Acting Labor Secretary Louis Post disagreed with these raids and reversed over 70 percent of the 1,600 deportation warrants issued to immigrants suspected of wanting “to overthrow the U.S. government.”22 Better stated, Custodial Detention Index should have ended that day, but Hoover found another way to skirt the direct order and not comply fully. Attorney General Frances Biddle via Hugh B. Cox, the Assistant Attorney General, wrote Hoover a direct order to end the program. The 2-page letter is most critical of the utility of this Index. Cox wrote these lines, for example, “individual danger classifications, I am satisfied that they serve no useful purpose”; “there is no statutory authorization or other present justification for keeping a ‘custodial detention’ list of citizens”; “this classification system is inherently unreliable”; “it is impractical, unwise, and dangerous”; “this classification system was a mistake that should be rectified for the future”; and, finally, “each card . . . should be stamped with the following language:”

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THIS CLASSIFICATION IS UNRELIABLE. IT IS HEREBY CANCELLED AND SHOULD NOT BE USED AS A DETERMINATINO OF DANGEROUSNESS OR OF ANY OTHER FACT. (SEE MEMORANDUM OF JULY 16, 1943 FROM THE ATTORNEY GENERAL TO HUGH B. COX AND J. EDGAR HOOVER). (p. 2)

Hoover did not obey completely. He merged the data in the Custodial Detention Index into the Security Index. He wrote a short one-paragraph note to SAC, Baltimore on August 26, 1943 on Ernesto Galarza and instructs them to “remove the Security Index card furnished you by the Bureau from your confidential file and place it in the investigative file.” TURNING TO LABOR ORGANIZING Moving back to San Jose, California, Galarza took a job as Director of Research and Education for the National Farm Labor Union (NFLU). But he did not stay home, he traveled and became more a union organizer than a researcher/educator. During the filming of Poverty in the Land of Plenty, he began organizing for the NFLU in California, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, and Arizona. His first assignment was to assist in the strike in Arvin, California against Di Giorgio Fruit Corporation which they lost.23 In 1950, he led the tomato workers in a strike at Tracy, California. In 1951 he was organizing cantaloupe pickers in the Imperial Valley and between 1953 and 1954 he was organizing sugar cane workers in Louisiana. While engaged in these organizing efforts, the spate of “Right to Work” laws were being passed by Southern states and ultimately the U.S. Congress. “Galarza became a familiar face in Congressional hearings.” The legislation underwent various revision but eventually obtained the support of major unions because the new law not allowing a right to unionize or join a union was limited to agricultural workers. Disappointed and disenchanted with his labor counterparts, he quit the NFLU. He began writing a grant to the Fund for the Republic, which was funded for $25,000. This work became the book Strangers in the Field (1955). He was becoming known as the “migrant academic.” THE STRANGE 1950s FILES The FBI document trail on Ernesto Galarza takes a huge leap in omission from 1943 when his Custodial Detention Index card was switched to the Security Index file and finally into an investigative file to 1951. The Security Index had been started by Hoover since the days of President Roosevelt and in the 1950s



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began to include those Hoover regarded as dissidents, some 15,000 individuals.24 No other document was released to this author until one dated May 10, 1951 a seven-year and three months gap. And, this one memo is most bizarre and out of character and personality for Ernesto Galarza. Allegedly, Galarza agreed to help the FBI in its investigation of Leon Freeman (FBI file no. 10011820). This is the substance of a 4-page memo from Hoover to the SAC, San Francisco sent on the above date. Hoover is asking San Francisco FBI to seek to interview Galarza residing at 2174 Bridgeway Street in San Jose, California. Hoover enclosed nine reports on Galarza prepared by various FBI agents from 1940 to July 1942. Hoover adds, “The Bureau’s investigation of Galarza was terminated during 1943.” He also added that a prominent New York attorney, Morris L. Ernst, gave a lot of information to a Bureau agent on the activities of three men: Vicente Lombardo Toledano of Mexico, William Rhodes Davis, and John L. Lewis, as well as another person named Jacob Landau. All of these men had insight into the Mexican expropriation of oil away from U.S. companies. The Landau meeting with Ernesto Galarza on this topic convinced him that Galarza knew more about this “Mexican oil deal.” Attorney Ernest was equally convinced that another FBI target, Lee Pressman, was behind the Davis-Lewis-Toledano oil deal. Lee was named Leon in the opening regarding line of this memo. Apparently, “Ernesto Galarza was interviewed by a Bureau representative on May 18, 1942.” Galarza had a lot of information on this matter as Landau had suspected and shared it with the FBI representative. He told the FBI persons that Lee Pressman was the one who arranged for a Mexican Supreme Court Justice, Xavier Icaza, to come to New York and try to meet with John Lewis. That same justice had asked Galarza to arrange such a meeting—“this Galarza was unable to do” (p. 2). “On May 23, 1942, Galarza furnished the Bureau with photostatic copies of documents from his files,” three of them germane to the Mexican oil deal (p. 3). SAC, San Francisco reported to Hoover on July 10, 1951 in a 2-page memo on the “Mexican oil deal” as these documents referred to the Mexican expropriation which had been carried out by President Lazaro Cardenas in 1936. In this report, a second interview with Galarza was had on June 30th. It was Galarza’s opinion that “the Communists were making inroads into the laboring class in South America.” He said he took steps to have the “American labor movement to prevent this . . ., and was referred to Leon Freeman, as legal counselor for the CIO.” But Galarza readily saw “Freeman was adhering to the Communist Party line.” He did not know if Freeman was a card carrying Communist. Galarza complained that as he presented reforms while working for the PAU to improve working conditions of labor in South America he was opposed by Freeman who “wanted to keep things as they were.” As a result of this, he and Freeman were openly hostile. Galarza stated that it was Toledano who claimed credit for

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being responsible for the Mexican Expropriation Decree of September 1936; “Toledano’s name became synonymous with oil in Mexico” (p. 1). The issue of the Mexican oil deal is explained this way in the second page of this memo. The expropriation brought U.S. sanctions including a boycott of Mexican oil, the oil workers were out of jobs, and the unions on both sides of the border were concerned. The talks between Freeman of the CIO and Toledano of the Mexican union, Confederacion de Trabajadores Mexicanos (CTM), were to try to get the United States to buy Mexican oil and Mexico to stop selling it to Nazi Germany. The report documents dates of travel by those named above to Mexico during the years of 1937 and 1939 (p. 2). Hoover contacted the FBI’s Legal Attache in Mexico City on August 2, 1951 by way of a 3-page letter sent by Air Pouch and sent him the above-mentioned memo on Pressman. Leon Pressman had been called to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Affairs (HCUA) on August 28, 1950. The FBI was trying to establish “or refuting the reliability of the testimony of Pressman before the HCUA.” In plain language, the FBI was trying to make a case for perjury, a felony with which to jail Freeman. Hoover finally used the word “perjury” in the second page in this context: “The Bureau is endeavoring to develop the perjury aspects, if any, with regard to Pressman’s UCUA testimony.” Freeman had testified before HCUA that he only traveled to Mexico once in 1936 in the company of Joseph Eckhart. Yet, others reporting to the FBI, including Galarza, provide more dates of Freeman’s travel to Mexico. Hoover was asking the Legal Attache to look into “whether Freeman made any trips to Mexico other than the one with Eckhart in 1936” (p. 2). The substance of the Galarza interview with the FBI representative is the subject matter of the May 22, 1952 2-page memo from the FBI Director to the SAC, San Diego. In that interview and in his FBI file it was recorded and reviewed time and again that Galarza was born in Mexico. Yet, a Sheriff, R. W. Ware, of Imperial County, El Centro, California had information he obtained from a friend, Ismael C. Falcon, in Mexico City who “can supply information showing the subject is a Spanish citizen and that if this is so, Galarza is in the United States on a false visa.” Given that “Galarza is an organizer of the NFLU and in 1951 and 1952, [he] has been actively engaged in organizing members for that union in the El Centro area.” The sheriff advised that his experience with the subject “shows that he is one of the more radically inclined organizers of the union although he is not known to be a Communist.” Hoover alerted San Diego FBI that they were asking the Mexico City Legat to begin an investigation into this new item that Galarza was a Spaniard. INS was also asked to look into this matter. (p. 2). The letter sent by Hoover to the Commissioner of the INS is dated May 22, 1952. On June 2, 1952, SAC, San Diego reported to Hoover and enclosed an article from a farm magazine, the May-June 1952 issue. The article was sup-



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plied to them by Sheriff Ware. The article stated C. Ismael Falcon was touring the West, parts of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. He was being paid for some of his presentations by local groups wanting to hear his comments in which he “claimed that Communists in Mexico were distributing propaganda literature detrimental to Mexican-American relations and to the program of recruiting and hiring Mexican Nationals for work on American farms.” Hoover was “especially interested in obtaining his photograph” (p. 2). By October 10th, Hoover had a response from Raymond F. Farrell, Assistant Commissioner of Investigations Division for INS. They wanted the FBI to “furnish this office the identity and availability of the informant mentioned in paragraph 1 of your memorandum, who advised that the subject has title of Southwestern Organizer for the National Farm Labor Union, and was a citizen of Spain, and was not born in Mexico as claimed.” There was no way Hoover was going to get Sheriff Ware to produce Ismael Falcon from Mexico City with such proof. Hoover did try. He wrote to SAC, San Diego on October 28th to “contact Sheriff R. W. Ware . . . and determine if he has any objection to being interviewed by a representative of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.” SAC, San Diego on December 2, 1952 in a single-page memo to Hoover informs him that Sheriff Ware now states that Bernard A. Harrison, the Secretary/Treasurer of the Imperial Valley Farmer’s Association and the County Agricultural Commissioner, was the source of the information on Galarza that he obtained from Falcon. According to Harrison they paid Falcon some money for coming to El Centro and he was to return soon. Harrison would alert the FBI when that visit would take place. “It is believed that FALCON would be receptive to an interview by a Bureau Agent at the time of his next visit with HARRIGAN, who agreed to advise SA DOYLE of FALCON’s presence in El Centro, California.” Hoover had graduated from law school years back and apparently had forgotten the Hearsay Rule. Sheriff Ware was just repeating to the FBI what he heard Falcon say to Harrison who said it to him. Sheriff Ware did not have such proof of Galarza citizenship or birthplace alleged to be in Spain. Hoover had no choice but to punt. He wrote back to the INS “Attention: Mr. Raymond F. Farrell” on January 6, 1953 about this matter and stated: “It is suggested that a representative of your Service contact Sheriff Ware in this matter.” On April 12, 1954 the Executive Assistant to the Attorney General wrote to Hoover a short memo with a request: “May I have whatever information you have in your files regarding Ernesto Galarza.” Hoover responded a few days later with a 4-page letter. He does not send any reports, letters, articles, nothing but his own narrative to the AG’s office, technically his boss. Instead Hoover details some of the more salacious allegations against Galarza that his Bureau investigated. He related this work history from graduate school at Columbia

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University, with the Gardiner School, the PAU, and the NFLU. He included more salacious remarks attributed to Galarza by others such as criticizing the U.S. government for its treatment of Negroes (p. 1). Some of Galarza’s public presentations such as the one before the Lawyer’s Committee on American Relations with Spain in 1933 were cited. Hoover pointed out that this group was identified by HCUA as a Communist front organization.25 And, he pointed out the tin strike event that triggered Galarza’s resignation from PAU because he alleged the U.S. Ambassador had a hand in the internal affairs of Bolivia. To underscore the Communist charge but never substantiated by the FBI against Galarza, Hoover cited “an article in The People’s World, a west coast Communist newspaper, for July 7, 1944” that “stated Galarza spoke at the University of Southern California.” He “criticized the treatment of Mexicans who are in the United States.” On a personal note, Hoover made mention that Galarza’s step-daughter, Karlan [previously identified as Karla] Rosel Galarza, “was outed from a Negro school in Washington, known as the Murray Washington Vocational School (p. 2). It was reported that when learned that Karla Galarza was Mexican, which nationality was classified as white by the United States Census Bureau, she was expelled” (p. 3). Hoover provided more quotes from Galarza such as before President Truman’s Commission on Migratory Labor which he said, “the major objective of the contracting of Mexican nationals and hiring of illegals is to freeze and further depress, if possible, the starvation level of farm wages.” The interview Galarza had with the FBI over Lee Freeman was detailed (p. 3) along with the assertion by Sheriff Ware of El Centro that Galarza was really a Spaniard and not Mexican as he claimed and stated on government forms (p. 4). The following year, 1955, had little disclosed activity, only one document was released. It was a 2-page memo from the SAC, WFO dated the 20th of January to the Director, FBI on another bizarre volunteer spy caper by a member of the American Legion who was a cab driver in D.C. The taxi driver got a note from a drunk passenger claiming to be LINN GALE. The taxi man gave the note to Walter S. Steele who in turn passed it on to FBI agent Albert C. Hayden, Jr. Apparently, the local news media printed that the U.S. Attorney had brought a case against someone named BENNETT and Galarza had been mentioned as a witness. The note the taxi man obtained had the name of Galarza on it. Steele thought the FBI “might find valuable in attacking GALARZA’s credibility as a witness.” SAC, WFO also pointed out in this memo that a Linn Gale was in Mexico and “formerly Mexican editor of The Daily Worker newspaper.” He was deported from Mexico in 1928 or so. “Gale also started a Communist school on 10th St. N.W. between G and H Sts. and had a bookshop above the school” (p. 1). The pilfered note read:



Ernesto Galarza, the First Chicano Activist Scholar 63

Dear Linn—Please excuse delay in replying-I just sent the copy for our Union paper to the printer today. I suggest that you go to see ERNESTO GALARZA of Pan Amer. Union. He is a real fellow and will do all he can to help you get that information. Is well placed to know where to go for it. He saw the “piece” by Denny—tonight’s News, of course. Yours, Fred Blossom.

The FBI paper trail gets sketchy again for almost nine years until November 6, 1963. In a 3-page memo to someone from someone [names all redacted as to sender and recipient] about Ernesto Galarza and MAE ELENCHINA TAYLOR GALARZA [assume it is the wife]. The memo begins with reference to ten reports enclosed on Galarza from 1940 to 1942 and the news that “no investigations pertinent to your inquiry has been conducted by the FBI concerning his spouse, Mae Elenchina Taylor Galarza.” What follows are repeat information, primarily from the 1954 response to the Assistant AG (pp. 1, 2, 3). The new additional information on the last page is about Mrs. Galarza being fired by West Coast School Board from teaching at Los Gatos Union Elementary School. The charges were she “planned to slip Union propaganda into the classroom.” The other charges were “secret” (p. 3). Finally, the Spanish citizen charge is alluded to but the writer states: “You may desire to consult the files of Immigration and Naturalization Service for additional information concerning Ernesto Galarza” (p. 3). There is a news clipping made part of this correspondence. It is purported to be from page 7 of the Daily Worker, according to the FBI file stamp at right bottom and dated as “Aug 5 1955.” The title is “AFL Official’s Wife Fired By West Coast School Board.” Nothing more is had on this case. Another paper trail jump from 1955 to May 18, 1966 almost eleven years this time. Mrs. Mildred Steagall who worked for Marvin Watson as Special Assistant to the President at the White House, requested information, a names check, on Ernesto Galarza “who resides at 1801 Crest Vista, Monterey Park, California.” Hoover responded with a 4-page memo to Watson on Galarza. He repeated most of the same information he had submitted to the AG previously and now included the firing of Mrs. Galarza as a teacher (pp. 1–3). The last items related were that Dr. Galarza spoke at the Southwest Conference on Interstate-Intergroup Affairs in Phoenix, Arizona in April 1964. This information was obtained from an open source, the April 18, 1964 edition of People’s World, a Communist party newspaper. And that a check of the fingerprint files held by the FBI “contain no arrest data identifiable with Mr. Galarza” (p. 4). An almost identical request dated March 1, 1967 about Ernesto Galarza with all names redacted is the last file in the packet of documents released to me. This 3-page memo is almost word for word identical to the response sent the White House on May 18th the year prior but for one item. There is a newspaper clipping attached to the letter titled “‘Brown Power’ Conferees

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Deplore Absence of White House Aides” penned by Sidney Kossen. This was obtained by the FBI from an open source, The Washington Post Times Herald of March 30, 1967. Chicanos, 600 of them, had gathered for two days in Sacramento, the state capital for California, under the call for a Brown Power Conference and had requested the White House send a representative, and also the Vice President. Some federal agencies such as Labor Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture, and the Office of Economic Opportunity did send observers. Galarza was a speaker and reported to have said, “We must imitate and beat the Anglo politician at his own game. Far too much American wealth is spent making war and, in the case of Latin American, suppressing revolution.” Galarza also criticized the California governor, Ronald Reagan, for reducing subsidies for welfare and if that is the way, all subsidies should be reduced across the board. He singled out the water supply diverted to farms, “millions of dollars to large wealthy farms.” PRICE OF LEADERSHIP Undoubtedly, Galarza was a pioneer in many historical respects. He was the first in many categories of contributions made to U.S. society by persons of Mexican origin including being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. One of those categories of contribution seldom noted is the personal price he and his family paid for his leadership and determination. Time and again he put principles ahead of comfort; ideals ahead of economic gain; worker’s rights over his own privileges; and, he battled between being a full-time scholar and community organizer. The FBI, relentlessly, monitored his every move trying to find evidence of his subversive activities and Communist Party membership for years. There was none to be found. He was neither. The FBI knew it and so stated in many documents cited above. Yet, they continued the ultra vires fraud of investigating him and his spouse for decades. I wonder what is in documents not released from those huge gaps in the chronology of the surveillance. Clearly, the fact that Galarza worked for the Pan American Union, as the name implies, an aggrupation of sovereign states in the Western Hemisphere of the Americas, North, South, and Central, suggest that his public presentations were made for that audience, not just the United States of America. His posture and stance on many issues reflected his work toward that union of nation states, not that of the hegemonic United States exclusively. Hoover chose not to understand that, it seems, reviewing these documents. He never stopped the surveillance. The last ridiculous allegation was that Galarza had lied on his applications for naturalization claiming he was of Mexican nationality when he really was



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a Spaniard. Hoover should have known, probably did, that this ruse was based on hearsay on top of hearsay put out by agricultural interests in El Centro, California. Ernesto Galarza and Mae, his wife, and children must have suffered greatly from all the rumors, innuendo, actual confrontations, and charges leveled at them over the years, all stemming from an illegal abusive use of power by Hoover and his FBI minions across the country. But he and Mae never quit or backed down from any of this. We do not know what other harm came to the children now grown into senior adults. NOTES   1.  Frank Bardacke, in his work, Trampling Out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers, (London: Verso, 2012): 92, states Ernesto Galarza “was the first Mexican American to earn a doctorate in Political Science.” In Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Science, 7: 2, (1985): 135–152, however, in an unnamed author article, “Activism and Intellectual Struggle in the Life of Ernesto Galarza (1905–1984)”to be found at https://libraries.ucsd.edu/farmworkermovement /wp-content/uploads/2012/04/032-Ernesto-Galarza-nan-on-fire.pdf/ accessed August 17, 2019. This article states Ernesto Galarza “was awarded his PhD in Economies in 1947.”   2.  (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1971). This iconic book was in its 40th edition as of 2011.   3.  Galarza was sued by DiGiorgio Fruit Corporation, its name then, for libel and sought $2 million in damages from him and the Hollywood Film Council. The case was settled for $1 if the NFLU would cease its agitation against DiGiorgio. After the settlement, the NFLU basically died. See Acuña cited in next endnote, 255, for a brief history of this production.  4. Bardacke, Trampling, 92; and these others, as an example, Rodolfo Acuña, Occupied America: A History of Chicanos, 9th edition, (New York: Pearson, 2019): 225–226, 255; Matt Garcia, From the Jaws of Victory: The Triumph and Tragedy of Cesar Chavez and the Farm Worker Movement, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012): 14, 23, 30; and, Susan Ferris and Ricardo Sandoval, The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers Movement, (San Diego: Harvest Book/ Harcourt Brace, 1997):21, 54, 80.  5. Ernesto Galarza, Barrio Boy: The Story of a Boy’s Acculturation, (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1971) 3, 98.  6. Galarza, Barrio Boy: 15–16.  7. Galarza, Barrio Boy: 97, 99, 118–119, 129, 181, 196. See also Hispanic Journal, “Activism.”  8. Hispanic Journal, “Activism” citing The Arizona Republic, June 24, 1973.  9. Galarza, Barrio Boy: 238–239. 10. Galarza, Barrio Boy: 228.

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11.  Published under the title of La industria electrica en Mexico, (Mexico, D.F.: Fondo de Cultural Economica, 1941). For a more complete listing of all his scholarship and publications see https://wwwoasys.lib.edu/record=b1210886~SO/ Accessed August 29, 2019. 12. Acuña, Occupied America, 297. See also Armando Navarro, The Mexican American Youth Organization: Avant-Garde of the Chicano Movement in Texas, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995) for a political biography of this organization. 13.  See Ernesto Vigil, The Crusade for Justice: Chicano Militancy and the Government’s War on Dissent, (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999) and my Tracking King Tiger: The FBI File on Reies Lopez Tijerina, (E. Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2019) for the only two recent books utilizing FBI documents to analyze these two leaders and organizations. 14.  In author’s personal files from days as co-founder of MAYO in Texas. 15. See https://libraries.ucsd.edu/farmworkermovement/wp-content/uploads /2012/04/032-ERNESTO-GALARZA-MAN-OF-FIRE.pdf/ accessed August 17, 2019. 16.  Hispanic Journal, “Activism.” 17. For some more biographical data on Ernesto Galarza see https://egare.ucr edu/about.html/ and in The Hispanic Journal, article “Activism” fully cited above in endnote 1. 18. The first importation of Mexican labor during this time occurred earlier in 1942 as an emergency labor measure. See a quick historical summary of this legislation and program in Acuña, Occupied America, 255–257. 19.  A subsequent transmission from the FBI to field offices contained two editorials undated and without source indicated both written by James A. Wechsler and may have been published in The New York Times but the FBI redacted all that information. The two editorials are entitled: “Boal Expose Costs Galarza His Pan-American Job,” and “On the Resignation of Ernesto Galarza.” A most interesting note at right bottom of his latter editorial clipping copy is “Clipped at the Seat of Government.” Hoover apparently self-anointed his FBI headquarters, not the White House, as the seat of government for the United States. 20.  Hispanic Journal, “Activism,” cited in parentheses “(M. Galarza, personal communication, December 1984).” 21.  William Sullivan, The Bureau: My Thirty Years in Hoover’s FBI, (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1979): 28, 122. Sullivan also claims that Hoover had FBI agents write his books on Communism and promote their sale: 88–92, 268. 22.  See www.britannica.com/topic/Palmer-Raids/ Accessed August 29, 2019. 23.  For a brief history of the Di Giorgio dynasty built by Joseph and son, Robert, this strike, and the fight for survival of the NFLU see Barnacke, Trampling: 240–243. 24.  See James Kirkpatrick Davis, Spying on America: The FBI’s Domestic CounterIntelligence Program, (Westport: Praeger, 1992): 98. 25.  Galarza was never subpoenaed to appear before HCUA. It would have made for an exciting exchange between him and his inquisitioners. See James Cross Giblin, The Rise and Fall of Senator Joe McCarthy, (Boston/New York: Clarion Books, 2009) for a biographical narrative on this person, the linchpin of HCUA and the Red Scare era.

Chapter Three

Carlos Fuentes, the Mexican Novelist

The surveillance of Carlos Fuentes by the FBI and the State Department denials for entry visas to the United States were based on the substance of his writings—ideas, not his activities. He rose to become Mexico’s leading novelist of his time. Well-heeled, highly educated, high-level diplomat, and prolific in producing lauded works, one after another. The highest honor a Spanish-language writer can be awarded, the Cervantes Prize, was his before he turned 60 years of age. Dozens of his novels, essays, screenplays, short stories, and political commentaries were read by millions and, once translated into dozens of languages, millions more the world over. In 1975 he won Mexico’s Xavier Villarrutia Award and Venezuela’s Romulo Gallegos Prize in 1977. The Romulo Gallegos Prize was for his novel Terra Nostra (1975). Surprisingly, not much exists in English in terms of his biography or critical essays on the personal life of this noted international author in the United States. There is a review of his works through 1983 by Wendy B. Faris that provides some biographical data and a chronology of his life.1 In 1970, Richard Reeve produced an annotated bibliography of the works of Fuentes in the journal Hispania. After his death from a massive hemorrhage in 2012, a lengthy bibliography with some biographical data on Carlos Fuentes was posted.2 Fuentes was no peasant revolutionary, nor had he been a participant in any civil disturbance or protest. In fact, he was born into the Mexican bourgeoisie in 1928 toward the end of the Mexican Revolution and died at age 83 on May 15, 2012. His father was a Mexican diplomat stationed in Panama City, Panama at the time of Carlos’s birth on November 11th. His paternal grandfather had been a coffee planter. His mother’s family was from Mazatlan, Jalisco, Mexico. His maternal grandfather was a merchant in that city and his mother, Berta Macias Rivas, was an inspector of public schools. The Fuenteses were well paid and well-regarded public servants of the Mexican federal government.3 67

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The Fuentes family traveled the world. By age four, Carlos had lived in Panama, Quito, Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro, and was attending the public Henry D. Cooke elementary school in Washington, D.C. at age six. He knew Spanish, and now was learning English. In 1938, his Anglo student friends and teachers turned on him when Mexican President Lazaro Cardenas nationalized the holdings of the U.S oil companies, among others. He was shunned and marginalized as the Mexican.4 As a teenager he lived in Geneva, Switzerland, Buenos Aires, Argentina and Santiago, Chile. While in Chile, he published his first writings: a collection of short stories and poetry in the Boletin del Instituto Nacional de Chile.5 By age 16 he was back in Mexico City finishing “high school” and then enrolled in the Colegio Frances Morelos in what Mexicans call preparatoria. He had to learn French. His short stories were published regularly in Mañana and Ideas de México while in his twenties. In Geneva, he studied at the Institute for International Studies before taking a job in Mexico City’s United Nations Information Center as their Press Secretary. In between writing and his job, he studied law at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico but never did become a lawyer. His first book, a collection of short stories, Los dias enmascarados, was published in 1954. His second book, a novel, La region mas transparente, came out in 1958 and in English in 1960. This book was widely read and became controversial for its Marxist perspective. This novel was followed by another, Las buenas conciencias, in 1959 and in English by 1961. On this occasion, he traveled with a U.S. Department of State approved visa to New York where he was honored by his U.S. publisher for this second novel. This work was almost a reflection on his life. It is about a family in Guanajuato whose eldest son questioned the values and way of life he had lived and learned. In 1959, Fuentes began La muerte de Artemio Cruz while visiting Cuba immediately after Castro’s revolution succeeded. He married the Mexican actress Rita Macedo that year and both went to the island to live. He stayed in Cuba and wrote pro-Castro articles and essays. His socialist views are clearly on display in the Artemio Cruz novel. This blockbuster novel was published in 1962 with English translation in 1964, plus into more than a dozen other languages. This work established Fuentes as Mexico’s premier novelist. In 1962, he was invited to debate U.S. policy in Latin America with Richard Goodwin, then Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for American Republic Affairs, on U.S. national television. The actual topic was to be President John F. Kennedy’s proposed Alliance for Progress for Latin America. On this occasion, the State Department denied him a travel visa for the first time. Their official position was that he had not applied. It would not be the first or last time he was denied entry into the United States for his ideas as reflected in his novels, articles, essays, and opinion editorials.6 The State Department boycott



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against Fuentes was to last until 1972 when he came as a television commentator for Mexican television during the Democratic National Convention in Miami. The following year he was permitted to enter the United States to speak in honor of Pablo Neruda in New York. In 1974 he was granted a travel visa to be a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. It was during this fellowship that he had time to work on Terra Nostra which was published the following year. The Mexican government named him their Ambassador to France shortly after that fellowship. He served in that capacity until 1977. Having divorced Rita Macedo in 1973, he then married journalist Silvia Lemus in 1976. During late 1977 to early 1980 his file was reviewed once again by the FBI and State Department. The FBI concluded he was a prominent author after that review, not a subversive agent of Communism. Perhaps, the subsided Fuentes ardor for Fidel Castro after 1965; the cooling of attraction for the Sandinistas; and, the admiration for Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez in the late 1990s had more to do with a political change of heart among Hoover’s successors. In 1985, he was approved to teach at Harvard University. The Public Broadcasting System aired a documentary on his life, “Crossing Borders: The Journey of Carlos Fuentes” in 1989. He also took up residency and lived in Princeton, New Jersey, while he made presentations at Barnard, Cornell, Brown, Dartmouth, and Cambridge University. He became a lecturer at Princeton and taught other classes at Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania. During his time in the United States, his travels and activities, however, were monitored by the FBI. For a time, he commuted between summer months living in London and or Paris and Mexico. La frontera de Cristal was translated into English in 1997 which featured his perspective on Mexican Americans which he hyphenated as Mexican-Americans indicating they were neither Mexican nor Americanos; sporadically he sprinkled into the narrative the popular group label, Chicano and Chicana, for some characters. By the mid-1990s, he had written close to thirty novels. He followed with eight more novels, the last one, Federico en su balcon, in 2012 (posthumously). The Mexican government has established an international prize in his name: The Carlos Fuentes International Prize for Literary Creation in the Spanish Language. It is awarded annually on the anniversary of his birth. THE J. EDGAR HOOVER WITCH HUNTS J. Edgar Hoover was forever obsessed with ferreting out Communists and other subversives throughout the United States since he took over the reins

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of the Bureau of Investigation in 1924. The agency changed its name by adding Federal as the first word in the title in 1935. He directed investigations, filed charges, and pressed for deportations of thousands of persons suspected of being communist subversives.7 With the help of many, Hoover claimed credit for writing at least four books on the subject. Hoover was convinced that Carlos Fuentes was a member of the Communist Party of Mexico. Perhaps he was. Little information is found in any of the biographical descriptions on Fuentes but for the Encyclopedia Britannica which states that membership ended by 1962.8 At a recent conference a paper was presented in which the communist label attached to Carlos Fuentes was the work of the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, Thomas Mann, during the John F. Kennedy administration. This paper offered the view that Fuentes had positioned himself as a key interlocutor between conflicting constituencies, left and right, in Mexican politics and opting for the left often. Fuentes had been a speech writer for President Adolfo Lopez Mateos who catered to the left wing of his political party, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), in pursuit of and during his presidency.9 It never occurred to the Democratic Party liberals in the Kennedy Administration that agreeing with the John Birchers of the Cold War era defeated U.S. foreign policy initiatives. Mexicans viewed, and continue to view, their revolution of 1910 as the greatest thing since corn tortillas because it addressed structural inequality in their society and government. Revolutions are not necessarily only the product of Communist political parties the world over. The real problem is that the U.S. government and people seldom distinguish between communism and socialism as in the case of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala (1954) or Salvador Allende in Chile (1973), for example. Regardless of Carlos Fuentes’s actual political party affiliation at any given time in his life, he saw himself as a socialist and held those views throughout his life as reflected in his writings. Moreover, it was not illegal to be a Communist Party member in the United States in the 1960s when he was being denied entry visas on those grounds, much less being a socialist. In July 1957, two cases involving membership in the Communist Party USA on appeal were heard the same day. The U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruled against the U.S. government and for those charged by holding the Smith Act unconstitutional.10 The Communist Party USA had no presidential candidate after 1940 to 1968. The Communist Party USA in 1957 had less than 10,000 members. Kurt Gentry estimates that no less than 1,500 of these “members” were paid FBI informants.11 Despite these rulings, Hoover continued to harass writers and artists for their subversive expressions during his entire 48-year dictatorial reign over the FBI.12 His best tactic was to



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label someone of interest as a communist or a subversive; therefore they may become communist. Fascists were a different story. After WWII, the U.S. government relocated and legalized for naturalization purposes many Nazi members and supporters, particularly scientists into the country to continue their work on nuclear atom research and unmanned aircraft (drones). Hoover did not trust any of them and surveilled some such as Albert Einstein.13 He did not trust homosexuals either. Hoover suspected this population would be a target for extortion and blackmail, particularly if they worked for the U.S. government. He began a Sex Deviates File whose target were gay males and lesbians in and out of government.14 In 1968 Hoover began another strategy to go after those he deemed to be dissenters and potential subversives, especially in the minority communities, racial and ethnic, of the United States. It was the Counter-Intelligence Program, code named COINTELPRO, which consisted of over a dozen counter-intelligence operations aimed at the destruction of leaders and organizations Hoover deemed subversive or had the potential to become subversive. He first went after Puerto Rican Nationalists.15 White students and youth generally, termed New Left by the FBI, were made targets as well. Those of Mexican descent were placed in a program called Mexican American Militancy and Mexicans, and Mexican Americans along the U.S.-Mexico border were placed under surveillance in the Border Coverage Program (BOCOV) in the late 1950s. Hoover also waged war against the Black Panthers and eliminated them physically, incarcerating those still standing. A sub-group of those Hoover lumped into Black Nationalists and Hate Groups were African American writers. The most well-known with the longest history of FBI surveillance from 1958 to 1975 was James Baldwin. His FBI file consists of about 1,884 pages.16 Hoover went after all black writers and artists such as Paul Robeson, Sr. The Robeson, Sr. file consists of 2,680 pages.17 It should be of no surprise to anyone that when it came to persons of Mexican descent in the United States and in Mexico, Hoover long had suspicions about their loyalty to the United States and activities in contravention of U.S. policies. Carlos Fuentes was made to fit into that niche. He also fit into another favorite niche of Hoover’s—the rich and famous. Entertainers such as Jean Seberg and Jeanne Moreau were targets as was Marilyn Monroe. Fuentes carried on love affairs with both Seberg and Moreau. His 1994 novel, Diana o la cazadora solitaria, is based on his romance with Seberg. Jean Seberg herself was a target of FBI surveillance and defamation for her financial support of the Black Panther Party in the 1960s.18 Between 1962 and 1983, the FBI files on Carlos Fuentes were released to the public.

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THE FBI FILE—CARLOS FUENTES MACIAS NO. 105-11037 The very first pages obtained on Carlos Fuentes indicate a search of records on him began on April 2, 1962 and consists of two pages containing entries of numerous other files reviewed. This search prompted an urgent Cablegram to be sent the next day from Legat, Mexico City, No. 81 to the Director, FBI on April 3rd. The cable informed the Director that Carlos Fuentes as of that date had not applied at the U.S. embassy for a visa to travel to the country, “but they have instructions from Washington to delay if application is made and await further instructions.” It was signed by John F. Desmond. On May 21, 1962 the Legat, Mexico City wrote a Memorandum to the Director, FBI about Carlos Fuentes. The document was coded “Internal Security (IS)-Mexico.”19 The FBI man inside the U.S. Embassy and any other embassies are called Legat. This Mexico City Legat is referred in his first sentence of this document and in earlier Remycaps (subject captions) of March 30th and April 3rd which he had sent concerning Fuentes traveling to the United States and needing a visa for that purpose.20 The Embassy was not cooperative with the Fuentes request it seems because it is reported in this Memorandum that the Mexican magazine Siempre carried an open letter by Fuentes to Goodwin about the matter of his visa. The Memorandum also reports that very little publicity was given this matter in Mexico and that up to April 25th no communication on the matter was received by the Embassy for or against the denial. In closing the Memorandum reads: “Accordingly, this matter is considered RUC’d.”21 A couple of interesting items in this communication are that Siempre was described as “the communist oriented magazine . . . for which Fuentes writes” and is the reference in the first line to earlier communications on the Fuentes matter as early as March 30th of 1962. This corroborates that Fuentes was already under FBI watch as were his writings in a communist oriented magazine or any other venue. Hoover had an obsession with anything relating to communism, especially communists, those with communist leanings, and those with a potential of becoming communist subversives. Because of this obsession, he initiated the COINTELPRO operations as mentioned above and within that umbrella several specific programs such as the Border Coverage Program (BOCOV) specifically targeting Mexicans and Chicanos along the U.S.-Mexico border. The odd switch in State Department policy or that of the FBI or both was that the year prior, 1961, when his novel Las buenas conciencias was translated into English, he was honored in New York by his publisher. The State Department and FBI voiced no objection to his visa application then, and it was approved. Open sources in the media reported on this denial and reversal of policy toward Fuentes.22 Ted Szulc, New York Times writer, claimed that



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“State Department officials said today that the visa had been refused after the discovery that Señor Fuentes might be a member of the Communist Party.” The State Department further explained that the visa was denied because of provisions of the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act.23 This law lists over a dozen categories of persons to be excluded from admission into the United States such as anarchists, members of Communist parties, those who advocate overthrow of the U.S. government, advocates of totalitarianism, and writers in support of these inadmissible categories, and a few more, such as polygamists.24 Dozens of others have been denied entry visas under these provisions such as these Latin American luminaries: Pablo Neruda (Chile), Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Colombia), Julio Cortazor (Argentina), and Angel Rama, (Uruguay). In denying Fuentes and these other outstanding literary giants, the U.S. State Department has used the McCarran-Walter Act to impose thought control not only on U.S. residents who are prevented from hearing these literary giants but also on them by deeming their views as subversive for not being in agreement with U.S. foreign policy. On June 4, 1962 this matter and perhaps another request for information on the visa denial surfaced because there are four pages containing a listing of approximately sixty-five files reviewed again by the FBI. No indication was found to explain the reason for the renewed interest in these documents. SAC, CLEVELAND, AND THOUGHT CONTROL The Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of the Cleveland FBI office sent a Memorandum dated March 20, 1963 to the Director, FBI which contained a lengthy letter penned by Carlos Fuentes. According to this Memorandum, an informant for the local FBI obtained from another informant within the Cleveland branch of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) had obtained the copy of the ten-page letter, “An Open Letter to The People of the United States” by Carlos Fuentes, supposedly at this time writing for the Mexican semi-monthly Polίtica. At the bottom of the letter is the credit: “Prepared by Indiana University chapter of FAIR PLAY FOR CUBA COMMITTEE, P.O. Box 912, Bloomington, Indiana” (p. 10). The letter is an essay based on research, I suspect, that was to be used by Fuentes as the basis of his comments during the debate-not-held between he and Goodwin over the Alliance for Progress. Fuentes explained the endemic poverty that plagues the 140 million Latin American people in this essay. And, he pins the cause as the imposition and maintenance of a feudal society dating to the era of the Middle Ages and Reformation. He characterizes the Counter-Reformation that took place in Latin America as being based on

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servitude of labor, religious dogma, huge landholders, closed border to ideas, denial of basic civil liberties, and exportation of wealth to Portugal and Spain. Despite the movements for Independence in the early 1810–1830s, the economic structure has remained the same over the past four centuries. Fuentes calls for agrarian reform to end the landholding oligarchs of Latin America. The Alliance for Progress, he believed, would support the maintenance of the current landholding oligarchies. It would not result in any meaningful or fundamental change, much less progress. He cited the U.S. acts of aggression against Cuba in April 1961, the violation of Inter-American law at Punta del Este in January 1962, and the U.S.-backed invasion of Playa Giron (Bay of Pigs). The Organization of American States (OAS), he charged, has ceased to be a legal organization and become a disguised weapon of the United States like the Alliance for Progress. Fuentes argued for revolution to make fundamental structural change as happened in Mexico in 1910 and Cuba in 1961. In the closing pages of this letter he discussed the options for those who would turn to armed revolution in Latin American as being turning to the Soviet Union out of necessity as the opposite of U.S. interests that protect the landholding oligarchs of Latin America. He argued, however, for a third option. It would be a program for progress based on science to cure illness, disease, famine, poverty, and for co-existence, world peace based on mutual tolerance, respect, and friendship. ON STALINISM AND KHRUSHCHEV The Open Letter became the first of many written pieces by Fuentes gathered and filed for further review by the FBI. The next one in the file is another lengthy essay in which Fuentes analyzes the ideas of Nikita Khrushchev, Soviet bloc leader roughly for eleven years, 1953 to 1964.25 On March 8, 1963 Khrushchev addressed writers and artists at a meeting of Communist Party officials and government leaders on the topic of socialist realism which he proceeded to define and frame. The Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party was scheduled to meet on May 28th to discuss the role of the artist and writer under socialism. I assume Fuentes was aware of this upcoming meeting where policy would be set and published his rebuttal to Khrushchev. Fuentes begins with the marvels of change brought about by Nikita Khrushchev in Soviet life. The years of Stalin’s rule were tyrannical and repressive for most, but it was also the era that brought Russians into literacy and industry. The entire nation was sent to school so that minds awakened. From the ruins of the last Tsarist regime 40 universities were established graduating some 3 million per year. Education was free and compulsory for



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the primary and secondary years. Everyone had a job. Working for the state meant more goods, more services, more benefits, and more progress for those who came from the ranks of the illiterates, 90% in 1917, to the almost 100% literate in 1963. Also, Russia was the second world power when Fuentes was writing this piece. But Fuentes was bothered by what he interpreted from Khrushchev’s words: a return to Stalinism with regards to creative expression in word or imagery. Pointedly, he wrote, “Unhappily, Khrushchev’s new directives tend to plunge writers into the same anti-realist and anti-critical prostration . . . only by the exercise of this function can a return to the old errors be avoided” (p. 4 of the FBI file copy of the article). Fuentes further criticized Khrushchev as being backward for describing the artistic movement in the West as decadent, imperialistic, and counter-revolutionary. In somewhat similar language, the Western bourgeois elites had also dismissed these critical and innovative Western works as useless. Fuentes concluded with, “The destruction of this bridge between East and West, and Khrushchev’s anathema against its restoration cannot benefit peace and understanding among men” (p. 5 of the FBI copy of the article).26 Again, on April 15 and 16, 1964, the FBI reviewed approximately 39 assorted other files related to Carlos Fuentes with no explanation for this activity much less who had requested the review. LEGAT, MEXICO CITY, NO. 638—FUENTES TRAVEL By urgent cablegram on May 19, 1964 to the Director, FBI, the Legat in Mexico City advised that Carlos Fuentes had obtained a single-entry visa for travel to New York city on May 18th aboard Eastern Airlines with return on May 22nd. The cablegram also referred to Remycabs from March 30th, April 3rd, and May 21st, all from 1962. This transmission was signed by Clark D. Anderson and was internally routed to William Sullivan, Assistant Director of the FBI for domestic intelligence and a member of the U.S. Intelligence Board. He also oversaw the COINTELPRO operations.27 The following year, Legat Mexico City No. 140 sent another urgent cablegram on March 2, 1965 about Carlos Fuentes Macias, IS-Mexico. This cablegram alerted the Director, FBI that Fuentes was traveling by train and was to enter the United States at Laredo, Texas. Yet, he was not to depart the U.S. until March 22nd by train from Laredo, Texas. In the meantime, Fuentes was to be at Brand and Brand, 101 Park Avenue, New York City. He was traveling under an official visa and passport as officer of the Mexican Institute of Fine Arts. This transmission was also routed to William Sullivan, Assistant Director of the FBI for Internal Security, and signed by Clark D. Anderson.

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On April 5, 1965 the Director, FBI sent a two-page communication to the Legat, Mexico City, with copy to the SAC, San Antonio, alleging that an antiAmerican film is being made in Mexico City with the title of “Una Alma Pura,” based on a screenplay written by Carlos Fuentes. In this transmission, the Director makes mention of departmental letters dated “3/18/65” from the U.S. Attorney in San Antonio and another letter dated “3/24/65,” all reporting on the production of this movie. Hoover wanted to know if the movie was being sponsored by the Mexican Communist Party or any other subversive organizations. Moreover, he wanted the Legat, Mexico City to determine whether [two names redacted] had ever been associated with an American Communist Group in Mexico City or other subversive organizations (p. 1). In the final section of this communication subtitled Note: Hoover alludes to the U.S. Attorney’s letter in which two other names are redacted but these persons were preparing to take minor parts in this film. Hoover adds these concluding sentences: They sought advice form [sic] U.S. Attorney as to whether [name redacted] might lose her U.S. citizenship and [name redacted] her right to reside in U.S. as result of taking part in this picture. [Name redacted] reportedly is a national of Ireland bur resident of U.S. under immigrant visa. Both furnished Mexican addresses. They had impression all persons connected with production of film were communists. They also claimed they were widely acquainted in the “artistic” colony in Mexico City and estimated 75 per cent of this colony were procommunist (p. 2).

Nothing more was found in the FBI files released about this movie or these persons. Instead, a new line of inquiry was opened by the U. S. Department of State by telegram to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City on September 2, 1965 at 6:16 pm with copy to the FBI. The telegram wanted to know, “Has Carlos Fuentes applied for new visa?” It explained that the Department of State understood a University of Michigan professor had invited Carlos Fuentes to attend a conference in Ann Arbor on September 14 to 18 on Alternative Prospective on Viet Nam. It is signed “VISAS THIRTEEN.” Promptly at 3:38 pm the next day the Mexico City office of the Department of State responded to the Secretary of State by return telegram with a short message: “No new application received Fuentes [inserted in hand print is first and last name, Carlos and Macias]. Will inform if applies.” It was signed “BOONSTRA.” On a one-page letterhead statement the FBI referenced the Memorandum from Detroit, assume SAC, regarding the Inter-University Committee for Debate on Foreign Policy (IUCDFP) meeting to be held at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and cited the local newspaper there, “Ann Arbor News” of September 2, 1965 listing those invited, topics, and when press interviews would be had. After this meeting, the campus would hold “teach-in”



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type of seminars on September 17th and 18th. An additional one-page copy of the letter of invitation from Stanley Diamond, Secretary of the IUCDFP together with another one-page listing of six “Non-American Participants,” including Carlos Fuentes as number three. On September 21, 1965 the Legat, Mexico City No. 538 sent a cablegram to the Director, FBI advising that Carlos Fuentes would enter the United States by train at Laredo, Texas, on September 23rd en route to New York City to visit Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Brand and Brand publishers. He was to depart from New York by ship to La Havre, France about October 8th. He was traveling under official visa and passport as an officer of the Mexican Institute of Fine Arts. The cablegram was signed by Henry C. Johnson, Acting Assistant, and routed to William Sullivan at FBI headquarters. The FBI files contain a one-page form from the Deputy Associate Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service dated September 25, 1965 to the Director, FBI which merely notifies on the name and nationality of the “alien” and his address while in the United States, method of arrival, his permanent address, birth date and place, purpose of visit, date and place of entry, destination, and purpose and length of admission. Later, on September 27, 1965 the Director, FBI sent a two-page Airtel message to the SAC, New York about Carlos Fuentes Macias, IS-Mexico with copies to the Legat, Paris and Mexico plus the SAC in Detroit. The Airtel advised that Fuentes was to have been a participant at the University of Michigan on September 14th thru 18th, and at the University of Toronto on October 8th thru 10th. Hoover writes, “New York office is acquainted with subject’s background as a leading Mexican communist writer who has frequently visited this country for short business stays.” Then comes the “bait and trap” maneuver Hoover wanted to play. He explained that Fuentes in the past has been denied a visa “due to his current membership in the Communist Party of Mexico . . . the normal procedure for him to enter this country after refusal for such visas has been to obtain an official Mexican passport and thereafter obtain a diplomatic visa from the United States Embassy in Mexico” (p. 1). Now the trap: “Department of State has advised it would be extremely interested in determining if subject actually attended the aforementioned teach-in at the University of Michigan. Department of State noted that subject’s attendance would have been a violation of the subject’s visa” (p. 2). In the concluding note, Hoover adds, The stated purpose of his visit according to Legat, Mexico, was to contact his publishers and business manager in New York City. His official visa listed subject as officer of the Mexican Institute of Fina Arts. (p. 2)

Ironically on October 12, Dia de la Raza in many Latin American countries, the FBI again reviewed the Carlos Fuentes file which contained sixteen FBI

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files listed on three pages. No explanation was given for the review nor who requested the file review. Finally, on October 20, 1965 the SAC, Detroit by Airtel to the Director, FBI disappointed him to be sure with the information he relayed. Fuentes, according to an informant within the University of Michigan, furnished the information to Special Agent J. Raymond Coghlan (SC), was not announced as one of the speakers, did not make any public speeches, was not a participant. A caveat was inserted stating that the sessions of September 17 were closed to the public. The informant could not with certainty reach that conclusion but doubted that Fuentes had been kept under wraps had he been a participant. It was in the best interest of the sponsoring committee to make public all the high-powered international personalities present. The informant also noted that many of those previously listed as having been invited did not attend. The informant speculated that announcing the names of those invited was a ploy to gain more media attention than real expectation that they would attend. Undaunted, Hoover pressed on with his plan to catch Fuentes attending an event or location he had not listed as part of his travel plans or business. The SAC, New York reported October 25, 1965 he had not been able to obtain any information on whether Fuentes attended the University of Michigan event in Ann Arbor. On November 10th SAC, New York again assured the Director, FBI in a five-page report that Fuentes cannot be identified as having been a participant in either the Ann Arbor event or the Montreal event. The SAC, New York listed all his SAs by name who went (p. 3), by date (p. 3), about seeking information from every conceivable source [names redacted] (p. 2) from September 27th thru the entire month of October and into November 10, 1965. In this last page, dated November 10, 1965, the SAC, New York clearly wants to put this matter to rest and writes, Confidential informants familiar with matters pertaining to Communist Party activities . . . and sources knowledgeable concerning matters pertaining to the field of higher education, who were contacted during October 1965, were all unable to furnish any pertinent information concerning the recent whereabouts or activities of Carlos Fuentes Macias.

Legat, Paris responded the last days of December 1965 regarding the whereabouts of Carlos Fuentes Macias. He informed the Director FBI in a Memorandum dated the 27th that Our French sources were requested to advise in the event subject comes to attention. No information has as yet been received from these sources. In the event they receive pertinent information, we will be advised.



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The French sources were none other than the Prefecture de Police, Paris, France; Service de Documentation Exterieure et de Contre-Espionage; and, Renseigne4ments Generaux (General Investigative Section) and Surete Nationale (RGSN), France. Finally, the SAC, Detroit by Airtel dated January 7, 1966 to the Director, FBI informed him that there was no additional information on Fuentes or the conference. He advised that a separate file was not opened on him in Detroit, rather it was handled and filed under the conference as “IUCDFP; Information Concerning IS (Detroit File 105-11627; Bureau file 62-110039).” It closed with “UACB,” FBI code language for “Unless Advised to the Contrary by the Bureau.” The SAC, New York, again on January 28, 1966, sent both a 3-page Memorandum and a 3-page Letterhead Memorandum (LHM) to the Director, FBI advising that no information on Carlos Fuentes having attended a conference at the University of Detroit or any other information concerning his activities was had. The reference to the University of Detroit could be an error or another conference held in that city around the same dates, “9/14-18/65,” as the conferences of interest in Ann Arbor and Montreal. The SAC, New York had his Special Agent Daniel F. Garde investigate the matter with library sources [names redacted] on current events in higher education (p.1 of Memorandum). SA Garde also checked the Education Index published by H.W. Wilson company for any information on Fuentes. SA Garde also perused material in the morgue of the New York Herald Tribune and did not find any material on Fuentes (p. 2 of Memorandum). SA John F. Malley was sent by SAC, New York to consult with at least three [names redacted] sources in November 1965 familiar with CP matters and activities to inquire about Fuentes with negative results (p. 2 of Memorandum). The NY FBI office concluded they too were going to place the matter in RUC status (p. 3 of the Memorandum). The 3-page LHM attached to the Memorandum from the SAC, NY above contained a review of the INS application form for an A-2 visitor visa with comment that nothing was found concerning activities Fuentes may have conducted at the University of Michigan while he claimed to have been in New York (p. 1 of LHM). The second page was a copy of the INS application form with many stamped entries, no less than seven, of those who reviewed the form plus some hand written matter on the form dated as early as April 22, 1960 regarding “Cuban propaganda activities in the U.S.” and “Foreign Political Matters Cuba,” dated January 16th and April 27, 1961 indicating Fuentes was of interest to the FBI, CIA, and INS much earlier than this visa denial in 1962 (p. 2 of LHM). The last page attached to the LHM is of importance to this analysis because it makes known to the Director, FBI that Fuentes is going to seek entry permission again in the summer of 1966. Allegedly,

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Fuentes had invitations to visit Washington, Long Island, Cornell, Chicago, and Connecticut universities in the fall and winter. While travel plans were not available supposedly Fuentes would travel under a regular Mexican passport, not official. Lastly, the LHM attachment contained a recommendation from the U.S. Embassy (I assume in Mexico) that the U.S. Attorney General be approached to extend a six-month waiver for multiple entries to the United States by Fuentes. If he would apply, then that information would be useful in knowing his travel itinerary and purpose of each trip (p. 3 of LHM). The Fuentes file and other related files were subject to review once again on April 5, 1966 with 16 files being reviewed and listed on two pages. There is no further information in the released files on whether Fuentes traveled to the United States with State Department permission or not. THE CHANGE OF USA HEART— LYNDON JOHNSON/DEAN RUSK President Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) took over the presidency upon the assassination of John F. Kennedy (JFK). As president, he honored many of the commitments, programs, policies, and personnel put in place during the brief Kennedy presidential administration. One of those he kept was David Dean Rusk as Secretary of State (1961–1969). Secretary Rusk may have had a change of heart which differed from Hoover’s regarding Carlos Fuentes and his ideological leanings. To be sure, LBJ did not rely on eastern liberal intellectuals for advice as had JFK. Rusk may have had new advice from the Lyndon Johnson White House regarding Fuentes. By incoming telegram from the American Embassy in Paris to the Secretary of State in Washington, D.C. on May 24, 1966 with copies to the CIA, USIA, and FBI, informing on an application Carlos Fuentes had made to French officials I assume to attend a conference in Paris, France sponsored by the American University.28 I assume Fuentes was seeking to enter the United States for air connections to France and had to ask for entry into United States for that limited purpose. No copy of the application is attached to this transmission. However, the author of this telegram is also requesting information from those copied if Fuentes is eligible for such a visa. Nothing further is found in the files released until November 1, 1977 by telegram sent at 7:10 pm by the American Embassy in Mexico City to the Secretary of State in Washington, D.C., with copy to the FBI recommending the issuance of a visa to be in best interests of US in view of Fuentes’ influence and potential, and since contact American University could advance what appears in recent writings to



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be more constructive attitude toward US. Embassy recommends (D3) waiver. Signed by Freeman.

Ten days later, the Legat, Paris wrote to the Director, FBI on November 10, 1966 stating that Mrs. Margaret Barni in the Visa Section of the American Embassy in Paris, France had seen the telegrams cited above and stated that they had no such information. She even checked with French sources including the Prefecture of Police and found no such reference to Fuentes. The paragraph following this statement is entirely redacted, approximately seven lines. Mrs. Barni did provide a new item: “The subject is being offered a visiting professorship at the University of Colorado, starting February 1967.” Mrs. Barni followed up with more information as reported by Memorandum by the Legat, Paris to the Director, FBI on November 29, 1966. It seemed Fuentes did attend the American University conference in Paris as previously reported because Mrs. Barni reported to the Legat, Paris that Fuentes had stopped by the Visa section on November 23, 1966 and canceled his visa application supposedly to the United States for the Colorado State University job offer. The Legat, Paris referred to an undated telegram sent by the State Department at Washington, D.C., to the Visa Section in Paris that in a telephone conversation by Fuentes to the American Foundation for the Arts in New York City he was in fact declining the invitation to go to Colorado “giving as his reason personal matters which will keep him in Paris for several months.” The FBI has a long history of telephone taps on persons of interest. ANOTHER CHANGE OF HEART— RICHARD NIXON/WILLIAM ROGERS William Rogers became the U.S. Secretary of State, succeeding Dean Rusk, when Richard Nixon became president. He was overshadowed and outmaneuvered by Henry Kissinger as Nixon’s National Security Advisor and ultimately replaced Rogers as Secretary of State. Mexico also had undergone presidential changes. The president of Mexico in 1969 was Gustavo Diaz Ordaz but his term ended in December 1969 when Luis Echevarria Alvarez became president until 1976. During Nixon’s first term in office, specifically February 24, 1969, Carlos Fuentes boarded a ship, Virginia de Churruca, at Barcelona, Spain with a landing destination at Vera Cruz, Mexico. He had been living in Paris for the past two years. Returning to Mexico was perilous for Fuentes because he had been extremely critical in his public remarks and writings about the massacre of students in Mexico City at Plaza de las Tres Culturas en Tlatelolco in 1968. He had resigned his position as Mexico’s Ambassador

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to France in 1977 to protest President Jose Portillo’s appointment that year of former President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz who had ordered the massacre of students and was his successor in office. Luis Echevarria Alvarez as Secretario de Gobernacion of Mexico had carried out the order. The ship docked at San Juan, Puerto Rico as part of the route but INS officials denied Fuentes the right to disembark the ship on February 22nd claiming he was “an undesirable alien.”29 In the U.S. media accounts reporting the incident, a Department of Justice spokesman, Jack Landau, acknowledged the denial claiming Fuentes was “listed as a person considered undesirable by the U.S.”30 The following month, March 27th, Mr. Fuentes was quoted in the New York Times Review of Books in a protest letter sent by professors at Columbia University, Charles Wagley and Frank MacShane, to U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell as saying, Yesterday, on arriving at San Juan, the United States Immigration authorities tore up my transit card and confined me to the ship like a common criminal. From the decks I saw land that is mine, part of Latin America, but an occupied land I cannot set foot on.

The Columbia professors also alerted the U.S. Attorney General they would seek to invite Mr. Fuentes “to come to Columbia University and accept a joint appointment with us.” The San Juan incident ignited a firestorm of protests from around the world, including former officials from both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations expressing hope that this denial and affront was an aberration and not a return to general policy of exclusion of Fuentes. The Department of Justice (DOJ) officials responding to these protests and the media claimed Fuentes had not asked for a waiver to step off the ship during this temporary stop in Puerto Rico.31 The INS Puerto Rico office in their intelligence report for the week ending on March 1, 1969 with William B. Gibson as reporting officer submitted a copy to the FBI who in turn only placed a single sheet of this report in the Fuentes FBI file. Under item 5. Subversive Activities of this report is the information on Carlos Fuentes. The paragraph is an insight into INS intelligence operations and methods. The entire statement follows below with approximately 6 to 7 lines redacted which contain the names of passengers who volunteered information on Mr. Fuentes during the voyage. Carlos FUENTES-MACIAS, A 12 724 926, a citizen of Mexico, whose name appears in the Service Lookout Book as U 16b, arrived at this port on February 22, 1969, as a transit passenger on the motor vessel “Virginia de Churruca”. Another passenger, a United States citizen who had boarded at Barcelona, advised that Mr. Fuentes is a notorious Anti-American Communist author and has



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written a book entitled “Cambio de Piel” (Change of Skin), which was banned in Spain. The passenger further advised that a certain group of passengers had stayed very close to Mr. Fuentes during the entire voyage. They included [6–7 lines redacted]. All of the foregoing were in transit to Veracruz. The Subject was informed that he was not eligible for the TRWO [means Transit Without Visa] privilege and Form I-259 were served on the agents, ordering them to detain and remove Mr. Fuentes from the United States.

A single sheet without identification of source without date, origin, and destination is included with the INS Intelligence Report cited above. This document also contains a similar report as the INS report. An unidentified person as to agency and position, a Mr. Cuneo, Central Office, called and asked for information on Carlos Fuentes arriving into San Juan. He is identified by information Fuentes provided on his prior visa forms plus the new INS designation for him as “SLOB Code U16h and file A12 724 926 ELP.” SLOB is the code for Service Lookout Book. The report informs that agent “SII Britt” handled subject on arrival and informed him he was not eligible for the TRWOV privilege and could not be allowed to go ashore in San Juan. The steamship agents were served with form I-259 for the removal of Fuentes as an inadmissible TRWOV. SII Britt also reported that when he arrived at the airport for work, Leslie Franco, Port Receptionist, told him a woman repeatedly had been calling trying to reach Mr. Fuentes. Two additional FBI documents, Form 4-22, were made part of this record and contained reference to files reviewed by Puerto Rico FBI office about this matter. The several news items of unfavorable press for the United States involving Fuentes in San Juan, Puerto Rico, caused the American Embassy in Mexico to telegram the Secretary of State file stamped on March 12, 1969 reporting on considerable publicity in the Mexican press, all unfavorable. David Alfaro Siqueiros, Mexico’s top muralist, said writers, artists, and intellectuals of Mexico would register the strongest possible protest against this inanity. The telegram repeated the quote attributed to Fuentes above about being treated like a criminal. In closing, the telegram assured no visa application by Fuentes was pending and promised any inquiry or application would be reported to the Department of State. TOSS THE BALL TO HOOVER The Legat, Mexico on November 25, 1969 by Memorandum and LHM notified the Director, FBI that in the future any question concerning Fuentes and his current visit to the United States and future visits would be left to the discretion

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of the Bureau. The first two, possibly three, paragraphs at the beginning of this Memorandum are redacted so context for the determination that Hoover’s FBI decide on visas for Fuentes cannot be evaluated. The 2-page LHM is completely redacted other than the title with his name on both pages at the top. After the San Juan incident, Fuentes was invited to attend a forum of Latin American writers in New York in December 1969 which he rejected in a letter to Professor Robert G. Mead, head of the Modern Languages Association of America. He is quoted from this letter in a single-page copy of a newspaper article as follows: Although I don’t belong, nor have I ever belonged, to the Communist Party, as the State Department alleged in invoking the McCarran-Walter Act I do form a part of a militancy much more widespread, independent, and day by day, more effective.32

Fuentes continued being quoted in this news article as saying there is almost universal opposition to the imperialist policy of the United States government. If I were to visit the United States at this time, I could not help but voice my opposition and my support of those American intellectuals who share it. It is better not to visit the United States silently under the watchfulness of the U.S. authorities.

These quotes are in a news clip made part of the record of an INS application to enter the United States as a tourist and to meet with his publisher. He sought entry at Laredo, Texas, on October 7, 1969, and on to New York City. He would depart Laredo, Texas, October 30, 1969. All travel would be by train. Apparently, this application was approved by Charles J. Beeche, District Director. At the bottom of the INS form is typed within parentheses: (A member of the “Movimiento Nacional de Liberacion” and the Communist Party of Mexico). The FBI having been given the discretion to opine on approval or rejection on future application for travel in the United States by Fuentes was faced with notice on January 20, 1970 by Memorandum from SAC, New York to Director, FBI. Hoover was being reminded of the November 25, 1969 letter giving the Bureau that discretion and alerting him that copy of that letter was being sent to the Legat, Mexico for appropriate action given the investigative nature of this matter. Eight months later, August 14, 1970, INS received an entry visa application from Carlos Fuentes in Frankfurt, Germany. He sought entry to teach literature at New York University and Columbia University, New York. He wished to enter at New York on September 15, 1970 and remain until May 31, 1971, making side-trips to Canada and/or Mexico during that period. Cecil Peterson, Officer in Charge, approved the application with one condition: Initial entry prior to September 15, 1970; multiple additional entries prior to



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May 31, 1971. And, at the bottom in parentheses: (Current membership in the Communist Party of Mexico). Five days later, August 19, 1970, the Department of State at the Embassy in Paris processed the application from INS Frankfurt, Germany and added remarks on an attached page. The attachment lists as Item 15 the various addresses Carlos Fuentes has listed previously in U.S. documents in Mexico, Switzerland, Italy, France, and England. Under Remarks: The preparer repeats that Fuentes has been found to be ineligible by American Embassy in Mexico for a visa under section 212(a)(28). He also has been the beneficiary of two approved petitions: New York (NYCN-30321) and Columbia (NYC-N-30473).

The concluding paragraph indicated a change of heart regarding Fuentes despite all the FBI and INS declarations about his communist ties and subversive connections: Mr. Fuentes has been the beneficiary of waivers in the past and in view of the public relations factors involved, the Embassy recommends that another waiver be granted, valid for one entry prior to September 15, 1970, and for admission until May 31, 1971. Approved by Mr. Peterson by telephone on August 14, 1970 with visa issued August 18, 1970 (p. 2).

On August 24, 1970 the Legat, Paris informed the Director, FBI that a new waiver visa had been extended to Fuentes. This Memorandum is followed by a page of files reviewed on 9/1 but not listed or searched. The exact words used are “Approx 25 sees o/n not listed” and “Approx 200 sees under Fuentes not searched.” On September 7, 1970 the Director, FBI notified the SAC, New York that Legat, Paris had sent various communications on Fuentes. Bureau files indicate he received a waiver to enter the United States to teach at New York University and Columbia University during the 1970–1971 academic year. Hoover wants SAC, New York to verify the Fuentes relationship with those universities. Hoover is once again laying the trap to catch Fuentes in the United States but engaged in activities not listed on his visa application. Prudently, he instructs the SAC, New York that “Results of your inquiries are to be submitted in form suitable for dissemination.” In other words, Hoover does not want to be embarrassed in the media by his continued witch hunt and harassment of Fuentes but does want it to continue. And, in case the SAC has had a memory lapse regarding Fuentes in the final section of this two-page Memorandum Hoover writes: Subject is well-known Mexican novelist with long history of subversive connections and has traveled to the Iron Curtain and Cuba. He was deemed excludable

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by INS in 1962. Described as strongly anti-U.S., his prior visa refusals in 1962 and 1969 were followed by substantial coverage in “New York Times” and other periodicals. In recent years, he has been granted permission for short business visits to U.S. He claims to have divorced himself from Marxism in recent years. We should verify his presence in U.S. and be in position to obtain and report information regarding his activities while here (p. 2). Both the SAC, New York and Legat, Paris kept their ears to the ground and nose in the air for any hint of activities by Carlos Fuentes while under visa waiver in New York. SAC, New York prepared a Memorandum and LHM dated October 20, 1970 which was widely circulated among the CIA, INS, RAO, State and Legat in Paris and Mexico. Apparently, an informant within Columbia University, reported Fuentes as not on faculty list then or in the spring 1971. SAC, New York proceeded to place an F-1 Stop Notice with INS when subject arrives and reopened its investigation. The LHM elaborated on the inside tipster information that Fuentes had not arrived “for personal reasons.” Again, on January 27, 1971 the SAC, New York sent a Memorandum and LHM to the Director, FBI with wide circulation to agencies previously alerted. In this communication, SAC, New York reports on a Fuentes telegram he sent explaining his absence. According to the Columbia university newsletter of January 6, 1971, Fuentes resigned his appointment stating in his telegram: As protest against renewed air attack on North Vietnam, I am resigning position on your staff your upcoming semester. Stop. Impossible to talk serenely about literature while American imperialists murder women and children. Stop. (p.1 of LHM)33

This statement attributed to Fuentes ignited a fury at FBI headquarters. A full search of records was initiated looking (“see”) under every possible name or alias attributed to Carlos Fuentes. A Correlation Summary (CS) was prepared from searches made on March 19, 1971. The CS is 15 pages long. Names in 7 variations were searched or “see” in FBI files: Macias, Carlos Fuentes, Batista, Carlos Fuentes, Battala, Carlos Fuentes, Fuentas, Carlos, Fuentes, Carlos, Machias, Carlos Fuentes, Macias, and Carlos Fuentas. The admonishment on the Memorandum accompanying the CS to all FBI and those in possession of the CS was in bold print, capitalized, and underscored: THIS SUMMARY HAS BEEN PREPARED FOR USE AT THE SEAT OF GOVERNMENT AND IS NOT SUITABLE FOR DISSEMINATION. IT IS DESIGNED TO FURNISH A SYNOPSIS OF THE INFORMATION SET OUT IN EACH REFERENCE, AND IN MANY CASES THE ORIGINAL SERIAL WILL CONTAIN THE INFORMATION IN MORE DETAIL (p. 1).

Immediately after this instruction, the first of many redacted sections begin. The remainder of Memorandum page 1 is redacted, as is page 1 of the CS. Page 2 supplies a partial listing of abbreviations:



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Add.info is additional information appearing in this reference which pertains to Carlos Fuentes Macias can be found in the main file or elsewhere in this summary. This information may have been received from a different source; MLN for Movimiento Liberacion Nacional (National Liberation Movement); PCM for Partido Communista (sic) Mexicano (Communist Party of Mexico); and PSP for Partido Socialista Popular (Popular Socialist Party). Redactions follow and end of page reports that on 9/22/59 [redacted sources] furnished copies of a handbill . . . to gain support in ousting the US Naval Base at Guantanamo, Cuba. This handbill listed Carlos Fuentes as a guest who was to attend the Act of Solidarity with the Cuban Revolution to be held 9/20/59 at the Iris Theater (locality not given). Handbill enclosed 105-80318 ep. 1

More redactions followed with two blurbs. The first is a reference to an article by C. Wright Mills, “Aftermath of Revolution” in the Saturday Review of January 21, 1961. Carlos Fuentes signed the article in support of Mills (105-113739). The second is a name check request from INS as to Fuentes being a member of the CP in Mexico. 39-0-61179 p. 1, 2. (p. 3 of CS). Three more blurbs follow with more redacted material. The first is from October 6, 1961 where Fuentes was reported by an informant to have been present at the United Nations General Assembly. Another informant also placed Fuentes in Czechoslovakia in July 1961. The next blurb claims that Fuentes and [name redacted] were residing at the Beverly Hotel NYC on October 8, 1961. 10578205-70 ep. 1, 3. Another source and or informants on December 12, 1962 reported on a session of study classes put on by the CP of Illinois pertaining to Latin America. These people described Carlos Fuentes as truly a Marxist author and gave a summary of Fuentes’ revolutionary ideas. 100-55202-74 p.17 (p. 4 of CS). More redactions follow with two information pieces. First, someone leased the home of Carlos Fuentes in Mexico and, second, Carlos Fuentes attended, so informed a source, a luncheon at the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City on March 19, 1964 held in observance of the 20th anniversary of the Instituto de Intercambio Cultural Mexicano-Ruso (Mexican-Russian Institute of Cultural Exchange-IICMR) (64-30410) (p. 5 of CS). Amidst the redacted blocks of text, an informant stated that from July 1961 to 5/17/65 Carlos Fuentes was in Czechoslovakia, Italy, Mexico, NYC, and Poland doing film projects. The next page contains a listing of two main files searched or “see” 105-103154 and 100-359378 with identifying subfile number and search slip page numbers—a total of 24. The paragraph left untouched informs that Carlos Fuentes visited Cuba from May 1959 to April 14, 1966, that he was present at the May Day parade on May 1, 1960, and that he attended the Third National Assembly of the PP during October 14–16, 1960 in Mexico City. Allegedly, a new publishing house in Mexico City, Editorial Siglo XXI, belongs to the PSP and Fuentes is an adviser (p. 7 of CS).

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The remaining pages 8 through 15 of the CS contain similar entries on Carlos Fuentes for the remainder of 1966 to 1968, documents he signed in support, meetings he attended, and articles he wrote. Beginning on page 9 of the CS is a listing of articles he authored which normally are not cited in his works because of their publication in sources of limited interest to the general public but not the FBI. For example, the FBI cites the article, “A Latin American Speaks to North Americans,” in Black America, volumes 1 and 3, “The Argument of Latin America,” for the Southern Student Organizing Committee. Both articles are referenced to FBI file 100-442367. References tracked to Carlos Fuentes in CP files for Latin America, Chile, Mexico, Mexico-Jalisco, Venezuela, Political Matters-Cuba, Political Matters-Mexico, and list of informants, all redacted, that provided dates and information on his activities with these groups (p. 10 of CS). According to more redacted sources, Carlos Fuentes was in Cuba on January 2, 1961 and again between April 28th and May 1, 1961 (p. 11 of CS). He was present on the presidium of the meeting on the Liberation of Latin America in June 1961 according to a handbill provided by informants to the FBI (p. 12 of CS). Supposedly, Carlos Fuentes attended secret meetings on April 22–23, 1962 in Morelia, Michoacan at the home of Braulio Maldonado (not further identified) and on January 19, 1963 at a meeting of anti-government journalists held at Avenida Morelos No. 45, Interior 47, Mexico City and as a representative of the MLN attended another meeting at Calle Tokio 63 in Mexico City, sometime in October 1963 P.13 of CS). Police in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil reported with some redacted material inserted that on or about January 28, 1964 Carlos Fuentes was listed in their files as a member of a communist party from Mexico. This file numbers’ referenced are 64-200-307-404 ep. 3 and 64-200-228-1068 p. 1. Oddly, this page of the CS closes with this reference below some redacted material: “The above appeared in the file captioned ‘Mexican American Militancy’. Add. Info. 105-180564-55 p. 2 (916)” (p. 14 of CS). The last of the 15 pages simply reports on files not available during the search and or not reviewed. AMBASSADOR CARLOS FUENTES: 1975–1977 Things change when you are an Ambassador. First, they live the socialist life with all needs taken care of by the sponsoring government, and you have a job with benefits for yourself and those with you as immediate family. Second, diplomatic immunity attaches as to your behavior and activity. Receiving countries cannot curtail, arrest, or punish you for wrongdoing. You can be expelled from the country. Third, what you say is interpreted as an official policy pronouncement. Fourth, you can travel the world over without need for special visa approval for entry into other countries.



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The Fuentes FBI file dated October 9, 1973 is among the last events faced by Mexican citizen Carlos Fuentes with the INS from the United States. He sought another entry visa through Frankfurt, Germany, while he was residing in France on that date for the purpose of promoting an international cultural exchange by lecturing at the United Nations. He sought entry on or about October 17th for twenty days. His application was approved by Joseph H. Kadlec, Officer in Charge. The Secretary of State notified the American Embassy in Paris that this application had been approved for twenty days beginning October 17th. On November 19, 1973 the Secretary of State by teletype to the American Embassy in Mexico City alerts them that Fuentes is going to apply for entry again. This time he is being invited by the Woodrow Wilson International Center to be a guest professor from January 15, 1974 to August 15, 1974. On February 28, 1975 the Department of State requested biographic data on Carlos Fuentes Macias and an update on name checks. And they checked on March 3, 1975 some 26 files. There are no FBI files that cover the period of his stint as ambassador. The trail picks up on October 6, 1977 when Fuentes, again via Frankfurt, Germany, submits a visa application to INS for entry into the United States to teach at the University of Pennsylvania between October–November 1977 with multiple entries thereafter before October 31, 1978. The Department of State recommended his admission, signed by E. Bollman, Acting Officer in Charge. January 24, 1978 with a 3-page teletype from the FBI office in Mexico City, not Legat, to the Director, FBI reporting that the U.S. Embassy Visa Section granted Carlos Fuentes an H-2 multiple entry visa for six months on January 17, 1978. He was traveling by airplane with his wife and two children. He had married the Mexican journalist Silvia Lemus in 1972 and begun a family. His first son, Carlos Rafael, was born the following year. A daughter, Natascha, was born the year after in 1974. The purpose of his visit was to be a temporal professor at the University of Pennsylvania and at Columbia University. The teletype describes him as “Subject is a very prominent Mexican Mzrxist (sic) intellectual and writer. Visa Section records reveal that in past years, he has been granted visas, but always on waiver because of past affiliation with the Communist Party of Mexico (PCM)” (p. 1). The teletype continues with review of past incidents causing denial of visas in 1968 and 1971. The teletype uses his quote about “U.S. imperialistic policy” and words from the telegram protesting air attack on Vietnam, and that he has recently been the Mexican Ambassador to France. To be sure, the teletype makes mention that all other FBI offices in Philadelphia and New York have been placed on

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alert of the subject’s background (p.2). The reason for this is “so that they will be aware of subject’s presence in their respective areas” (p.3). A followup teletype was sent the following January 27th to SAC’s in New York and Philadelphia. There is another break in FBI files on Carlos Fuentes from these last teletypes in January 1978 until November 28, 1983, almost a six-year lapse. On this occasion, the American Embassy in Mexico is alerting the FBI that Carlos Fuentes is traveling with approved visa from INS to work at Washington University and arriving by airplane into St. Louis, Missouri on December 20th. Surprisingly, this waiver has no date of expiration, rather it states in blank for period of temporary stay: “As needed in order to accomplish the purpose of his entry.” On May 3, 1985 the INS with consular recommendation of the American Embassy in Mexico City, the visa application submitted by Carlos Fuentes was approved for travel to New York for fifteen days in May. Again, on June 19, 1985 INS upon recommendation of the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, John Gavin, approved a six-month visa to work at Harvard University for 6 months beginning July 19, 1985. The next transmission dated July 7, 1987 is from the American Embassy in London to the Secretary of State by teletype. It informed that Fuentes would travel to the United States again on August 30th. He applied for a visa on July 2, 1987 and it was processed and approved on July 6th. On August 12, 1987 the FBI once again did a file search and name check on Carlos Fuentes. The last 25 pages of the released file contain listings of files reviewed and, more importantly, ten pages with file stamp to “DESTROY” about 98 files, only four are file stamped “DO NOT DESTROY,” and one file is stamped “SECRET.” SO, WHAT RESULTED FROM THIS RELENTLESS SURVEILLANCE? A great deal is gleaned from analysis of these FBI documents. After a huge expense of taxpayer dollars in frivolous pursuit of silencing Carlos Fuentes over nearly two decades so U.S. audiences could not see, hear, listen, and learn from this literary giant of a man, it did not work. Public clamor and protest at the denials of visas to enter the United States did influence and pressure INS, FBI, CIA, and State Department officials to grant temporary and limited visa waivers, time and again. The FBI under Hoover was the self-proclaimed “Seat of Government” breeding a rabid, anti-Communist culture within the agents. Ignoring the dictates of the rule of law, Hoover opted for no-rules in



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pursuit of those who disagreed with his world view. Regardless of Hoover at the helm, his successors such as Patrick Gray, William Ruckelshaus, Clarence Kelley, William Webster, William Sessions, Louis Freech, Robert Mueller, Jeff Sessions, James Comey, and William Barr have maintained the culture of red-baiting and anti-progressive thought to the point of promoting social and thought control. Once tagged with being a communist and subversive by Hoover, Carlos Fuentes had his character impugned for the rest of his life. His denials about membership in any Community Party or group went ignored. That stigma was inserted on each document when he was seeking a visa waiver. The only pause and relief were temporary while he was the Mexican Ambassador to France. Fortunately, Fuentes was not an ordinary man who succumbed. He continued championing his views and left us a legacy of literature to learn from and enjoy. He was a self-proclaimed Chicano not needing to assimilate into anything. He was his own history, he was himself. Carlos Fuentes passed away in Mexico City on May 12, 2012; he was 83 years of age.34 NOTES 1.  Wendy B. Faris, Carlos Fuentes, (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1983), xi–14. 2. Reeve, Richard, An Annotated Bibliography on Carlos Fuentes, 1949-1969, (Walled Lake, MI: Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese, 1969). See also. www.thefamouspeople,com/ 3. Ibid, 1–4. 4.  5 Faris, Fuentes, 5. 5. There are several sources besides Reeves cited above that list much of the Fuentes work. The URL site www.the famouspeople.com/profiles/carlos-fuentes -macias-963.php/ is one last updated 10/24/2017. 6.  In September 2012 after Fuentes died the NY City News Service filed a FOIA request and obtained 170 pages of documents. These documents are also available on the FBI website linked to The Vault and are the basis of this chapter. 7.  For a survey of first dragnets during World War I, the Red Scare era and the Palmer Raids targeting mostly Eastern European immigrants see Roberta Strauss Feuerlicht, American’s Reign of Terror, (New York: Random House, 1971). For the second Red Scare era that of McCarthyism, see Albert Fried, ed., McCarthyism: The Great American Red Scare, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997). For the beginnings of surveillance based on beliefs and dissent from U.S. foreign policy in the 1939–1945 years, see Douglas M. Charles, J. Edgar Hoover and the Anti-Interventionists, (Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University Press, 2015).

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  8.  See www.britannica.com/biography/Carlos-Fuentes/ accessed January 29, 2018.   9.  Eric Zolov, “Carlos Fuentes, Richard Goodwin, and the Alliance for Progress Debate That Never Happened,” paper presented at the American Historical Association annual conference in Washington, D.C, January 4–7, 2018. Professor Zolov, a Latin Americanist, is an Associate Professor at Stony Brook University, New York. See www.aha.confex.com/aha/2018/webprograms/paper/22757.html/ accessed January 29, 2018. 10.  This law was first sponsored by U.S. Senator Howard Smith (D-Virginia) and passed by Congress as the Alien Registration Act of 1940 (54 Stat. 67, 18 USC 2385). The cases, Yates v. U.S., 354 US 298, (1957) and Watkins v. US, 354 US 178 (1957). The standard or threshold for an utterance or action being a criminal act under the Smith Act had been “clear and present danger.” In Yates SCOTUS held that advocacy for incitement is different than expressing an idea as a concept. In Watkins SCOTUS held that the 1st Amendment allowed for free speech and advocating for the overthrow of the U.S. government as prohibited under the Smith Act required more than just an expression or a writing, there must be action tied to the words. 11.  J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets, (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1991), 442. 12.  See an exhaustive compilation of creative writers and artists under surveillance beginning in WWI to post-Hoover years, Natalie Robins, Alien Ink: The FBI’s War on Freedom of Expression, (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1992) and Claire A. Culleton, Joyce and the G-Men: J. Edgar Hoover’s Manipulation of Modernism, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). 13.  See Fred Jerome, The Einstein File: J. Edgar Hoover’s Secret War Against the World Most Famous Scientist, (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002). 14.  See David K. Johnson, 2004. The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2004) and Douglas M. Charles, The FBI’s Obscene File: J. Edgar Hoover and the Bureau’s Crusade Against Smut, (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2012) and his Hoover’s War on Gays: Exposing the FBI’s “Sex Deviates’ Program, (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2015). 15.  FBI file number 105-93124 available for download from the Vault on the FBI website contains at least six sections of this massive file. 16. See William J. Maxwell, ed.. James Baldwin: The FBI File, (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2017) for those files. Maxwell also has an earlier work, F. B. Eyes: How J. Edgar Hoover’s Ghostreaders Framed African American Literature, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015). Mary Washington, 2014. The Other Blacklist: The African American Literary and Cultural Left of the 1950’s, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014) is another work on point. 17.  While no book has been written utilizing this trove of materials based on his activities from the 1940s to 1960s, Gale, a Cengage Company has them on two reels for sale; www.paperlessarchives.com has a CD-Rom with these pages available for $10; and, any person can access the FBI’s The Vault, an open source, and view the files on their site. The FBI data is divided into 31 packets since it was declassified in 1980 and under the file number of 100-12304.



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18. The Seberg file consisting of 382 pages has also been declassified and is located at the National Archives and Records Administration, 8601 Adelphi Road, College Park, MD 20740-6001 under several file number: 157 HQ 13876. 19.  In FBI onomasticon language, “Legat” is for Legal Attaché which in turn is the name for any FBI agent working overseas in a consulate, Embassy or any overseas office. For this and other acronyms, terms, abbreviations, etc. see Ann Mari Buitrago and Leon Andrew Immerman, Are You Now or Have You Ever Been in the FBI Files: How to Secure and Interpret Your FBI Files, (New York: Grove Press, 1981), 189. 20.  Buitrago and Immerman, Ibid., p. 202. “Remycap” means Referring to My Captions” i.e. the subject headings. In this case the subject headings of the correspondence dated March 30, 1962 and April 4, 1962. 21.  Ibid., p. 204. RUC is acronym for Referred Upon Completion indicating that the office referring has completed its role and is sending the matter back to the office of origin. 22.  The FBI file has three newspaper clippings reporting on this contradiction in policy, The New York Times: April 4, 1962, p. 2; The Washington Post, April 8, 1962, p. 2; and, The Worker, April 17, 1962, 4. 23.  See Ted Szulc, “Visa Denial Bars Leftist’s Debate,” Ibid., 2. 24.  See actual name, The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 proposed by Pat McCarran (D-Nevada) and Francis Walter (D-Pennsylvania), June 27, 1952. Pub.L. 82-414, 66 Stat. 163, 8 USC Ch.12. President Truman vetoed the legislation by Congress overrode his veto: House 278-113 and Senate 57-26. 25.  See “Soviet theory of art challenged,” The National Guardian, May 2, 1963, 6. 26.  In the National Guardian article some direct quotes of Khrushchev’s speech are provided. 27.  See his book with Bill Brown, The Bureau: My Thirty Years in Hoover’s FBI, (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1979). 28.  Established in Paris in 1962. 29.  Henry Raymont, “Leftist Novelist is Barred by U.S.,” The New York Times, February 28, 1969, 39. 30.  Ibid., 39. 31.  Henry Raymont, “Refusal to let Fuentes Enter Puerto Rico Revives Controversy Over Immigration Policy,” The New York Times, March 3, 1969, 11. 32.  “Carlos Fuentes Cancels US Trip,” The News, undated, no page; copy in FBI file together with INS form dated October 6, 1969. 33.  See newsletter published by the Office of Public Affairs, cited as Vol.12, #13, January 6, 1971, 4. 34.  The Firestone Library at Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey houses the “Carlos Fuentes Papers” acquired first in 1995 and augmented subsequently. The Library reference number is C 0790 and claims the collection consists of 199.4 linear feet. Other sources state it is 125 linear feet. There is also some inconsistency in the dates the material archived encompasses. One library source states 1830 to 2012 while another in parentheses states mostly 1950–2012. See [email protected]/



Chapter Four

Hector “El Pecas” Marroquin, the Young Socialist

The Editorial page of The New York Times of October 10, 1975 chastised the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ) in no uncertain terms in its burning indictment against them for their counterintelligence program (COINTELPRO) that was “foolish, misguided and sometimes illegal.” What prompted this editorial was that Peter Camejo, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) presidential candidate, and Syd Stapleton, National Secretary of the SWP’s Political Rights Defense Fund, the previous March 19th, had been interviewed on NBC for the “Today” program in which they spoke of the FBI surveillance of their political party and its membership for years. At the conclusion of the program they held a press conference to show the world mountains of FBI documents to back up their accusations. In 1978 the SWP repeated a similar scenario and held up more documents plus the favorable decision of Federal Judge Thomas P. Griesa in their case against the FBI and DOJ. That same year on June 30th, Judge Griesa had held the U.S. Attorney General, Griffin Bell, in contempt of court for refusing his order to produce FBI documents: “The Court possesses and must possess under our system of law, the authority to enforce and order for the production of evidence.”1 U.S. presidents, Nixon for one, and U.S. attorney generals have since the 1920s argued that they are above the law. President Nixon, when questioned in a television interview about the break-in at Watergate authorized by him being an illegal act, responded with “the President’s decision in that instance is one that enables those who carry it out, to carry it out without violating a law.”2 Herbert Brownell, architect as U.S. Attorney General of Operation Wetback that resulted in the deportation of millions of Mexicans, wrote and later testified that FBI agents, “when an investigation is political rather than criminal, it is a matter of national security and therefore the Executive Branch has the power to ignore the Bill of Rights.”3 U.S. Attorney General Alexander 95

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Mitchell Palmer used deportations as his most effective weapon against those he deemed subversive or had the potential to become subversive. His dragnets under the name of “Palmer Raids” had over 3,000 persons arrested in cities across the country and 750 of them deported between 1919 and 1920. In the 1940s, scores of socialists and Teamster Union leaders were jailed; Carl Skoglund, a Swedish-born socialist, was one. SWP member Joseph “Joe” Johnson, a U.S. citizen, was ordered deported in the mid-1960s. Another SWP member born in Nicaragua with U.S. permanent resident visa, Roger Calero, was jailed and attempted to be deported in 2003.4 The Hector Marroquin case of 1977 falls in between these other cases. But, in his case, once the FBI produced the “smoking gun” documents he had asked to be produced for his case basically it was over, and a settlement was reached. REFUGEE OR ASYLUM SEEKER? Beginning on October 1, 2017, President Donald Trump ordered the stopping of all immigrants at the U.S. border and the separation of the children from their families. In all it is estimated that since that new policy action went into effect over 11,000 were placed in detention cages across the country and other inhumane and grossly inadequate facilities like tents in the West Texas heat.5 Several children while in Border Patrol custody have died.6 Previously in 2014, President Barack Obama made headline news, sensationally terrifying to some, when his administration announced they would apprehend “illegals” and their children for prosecution and deport them promptly. While in detention these families were held in inadequate facilities. Simply stated there are no jails in the United States to house families and there are no federal juvenile facilities either. The Obama policy soon gave way to harsh criticism. The standing order to “detain, prosecute and deport” became the new policy of “catch and release.” Basically, those detained after an initial hearing were released on their own recognizance with written promise to appear at a future date. The human problem of what to do with immigrant families seeking refugee status or political asylum while the U.S. immigration/State Department process ran its course, up to a year or more, had previously been addressed by the federal courts. On or about May 16, 1985 Jenny Lisette Flores, a 15-yearold from El Salvador, trying desparately to avoid deportation to El Salvador from where she came, found legal counsel. Her lawyers filed a class action suit against the United States which resulted in a settlement somewhat ending separation of children in the 1980s and denial of political asylum to all without due process and full hearing on the merits of the claim.7



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The process of seeking refugee status or political asylum is complicated and time consuming. In short, a refugee is a person who is physically outside the U.S. borders and is seeking that status. A seeker of political asylum can be at the border or already inside the United States, having gained entry legally or illegally. The person must file form I-589 with U.S. Customs and Immigration Service (USCIS) and meet all criteria.8 There is no fee for this application. The criteria for asylum are rigorous and difficult to prove in court. A seeker must have been persecuted or have a well-founded fear that they will be persecuted if returned to their homeland. Persecution can stem from these areas: religion, race, nationality, political opinion, and or membership in a particular social group.9 Hector Marroquin, since he was a teenager, was persecuted by the Mexican local police, federal agents, and military for his participation in the student protests of the 1960s in Mexico. The Mexican police printed a flyer with his photo and this caption: POLICIA JUDICIAL DEL ESTADO DE NUEVO LEON SE BUSCA HECTOR MARROQUIN MANRIQUE (a) ‘EL PECAS’10

He was targeted for persecution for his political opinion in both Mexico and the United States. And, he was surveilled, monitored, and hunted for being a member of the Young Socialist Alliance and later the Socialist Workers Party in the United States. The rationale by the authorities seeking his detention for years was that he was illegally in the United States and had not timely nor properly applied for political asylum. WHO WAS HECTOR MARROQUIN? The State of Nuevo Leon charged Hector Marroquin with a nickname of El Pecas (Freckles) with murder of two police officers on their Wanted Poster.11 The allegation in the wanted poster was that he shot and killed officers Ricardo Condell and Carlos Alvarez in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico on April 23, 1974. The problem with the case as charged by the Mexican judicial system was that Hector on that day under the alias of Roberto V. Zamora was working in Houston, Texas. He had used false paperwork to get hired by the Harold Farb Construction Company and used a fake Social Security number. His pay stub with this information is found just below his wanted poster and photocopied in his pamphlet.12 He was born in Matamoros, Nuevo Leon, just across the border from Brownsville, Texas in 1953.13 His parents had ten children when his father died in an automobile accident. The family fell into destitute poverty. Hector was twelve years old. His older brothers and he began to work to support the

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family. Despite working he finished the equivalent of high school and moved to Monterrey, Mexico and enrolled in the University of Nuevo Leon to study economics. Student politics made 1968 a tumultuous year in Mexico. In Mexico City, federal police and hired mercenaries, Los Halcones, massacred hundreds of students at the Plaza del Tlatelolco with hundreds more reported missing after the police attack. The student protests increased across the country and came to the University of Nuevo Leon by 1969. Hector was 15 years old when he joined the protests spearheaded by the Comite Estudiantil Revolucionario (CER) or Revolutionary Student Committee. Within a year he also became attracted to Marxism. On the 10th of June 1971 the Halcones attacked and murdered hundreds of students in Mexico City once again. The next year, on January 17, 1972 he witnessed from across the street the police murder of his roommate Jesus Rivera. The police encircled a building where students lived and ordered all occupants to exit. Jesus was the first one to emerge with his hands in the air. The police fired at him repeatedly for no reason. His riddled body was dragged onto the street and left there to die despite being alive, bleeding in gushes, and in agony. Other students were shot, beaten, and tortured by police and military officers into signing confessions of being part of a guerrilla movement. After the death of Jesus Rivera, over 5,000 students marched in protest the next day. Hector rejected armed struggle as the way to effect radical change in Mexico; it only served as a pretext for police brutality. In January 1973, another police murder of a student took place and the students en masse protested the next day. The police returned to subjugate the protest and fired tear gas projectiles at them. The students erected makeshift barricades and hurled rocks and bottles at the police. The university authorities sided with the police and expelled some students, Hector included. He moved ideologically away from the so-called revolutionary ideals of Mexico’s dominant party, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). His colleagues in CER, however, moved into the Communist Party of Mexico and they branded Hector an opportunistic petty bourgeoise. The following year on January 17, 1974, the radio reported the murder of the librarian at his university in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. Two days later he saw his photograph and that of three others on the front pages of the local newspapers as the prime suspects in that murder. He hid immediately and consulted an attorney who advised against a trial deeming that it would not be a fair or impartial proceeding. Hector decided to flee Mexico and go into hiding as a new person. As more faculty members at his university were murdered, Hector departed for Piedras Negras, Coahuila and crossed into Eagle Pass, Texas on April 9, 1974. Eventually, he reached Houston and began working. He sent for his wife.



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Months later during an outing to the beach in Galveston, Texas the Marroquins had a car accident which resulted in Hector breaking a leg and pelvis. The other car’s driver died. Hector was hospitalized for a month and upon release they left for Chicago to be with other relatives. His pelvis and broken leg, now mended, still bothered him. An Indian Hindu doctor told him he should have gotten surgery instead of just placing his leg in a cast left to heal improperly. He underwent more medical procedures and rehabilitation. But he could not sue the Houston doctor or hospital for malpractice and treatment as an undocumented person. In 1975, his wife delivered their first child while in Chicago and the couple made plans to return to Houston. Once there, he was attracted to the Young Socialist Alliance (YSA) and went to meetings. He even began to sell The Militant for the parent political party, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).14 During these years the SWP, shortly after the Watergate scandal that derailed President Nixon into resigning the office, began to discuss and plan a lawsuit against the FBI and other federal police agencies for being spied upon, phones tapped, offices broken into, blacklisted for jobs, and otherwise victimized by a political federal police.15 The SWP filed its lawsuit in 1973. Hector got involved in some other causes led by Chicanos such as the defense of Mario Cantu, a San Antonio restauranteur charged with hiring undocumented workers; the women workers at Houston’s Coca-Cola plant that were paid less than men for the same work; and the defense work of the Los Cuatro de Manzo, a pro-immigrant advocacy group in Tucson, Arizona. He moved up in the ranks of the SWP to become an executive committee member of the Houston chapter. By 1977, he had gone to Mexico and back several times using fake documents to check out the political climate and chances for a return to Mexico. His attorney still advised him against standing for trial. He also impressed upon him the real prospects for torture at the hands of police to force a confession. He returned to Houston via Eagle Pass, Texas and presented his fake documents to prove he was a lawful U.S. citizen on September 18, 1977. An immigration officer detained him. After hours of harsh questioning, Marroquin confessed to being in the United States illegally, and using false documents. He was promptly arrested and tried within two days. He was found guilty of violating U.S. immigration laws and ordered deported. While the deportation proceedings unfolded, he obtained legal help from the SWP and the Raza Unida Party. Attorneys Alpha Hernandez of Del Rio, Texas and Margaret Winter in New York took his case in which he sought political asylum.16 The State Department rejected his arguments of their being a real threat of harm should he be returned. The immigration judge, James Smith, denied his petition for asylum. His lawyers appealed the case to the federal 3rd Circuit and it was also denied.17 However, during the

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process he requested three subpoena duces tecum be approved to question the Mexican-based FBI agent in the U.S. Embassy as the legal attache and two other officials.18 The judge denied those requests and that made the basis of yet another appeal given he was denied to confront his accusers and examine witnesses. The prosecutors pointed out he had waited three years before filing an asylum claim and that his wife and family had not been persecuted while in Mexico so why did he believe he would be. Meanwhile, Hector spent three months in prison where he saw thousands of his fellow countrymen and women incarcerated for the crime of crossing the border in search of work. THE FBI FILE ON HECTOR MARROQUIN The case of FBI surveillance of Marroquin cannot be separated from the longstanding surveillance of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). The surveillance of the SWP was made part of the original Counterintelligence Programs (COINTELPRO) of the FBI in 1956.19 Targeting the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) was described in a first FBI memo of four pages, three pages totally redacted, with names of parties sending and receiving the transmission all redacted. It is dated January 16, 1961 and begins: The Counterintelligence Program was first initiated in August 1956 for the primary purpose of causing disruption and disillusionment inside the Communist Party, USA (CPUSA, wherever this can be done without embarrassment to the Bureau of jeopardy to our informants, sources of information, and special investigative techniques. This program is being handled in 16 key field offices which cover more than 90% of al the CP members. This program is closely tied-in with the investigation of the CPUSA, the Socialist Workers Party. and the handling of security informants. (p. 1)20

In the United States it was not illegal to belong to either the CPUSA or SWP; but it became illegal after the U.S. Congress passed the Smith Act in 1940 to “advocate, abet, or teach the overthrow of the US government.” In 1949, twelve members of the CPUSA were tried for advocating the violent overthrown of the government and eleven were found guilty. The case, Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494 (1951) on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) upheld the convictions. Thereafter, more CPUSA members were charged under the Smith Act until the U.S. Supreme Court in a new case, Yates v. United States, 354.U.S. 298 (1957) reversed its decision. The new SCOTUS criteria for conviction was evidence of actual and concrete actions to overthrow the government, not mere speech or writing which was protected under the 1st Amendment. Moreover, the CPUSA never grew to become a major



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force in electoral politics in the country. The number of votes cast in presidential elections for the nominees of the CPUSA ranged between a low of 1,077 votes in 1968 to a high of 58,709 in 1976. In the 1980 and 1984 races in which widely known Angela Davis was the CPUSA vice-presidential nominee, the party garnered 44, 933 and 36, 386 votes, respectively.21 The membership was also small. In 1957, the membership was less than 10,000 of which at least 1,500 were informants.22 The FBI spends lots of money on keeping informants on its payroll. A Senate oversight committee found the FBI had 1,500 informants. In 1980, officials disclosed there were 2,800 and ballooning to 6,000 by 1986. The FBI budgets millions of dollars for its informant network.23 The FBI file specifically stating as a “Subject” in its larger “disruption program” is documented on the cover sheet of an internal 4-page memorandum dated April 17, 1962. The names of the sender and recipient are redacted. In this document the process to implement a COINTELPRO operation is explained in detail. “Each and all operations under this program must be approved by the Bureau” (p. 1) The narrative explained how a pilot project to cause disruption of the SWP candidate for Borough President of New York was successful and it had the added benefit of “seriously affecting SWP attempts to recruit Negro members” (p. 1). The instructions on implementing such a program are further detailed in eleven narrative bullets in the remaining pages. Some are important to quote in full: 1. Origin Initiated by Bulet 10/12/61 to New York, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, and Newark, which have larger SWP branches within their territory (p. 2). 2. Purpose To carry out programs to cause disruption of the SWP and make the public aware of the true nature of the SWP (p. 2). 5. Case Load The operations under this program are handled in conjunction with our over-all investigation of the SWP. It does not, therefore, appreciably affect the case load at the Seat of Government or in the field except for maintaining a control file where operations of the program are being carried out. This control file is also maintained at the Bureau (p. 2). 11. Contemplated Action A re-examination and re-evaluation of this program has been made and it has been concluded that a useful and worthwhile purpose is being served. The program should be continued. A re-examination and reevaluation will be made on an annual basis. The program will be closely followed and supervised in the interim so that any changes deemed necessary may be studied and appropriate recommendations made (p. 4).

On December 22, 1965 the Director FBI to SAC, Philadelphia by Airtel referencing several Bureau communications between offices and his from November 1 and 22 and December 2 and 7, 1965 asked that a disruptive letter from a Klansman proposed by both Philadelphia and Atlanta FBI offices be revised. He felt it was too anti-Jewish. He also wanted the field offices to submit

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“samples of the handwriting of Imperial Wizard Robert Shelton to the Bureau on or before 1/15/65” (p. 1). There was no additional information released on this specific letter tactic. SAC, Cleveland did communicate with the Director, FBI on February 28th by 2-page memo to report that “Cleveland has not achieved any tangible results under this program during the period since the last quarterly submission (referenced letter)” (p. 1). Hoover was undaunted by this negative outcome from Cleveland. On August 25, 1967 by memo to SAC, Albany but in bold, capitalized print and underscored, “PERSONAL ATTENTION TO ALL OFFICES,” Hoover not only continued his COINTELPRO operations as designed but also expanded them beyond the first eleven field offices to now 15, adding, for example, Jackson, Charlotte, Memphis, and New Orleans (p. 1). By March 4, 1968 Hoover sent a 6-page notice by Airtel to change the title of their COINTELPRO operation from Racial Intelligence to Internal Security to the SAC, Albany. The rationale or any other instruction was redacted on the rest of the page but for a single unredacted phrase indicating who also received a copy, “2-Cleveland” (p. 1). The second page contains some incredulous reading repeated here in full: In the summer of 1967, [redacted] alerted local police, who then put [redacted] leaders under close scrutiny. They were arrested on every possible charge until they could no longer make bail. As a result, [redacted] leaders spent most of the summer in jail and no violence traceable to [redacted] took place. The Counterintelligence Program is now being expanded to include 41 offices. Each of the offices added to this program should designate an Agent familiar with black nationalists’ activity, and interested in counterintelligence, to coordinate this program. (p. 2)

As if this was not incredible enough, the statement under GOALS was more unbelievable. The six goals are summarized by me to one line for brevity; the underscore is in the original memo: 1.  Prevent the coalition of militant black nationalist groups. 2.  Prevent the rise of a “messiah” who could unify, and electrify, the militant black nationalist movement. Following. 3.  Prevent violence on the part of black nationalist groups. 4.  Prevent militant black nationalist groups and leaders from gaining respectability, by discrediting them to three separate members of the community . . . the responsible Negro community, the white community, and Negro radicals, the followers of the movement. 5.  A final goal should be to prevent the long-range growth of militant black nationalist organizations. (p. 3)



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Hoover was not satisfied to give marching orders to all his 41 field offices; he provided targets: Primary targets . . . should include the radical and violence-prone leaders, members, and followers of Student Nonviolent Coordinating (SNCC) Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) Nation of Islam (NOI). (p.3)

Quickly, SAC, Cleveland reported to the Director, FBI by lengthy 8-page memo that his office was implementing the latest directive on COINTELPRO by focusing on the “three known extremist Black Nationalist organizations within the confines of the Cleveland Field Division—New Libya (p. 1), AfroAmerican Set, and Nation of Islam (p. 2). On April 4, 1968 by Airtel from the SAC, Cleveland to the Director, FBI ten copies of a two-page editorial for the March 2, 1968 issue of Cleveland, Ohio’s The Call & Post by a “Mr. Walker.” The editorial advised Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. given the COINTELPRO instruction not only to disrupt but to “make the public aware . . .”—perhaps this was a planted propaganda piece from the FBI via Mr. Walker. The editorial voiced opposition to the Poor People’s Campaign and couched its argument on costs of having some 3,000 poor people camped out in D.C. indefinitely. Walker did the math (p. 1). He calculated Dr. King would need $210,000 a month just to feed and house that many people. Where will the money come from, was the question posed. The specter of violence like the one unleashed against the Bonus Marchers by President Hoover was mentioned. It also warned that White people felt it necessary to use the National Guard and U.S. Army to suppress any riots. “Riots of the past have very costly to all Negroes” (p. 2). This type of editorial plus ten copies were again sent to Hoover by the SAC, Cleveland on June 20, 1968. This time the editorial of June 15th in The Call & Post was against Stokely Carmichael and captioned “STOKELY, How Could You” (p. 1). The writer was William O. Walker again. He criticized Carmichael and his new bride, Miriam Makeba, for purchasing a $170,000 home in cash in one of “Washington’s better class areas” (p. 2). At the beginning of 1969, January 7th, Hoover sent to several SACs across the country [all locations redacted] a short one-line sentence pointing out he was enclosing a xerox copy of an article [remaining language in two paragraphs redacted]. The article was from the November 1968 issue of The Crisis, the national publication of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Hoover liked it a lot because it called for all Negroes to reject the preaching of black extremists. The article compared the rhetoric of black extremists to that of white racists. To follow this path is to go down the road of “hate-mongers, segregationists, advocates of violence, and worse” (p. 1). The last sentence

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was a good summation: “Dissent, protest and militancy, yes. Intimidation, disruption, suppression of free speech, extremism and violence, no!” (p. 2). The work of the FBI implementing the various COINTELPRO operations caused political problems for Hoover to the point that he had to discontinue it by Airtel single-page memo on April 28, 1971 to SAC’s [names of locations redacted] with a single sentence, “Effective immediately, all COINTELPROS operated by this Bureau are discontinued.” These include: [remainder of message is redacted]. By no means did this “termination” mean the FBI stopped counter-intelligence programs in Mexico. As the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) observed, “The Federal Bureau of Investigation, obsessed with the fear of ‘communist domination’ in Mexico, is engaged in a campaign of espionage, infiltration, provocation and terrorism north and south of our 2,000-mile southern border.”24 What were some of those activities documented by NACLA? To list a few the FBI continued the Border Coverage Program (BOCOV) directed from San Diego, California and infiltrated student groups, community organizations and political parties in Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez, planted heroin, cocaine and marijuana in the cars of chicano leaders to “put them out of order for a while,” and ordered the production of “believable materials” to prove that the election campaigns of certain chicano politicians in Texas were financed by the Mexican government.25

The FBI also posted fake articles in newspapers along the border asking persons to denounce their neighbors who they suspected of subversive activities. The fake news stories also asked that such “subversives” be reported to the U.S. Border Patrol, which worked in close collaboration with the FBI.26 FBI AND INS COLLUSION WITH MEXICAN SECURITY AGENTS The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) filed a report of investigation on April 18, 1972 in which it corroborates the allegations made by the SWP and their youth affiliate, YSA, of constant harassment of members suspected of not being U.S. citizens by the INS. While this report out of Houston does not have Marroquin’s name as the subject, it is part of documents released responsive to the FOIA request, so it has to be Hector Marroquin’s case. Why else send this heavily redacted 9-page report? The case is described under “Type of Investigation Reportable” as “Subversive-Deportation.” Hector and others apparently attended a meeting of socialists in Houston; he was picked up on the surveillance agenda in Detroit, Michigan on December 24th,



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“Investigation conducted at direction of Central Office Investigations after SUBJECTS attended convention of Young Socialist Alliance at Houston, Texas in December 1971” (p. 1). Under the heading of “UNDEVELOPED LEADS” the entry numbered “2. At Ottawa, Ontario, Canada” the INS was seeking information from Canadian officials “to obtain more information as to possible subversive activities or affiliations of SUBJECTS” (p. 2). The remainder of the page more than half is entirely redacted. Perhaps, Marroquin and his wife lived in Toronto, Canada at some point in time because this report states “SUBJECTS are man and wife and reside in Toronto, Canada” (p. 3). The INS searched diligently for information on these SUBJECTS without quick resolution because their records at Houston, Detroit, and Buffalo, New York “in these cases is negative” (p. 7). By Memo dated May 31, 1972 from [redacted name] to Associate Deputy Regional Commissioner, Operations, Southwest Region, and made the last page of this report about the YSA meetings in “Houston, Texas on December 1971; December 23, 1971 and February 18, 1972; your May 26, 1972” is pessimistic and exasperated in wording, “Investigations in those cases is continuing as rapidly as possible consistent with our workload and investigative reports will be submitted as soon as possible” (p. 9). The next INS investigative 7-page report is dated April 21, 1972. I assume it is also about Hector Marroquin, but all pertinent data is redacted. The INS contacted Mexican authorities seeking “any available information as to possible subversive activities of the SUBJECT” (p. A-2). The remaining half of the pages is redacted entirely. The next page is not numbered but it would be page 3. Under “SYNOPSIS” it states the subject is a native and citizen of Mexico “who entered the United States as a visitor in December 1971. He attended the Young Socialist Alliance convention in Houston, Texas during December 1971. SUBJECT resides in Mexico City.” Whether this was Marroquin or not, the INS investigation, another arm of the DOJ, of those attending the YSA convention is corroborated. In fact, the investigation is rather bold and perhaps illegal: The SUBJECT was interviewed at the Texas State Hotel, Houston, Texas on December 29, 1971. He was in possession of no identifying documents but claimed to have been admitted to the United States as a visitor at Laredo, Texas on December 27, 1971. (p. 4 but marked as -2-)

The next day the INS returned, “On December 20, 1972, the SUBJECT was interviewed in the Texas State Hotel at Houston, Texas. The SUBJECT was then in possession of nonresident alien Mexican Border Crossing Identification Card . . .” (p. 4 but marked as -2-). The same type of statement was written into this report on the female companion, perhaps the wife of Marroquin (pp. 5–7).

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In February 1972 a flurry of memo went from SA, San Antonio [name redacted] to Legat, Mexico City about [name redacted] but I have to assume given the nature of the FOIA request it was about Hector Marroquin. The entire page is redacted. Again, on February 22nd, the SA, San communicates by memo to the Legat, Mexico City. And, again, the entire page is redacted. Beginning on January 9, 1973 the FBI began a mail cover of the SWP and YSA with the cooperation of the U.S. Postal Service for a period of 120 days. January 11, 1973 the new FBI Director L. Patrick Gray, III requested another mail cover for another 120 days despite the fact as stated by the FBI Director that “There is no indictment pending against the Socialist Workers Party or members of this organization in New York nor is there anyone known to be residing at the above address who is under indictment.”27 Finally, on March 29, 1974 from an internal FBI redacted source to the Director, FBI about Hector Andres Marroquin Manriquez aka El Pecas a report with 10 copies were sent. The content was deemed “classified confidential to protect the source” and widely circulated to 6 other FBI offices with one redacted and including a new name “Foreign Liaison Unit” unless this is Legat in Mexico City. The informant T-1 described Marroquin’s physical appearance and address in Monterrey, Mexico together with that of his parents (p. 2) and his education (p. 3). In May 1977, members of the Raza Unida Party and its national chair called a conference to be held in San Antonio, Texas on October 28–30 of that year. It was called the National Chicano/Latino Conference on Immigration and Public Policy. Gerald O’Conner, Deputy Director, El Paso Intelligence Center in El Paso, Texas with the Drug Enforcement Administration of the Department of Justice sent his summation of this event to “Inv. Thompson” which was handwritten and in particular on “Marroquin-Manriquez Hector.” To this report was attached a one-page summation which references “Information Digest November 25, 1977, p. 363.” The short and incomplete review focused and added handwritten stars and arrows by any mention of the SWP and another group, Center for Autonomous Social Action-Hermandad General de los Trabajadores (CASA) for sponsoring and successfully obtaining approval by those present at this conference. Regardless that the subject of this communication was Marroquin, there was no mention of him in the narrative. On May 4, 1978 the Legat, Mexico City to the Director, FBI sent a 3-page confidential Airtel on the FOIPA request by Hector Andres Marroquin Manriquez. The Director had communicated in March 3, 1976 asking the Legat for help in responding to this request because it contained names of individuals and organizations in Mexico. Legat, Mexico lists these names and organizations in redacted form except for a few words such as “Number 4: . . . Batallon Revolucion 10 de Marzo” and “Number 9: Autonomous University



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of Nuevo Leon” (p. 2). The Legat closed with, “It is recommended that this request be processed at the Bureau” (p. 3) The SWP/YSA’s Original Petition was filed in their lawsuit against the FBI, DOJ, and other federal police agencies. They felt they had enough evidence of relevant information on the collusion between the FBI and DOJ on the surveillance of their groups and members. They also had filed on behalf of Hector Marroquin against the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and the Director of Investigations of the State Judicial Police of Nuevo Leon, Mexico, Hector Villagra Caletti, to find evidence with which to overturn the denial of Hector Marroquin’s political asylum claim. Caletti volunteered that Marroquin was wanted for assault with a deadly weapon and supplied the wanted poster. The newspapers reporting on the incident where allegedly Marroquin assaulted the police had previously reported it was Villagra Caletti who had murdered Jesus Rivera in January 1972. When Marroquin tried to get this material introduced into evidence during his preliminary hearings, he was denied.28 The FBI through their man, the Legal Attache in the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, was in regular communication with the BUREAU in implementing a COINTELPRO operation in Mexico dubbed the Mexican Coverage Program of BOCOV. Hector Marroquin, according to the testimony of Roger Rubenstein, and other radical student groups were targets for BOCOV.29 In fact, the testimony of Rubenstein was that in November 1968 when Marroquin was a 15-year-old high school student, the FBI had opened a file on him labeled “Pro-Communist Student.”30 In January and March 1974, the Legal Attache sent Director Hoover and the border field offices “that Marroquin might attempt to enter the United States” based on informant reports.31 Counsel for Marroquin in various preliminary hearing kept raising the issue of access to those who composed FBI reports on BOCOV and Marroquin specifically. The few documents produced were heavily redacted. Astutely, the Church Committee as well as the attorneys for Marroquin posed the question that if Marroquin was guilty of wrongdoing why was that material redacted? Was it not possible that it was FBI wrongdoing they were redacting? The attorneys argued that BOCOV was clear proof of FBI illegal activity in Mexico.32 The New York Times agreed in its editorial cited above with this language: The Socialist Workers’ Party is a legal American political organization. Although it has been the subject of wiretap surveillance for thirty years, no indictments and no convictions have been obtained by the Government. The only conceivable purpose of the continuation of the Cointelpro techniques is harassment and disruption of legitimate political activity.33

Testifying before Congress, FBI Director William Sessions, a former federal district judge, admitted to the FBI having conducted surveillance on other

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Latinos, not just Chicanos and Mexicans. The target of FBI was the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES). One of the FBI’s main informant and operative was Frank Varelli, based in Dallas, Texas, who began his counterintelligence work before it was authorized by the FBI and continued even after his information was proven unreliable.34 From 1981 to 1988, the FBI investigated 2,375 people, 1,330 groups, and conducted no less than 178 investigations. The 59 FBI Field Offices were involved, and they spent approximately 20,000 employee hours on this illegal surveillance, according to the Senate Committee investigating this abuse beginning on February 23, 1988.35 “At 9:00 a.m. the morning of September 20 (1988), Hector Marroquin entered the office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) at Newark International Airport here . . . Less than 15 minutes later, a victorious Marroquin emerged from the INS office waving his Mexican passport with its freshly stamped U.S. permanent residence visa.”36 On July 5, 1983 Larry Birns, Director, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Washington, D.C. stepped forward and signed a notarized affidavit admitting to sitting in meetings between INS and at least one member of the White House staff. I was told that the Hector Marroquin case was not being routinely treated through the administrative processes of the INS but that guidelines had been established by the White House as to the disposition of the case. The White House had decided that Hector Marroquin was to be deported.

Birn provided other reasons given as to the off-track deportation decision in his affidavit. The final sentence of his statement was: “The Marroquin case was looked at as a minor incident that must not complicate the larger relationships between the two countries.” The affidavit was filed as supportive evidence in his case. In March 1988, the case was finalized, and the Justice Department was ordered to pay $264,000 in damages to the SWP and YSA.37 Marroquin’s political asylum case was also finally resolved by the federal authorities coming together and deciding it was not worth it for them to continue in the fight at that point going on 11 years. Marroquin got his visa affirming he was a lawful U.S. resident.38 THE CIA’S PROJECT CHAOS, MERRIMAC, AND RESISTANCE This trio of programs mirror the FBI’s variety of COINTELPRO operations. CHAOS, MERRIMAC, and RESISTANCE were extra-legal programs initiated by the CIA in 1967 without any authority or instruction from the Execu-



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tive Branch. It was an inside job if you will. The CIA took it upon itself to suppress dissent and criticism from any source including within the United States. The “general mission of “safeguarding CIA—its personnel, facilities and operations—from domestic unrest in the larger society” became the new mantra.39 RESISTANCE focused on “in depth analysis of political organizations and their leaders” while MERRIMAC sent agents and informants “into actual penetration with the dissident groups.”40 The FBI’s BOCOV counterintelligence program aimed at disrupting any relationship between Chicano and Mexican groups without DOJ instruction or Executive Branch authorization in Mexico. The CIA’s Operation CHAOS operated in the United States while their mission was to gather intelligence on external threats to the national security of the United States. In The Lawless State there is found an early history of the crimes of these U.S. intelligence agencies.41 President Gerald Ford by Executive Order 11828 issued January 4, 1975 created a commission to study these illegal acts within the United States and named his Vice President Nelson A. Rockefeller to head the investigation into CIA abuse. It became known as the Rockefeller Commission but its official name was the Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States and they also issued a report in June 1975.42 By the time the CIA claimed it had ceased Project CHAOS in 1974 and all the investigations ended and reports were published, it was clear that the CIA during the course of these years “had created personality files on over 13,000 people, including some 7,000 American citizens, and subject files on 1,000 domestic organizations.”43 The FBI by June 1971 was “sending in reports to the CIA at the rate of 1,000 a month . . . by 1972, some twenty FBI informants were actually working abroad under CIA direction and control.”44 One of the fertile areas for the CIA to implement CHAOS was Mexico and the student unrests of 1968. The CIA quickly jumped into action by funding the National Student Association. They paid U.S. informants to travel to Mexico, penetrate student groups, and report their findings on names of organizations, leaders, addresses, and plans to the CIA. Ramparts magazine blew the lid off this clandestine effort tied to CHAOS.45 Later Tom Hayden in a review of a forthcoming book on this CIA/Student Funding operation and relating his own experience with this operation wrote an article, “The CIA’s Student-Activism Phase,” for The Nation on November 26, 2014.46 The CIA’s CHAOS files were opened as of August 17, 2005 under file number: CIA-RDP78-03061A000400030020-4. I was able to obtain a 4-page report titled MEXICAN STUDENT DISORDERS dated October 1968 and 14-pages of supporting media clippings and accounts. Unlike the FBI, the CIA offers no names and no departments, just the narrative with redactions, at times. The report begins with the military and police assault on demonstrating students on July 26, 1968 which led to widespread rioting. The students were

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not intimidated and demonstrated twice again, some 150,000 on August 13th and another 200,000 on August 27th. The military and police were ordered to stand down and let the students protest. No violence of any sort occurred. The next day, August 28th, was another story. The hired mercenaries of the military and police, Los Halcones, began individual beatings and assaults on groups of students. The President of Mexico, Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, ordered the military occupation of the National University of Mexico (UNAM) on September 18th because some faction of the mass of students released a letter threatening to disrupt the Olympics set to start the following October 12th. The university president resigned in protest of this presidential action and gun battles began between students and police resulting in student deaths and hundreds of arrests (p. 1). By the end of the report, the writer states: In spite of the Mexican government’s public accusation of Communist elements backed by Soviet and Cuban embassies, as the instigators of the disturbances, it was clear that many of the student participants were not under Communist control and that a majority did not participate in the demonstrations. (p. 4)

Hector Marroquin was not involved in these early student demonstrations and protests. He did join in them once he moved to Monterrey and the protests reached him there. From that day on he was one of the many targets of not only the CIA, FBI, and INS but also the Mexican police working hand in hand with the U.S. authorities to end any action by these militants. They tried but he evaded capture until one day he was detained and his double-life as Roberto Zamora was proven false. Because he had gravitated toward Marxism and joined the Houston, Texas chapter of the Young Socialist Alliance and moved up into a leadership role in the Socialist Workers Party, he was made a more attractive target to capture and deport. From the day he filed suit on a political asylum claim and for the next eleven years, his life was a living hell. He had done nothing wrong but to escape sure death in Mexico at the hands of vengeful police. The Mexican police and the INS and the FBI had done everything wrong in persecuting him. At the end of his 11-year ordeal, he prevailed. He is now a lawful resident of the United States. NOTES 1.  Larry Seigle, Farrell Dobbs, and Steve Clark, 50 Years of Covert Operations in the US, (New York: Pathfinder Press, 2014), 89–91. 2.  Ibid., 90. 3. Ibid., 91. 4.  Ibid., 19.



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  5.  Miriam Jordan, “A 5-year Old Migrant’s Cry: ‘When Will I See My Papa?’” The New York Times, June 7, 2018, A-1.  6. John Longren, Border Patrol agent at the border where two Guatemalan children, Jakelin Maquin and Felipe Gomez Alonzo, died in December 2018, was the same man who when with the CIA was known for creating the death squads in Guatemala as part of his Operation Limpieza (Cleanup). He was known for his propensity for violence. See Greg Grandin and Elizabeth Oglesby, “Washington Trained Guatemala’s Killers, “The Nation, February 11, 2018, 18–21, 26 and Greg Grandin, The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011) for more on Longren’s career trajectory and violent activities. The Trump policy initiative was the brainchild of General John Kelly, Trump’s Chief of Staff, who held the opinion that Obama’s “catch and release” policy must end and every undocumented person in the United States should be deported immediately when he was head of Trump’s Department of Homeland Security. As far as refugees were concerned “he would admit between zero and one refugee into the United States.” He also would end the Temporary Protected Status program mainly serving Central American refugees since Ronald Reagan’s military intervention in those countries propelled hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the military violence. For this information see Sasha Abramsky, “Why Does Trump Want to Terminate TPS?,” The Nation, February 11, 2018, 22–25. Kelly quote is on 24.   7.  Initially it was titled Flores v. Reese, 651 F. Supp. 655 (C.D. Cal.1988) and became Reno v Flores, 507 U.S. 292 (1993). In summary, previously a minor was held in detention until an adult came for the child. The adult usually a relative more likely than not was undocumented as well and easily apprehended while trying to get the minor released to their custody pending court proceedings. The Reno case settled that matter by ending the practice of indefinite detention of minors and other relief until Trump’s new order which has brought the matter back into court. See Lorelei Laird, “The Passionate Pragmatist: Meet the Father of the landmark lawsuit that secured basic rights for immigrant minors,” ABA Journal, February 2016, 5–9.   8.  For more information on the process go to www.uscis.gov/   9.  A recent case on the asylum process is Rosario v. USCIS, (W.D. Wash. July 26, 2018), C15-0813JLR. 10.  Translation: Judicial Police of the State of Nuevo Leon, IS LOOKING Hector Marroquin Manrique alias Freckles. Headline of wanted poster for Hector Marroquin found in his Spanish-language pamphlet, Mi Historia: La Lucha por el Asilo Politico en los Estados Unidos, (New York: Hector Marroquin Defense Committee, 1978), 5. An English version of this work in The Militant, the newspaper of the Socialist Workers Party, January 27, 1978. 11.  Pecas means freckles which he had as a child and it became his nickname during those years. 12. Seigle, et al., 5. 13.  The biographical data presented here was taken from Marroquin’s pamphlet which runs 13 pages plus five additional pages of photos and from the data reported in one of his cases cited above in endnote 5.

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14.  One of the longest cases in litigation over non-disclosure of FOIA requested FBI files was that of the Socialist Workers Party. Filed initially in the Southern District of New York by Leonard Boudin in 1971 it took 15 years to reach a conclusion. Federal Judge Thomas Griesa was the presiding judge. The files released are available in five packets at www.vault.fbi.gov/cointel-pro/Socialist_Workers_Party/ The FBI file number for this organization is 100-436291. 15. See 50 Years of Covert Operations in the U.S., especially the pages written by Larry Seigle on the beginnings of this litigation plan, 25–28. 16.  I thank Margaret Winter for sharing some court files and FOIA-obtained FBI files on Hector Andres Marroquin Manriquez with me. I also thank Holbrook Mahn, Political Rights Defense Fund, New York City, for also sharing articles and files on the FBI surveillance of the SWP and Marroquin with me. 17.  699 F2d 129 (3d Cir, 1982). 18.  This type of discovery tool, a subpoena duces tecum, allows the party to not only question a potential witness but also provide documents in their control which may shed light on the issues being litigated. 19.  The FBI site above in N5 also lists the COINTELPRO operational history dating to 1956 but only provides code names for the original eight programs, the SWP being one of them. Oddly, the Communist Party USA is not on this list. 20.  There is ample literature on the history of communism in the United States. I relied on two books, Guenter Levy, The Cause That Failed: Communism in American Life, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997) and Harvey Klehr, Kyrill M. Anderson, and John Earl Haynes, The Soviet World of American Communism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998). 21.  The history of the CPUSA and a table listing the Presidential tickets from 1924 to 1984 is found on their webpage at www.cpusa.org/ 22.  Kurt Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1991), 442. 23.  Trevor Aaronson, “The Informants,” Mother Jones, September/October 2011. Read this article at http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/07/fbi-terrorist-infor mants/ accessed June 22, 2017. 24. “Mexico: FBI Terrorism,” September 25, 2007 at https:nacla.org/printmail /2047 accessed February 26, 2019. 25. NACLA, Ibid., “Border Operations,” 2. 26.  Ibid., “Border Operations,” 2. 27. This information was made available to me from the files of the Political Rights Defense Fund (PRDF) in my possession. 28.  Ibid., PRDF file, 46. 29.  Ibid., PRDF file, 47 and in footnote 37 of that page the narrative adds the Senate Select Committee Report of 1976 aka the Church Committee, found during their investigation and testimony of witnesses “that the FBI had committed widespread ‘illegal acts’ against political activists.” 30.  Ibid, PRDF file, 47–48, and footnotes 38 and 39. 31.  Ibid, PRDF file, 48. 32.  Ibid., PRDF file, 49.



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33.  October 10, 1975 and copied in Nelson Blackstock, COINTELPRO: The FBI’s Secret War on Political Freedom, New York: Pathfinder Press, 1975), 216. 34.  I met Frank Varelli in the Dallas home of Beatriz Mendoza, one of the five principal leaders of the Crystal City Independent School District Walkout of 1969 that I organized under the auspices of the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO). He was introduced to me as Ms. Mendoza’s husband-to-be by her parents whom I had gone to visit sometime the summer of 1981. I had no clue about his background. He was very eager to see if we could visit and talk more about MAYO, the Raza Unida Party, and my work given all the praise and credit give me by the Mendoza elders and Beatriz and her siblings. I never saw him again. 35.  “The FBI and CISPES,” Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence United States Senate, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, July 1989), 1–3. 36. Cindy Jaquith, “After 11-year fight, Marroquin wins U.S. permanent residence,” The Militant, Vol 52, No. 38. (September 30, 1988), 1. 37. Blackstock, COINTELPRO,.7–8) and for a review of the actual court case and Judge Griesa’s decision see Margaret Jayco’s edited volume, FBI on Trial: The Victory of the Socialist Workers Party Suit Against Government Spying, (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1988, 2009). Both books have actual copies of more FBI files documenting the illegal acts committed by the FBI for years. 38. Anthony Dutrow, “SWP’s 45-years of rich political history in Texas,” The Militant, Vol. 79, No. 16. (May 4, 2015), 1. 39.  The Church Committee Report, Book 3, CIA Intelligence Collection About Americans: CHAOS and the Office of Security, (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1975), 728. 40.  Ibid., 728. 41. Morton Halperin, Jerry Berman, Robert Borosage, and Christine Marwick, (New York: Penguin Books, 1976), 135. 42. Report to the President by the Commission on CIA Activities Within The United States, (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1975). See also the CIA website at www.cia,gov and link to the Library or Reading Room to review this document which was approved for release on this site as of November 3, 2006. 43.  Halperin, et al, The Lawless State, 148. 44.  Ibid., 148. 45.  No author listed, “A Short Account of International Student Politics and the Cold War with Particular Reference to the NSA, etc.”, March 1967 at http://unz.org /Pub/Ramparts/ to find and read every issue of Ramparts, now defunct. Because of this expose, the CIA called on the IRS to audit Ramparts as it was enjoying a taxexempt status. 46.  The book is by Karen M. Paget, also involved with the CIA/NSA operation, Patriotic Betrayal: The Inside Story of the CIA’s Secret Campaign to Enroll American Students in the Crusade Against Communism, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015).

Chapter Five

Yolanda Garza and Walter Birdwell of the Houston, Texas Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) Chapter Yolanda Garza as a youngster lived with her parents and siblings on a plot of land, an ejido near San Fernando, Tamaulipas about 180 miles southwest of Brownsville, Texas on the Mexican side of the border between Valle Hermoso and Anahuac.1 The Garza clan, as she recalled during our oral history interview, had fled to Rocharon, Texas about thirty miles from Houston during the first years of the Mexican Revolution of 1910.2 Her father, Cristino, met and married her mother, Emilia Bermea, while they toiled in the fields around Rocharon. They were forced to repatriate, however, during the 1930 Depression in the United States or be deported.3 At seventeen years of age, Yolanda was very tall, slim, and a most attractive young woman with with long braids down to her waist. She also from an early age was a very independent-thinking young girl. She did not want to grow old into womanhood on the family farm. She wanted to learn English, enroll in a business school, and work in the United States. Her father bought her a Spanish/English dictionary and required her to learn no less than 100 basic words in English before he agreed to let her go to the United States. She had a grandmother, Tomasa Garza, and an aunt, Brigida Stakes, still in Houston, Texas and moved in with them. In 1959, she arrived along with her dictionary and $800 her parents gave her to start her life in the United States. The grandmother had refused to repatriate or be deported and moved to Houston at that time. Yolanda spent a year with her grandmother while studying at Durham’s Business School to learn spelling, typing, bookkeeping, filing, accounting, shorthand, and English. She used to ride the buses on Sundays instead of going to church, to listen to others talk in English. She also took more classes in English at night.4 By age 19, Yolanda was venturing out to dances and meetings of the Sociedad Mutualista Mexicana of which her father had been a member back in 115

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the years they lived in Houston, Texas. At one such meeting when she went to receive an honorary award for her father from the mutual benefit society, she met the man she was to marry, Juan Rangel, from Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. They had a traditional Mexican wedding back at the ejido near San Fernando, Tamaulipas on June 9, 1962. They returned and settled in the Montrose area of Houston. She was pregnant by the time Juan got a job offer in Waco, Texas and moved there. The relocation was brief. She moved back to Houston alone to have her child, Juan Edgar, born August 29, 1963 at Houston Baptist Memorial Hospital in Houston. Yolanda had left Juan within months of moving to Waco due to his womanizing. Years later, when she was 27 and in a relationship with Walter Birdwell who wanted to marry her, she filed for divorce. Rangel’s parental rights were terminated by default in Houston.5 During these four years of being a single mom with a child and no means of support she went back to work to pay rent for a small apartment, day care for her baby, and the necessaries of life. Her training at the business school paid off when she became the payroll clerk for a small laundry on Smith Street in the Montrose area. At this job, she noticed even more the rampant segregation and racism against people of color in Houston. At her job the manual labor were blacks and Mexicans and hidden from sight in the back. The waiting area of the laundry to drop and pick up clothes where she was the only one working had air conditioning. The help when they came up to speak with her were not allowed to sit because they were sweaty. Walter Birdwell, a customer, would engage her in conversation when he went for laundry service. Other white men would ask Yolanda out on dates, but she declined them all. She was still hurting from the bad experience and failed marriage with Juan Rangel debating on returning to Mexico.6 What made Walter different from other men was his pipe and its aroma. She had never seen much less been around a man who smoked a pipe. Another important reason she was open to a relationship with Walter was his affection and caring for her son. It also helped that Walter was raised on a farm and had close ties with his family, calling them every Sunday.7 She like that very much. The big attraction other than physical was politics. He agreed with her about Houston’s oppressive racism and exploitation of minorities. Moreover, he agreed they should be active in fighting against those practices. She found Walter very open and forthcoming about the dual life he was leading when they first met and who he was now. He confessed to her and in his interview with me to having been a U.S. Army spy during 1965 and 1966 (p. 31). His target was the Students for Democratic Society (SDS) on the University of Texas-Austin campus and other political groups in Austin, Texas.8 There were two other “Latino agents” at that time that Walter recalled: E. Louis Serrate from the Rio Grande Valley and Jose Fuentes, perhaps from Panama.9 The bowl of



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spies not only included the FBI’s main agent, George Carlson, and Walter Birdwell from Military Intelligence but also the local Austin Police Department (APD); it had an Intelligence Unit. One such APD Intelligence Officer was Burt Gerding. He is described as one who used controversial and sometime illegal counterintelligence techniques to monitor and disrupt leftist organizations and activists on and around the UT Austin campus, including students and faculty members. Common methods included legal harassment (such as excessive traffic stops), divulgence of private personal information, vandalism, psychological warfare (such as anonymous letters and propagation of false or misleading information), and warrantless break-ins. Gerding frequently utilized services of student informants, many of whom were paid by the FBI, to report on the activities of political activists, as well as campus events.10

In 1967, the 112th Military Intelligence Unit changed his assignment and title from Special Agent to Military File Clerk and transferred him from Austin to Houston. That forced re-assignment to Houston was when he met Yolanda at the laundry service. He had to wear civilian clothes to pass for undercover and spy and live in a regular apartment not the barracks; he needed laundry service. The U.S. Army, however, prohibited its intelligence agents to marry foreign nationals. Yolanda had to become a citizen, or he would have to quit the spying. He left military service with an Honorable Discharge and full benefits able to work for the U.S. Postal Service as a delivery man for the next twenty-five years, first in the Alameda area then West University.11 Walter also spoke some Spanish which made him most popular with her family in Mexico when they went to visit, and he asked for her hand in marriage.12 The couple married in Houston, bought a home in the Montrose area, and Walter adopted Juan Edgar as his son, now Birdwell.13 She left the laundry business to work for better wages at Berhing International, a foreign corporation engaged in freight forwarding. Then, she moved to Aramco, the U.S.-based subsidiary of the Saudi Arabian oil company as was Behring also. These jobs paid much better wages than the laundry service but not without a price; she had to cut her long braids for short hair.14 The more income did allow the Birdwells to engage in more political activities, make money donations, demonstrate and protest, travel abroad, and enjoy a more expensive life-style.15 Their home in the Montrose area of Houston turned out to be a most wise investment in the years to come. In 1968, Yolanda obtained her U.S. citizenship and felt empowered to speak out against racism and exploitation. As she stated in her interview with me, “By that time, I had chosen to become an activist.”16 She was very interested in learning more about the Mexican American Youth Organization

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(MAYO) that was making the news and talk among Chicano youth in her neighborhood. MAYO had evolved from another student group at the University of Houston Central Campus who called themselves League of Mexican American Students (LOMAS) and another independent barrio group without a formal name who were not college students, more street-wise teenagers and aspiring gang members from the Segundo Barrio (2nd Ward).17 She and Walter sought out and joined MAYO in Houston after reading more about their activities in the San Antonio and South Texas area. She wrote a letter to Mario Compean, one of the co-founders of MAYO in care of St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas, which never reached him. At a 1968 rally at Hermann Park in Houston where this author was speaking as a state MAYO leader, she met Carlos Calbillo, Gregorio Salazar, Poncho Ruiz, and other MAYO members from Houston.18 She and Walter asked to join MAYO immediately. It also was the first year of marriage of Yolanda Garza and Walter Blake Birdwell. The couple were not warmly received by the Houston MAYO or other MAYO members from other cities in that Walter, not being a Chicano, automatically was suspect as to his motives in joining MAYO. His attire, pipe smoking, military background, and knowledge of weapons made for greater suspicion among the MAYO members in Houston and other places the Birdwells showed up. His disclaiming his prior intelligence work did not resonate well either. He was still suspect but eventually accepted, but not as much as was Yolanda. WALTER BIRDWELL, THE U.S. ARMY SPY Walter was born in 1942 in Humansville, Missouri to Walter Johnson Birdwell, originally from the state of Washington, and Alice Vivian Blake from Montana. He had a younger brother, by three and one-half years, Tom.19 In 1964 when Walter graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia, he promptly lost his education deferment. He did not want to be drafted, so he contacted the ROTC program officer at the university who had tried to recruit him his sophomore year who helped him enlist in September 1964. He was first sent to Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri for his Basic Training. Then he went to Fort Holabird in Maryland for the Advanced Military Training in an Intelligence Specialist Course from December 1964 to April 1965 and was placed in the Intelligence Corps. On January 8, 1965 he was granted Top Secret Clearance. Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio was his next duty station and where he also began his military service learning on how to conduct interviews and review records, essential skills for a spy before he began undercover work.20 While at Fort Sam Houston learning the tricks to inspecting records



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and forms, he saw the surveillance files on members of the Unitarian Church and local ACLU members, black activist Lee Otis Johnson, budding political figures such as Barbara Jordan and Curtis Graves, and even records of U.S. Supreme Court decisions the U.S. Army Intelligence Unit personnel at the San Antonio office disagreed with. He also learned that offices like his at Fort Sam Houston and Austin’s Federal Building were all over the country. He saw communications between his office and Corpus Christi, Dallas, the regional office, and another in West Texas he could not recall at the time of our interview.21 He was transferred to Austin, Texas. Instead of a military installation as his reporting station, however, he was downtown in an office in the Federal Building. Suit and tie were the daily uniform. He grew long sideburns and hair plus mustache. He was given an allowance for clothes and a car for transportation. He declined the car because it was so obviously a cop car that no “hippie” would own much less drive. He paid for his own apartment and bought a junk car. His assignment was to spy on the UT-Austin campus Students for Democratic Society which he did in 1965 and 1966 about 90% of the time.22 His Fort Sam Houston unit was not the only one involved in surveillance of civilians as Walter had come to suspect; “the staff report demonstrates that virtually every major stateside Army unit had it own set of files on civilian politics.”23 After “an inventory ordered by Army officials in the Spring of 1970, Fourth Army Headquarters at Fort Sam Houston, Tex. reported the equivalent of 100,000 files cards on ‘personalities of interest.’”24 The extent of Army surveillance was widespread across the country and found to be of complete uselessness, according to the report on this activity investigated by the Committee on the Judiciary of the U.S. Senate. A full quote from U.S. Senator James Eastland, Chair of the Committee taken from the Preface of the report he made to the Subcommittee chaired by U.S. Senator Sam. J. Ervin sums it best: In my opinion, this report and the documents on which it is based demonstrate conclusively that the monitoring of individuals and organizations by military intelligence was of no practical value to military commanders charged with quelling civil disorders and safeguarding military security. The overwhelming majority of the reports pertain to the peaceful activities of nonviolent citizens lawfully exercising their constitutional rights of speech, press, religion, association, and petition. For reasons of efficiency alone, the Defense Department was right to order the reports destroyed. As the Army General Counsel said of the files: “They were the most worthless damn things I had ever seen in my life. It was a waste of paper. We said, ‘Burn ’em’”25

Regrettably, many such records were destroyed, and it is next to impossible to obtain information on these operations from any of the military branches.

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They are not covered by FOIA and in the rare cases, such as military personnel records of service, most difficult to obtain promptly. Yet, the FBI routinely augmented the military files on individuals and organization by copying them with their reports. Why the FBI shared their intelligence findings with the U.S. Army raises more questions than answers are provided. Did the FBI honestly believe protesters would mount an armed insurrection? Did the FBI turn to the U.S. Army for military preparation in the event of domestic revolution? Did the U.S. Army request the FBI to share its files on surveillance targets? We may never know but we do know both the FBI and U.S. Army were in the business of watching the activity of persons not engaged in crime but politics. The Committee on the Judiciary further found that military surveillance of civilians had a long history: The size of these [files] and other data banks confirms that the Army’s domestic intelligence operations did not begin with the Newark and Detroit riots of 1967. The events of that summer only expanded activities which had been going on, in varying degrees of intensity, since 1940, and which has its roots as far back as World War I.26

Walter renounced both the military and his spying shortly after his discharge from the U.S. Army on September 24, 1970. His attorney is quoted in a twopage report from U.S. Army Intelligence Command, Fort Holabird, MD, 21219 dated 2 February 1971: Mel Friedman, dissuaded Birdwell from coming forward three or four months ago when national news stories first appeared suggesting Army spying on civilians. Friedman said he did so because of charges then pending against Birdwell and others. The charge resulted from a stormy Houston School Board meeting, 14 September 1970. (p. 2)

Years later the Birdwells began to file FOIA requests on behalf of themselves with the FBI. They assumed they had been under surveillance for some time.27 Yolanda thought she was given her involvement with MAYO and all the protests, demonstrations, marches, rallies, and sit-ins the group had been doing in Houston. Her assumptions were correct. On April 23, 1970, Special Agent in Houston [name redacted] sent a memorandum to his superior, SAC, Houston about Yolanda Garza Birdwell-MAYO leader RM-Miscellaneous regarding an observation and suggestion made the local U.S. Attorney, J. P. Harris that same day to him. In essence, Harris believe there might be something irregular concerning subject. She speaks Spanish with a non-Spanish intonation, appears to be well educated and organized and schooled in revolutionary ideas, and although claims to be of Mexican



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descent, she may well have come from Cuba. He suggested that an investigation into her background may uncover her true identity. It is recommended that a case be opened and assigned to determine if subject is a U.S. citizen.

Walter knew why he was given his demotions and ultimate separation from all intelligence work he previously performed. One such FOIA response was dated February 1, 1993 which included release of twenty pages that was tied to an October 30, 1989 letter request for their files to Emil P. Moschella, Chief, FOIA Section of the FBI at the time. In an earlier telephone conversation with a “Mr. Baker” in the same FBI FOIA Section Office, the Birdwells had agreed to receive both their files consolidated regardless of which of their names the document was related. These first FOIA requests were numbered 283, 696, 283, 721. The duplication of “283” is not clarified in any subsequent correspondence. This 20-page release of files less eleven totally withheld and their letter mentioned above resulted in eight pages dated July 30, 1971, 4 pages, and December 15, 1971. The July 30th transmission was a one-page memorandum from the SA Houston to his SAC Houston with information on both Birdwells. The first paragraph is totally redacted. The second paragraph was damaging content for the Birdwells: Deputy U.S. Marshall [name redacted] SDT, Houston, on 7/11/71 was in contact with the writer. He was interested in them from the possibility of their potential as “sky-jackers”. He said that they are known to his office and that his office is alert to any such possibility on their part. He said that he would contact this office in the event any information concerning the BIRDWELLS comes to his attention.

From the U.S. Marshalls office we can surmise they profiled the Birdwells capable of becoming hijackers of an airplane. Because government intelligence and police agencies share and cross-fertilize their files, the FBI as of this writing was also suspecting them of being possible sky-jackers.28 More damaging information on Walter came in the December 13, 1971 elevenpage report from SAC Houston to the Bureau about his military career and criminal charges related to a demonstration at the Harris County Community Action Association building in Houston on June 12, 1970. Yolanda Garza Birdwell had confronted personnel at the building, namely Marian L. Monroe, a teacher they were complaining about because of her treatment of Chicano kids in her classes. The MAYO group wanted her fired and made such a demand in a most vocal aggressive manner. Police were called, and the MAYO members were arrested and charged with Disorderly Conduct in a Public Place and Interference with a Lawful Vocation (p. 2). A preliminary hearing was had on June 11, 1970 and Walter was placed under a Peace Bond

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and his case was dismissed as merely being a bystander to his wife’s actions. After a trial on October 12, 1970 Yolanda and seven others were found guilty and fined $200 each. They paid and dropped their appeals (p. 3). The 11-page report mentioned above was supplemented on December 15th by another investigative report of 7 pages from the U.S. Army Intelligence Unit on Walter’s evaluations. The U.S. Army had reports on Birdwell’s job performance, as they do for all personnel; he was consistently found lacking in one way or another. The office of origin for this report was Baltimore and prepared by Intelligence Clerk, IC, [name redacted] with the Defense Central Index of Investigations (DC II) utilizing three enclosures and further described as Exhibit A, B, and C within the report: 1.  Seventeen Army Agent Reports dated 11/13/64 to 12/22/64, embodying numbered paragraphs 1 through 17; 2.  Summary of Information, dated 2/2/71, with four Army Agent Reports dated 2/4-8/71; 3.  Un-dated Transcript, reflecting a tape recording of employee’s 1971 interview by Radio Station KULF, Houston. The enclosures were not released; however, a summary of all this material is stated in the report by the IC. This material held by the DC II’s Army Investigative Records Repository (USAIRR) at Fort Holabird, Baltimore, Maryland has all investigative files from the Army, Navy, and Air Force. The first investigation of Walter Birdwell was conducted on January 8, 1965 when he enlisted and was assigned to Military Intelligence and issued a Top Secret Clearance (p. 2/6).29 The second investigation reported on was based on opinion of other Military Intelligence personnel such as a woman [name redacted] who is quoted as “could not remember any specific details about him. The only thing she recalled was that he became somewhat ‘hippy-like’ while stationed in Austin” (p. 4/4). Another female employee is quoted as stating “he was a withdrawn individual who did not fit in with the other employees. He also maintained a sloppy appearance” (p. 4/4). Yet another employee, a male, stated Walter “was returned to San Antonio due to poor work performance and unsatisfactory appearance while in Austin.” This co-worker further claimed Walter once on the job in San Antonio was given work “in rural areas conducting Personnel Security Investigations (PSI) interviews” because of his unsatisfactory appearance and marginal work output. Once Walter’s Special Agent rating was rescinded he was transferred to Houston, but the informing co-worker could not provide reasons why other than what is stated above (p. 3/3). There is an entire redacted paragraph at the end of page 3/3 and top of the next one, 4/4.



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The last piece of information on Walter in this report is a radio interview he conducted with Marvin Kay of radio station KULF in Houston. The radio interview took place on January 28, 1971 with Walter and his attorney Mel Friedman at 5:15 pm at the station on 2100 Travis Street. This interview was days after Walter’s infamous press conference during which he declared himself as having been a U. S. Army spy or shortly thereafter when the print media reported on the declarations he made. Lieutenant Colonel Walter B. Hicks of the Texas State Guard visited the 112th U.S. Army Intelligence Group headquarters at Fort Sam Houston, Texas on March 11, 1971 and “provided a tape recording and transcript of an interview of BIRDWELL and his attorney by Radio Station KULF, Houston.” Lt. Col. Hicks claimed Kay was his close friend and that Kay had been directed by his News Director to conduct this interview with Birdwell. “Since the interview, the news director has been dismissed and broadcast of the interview has been postponed for an indefinite period . . . Mr. Kay, being pro-Army intends to suppress broadcast of the interview to the best of his ability” (p. 3/7). Apparently, the Texas State Guard had long tentacles reaching into staffing at KULF to push for dismissal of a news director who was permitting a “whistle blower” to discuss his story. First Amendment rights and duty to promote and protect a free and uncensored media were not subscribed to by the U.S. Army Intelligence Group in Region I. But the radio interview did see the light of day because the transcription provided by Kay to Hicks and ultimately into the FBI files was released as part of the last documents sent to the Birdwells. The transcript copy is seven pages and marked as Exhibit C on the bottom right of the first page and begins with number 112 next to that stamp. The first pages are a review of how Birdwell came to be a spy until he declared: I think it is reprehensible that the army would keep records and keep track of the political activities of civilians working in political arena to effect social change. I hope my disclosure along with the disclosure of other former agents and an intelligence officer will give other former agents an initiative to speak out on the coverage of political activities in all areas of the country will become known and public pressure will mount to cease these investigations and cease keeping records and to destroy what records are now in existence.

Mel Friedman, his attorney, adds: What’s shocking to me and what just goes beyond my understanding and comprehension of and the real crux of the matter is, what is the U.S. Army whose job is to provide defense, military defense, what are they doing investigating our citizens private lives regarding their political affiliations, their stands on social political issues, political persons who are very prominent in our society and their stands on political or social issues. It’s my understanding that the Army just

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doesn’t get into this area. The delegation . . . Our constitution and the authority of the constitution granting the creating of the Army just doesn’t provide for the Army to turnaround and make itself into a storm trooper battalion and literally get into the lives of private citizens of this country, not to mention the fact as you know, that there’s supposed to be seven million of these files.30

Marvin Kay wanted to know from Mel Friedman if the ACLU was behind supporting Birdwell in this revelation and possible lawsuit against the U.S. government like the one in Chicago. Friedman: I don’t know. I’ll have to examine their lawsuit and see whether or not there wasn’t any imperfection procedurally or some other way. I don’t know they’ll be raising the same questions that I’ll be raising. (p. 117)

Then, Kay turned on Birdwell by asking if he felt the military should now look at him for being somewhat of a subversive in such an organization [MAYO]. Birdwell: Yes sir, they would. I’m sure they have a file on me. (p. 117)

The interview continued between Friedman and Kay over the attorney’s opinions as to why State Senator Barbara Jordan’s or State Representative Curtis Graves’s activities or James Hippard, law professor and member of the ACLU would be of interest to the U.S. Army. Friedman suggested the Army may just want to take over the country and if so, they had files on those who most likely would oppose them. He made it a point to say the Army was out of touch and out of command and out of jurisdiction to be surveilling U.S. citizens (p. 118). The records reviewed by the IC indicate Walter Birdwell was assigned to Region I on April 9, 1965; transferred to Austin on June 2, 1965; and transferred to Houston on October 15, 1966. His highest rank while in San Antonio was that of Corporal E-4 awarded September 1965. Upon release from active duty on September 22, 1967 he had earned an additional stripe in rank to E-5 (p. 2/1). WALTER’S PRESS CONFERENCE Walter Birdwell held the press conference on January 27, 1971 in Houston, the day before his radio interview, and detailed his history of military espionage of U.S. citizens for no reason other than their politics. He revealed classified information about that surveillance including using undercover agents such as himself and informants (p. 11). His story was covered by The



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Houston Post on January 28, 1970.31 A month later, The Houston Chronicle ran their story with a family photo of the Birdwells.32 In 1971, Yolanda joined Gloria Guardiola in writing a feminist tract, La Mujer, illustrated by Leo Tanguma. Yolanda and Gregory, the linchpins of MAYO, began to go their own ways. He had been traveling on his own to SDS meetings in New York for years and learning about revolutionary Marxism. After one of those trips, he called a press conference to announce he was gay. Within a month, he also announced he was a Communist bringing stigmatizing media attention to all MAYO members, including Yolanda. Many of MAYO members were Chicano Nationalists and Vietnam veterans, certainly not Communists or gay. MAYO’s rank and file demanded Gregorio Salazar be expelled from MAYO. Gregorio left MAYO and began championing the gay cause and espousing communism.33 By the early 1970s, MAYO in Houston had disintegrated and splintered into factions with only the University of Houston-Central Campus remaining intact. For the next 3 decades, Yolanda and Walter lived a life of social activists, primarily espousing Marxist socialism and Chicano Nationalism, while they explored other ideologies from time to time. They traveled to Cuba, China, Russia, Palestine, other countries in Europe and to Mexico on Walter’s pensions and from the sale of the Houston home, which was substantial according to his interview (p. 37). In 1987, the Birdwells began to request their FBI files and over time were able to obtain nearly 1,000 pages dating up to the early 1980s. Walter was diagnosed with cancer in early 2000s and they decided to relocate to South Texas. The Houston home sale also provided them sufficient funds to buy two properties in Laguna Vista, Texas just a few inland miles from the Padre Island resort area. Walter died from cancer on Christmas Day, 2017. Yolanda continued to be active with progressive electoral and environmental organizations in and around her residence area and throughout Cameron County, Brownsville, Texas. In April 10, 2018, after Walter’s death and enclosing his obituary, she requested any other FBI files post-1987. The FBI has denied any files exist under her names—Yolanda Garza and Yolanda Birdwell—obviously a lie. What is analyzed here are the first and only documents released to the Birdwells from their first FOIA requests and subsequent appeals. FBI FILES ON YOLANDA GARZA, HQ 105-211504 AND HQ 157-2072; WALTER BIRDWELL, HQ 157-2191 The 1,000 or so pages of FBI files released to the Birdwells are not the extent of their files at FBI headquarters or the National Archives and Records

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Administration (NARA). Plus, within the number of files “released” are pages so heavily redacted they are not readable other than perhaps letterheads or block stamps at the bottom of pages and pages entirely withheld. In the first set of documents only 50 pages were released and 202 withheld under exemptions from disclosure: b1, b2, b7C, and b7D.34 THE MEXICAN AMERICAN YOUTH ORGANIZATION (MAYO) IN HOUSTON, TEXAS In January 1967 when news of the formation of the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) began to spread, local groups sought information to join or create a chapter.35 In Houston, the first to organize a MAYO group were the members of the League of Mexican American Students, first formed in 1967 on the campus of the University of Houston-Central Campus (UH), but changed their name to MAYO in 1968. Early in the spring of 1968 at a Raza Unida Conference organized by MAYO and Chicano professors at the University of Houston were invited other Chicano youth forming other groups such as Advocating Rights for Mexican American Students (ARMAS) and Las Familias del Segundo Barrio which became the community chapter of MAYO with nine hard-core members. The “MAYO Nine” as they were called by others were Hector Almendarez, Poncho Ruiz, Jose Campos, Carlos Calbillo, Santos Hernandez, Antonio Lopez, Gregorio Salazar, Walter Birdwell, and Yolanda Garza Birdwell.36 That spring after the conference and emulating the Edcouch-Elsa Walkout of 1968 these groups began to advocate for changes in the treatment of Chicano students in the public schools of Houston. The Edcouch-Elsa high school walkout attracted national attention which provided stimulus for other Chicano students to protest.37 In 1969, Chicano student walkouts began in several predominantly Chicano student Houston Independent School District (HISD) schools: Jefferson Davis High School, Marshall Junior High School, Hogg Junior High School, San Jacinto High School, Reagan High School, and Booker T. Washington Junior-Senior High School. The protesting Chicano students marched over to Moody Park to rally. Leonel Castillo, director of Project SER, a joint LULAC-American G.I. Forum program, became an adult advocate for the students, most of whom were expelled. At the Edcouch-Elsa walkout, 172 were expelled also. Demands made to the Houston school board fell on deaf ears. MAYO began publishing their newspaper, El Papel, in 1970. By spring 1970, a coalition of parents from several neighborhoods, named Barrios Unidos, made a 13-point list of demands and again were ignored. The MAYO based in the barrios of Houston, not at the universities, led by



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Yolanda Garza Birdwell and Gregorio Salazar then began a series of direct actions at public meetings to protest the inaction of the school board on their demands.38 A central demand for Yolanda had to do with teen pregnancy. This is but one of those demands: Demand Number 4 by Advocating Rights for Mexican American Students (ARMAS): “Elimination of the “pregnancy list” at Davis High School, a publicly posted list of all girls who have left school because of pregnancy—a vicious form of personal degradation.” 39

On August 31, 1970 a three-week-long boycott of schools was initiated by MAYO and supported by many parents. This time the issue was school integration by the pairing of schools to comply with court-ordered integration. The problem was Chicano kids were classified as racially white and paired with all black segregated schools. Middle-class Mexican Americans who disapproved of MAYO activities and tactics, including school walkouts, formed the Mexican American Education Council (MAEC) and again chose Leonel Castillo as their spokesman with Catholic nun Gloria Gallardo as the Interim Director of the council. MAEC and HISD worked out a compromise and the walkouts ended for that semester because in January 1971 HISD, again acting in complete bad faith, changed the negotiated plan and the walkouts began anew in February. These walkouts involving 3,500 Chicano students were instrumental in creating three Huelga Schools in neighborhood churches, Juan Marcos Presbyterian, Denver Harbor Presbyterian, and El Mesias Methodist Church that operated for the rest of the school year until May 1972 with volunteer teachers and parent teacher aides and room mothers. MAYO wanted its own school and took over another church.40 THE JUAN MARCOS PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH TAKEOVER The Anglo congregations in many areas of urban Texas began to experience the in-migration of rural Mexicans flocking to cities. The Mexican American community became an urban population in the 1960s according to the first comprehensive study of Mexican Americans in the United States.41 Protestant Mexican Americans joined the varied denominations of Anglo congregations and in many cases soon outnumbered the Anglo congregants. Anglo Protestants either moved to other churches or just abandoned them without admitting Mexicans into their fold as was the case with the Presbyterian Church on Fulton Street. The MAYO members approached the Presbyterian Synod leadership in Houston to let them use the Juan Marcos facility to offer a Huelga School, free lunches to kids, and adult education classes. The Pres-

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byterians refused to open the church for those MAYO purposes. After several meetings attempting to negotiate for the use of the church building, MAYO members just took over the facility and stayed. Houston’s SWAT officers from the Houston Police were quick to surround the church and demand the MAYO militants vacate the premises at once. MAYO members began picketing in front of other Presbyterian Churches in the Houston area during Sunday services. Some church-goers panicked and stopped going, to the point some churches suspended Sunday services. Meanwhile, MAEC leaders Leonel Castillo and Sister Gallardo, as the cooler heads, negotiated for Juan Marcos church to remain a Huelga School.42 THE JOHN TOWER DISRUPTION AT THE SHAMROCK HILTON HOTEL President Richard Nixon dismantled the Cabinet Committee on Mexican American Affairs created by Lyndon Johnson during his presidency and in its place established the Presidential Cabinet Committee on Opportunities for Spanish-Speaking People chaired by Martin G. Castillo. Much in the fashion of the El Paso, Texas 1968 White House Hearings on Mexican Americans orchestrated by Vicente Ximenes for President Johnson, Castillo organizied a one-day conference at the University of Houston Central Campus on problems of Mexican Americans for President Nixon with U.S. Senator John Tower as host.43 That evening a banquet in honor Mr. Castillo was held at the Emerald Room of the Shamrock Hilton Hotel in downtown Houston and covered by a reporter from the Houston Chronicle.44 MAYO members, about 70, led by Yolanda Garza Birdwell wearing a brown beret, rallied outside the hotel before they entered despite the efforts of Houston police attempting to stop them. MAYO crashed into the banquet shoving, pushing, and shouting insults to Senator Tower, Castillo, and others. Yolanda Garza Birdwell commandeered the microphone and gave two impromptu speeches blasting the Republicans for being insensitive to the needs of Mexican Americans and another with similar theme but in Spanish. Mr. Castillo, despite being spat upon by some MAYO members, asked them to sit and listen. He also offered to pay the $7.50-a-plate for sixteen of the group to enjoy a turkey meal, and not engage in destruction of property. Yolanda Garza Birdwell returned to the podium to announce they would agree not to destroy property and said, “Today is the day we are marking a line. We are going to deal with the enemy, be he white, black or brown, Today, we are here to tell you ‘Don’t ever push us anymore. We are human beings.’” She hoisted her son on her back and marched her group to the rear of the banquet hall. Rejecting the free turkey



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meal offer, the MAYO members pulled out their “tortillas, burritos and other Mexican food.”45 On April 27, 1970 the Houston FBI received the news article clipping on the protest and information on MAYO from the local U.S. Attorney, Farris. Over the next several months, the Houston FBI office tried to pin down the name for Yolanda Garza Birdwell and changed the file name several times from this name to Yolanda Garza to Yolanda Rangel to Yolana Rangel and perhaps other names and identities; but the communication from the Special Agent to the Special Agent in Charge within the Houston FBI office has 2/3rds of this two-page memorandum dated June 30, 1970, and the second page almost entirely redacted. The two closing lines are clear: “Arrangements have been made to review referred files concerning subject. Investigation continuing” (p. 2). In the two-page memorandum from a Special Agent in Houston to his SAC which as the subject matter redacted as well as most of the first page but for this entry at bottom: “[Redacted name] also had an address book in his possession which contained the following names:” Among the twelve names listed, and all redacted, the second one was for “ Birdwell, [Yolanda but redacted] & Walter, 668-2145” (p. 2) In September, October, and November 1970 MAYO members led by Yolanda Garza Birdwell and Gregorio Salazar attended Houston Independent School District school board meetings to protest the overall educational program implemented on students of Mexican ancestry beginning with busing, the prohibition on speaking Spanish, few to none Mexican American teachers at all levels, counseling aimed at tracking Mexican American students into vocational programs and not college, and no relevant curriculum such as Mexican American Studies. These types of demands of independent school districts (ISDs) had been a major component of MAYO’s activities in Texas since 1967–68 but since all MAYO chapters were autonomous some took action on ISDs sooner than others as in the case of Houston MAYO. The outcome of these protests usually was arrests and the Houston MAYO action was not different. The MAYO group were arrested for disrupting the Houston ISD meetings on more than one occasion. Of major police attention were the activities of Yolanda, Gregorio, and Walter Birdwell at these meetings. The police notified the FBI and the U.S. Postal Service about these events. On October 15, 1970 the San Antonio SAC sent Hoover a 6-page Airtel of which three pages are withheld entirely, providing information on the Texas Conference for Political Prisoners (TCPP) to be held in Austin, Texas from October 29th to November 1st. At least half of this first page is a listing of participants from Houston including the Peoples Party II and Yolanda Birdwell with corresponding FBI file numbers and the circulation of this information to other FBI offices such as Denver, Dallas, El Paso, New York, and

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Houston. The next day, October 16th, the San Antonio FBI SAC sent Hoover a 13-page or more Airtel with four pages withheld entirely and several Appendices: White Panther Party, Black Panther Party, Mexican American Youth Organization (Appendix, p. 9 of Airtel), Student National Coordinating Committee (name change from Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee on July 22, 1969), Students for Democratic Society, and Progressive Labor Party. Each of the Appendices supplied brief history, key leaders, and main objectives of the named organization. In the next Airtel among the FBI files released dated November 16, 1970 from SAC, Houston to Director, FBI with subject heading on the Texas Conference for Political Prisoners the same listing of names as the October 15th Airtel from San Antonio, SAC and adding three more names and FBI file numbers: Huey Newton, Red Coyote Tribe, and Walter Birdwell. This transmission had 11 pages withheld entirely. By the end of 1970 President Nixon had pushed out of the White House both of the ethnic and race tokens: the Mexican, Martin Castillo, and the Black, James Farmer, serving as Assistant Secretary of Health Education and Welfare, much to the glee of the MAYO members who had protested Castillo and Tower earlier in the year.46 SECURITY OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEE: WALTER BLAKE BIRDWELL FBI Houston submitted the SA’s report dated December 2, 1971 to the Bureau on Walter Birdwell, specifically, and included information on Yolanda Garza Birdwell. It was a 34-page, perhaps more, report with 6 pages withheld entirely and 4 pages with no indication of how many pages were being held but were withheld. The page following the cover page with date of report indicates more pages were withheld entirely. At the bottom next to box stating: “The following number is to be used for reference regarding these pages:” entered in pencil reads: “HO 140-1025-21 pp 35 through 37.” Obviously, there exist at least three more pages past the 34 released. According to this first report, the [name redacted] with the U.S. Post Office in Houston, Texas made available the personnel file of the employee “Walter Blake Birdwell, also known as Walt, date of birth June 21, 1942, place of birth Humansville, Missouri, Social Security Number 497-46-2482” (p. 10). The report details much more information on Walter Birdwell such as his military service, where he had lived in years past, employment record since he was 18 years of age, foreign travel, education, three references, and his relatives which only listed his wife, Yolanda Garza, and adopted son, Juan Edgar Rangel cited as “relation not indicated” (p. 11). In the subsequent pages, the FBI SA Houston narrated what others, the Postal Service Inspector and Houston



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Postmaster [names redacted], told him about the proceedings against Birdwell which began March 1, 1971 (p. 13). Despite witness affidavits to the contrary and transcript from the local Justice of the Peace Court that “Birdwell, while dressed in civilian clothes, did not engage in any violent act, shout or yell, push or shove, destroy property or hurt anyone,” he was found guilty of “conduct unbecoming a postal employee.” The Court reasoned that “in as much as he participated in a disturbance and fought with police” he was guilty (p. 13). He was suspended for fourteen days effective April 16, 1971 and he appealed the decision of the Houston Postmaster, George J. Poitevant. His appeal worked because the Acting Director of Operations for the Postal Service, according to the FBI report, found “mitigating circumstances” and was extending “leniency to modify the previous action taken to this letter of reprimand,” and no further action was taken on the matter (p. 14). Oddly, the report continues with much redacted material on all pages and an occasional clear printed statement, such as the killing of [Carl] Hampton by Houston police on July 26, 1970 (p. 22).47 References are also made of news articles, The Houston Post of January 28, 1971 and The Houston Chronicle of February 21, 1971 but the articles are not attached (pp. 26, 28). The last page released in its entirety contains the fingerprint history of Walter Birdwell: the U.S. Army on September 25, 1964; Houston Police for a Peace Bond on May 28, 1970; and, an arrest on June 11, 1970 by the Houston Police Department (p. 34). So much for privacy and confidentiality when it comes to the FBI at your office door demanding personnel files from another government agency. Yolanda, Walter, and other MAYO members had been arrested September 14, 1970 during a protest at Houston ISD school board meeting. They were charged with disrupting the meeting. The protest was a dual-headed mini-riot because on the one hand Chicano and black parents were shouting at each other over the busing of black kids and no Anglos into the pre-dominantly Chicano McReynolds Middle School. On the other hand was the fight against HISD’s overall busing plan. Police tried to physically restore order and evict mainly the “MAYO Nine” members. Walter was subjected over the course of almost the entire year of 1971 to two investigations, hearings/trials, and punishments by the local Justice of the Peace Court and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. The Houston SAC sent Hoover an Airtel dated February 1, 1971 referring to more Airtels with a new subject heading: Mexican-American Militancy, Internal Security-Spanish American he had sent toward the end of 1970 on November 9th and December 3rd. This document indicates that Houston has not had trouble with a militant-type Mexican-American that has caused racial tension or racial unrest. The Mexican-American organization MAYO (Mexican American Youth Organization) has appeared to be the most attractive organization to this

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group, and this group has not been connected with acts of violence. In keeping with the Bureau’s directive in referenced airtel of 12/3/70, one individual, YOLANDA BIRDWELL, appears to fall within that area which could conceivably require additional investigation and coverage. A case file has been opened on BIRDWELL, and she is presently under investigation and a summary report is being prepared on her. [Next two lines redacted] After a summer report is prepared Houston will be in a better position to determine if BIRDWELL meets fully the criteria and also to determine the extent of coverage which will be afforded her.

On April 16, 1971 the SA in Houston in a 14-page, perhaps 16, report with 12 pages entirely withheld to the FBI headquarters with copies to the Houston SAC and Secret Service notified the Bureau of two developments: 1) “Will submit FD 122 recommending subject [Yolanda Birdwell] for inclusion on the Security Index” (p. B* Cover page); and, 2) finding informants with information on MAYO (p. 1). Given the high number of withheld pages of this transmission and the almost entirely redacted few pages of actual print, it is highly probable that FBI Houston was monitoring Yolanda Birdwell daily and digging into her past. For example, a totally redacted page has only these words: “The following information, unless otherwise specified, was obtained from records of [redaction begins]” (p. 2). On page 5 of this report under the status of her health it reads: “No information has been developed which would indicate that subject has other than good health” (p. 5). Toward the bottom of this same page under the heading of her connection with other groups it reads: “Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO), Peoples Party II (PP II), Rainbow Coalition (RC) and related activities” followed by “A characterization of MAYO is contained in the appendix hereto.” The characterization is redacted at the bottom of page 5, and page 6 is withheld because it is missing in the chronological sequence and the last page with print is redacted but for “B. Activity MAYO” (p.7). Toward the end of 1971, the FBI Houston Field Office sent information to the Director, FBI on Walter Birdwell on several occasions. A one-page Airtel was sent November 30, 1971 from the FBI Washington Field Office (WFO) to SAC Houston informing them that Walter Birdwell previously had been the subject of “security investigation by the U.S. Postal Service” and he was the same Walter Birdwell with “wife, Yolanda Birdwell,” when they were arrested for rioting at a Houston Independent School District Board meeting at which “furniture was destroyed and several people assaulted” (p. 1). On December 3, 1971 SAC, Houston sent an 18-page, with five pages entirely withheld, Airtel to Director, FBI containing copies of information from other sources including pages with descriptions of other organizations the Birdwells were members of or were associated with in some fashion such as MAYO



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and PP II, also a 2-page FBI Identification Record and statements from informants. For example, the postal workers at the Alameda Postal Station where Walter worked stated he was “a very conscientious hard worker and believe he is honest.” Another informant whose statement was transcribed November 29, 1971 stated he had “no specific information which would make him think he is not loyal to the United States; nevertheless, does feel uncertain as to recommending him. He has never said anything inflammatory or tending to violence.” This person refused to sign this statement because he has “no specific or direct information to relate.” FBI offices in Kansas City, St. Louis, Baltimore, and Houston communicated about Walter Birdwell as early as November 17th. An Airtel sent that day from SAC, St. Louis to SAC, Kansas City alerted them to work of the Houston Field Office with investigating the Birdwells in connection with New Left and black extremist organizations and provided file number HO 157-2072. Interestingly, after several lines of redacted material the last line reads: “KC, conduct appropriate investigation.” A similar Airtel in terms of content and with redactions was sent on November 23, 1971 to SAC, Baltimore from SAC, Houston stating, “full field investigation is being conducted in view of [Walter aka Walt] Birdwell’s involvement with New Left and black extremist organizations.” 1972 CUBA TRIP: VENCEREMOS BRIGADE (VB) The New York FBI Field Office sent an urgent 4-page teletype on March 1, 1972 at 3:15 am with copies to 19 other FBI offices and the FBI’s Director of Domestic Intelligence that “ninety two persons will de [sic] departing from various location in the United States on March six next for travel to Mexico as member of a contingent” of the (p. 1) Venceremos Brigade. On March ten next sixty persons will be departing from various locations in the US to Mexico City as members of a Venceremos Brigade contingent. Remainder of page is redacted (p. 2). Page three was withheld entirely. Finally, on the last page Yolanda Birdwell was identified as one of those traveling “from Houston to Mexico City on Pan American flight Five Zero One Y departing at twelve noon and arriving at one fifty pm, [with remainder of page redacted, possibly the other Houston travelers were identified]” (p. 4). Yolanda Garza Birdwell “was a participant in the 5th VB Contingent and whose husband is an ex-U.S. Army Intelligence employee, is subject of substantive file in the Houston Office, Bureau instructions regarding VB returnees being followed” reported the SAC, Houston to the Acting Director, FBI by Airtel on May 31, 1972.48 On June 6, 1972 FBI Boston prepared a 40-page report on the Veceremos Brigade (VB) for the Acting Director

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but withheld 37 pages entirely from release. The report, however, was disseminated widely to 23 FBI field offices and more but the page with that list continuing was withheld. Simultaneously, on June 19, 1972 the FBI Acting Director L. Patrick Gray, III notified by letter to the Director of the U.S. Secret Service that the FBI had placed Yolanda Birdwell in the category of persons “Potentially dangerous because of background, emotional instability or activity in groups engaged in activities inimical to U.S.” The Houston FBI field office confirmed to the Secret Service and Bureau in a 10-page report that Yolanda Birdwell had traveled to Cuba as part of the Fifth VB on March 6, 1972 to May 12, 1972. Her residence in Houston was also confirmed as being 6619 Rutger Street with occupation as housewife (p. 1). She is described as “Chicana female, 5'10", or 5'11", weighing 170 pounds. She is 29 years of age, has black hair, dark eyes, and speaks English well, but with a Spanish accent.” The following paragraph below description above is entirely redacted (p. 3) as is the following page but for being “born on August 29, 1940” (p. 4). Similarly, page 5 is mostly redacted but for a paragraph at the bottom explaining “the BPP began in Oakland, California. It advocates the use of guns and guerrilla tactics to bring about the overthrow of the U.S. government” (p. 5). Following three withheld pages entirely, the next page, 7, is half redacted and contains one paragraph on a description of the MexicanAmerican [sic] Youth Organization (MAYO) as follows: MAYO is an organization of Mexican-American [sic] youth geared to help alleviate problems of discrimination, prejudice, police brutality, and other civil rights matters brought against Mexican-American [sic] citizens. Older Mexican-Americans [sic] are economically controlled and they cannot actively participate in demonstrations and other wise express their grievances. Young Mexican-Americans, [sic] however, can demonstrate without feeling economic reprisals. The MAYO also is dedicated to attempting to educate the MexicanAmerican [sic] population residing in the “barrios” to assist in lifting these people out of the poverty pockets they are currently in. MAYO is a state-wide organization in the State of Texas, which was organized by Mexican-American [sic] college students in San Antonio, Texas. (p. 7)

Appendices following the main body of this report provided descriptions on seven, possibly more, organizations in Houston. The PP II was described as “formerly a black militant organization at Houston . . . In late September 1971, it became an official chapter of the BPP and began using the name of the Black Panther Party.” The John Brown Revolutionary League (JBRL) is made up of former members of the Students for Democratic Society (SDS) but is no longer in existence. SDS is described as a campus-based, predominantly white youth, radical group formed in “June 1962 at Port Huron,



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Michigan” that split into three factions at the June 1969 meeting: Weather Underground, Worker Student Alliance (WSA), and Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM). The WSA somewhat stayed loyal to SDS but the Weather Underground and RYM went separate ways (p. 8). The Weather Underground literally went underground given their propensity for violence. They “adopted a tactic of ‘strategic sabotage’ with police and military installations designated as primary targets.” The WSA completely split with SDS later in February 1971 moving out of the SDS headquarters in Chicago to Boston then to back to Chicago when they aligned themselves with the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and shared office space in that city. The “PLP was founded in 1962 by individuals expelled from the Communist Party (CP), USA, for following the Chinese Communist line.” Its [sic] objective is the establishment of a militant-working class movement based on Marxist-Leninism and Mao Tse-tung thought (p. 8a). The next paragraph in the page following is redacted which could be a description of another group or continuation of the description of the Houston PLP. The last group described is the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), first organized in New York City in 1967. The main objective was “to demand an immediate cessation of fighting and the withdrawal of all the American troops from Indo-China” (p. 9). The remainder of this page is redacted, perhaps for another organizational description or details on the Houston chapter of the VVAW. THE FBI SECURITY INDEX AND THE SECRET SERVICE WATCH LIST Yolanda’s trip to Cuba with the VB caused her to be the subject of Form FD-376 submitted by the Houston SA to the Secret Service on June 19, 1972 based on informant information (name redacted). “FD-376 is an FBI form for recording information concerning a person allegedly potentially dangerous to the President; sent to the Secret Service. Often denied release under (b) (5). Commonly concern nonviolent political activists.”49 Buitrago and Immerman also point out that every person listed in the Security Index, as Yolanda Garza Birdwell was, is subject to an FBI submission to the Secret Service regardless of a demonstrated propensity for violence or not.50 On May 15, 1972 SAC, Houston sent the Director FBI a copy of the FD122 card on Yolanda Birdwell which is the form to include someone in the FBI’s Security Index which later became the ADEX in 1971 and allegedly discontinued in 1976.51 Accompanying this Airtel were 7 entirely withheld pages. On June 19th the SAC, San Antonio sent a three-page memorandum, possibly five because three pages are entirely withheld, to Acting Director,

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FBI with copies of prior memorandums indicating the SA FBI file, 100121801, on Yolanda Birdwell is a “dead main file” meaning it no longer is kept current. Her activities while they may be related to MAYO “inasmuch as Yolanda Birdwell is not residing in the San Antonio Division and appears to be a subject of the Houston Division, action with regards to leads set out in referenced Dallas airtel should be handled by the Houston Division.” No further action with regard to Yolanda Birdwell is being taken by San Antonio (p. 2). There is mention that Yolanda Birdwell may have been involved in a demonstration held during the dedication of the LBJ Library in Austin which President Nixon attended on May 22, 1971 (p. 1). Additionally, this report enclosed copies of the Houston Chronicle article of April 23, 1970 during which MAYO members “hurled verbal insults at Federal Officials including U.S. Senator John Tower,” and Yolanda Birdwell was “heard to scream ‘Viva la revolucion!’” followed with half-page of redacted material. (p. 2*). The newspaper article was not included in files released. On June 23, 1972 SAC, Houston sent another 8-page memorandum with five pages entirely withheld to the Acting Director, FBI regarding Yolanda and her trip to Cuba. Apparently, the FBI was concerned some VB returnees would be spies for Cuba in the United States and, thinking ahead, perhaps some of these people could be turned into double agents or at least informants. The FBI developed some “indicators” to help in this investigation of VB returnees. That section of this information is redacted and may be material withheld entirely because the “indicators” are not listed or described in any way. This is a selection of narrative summarized in this report about Yolanda and Walter. Yolanda has engaged in militant activity on about the same scale as she did prior to her trip to Cuba. Subject’s husband, Walter B. Birdwell . . . was fired because of his activity by Postal authorities but was reportedly reinstated due to the efforts of the American Civil Liberties Union. There is no indication that the employment of subject’s husband would be of any great potential with regard to her possible involvement in an intelligence assignment. There is no indication that subject appears to be preparing for Government employment, elective or appointive. Subject’s bizarre activity in the past, along with her propensity to attract bizarre publicity, would seem to exclude her as being capable of fulfilling an intelligence assignment. (p. 1)

The remaining paragraph on this page is redacted and the redaction continues on the next page but for these items: Since subject returned to Houston on approximately 5/12/72, from Cuba she had not made another trip to Cuba nor has she visited any other foreign country.



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In line with the above, there is no information which would show that subject has ever come under unusual attention by the Cubans either in Cuba or in the U.S. The subject’s volatile personality is fed by her revolutionary zeal based on her apparent feeling of inferiority because she was born in Mexico. She has made statements in the past showing sympathy toward “Chicanos” or MexicanAmericans. She has never show any sympathy to the government of Mexico. With regard to Cuba, subject apparently admires the revolutionary doctrines coming out of Cuba (p. 2). Consideration has been given to interview of the subject, but no recommendation is being made in that regard because it is believed no useful purpose would be served in view of subject’s erratic and belligerent attitude toward established authority and her proclivity for making the news media which could result in embarrassment for the Bureau. A review of this case has not developed any logical reason to suspect any connection of the subject with hostile intelligence. The Houston office will continue to analyze the activities of the subject using the aforementioned “indicators” as a guide. (p. 3*)

The FBI Houston did continue to monitor Yolanda Birdwell and so confirmed this surveillance in a one-page Airtel from SAC, Houston to Acting Director, FBI on November 30, 1971 which reads, “Set out below are the activities of subject since submission of relet.” The entire page is redacted but for this sentence. The “relet” means reference to letter, in this case, Houston’s prior letter on June 23, 1972 which is quoted extensively above. U.S. Senator James Eastland (D-Miss.) made a speech on the floor of Congress on November 8th reprinted in the Congressional Record for that day and reported in the Houston Chronicle on December 1, 1972 denouncing the 2,000 Americans who visited Cuba to train for guerilla warfare along Marxist lines, including nine Houstonians. Reporter Elmer Bertelsen, the newspaper’s education editor, contacted both Yolanda Birdwell and Gregory Salazar who were among those named by Senator Eastland for comment and placed their photographs in conjunction with the article “9 Houstonians Who Went to Cuba Trained in Terrorism, Eastland Says.” This copy of the article appears in the files without tie to any report or file. W. Mark Felt, Acting Director, FBI, however, was perturbed with the SAC, Houston’s negligence in not complying with the Airtel sent by the Bureau on March 11, 1971 captioned “Veceremos Brigade IS-Anarchist” and applicable to Yolanda Birdwell. In that transmission, Acting Director Felt was demanding that all FBI field offices on VB returnees submit “a letter setting forth residence, employment, and activities every ninety days. This period to run for one year after the recommendation is made for or against inclusion of subject in ADEX. The period of one year in this case expires 5/15/73.”

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In 1974, Walter and Yolanda attended meetings of various left-wing groups in Houston, among them the Revolutionary Union (RU) which were under FBI surveillance according to the memorandum prepared by SA [named redacted] for the SAC, Houston on that subject. Apparently, the FBI surveillance included the typical taking down of license plates of cars parked near the meeting place. In this case, one of the cars parked at a Holiday Inn in Houston between 4 pm and 8 pm was 1974 Texas SZS 295 on a 1967 Chevrolet belonging to Walter Birdwell “known activist in the Houston area and husband of Yolanda Birdwell, past member of the Venceremos Brigade.” 1975 CHINA TRIP SAC, Houston notified Director, FBI on October 2, 1975 that Yolanda Garza Birdwell traveled to China with thirteen other people, all members of the October League. Four pages were withheld from this transmission. The next month on November 12, 1975 SAC, Dallas sent to the Director, FBI a memorandum with the subject heading of October League with office or origin being Los Angeles and supplying the registration information to license plates LWL 668 as belonging to a 1974 Volkswagen with owner identified as Walter B. Birdwell, 6619 Rutgers, Houston, Texas. THE PRAIRIE FIRE BOOKSTORE In 1976 at the corner of Elgin Street and the 3200 block of Main Street in Houston, Texas a bookstore opened its doors to provide left-leaning literature: Prairie Fire Bookstore.52 The Ku Klux Klan deemed it a hotbed of communism. According to Louis Beam, the Grand Titan of the KKK in Houston, those in charge of the bookstore “would be summarily hanged for their communist leanings.”53 The KKK met with armed resistance when the Prairie Fire bookstore held a memorial service for Mao Tse-tung on September 18th, and they attempted to intimidate the personnel. Yolanda Garza Birdwell was the store manager. The KKK and another group, Veterans for Victory Over Communism (VVOC), sharing overlapping membership, decided to attend the memorial sporting rifles and were denied entry. One member of the mixed KKK/VVOC group “threw a boulder through the storefront window. Bookstore personnel retaliated, wounding the boulder thrower with a gun burst.”54 Walter was the one who shot the Klansman.55 The bookstore



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personnel had called the police for help when they saw the armed KKK/ VVOC group headed in their direction. There was no police response. Other business owners adjacent and near the bookstore called the police as well and that is when the police arrived as the KKK/VVOC were running off when gun shots were fired in their direction from the bookstore. Despite wanting to file charges against the KKK/VVOC, they were ignored and consequently no one was charged with any crimes. Yolanda surmises that an infiltrator who had incited her and others in the MAYO group to arm and defend themselves with guns some weeks prior was the coordinator of this confrontation because when the Klan and Veterans left in a hurry he was never to be seen again.56 Walter Birdwell was charged and indicted with attempted murder of Thomas Gene West, whom he had wounded by his pistol shot. Also indicted was Bob Sisente for making a terrorist threat. This action was Sisente pointing a shotgun at Birdwell during this confrontation. MAY 1977 POLICE MURDER OF JOE CAMPOS TORRES Returning Vietnam veteran Joe Campos Torres, age 23, was out drinking at an East End bar celebrating Cinco de Mayo and got into an argument with others. Police arrived and while attempting to subdue him began to severely beat Torres as they placed him in a police car. Arriving at the Reisner Street jail, the jailer refused him admission given the severity of the beating he showed on his face. He instructed the arresting officers to take him to Ben Taub Hospital for treatment. Instead the racist police took him to an isolated place known as the “Hole” by Buffalo Bayou and proceeded to beat him to death. Then, they dumped the body down into the bayou. The murderers were all white: Terry Wayne Denson, Steven Orlando, Joseph James Janish, Louis Glenn Kinney, Glen Brinkmeyer, and Careless Elliott, a rookie policeman who did not participate but watched. Denson and Orlando were charged with murder under state law and were sentenced to one-year probation and $1 fine. The others were never charged but three were fired as police officers. Finally, on February 8, 1978 a federal court tried the four named above on civil rights violations and found them guilty. They were sentenced to nine months in prison.57 Three months later May 5, 1978 during a memorial service for Torres sponsored by MAYO at Moody Park, the 1,500-person crowd became rowdy after listening to various speakers re-telling the gruesome police murder, cover-up, and subsequent slap-on-the-wrist punishments. Unrestrained police began arresting persons in attendance who yelled obscenities at them. This renewed confrontation with police led to two days of rioting in Houston.

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Relocation to the Rio Grande Valley By this time the MAYO membership had morphed into the Raza Unida Party and Yolanda and Walter, especially he, felt the political party was too Chicano Nationalistic for him. “I didn’t know of any Anglos that had much to do with La Raza Unida Party.”58 Walter’s health by the late 1980s was deteriorating with no explanation. When a diagnosis was had from medical providers it was determined to be cancer. After 25 years of working with the U.S. Postal Service Walter decided to retire early. Yolanda was ready to move. In early 2000, Yolanda and Walter having obtained their FBI files wanted to write up their history and relocated to the Rio Grande Valley. Yolanda wanted to be closer to the Mexican border and around people that spoke Spanish most of the time. They sold the Houston home at 6619 Rutgers and invested in two small properties in Laguna Vista, Texas just minutes from South Padre Island and some 40 miles from Brownsville, across from Matamoros, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. They lived in one unit and rented the other to augment their income from Walter’s pension. Her grown son also lived nearby. On December 25, 2017 Walter passed away.59 Yolanda remains in Laguna Vista, Texas and active in local Cameron County politics and clean up drives of Padre Island. NOTES  1. An ejido is an area of communal land used for agriculture by individuals and in collective work. This land distribution during Mexican President, Lazaro Cardenas, gave out parcels of land to many landless families, it was a major component of his agrarian land reform in 1934.   2.  Interview by this author with Yolanda Garza and Walter Birdwell on September 7, 2017, Laguna Vista, Texas, hereafter Garza/Birdwell interview.   3.  Garza/Birdwell interview, 1–3.  4. Ibid., 5–6.  5. Ibid., 5–7.  6. Ibid., 10.  7. Ibid. 9.  8. Ibid., 11, 31.  9. Ibid. 34. 10. See Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin, “A Guide to the Burt Gerding Papers, 1959–1994,” Biographical Note. OCLC No. 961117918. Bert Gerding died in March 2013. 11.  Garza/Birdwell Interview, 37. 12.  Ibid., 10. 13.  Ibid., 7.



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14.  Several key facts or dates often get lost in a fast-moving oral history interview as in this case. On April 17, 2018 Yolanda Garza Birdwell responded to questions I had. This information comes from that Addendum and is made part of her interview. 15.  Garza/Birdwell Interview, 13. 16.  Ibid., 9. 17. Guadalupe San Miguel, Jr., Brown, Not White: School Integration and the Chicano Movement in Houston, (College Station: Texas A&M Press, 2007),135. 18.  Garza/Birdwell Interview, 12. 19.  Ibid., 27. 20.  The Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary of the U.S. Senate began an investigation of military surveillance of citizens by the U.S. Army. See the full report of the investigation, Army Surveillance of Civilians: A Documentary Analysis, (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1972). 21.  Garza/Birdwell Interview, 31. 22.  Subcommittee, Army Surveillance, v., and Garza/Birdwell Interview, 31, 34. 23.  Ibid., v. 24. Ibid., v. 25.  Ibid., v. 26.  Ibid., v. 27. There is another report on this type of military surveillance with some 18 reels of records available for review. See U.S. Army Surveillance of Dissidents, 1965–1972: Records of the U.S. Army’s ACSI Task Force, (Bethesda, MD: UPA Collection from LexisNexis). 28.  Ricardo Chavez-Ortiz, a 36-year old Mexican immigrant who came to the U.S. in search of work to feed his four children and wife did hijack an airplane in New Mexico on April 13, 1972. 29.  This report has two sets of page numbers, the regularly placed number at the bottom of page centered. In addition, this report has larger numbers stamped on pages which do not match the report number system. This page 2 is page 6 in font size 28 pts. I will enter both to facilitate future researchers in finding the correct pages being cited. 30.  Garza/Birdwell Interview, 114. 31.  Copy from FBI files included with another totally withheld page dated February 1, 1971. Article is by James R. Melton, “Army Spying on Texans told.” 32.  Copy from FBI files included with another totally withheld five pages dated February 25, 1971. Article is by Tom Curtis, “How Army Spying Transformed Conservative into Radical,” February 21, 1971, is not complete, apparently missing the last page of the article. 33.  For an oral interview by Thomas Kreneck on May 9, 1989 with Gregorio Salazar see digital.houstonlibrary.org/ 34.  See forms with this information entered in pencil or marked with X by the exemption made part of this Chapter’s file and in the manuscript archival collection under their names. 35.  For a history of MAYO see Armando Navarro, Mexican American Youth Organization; Avant-Garde of the Chicano Movement in Texas, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995).

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36.  A photo of the MAYO Nine is archived at the Houston Metropolitan Research Center, Houston Public Library, Litterst-Dixon Collection. 37.  See Adan Alonzo Perales site at www.aaperales.com/schoolwalkout.html and on YouTube, the Walter Cronkite CBS newscast with Ed Rabel reporting on November 29, 1968. The previous spring, March 1968, walkouts by Chicano students had occurred in Los Angeles, California and San Antonio, Texas. See also James Barrera, “The 1968 Edcouch-Elsa High School Walkout: Chicano Student Activism in a South Texas Community,” Aztlan, 29:2, fall 2004, 93–102. 38.  Guadalupe San Miguel, Jr. provides a history of this period in “‘The Community Begins to Rumble’: The Origins of Chicano Educational Protest in Houston, 1965–1970,” The Houston Review; History and Culture of the Gulf Coast, Vol. XIII, no. 3, 1991, 127–147. 39.  ARMAS was a student group of junior and high school students fostered by MAYO during 1968–69. Yolanda Garza was very indignant and adamant this practice must stop and saw to it that it be included in this list of demands. See Richard Atwater, “Chicano Students’ Walkout,” Space City News, 1, no. 7 (September 27–October 11, 1969) in Gregory Salazar Collection, Houston Metropolitan Research Center, Houston Public Library, Houston, Texas. See also Guadalupe San Miguel, Jr., “‘The Community is Beginning to Rumble,’ The Origins of Chicano Educational Protest in Houston, 1965–1970,” The Houston Review: History and Culture of the Gulf Coast, vol. XIII, No. 3 (1991), 127–147; and, generally Arnoldo De Leon, Ethnicity in the Sunbelt: A History of Mexican Americans in Houston, (Houston: Mexican American Studies, University of Houston, 1989), 163–170 for the history of Chicano student activism. 40. This history is covered by San Miguel, Jr., Brown Not White, 97–99. The records of MAEC are archived at the Houston Metropolitan Research Center of the Houston Library under RG G 0003 Huelga Schools of Houston. 41.  Leo Grebler, Joan W. Moore, and Ralph C. Guzman, The Mexican American People, the Nation’s Second Largest Minority, (New York: Free Press, 1970). 42.  Carlos Calbillo, “The Chicano Movement in Houston and Texas: A Personal Memory,” Houston History Magazine, Vol. 9, No.1, 26–29 at www.Houstonhistory magazine.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/calbillo-chicano-mvt.pdf/ Accessed October 2, 2019. 43.  For a recent political biography on Vicente Ximenes and his role as presidential advisor to several presidents, the first Mexican American to hold such a position, see Michelle Hall Kells, Vicente Ximenes, LBJ’s Great Society, and Mexican American Civil Rights Rhetoric, (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2018). 44.  Jim Rice, “Latins Disrupt Banquet, Insult Sen. Tower, Officials.” This article with photo of Yolanda Garza Birdwell wearing her beret was submitted by Houston FBI SA to the Houston SAC on April 27, 1970. 45.  Taken from the Rice article cited above. 46.  “James M. Naughton, “James Farmer to Resign as a Nixon Welfare Aide,” The New York Times, December 5, 1970 which also mentions the resignation of Castillo and Ed Quevedo, Jr., the Executive Director of the Castillo program at www. nytimes.com/1970/15/05/archives/james-farmer-to-resign-as-a-nixon-welfare-aide



Yolanda Garza and Walter Birdwell 143

-james-to- resigns-as-html/ Accessed May 4, 2018. After the 1972 elections President Nixon named another Chicano to be head of a Cabinet-level committee, Henry M. Ramirez. He wrote and self-published his own personal memoirs of those years, A Chicano in the White House: The Nixon No One Knew, 2013 with listing of ISBN 13:9781497545823. 47.  Carl Hampton was a member of the People Party II in Houston with headquarters at 2800 Dowling Street. On July 17, 1970 Houston Police began to harass PP II members for selling copies of the Black Panther newspaper on that street. One young man ran from the police and into the BP II headquarters which prompted members including Carl Hampton to emerge armed with rifles leading to a stand-off and after negotiations failed, the police withdrew. Armed BP II members began to walk on Dowling Street until July 26th when another confrontation occurred and the BP II member running into St. John Missionary Baptist Church. Church members disarmed the youth and that led to their arrests. Police took up sniper positions atop St. John with clear shots to the BP II headquarters. About 10:30 pm that night Hampton and others, armed, walked over to St. John and the shooting began. More than 50 people were arrested, Hampton killed, four more injured, and police raided the BP II headquarters confiscating materials such as Mao Tse-tung literature, tear gas masks, weapons, literature on urban warfare, and tear gas. The grand jury acquitted all the police officers and the local daily newspapers editorialized against the BP II and in favor of the police. See a revisionist history of events by J.R. Gonzales, “The death of Carl Hampton,” July 26, 2010 at https://blog.chron.com/bayoycityhistory/2010/07 /the-death-of-carl-hampton/ Accessed May 2, 2018. 48.  The entry after “Subject” in this transmission is “VENCEREMOS BRIGADE IS-REVOLUTIONARY ACTIVITIES.” Mention is made here simply to indicate to those interested in further pursuit that more files on persons going to Cuba may be found under this subject heading and not MAYO, Raza Unida Party or other organizations or events. On page 24 of the Houston SA report dated December 2, 1971is found an FBI description of the Venceremos Brigade. 49.  For a comprehensive review of FBI jargon, codes, acronyms, programs, and actual copies of forms, see Ana Mari Buitrago and Leon Andrew Immerman, Are you now or have you ever been in the FBI Files: How to Secure and Interpret your FBI Files, (New York: Grove Press, 1981), 179. 50.  Ibid., 118. 51.  Ibid., 177, 160. 52.  The name Prairie Fire was the title of a publication, Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism, by several authors under the organizational name of Weather Underground, the revolutionary sector of the Students for Democratic Society. The authors listed in the 1974 reprint by Communications Inc. (no city provided) were Bernardine Dorn, Jeff James, Celia Sojourn, Bill Ayers, and the Weather Underground. 53.  Randy Schultz, “The Ku Klux Klan Revisited,” 64. 54.  Ibid., 64–65. 55.  Garza/Birdwell Interview, 22. 56.  Garza/Birdwell Interview, 21.

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57. Calbillo, “Personal Memory,” 29 and for a more extensive analysis of this police murder and trials see Lupe S. Salinas, U.S. Latinos and Criminal Justice, (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2015), 123–126. 58.  Gutierrez interview with Walter Birdwell, September 7, 2017, Laguna Vista, Texas, 39. 59.  Brownsville Herald, December 27, 2017, “Obituaries.”

Part II

THE TWO ORGANIZATIONS

Chapter Six

The League of United Latina Mexican Citizens (LULAC), the Oldest Civil Rights Organization

Almost every other Mexican ancestry person in the United States during the past 20th century’s diaspora claimed a parent or grandparent was an immigrant from Mexico. Few of this same nationality group claimed to be heirs of those who lost their land grants in what is now the U.S. Southwest, including Texas. Some may be descendants, however, of those who lost these lands to Anglo colonizers in the 1820s into the mid-1840s, and more so after the Homestead Acts began in the 1860s. The first exodus to the United States was during the 1880s when the Magon brothers, Enrique and Ricardo, primarily, initiated several successful revolts in Baja California against the dictatorial regime of Porfirio Diaz.1 The Mexican Revolution of 1910 to 1920 prompted the largest single number of emigres, 890,000 plus and continuing to 1930.2 The revolution did not end quickly or fully nor did normal societal norms and practices return instantly; that took another ten years. It is estimated by historians and demographers that about one million Mexicans crossed into the United States during this two-decade period prompting the massive deportations ordered by President Herbert Hoover in the mid-1930s, about a million sent back including some voluntarily repatriating. These Mexicans being deported were the scapegoats for the Depression Era of the 1930s.3 Their grown children of these immigrants were caught in the push and pull factors of this immigration. Among those deported were U.S.-born children. On the push factor side, those who had fled to the United States earlier were political rivals and contestants for power against Porfirio Diaz, not just those trying to avoid death, hunger, violence, and loss of property and freedom. Among those who rebelled against Diaz were the Magon brothers, Francisco Madero, Francisco Villa, Emiliano Zapata, and Venustiano Carranza. Some of these revolutionaries sought temporary refuge in 147

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the United States and returned to Mexico to fight Diaz and each other as factions developed. Others, once in the United States did not seek to return. These are the immigrants who wanted to stay and become assimilated into American life as they heard other immigrants from Europe had been doing since the 1800s at Ellis Island in New York harbor.4 The major difference between the immigration from Europe and the Mexican immigrants was attitude and blatant racism. Those from Europe were welcomed by the Catholic church and other religions, the political parties especially Democrats, and labor unions. The Mexicans were not. No welcome mat was extended to them except to incorporate them into a low-wage scale as seasonal agricultural labor. PRIOR MEXICAN DIASPORAS The Mexican Revolution of 1910 had precursor violence dating to the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz which lasted 35 years in the late 1880s when people began to flee across the new U.S. border. I write “new” because the U.S. war on Mexico ended in 1848 leaving about 100,000 Mexicans with property in newly claimed U.S. territory, about half of the previous Mexican landmass.5 The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which formally ended the war was signed on February 2nd of that year and in its terms provided for a one-year hiatus for those remaining to either leave for Mexico or become U.S. citizens.6 Leonard Pitt estimated 13,000 remained in California; another 50,000 to 70,000 Mexicans remained in the area from Santa Fe down to the Mesilla Valley, now the stretch between Tucson, Arizona and the border of southern California by the Gila River.7 A monograph written by Moises Sandoval and published on the occasion of the 50th year since the founding of LULAC, The First Fifty Years: Community Leadership Half Century, 1929 to 1979, during the presidency of Eduardo Peña, Jr. states, “there were some 77,000 Mexican citizens in the conquered lands—60,000 in New Mexico, 10,000 in California and 5,000 in Texas, plus perhaps 2,000 in Arizona.”8 Texas has a two-part story of Mexican population loss. The first loss of territory and Mexican population began occurring in the 1820s with the first Anglo arrivals from states in the United States seeking to receive land in exchange for loyalty to Mexico, become Catholics, and not bring African slaves. All-out rebellion began in the 1830s and ended six years later with the capture of President and Commander in Chief Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna and the signing of the Treaty of Velasco. The second loss of Mexican land began in March 1845 by Joint Resolution of the U.S. Congress annexing all of Texas down to the Rio Grande River.9 By then, many Mexicans, even



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those who sided with the Anglos in the Texas revolt, had fled to Mexico. Those with property remained in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas since that time. Others fled South Texas to Mexico during and immediately after the U.S. war on Mexico in 1846 to 1848.10 ORGANIZING LULAC According to the LULAC website under History and the subtitle “The Foundation of LULAC,” three major organizations founded in the early 1920s were the organizers in the forming of LULAC into a national group: The League of Latin Americans led by Alonso S. Perales, Jose de Maria Luz Saenz and Jose Tomas Canales, La Orden Hijos de America, and Los Caballeros de America, led by M.C. Gonzalez and Ben Garza.11 This is not to say that these three organizations were the extent of organizational development among persons of Mexican ancestry in the United States or Texas. In 1894, La Alianza Hispano Americana, a mutual benefit society, was founded in Tucson, Arizona.12 The Alianza was not necessarily formed to combat racism, repression, and violence but mostly to cope with Anglo domination and physical harm such as lynching.13 Hundreds of these mutual benefit societies were formed by Mexicans across the United States during the last decade of the 19th century and into the early 20th century. When deportations of Mexicans began in the 1920s and continued into the 1950s with Operation Wetback overwhelming the service work of these mutualistas, a new type of immigration related organization came into being, La Alianza Nacional Mexico-Americana (ANMA). According to Pycior, The FBI simply labeling ANMA “Communist” rendered its largely immigrant leadership liable to prosecution under the 1950 McCarran Act, which gave the federal government sweeping powers to deport anyone considered a Communist, and the 1952 McCarran-Walter Act, which provided for stripping US citizenship from immigrant Americans deemed disloyal and for deporting “undesirable aliens.” ANMA leaders were targeted even though none of the charges led to convictions.14

It is within this political space of combating racism and physical repression on the one hand and manifesting an Americanistic public posture on the other that those seeking to form LULAC had to maneuver. Leaders of the three groups sought each other out and proposed at four different times to meet and merge into one national group. On August 14, 1927 the first meeting took place at the Salon de Obreros in Harlingen, Texas. This meeting ended

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in chaos and a walkout by most participants when Jose Tomas Canales proposed membership be limited only to U.S. citizens. Then, in 1929, the group adopted these articles: ARTICLE II. Aims and Purposes. 1. To develop within the members of our race the best, purest and most perfect type of a true and loyal citizen of the United States of America . . . 4. The acquisition of the English language, which is the official language of our country, being necessary for the enjoyment of our rights and privileges, we declare it to be the official language of our organization, and we pledge ourselves to learn and speak and teach same to our children . . . 5.To define with absolute and unmistakable clearness our unquestionable loyalty to the ideals, principles, and citizenship of the United States of America . . . 18. We shall oppose any radical and violent demonstration which may tend to create conflicts and disturb the peace and tranquility of our country.15

The English-only requirement in “4. of the Aims and Purposes” cited above was too emotionally divisive for many. Surely, the educated professional men proposing such a posture should have known that English was not the official language of the United States, and never has been.16 To pledge blind obedience and submission to U.S. laws in 1. and 5. of the Aims and Purposes and to further pledge to oppose any radical and violent protest in item 18. bothered many who sought to form LULAC to fight nationally against the lynching of Mexicans; segregation of their children in the public schools; and chronic and endemic inequality in jobs, housing, wages, health services, and the living conditions in the barrios where the majority of Mexicans were made to live. Finally, by inserting the words “United” and “Citizens” consensus was reached: The League of United Latin American Citizens. They were adamant about calling themselves Latin Americans and not Mexicans. Quoting John Solis, one of the early LULAC leaders, we didn’t want to say we were Mexican American not because we were ashamed . . . every LULAC is very proud of his Mexican heritage . . . but we wanted to get away from the Mexican because everywhere you could see signs saying: “No Mexicans Allowed.” That is why the LULAC member proclaimed that he was a Latin American.17

They met at the Salon Allende in Corpus Christi on Sunday, May 18, 1929 and adopted a Constitution proposed by Jose Tomas Canales taken from the Caballeros de America and proceeded to add nine more Articles and the Aims and Purposes plus rituals.18



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ARTICLE II. Aims and Purposes. 1. To develop within the members of our race the best, purest and most perfect type of a true and loyal citizen of the United States of America 4. The acquisition of the English language, which is the official language of our country, being necessary for the enjoyment of our rights and privileges, we declare it to be the official language of our organization, and we pledge ourselves to learn and speak and teach same to our children . . . 5. To define with absolute and unmistakable clearness our unquestionable loyalty to the ideals, principles, and citizenship of the United States of America. 18. We shall oppose any radical and violent demonstration which may tend to create conflicts and disturb the peace and tranquility of our country.

The Corpus Christi meeting became known as LULAC Council Number 1 and elected as first president Ben Garza.19 Within three years, LULAC chapters were formed in four more states: New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and California. The first five national presidents of LULAC came from the ranks of the original leaders who sought to merge their groups into one organization: Alonso S. Perales, Manuel C. Gonzalez, J.T. Canales, and Mauro Machado.20 FIRST US-BORN AMERICANOS The first urban politico in the United States in the 1950s of Mexican origin was Albert A. Peña, Jr. of San Antonio. His grandparents on both sides of his parents came from Mexicans. His parents, however, were born in the border towns of El Paso and Laredo in the last decade of the 19th century. As Bexar County Commissioner in 1961, Peña pushed for the nomination of Henry B. Gonzalez to become the first U.S. Representative of Mexican ancestry by Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson.21 His son, Charles, inherited the seat when Henry retired from Congress. Henry’s parents were among those “who fled the Mexican Revolution in the early 1900s and came to Texas, they believed they would eventually return to Mexico.”22 The second U.S. Representative, Edward R. Roybal, of Mexican ancestry was also the first member of the Los Angeles City Council. He was born in 1916 in Albuquerque, New Mexico to an established Spanish family pre-dating the founding of Santa Fe. His family moved to Los Angeles in 1922 and like the Gonzalez example above, his daughter Lucille inherited his seat in 1992.23 Arizona Governor Raul Hector Castro was the first of Mexican ancestry in that state, was born in Cananea, Sonora, Mexico in 1916. His family had fled to the United States in 1926 when Raul was ten years old; in time he became a naturalized U.S. citizen.24 These examples are provided solely to document the impact of migration stemming from the Mexican Revolution of 1910 on the generation of young men who

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founded the League of Latin American Citizens (LULAC) in 1929 and their U.S.-born citizen children who entered the public arena as doers in politics. PARTICIPANT OBSERVER: PROFESSOR OLIVER DOUGLAS WEEKS In observance at the first three organizational meetings leading up to the formation of LULAC was a University of Texas professor, O. Douglas Weeks.25 Looking at the participants, Professor Weeks came up with a classification system to group those in attendance into two categories. There were those who were recently arrived Mexican immigrants and those who were U.S. born. Weeks used both “Latin-Americans” and “Texas-Mexican,” both terms were hyphenated, in his description of the participants and his subsequent article on this civic organization.26 The recently arrived Mexican immigrants soon stopped participating when it became apparent to them that the other group meant to exclude them from membership, Weeks observed. The other category of U.S. born “Texas-Mexicans” with long standing citizenship, Weeks saw were further divided into two more categories: those with education, wealth, and standing in the Spanish-speaking community and those without any of these attributes. He termed these people the advanced and intelligent class and the lowly and ignorant class, respectively.27 Weeks posited the motivational dilemma faced by this intelligent class as: “His motive in this undertaking is prompted neither by a desire to antagonize the AngloAmerican, nor to demand a complete equality either among the Mexican­ Americans themselves or between them and the Anglo Americans.”28 He adds more information on his observations about the “intelligent class.” Let [it] be emphasized, moreover, that this intelligent class of Mexican-Americans is not ordinarily thinking of the transient or resident alien Mexican. In the latter he sometime recognizes an obstacle to his program, and is therefore, not altogether unfavorable to the restriction of Mexican immigration, because he realizes the newcomer, of the peon class at least, drags down his American racial brother to a lower standard of living and education and sometimes takes his job.29

The male-only members of LULAC’s intelligent class did not have many more of their class type to drawn into their ranks. Professor Weeks wrote that at that time, “there are thirty Mexican students enrolled in the University of Texas from the lower Rio Grande Valley region alone.”30 It took a long time for women to be accepted into equal membership, and even longer to be approved into the national leadership of LULAC. The first woman national



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president, Belen Robles, of LULAC was elected as their 42nd leader in 1994; she served four one-year terms until 1998.31 THE FBI SURVEILLANCE OF LULAC Several oddities came to mind when I first saw the FBI documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) I had submitted on April 27, 1981. There was no copy or even reference made in these files to the O. Douglas Weeks article “The League of United Latin­American Citizens: A Texas-Mexican Civic Organization.” Professor Weeks’ article was the first authoritative first-hand observation by a trained political scientist on this organization. Has the FBI read this article they could have evaluated the purpose and mission of LULAC to be the promotion of Americanism, a long list of system-supporting aims and goals.32 The FBI, as do all intelligence agencies, rely heavily on open source material for their basic, many times the first information on a target. Not this time. The FBI either did not read academic journals or even knew such a source of information existed. A second oddity was that the first document in the hundreds of FBI documents released to me begins with a report from the FBI office in New Orleans, Louisiana dated January 26, 1940. It is characterized as a “Mexican Matters” file. The only FBI file number typed on the form is “64-B” file, presumably the local New Orleans file number. The Denver FBI file number was then “100-408” and the San Antonio FBI file was “SA file no. 100-2970.” Obviously, these first file number documentations indicate that the uncoordinated and targeted surveillance and reporting by FBI field offices on LULAC began earlier than January 26, 1940. Why else would these FBI field offices have files on their local LULAC members and or groups? The third oddity was that the organizational name was incorrectly stated as “LEAGUE FOR UNITED LATIN AMERICAN CITIZENS (Commonly known in Texas as the LULACS).” The New Orleans FBI’s 2-page report covered the period of a week from January 20th, 1940 is almost entirely redacted to make the content undiscernible but for the closing paragraph copied here in its entirety because it set the stage for Bureau Index Cards to be prepared on LULAC members in Texas henceforth: Copies of this report are submitted to the San Antonio, Dallas and El Paso Field Divisions for information. No index cards in triplicate have been prepared by the New Orleans office on any of the persons referred to in this confidential report, however, the San Antonio, Dallas, and El Paso Field Division are requested

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to submit to the Bureau index cards in triplicate on such persons engaged in these activities located in their respective districts. (p. 1–2)

The redacted portions of this report were clarified by the next file of the declassified documents which is a letter from Adolf A. Berle Jr., Assistant Secretary of State to FBI Director, Hoover, dated March 1, 1940. In this letter, the FBI Special Agent who prepared the earlier New Orleans report was J. O. Peyronnin, and Hoover who previously had sent on February 28, 1940 two other reports to Assistant Secretary Berle. The American Consulate in Laredo, Texas, Romeyn Wormuth, added to this beginning file with a transmission on legal size paper dated March 9, 1940 to the Secretary of State about the election of the American Vice Consul from his staff, Elias G. Garza, as head of the Laredo, Texas LULACs. While Wormuth was measured in his written words about the “Latin American Society,” he was praiseworthy of Garza and wrote, “from other and far more reliable sources I am advised that Garza’s influence is beneficial and directed along lines that promote good will and sound understanding between our country and Mexico.” Consul Wormuth attached several bilingual newspaper clippings from the Laredo Times of January 29 and February 29, 1940. Some of the forwarded Spanish language material was translated by the staff of the American Consulate is my assumption. The January 29th copy lists the names of other LULAC Officers elected and notes that Garza previously was stationed at Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico and transferred to Laredo in 1938. The next 6-page report to the Bureau in D.C. was sent on September 29, 1941 from Denver, Colorado. In this transmission the LULAC name is spelled out correctly and the character of the case changed from Mexican Matter to Internal SecurityM. This 7-page report regrettably is of very poor copy quality that renders it unreadable for the most part. From what can be read, it seems Denver FBI was asked by Hoover to give an assessment of LULAC operations in that state. Denver FBI sought information and provided same to Hoover about the LULAC chapter in Conejos County, Colorado and Alamosa, Colorado. The informants utilized to gather information were highly prejudicial to LULAC members generally and Mexicans in particular. In Alamosa, the informant stated to the FBI interviewer, he had never heard anything suggesting LULAC members were subversives or un-American, “but thought it should be investigated because the membership dues were being sent out of the state and because Mexicans generally are unreliable and untrustworthy” (p. 2). Another informant who did attend two meetings of LULAC reported the dues of $5.00 were too expensive for most Mexicans and that LULAC did not seek out poor Mexicans to join (p. 2). LULAC was holding its meetings at the La Fiesta Inn in Antonito, Colo-



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rado. “Judge Chavez, Judge of Conejos County is president . . . Tony Lucero is Secretary, Jenoveno Lucero, a Deputy Sheriff and Town Marshall of Antonito, and Frank Gallegos, a bank clerk in La Jara, Colorado are members” (p. 2). According to the informants, these members are ‘‘the best type of Mexican in the community” (p. 3). Other public officials were interviewed by the Denver FBI agent and all reported LULAC as being patriotic and not un-American in the least. The LULAC Code (p. 4) and its Aims and Purposes (p. 4–5) were attached to this report. The last page contains cloture: In view of the complete lack of evidence that the organization LULAC is in any way subversive or un-American, and in view of the personnel of the organization described above, there appears on basis for further investigation, and this case is being closed upon the authority of the Special Agent in Charge.

Rational and reasonable minds at FBI headquarters should have carefully read these reports. Instead, the surveillance continued, this time utilizing guilt by association and irresponsible labeling of the Communist tag, perhaps to feed the insatiable appetite of Director J. Edgar Hoover to ferret out every Communist in the United States hiding under any rock or shady organization. SAC, Los Angeles, R. B. Hood wrote to the Director, FBI on May 5, 1942 that one of his informants [name redacted] and member of LULAC stated his organization had made a report at the convention of the “Spanish American Congress” held in Laredo, Texas. Copies of his report were sent to the FBI in Washington. This group, the “Spanish Speaking Peoples [sic] Congress, allegedly a communist front organization, is presently active in [remainder of sentence is redacted].” Hoover responded, not immediately but in due time on July 16, 1942, “A review of the files of the Bureau fails to reflect the submission of such a report by the League of Latin American Citizens.” He asked the SAC, Los Angeles to recontact the informant and get “approximately what time the report was made and the identity of the sender.” Hoover must have been hurried and unfocused. He did not ask for a copy of the report, just what time and who sent it. MILITARY INTELLIGENCE CHIMES IN The Department of the Army, U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command on April 30, 1984 released to me six pages dated various months and dates in 1942 and seven pages covering the period of June 25 to July 3, 1944. In the WEEKLY INTELLIGENCE SUMMARY, Saturday 2 July 1944 in item 2 under RACIAL SITUATION, two incidents

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are related involving Mexican American youth. In Albuquerque, New Mexico Mexican youth were attacked by Anglo-American boys with no apprehensions. At Round Rock, Texas, three Mexicans were arrested following the refusal of a cafe to serve them. The Mexican Consul has protested to the Governor of Texas. (B-2) At the convention of LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens) in El Paso, Texas, a resolution was adopted approving the action of the Mexican Government in barring its agricultural workers from Texas because of their being discriminated against. (B-2) (p. 3)

Under the Labor Situation of this same report, another interesting information note is stated: Information has been received that some 75 Border Patrol Inspectors have been shifted from other posts to the Lower Rio Grande Valley to assist in the apprehension of Mexican workers illegally in the United States. Some 1500 laborers have been picked up and the daily averages from 150 to 300 persons. (B-2) Reports from Corpus Christi, Texas, are that there is considerable resentment among Mexican farm laborers because of this ‘round up’ by the Immigration authorities. It is cited as another indication of discrimination against Mexicans as other aliens are permitted to remain. Evidently these Mexicans are unaware that this action is at the insistence of their own government. (B-2) (p. 4)

The next 3-page set of U.S. Army documents are dated 30 October 1942 and titled ANNEX No. 4 Espionage and Subversive Activities [underscore in original] does contain potentially prejudicial information regarding the activity of a group called the Union Nacional Sinarquista, and characterized as anti­communist with LULAC as “slightly to the Left and liberal, although they both have as their common background, the Catholic Church” (p. 2). The issue being debated by the Sinarquistas and LULAC was if Mexico would resume diplomatic relations with Russia. The last page of this military intelligence summary is most informative as to the numbers of “interned aliens in this Command as of midnight, October 28, 1942.” Those interned are classified as to nationality: German, Italian, Japanese, Nisei (sic). The highest number are Japanese at 2,548 and an additional 22 who are “Nisei.” Germans are next at 384 and Italians at 169. These internees are being held in five installations: Ft. Sam Houston, Camp Livingston, Stringtown, Lordsburg, and McAlester. The number of cases under surveillance and/or investigation in the past two weeks were reported as “Last Week 256 This Week 258 Pro­Nazi (Germans); Fascists (Italian) Last Week 16 This Week 17; Japanese Last week 64 This Week 64 and Unclassified (Suspects to be watched) Last Week 501 and This Week 505.” (p. 3)



The League of United Latina Mexican Citizens (LULAC) 157

Unbeknownst to most persons is the history of the active and persistent role of intelligence units embedded in every branch of the U.S. Military which conduct surveillance and investigation on its own citizenry not only enemy combatants.33 Since World War I, the Military Intelligence Division (MID) of the War Department, precursor to the Department of Defense, in collaboration with the Joint Army Navy Board, later to become the Joint Chiefs of Staff, began making war plans for possible military engagement with every major country in the world, including civilians in the United States. This last war plan in case of civilian insurrection was called the White Plan. The Blue Plan was for military action to quell domestic disturbances in peace time. The Green Plan was the plan for war with Mexico.34 WAR WITH MEXICO Military surveillance of Mexicans has a longer history dating back to at least the Mexican Revolution of 1910. In 1907, the Bureau of Investigation in collaboration with Captain William S. Scott was running special duty out of Ft. Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. His job was to “watch the Mexican immigrant.” In Brownsville, Texas on January 1912, the Justice Department and the Mexican Secret Service gathered enough evidence to file charges of conspiracy to violate the Neutrality Act; thirty-seven men under the orders of Mexican General Bernardo Reyes were convicted.35 On April 4, 1914 seven U.S. sailors were arrested by Mexican soldiers in Tampico, Mexico. Despite being released rather quickly, the naval commander demanded an apology and raising of the U.S. flag on Mexican soil which was refused. The following year, the U.S. Navy was ordered by President Woodrow Wilson to take and hold the Mexican port of Vera Cruz and asked Congress for more funding for MID so the instructed officers on duty along the U.S. Mexico border could gather intelligence data on disloyal Mexicans and Mexican ringleaders.36 Eventually, all this preparation and surveillance was discontinued by the end of 1915 because the new Secretary of War, Lindley M. Garrison, did not believe in the surveillance of civilians.37 Prompted by Francisco Villa’s raid on Columbus, New Mexico on March 9, 1916 the clamor for watching the Mexicans and the need for reliable intelligence gathering by military professionals, each department of the Army and Navy established an intelligence office with coordination of the War College.38 Within five months, August 1916, “over 111,000 National Guard soldiers served along the border” and then into Mexico until February 1917 when they were recalled including the commanding general John J. “Black Jack” Pershing.39

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THE INFAMOUS TELEGRAMS Two telegrams came to light that cemented the notion among U.S. policy makers and the general public that Mexicans are the historic enemy. The first was intercepted on June 22, 1916 in Dallas, Texas by a Western Union operator who “received a code telegram to relay from Mexico City to Tokyo discussing Mexican interest in aid from Japan.” The operator notified Adjutant General Frederick Funston, head of the Army’s Southern Department, who in turn notified the War College. The day before, Mexican troops had killed twelve U.S. soldiers and captured twenty-three more while they were scouting in Mexico. President Woodrow Wilson immediately mobilized the entire National Guard and federalized it to make ready with war on Mexico.40 The other measure taken was by the Department of Justice who “had a directory published in San Francisco that had the names and addresses of all the Japanese residing in California, Colorado, Idaho, and Utah.”41 The next telegram was sent by Germany’s Foreign Secretary, Arthur Zimmerman, to the German Minister in Mexico asking for an alliance to fight the United States in exchange for all the lands previously taken from Mexicans once the war was over.42 National Guard officers from around the country were summoned to Washington and trained in counterintelligence. The Bureau of Investigation formed a private citizens group, the American Protective League (APA), and organized chapters in major cities across the country.43 These events led the United States to change the mindset of military leaders and civilians on the need to institutionalize military intelligence. The Hoover’s Bureau of Investigation was already in the business as of “1917 with State Department, Secret Service, Army and Navy in gathering intelligence in Mexico during its revolution.”44 By the 1940s “through a program called the Special Intelligence Service (SIS), the FBI placed about seven hundred agents in Latin America.”45 THE FBL’S FIRST ASSESSMENT OF SPANISH AND MEXICAN ACTIVITIES IN THE UNITED STATES SAC, San Antonio submitted his lengthy 76-page report to the Bureau on July 22, 1942 entitled “General Survey of Spanish and Mexican activities in the San Antonio Field Division conducted and set forth as well as information contained in review of files.” This survey was in response to “Bureau letter dated June 22, 1942” of which no copy was declassified and released. At the bottom of this cover page is a clarification: “there was found practically no evidence of any pure Spanish activities in this Division.” The full clarification of this distinction reads,



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A survey of Spanish activities in Hill, Bosque, Hamilton, Leon, Freestone, Coryell, Limestone, Milam, Bell, Robertson, Sommerwell, and Falls Counties failed to reflect any Spanish social, civic, economic . . . which receive subsidies or assistance from the Spanish government. (p. 63)

This survey also failed to “reflect any Spanish or Mexican diplomatic representatives of officials residing in the above-mentioned counties.” Those interviewed for the survey included the top law enforcement officer of each county, the Sheriff or Marshall, and or a top deputy, all law enforcement. Each entry by county and law enforcement contact listed the “Mexican Population.” The top counties of those listed above for Mexican population were Hill with 2,000; Milam with 3,000, Bell with 1,250; Robertson with 1,500 and Falls with 1,000” (p. 64). Regrettably, only eight pages of this Sheriff’s survey were released. It begins with an Index with names of categories of entries such as “Mexican organizations” and “Spanish language newspapers of San Antonio” and “Communistic Activities among Mexicans” (p. 2). The Index lists LULACS and League of United Latin American Citizens first and second, respectively. It seems to me that the missing letter of June 22nd included the marching orders to conduct this survey and its purpose. The report on “Mexican Organizations” begins with an erroneous spelling of the organizational name. It reads “The Legal United Latin American Citizens,” with a very complimentary concluding sentence on the description of LULAC as: “Practically all of the most outstanding Mexican citizens of San Antonio, Texas are members of the Lulacs” (p. 7). Even though Waco in McClennan County was not listed as surveyed by the Sheriff, the SAC, San Antonio provided information on Mexicans living there in the original FBI survey. Some 3,000 Mexicans lived in Waco and another 1,500 in the outlying area of the county. LULAC had organized there but had been inactive the previous six months. The active group in McClennan County were the Sociedad Mutualista de Jornaleros headed by Lucino Melendez, a 25-year resident but not a U.S. citizen. The Jornaleros provided services to sick people and those in need of a burial. Mike Ramirez, a painter in Waco and WWI veteran, was the head of the organization (p. 65). The Mexican Consul from Dallas came to the county two or three times a year; the Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian and Catholic denominations headed by Anglos had missions for Mexicans. The Catholics had a school attended by approximately 120 Mexican kids, but the segregated Mexican school had all the rest. There were no other organizations identified (p. 74). Specifically, SAC, San Antonio related to the Bureau of “no evidence of Falangist activity there” or “of the Sinarquista” (p. 75). The top two LULAC leaders in the areas were identified as “A.S.

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Perales in the Gunter Building” in San Antonio and “Dr. George Sanchez from Austin” (p. 76). The Catholic churches were targeted for questioning the pastors about the Mexican congregants. All of those interviewed in Laredo, Harlingen, Pharr, Kingsville, and Mercedes were anti-Franco and therefore anti Falangist and Sinarquista. A Spaniard priest, Father Baisola of St. Augustine’s Church in Laredo, Texas, was anti-Franco and he would know of any such support among his parishioners. He stated, “most of his parishioners were illiterate Mexicans, who were like children, and would come to him with all the rumors that they heard” (p. 76). If this report continues beyond 76-pages they were not released. Obviously, the survey turned up nothing but findings that the Mexicans were in support of U.S. policies, not gravitating to un-American feelings, and that LULAC while it may have had an organizational presence it did not in that past half year. SAC, Antonio filed a subsequent report of at least 3-pages dated October 20, 1942 on the same subject of the “Survey of Spanish Activities in the San Antonio Field Division.” This report was more directly on point in that actual LULAC members were interviewed and to a person all denied being subversive. Another organization was identified as being more reactionary than the Sinarquistas, that being the Action (sic) Nacional in Mexico. An informant named Mexican Vice Consul Renaldo Serrano Jaraque was identified as being “strongly anti-American” (p. 1). In Austin, more LULAC members were interviewed and all deemed themselves and the organization as patriotic and never subversive or saw any “foreign inspired agitation among the members.” What was clarified was the fact that a purpose of LULAC was to fight discrimination against Mexicans and their newspaper, The LULAC News, often carried stories of discrimination which did not make them un-American. The FBI agents asking questions were referred to Dr. Arturo Campa at the University of New Mexico as the best authority on what was happening along the Southwest and Mexican people. Many others were interviewed in the Austin area about LULAC and again the response was that it was “a group of loyal, patriotic Americans of Mexican ancestry fully in support of the United States of America” (p. 2). The FBI agents from San Antonio traveled to San Marcos and Lockhart as well. There the same findings came out about LULAC except in San Marcos where they were non-existent. The organization there was the Latin American Club of which Ignatius Villapando and Jose Gomez were leaders. It was reported to them that both Gomez and Villapando regularly helped the Selective Service and Sheriff’s office with “Mexican activities.” And in Lockhart, LULAC was present and half of the school population was Mexican and when called to serve in the military “ever offered



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any objection” (p. 3). In the fall of 1942 only two SACs responded to the original Hoover request made on June 22, 1942 to all Field Divisions for a survey on Mexican activity and LULAC. If any more Field Divisions responded these files were not disclosed. SAC, Denver in his 4-page report dated November 11th conducted his survey in two main areas of Colorado, Walsenburg and Trinidad. Only two pages, however, were released of this report; the other two were withheld entirely. Those interviewed reported no Falange activity, no Spanish people, only ‘‘the majority of the Spanish speaking people in Walsenburg were Mexicans or descendants of alien Mexicans” (p. l). In Trinidad, there were at least four organizations listed in the report, LULAC and the Alianza Hispano Americana, together with names of officers and addresses. The other two organizations were characterized as social clubs: Pleasure Sewing Club and La Golondrina, also with names of officers and addresses. An informant [name and entire paragraph redacted] stated there were more organizations and he would furnish a list to the Denver FBI office. Moreover, the informant also stated that the majority of these organizations had discontinued regular meetings and that as far as he knew, all members were loyal American citizens and there had never been any evidence of un-Americanism on the part of any of the officers. (p. 4)

SAC, El Paso submitted his 2-page report to the Bureau on November 20th about his findings in his Field Division and began with information on Albuquerque, New Mexico. True to the Aims and Purposes language, an informant [name and two lines redacted] held the opinion that LULAC was not “fertile ground for any Axis inspired activity.” LULAC’s main concern, he stated, was “protecting the rights of people of Spanish descent by trying to be good Americans and thereby lessen discrimination against them.” The informant also offered an insight as to relations between classes of Mexicans, “in order to better attain these ends they tend to divorce themselves from the Mexicans and do not wish to be identified with them” (p. 1). The informant further opined that this LULAC concern for being seen as “good Americans is probably carried to the extreme, as evidenced by their opposing any attempts to make the Spanish language a compulsory subject in the grade schools of New Mexico, as had been done in Texas.” And, also he stated, “he was not aware of any activity on the part of the Sinarquistas or members of the Accion Nacional in the United States, although he thought there might be such activity along the border especially in the vicinity of El Paso” (p. 2). The Assistant U.S. Attorney, Gilberto Espinosa, in

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Albuquerque also reported to the FBI interrogator that he had not heard any such activity among his clients. He in turn recommended the FBI talk with another [name redacted] “who is presently employed at the Charles Ilfeld Wholesale House on 1st and Central in Albuquerque.” That lead turned up nothing. The beginning of the year, 1943, was a bit more productive in getting results to Hoover at the Bureau’s headquarters about LULAC. SAC, New Orleans in his 2-page report dated January 8th that an informant [name redacted] “said that it has few, if any, Communist members and no Communist officers . . . the Communist activities in the Valley were centered in the CIO Union but that did not fare well with the Union.” This informant had been stationed in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas prior to being in New Orleans (p. l) and provided more information and opinion on LULAC. He thought LULAC “would not be an ideal front for the Communist Party in the event they desired to take advantage of it.” His reason was that “there has been a considerable amount of conflict in the leadership of the ‘Lulacs’” and recommended they talk with two others, Alwyn Dooley and Professor Saenz, “who has a home in McAllen and was principal of the high school in Oiltown, Texas” (p. 2). SAC, Houston filed his 60+ page report but only 6 pages were released. This report covered the last quarter of 1942 and first part of January 1943 to the 27th. This report does have some provocative language suggesting there is more information on LULAC that was released to me. For example, in the opening section of the cover page under “Synopsis:” is the first language that gives an official name to this survey of Mexican activities: “General Mexican Intelligence Survey in Houston and Galveston, Texas . . .” and proceeds to list “no Mexican owned businesses, no newspapers, no programs, no schools, banks, radio stations, tourist offices, language schools, railroads, or even ‘hours,’ professional or amateur, of Spanish language programming on the air.” He does list several Mexican-owned entities in Houston, Texas such as Petroleos Mexicanos owned by the Mexican government, the Mexican Chamber of Commerce, and nine active social organizations, nine more Mutual Aid and Fraternal organizations, fourteen churches with forty-three organizations, three Masonic organizations, and one active civic organization. In Galveston, Texas the list of organizations affiliated with Mexicans was considerably less in number with no Mexican owned businesses either. There are magazines and newspapers in Spanish sold on the street and each city does have a Mexican Consul to serve “the foreignborn Mexican population in these cities totals 6036” (p. 1). The missing pages from 2 to 26 seem to be an actual listing, like the Colorado report, of organizational names with addresses and names of officers. “This in-



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formation was furnished by Informant T-4 and confirmed by Informants T-1, T-2, T-3, T-8 and T-24” and the report proceeds with descriptions of six organizations on pages 27, 28, and 29. The organizations described are Club Latino-Americano, Latin Sons of Texas, League of United Latin-American Citizens, LULACS COUNCIL NO. 60, Logia Symbolica “Benito Juarez,” Logia Symbolica “Cosmos,” and Logia Symbolica “Obreros del Templo,” the latter three being Masonic Lodge­type entities. For each entry a brief narrative follows that contains names of key leader(s) with addresses, where meetings are held and how often, and the general nature of their purposes. For example, the first one listed, Club LatinoAmericano, according to the report and its informants, seeks to “take over the Houston Council” of LULAC (p. 27) and has about 400 members but “at the present, it is completely inactive and is not functioning.” The Latin Sons of Texas is described as an electoral group of about twentyfive and they too are “entirely inactive” (p. 27). LULAC is described in more detail than a paragraph for the other two organizations. Allegedly, it began in Houston in 1935 by Mariano Hernandez and Guadalupe Moreno. At one point they had “approximately six hundred members” by 1936, then disbanded over internal dissension. In 1938 LULAC re-grouped by the efforts of attorney Donald A. Frazier, with sixty members. This group also disbanded by 1940 until the winter of 1941 when John J. Herrera, a taxi driver, re-organized the LULAC chapter with thirtyeight members (pp. 28–29). Apparently, the list of organizations continues from this last page quoted to page 58 where information is reported on the Galveston chapter of LULAC which began in 1941 by efforts of Raul R. Cardenas, whose address is provided along with that of the VicePresident, Jose Perez (p. 58) and two other officers; and, also included are two more Masonic lodges, Hijos de la Luz #53 and Masonic Delegation of Puritans #40, described as “a clandestine branch of the Lodge of Puritanos #40 which is located in Monterrey, Mexico” (p. 59). The last page made part of released documents of this report is not numbered and heavily redacted in thirty-one instances, perhaps names of informants indexed. This page is an index of names with corresponding page numbers, the highest page number being 69 suggesting the original report contained that many pages of listings of organizations and names of leaders. A month later February 3, 1943, SAC, San Antonio submitted more information in his 4-page report on LULAC in that city, Fort Stockton, Del Rio, and San Angelo, Texas. The previous report from this SAC characterized the file as pertaining to “INTERNALSECURITY­S.” Now this report was characterized as “INTERNAL SECURITY-C,” a move from Subversive to Communist. He also began making the case based on information from

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a Confidential Informant “A” that LULAC was being used by the various Mexican Consuls “to protect Mexican aliens and persons of Latin American descent from the laws of the United States and to defend them in trials.” This same informant previously on September 10, 1942 had furnished a report stating that “Lulac organization . . . aims, primarily, to protect all persons of Spanish-American descent and also any Mexican aliens that live in the United States” (p. 1). The report named, based on the Confidential Informant “A” statements a San Angelo attorney, “Davenport,” who “receives money from all of the Mexicans who belong to this Lulac organization to protect them from the laws of the United States and to defend them in trial.” Informant A goes on to allege, and the report presents the allegations, that Consul General of Mexico in San Antonio, Dr. Omar Josefe, came to the defense of an accused murderer Emiliano Jennevides [probably Benavides] in Sanderson, Texas. Allegedly Consul General Josefe attempted to have this person extradited to Mexico unsuccessfully. The Consul General allegedly attempted to organize a LULAC chapter in Sanderson and failed but for three recruits: Cuco Perez, Gallo Ochoa, and Rafael Rodriguez. The informant was not sure, but the Consul General could have been the same one who tried to organize LULAC in Clint, Texas (p. 2). Allegedly, the Consul in El Paso was advising Mexicans how to avoid the draft and the informant thought maybe this was the work of the Sinarquista Organization “but it is very probable that it could have been the LULACS behind this guiding hand” (p. 3). The SAC, San Antonio referred to a copy of a letter made available to him via SAC, Houston written allegedly by Alonso Perales, head of the League of Loyal Americans, in San Antonio, Texas on November 5, 1942. The letter’s recipient apparently took it to the Houston FBI office given its content. In this lengthy letter, Perales made the case for unity among all “members of the Caucasian Race” and all other members from “the other American Republics,” to cast aside all petty prejudices and come together for victory. Then, he began the direct accusation to the recipient that he had to cease his prejudices and discrimination at his place of business against Mexicans (p. 3). Perhaps this man was a medical provider or sorts because the letter states “you have been discriminating them from the Anglo-American patients who are provided with comfortable seats in the waiting room and placing them together with the negro patients.” Perales then states an ultimatum: “You have the next five days” to cooperate and stop the discrimination and segregation, and if not, he will write to President Roosevelt and the Department of Justice with reference to this matter. The Special Agent who submitted the report containing this information deemed the matter not “to be of an un-American



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nature,” and states “no further investigation is contemplated, and on the authority of the Special Agent in Charge, this case is being closed” (p. 4). SAC, San Antonio sent another 4-page report on February 27, 1943 about Waco and McLennan County that contained nothing new except that the characterization of the matter is back to “INTERNAL SECURITY-S.” LULAC was still reported as inactive in Waco but the Catholic priests “during the Spanish Revolution were allegedly pro­Fascists in sentiment.” Despite the heavy redacted portions of this report, enough clear narrative is present to verify that all informants utilized stated LULAC and its leadership were pro­American, and no disloyal person could be found among them. The report then began a description of the Sociedad Mutualista Mexicana de Jornaleros that runs the last two pages. One incident noted was a young man who sought advice from the Mexican Consul in Dallas about his draft status under the Selective Service Act only to be told to be a proud American and serve his new country as was his obligation (p. 4). Further north in Dallas, that SAC submitted a 2-page report dated March 24, 1943. He reported that all Mexican groups were dormant or disbanded (p. 1), including LULAC (p. 2). THE SPANISH SPEAKING PEOPLE’S CONGRESS The Spanish Speaking People’s Congress became of interest to SAC, San Antonio and the substance for his 4-page report dated June 26, 1943. Apparently, a letter from SAC, Los Angeles of June 2, 1943 referred to a LULAC member reported that back in 1939 and 1940, they had investigated of this Congress but all efforts to find such a copy had been fruitless (p. 1). LULAC was reported to have received $17,000 from the Rockefeller Foundation for the University of Texas to study “inter-American relations.” Luisa Moreno was designated the Secretary of the CIO Pecan Shellers’ Union in San Antonio and assisted by Santos Vasquez, both part of the radical element in the Congreso. Again, the language used in the report is for insinuation purposes about Communist linkages of the Congreso, some redacted source is quoted as stating “that it was his feeling that the group was sponsored by some kind of Communist organization, although he was unable to definitely ascertain this fact.” What “fact” of sponsorship by some kind of Communist organization is gleaned from this “feeling” of an informant? (p. 3). On July 31, 1943, the SAC, Phoenix submitted his 2-page report on “SPANISH FALANGE” in that area: “There is but a few persons living in the vicinity of Phoenix, Arizona who were of Spanish origin.” Informants provided this FBI Field Division with a list of organizations of which LULAC

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was one. The description is very general, and the leader identified as Gabe Peralta is also the head of the Mexican Chamber of Commerce. “It is noted that instant club might be classed as a political organization” was the conclusion because LULAC urged members to take an interest in local government and vote (p. 2). The last two reports to close the surveillance of LULAC in 1943 are both from the SAC, Houston dated August 24, 1943 and October 16, 1943, respectively. The first 4-page report is on Corpus Christi, Texas and the second is a 2-page narrative on Victoria, Texas with several pages withheld and only the cover page 1 and page 5 were released. In Corpus Christi, the LULAC chapter had 80 members and none are “inimical to best interests of U.S. known among the Mexican community.” SAC, Corpus Christi relying on informant information from six sources stated his views on LULAC activity this way: Occasional and isolated claims of discrimination against members of the Mexican community are raised by their leaders and although investigation indicates them to be groundless, they are apparently raised in good faith to correct real or imagined wrongs rather than to create or inflame unrest. (p. l)

The SAC repeats some of the organizational history of LULAC but switches midstream to place blame for divisiveness at the national and regional level on the San Antonio LULAC chapter led by M.C. Gonzales, attorney for the Mexican Consul (p. 2). And, apparently in Corpus Christi was formed a LADY LULACS group numbering 40 members with Maria Contreras as president. One of the informants, “T-5 stated the LADY LULACS came into existence about two years ago and is purely social in character” (p. 4). This report also identified all the six churches in Corpus Christi with “predominantly Latin American congregations” (p. 5). This report could have contained more pages, but these were not released; the report ends with page 5. Victoria, Texas reported “no indication of Falange or Sinarquista activity, and informants do not regard any persons, group or organization as prejudicial to the best interest of the United States” (p.1). Again, no Mexican-owned businesses were reported, banks, radio stations, steamship offices, tourist or information bureaus, libraries, railroads and “no Mexican language newspapers or magazines published in Victoria.” There were seven active church groups, two active fraternal organizations, and LULACS inactive since April 1942 (p.1); four pages following were withheld entirely and the report ends with page 5. This page contains partial information on an organization, names with addresses of the leadership, and on Woodman of the World plus LULAC. The information stated was obtained from informants T-4 and T-5 who



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placed its origin in Victoria during 1935 or 1936 due to the efforts of Dr. A.C. Durand. The other officers were listed with addresses as well, except for the Secretary, Louis Martinez, who was in the U.S. Army stationed in California at the time of the report (p. 5). In between the reports on Corpus Christi and Victoria, the SAC, Los Angeles filed his report dated June 16, 1943. His 13-page report was titled “Los Angeles Committee for American Unity” and from the “Synopsis of Facts:” it meant the matter was related to the Zoot Suit violence and not LULAC.43 SAC, Los Angeles reported on May 12, 1944 covering the time period of January 18th to May 1, 1944, with a compilation of possibly 92 pages. The page length is determined largely by the period covered by some of these reports. It appears the various FBI field offices tired of responding monthly to Hoover’s insatiable need to find subversion and communism among Mexicans, particularly LULAC, that they resorted to cumulative data over longer periods of time as in this case. None of these pages are numbered with a typed digit, rather the numbering is penciled in at top right. Following this numbering system, I will use the penciled number to reference content and assume all pages are in chronological order. This survey is titled “Racial Conditions (Spanish-Mexican Activities) in Los Angeles Field Division” with a “Synopsis of Facts:” as follows Reports from counties outside Los Angeles reflect no major Spanish-Mexican organizations and no material increase in Spanish-Mexican population other than influx of Mexican agricultural laborers. Relations with local law enforcement officers good. No major disturbances, and majority of isolated fights and instances of trouble have involved “Zoot Suit” elements. No evidence of subversive activities among the Spanish-Mexicans.

In summary, this synopsis is concise, informative, clear, and conclusionary on the question of subversive activity on the part of Mexicans in that Field Division. There is none they could find. The report provides in a table-format beginning on the second page, a listing of cities in and around Los Angeles, broad in scope to include Fresno and the San Joaquin Valley area, down to Long Beach and up to Santa Barbara (p. 2). Each city or County has to its right a “1943 estimate” of population, ranging from a low of 100 in Ojai in Ventura County to over 15,000 in Fresno County during agricultural season. The enumeration of resident Mexicans augmented seasonally by migrant workers, also Mexicans, and further compounded by “14,000 Mexican Nationals brought into California from Mexico under Government contract,” perplexed the FBI reporters (p. 3). They could find no information “which breaks down the population of Kern County into Mexican or Spanish.” As for Spanish individuals themselves

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there are only a few families in Kern County (p. 6). This report did mention Sinarquista activity in both Fresno and Kern Counties but “for all intents and purposes, is non-functioning at the present time, and has been very weak for several years.” There were no unions, no leaders “because the population in Fresno and the San Joaquin Valley is for the most part itinerant and highly changing, the development of leaders had been discouraged (p. 6). The education of Mexican children was in English only in the public schools with a limited number enrolled in the Catholic schools. Bakersfield and Delano police departments reported no trouble with the Mexican population, “and definitely none of a Nationalistic tendency.” Some Sinarquista activity was reported “among the Mexicans . . . which has a small following in Bakersfield, California.” The information on Long Beach was redacted (pp.7–8) but for information that a Mexican school organized by the Comision Honorifica Mexicana operated for about a year in Wilmington, California. While there are no Spanish language newspapers published in these outlying counties, the Mexican population did read four publications published out of Mexico City and Los Angeles and two Catholic newspapers also from Mexico and El Paso, Texas. Some people in Wilmington did subscribe and receive the newspaper El Sinarquista, coming from Mexico City but ‘‘this newspaper is no longer being sent to people in Wilmington,” the report concludes (p. 9). The Los Angeles Field Division survey found similar traits in all other communities such as San Pedro, Santa Paula, Fullerton, Santa Ana, Long Beach city, Lompoc, San Bernardino, Ontario, San Joaquin Valley, Santa Barbara, and Los Angeles city—no trouble with police but for Zoot Suiters, no businesses owned, no unions, no Mexican-run schools, no local newspapers, no Sinarquista organizations, no radio programs in Spanish, some fraternal and mutual-benefit societies, and no LULAC chapters either (pp. 10–18). In this report, the names of Mexican organizational leaders are redacted as are the addresses. Unlike the other reports, however, the SAC, Los Angeles delved into two areas not reported by others: employment and discrimination cases. While others reported discrimination of Mexicans the language used by the report preparers resembles a baseless complaint always raised by Mexicans. SAC, Los Angeles looked into some complaints and gave them validity (pp. 16–19). Employment in non-agricultural jobs is explored and quantified to show few Mexicans are hired in the service and small business sectors and much less in the public service area and six of the war related industries with Lockheed Aircraft Corporation employing the most at 15% of all employees in any of their seven plants. If hired to work for a governmental entity or any of the war industries, as the FBI report classifies them, it was in low paying, menial



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labor jobs. Mexican women were favored over men for their discipline and cooperation (p. 32). At Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation, a young man was fired because he wore a zoot suit to work and “because of his dress, was the center of attention at the plant.” This company’s representative told the FBI Special Agent ‘‘that the Vultee Company had never made a Mexican a lead man, explaining that employees work better under a white man.” (p. 34). The unions that exist do have Mexicans as members, but they exercise no power or voice in the affairs of the union. Seldom are their grievances looked into by their own union superiors (p. 32 —these pages are not numbered consecutively). Crime is the subject of pages 43 to 53 but more were withheld through page 68. The report blames the illiteracy and peon culture for the type of crimes committed, basically petty theft, drunkenness (the largest total of crimes), marihuana use, and crimes against each other including knifing incidents among the “Pachucos” which is what the Zoot Suiters called themselves in Spanish. This section of the report on Zoot Suited Pachucos runs from page 44 to 53. A redacted source claimed that “there was no more trouble among the Spanish-Mexican groups than there was among any other racial groups in the city, with the exception of the trouble caused by the Mexican youth gangs called the ‘Pachucos.’” The blame for this rise in criminality was placed at the door of the “Citizens’ Committee for the Defense of the Mexican-American Youth,” commonly called “The Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee” who agitated to create antagonism between the Spanish-Mexican and law enforcement (p. 44). The literature on this case of the Sleepy Lagoon and on the Zoot Suit riots needs to be examined to see how biased this reporting was on the same subject. For example, not once is the role of U.S. military personnel, mostly Navy, mentioned as instigators of the violence perpetrated on the Mexican youth.44 Another example is the wording of the quote below from an informant as “fact” rather than unsubstantiated opinion: this committee composed not of representative elements of the Mexican population in Los Angeles but rather a group that was Communistically inclined, attempting to agitate the Mexicana against law enforcement agencies...instant case was an appropriate one for the purpose of this ‘communist group’ which intends to appeal the case to the higher courts and attempt a feeling of hatred among the Spanish-Mexican groups against local law enforcement agencies. (p. 45)

The Mayor of Los Angeles appointed a committee of persons of Mexican descent to look into these Mexican gang outbreaks in February of 1943. Their findings are not reported in these pages. Governor Earl Warren appointed a committee as well, directed by the Attorney General Robert W.

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Kenney; this report was not included in these pages. A Grand Jury of Los Angeles County was empaneled to inquire into causes and consequences of these urban disturbances. Their “findings” turned into “recommendations” were such a mixed bag of stereotypes about youth in general and Mexicans in particular. From pages 47 to 53, the report states various recommendations. For example, the Grand Jury found that between January 1, 1943 and June 16th of that year, the local police department had few reported crimes being committed by those wearing Zoot Suits but after “that date the record reflect a large number of crimes being committed by persons so garbed.” “Of the 23 felonious assaults on U.S. servicemen all were committed by Zoot Suit wearers, as were 316 other persons wearing Zoot Suits involved in commission of violations” (p. 48). Perhaps, it never occurred to anyone to ask when youth started wearing Zoot Suits as a new teenage dress code. It was also found that Zoot Suit crimes “have been committed almost exclusively against fellow Mexicans, either native born or citizens of Mexico.” Failure to apply corrective procedure to properly discipline, by means of some definite punishment, those boys and girls who have continually committed crimes (p. 49). The Grand Jury recommended definite punishment, no rehabilitation of any kind or formal education to teach the Mexican youth English, reading skills, vocabulary, and writing, for example (p. 50). The report also blamed the media for using these words in headlines, “Mexican Youth,” and “Mexican Gangs” and suggested the use of “Mexican-Americans” and “Americans of Mexican ancestry” to distinguish U.S. citizens from Mexican nationals (p. 52). This was advice not listened to by the FBI as well who kept using the words “Spanish-Mexican” and “Mexican Matter” knowing there were no significant numbers of person from Spain in these cities and that Mexican was a self-proclaimed ethnicity, not a race. On pages 52–53, the report begins to discuss anthropological theories advanced to explain the criminality of Mexican youth from the far-fetched to blatant racist diatribes. For example, It has been claimed that “Mexican Youth” are descended from “bad” ancestry; that they inherit criminal tendencies; that they are biologically given to the use of brute force, and that nothing can be done presumably to exterminate all of them. (p. 52)

Another theory was in every cultural group there are some individuals who are born subnormal (not bad) . . . the gang behavior of the “Pachucos” may be passed back to the ways in the culture and language of Mexican-American youth, which is different from the background of other youths . . . when formal methods of teaching them



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English are used, they grow lethargic, and some never attain normal educational levels. (p. 53)

The report concludes that failing at school, committing crimes, and being denied entry to military service, “not working, and not being in the army, he is the ‘arch bully’ and on the road to a life of crime” (p. 53). But, the Communist boogey-man is brought back into the narrative because among those supporting the work of legal defense for the twenty-four Mexican youth charged with murder was the local Communist Party. The People’s World, Communist Party newspaper on the West Coast, which “continuously agitated for the release of the so-called Mexican victims on trial for murder.” Bail is a constitutional guarantee not a Communist ploy. Furthermore, the press, not just the People’s World, also pointed out that the prosecution proceeded to trial without a murder weapon, an eye-witness, and no more than circumstantial evidence that these boys had been in the vicinity of a party near which the body was found. The boys were not allowed to change clothes, bathe, or groom themselves for any court appearance, nor were they allowed to consult with their attorneys, and made to sit together isolated and not next to their attorneys, according to Mark Weitz.45 The Defense Committee was also tied to the “radical elements of the Hollywood motion picture industry” (p. 68). Toward the end of this last page quoted begins a listing of organization by name and address and continues to page 75, but I cannot be sure because the intermittent pages were withheld. A final note of criticism was leveled at the Screen Writers Guild for also being in support of the defense for the Sleepy Lagoon defendants and therefore also “Communistic” (p. 88). Finally, on the last page disclosed there is a cogent outline of critical analysis of the reasons for conflicts between “the Southern California Mexicans and the American populace.” Segregation of Mexicans was a large part of the Mexican resentment as was employment discrimination, particularly among unions who not only paid Mexicans less but also segregated them to menial hard labor positions. Moreover, there lacked Spanish speaking personnel in public and private agencies—certainly a lack in supervisory positions. On the servicemen’s side they came to the area with previous racial prejudices that fostered ill-will toward those who were different from them, especially the attire; the military failed to indoctrinate them on methods to promote racial harmony; and, there was resentment against civilians regardless of race or color (p. 92). True to form, FBI Director Hoover was only looking for subversives and Communists among the Mexican population, nothing much else, certainly not acts of discrimination against Mexicans in public places. On August 28, 1944 Director Hoover wrote to the Assistant Attorney General, Tom C. Clark, and the Assistant Secretary of State, Adolf A. Berle, Jr.

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about incidents of discrimination against Mexicans, both U.S. citizens and nationals. The two letters are identical but for the addressee. Mexican nationals were 38 cadet pilots from Mexico training in the area of Victoria. The locals and these other Mexicans were being discriminated in public places by being denied service. LULAC had gotten involved and recruited help in alleviating these practices from members of President F.D. Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Commission. The commission’s Secretary, Pauline Kibbe, had accompanied LULAC officers from the Victoria, Texas Council #45 to a meeting at Foster Field, a military installation of the U.S. Army Air Corps. The names of these LULAC officers were listed in the Hoover letter. After a description of several discriminatory incidents in Victoria, Texas that were also reported by letter from LULAC to the Texas Governor and members of the Good Neighbor Commission, Hoover wrote, “No investigation has been conducted concerning this matter, and the above data are submitted for your information.” Nothing seemed to come from this exchange as far as additional documents on the matter. Almost nine months later, March 12, 1945, the SAC, Los Angeles submitted another report. This report covered from October 3, 1944 to September 27, 1945 and contains about 9 pages numbered by pencil at top of each page. Some pages were withheld entirely and there could be more, but these were the ones released. The overall finding was repetitive: “reviews of information obtained from confidential sources and Spanish publications in the LA area failed to indicate any subversive activity on the part of the Spanish Mexican population” (cover sheet, p. 1). A new development in the gathering of data, according to this report, were actual interviews with “officials of Sinarquista Organization.” The FBI found that the majority of the Mexican people had no use for Fascism or Communism because of their strong almost 100% affiliation with the Catholic Church whose doctrines are diametrically opposed to the teachings of Communism or Fascism. The Sinarquista Organization was constantly making every effort to prevent the spread of Communism or Fascism. (p. 2)

The FBI also believed “many attempts on the part of Communists in the United States and in Mexico to create a feeling among the Mexican people that they were being discriminated against by Americans . . . had not been successful” (p. 3). The wave of Pachuco incidents was attributed to two things: Mexican youth drifting away from family and church and was the large growth of population among both Mexican and U.S. servicemen in the area. They did not know each other, and each made derogatory comments of the other, particularly servicemen of the Zoot Suit attire (p. 3). The report provided in entirely redacted form all the persons interviewed for the survey



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(pp. 4–5). The next pages reported on informants [also redacted] with specific information on certain topics like crime, juvenile delinquency, gang warfare, and membership in the Sinarquista Organization (pp. 6–8). The next FBI report jumps to October 18, 1947 and it is from the SAC, El Paso. Only 3 pages were released of several more that should have been made part of this transmission. The cover sheet is completely redacted. The next released page but for a bottom paragraph with some redacted words and lines mentions a LULAC member from the Albuquerque chapter whose MED file from July 1943 was a result of a MID investigation (p. 5). The source of this information regarding the investigation is completely baseless, nonetheless relied upon by both the MID and FBI for inclusion in their reports. This is a portion of the narrative: [Redacted name] said [redacted name] was a member of the League of United Latin-American Citizens, known by the abbreviation of “LULAC.” The “LULAC” when first started was Communistic in nature, desiring the overthrowal of the government by force, in order to secure race equality of the persons of Spanish-American descent with those of Anglo-Saxon descent. The “LULAC” believe the Spanish-American people of the United States are being discriminated against by the Anglos-Saxons in regard to educational facilities and equal rights of citizenship. (p. 6)

Three days later, SAC, El Paso files a 3-page report characterized as “ATOMIC ENERGY ACT-EMPLOYEE” and the title redacted as is the entire cover page. The report repeats the same wording used in the narrative above and attributes this to declarations made by Informant T-1. The obvious problem is that hearsay becomes fact after repetition in copies of reports being sent to multiple offices and agencies. The bottom half of this page is redacted (p. 2). The Confidential Informant T-1 is known by Special Agent [name redacted] to be [name redacted] in the “MED file”46 (p. 3). J. Edgar Hoover must have been livid at the incredulous words he read in the Office Memorandum sent to him on October 31, 1947 by SAC, San Antonio. This one-page memo reports that LULAC “has become rather active in towns along the Rio Grande River in the Southern section of our territory.” Then came the wording bombshell: This office has no background information up to the present time on this organization, and it is requested that the Bureau’s files be checked, and this office be furnished with any information pertaining to the organization.

As a Christmas present to SAC, San Antonio Director, FBI Hoover responds in a 3-page memorandum on December 24, 1947 that “you were the office of origin in the case entitled ‘League of United Latin American Citizens, Internal

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Security-C, your file 64-272.’”(p. 1) Hoover then lists ten different reports the San Antonio office should have and must re-read (pp. 2–3). Almost a year later, the document dated November 10, 1948 is a short letter from the SAC, El Paso, D.K. Brown, to Hoover alerting him to the D.C. visit by LULAC’s National President, Raoel A. Cortez to see Attorney General Tom Clark and the President. Enclosed were open source clippings taken from the El Paso Herald Post relating to the topic to be discussed which was LULAC’s opposition to the Mexican Farm Labor Program aka the Bracero Program and the discrimination faced by these Mexican laborers. No further information on this meeting was released. But early the next year on February 21, 1949 a known informant [name redacted] dropped by the FBI Santa Fe sub-office and met with Assistant SAC, Henry O. Hawkins. The informant offered to be of service to the FBI and reported that the Communist Party was making “an all-out effort to penetrate the LULAC ASSOCIATION.” This was communicated to Hoover by the SAC, El Paso in a single-page memo. The bottom half of the memo was redacted entirely. A week later on February 29, 1949, SAC, El Paso sends a two-page memo to the Director, FBI with only a paragraph left unredacted at the bottom of the first page. In these last lines the SAC reported that meetings by LULAC with several groups had been held on at least two occasions in Santa Fe, New Mexico to discuss general discrimination matters and for the promotion of the FEPC.47 Almost another half year goes by for the next document released dated May 4, 1949. It is another single-page letter from U.S. Representative J. F. Gray from Three Rivers, Texas to Director Hoover. He is informing Hoover that a new organization “known as the G. I. Forum at Corpus Christi” and LULAC are active in his area.48 He writes, I believe that the activities of these two organizations is a fertile field for subversive activity and I feel that it might be well to watch their activity and especially the activity of those in leading positions in these two organizations.

Hoover responded to Rep. Gray by letter dated May 11th thanking him for the communication and encouraged him to contact the SAC, San Antonio. C. E. Weeks, “in the event you receive any information indicating un-American activities on the part of these groups.” A year later, on May 7, 1950, The Worker, a Communist newspaper circulated in Texas among other places, published an article titled “United Action Wins New Housing for 520 Families.” This clipping was released as a separate document not tied to any other communication. What is most interesting about this clipping other than it does mention LULAC as being part of the coalition to fight for public housing, is the stamped words at the bottom right indicating where this news item came from. Under the date it was clipped



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and filed with FBI records, the space for the date to stamp the date states: “Clipped at the Seat of Government.” Sometime during this period, Director Hoover determined and claimed his Bureau, not the White House, as the Seat of Government. SAC, Houston in a two-page, heavily redacted memo to the Bureau on November 28, 1951 reported that LULAC in Cuero, Texas was no longer active because “the Latin American people had lost interest.” And, he also stated that the only ones interested in LULAC were those “who paid their poll taxes” (p. 2). Over in El Paso, the SAC there on June 13, 1952 reported to Hoover in a 1-page memo that an area newspaper, Pecos Enterprise, of Pecos, Texas, reported that LULAC was busy protesting the location of a new Junior High School to avoid further segregation of Latin-American students and having one of them placed on the Selective Service Board. In newspaper articles from that open source the FBI concluded LULAC was not very effective given that its candidate for the City Council only garnered 129 votes. The names of the area LULAC leaders were provided. Oddly, the EL Paso office by copy to San Antonio asked that FBI office to furnish anything they had on “LULAC being affiliated to the Communist Party” or infiltration into LULAC by Communists. NATIONAL LULAC PRESIDENT FELIX TIJERINA UNDER INVESTIGATION SAC, Houston, two years later, had an explosive issue on his hands and reported this in a 2-page memo to the Director, FBI on May 27, 1953. Apparently, two informants [names redacted] contacted the Houston FBI office alleging that one of the LULAC leaders in Houston, a wealthy and prosperous restauranteur, Felix Tijerina, was not a U.S. citizen. He lied about his citizenship.49 Tijerina had been appointed to the Board of Directors for the Houston Housing Authority by Mayor Fred Hofheinz. The informant alleged all documents filed in Richmond, Texas with the County Court and signed by County Judge C. L. Dutton in 1956 were fraudulent, that Tijerina was actually born in Mexico.50 Director Hoover, by Airtel to SAC, Houston dated June 5, 1953 instructed him to present the matter to the U.S. Attorney’s office for “prosecutive action.” The Assistant U.S. Attorney, William R. Eckhardt, declined to prosecute and closed the case, as stated in a one-page memo from SAC, Houston to Director, FBI on June 16, 1953. The FBI had no choice in the matter being handled by the U.S. Attorney in Houston, but the Immigration and Naturalization Service did begin in 1940 to investigate Felix Tijerina and his wife, Janie. The couple had wanted to

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adopt a Mexican-born child and rename him Felix Jr. They filed the necessary papers with the local court and ultimately sued the U.S. Attorney General and Department of Justice. On March 25, 1954 in the Southern District of Texas in Houston, a federal court, to expedite the matter: Felix Tijerina, et al v. Herbert Brownell, Jr. Attorney General of the United States, et al. seeking a Declaratory Judgment to Establish Citizenship. At issue was the delay in approving the naturalization of the adoptee child, Felix Jr., given the discrepancies noted by the INS in the birth certificates of the adopting parents, Felix Sr. in particular. In 1940, Tijerina had filed a delayed birth certificate with the County Court stating he was born in Sugarland, Texas. The INS produced two documents to show Tijerina was a Mexican national: a 1925 visa application for Feliberto Tijerina and a Mexican birth certificate showing he was born in General Escobedo, Nuevo Leon, Mexico on April 29, 1905. On May 25, 1956, Federal District Judge Joe MacDonald Ingraham found based on a “preponderance of the evidence” that Tijerina was native-born in the United States and was a U.S. citizen.51 The U.S. Attorney representing the interests of the INS chose not to appeal the ruling. Thomas Kreneck writes toward the conclusion of his chapter on this period of Tijerina’s life that the outcome “served justice rather than truth. Tijerina went on to be the national president of LULAC and serve four consecutive terms in that position.”52 A full field investigation by the FBI on [redacted name] was being considered for someone else other than Felix Tijerina under the jurisdiction of the El Paso FBI Field Office to become a government employee of high rank. SAC, El Paso in an 8-page memo of which 4 pages were entirely withheld, responded on October 8, 1954. The person being considered had some affiliation with LULAC and therefore was suspect because “the LULAC Charter is high-sounding and worthy, but like so many other organizations it may be turned into a subversive group under leadership that points in the wrong direction” (p. 1). The last page is heavily redacted. Either the person under consideration was not forwarded in the process of selection or extremely delayed. On December 11, 1956, Director Hoover wrote and sent by courier service a 9-page report to Kimbell Johnson, Chief, Investigation Services, U.S. Civil Service Commission about someone else being considered or still for Government Service since 1954. The first page is entirely redacted. On the second page, Hoover could not help himself in writing another ding against LULAC: The Bureau conducted investigation regarding the League for United Latin American Citizens (Lulacs) in 1941, 1942, and 1943, which investigation developed that this organization was probably loyal and patriotic. In view of the fact that investigation failed to reveal any Un-American Activities on the part of this organization the investigation was discontinued.



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The remaining part of this paragraph is redacted as is the last paragraph consisting of four lines. A total of seven more pages were withheld entirely. INTO THE 1960s AND BEYOND In January 1961, LULAC California District Director #1., Jess M. Ramirez, wrote a 2-page letter to Director Hoover asking him to clarify the use of Mexican as a Race category by local municipal government and police departments. He also asked for the FBI’s policy on this question. Ramirez was adamant that Mexicans were of the Caucasian race and should be classified as White on forms. Director Hoover responded within a week to Ramirez in a 2-page letter dated January 18, 1962 stating that the FBI recognized Mexicans as Caucasians and should be classified as such particularly in the Uniform Crime Reporting Program. Hoover rejected the notion that he had any control over local jurisdictions. Again, in a NOTE: for institutional memory Hoover wrote: “The income letter was dated January 10, 1961 when it should have been 1962.” Then, he adds: “Bufiles do not reflect any data which can be identified with Ramirez.” This organization is used by Mexican Consuls to protect Mexican aliens and persons of Latin American descent. On August 5th, 1961, U.S. Senator Dennis Chavez from New Mexico wrote to Director Hoover a one-page letter requesting the FBI Director help him respond to a constituent’s question on whether the Lordsburg, New Mexico LULAC chapter or the National group were a Communist organization or affiliated with Communism. A copy of the letter was enclosed with the author’s name redacted. Hoover promptly responds to the Senator on August 9th with a form-letter response: “the FBI being strictly an investigative agency of the Federal Government, neighed make evaluation nor draw conclusions as to the character or integrity of any organization, publication, or individual.” Hoover declined to comment on LULAC. However, Hoover, as was his custom and habit, added a NOTE: for his internal memory restating the FBI had been investigating LULAC since 90-29-41 and found no subversive activities as a result of that investigation. He then writes, “This organization is used by the Mexican Consuls to protect Mexican aliens and persons of Latin American decent [sic]. Our relations with Senator Chavez dating back to 1931 have been generally satisfactory.” The remaining and concluding 5 lines are redacted. Unlike what Hoover wrote to Senator Chavez, another inquiry about LULAC came to his office by mail postmarked April 1, 1963 from [redacted name] of The Daily Gazette in Illinois. They enclosed a pamphlet not copied or released in any form. Hoover forwarded the material to the SAC, Chicago and asked him to respond. In this Airtel dated April 8, 1963 Hoover notes those

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seeking information are not in the Bufiles and that the LULAC national office is now located at 1318 San Pedro in San Antonio, Texas. Hoover instructs him to look in his files for the person who wrote and if not in the SA files to return the material to him with the explanation that the information being provided is confidential and that “this organization is used by the Mexican Consuls to protect Mexican aliens and persons of Latin-American descent.” The SAC, Chicago reported back to Hoover on April 17th that he had done as instructed and also had advised the writer to contact the Rockford, Illinois Resident Agency of the FBI with any new information. That July 1963, LULAC held its National Convention in Anaheim, California and made news by some members being critical of the electoral victory in Crystal City, Texas by five Mexican Americans who won all the seats on the City Council. Alex Armendariz, El Paso attorney, was quoted by Ruben Salazar in his article as saying, “LULAC feels strongly that Latins should not take the position that two wrongs make a right. Some of us feel the Crystal City election was done in the spirit of ‘you’ve done it to us, now we’re going to do it to you.’”53 On September 14, 1964, SAC, Los Angeles wrote to the Director, FBI a 5-page memo with three pages withheld entirely. This was in reference to a letter dated June 25, 1964 from Los Angeles to the Bureau not released. In this report, the SAC states he is sending descriptive information on three organizations that are political and operating in their territory. The three were the Community Service Organization (CSO) (p.1), LULAC (p. 4), and the third must be listed in the withheld pages but the top of this page has some unredacted language and the name of Eduardo Quevedo appears. The third cog must be the Mexican American Political Association (MAPA) which he headed at this time. LULAC National President in 1966, Alfred J. Hernandez of El Paso, Texas wrote to the Assistant U.S. Attorney in San Antonio, Texas on September 23, 1966 urging him to consider the complaint filed by Aguinaldo Zamora of New Braunfels, Texas claiming racial discrimination in that city by the school district. Aguinaldo Zamora wrote to the Deputy Director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights about the forced segregation of Mexican children in the schools of New Braunfels and sent him copies of the local newspaper article supporting his claims. By December 16, 1966 the Bureau was involved at the request of the U.S. Attorney’s office. SAC, San Antonio sent a 21-page Airtel to the Director that same day with 11 pages entirely withheld. Aguinaldo’s name, the complaining victim, was changed or mistyped to Reynaldo. The pages released are either redacted or of street maps with street index that without narrative cannot be used to analyze the complaint of forced segregation.



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The FBI Director is sought after as a speaker and author by many organizations and sponsors of events. He refuses most invitations given the nature of his work and time constraints due to his heavy work schedule. Luciano Santoscoy with El Paso LULAC and editor of LULAC News, invited Hoover to submit an article for them to publish in a letter, not released, dated January 5th. The Director, FBI contacted the SAC, El Paso about this request and to run a check on Santoscoy because he was not identifiable in the Bufiles. On January 16, 1967 SAC, El Paso submits a one-page Airtel to Hoover clearing Santoscoy and his wife, Juanita, both of whom reside at 2601 San Diego, St. in El Paso, Texas which prompted Hoover to accept the invitation to submit an article and provided the topic he would address instead of the one suggested by Santoscoy which was “How Denial of Equal Opportunity Fosters Crime Increase.” Hoover sent Santoscoy his article, “A Time for All Things,” on February 8, 1967. By 1967, the FBI had learned to obtain first-hand information on the U.S. Communist Party from official publications of the political party. A copy of Political Affairs: Theoretical Journal of the Communist Party, U.S.A. was released along with the exchange of messages regarding Santoscoy’s request for an article from Hoover. The journal issue contained an article by Patricia Bell, “Mexican-Americans in the Southwest.”54 The FBI analysts assigned to read these articles must have had a field day, especially the Bell article because it mentioned LULAC as well as several other political organizations and the leaders. 28 YEARS OF SURVEILLANCE AND COUNTING The surveillance of LULAC since the first FBI document released dated January 26, 1940 into February 19, 1968 had gone on for twenty-eight years. On February 19th, the SAC, El Paso sent a 4-page memorandum to the Director, FBI on LULAC. The first page is entirely redacted and the second one is withheld. On the 3rd page, utilizing open source information Hoover is apprised that two political figures, Texas State Representative Oscar Laurel of Laredo, Texas and State Senator Hugo Fisher of San Diego, California, both were present for the installation of the national officers in November 1959, according to the El Paso Herald Post of that year. Hardly breaking news in 1968. And, in 1964 the El Paso Times reported that National LULAC President William D. Bonilla had met with President Lyndon Johnson at the White House. Not any breaking news either but for some unexplained reason this was important to send to Hoover. Much of the last page is redacted. Perhaps Hoover simply wanted material to keep in his files on politicians regardless of how current, the objective was a comprehensive file. If this be true then the

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clipping from the Arizona Republic of May 19, 1968 fits the bill.55 This article reported U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador, Raul Castro of Tucson, Arizona gave a talk to the Arizona branch of LULAC at their state convention. CHICANO SCHOOL WALKOUTS Of new interest to the FBI were the hundreds of school walkouts by Chicano students all over the country during the late 1960s to early 1970s. One such school strike occurred in Sierra Blanca, Texas on the outskirts of El Paso. Of special interest to the SAC, El Paso who submitted the 4-page report two pages of which were an enclosure to Hoover on April 30, 1968 was the emergence of a new organization, New Organization of Mexican-American Students (NOMAS) and the participation of LULAC and the ACLU plus others of lesser interest. The SAC, El Paso read about the school walkout in the El Paso Herald Post. He promised to go to Sierra Blanca and get to the bottom of the story (p. 2). The enclosure provided some facts and figures including the three demands being made for the students to return to classes, based on the newspaper articles from the open source since April 24th through the 30th (p. 2). This Airtel was widely circulated among military intelligence agencies, NISO, G-2, 112th Military Intelligence Group, OSI, and U.S. Secret Service. Toward the end of 1968, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights held their first hearings on that topic and Mexican-Americans in the Southwest during December 9–14. The hearing took place on the campus of Our Lady of the Lake College deep in San Antonio’s West Side barrio. The Commission members heard testimony from those affected about issues in four areas: education, employment, economic security, and the administration of justice. There were 17 witnesses heard on the administration of justice. State Advisory Committees in New Mexico and California also held their own hearings earlier in 1968. Not surprisingly, no one brought up the wrongdoing by the FBI; they did not know it was and had been ongoing. Occasionally someone would mention that the FBI had been asking questions about them and their organization which caused those questioned to look at them in a different light, as criminals. Why else would the FBI be asking questions? Earlier in October 1967 in El Paso, Texas, the President’s Cabinet Committee Hearings on Mexican American Affairs took place. Cabinet members, four of them, and scores of directors and assistant directors of federal agencies came to listen to testimony from those invited to participate in this “White House Conference,” as some called it. Despite several White House Conferences on the civil rights of African Americans, this was the first time the White House had invited Mexican Americans. In 1966, when the last White House



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Conference was held, Mexican Americans were not invited despite much protest and complaints from them. Mexican American leaders had walked out of an Equal Employment Opportunity Conference held in Albuquerque, New Mexico held in March 1966 because only one Commissioner attended to hear their testimony. Those not invited to the El Paso hearings chose to hold a rump conference protesting the “rigged” appearance of the Cabinet Committee hearings. The rump conference was called La Raza Unida Conference.56 Vicente Ximenes was President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s insider at the White House and also the Chair of the Inter-Agency Committee on Mexican American Affairs. LBJ had promised to hold a conference on Mexican American affairs three years earlier. When it did take place, it was protested by many including the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO).57 A demonstration caught the eye of SAC, El Paso because it happened in El Paso’s Bowie High School about a meeting called by El Paso Housing Authority offices. SAC, El Paso reported to Hoover on December 3, 1969 in a 3-page memo that besides LULAC more groups were involved in the protest: Mexican-American Youth Association (MAYA), Mexican American Political Association (MAPA), Mexican American Committee on Honor, Opportunity, and Service (MACHOS). The El Paso Mayor, Peter De Wetter, was also present. The meeting got out of hand due to the loud shouts from the audience to the directors, mayor, and a consultant, Charles Graham. Ultimately, the MAYA group took over the podium and microphone and introduced Cesar Chavez who spoke encouraging El Paso to provide public housing for the poor (p. 2). Informant T-2 identified the president of MAYA as being Gerardo Araujo and another person, Chuck Alcala, as an organizer for the Alianza Federal De Mercedes (p. 3). No further information was released on the outcome of the school strike in Sierra Blanca or the confrontation with the Housing Authority. MEXICAN AMERICAN MILITANCY: A NEW COINTELPRO? A year later on a 24-page, maybe more, report from the SAC, San Antonio to the Director, FBI, a new term was introduced as the title of the case matter: “Mexican American Militancy IS-Spanish American.” This could signal that the survey data the FBI had collected over the past 41 years was now being used to justify the implementation of a counterintelligence program (COINTELPRO) across the country aimed at Mexicans. To this day, there has been no admission of an FBI COINTELPRO’s aimed at Mexican Americans or Mexicans other than the Border Coverage Program (BOCOV).

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The document cited above only has two released pages of text. This file references an Airtel to Albuquerque dated October 12, 1970 not released. From the content of the narrative on the cover page, the subject matter of this file is 1970 population data on Mexican Americans in the San Antonio Division with some entries on Texas population. Mexican Americans increased in numbers from the last census enumeration by 14.7 percent or by 1,409,446 persons. In the withheld pages, there were Tables that “show towns of 1,000 inhabitants or more covered by the San Antonio Division and are arranged to show headquarters territory and each resident agency territory” (p. 1). The last page released is on LULAC. Apparently, organizations were profiled in earlier and other pages. About half of this page 24 on LULAC is redacted. The bottom half describes the membership as “Exact total numbers not known and is obtainable only through investigation. The membership consists, however, of prominent and professional businessmen and their wives.” The profile indicates that SAC, FBI or the actual preparer of this page believes LULAC has no “potential for violence” or any “subversive influence.” Under the last two categories it is stated: “f. Informant Coverage: Adequately covered through existing informants and established sources” and “h. Status of Investigation: Pending-being closed” the last word, “closed,” is circled (p. 24). Before the close of the year, 1970, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover invited a firestorm of criticism for his words quoted in a Time magazine article, “J. Edgar Hoover Speaks Out With Vigor,” and cited in The New York Times: “You never have to bother against a President being shot by Puerto Ricans or Mexicans. They don’t shoot straight. But if they come at you with a knife, beware.”58 U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell supported Hoover’s words. He was quoted as saying, “He has a right to talk, like anybody else.”59 Quickly, LULAC’s Chairman of the Civil Rights Committee, Ralph A. Echave from Anaheim, California by letter dated December 13, 1970 demanded an apology if Hoover was referring to “the Chicano (Mexican American).” If so, “You would do honor to thousands of Mexicans who have served this country well and who you have maligned, by submitting your resignation effective immediately,” he added. The next day Echave fired off another letter, this one to Congressmen Richard T. Hanna and John Tenney asking them to call for Hoover’s resignation because the words in Time had maligned Mexican Americans. Echave wrote the same to both the Representative and Senator Tenney, “The Chicano holds more Congressional Medals of Honor than any other ethnic group and we are the only ethnic group who has never defected to any other form of government during the time of war.” Hoover responded to Mr. Echave on December 2, 1970 with some advice: “Had the entire text of my interview been reported, I am confident there would be no misinter-



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pretation of my comments.” And, typical of Hoover, at the bottom for his and institutional memory he added “NOTE: Bufiles contain no record on correspondent. There is no derogatory information regarding his organization and in 1967 material was furnished for use in their organization newspaper.” Representative Hanna of California’s 34th District did follow up with a letter to Hoover dated December 23rd asking him to respond to Echave’s “conscientious and concerned inquiry.” Senator Tenney did also. Director Hoover responded with the same type of form letter he prepared for Echave: had they “read the entire interview there would be no misunderstanding.” Hoover did add “NOTE:” to both letters in which he characterizes the relations the FBI has had with these two members of Congress as “friendly.” SAC, El Paso on September 20, 1971 brought up new information he had gathered from no less than seven informants identified as EP T-1 through 7 in the 26 pages of his report submitted to Hoover. The subject was the proceedings of the Conferencia de Unidad y Accion (Conference of Unity and Action) held in El Paso the past July 16–18, 1971. The cover letter of this report also used the term “(Mexican American Militancy)” next to the El Paso FBI file identifier number of 1-105-2053 and copies were sent to others: U.S. Secret Service, El Paso; Assistant U.S. Attorney, El Paso; and the U.S. Attorney in San Antonio, Texas. The next 22 pages were entirely withheld, and the information reported by informant’s EP T-4, 5 and 7 is redacted. Organization profiles are listed on the Mexican American Youth Association (MAYA) (p. 4); the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan) (MECHA) based at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP); LULAC; and “the GI Forum also known as the American G.I. Forum” (p. 5). A magazine, Nosotros, printed in El Paso was also profiled but half of the description is redacted (p. 6). Beginning on page 13 of the pages released the speakers at the conference were identified by name and described as to position or profession. Hector Bencomo, a “Southside businessman and recently elected Alderman for Police and Fire matters,” was first listed.60 The other speakers identified by various informants and listed were Antonio Sanchez, Jose Pinon, Alejandro Vazquez, Ricardo Sanchez, Ramon Adame, and Manuel Medrano (pp. 13–15). The section on the LULAC speaker as reported by informant EP T-7 was entirely redacted (pp. 23–24). Page 25 was not released. The last page, 26, is an article published in Nosotros entitled “Conference sets unity base” that editorialized on the events and expected outcomes from the three-day conference attended by over 300 persons.61 Later that year, the FBI clipped an article for their files on Mexican American Militancy (MAM). The newspaper clipping is from The Washington Post Times Herald which was a book review of Chicano Manifesto by Armando Rendon by the senior U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, Edward M. Kennedy.62 In this piece,

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the names of leaders mentioned by Kennedy as found in Rendon’s work are underlined as if to identify them of FBI interest, especially those of the “Four Horsemen of the Chicano Movement”: Cesar E. Chavez, Reies Lopez Tijerina, Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales, and this author. Organizations were also underlined in the clipping: LULAC, GI Forum, MAPA, MAYO, Crusade for Justice, and La Raza Unida. Another newspaper clipping was released dating December 13, 1971 and taken from the El Paso Herald Post of that city. This article, “LULACs Seek Smith Talks Over Controversy at UTEP,” is the meeting sought with Texas Governor Preston Smith to discuss Mexican American appointments to the Texas University System Board of Regents. Of concern to LULAC was the behavior of Vice President for Student Affairs, Dr. Gary Brooks of the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). Apparently, Dr. Brooks had cut off some if not most of student activities on campus and refused to meet with students to discuss the issue. MECHA, the Chicano student group, opposed that action and the assessment of a $20 student fee for non-existent services and activities. LULAC was also involved the following year in the police murder by shooting of James Antonio Cordova and Rito Canales, members of the Black Berets of Albuquerque, New Mexico. A newspaper article on this police murder taken from the morning edition of the Albuquerque Journal of February 3, 1972 quoted LULAC spokesmen several times who were demanding an investigation by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the Department of Justice (DOJ). There was no other document on this police murder which should have been investigated by the FBI if the DOJ was being contacted about this civil rights violation. This matter must have been dropped by LULAC or tactically they were seeking new access to the FBI because Phillip Martinez Chair of the 44th National LULAC Convention to be held in Albuquerque the June 1973 following was inviting Acting FBI Director, L. Patrick Gray, III as an exhibitor at a cost of $350 to $550 by letter dated March 30, 1973. Apparently, no response was had to the solicitation, no document was released on this matter.63 LULAC leaders from Northern California, Regino Montes and Rachel Arce, telegrammed. Clarence Kelly, FBI Director, on August 20, 1973 demanding FBI investigate the escalating violence directed at Cesar Chavez and members of his farm worker union. No response to this urgent call for assistance was found in the released documents. In 1974, another huge scandal broke involving LULAC among others named in a 5-page memorandum dated May 9th, from Henry S. Ruth, Jr. with the Watergate Special Prosecutor Force to FBI Director Clarence M. Kelley. Ruth was asking the FBI to investigate specific federal election law violations reported involving contracts and money donations made to or solicited by people working to re-elect President



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Nixon and listed them by name: William Marumoto, Antonio Rodriguez, Benjamin Fernandez, Henry Ramirez, and Alexandro Armendariz (pp. 1–2) and a private sector New York businessman, Charles Wallace (p. 1). A list of recipients of government funds begins on page 2 thru 4 which by inference are being solicited to also work for the re-election of President Nixon, Juan Gutierrez of Inter-American Research Associates; Manuel Calderon of AMEX Civil Systems; unknown person of CPI, Associates; Pete Olivarez of Western Economic Development Corporation; Herman Gallegos of Human Development Corporation; unknown person of Spanish Economic Enterprises Developments; Osvodo Vega of Hispanic Baseball Association; Willie Vasquez of La Casa Comun; Albert Trevino of Urban Interface Corporation; L.R. Gutierrez of Professional Placement Services; Bob Mariscal of Mariscal and Associates; Nick Reyes of Nick Reyes and Associates, Joseph Suarez of American G.I. Forum; Pete Villa of LULAC; Marcellino Miyarez of OMAR and others were unknown or identified only by name such as Gilda Gjurich of Los Angeles and Chicano Builder Consortium of San Antonio, Texas. Those who received money but were working for McGovern such as the Mexican American Unity Council in San Antonio and Urban Tech in Dallas, Texas were also listed (pp. 3–4). Jose Gomez of the National Economic Development Association (NEDA) was singled out for an interview over missing funds from a fund raiser in Chicago on behalf of the National Hispanic Finance Committee, arm of the Committee to Re-Elect the President (p. 4) and also Claudio Arenas, a University of Texas professor and president of Urban Research Group, Inc. who is alleged to have given cash money to two White House employees, Marumoto and Antonio Rodriguez upon the solicitation by Richard Delgado of San Antonio and chair of the Texas chapter of the National Hispanic Finance committee (p. 5). The last entry was a request for the Bureau to investigate Ultrasystems, Inc. in California who was not qualified for a government contract but was being recommended for a Small Business Administration Section 8 grant despite its unqualification (p. 5). The following year, Joe R. Benites, National President of LULAC, by letter dated September 25, 1974 invited Director Kelley to meet with their Supreme Council the next month, October 10–12, 1974 at the local Ramada Inn in D.C. Director Kelly responded to Ed Pena declining this invitation on October 4, 1974 and promised “the FBI shall endeavor to have a representative to attend your next national convention.” LULAC National President Joe R. Benites again invited the FBI Director, Clarence Kelley, by letter dated April 26, 1975 to its annual convention to be held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on June 25th–29th. Director Kelley responded on May 15, 1975 by letter accepting the invitation and informing Benites he was sending the FBI’s Deputy Equal Employment Opportunity Officer and Spanish-Speaking Program Coordinator,

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Special Agent Julian W. De la Rosa as the FBI’s representative. Internally the FBI’s top administrators exchange notes on the Benites invitation. S.R. Burns sent a memo on May 12, 1975 to “Mr. Walsh” indicating that Special Agent De la Rosa had also been designated to attend a national convention of IMAGE the following May 21–25 in Kansas City, Missouri. Burns reported to Walsh that past invitations to such gatherings had been most productive. In another 3-page memo dated March 31, 1977 from S.R. Burns to “Mr. Long” he proposes that “FBI representatives attend selected national conventions and conferences of major minority and women’s organizations.” He listed some black and brown organizations including LULAC and a woman’s group with addresses (pp. 2–3). The proposal was approved if the handwritten note “Approved” on the cover page is any indication. It became a regular FBI activity to attend such events. Director Gil Pompa of the Community Relations Service (CRS) of the DOJ took this initiative a step further, he co-sponsored some events with LULAC and other groups such as the National Urban League. In his November 29, 1979 letter to new FBI Director, William H. Webster, CRS Director Pompa invited him to join him at the head table of a conference to be held in Silver Spring, Maryland, a D.C. suburb, at which many minority, Black and Hispanic law enforcement officials would be present. No response was included in files released to this invitation. The last of the documents released was from SAC, Phoenix to the Director, FBI on August 6, 1979 consisting of a 3-page file. The allegation raised in this memo was based on a complaint filed by [name redacted] member of LULAC against the Abrazar Project. The complainant claimed funds, $675,000, from the Department of Health Education and Welfare were being fraudulently used and provided examples (p. 1). The matter was not investigated by the FBI, declining “until such time as the County Attorney Office finished with their case” (p. 2). This may be a fitting item with which to close the chapter on surveillance of LULAC. The FBI surveilled LULAC since 1941, perhaps earlier, until this memo of 1979, perhaps longer. The FBI was interested in investigating LULAC and its activities related to subversive and communistic endeavors; none were ever found. In 2019, LULAC celebrated its 50th anniversary as the oldest Chicano civil rights organization. While LULAC has not engaged in any criminal endeavor, treason against the state, fraud against the IRS, or any other subversive activity, the FBI kept a watchful eye for decades, just in case. LULAC members and leaders have protested with others, from time to time, against U.S. policy, particularly immigration in the decades of the 2000s and into the 2010s. Most notably, LULAC typically is the plaintiff on civil rights cases of importance, the most recent have been against the State of Texas and voter suppression. Both protest and litigation are signs of dissent and un-Americanism to the FBI, historically.



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On the other hand, the FBI has not been interested in doing any investigations of LULAC complaints regardless if it was for allegations of money fraud or any other violation of federal laws they consistently have reported to the FBI. NOTES   1.  Colin M. MacLachlan, Anarchism and the Mexican Revolution: The Political Trials of Ricardo Flores Magon in the United States, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.   2.  TIME, The John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress, “How Mexican Immigration to the U.S. Has Evolved Over Time,” March 12, 2015, https:// time,com/3742067/history-mexican-immigration/ Accessed November 7, 2019.   3.  Francisco Balderrama and Raymond Rodriguez, Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995, revised 2006. Semantics and definitions do matter. Repatriation is a voluntary act; most Mexicans were rounded up and involuntarily deported.  4. Vincent J. Cannato, American Passage: The History of Ellis Island, New York: Perennial Books, 2010.   5.  Matt S. Meier and Feliciano Ribera, Mexican Americans/American Mexicans: From Conquistadors to Chicanos, New York; Hill and Wang, 1972, 35 for a map indicating the Mexican land lost to Texas and later the U.S. It does not show the loss of Florida which occurred earlier under the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819 when it was under Spanish rule.   6.  Richard Griswold del Castillo, The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995 details the content of the terms of the treaty with analysis.  7. The Decline of the Californios: A Social History of the Spanish-speaking Californios, 1846–1890, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1971, 43, 130. A LULAC website in the link to History claims 77,000 Mexicans remained in the Southwest, https://lulac.org/about/history/ Accessed January 31, 2019.   8.  LULAC website cited above.   9.  Meier and Ribera, Mexicans Americans, 61. 10.  Armando C. Alonzo, Tejano Legacy: Rancheros and Settlers in South Texas, 1734-1910, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1998. 11.  A controversy continues within LULAC and historians over who and when first started the organization. In the work by Adela Sloss-Vento, Alonso S. Perales: His Struggles for the Rights of Mexican Americans, San Antonio: Artes Graficas, 1977, she claims it was Perales who first partially had the name, League of Latin Americans, without Citizen or United. Perales with Jose Luz Saenz and Jose Tomas Canales formed such a group in Harlingen on August 20, 1927. The missing words were added in Corpus Christi two years later at the 1929 meeting. Perales himself in his work, En Defensa de Mi Raza, Volume 2, San Antonio: Artes Graficas, 1937, 101

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so states. Benjamin Marquez, a contemporary scholar, in LULAC: The Evolution of a Mexican American Political Organization, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993, 1, 15–38, does not even credit the early work done by Perales; instead he credits the work of Ben Garza for reaching the compromise in working to make LULAC in 1929. 12.  Records for the Alianza Hispano Americana for the years 1894-1984 are in 134 boxes at Arizona State University, Special Collections Library, Tempe, Arizona, www.azarchivesonline.org/xtf/view?docId=ead/asu/alianza.xml/ 13.  William D. Carrigan and Clive Webb, Forgotten Dead: Mob Violence against Mexicans in the U.S., 1848–1928, New York: Oxford University Press, 2013; and, Nicolas Villanueva, Jr., The Lynching of Mexicans in the Texas Borderlands, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2017. 14.  Democratic Renewal and the Mutual Aid Legacy of US Mexicans, College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 2014, 28. 15.  O. Douglas Weeks, “The League of United Latin-American Citizens: A TexasMexican Civic Organization,” The Southwestern Political and Social Science Quarterly, (December 1929), Vol. X, No.3, 257–278. 16. There has been an English-Only movement in the U.S. for decades. Two thirds of the states are needed to amend the U.S. Constitution to make English the compulsory language for education and business.6 more states are needed to reach that number as of November 2019. 17.  Moises Sandoval, “The First Fifty Years: Community Leadership Hal Century, 1929–1979,” 20, www.lulac.org/ 18.  Sandoval, The First Fifty Years, 1–32, www.lulac.org/ 19. Sloss-Vento, Alonso Perales, 19–22, points out the Alonso Perales was out of the country in 1929 having been named Special envoy by President Calvin Coolidge to Cuba and Nicaragua until 1930. He left his organization in the hands of Ben Garza. 20.  LULAC website cited above with link to history in endnote 7. 21.  José Angel Gutiérrez, Albert A. Peña, Jr.: Dean of Chicano Politics, E. Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2017, 3,113–114. 22. Charles Gonzalez, “Equality, justice for all was my father’s mission,” San Antonio Express, May 2, 2016, F1. This seat is now held by Joaquin Castro, born in San Antonio, Texas but whose mother, Rosie Castro was a member and candidate for public office under the Raza Unida Party in that city, and whose grandmother was a Mexican immigrant as were these others mentioned. 23.  Biographies are in Hispanic Americans in Congress, U.S. House of Representatives, 1822–2012, Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2013. 24.  No author, FamPeople.com, Raúl Héctor Castro: biography,” https://fampeople .com/cat-raul-hector-castro/ Accessed November 8, 2019. 25.  Sandoval, “The First Fifty Years,” 11, 14–16. 26.  Weeks, “The League,” 257. The Weeks papers from 1928 to 1965 are archived at the Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas-Austin and the LULAC papers which also have some material from Weeks are archived at the Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas-Austin. 27.  Ibid., 257–259. 28.  Ibid., 259.



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29.  Ibid., 259–260. 30.  Ibid., 269. 31.  Cynthia E. Orozco, “Ladies LULAC,” https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online /articles/wel06/ Accessed November 8, 2019. 32.  Weeks, “The League,” 264–266, listed 25 such “Aims and Purposes of This Organization Shall Be:” items under Article II of constitution adopted in 1929. 33.  Joan M. Jensen, Army Surveillance in America, 1775–1980, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991. In Chapter Six, “The Mexican Border: Bringing Intelligence Home,” 111–136, she presents a comprehensive historical review of this activity. 34. Steven T. Ross, American War Plans, 1890–1939, New York: Frank Cass Publishers, 2002. 35.  Jensen, Army, 121. 36.  Ibid., 124–125. 37.  Ibid., 125. 38.  Ibid. 129. The War College had been formed during the tenure of Pres. Theodore Roosevelt by then Secretary of War Elihu Root. President Roosevelt issued General Order 155 establishing the entity on November 27, 1901. 39. Miguel Antonio Levario, Militarizing the Border: When Mexicans Became the Enemy, (College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 2012, p. 89. Timothy J. Dunn in his work, The Militarization of the U.S.-Mexico Border, 1978–1992: Low Intensity Conflict Doctrine Comes Home, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996) makes the case that this militarization has always been and continues to be. 40.  Jensen, 127–128. 41.  Ibid. 127. 42.  The classic study on this telegram was done by Barbara W. Tuchman, The Zimmerman Telegram, (New York: Viking Press, 1958; then with Macmillan Press, 1966; and, Bantam Books also with Macmillan in 1971. 43.  Ibid. 131. 44.  Marc Becker, The FBI in Latin America: The Ecuador Files, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2017) 8. 45.  Ibid., 2. 46.  MED is the acronym for Manhattan Engineering District, a part of the Atomic Energy Commission begun during WWII. 47.  FEPC is acronym for Pres. F.D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 8802 creating the Fair Employment Practices Commission to prevent discrimination in government contracting, unions, and services related to the impending war effort in 1941. 48.  LULAC had been active in South Texas, particularly, since 1929 but the G.I. Forum was organized in 1948 to protest by a Three Rivers, Texas, white-owned, funeral home to hold a wake service for a WWII veteran, Felix Longoria. The organizer of this new group was a medical doctor and former U.S. Army captain, Hector P. Garcia from Corpus Christi, Texas. The name of this group today is American G.I. Forum. See Patrick Carroll, Felix Longoria’s Wake, Bereavement, Racism, and the Rise of Mexican American Activism. Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 2003, for the history of this organization and event in Three Rivers, Texas. See also a video documentary

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by the name of “The Longoria Affair” produced by John Valadez, a Michigan State University media professor. 49.  Thomas H. Kreneck in Mexican American Odyssey: Felix Tijerina, Entrepreneur and Civil Leader, 1905–1965, (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2001) devotes Chapter 7, 171–191 to this issue and concluded that his research indicates Tijerina was not a U.S. citizen, but the Federal District Judge hearing the case ruled in his favor on the authenticity of the documents on file. Tijerina is credited that while he was National President of LULAC in 1956 and served four consecutive terms created the project “The Little School of 400” which was most successful in retaining and promoting Mexican kids in the public schools; later it became the model for Head Start in the nation. Moises Sandoval in his monograph on LULAC in The First Fifty Years, discusses this project, 41–43. 50. Kreneck, Mexican American Odyssey, 187. 51. Kreneck, Mexican American Odyssey, 189. 52.  Mexican American Odyssey, 190–191. 53. “Latin-American Group Convenes at Anaheim,” The Los Angeles Times, July 5, 1963, p. I–19. For a treatment of this complete electoral victory see John S. Shockley, Chicano Revolt in a Texas Town, (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1974). 54.  Vol. XLVL, no. 9. (September 1967): 39–50. 55.  Section D, 1. 56. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Quarterly, the Civil Rights Digest, Spring 1968 published a history of exclusion from such hearings and update on the Chicano Movement. Armando Rendon was the Associate Editor at the time. Several years later, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights published their findings on one of the areas of the San Antonio hearings and made it the title of the 135-page report, Mexican Americans and the Administration of Justice in the Southwest: A Report of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1970). In December 2018 a 50th year commemoration of the San Antonio hearing was held on the same campus of the college now a university. 57. Michelle Hall Kells, Vicente Ximenes, LBJ’s Great Society, and Mexican American Civil Rights Rhetoric, (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2018, 206–214). 58.  AP wire story from San Juan, Puerto Rico, “Hoover Tells Puerto Ricans Words Not Critical,” December 27, 1970, 31. 59.  The New York Times, December 19, 1970, 15. 60.  Under the forms of local government of Texas cities is the Commission form which designates what areas of local government each Alderman will supervise. It is not a City Manager and Council form or Strong Mayor form. 61.  August/September issue, 1971, 1. 62.  “Chicanos: Decade of Their Discontent,” November 8, 1971, B-1. 63.  Hoover passed away on May 2, 1972 after 48 years at the helm of the FBI. His top aide, Clyde Tolson, took over for one day, then L. Patrick Gray, III served from May 3, 1972 to April 27, 1973 and was followed by William Ruckelshaus until July 9, 1973 and then Clarence M. Kelly to February 15, 1978.

Chapter Seven

The Young Citizens for Community Action (YCCA) aka Brown Berets

In the late 1960s between 1966 and 1969, Chicano students across the country sponsored and held community meetings to discuss issues and offer solutions to their problems in the barrios and cities where they lived. In Texas, those affiliated with the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) held oneday Chicano Issue Summits.1 These were youth seeking to find their way in the world by formulating a social justice agenda.2 In Denver, those affiliated with the Crusade for Justice held weekend gatherings for Chicano youth under the name of Chicano Liberation Youth Conferences.3 In Los Angeles, the County Commission on Human Relations Council held a three-day Chicano Student Conference in April 1966 at which Chicano teenagers and their parents and other adults met to discuss gangs and school desertion by Chicano students.4 At about the same time, Richard Alatorre then a staff member of the Los Angeles Community Services Program proposed David Sanchez for a seat on the Mayor’s Youth Council. David Sanchez writes I felt uneasy in [Los Angeles Mayor Samuel] Yorty’s office. I had to remind myself that I was trying to learn and do something for my people by working within the system. Because white liberals and many blacks liked me, they tried to encourage me with support. As the ‘good boy’ within city government, I was eventually elected President of the Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council . . .White bitterly resented me! More than one hundred and fifty people from the ‘Young Americans for Freedom’ came to the Mayor’s office to throw me out of office. However, the parliamentarian of the organization, Moctezuma Esparza, advised me of the legal procedures that would insure my position . . . I continued to hold the office.5

Several of the Chicano youth attending either the County initiative or the Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council ended up meeting each other at Camp Hess 191

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Kramer. The camp, north of Los Angeles overlooking the Pacific Ocean, was an ideal retreat location and utilized by many to host youth during summer breaks, especially a high school teacher Sal Castro from Lincoln High School, who had been volunteering at Camp Hess Kramer since 1963.6 Many of those who had formed the Young Citizens for Community Action (YCCA) in 1965 had been among the first attendees or staffers at Camp Hess Kramer in 1963, such as David Sanchez, Vickie Castro, Rachel Ochoa, Jorge Licon, Gloria Arellanes, and Ralph Ramirez. In 1965, Victoria “Vickie” M. Castro was the first president of the YCCA while she was a graduating senior at Roosevelt High School.7 While there they met Sal Castro, a teacher. After a few meetings of the county commission council, Sanchez became the chair of this council.8 This latter event developed into the YCCA led by Vickie Castro and later by David Sanchez.9 Within a year, however, the group dropped the word “Citizen” from their name and inserted “Chicanos” to reflect their ethnicity.10 They began meeting in the basement of the Episcopal Church in Lincoln Heights where John B. Luce was the pastor.11 Carlos Montes, a youth center director from East Los Angeles, heard and read about the YCCA, sought them out, and joined the group in forming the Brown Berets. He became the Minister of Defense for the Brown Berets. The group became nationally known as the Brown Berets (Boinas Café in Spanish) with chapters in various states in the Southwest, Midwest, and in Oregon and Seattle, Washington. The name Boinas Café came from the community who saw these young people wearing the brown colored beret Sanchez had bought. He saw the items at an Army surplus store and thought the militaristic look would suit them. Perhaps the name came from the Belgian United Nations Command (BUNC) also known as the Belgian Volunteer Corps for Korea that went by the name “Brown Berets.” This Belgian unit wore such berets, brown in color, and served in Korea with distinction during 1951 through August 1955.12 Another notion of the beret origins is that Sanchez emulated the Black Panthers active then in Oakland, California, but they wore black berets. Joining Sanchez in founding the Brown Berets were Carlos Montes, Ralph Ramirez, Moctesuma Esparza, and Fred Lopez. Vickie left the group in 1967 before they were known as Brown Berets “because of growing conflict with David Sanchez.”13 Carlos Montes explains the development of the Brown Berets in this manner: We evolved from a youth group—from Young Citizens for Community Action, to Young Chicanos for Community Action to the Brown Berets. We evolved from civic participation and assimilation to revolutionary nationalism. The brown beret was a symbol of our culture, race and history. It also symbolized our anger and militancy and fight against the long history of injustice against the Chican@ people in the U.S., especially the Southwest. We claimed the



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Southwest as Aztlan, the original homeland of the indigenous Aztec ancestors and founders of Mexico City, Tenochtitlan. We were from poor working-class families growing up with the racism and police abuse.14

LA PIRANYA COFFEE HOUSE David Sanchez, as leader of the Brown Berets (BB), wrote a grant seeking one-year funding for a meeting place he envisioned as a teenager hangout to keep his recruits and other youth out of the eye of the Los Angeles police and trouble. Once funded in late 1967, the Brown Berets opened a coffee house, La Piranya.15 The group began publishing a barrio newspaper called La Causa.16 Gloria Arellanes and her girlfriends dropped into La Piranya one evening and stayed on becoming members. She and David Sanchez’s sister, Arlene, began recruiting other women such as Elena and Yolanda Soliz, Hilda and Grace Reyes, and Lorraine Escalante, daughter of Alicia Escalante, head of the East L.A. Welfare Rights Organization, and her younger brother Bill.17 It was Gloria Arellanes who ultimately ran the newspaper, health clinic, and breakfast program. A breakfast program was opened by the BB to feed barrio children going to school without a meal.18 Angelica Maria Yanez in her dissertation makes several comparisons between the Black Panthers and the Brown Berets.19 The breakfast program, for example, mirrored that of the Oakland, California Black Panthers (BBP) in 1969, the Black Panther’s Free Breakfast for School Children Program. The BBP offered a free breakfast before school beginning at an Episcopal Church in Oakland. The menu was short: fresh oranges, milk (white or chocolate), cereal, some meats. The BBP program spread across the country until 1969. Hoover thought the free food offered by the BBP was potentially the greatest threat to efforts by authorities to neutralize the BPP and destroy what it stood for. He instructed his agents to destroy the programs. And, destroy they did by going door-todoor in cities, like Richmond, Virginia and telling parents the BBP would teach their children racism and that the food had infectious venereal disease. In Chicago, the police raided the church, mashed the food, and urinated on it. In Oakland and Baltimore, the police raided the locations and in front of terrified children harassed the BBP and photographed the children. For that matter, the BB’s police patrols in East Los Angeles also mirrored that of the BBP in Oakland neighborhoods started in 1966.20 The BB first picketed the Los Angeles Police Department around December 4, 1967 for two hours then moved on to the Sheriff’s Department for another two-hour picket, all the while the 10 boys and 3 girls picketing wore their brown berets.21

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The BB, according to Correa, wanted to “represent a clean-cut, revolutionary, cultural-nationalist, significantly different from the violent gang subculture in their neighborhoods. Most importantly, they wanted to serve and protect their communities.”22 These words became the BB motto: “To Serve Observe and Protect.”23 The BB also produced a written statement of beliefs, values, and action which became known as the Ten Point Program. The last one, Number 10, states: “We demand the right to keep and bear arms to defend our communities against racist police, as guaranteed under the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.”24 The questions of armed struggle and use of violence haunted the BB during their brief existence. On the one hand, Sanchez wanted to espouse non-violence to counter police violence. In 2010 in an interview utilizing hindsight, Sanchez said, The locos (crazy street guys) in the barrio thought we should use violence. Still, we taught that learning non-violence would keep us safe from spending all of our time going to court and jail. We had to deal with extremists from the right and left; polarization was always a concern.25

During the expedition through Aztlan march, as explained below, Sanchez and the BB were constantly plagued with members, supporters, opponents, and police accusing them of being in possession of weapons and seeking to thwart them from proceeding to their next destination. THE EAST LOS ANGELES SCHOOL WALKOUTS Between March 1 and 7, 1968 more than 10,300 Chicano students walked out of classes at five East Los Angeles high schools: Garfield, Wilson, Belmont, Lincoln, and Roosevelt. They were protesting the years of inferior education resulting in the highest drop-out rate in the city of over fifty percent. The Brown Berets provided security for the protesters by trying to keep the police from assaulting them with their batons, fists, flashlights, and hand phones. Within months on June 9th, twelve of the BBs, including Sanchez, and Lincoln High School teacher Sal Castro, were indicted by the Grand Jury for Los Angeles County on charges filed by District Attorney Evelle J. Younger. In October 1968, thirty-five more persons, parents, students, and more Brown Berets, were arrested and jailed for conducting a “sit-in” protesting the teaching suspension of Sal Castro at the Los Angeles City Board of Education meeting.26 Sanchez knew it was police harassment. He writes



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I was arrested several times on false charges. The cases were always dropped once I arrived in court. The arrests were obviously nothing more than police efforts to stop our movement . . . I was forced to spend seven days in jail and later learned the case was dropped because the court had arrested the wrong David Sanchez.27

On the 5th of May 1971, the Brown Berets also decided to launch a 1,000mile march from Calexico to Sacramento which they named “La Marcha de la Reconquista” (The March to Reconquer).28 After five days of protest at the state capitol, the BBs decided to march across the Southwest and into the Midwest.29 On August 21, 1971 the group headed toward Phoenix and into New Mexico, Oklahoma, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Colorado, and Texas before returning and attempting to reclaim Catalina Island off the coast of Los Angeles. David Sanchez went on to an academic career and placed his papers with the Chicano Studies Research Center at the University of California, Los Angeles.30 He also founded the Mexican American University, an online and correspondence degree program.31 Only Carlos Montes of the original founders remains active at this writing and the target of continued police harassment and jailing on trumped up charges, according to his statements in a recent interview.32 Richard Valdemar, a police agent for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, infiltrated the Brown Berets beginning in 1969. He became a squad leader for the Brown Berets from the Harbor area.33 Another informant, Lt. Fernando Sumaya of the LA Police Department, named Carlos Montes, Moctesuma Esparaza, Ralph Ramirez, and five others as responsible for the fires at the Biltmore Hotel.34 The District Attorney based his case on Sumaya’s testimony and lost. The jury believed Carlos Montes’ version of the story that Sumaya, the provocateur, was the instigator of setting the fires at the Biltmore, not the Brown Berets. Carlos Montes, though, before acquittal left the United States for Juarez, Mexico, his birthplace, fearing for his life. Sergeant Jose Ceballos of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Intelligence Division (PDID) repeatedly had threatened his life.35 Montes stayed underground for several years returning to the Los Angeles area only to be arrested in May 1977 to be tried again for old charges and jumping bail. He was acquitted on those charges and the ones pending for his role in the walkouts of 1968.36 Undaunted and unintimidated he has continued his activism to this writing. FBI FILES: 105-178715 CHANGED TO 105-214938 The material relied on for this chapter is from FBI files obtained in 1982.37 Various other sources have shared or provided access to what they had.38

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These files on the Brown Berets begin with a one-page Airtel from the FBI Director to the SAC, Los Angeles dated March 5, 1968 with internal copies sent to “Mr. Sullivan (Attention: Mr. Mignosa Room 606-9th & D) and Mr. Trimbach” and a copy to the FBI office in San Diego. U.S. Army Intelligence had sent Hoover a communication, which was not attached to this Airtel, that is summarized this way in the Hoover memo: As shown in the enclosure, the subjects, who were arrested 2/25/68 in East Los Angeles by local authorities, allegedly were in possession of a machine gun stolen from Camp Pendleton, California. Allegedly, subject [name redacted] claims to be the leader of a Mexican-American Nationalists Organization called “The Brown Berets.”

The content immediately suggests two blatant falsehoods: 1. To use the name Brown Berets in the content indicates the FBI already had notice, perhaps files, on the organization and leadership prior to February 1968; and, 2. stating that one of the suspects charged with theft of government property identified himself as the leader of the Brown Berets. The Subject heading’s first two lines are redacted and only the last two are clear: “‘The Brown Berets’ Theft of Government Property; IS-Mexico.” Promptly, secure Bureau’s TGP interests and furnish Bureau information concerning “The Brown Berets.” Handle promptly and Suairtel. NOTE: This has been coordinated with the Latin-American Section who advises that “The Brown Berets” is apparently a new organization.

Airtels begin to cross the country from the SAC, Los Angeles back to Hoover’s office in D.C. and back to Los Angeles on the newly discovered Brown Berets. On March 7th, the SAC, Los Angeles sent Hoover an Airtel with a Letterhead Memorandum (LHM) with new information about school walkouts he termed “Youth Disturbances” which had occurred the day before in two of the city’s eastside high schools. The 6-page LHM detailed the walkouts by Chicano students at Lincoln and Roosevelt High Schools. The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) responded with tactical squads to both disturbances (p. 1). Some property damage occurred while students marched around the school building to a nearby park and ultimately to the school board office at 1550 Norfolk Avenue in Los Angeles. Arrests were made of three protestors, and one police officer was hit and hurt by a thrown bottle. The LHM also reported that more walkouts had occurred March 5th at Garfield High School. At all three locations the protesting students had presented a list of demands to the school administrators which included better food, new library books, eliminate fencing and dress codes, and they wanted to be treated as adults (p. 2). More arrests were made at Garfield by the LAPD and



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the County Sheriff’s Office, Intelligence Unit, with these names redacted. The next day, March 6th, another arrest took place near Garfield High where students had gathered at the corner of Sixth and Woods Streets and marched across these streets to Atlantic Park. There, they were addressed by Phil Castruita, Mike de la Peña and Carlos Muñoz, students at Cal State College, and members of the United Mexican-American Students (UMAS) organization (p. 3). After the students were advised by these college students to be peaceful and lawful because they had every right to present their demands to school administrators, the police dispersed them. The LHM also reported that the Los Angeles County District Attorney had issued arrest warrants for three men identified as members of the Brown Berets. The names were redacted (p. 4). Another high school, Jefferson, identified in the LHM as a “predominantly Negro high school” joined in support of the Chicano student walkouts and they walked out of their classes only to be confronted by school administrators and ushered to the school football field and later the library. They also had a list of demands they wanted to present their principal, very similar to those presented by the Chicano students. A local parent leader of the United Parents Council who had been active in protests and demonstrations at another high school, Manual Arts, in October 1967 was kept away from the students by the police and school admininstrators during the day until 4 pm when she was allowed to visit the school principal. When she was allowed by the principal to visit with the students, by then in the library, she expressed her support for their issues and suggested they demonstrate at the school board office and left the high school. A complete paragraph of text on this page is redacted (p. 5). The LHM closes with a reference to media sources blaming the unrest on “outsiders known as the Brown Berets.” More redacted paragraphs are on this last page but for the list of military Intelligence Units of the Army, Navy, and Air Force being notified and copied on this report. At the bottom in handwriting is the notation that “This confirms information furnished orally to [name redacted] Interdivisional Information Unit on 3/6/68” (p. 6). THE STOLEN AR-15 FROM CAMP PENDLETON On March 8, 1968 a two-page Airtel from the Special Agent in Charge (SAC), Los Angeles (52-11746) to the Director, FBI opened the first salvo against the Brown Berets totally fabricated by the LAPD. The Airtel reported an incident of February 26, 1968 with the arrests of subjects in possession of an automatic weapon and filed in the Los Angeles FBI field office number 100-71172.

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The first suspect [name redacted] was interrogated as to being in possession of the automatic weapon, an AR-15, allegedly stolen from Camp Pendleton, California half a year earlier on July 20, 1967. The second suspect [name redacted] also interrogated denied knowledge of the weapon claiming he had received it from another person he only knew by his name. He did not know how the other person had obtained the automatic weapon. More importantly, he stressed during the interrogation that he had been in the LA County jail during the time the FBI and other police interrogators claimed it was stolen from Camp Pendleton. He denied being a member of the Brown Berets but admitted to knowing and being interested in the group (p. 1). The U.S. Assistant Attorney Michael A. Heuer declined prosecution in lieu of local authorities pursuing these charges (p. 2). A few days later, March 11th, the SAC, Los Angeles in his follow up Memorandum to the Director, FBI changed the subject caption of his FBI file to “Young Chicanos for Community Action, Aka Brown Berets IS-Mexican Americans.” The FBI investigation of the Brown Berets was to begin in earnest. The SAC, Los Angeles did not wait on the FBI Director to authorize his investigation of the Brown Berets. Chicano student school walkouts at five East Los Angeles High Schools caught his attention. On March 12, 1968 he began the first of a series of Airtels to the FBI Director providing information obtained from informants whose names were redacted in the pages and public source such as the Los Angeles Times. The 5-page report accompanying this first Airtel was disseminated to the local military agencies, the U.S. Secret Service, and the U.S. Attorney. The first page reports on Jefferson High School at 1319 East 41st Street being closed because “not enough teachers arrived to open the school.” Apparently, the teachers had heard of possible violence and chose to not report for duty. By 11 am the LAPD had assigned a group of men to twelve-hour shifts to be on stand-by basis not tactical alert. Jefferson school did not open that day. Over at Lincoln High School at 3501 North Broadway, a small demonstration took place by students opposing the students who had walkout of classes. There were no incidents reported at Lincoln. At Garfield High School, the Brown Berets were observed by the LAPD at 8am. They were ordered to disperse and instead went to Atlantic Park where approximately 50 young persons gathered. At Wilson High School eight hundred students walked out of classes. Some adults and few students were hanging around the school and were asked to leave. No arrests or violence occurred (p. 2). The Brown Berets held a meeting on March 10th with students at Banning Park who attended Banning High School in the Wilmington, Harbor area, of Los Angeles. The students attempted to walk out of classes the next day but were unable to because the administration locked the doors. No one could



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leave the building so the students sat in the bleachers in the gym. A fire was reported in the girls’ restroom that caused minimal damage. On the 11th, the Brown Berets that showed up at Banning High were arrested by LAPD. Their names are redacted (p. 3). Another group of 600 students at Venice High School also attempted to walk out of classes. LAPD unites were dispatched to the scene because rocks and bottles were being thrown toward the building. Several persons [names redacted] were arrested. The school principal agreed to a meeting with parents and students over their grievances for March 15th. The school board had had a special meeting the day of the walkouts, March 11th, at 3 pm to listen to the student complaints. The meeting room was crowded with 200 persons and an overflow area held another 200 or more persons. This meeting was noisy but not violent (p. 4). The SAC, Los Angeles reported the next day, March 12th, that his office was alert to disturbances dating a week earlier that occurred at two area high schools: Lincoln and Roosevelt. On the 15th, the SAC, Los Angeles again notified the FBI Director that informants, local military agencies, local police, and the U.S. Attorney were on alert to future disturbances at the two high schools mentioned. The local police and Sheriff’s department, however, were not concerned with continued disturbances given the lack of violence the past three days, March 13–15. But, the SAC, Los Angeles was not so sure given that the teacher, Sal Castro, was reported to his office as making speeches at student rallies and making appearances with the students. Some informants pegged Castro as an agitator. Three days later, March 15th, the SAC, Los Angeles sent another 2-page dispatch [with other pages withheld entirely] to Hoover on the walkouts. The focus of the report was Salvador Castro, the teacher.39 An informant [name redacted] claimed Castro was an agitator of the students and a leader of the March 6th Lincoln High School walkout. The FBI’s Hoover, however, was not attentive to the request on investigating the Brown Berets or the walkout; he wanted information on the stolen automatic weapon. He was upset at the San Diego FBI office and said as much in his response dated March 18, 1968 to the SAC, Los Angeles. Hoover sent Los Angeles a copy of his 2-page directive: San Diego advise of the circumstances of the theft of this weapon, including whether your office conducted investigation when the weapon was reported stolen on 7/20/67. If investigation was not initiated by your office when the theft was reported, furnish specific justification. San Diego advise why this weapon was not entered into NCIC [National Crime Information Center] when it was reported as stolen. The handling of this matter thus far by the Los Angeles and San Diego Offices leaves much to be desired. A new Mexican-American Nationalist

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organization, the “Brown Berets,” allegedly exists and two members of this organization were found to be in possession of a machine gun stolen from Camp Pendleton, California. (p. 1)

Hoover gave these two offices a deadline for a complete report on the matter to be submitted by March 28, 1968. SAC, San Diego responded to Hoover two days early on March 26th on the latest of his and his office accomplishments on this matter. The four-page LHM accompanying the report stated the character of the case as covering the period of February 28, 1968 to March 25, 1968 was changed from “Racial Matters” as the first category to “TGP; IS-Mexico” which means Theft of Government Property, Internal Security-Mexico. SAC, San Diego reported the rifle was recovered from LAPD and returned to the appropriate Marine Corps authority at Camp Pendleton (p. 1). The weapon was identified as listed by LAPD under serial number 341430 but SAC San Diego thought the correct number to be 541430 (p. 2). The SAC, San Diego explained that the soldier assigned the M-16 weapon with serial number 541430 had left it on his bedside on July 20,1967 “then left the area, and upon returning discovered someone had removed the rifle” (p. 3). The soldier “did not report the incident immediately as he did not believe the rifle was stolen . . . and on July 28, 1967, [his] Unit 3089 was transferred overseas.” The Los Angeles, SAC also chimed in with his own seven-page report, two pages of which were entirely withheld from release, dated the same 26th of March 1968. The SAC, Los Angeles also wanted to clear up his role in the matter of the missing or stolen M-16 to Hoover, the U.S. Attorney and the NISO, both in Los Angles. He sent copies of this report with the title of the case [redacted] but not the “Character: Theft of Government Property” to all these offices. In detail he repeated the basic information previously submitted on March 5th to FBI headquarters (ps. 1 and 2, plus Cover Page B and C). Those conducting the surveillance at 5338 East Olympic Boulevard, East Los Angeles, California from December 1967 to February 1968 deemed The Piranya Coffee House to be the headquarters of the Brown Berets. The FBI checked the local county records and found the permitting license issued by the County to the BB as of October 15, 1967. David Sanchez and Ralph Ramirez were the principals of the business. They also found that the coffee house “was condemned and closed by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office (LASCO) as of February 1968.” Perhaps, this is why there were no further meetings or activities observed at the coffee house since February 1968 (p. 3). However, the FBI agent reported that “the present headquarters for the Brown Berets is the basement of the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany, 2808 Altura Street, Los Angeles, California, Reverend JOHN B. LUCE, pastor. Known members of the Brown Berets have been visually observed entering



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and leaving the 2808 Altura Street address on a daily basis” (p. 4). According to this report, the identified “leaders of the Brown Berets as: DAVID SANCHEZ-Chairman FRED LOPEZ-Minister of Communications CARLOS MONTES- Minister of Public Relations RALPH RAMIREZ-Minister of Discipline.”40 During this month-long flurry of reports and LHMs to and from the SACs in San Diego and Los Angeles to Hoover in D.C., the request to investigate the BB made to W. C. Sullivan at FBI headquarters was under review by W. R. Wannall, then assistant to Sullivan, director of the Intelligence Division.41 On March 26, 1968 as the SAC reports are crossing each other in the mail, Raymond Wannall sent his two-page recommendation for approval of the investigation of the BB to Sullivan. Partially basing his recommendation on two huge lies “a separate investigation has revealed two of the members of the Brown Berets are allegedly in possession of a machine gun stolen from Camp Pendleton, California.” Then, he adds, “and it is further believed others may be armed for possible violent action in furtherance of the group’s objectives” (p. 1). Under the portion titled “OBSERVATIONS:” of this memorandum Wannall acknowledges that the BB were organized as a legitimate student organization but “has been seized by rabble rousing members of Mexican-American colony as a focal point for potential racial violence thereby posing a definite threat to the security of the country.” Then, closed with an echo harking back to the Hoover-mandated standing order on not embarrassing the FBI : It would appear Los Angeles should conduct this investigation but should do so within confines of existing Bureau instructions relative to investigations at institution of learning in order to preclude any embarrassment to the Bureau. (p. 2)

Embarrassment never came to the Bureau despite their false assumptions of the BB who were not in possession of a stolen machine gun, were not a student organization, nor affiliated with an educational institution of learning and were not armed. The Brown Berets could not afford weapons or ammunition. During the Marcha de la Reconquista one member sported a weapon, a bayonet clipped to his trouser belt.42 Hoover signed off on the authorization as well in a one-page communication to the SAC, Los Angeles the next day, March 27, 1968, but made special note that this “instant investigation has been changed to ‘IS-Spanish-American’ to facilitate routing at the Bureau.” Hoover wanted this investigation to proceed “to determine if activities of the group pose a threat to internal security of United States adequate for additional investigation.” He also wanted SAC, Los Angeles to Sulet [Subject letter sent to other FBI Special Agents or field office] identity of leaders of whose activities justify separate investigations by your office.”

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THE FULL INVESTIGATION BEGINS SAC, Los Angeles on April 17, 1968, based on a redacted informant source, further identified the leaders and some members of the Brown Berets. The eleven lines containing names are redacted with an additional four pages withheld entirely. Fortunately, this one-page memorandum was accompanied by four additional pages of an LHM report that provided more information on the FBI surveillance of the Brown Berets. This LHM was widely circulated among other FBI offices in Albuquerque, Phoenix, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and five copies going to the Bureau. It reported that “cases had been opened on all four officers of the Brown Berets and Reverend LUCE [landlord], all of whom are mentioned in instant report” (p. 1). The SAC, Los Angeles, assures all readers that “all sources (except any listed below) whose identities are concealed in referenced communication have furnished reliable information in the past” (p. 2). The report claims the BB formed in October 1967 in the Los Angeles east side, home to predominantly Mexican-Americans. “They acquired their name Brown Berets when they identified as a group wearing brown berets and khaki colored Army fatigue jackets with a purpose to focus on economic problems concerning MexicanAmericans” (p. -2- at bottom). Details on the legal incorporation of the group as Young Chicanos for Community Action (YCCA) is redacted, as are the Aims and Purposes of the organization. Why the FBI would consider this specific redacted information a national security issue is baseless. The next report sent to Hoover was by the SAC, San Diego dated April 22, 1968 and stating “the recovered M-!4 rifle, serial number 541430” is now in possession of the Los Angeles County Clerk and is to be returned to military authorities by the County Clerk. Somehow, the stolen weapon has gone from being described as a machine gun to an M-16 to an AR-15 to now an M-14 rifle in the course of three months. FIRST ARRESTS OF BROWN BERETS AND OTHERS Beginning in June 1968 the police power of the Los Angeles County District Attorney, Evelle J. Younger, in coordination with local police departments and the FBI, came into the public’s full view. The Los Angeles Times and Herald-Examiner, two of the major dailies of the metropolitan area, regularly carried the DA’s stories under the banner of sensational headlines. Copies and summaries of these open source stories were sent by SAC, Los Angeles to the FBI, Director. The first salvo was posted by the Herald-Examiner on June 1st under the huge headline of “BROWN BERET ARRESTS” in 64-point



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font, black and white bold print. The story reported that six Brown Berets “are in jail today following an undercover roundup of militants based on a secret Grand Jury probe of school unrest and demonstrations last March.” The charges were based on a “conspiracy to commit a disturbance (riot)” with individual bonds set at $12,500 each (p. A-1). Only five of those arrested were identified as being David Sanchez, José Angel Razo, Eliezer L. Risco, Moctesuma Esparza, and Gilberto Cruz Olmeda. The article also mentioned that a former policeman, Michael Hannon, now attorney was seeking to obtain their freedom on bond. Immediately on June 1st, the BB struck the police back. They picketed the LAPD’s Parker Center, according to the 4-page LHM report sent to Hoover on June 3rd. That day, 200 protestors gathered to show their support for those charged and arrested. The next day, June 2nd, they were joined by 500 more which held signs that read “Free Sal Castro” and “Inferior Education Caused the Walk-Outs” (p. 2). Fortunately, both the protestors and police used restraint and kept the picketing demonstration calm, orderly, and non-violent. Those in support of the Brown Berets participating in the Poor People’s Campaign (PPC) in Washington, D.C., organized a protest at the Department of Justice (DOJ) building. They were also pressuring those in charge of events of the PPC to march on the DOJ and protest the indictment and arrests of the BB in Los Angeles.43 The Domestic Intelligence Division sent an informative note to Hoover dated June 3rd, verifying the demonstration but omitting the BBs, by “elements of the Poor Peoples Campaign including Mexican-American individuals and American Indian participants from Resurrection City.” By June 3rd, the SAC, Los Angeles in a 20-page report sent more information to Hoover. The Los Angeles Times published a list of thirteen persons indicted, arrested, and some jailed. Carlos Montes and Ralph Luna Ramirez were still at large because they were participating in the Washington, D.C., Poor Peoples Campaign. The SAC, Los Angeles made the list a part of his report. He listed other names not previously mentioned: Frederic Bernard Lopez, Richard Vigil, Henry N. Gomez, Carlos Munoz, Jr., and Juan Patricio Sanchez (p. 19). The next day, June 4th, The Los Angeles Times announced that attorney Michael Hannon was successful in obtaining substantial reductions in bail amount for the BB (p. 20). Hannon convinced Superior Court Judge George Dell to reduce bail from the $12,500 each to $500 to $250 on eight defendants and to $1,000 for David John Sanchez. Everyone posted bail and were released.44 A week later, June 10th, SAC, Los Angeles is informing the Director by one-page enciphered teletype that according to the LAPD “this date all of the remaining thirteen under indictment have surrendered thermselves [sic] to Los Angeles Police Department except for [three lines redacted].” Two

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of these are “still in Washington, D.C.” He advised that warrants for their arrest have been forwarded to the Metropolitan Police in Washington, D.C. However, in view of “possible riot, the Metropolitan Police has not executed warrents [sic].” Some of the math on the actual number of those arrested is confusing. The first newspaper listed 13 arrested based on an undercover operation; this teletype also advised that all 13 had “surrendered,” but some are still at large in D.C. More incredulous is the Los Angeles County Attorney’s effort to have D.C. Metro police execute the warrants and extradite them across the country; they were only stopped because D.C. Metro police feared a “possible riot” if Montez and Ramirez were to be arrested in the midst of activity during the Poor People’s Campaign. Hoover was most agitated with these developments and the protests in front of the DOJ building. He fired off an Airtel dated June 4, 1968 to the SAC, Los Angeles demanding a full investigation on this new Chicano group, not more newspaper articles reporting on disturbances and arrests. More specifically, Hoover demanded: Details of the arrest of the members of the group, essentials of the indictments of those persons and full descriptions of the indicted members of the group in Washington, D.C. should have been available to your office well in advance of June 3, 1968 when the concrete plans for the demonstrations were made by the Poor Peoples Campaign in Washington.

By 2-page memorandum dated June 5th, W. Raymond Wannall of the FBI’s Domestic Intelligence Division responded to his superior, William Sullivan, faster than the SAC, Los Angeles reported back to Hoover with the needed information on the BB members. Wannall gave ample background on the organization’s membership estimating their ages “ranging from 17 to approximately 29” and “characterized principally as high school dropouts, dope addicts, militant racists and hoodlums” (p. 2). SAC, Los Angeles, however, corrected these vicious and inflammatory stereotypical descriptions of BB members in his June 10, 1968 3-page LHM to Hoover. He supplied job descriptions on several of the principal leaders of the Brown Berets: “Jose Angel Razo, Jr., 29, a Consultant for Economic Youth Opportunity Act; Moctesuma Esparza, 19, Spanish Instructor in the Overseas Training Program for technicians at the University of California, Los Angeles; and Gilberto Cruz Olmeda, 23, employee of Vista” (p. 2). On July 8, 1968, SAC, Los Angeles sent a single-page memorandum reporting that the two at-large BB members had returned to the Los Angeles area and been arrested on July 2nd. The date for the first court appearance of the group was set for July 16, 1968. In another subsequent one-page memorandum, SAC, Los Angeles reported to Hoover that a Brown Beret [name redacted] was sentenced to six months in



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jail on July 16th on charges of battery against police officers by Judge Norman R. Dowds. Previously on May 24, 1968, this judge had also sentenced to five years’ probation another BB member, age 22. This memo, however, despite knowing better had he read his own prior communications, repeated the charge that the BB were arrested back on February 25, 1968 during a gang fight and had a loaded machine gun. MEXICAN-AMERICAN MILITANCY: NEW COINTELPRO? The remaining months from late June to December 1968 are barely covered in the released files. There are huge gaps in time and 29 pages entirely redacted for this period. Earlier on November 29, 1982 the FBI notified me by two-page letter that 1, 211 pages on the Brown Berets based on “FOIPA no. 212, 224 (190- [sic]were reviewed and 377 pages were withheld in their entirety.”45 The material released does not provide much new information on the surveillance by the FBI or its consequences but for tidbits of discoveries. One such gem is a new category of subject matter revealed in two FBI files. An Airtel from SAC, San Diego to the Director, FBI dated September 9, 1968 used the title “Mexican-American Militancy IS-Spanish-American.” This new category perhaps is a new COINTELPRO operation launched by the FBI aimed at destroying the Chicano Movement. These scant Mexican American Militancy (MAM) files make no direct connection by reference or name with the Brown Berets except for visits by them to these campuses seeking support for Sal Castro, according to SD T-3 (p. 2). On the last page of this memo there is mention made of “(SD T-6, August 16, 1968)” previously not identified nor of a T-5, however, this informant elaborates on the Chicano Legal Defense Fund Committee created at a cocktail party [location redacted] with a $2 donation requested for “Sal Castro and other Mexican-Americans in Los Angeles allegedly illegally arrested in a struggle for real educational opportunities” (p. 4). A September 9th four-page FBI memo was circulated among military intelligence agencies, the Secret Service, and U.S. Attorney’s office in San Diego. The content of the memo was on “Identity of Informants SD T-1, SD T-2, SD T-3, RI-PROB (Ghetto) and SD T-4.” The letters “SD” identify the FBI office in San Diego while the numbers, in this case, 1, 2, 3 and 4 are to distinguish the informants all of whom are temporary. SD T-1, for example, could become SD T-4 in the next transmission. The meaning of the “RIPROB (Ghetto)” acronym or phrase cannot be found in my research.46 In the September 9th memo SD T-1 could have been the staff associate of “La Verdad” newspaper published by a student group, the Mexican American

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Youth Association (MAYA) in San Diego. SD T-1 could have been a student at Mesa College on June 21, 1968. The redacted material on this paragraph based on information supplied by SD T-1 makes for uncertainty as to identity. SD T-2 provided names (redacted) of those MAYA members who attended Mesa College and San Diego State College that “subscribed to the Peoples World, from at least January through June 1968” (p. 1). SD T-3 helped verify home addresses of those MAYA members [names redacted] being monitored by the FBI in San Diego. The verification was cross-checked with utility service records of the San Diego Gas and Electric Company. In a follow-up Airtel from SAC, San Diego to Director, FBI, dated October 17, 1968, the Mexican-American Militancy caption is used again. This memo accompanied by a two-page LHM reported on a teach-in being organized by MAYA at San Diego State College with participation of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Black Panther Party (BPP) and scheduled for October 20th, according to informant SD T-1, October 11, 1968. SD T-2 on October 15th informed the FBI, San Diego office that “leaflets regarding the ‘Teach-In’ were being passed out by MAYA members at the office of the Peace and Freedom Party, 5728 El Cajon Boulevard, San Diego, California” (p. 1). On October 18, 1968 by teletype the SAC, Sacramento notified the Director, FBI at 5:10 pm that the BBs had requested a permit to march in Porterville, California and were denied. The BBs announced they were going to march anyway. They were to be joined by Eldridge Cleaver of the Oakland Black Panthers. SAC, Sacramento reported to Hoover by two-page Airtel dated October 31st under the subject heading of “POSSIBLE RACIAL DISTURBANCE: BROWN BERET MARCH” that Cleaver never showed at the October 19th protest by 24 Brown Berets who gathered at Murray Park in Porterville. One dozen marched down on side of the main street of the sidewalk and the other dozen on the opposite sidewalk. Further down they joined ranks and entered the Frontier Club, played a game of pool, reassembled outside, march down a second block before they quietly disbanded and departed from Porterville. The march was completely orderly. There were no incidents. (p. 2)

In a concluding sentence of this report a redacted source opined that “the appearance of the Brown Berets at Porterville was apparently for the purpose of obtaining some publicity for the organization” (p. 2). Indeed, the Brown Berets had played the Porterville police and the FBI and gotten some publicity. To be sure, they created work for the local police and area FBI agents. This report and others during these months were circulated to local military intelligence units.



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On October 30, 1968, SAC, Los Angeles in a one-page memorandum reported to Hoover of a new BB chapter in Oxnard, California comprised of students from the University of California at Los Angeles: “Andres Herrera, age 22, Prime Minister, Robert Gonzales Flores, age 20, Minister of Public Record, and Armando Jesus Lopez, age 22, Prime Minister of Public Relations.” The group appeared before the Oxnard City Council and presented a petition protesting police tactics, calling for a police review board, and investigation into the police department by the California State Attorney General (p. 1). Subsequent reports from SAC, Los Angeles to FBI, Washington headquarters began to add Appendices to the memorandums and LHMs naming and describing other organizational contacts of the BB such as United Slaves (US), Los Angeles Committee for Defense of the Bill of Rights (LACDBR), Peace and Freedom (PFP), Peace Action Council (PAC) and the Alianza Federal De Mercedes (AFDM) aka Alianza Federal de Pueblos Libres (FAFCS). The FBI got the correct description of the Alianza group name as to which came first. The Alianza Federal de Mercedes was the name used during incorporation in October 1963, in English, the Federal Alliance of Spanish Land Grant Heirs (AFDM) and it was changed to Alianza Federal de Pueblos Libres, in English Federal Alliance of Free City States (FAFCS) on August 20, 1967. INFILTRATION OF THE BROWN BERETS AND USE OF INFORMANTS The SAC, Los Angeles 35-page [perhaps more pages not released and withheld] report marked “classified and confidential” to the Bureau covering the period October 11, 1968 to December 12, 1968 included a most damaging accusation based on informant information. The report based on snitch-data from “LA T-3 (9/24/68)” and “LA T-4 (9/26/68)” indicated BB members were going to be very busy the month of August almost all over the country. First, LA T-3 (9/24/68) provided information that earlier on September 6, 1968, eight BBs had gone into the San Bernardino mountains for target practice. The source provided names and the weapons they took with them. Obviously, if this information was correct, the BB had been completely compromised by FBI informants passing as members. LA T-4 (9/26/98), two days later, added more extensive information. The BB [names redacted] according to this source had traveled in a 1967 Volkswagen sedan license [numbers redacted] to Albuquerque on the 14th of August. The BB that owned a 1967 Volkswagen was Gloria Arellanes, now the Minister of Finance, the only woman in a top leadership role. She learned that a BB member involved

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since the walkouts was a police undercover agent, Robert Avila.47 No further mention was made of the nature of the visit to Albuquerque. A week later on August 22nd, two BBs [names redacted] traveled to Chicago and may have attended the Democratic National Convention. Remainder of an entire paragraph of information is redacted. The next day, August 23rd, the same source advised that two more BBs [names redacted] had left for Chicago’s Democratic National Convention. The most damaging part of this information provided by LA T-4, however, was that on the 29th of August, [Fifteen] BB attended the Los Angeles Board of Education meeting to protest the transfer of high school teacher, SAL CASTRO, because of his involvement in the school walkouts in March and his subsequent indictment by the Grand Jury . . . the BB originally planned to leave a live round of ammunition on the seats as they departed to intimidate the board; however, instead several rounds of .22 caliber and .32 caliber ammunition were tossed on the desk of one of the board members by one of the BB. (p. 15)

The declassified files are silent as to what actions the FBI took based on this information or it could be that these files are part of the 377 pages entirely withheld by the FBI from disclosure to the public. The 35-page report from October 11th also included many Appendices. One of these was a description of the Alianza which consisted of a brief history of the organizational names and activities of Reies Lopez Tijerina including the various arrests and charges stemming from his activities (p. 25). The Appendix on the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense Aka Black Panther Party begins with origins. “The Black Panther Party (BPP) was started in Oakland, California during December 1966 by Bobby George Seale, BPP Chairman, and Huey P. Newton, BPP Minister of Defenses.” Newton at the time was serving a prison sentence on a conviction of manslaughter of an Oakland police officer. “The official newspaper, ‘The Black Panther’ advocates the use of guns and guerrilla tactics in its revolutionary program to end oppression of the black people. Residents of the black community are urged to arm themselves against the police who are consistently referred to in the publication as ‘pigs’ who should be killed.” The description on the BPP included references to regular quotations in their newspaper citing Chairman Mao Tse-Tung of the People’s Republic of China. It listed the address for the national headquarters as 3016 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, California (p. 26) and at 1046 Peralta Street, Oakland, California (p. 28). The next Appendix was on LACDBR, the new name for the group defending the boys charged in the Sleepy Lagoon Case in 1942.48 The work of LACDBR is described as defending the foreign born as well as those seeking to avoid military service in the Armed Forces of the United States. Allegedly, LACDBR was comprised of 125 individuals from



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loosely organized area committees headed by Rose Chernin who also was the Organizational Secretary of the Moranda Smith Section of the Southern California District Communist Party (SCDCP) (pp. 27–28). The FBI information on the Peace Action Council (PAC) aka Greater Los Angeles Peace Action Council (GLAPAC) was reported in another Appendix and taken from an open source, the west coast communist newspaper, “The People’s World” dated November 5, 1966. Earlier in July 22, 1966, a source reported the larger group, GLAPAC, was formed early “summer 1966 to protest the National Governors Conference held in Los Angeles that July.” In April 1970, a second source confirmed the group was still in existence and continuing “to protest policies of Presidents Nixon and Johnson.” The PAC address was listed was 555 North Western Avenue in Los Angeles with a phone number of 462-8188 (p. 29). The Appendix on US is focused on, “Maulana Ron Karenga, true name Ronie [sic] McKinley Everett, Founder-Chairman of ‘US’, which published a booklet entitled ‘The Quotable Karenga.” According to the sources the FBI relied on to make this composite on Karenga, “he espoused violence and revolution; carried firearms, limited participation in US to only blacks,” and had “some 75–100 individuals involved with approximately 20 militant, hard-core members.” His headquarters was located at 7228 South Broadway in Los Angeles and his residence was at 9801 11th Avenue in Inglewood, California. US had an affiliate in San Diego (pp. 30–31). The last Appendix listed information on Prime Minister David Sanchez, his writings and arrests, including the entire text of the Brown Berets Ten Point Program (pp. 32–34). On the last day of 1968, the SAC, Los Angeles notified the FBI Director about determining if the Brown Berets should be included in the Security Index. Apparently, this discussion of inclusion of some BB members in the various Indexes of the FBI for subversives such as Security, Agitator or Reserve took several months to resolve. In a subsequent FBI 3-page LHM dated March 8, 1971, three years hence from 1968, from the SAC, Los Angeles to Hoover referenced: “Los Angeles report of SA [name redacted] dated 12/12/68” and listed six blocks of redacted material containing the names, perhaps as many as 12 or 14, of those being considered for inclusion in those Indexes (p. 2). The Appendices listed above also began to be made part of every transmission from Los Angeles and San Diego FBI offices to others, including many military intelligence units. The inclusion of these names “have been made or will be made upon conclusion of investigation” with one caveat: “UACB, cases will not be opened on all members of these new chapters unless they are in a leadership capacity or the chapter is determined to be extremist or militant in nature” (p. -C- Cover page, actually page 3). UACB means unless advised to the contrary by the Bureau.49

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On January 24th of the new year, 1969, the FBI director learned by teletype from the SAC, Los Angeles that twenty-five BBs were picketing the courthouse in Ventura County, California protesting the arrest of Robert Gene Estrada for burglary in the morning and then the Oxnard Police Department in the afternoon. SAC, Los Angeles followed up with an LHM to Hoover dated January 30, 1969 detailing the physical surveillance, FISUR in FBI language, by two SAs and local police, city and county, of some event which is not revealed in the subsequent pages, all are withheld. The only “news” reported by local newspapers on those days were the dismissals of three Sheriff’s deputies from LA county for beating and teargassing protesters during the Chicano Moratorium Committee march in East Los Angeles January 31st and the reassignment of teacher Sal Castro to a non-Mexican high school in North Hollywood. BB’S GOING NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL On December 1, 1969, SAC, Seattle informed the FBI Director by LHM that a Brown Beret chapter had been formed in Yakima, Washington, according to the weekly Open Source, the Yakima Valley Sun which he attached to his report. The leader was reported to be Al Meza from Granger, Washington and a photo in the weekly of the group identified two young women BB members as Michele and Maria Gonzales. The bottom half of this solo-page was redacted. Within the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. debate was ongoing between FBI officials at the top levels of administration given the names listed at the top right of a two-page memorandum by teletype: W.C. Sullivan, J.P. Mohr, Mr. Rosen, and Mr. Wannall, for example, from R. D. Cotter, Domestic Intelligence Division staffer to C. D. Brennan, Internal Security Section Chief, dated September 2, 1970. The subject matter was the National Chicano Moratorium protest held a week earlier in Los Angeles on August 29th. The Brown Berets were mentioned as centrally involved in the organizing and protest which resulted in “one hundred fifty-two arrests with twenty-five civilians, twenty-eight officers injured, and one death [Ruben Salazar]” (p. 1). In this internal memo, Cotter asked Brennan for information on this demonstration and any future demonstrations specifically in San Diego the next day, September 3rd. The SAC, Los Angeles, Wesley G. Grapp, called in advising that the A.G. was requesting a briefing at 8am so as to inform the President about any possible demonstrations while he met with his Mexican counterpart on the 3rd. The only demonstration Grapp knew about was a possible one by the Youth International Party (Yippies) who by press release issued in August



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26th stated they were going to protest the meeting of the Presidents in San Diego. This information was all they would brief the AG about. A handwritten note at the bottom left of the memo states: “Discussed with the Director and appened. WCS 4:05-9-2-70” (p. 2). No further information is in released files on this subject; however, an internal two-page memorandum from L. [Lionel] E. Belanger to W.R. Wannall dated October 20, 1970 characterized the Brown Berets “with main headquarters in the East Lost Angeles area” as being a “militant, violence-prone group of Mexican American youth.” The remainder of the first page is entirely redacted including at bottom a listing of eleven new FBI “105” files opened on individuals in the San Diego area with recommendation that “Cases should be opened on the above individuals at Seat of Government in order to follow investigations at San Diego” (p. 2). Hoover alerted H.R. Haldeman at the White House Situation Room and the Secret Service and A.G. by urgent coded teletype on October 24, 1970 that there was a proposed demonstration by the Brown Berets in the works against President Nixon when he visited Los Angeles. San Diego FBI by 2-page teletype dated February 20, 1971 reported to Hoover that “Shortly before noon, forty to forty-five persons of Mexican American descent gathered at Chicano Park, traveled in eight cars to the downtown area of San Diego, marched on the County jail carrying placards then over to the Courthouse. They dispersed at approximately one thirty pm” (p. 1). The leader of the Brown Beret group was “identified by the San Diego Police Department as Mike Navo. No arrests, no violence, no destruction of property, no confrontations with lawful authorities. Intelligence agencies of local law enforcement conducted discreet surveillance of demonstration” (p. 2). On two pages from the LA FBI office files, no. 100-71589, without date or any other identification or tied to a report are some tidbits of information on the Brown Beret chapters in San Bernardino as being inactive since March 1971 and “it does not now have a headquarters” (p. 3). “In April 28, 1972 a rally was held with the purpose to organize a BB chapter in Santa Paula” and “a new chapter was formed in early May 1972 in San Santa Maria. All other chapters previously reported in the Los Angeles area are now inactive” (p. 4). These two pages do have much redacted paragraphs. On March 8, 1971, a SA based in Los Angeles [name redacted] sent a 34-page report to Hoover with copies to the Secret Service in LA and his SAC. Fifteen pages from this report were withheld entirely. After the usual narrative on the history of the Young Chicanos for Community Action Aka Brown Berets and past history of confrontations with the LAPD police, the report advised that the BBs, according to the Los Angeles Times of June 16, 1969, had on “ May 31, 1969 with financial help from the Ford Foundation” opened a “facility offering free medical, social, and psychological services to

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Mexican-Americans with volunteer help of the professions” (p. 10). A protest with BB acting as monitors at Hollenbeck Park, Los Angeles was broken up by the LAPD when those protesting marched from the park to the nearby main police station at Parker Center. “[A]pproximately 35 arrests were made on charges ranging from malicious mischief to assault with a deadly weapon, including a battery on a police officer” (p. 16). Several withheld pages interrupt the flow of the report narrative but what appears to be a listing of BB chapters across the U.S.A. is provided. “California (continued)” has 29 names of cities and the California Rehabilitation Center; New Mexico has 3; Texas, Oregon, Arizona, and Washington each have 2; Minnesota, Missouri, Michigan, and Denver each have 1 (p. 20). And, 3 more entirely withheld pages follow so it is difficult to assume this partial listing of Brown Beret chapters is exhaustive. The remainder of pages of this report contain the usual Appendices on the Black Panthers, Reies Lopez Tijerina and the Alianza, the Ron Karenga group US, the Peace Action Council, and on the Ten Point Program of the Young Chicanos For Community Action (pp. 24 through 34). SAC, San Antonio alerted the FBI Director by two-page nitel on April 17, 1971 that Texas Rangers had advised his office that ten women and “some six to eight Brown Berets” were protesting and demanding the resignation of the Pharr, Texas police chief and one other police officer for their conduct on February 6th against peaceful protestors leading to one death.50 Allegedly the protestors’ lawyer, David Hall, stated “demonstration would be peaceful, and pickets would demonstrate every day until resignations submitted” (p. 2). Two days later, April 19th, the SAC, San Antonio informed the Director, FBI with a one-page memorandum that he had checked with “all informants and other logical sources in the San Antonio Division were canvassed for information concerning the extent of any Brown Berets activities between 3/17/71, and 4/8/71. All sources advised that they knew of no present Brown Beret activity anyplace in the San Antonio Division” (p. 1).51 The Albuquerque FBI Division office submitted a three-page LHM and six-page report to Hoover on the Brown Berets on April 28, 1971 covering the period between March 13th and April 27th. This report states, “It is noted the Brown Berets of New Mexico has been defunct since the spring of 1969” (cover page). Next follows an almost entire redacted page but for “This report is classified ‘CONDFIDENTIAL’ as it contains information received from sources of continuing value, the unauthorized disclosure of which could affect the national defense” (-B- cover page). The report begins with a denial of any Brown Beret chapters in New Mexico as reported by the “Los Angeles Brown Beret newspaper dated 12/10/70.” An unidentified Albuquerque newspaper dated “4/10/71, reported participation by Brown Berets in picketing of grocery store in Portales, New Mexico. However, Portales officials advise



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group not in existence, but a few young men do wear brown berets” (p. 1). The report included information by date and police department contacted to inquire about Brown Beret activity: “March 25, 1971, Albuquerque Police Department, Brown Berets no longer operating and had not been in existence for over a year”; March 25, 1971, New Mexico State Police, “no information concerning Brown Berets being currently in operation”; April 22, 1971, Espanola Police Department, “no organization of Brown Berets in Espanola, New Mexico”; April 22, 1971, Rio Arriba County, “no information concerning any Brown Berets in Rio Arriba County”; April 22, 1971, [name redacted] “no information had come to her attention indicating an organization of Brown Berets in Espanola, New Mexico”; April 23, 1971, District 7, New Mexico State Police, “no information there was an organization known as Brown Berets operating within his district”; March 18, 1971, Santa Fe Police Department, “they knew of no active Brown Beret Chapter in Santa Fe, New Mexico”; March 23, 1971, New Mexico State Police Intelligence Division, “no organization of Brown Berets in Santa Fe, New Mexico”; April 9, 1971, Roosevelt County Sheriff’s Office, Portales, New Mexico, “four or five of the young Spanish-Americans wore brown beret style hats on occasion but they were not organized and there were no officers, constitution, by-laws, or anything else to indicate a group”; and as last paragraph before the usual Appendices, “Other established sources . . . were unable to furnish any information concerning existence of any Brown Beret organizations in New Mexico” (pp. 2–3). The last Appendix on the Brown Berets of New Mexico (BBNM) reported that sources had advised the BB formed in New Mexico last August 16, 1968 over the police killing of a Spanish-American. The group wanted a police review board and the police officer dismissed immediately. That after the PPC in Washington, D.C. a young man, Gilberto Ballejos, claimed he was organizing a BB chapter in Albuquerque and held his first meetings at 1315 Bridge SW and later at his residence at 1313 Marble NW in Albuquerque. “A third source advised that on October 14, 1969, Ballejos stated the BBNM is no longer active and had not held any meetings since the spring of 1969” (p. 6). From the SAC, Minneapolis to the Director, FBI dated June 15, 1971 and in response to the LA, SAC report of March 8th, they inform by 2-page memorandum that [entire rest of first page is redacted] and that “No leftist elements in this area are currently showing an interest in the Brown Berets. In the event that a Brown Beret chapter is established in the Minneapolis Division, this case will be reopened (sic) and appropriate action taken” (p. 2). Back in FBI headquarters in D.C. Hoover began seeking links between the Brown Berets in California and its rapid spreading of chapters to other cities in the United States and the Puerto Rican Young Lords Party [FBI file no. 105-205390] with groups from New York to Chicago to international

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connections with the Red Panthers, a spin-off of the Baader-Meinhof Group in West Germany. Back on February 9, 1971, Hoover had sent a one-page Airtel, with the bottom half page entirely redacted, to his Legat in Bonn, Germany making inquiries on the Red Panthers and sending four additional pages as Appendices on “thumbnail sketches of the Young Lords Party and Young Chicanos for Community Action.” No reply from Germany is found in the released files about any links between Brown Berets to the Red Panther Party. Later in the year, September 30, 1971, SAC, Los Angeles informed the Director, FBI about a possible embarrassing situation to the Bureau. It seems that SAC, Los Angeles, based on information from two sources forwarded to the Director an FD-376 which is a form used to report activity by a person potentially dangerous to the President of the United States. Los Angeles also attached an LHM and a photograph of the subject forwarded to the Legat in Mexico City and the SAC, Albuquerque and the LA Secret Service office. The last sentence of this communication offers a vague clue as to the identity of the subject: The Los Angeles Division is not requesting authority to interview subject, inasmuch as it is felt an interview at this time could possibly result in embarrassment to the Bureau, since [name redacted] is connected to the news media.

The day before the 1,000-mile march by the Brown Berets across most of California, SAC, San Diego by Airtel dated May 4, 1971 to Hoover advised that Brown Berets had been part of a larger protest by members of Cesar E. Chavez Farm Workers Union at the Superior Court, Number 11 in San Diego on April 19th, according to The San Diego Evening Tribune. The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department corroborated the newspaper story that BBs were among those protesting. The last half of the page with this information is entirely redacted (p. 2). LA MARCHA DE LA RECONQUISTA These words above which David Sanchez translated into The Reconquest March are the heading for his Chapter Two in Expedition Through Aztlan.52 He conceived of a 1,000-mile march from Calexico on the California-Mexico border to Sacramento to get away from his problems with the LAPD. He writes about the constant police harassment of the Brown Berets: It became more obvious that the police were spending more money and energy to stop organizations from becoming effective. The police were confronting large peaceful demonstrations with violent police counter-demonstrations. The



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police were employing espionage tactics in their infiltrations designed to provoke internal conflict within Chicano organizations. The police tactfully set up and framed community organizations so as to discredit them before the eyes of the public. Traitors were occasionally discovered, but the majority of them were not. On several occasions, it was alleged that undercover LAPD officers would abet people to commit crimes so that the police would have “probable cause” to take action against an individual or group. It was savagely infuriating to realize that people were actually living off the money they were paid for their job to conspire against the poor!53

Sanchez and his family where he resided were also main targets. He was being jailed [E]very five months for miscellaneous reasons as a part of their effort to intimidate and harass me. The jailings were meant to be frustrating inconveniences. Each time, I was taken to jail, the charges were eventually dropped. It didn’t take me long to realize that I was not favorably looked upon by the police in east Los Angeles.54

He decided to travel and see where other Mexicans lived “in the southwest; to study the historical geography of the southwest and look at the current social, economic and political conditions of Mexican barrios.55 This amazing 1,000mile ordeal and effort was naively conjured by Sanchez as a two-fold strategy to counter the LAPD harassment. On the one hand, he was physically removing himself and the BBs from east Los Angeles for a while. And, on the other hand, he was going to use the march as an organizing tool to gather more support for his organization’s Ten-Point Program. Starting on May 5, 1971 from the central park in Calexico the BBs marched toward El Centro twelve miles away. That first night they had to drive to Mexicali [Mexico] “for supplies” noticing as they crossed El Centro, “Calexico and Mexicali that the shopping areas was cut in half by a barbed wire wall.”56 This may have been the first time Sanchez and his cohorts from east Los Angeles came face-toface with a border physically separating Mexicans. From there they walked, sometimes marched in military-fashion, back across to the LA outskirts, then back to center of the state toward the Capitol building where they planned on holding public rallies on the steps. Based on his writings the route they took after Calexico and El Centro was through these communities: Brawley-Calipatria-Niland-SaltonSea-Bombay Beach-Mecca-Thermal-Coachella-Indian Wells-Palm Springs-San Jacinto-Redlands-Colton-Casa BlancaCorona-Chino-Pomona-La Puente-Santa Fe Springs-El Monte-GabrielLos Angeles-Oxnard-Santa Paula-Piru-Bakersfield-McFarland-Tulare-Visalia-

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Dinuba-Parlier-Malaga-Fresno-Mendota-HighwayCity-Merced-Stockton-UCDavis (DQU)-Sacramento-Folsom Prison.57

Reviewing the narrative Sanchez wrote in his book to examine it for content analysis of problems encountered on the march these incidents were counted by category: Out of supplies-4; Out of gas-2; Police confrontations-5; Chicano thug confrontations-2; Anglo thug confrontations-3; Need for rental vehicles-5; Too much drinking-7; Illness-3; Physical violence (guns/knives)-3; Infiltrators discovered-3; No water-3; Heat exhaustion-2; Friendly greets-2; Sanchez leaves group for a week-1; and, the financing of the march-0.58 It is almost unbelievable that they survived this trek without any deaths or mass beatings and arrests by police and other enemies, Chicano gangs included. There is no mention of how this march of five months and a week was financed. It is also unbelievable that the confrontations with police, including the Border Patrol, local police officers, Sheriff department deputies, and Capital security, all resulted in the BB going through police lines and barricades unharmed and not arrested. Even more unbelievable is the repeated tactic of the BBs bringing down the U.S. flag at public places and raising the Mexican flag without incident on three occasions, the state Capitol being the last.59 A review of the FBI files for those same dates from May 5th to October 14th, 1971 reveals some interesting comparative notes on who was doing what to whom. On May 17th, Hoover wrote to the SAC, Los Angeles and other field offices that he wanted specifically “that the referenced characterizations [of the Brown Berets] be further revised and resubmitted at this time. In this connection, you should include in the revised characterizations additional data illustrating the propensity toward violence on the part of the YCCA [Aka Brown Berets] members. Handle promptly” (p. 2). Obviously, Hoover wanted a clear statement from this filed office and the office of origin for the BB file on the BB’s propensity for violence. FBI field offices did not cooperate with Hoover’s mandate. SAC, Sacramento responded to Hoover on May 21st they had nothing on the Brown Berets in the Sacramento Division. SAC, Los Angeles, dated May 28, 1971 investigating a double shooting with one dead, Raymond L Pugh, between gangs at Santa Barbara, California that the Brown Berets were not involved. SAC, Kansas City reported to Hoover on May 28th also in two-page memo that there had not been “any violence prone activity on the part of any MexicanAmerican group in the Kansas City Division” (p. 1). Kansas FBI did report a high school group that wore berets on occasion and gathered “mainly for the purpose of drinking wine” (p. 2). SAC, Phoenix reported similar findings on May 28th to Hoover. “No BB activity despite efforts to organize a chapter in the Phoenix Division. Some have called themselves Brown Berets and worn



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the brown beret in public demonstration” (p. 1). On June 3rd SAC, Los Angeles informed Hoover that the San Bernardino-Colton Chapter 45 of the Brown Berets was not of interest to them anymore. The reason given for this decision in the first half of this solo-page memorandum is redacted. SAC, Minneapolis on June 15th stated to Hoover in a two-page memo that there was no interest in the Brown Berets by anyone in his division nor was there any chapter (p. 2). The first page was entirely redacted but for a sentence referring to the original request for information. SAC, Seattle reported to Hoover on June 30th in a solo-page memorandum in total contradiction to his request for specific language about the BBs. This report stated: “The limited activities of the Brown Berets in the State of Washington have been followed. There is no indication that this group is engaged in violence or is proposing violent activities.” SAC, Sacramento reported on July 14th to Los Angeles FBI Division that they had “opened a case and assigned on [names redacted] and listed . . . in Security Index subjects of the Sacramento office” and promised a report from the Fresno field office in the future. By August 25, SAC, San Francisco reported to Hoover that his investigation “failed to show Brown Beret activity in the San Francisco Division.” WHAT COULD BE IN THE WITHHELD PAGES? In between these released and heavily redacted files are another 17 pages of files entirely withheld for the period of the march. I wonder if any of these withheld files offer any clue as to why the marchers ran out of gas, water, had so many visitors with alcohol and drugs [pills] to share, had physical fights with other Chicano groups and Anglos along the way, succumbed to unexplained illnesses, and had to rent more vehicles to support the marchers? Other FBI COINTELPRO operations specifically target the subjects for disruption, destruction, neutralization, character assassination, sabotage, and infiltration, why not the Brown Berets while on this march? DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY, INTELLIGENCE, AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE Hoover wrote to the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence Department of the Army on July 19, 1971 requesting information about the bombing at one of the Army Reserve installations in Los Angeles and the person arrested [name redacted] by the LAPD in connection with that incident. The FBI previously had sent information to the Army, Hoover pointed out, on the Brown

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Berets and another organization of interest, the Chicano Liberation Front (CLF) FBI file no. 105-209116. It does not appear in the files released that the Army Chief of Staff for Intelligence responded to Hoover, nor does it appear that Hoover simply asked the LAPD for their results of the investigation into the bombing. Beginning September 16, 1971, Hoover sent out a nitel teletype to the attention of all Domestic Intelligence Division personnel in Albuquerque, Dallas, Denver, El Paso, Houston, Phoenix, and San Antonio to read their copy of the LA teletype sent to Bureau on September 14th about the Brown Berets. Half of the top half of his message was redacted. What the content was remains unknown, but again on the 17th, Hoover sent out another nitel teletype to the same field offices with whatever he forgot to add the day prior, but the material was redacted. LA MARCHA DE LA RECONQUISTA CONTINUED . . . What possessed Sanchez to get out of LA for the summer of 1971 was repression; the 1,000 Miles March possessed him again on the first days in October. They concluded their protests on the Capitol steps after five days and contemplated what was next. Sanchez wrote: We were able to communicate with the barrios throughout California. We realized, however, that it would be very unfortunate if we are to stop now; too many barrios throughout the Southwest had yet to learn of our message and we had to learn of their needs. The Brown Berets, therefore decided to continue the expedition through Aztlan.60

The trek across the Southwest not only was a larger geographic area to cover but also the seasons were going to change from hot summer to cool fall and freezing winter over the next four months. This time the BBs took a threecar caravan to drive them to Blythe, California on October 14th where they were “fed, given more gasoline and cigarettes, and a few dollars by the local Raza community.”61 From there, the next day they drove to Phoenix only to be halted in the early evening by a fleet of ten state and county police cars with weapons drawn. The police yelled while pointing at them with guns and pump shotguns and motioned to them: “Get out with your hands in the air!” The BB group was lined up single file by the police while they were searched and questioned. Finding nothing on the persons, the police began checking identifications on them and the vehicles and property inside the cars. According to Sanchez, one burly Sheriff deputy wearing a big Texas hat and sporting a shot gun, faced off with Jerry Martinez who was carrying



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a holstered bayonet. He demanded the weapon and Jerry refused to tender it. Threatening to shoot Jerry if he did not surrender the bayonet, Jerry threw it on top of the hood of the police car. “After one-and-a-half hours of being searched, intimidated, and questioned, we were released with a warning that we would be watched as long as we were in the state of Arizona.”62 The Brown Berets stayed in the Phoenix area for a few days visiting the nearby towns of Guadalupe and Glendale. Winter came early, so the BBs had to buy jackets in Guadalupe. Heading back to Phoenix in one truck they were confronted by local police and stopped by their blockade across Jefferson and Fourth Street by seven police car units. Again, these cops jumped out guns drawn and instructed the BBs to stay in the truck. The police opened the back to find more BBs sitting in darkness. After hours of interrogation and checking documents, the BBs were allowed to proceed. I wonder to this day how the local police knew the BBs would be returning to Phoenix down Jefferson to set up the blockade at that corner with Fourth Street? Not to be intimidated the Brown Berets stayed in Phoenix enjoying the crowd and local entertainment with some beer until just past midnight October 26th. Instead of driving to Tucson, they changed course and went to the Navajo Indian Reservation three hundred-fifty miles away to the north at Chinle. The Navajo leadership did not receive them, so they decided to leave and head southwest over the Mogollon Mountains to the old mining towns of Globe, Miami, and Superior. They arrived into Superior the next dawn and found the AFL-CIO union building. They parked the truck at four in the morning and were trying to make phone calls to find housing when the local police surprised them with the stern admonishment: “You boys better not bring that Chicano Power stuff around here. And, you best not rile up the Mexican boys. It’s not proper.”63 Things got worse when the BB truck began to guzzle gas. Sanchez decided to drive back twelve hours to LA and return it for another rental which also broke down on the return trip to Superior. Sheriff’s deputies prevented the showing of some films at the high school by the BBs. The students walked out with the BBs and marched down the street chanting “Chicano Power.” The next day, a Saturday, the BBs hosted a rally to seek food, gas, and money donations to leave town. No one would step forward to help, not the church, not the union, not the social clubs, all turned them away. Unable to leave, they stayed more nights at an empty house provided by a miner and his family who also fed the six Brown Berets. One night twenty, young, Chicano men came up to the house and demanded the BBs fight them or leave at once. After some heated discussion, the presence of an armed figure to the side of the two groups, did the young men decide to leave while changing their message to a warning to leave.64 More police harassment and violence ensued when the BBs accepted an invitation to move to the

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home of a miner, Roberto Santa-Cruz, his wife, and three children. They ate well and heard horrible stories from Santa Cruz about the working conditions the Mexican men had to endure. He told them that two or three miners die down under every year. The Anglos all work outside the mines as supervisors and crew leaders for better wages. During the evening of story-telling, a young teenage Chicanita came running to warn them that state police were on their way to arrest everyone. Quickly, the BBs moved their remaining stuff from the other location and hid behind the Santa-Cruz home. The state police could not find the BBs. The television reported that a state of emergency had been declared by the state police. A local judge, Ampee Gomez, stepped forward and declared the BBs had a right to march, protest, rally, and be in town. Bolstered the BBs planned another rally the next day at the courthouse. Police observers with knowledge the BBs were at the Santa Cruz home stationed observers at each end of the street. Berets from Phoenix showed up to join the Sanchez crew of six and together they marched in cadence down Main street toward the Courthouse to hold their rally which they did. One BB, Salvador Ramirez, was injured by an Anglo drunk who raced up as he marched looking forward and hit him in the face with his fist. No charges were filed against the Anglo drunk. Immediately after the rally the BB left town headed toward Ajo instead of Tucson. They had been alerted that more police were waiting at the outskirts of Tucson to arrest them.65 MORE OF THE SAME AS BEFORE The trip across the Southwest took the Brown Berets from Blythe, CA to Tolleson to Guadalupe, AZ to Glendale to Phoenix to Chinle to Globe to Superior to Ajo to Eloy to Tucson to Douglas to Silver City, N MX to Bayard to Central to Las Cruces to Mesilla to Old Mesilla to Tortugas to Santa Fe to Las Vegas to Mora to Taos to Espanola to Chicago, IL to Milwaukee, WI to St. Paul, MN to Detroit, MI, to Adrian to Princeton, IL, to Pueblo, CO to Colorado Springs to Denver to Trinidad to Superior AZ-Blythe, CA to Casa Blanca to San Diego to San Jose, to Los Angeles to Tortugas, N MX to Mesquite to Anthony, TX to La Tuna Federal Prison to El Paso to Laredo to Brownsville, TX to Santa Maria to McAllen to Houston to San Antonio to Flagstaff, AZ to Oakland, CA to Merced to San Pedro Harbor to Avalon [Catalina Island] to San Pedro, CA.66 During the visits to these cities, villages, prisons, towns, and Indian reservations they most often were accosted by police, local and county, sometimes state patrols, with guns drawn, according to Sanchez. They were always detained, interrogated, sometimes arrested, jailed and released on bond. Only



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once did a friendly police chief in Douglas, AZ afford them respect and on another occasion in Santa Fe, N MX the District Attorney [Donaldo] Tiny Martinez posted the entire amount of their bonds and treated them to dinner at his home in Las Vegas. He even arranged for them to find someone to loan them another truck to continue on to Taos. Their worse scenarios occurred in Princeton, IL when the local police detained them for being undocumented “aliens” and jailed them until satisfied they were U.S. citizens and in Blythe, CA where they witnessed policeman Richard Krupp shoot Mario Barrerras in the head after a traffic stop. Krupp said his gun went off accidently. He was not charged. The two near-death experiences occurred when their rental truck while in Casa Blanca, CA and a loaned car outside of Oakland, CA, both had been tampered with and brakes failed. In both instances they crashed and rolled with few injuries. Sanchez was hurt badly with a gash on the back of his neck and was paralyzed for two days before the takeover of Catalina Island. The Brown Berets were repeatedly shot at during the night while they camped but no one was hurt. Sanchez reported the same car and truck troubles experienced during the 1,000-mile march during this Southwest marathon: running out of gas, dead batteries, over-heating radiators, cracked engine blocks, flat tires, spoiled supplies and no food, no water, and no money.67 Surprisingly, my firsthand knowledge of major Chicano leaders and organizations during this time, the three entries about Reies Lopez Tijerina and the Alianza, Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales and the Crusade for Justice, and the visit to Pueblo, CO surprised me. During the BB visit to the Alianza they were first welcomed but asked to leave the next day. Sanchez does not explain reasons why other than their presence were bringing unnecessary “heat” to the Alianza.68 Tijerina was all about creating heat! I suspect the rebuff was more of the abuse of drugs and alcohol by the Brown Berets through their expedition. In the case of the Crusade, no mention is made that they even stopped by the headquarters to visit or pay respects. Sanchez writes, “We traveled night and day until we finally crossed the Colorado state line and were soon in Denver. After we took a short rest in Denver, we continued on to Pueblo.”69 SAC, Denver reported to Hoover on May 31, 1972 referring to his nitel of April 21, 1972 and adding four more pages of information on 28 Brown Berets “including four females” in Denver area. “The police interviewed Geronimo Blanco, Linda Romero and Joseph Sanchez, cousin of David Sanchez. They stated they were with the ‘Caravan of Conquest’ and were traveling in trucks” (p. 1). The group stayed in Denver “at the Community Center, 935 West 11th Avenue.” Local police executed a search warrant on them to search the premises and “No guns were found but a larger number of gas masks were stored in the basement” (p. 1), The SAC added that the

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local police believed “Approximately 100 Brown Berets were in town staying at various locations. It was believed that this group was associated with the Manuel and Andreas De Pineda Faction of the Denver Brown Berets. Reports in the past have indicated the De Pinedas are extremely militant and are stock-piling an unknown number of weapons” (p. 1). The report made it a point to indicate the Brown Berets were not affiliated with the Crusade for Justice, Denver, Colorado. Although reports indicate Corky Gonzales has met with David Sanchez and other leaders of the National Organization, the National Organization of Brown Berets is an independent group with Brown Beret affiliations in many states, whereas Corky Gonzales is more locally oriented. (p. 2)

The narrative on the visit to Pueblo, Colorado omits any mention of the local Brown Beret chapter in the city; instead Sanchez writes about the United Farmworkers Union being their main contact.70 The Sanchez narrative continues in similar fashion for the entire marathon journey that crisscrossed the Southwest at least twice during the trip. He claims they trekked 10,000 miles over fifteen months and spent some $19,000 not counting bail monies.71 There are not fifteen months between October 14, 1971 and September 26, 1972 when they were forcibly evicted from Santa Catalina Island by LA County Sheriff’s deputies to San Pedro, California. There are not fifteen months even if we extend the date to his resignation as Prime Minister of the National Brown Berets and ordered all units to disband on November 1, 1972.72 WHAT WAS THE FBI DOING DURING THE MARCHA? The FBI was monitoring every movement of the Brown Berets particularly after they embarked on the travel across the Southwest. Indicative of this surveillance is the four-page nitel teletype dated October 20, 1971 sent at 4:00 am to Hoover by the SAC, Phoenix advising that [N]ine Mexican-Americans arrived in Phoenix, Arizona early morning of October fifteen last. They are self-proclaimed “Brown Berets.” They arrived in three vehicles from California. The vehicles are described as follows: Seventy Ford Truck, California Lic. Seven Nine Eight Two Seven Six, Vin F Three Five Y R H Nine Seven Six Eight Five, owner Economy Rental, Inc. Five Five One One Whittier Boulevard, Los Angeles, California; Fiftyseven Green Chevrolet Pickup Truck, California Lic. K B E Eight Five One; Fiftyone Brown Chevrolet Two Door, California Lic. C H L Two Three Four (p. 1).



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The next page is entirely withheld under exemption “b7C” allowed under FOIA regulations to allow law enforcement personnel to keep investigatory records compiled from disclosure. The report picks up revealing the Brown Beret caravan was stopped by Maricopa County Sheriff’s officers on October 15th. Sanchez allegedly explained their mission to travel the Southwest to “educate the Mexican-American people and hand out pamphlets entitled ‘Chicano Power Explained.’” Sanchez also gave information as to an upcoming rally in Phoenix they intended to hold on October 23rd at 1 pm starting at 903 East Buckeye Road and marching on to Harmon Park at 5th and Pima streets (p. 3). The teletype describes the garb of the Brown Beret, specifically mentioning that they “wear bayonets in scabbards on their right sides” (p. 4). This teletype copy was forwarded to other FBI field offices in Los Angeles, Albuquerque, El Paso, Sacramento, and San Diego. SAC, Phoenix reported in a four-page airtel with LHM memorandum dated October 26, 1971 that all went well with the protests and marches by the Brown Berets while in Phoenix. On the same day as Phoenix the SAC, Albuquerque submitted a copy of a newspaper article from the Albuquerque Journal of October 17, 1971 to Hoover indicating the Brown Berets had visited a prison at Canon City, Colorado during a two-day workshop aimed at unifying Chicanos and promoting education. These memorandums prompted Hoover to send a terse one-page form memorandum the same day, October 26th, demanding SAC, Los Angeles send a report on the Brown Berets within a month. SAC, Los Angeles did not wait a month to respond to Hoover; he filed a two-page nitel teletype the next day reporting the Brown Berets were in Superior, AZ and while there attempted to show a film on Mexican-Americans and to pull down a flag at a local school but were not allowed by the Gila County Sheriff’s deputies (p. 1). Redacted lines at bottom of the first page and into the second related to some member of the Brown Beret group who is of interest to the U.S. Secret Service (p. 2). Of course, copies of this teletype were also sent to the same FBI field offices as prior ones from Phoenix. Hoover on November 1, 1971 issued a two-page direct order on the Brown Berets to the SACs in Los Angeles and Phoenix with copies to El Paso, San Diego, Albuquerque, Denver, and Sacramento to [F]ollow closely the organizational activities of this group furnishing results of your investigation by appropriate communication. In addition, all offices should review referenced communications and institute investigations on each individual identified from your respective territories. Full background should be developed including the determination as to the individual’s potential danger to the internal security of the U.S.

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This order included at the bottom of the first page the redacted names with FBI file numbers on eleven Brown Beret members; the same number identified as “hard core activists” with more redacted description in the last section subtitled Note: (p. 2). That same day, SAC, Phoenix reported to Hoover in a two-page memo that all was well in Superior, AZ and that no violence took place. Apparently, the march and rally by the Brown Berets at the local school took place “involving some 60–75 youngsters between the ages of ten to fifteen years” (p. 2). SAC, Phoenix in a subsequent two-page teletype dated November 9, 1971 at 9:25 pm reported that the Brown Berets were not encamped at El Rio Public Park in Tucson with permission from the Tucson Recreation Board to remain there “seven to ten days hence” (p. 1). SAC, Los Angeles, however, was perturbed and let Hoover know with his two-page airtel of November 10th that Phoenix in other teletypes had identified some individuals as part of the Brown Berets not in the indices of the Los Angeles Division. The airtel lists seven names [all redacted] but hand written by someone else after the transmission, of the FBI file numbers on these individuals (p. 1). The confusion at FBI headquarters and Los Angeles Division seems to be certain names which have been mentioned in previous internal communications regarding the Brown Berets and the National Chicano Moratorium [FBI file number 105-460597 and LA office file number 105-29127 (P)] (p. 2). For example, Rosalio Muñoz was both a member of the Brown Berets East Los Angeles chapter, co-leader with David Sanchez on the expedition through Aztlan, and principal leader of the Moratorium organizing committee. The FBI had for years denied him his file claiming nothing existed. In 2019, I began to correspond with the FBI’s FOIPA section over this denial and filed an appeal which resulted in admission that hundreds of pages existed and would be released in due time and upon payment of $1,040 in fees for the hard copies. Mr. Muñoz is on a fixed income, largely from Social Security and an occasional honorarium. The “released in due time” at this writing is projected into a few years given that the FBI’s FOIA section is working on requests from 2014. As indicated previously, only select FBI files have been released and many of these have been withheld entirely. It is not a surprise to find an internal one-page memo from Hoover to the SAC, Los Angeles dated November 15, 1971 inquiring about a reference made in the LA report dated October 26th. This copy is not among my files. Specifically, Hoover is concerned with “Page 4 . . . indicates that members of the Brown Berets and the Red Sun Tribe are planning to disrupt the Rose Bowl Parade in Pasadena, California, on January 1, 1972.” Hoover wants information on this possible disruptive demonstration. From the SAC, El Paso by two-page nitel teletype posted at 8:11 pm with copies to Albuquerque and Phoenix, dated November 22,



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1971, Hoover is being alerted to an advisory from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) that their dispatcher in El Paso heard mention made of the Brown Berets being in Mesilla Park, New Mexico “armed with bayonets” and driving a pickup truck and sedan hauling a trailer. The license plate for each vehicle was provided (p. 1). SAC, Albuquerque chimed in on the same day with another four-page nitel teletype posted at 5:25 pm to Hoover reporting four vehicles in the caravan not two as reported by El Paso’s DPS. The four vehicles are identified by license plate and description (p. 2). The report indicates one arrest was made in Lordsburg, New Mexico by the local police acting in concert with the County Sheriffs of Hidalgo County and the Border Patrol. Upon searching the occupants of the vehicles, one “illegal alien” was arrested. “At time of arrest he was attired in a Brown Beret uniform. In Silver City they marched in full uniform to Gough Park” (p. 3). A six-page nitel posted at 8:15 pm on November 30th from Albuquerque FBI to Hoover and FBI El Paso has four of the six pages entirely withheld and large portions of the remaining two pages, one and three, redacted. However, I gleaned that at some time in the recent days, the FBI and or Secret Service had looked into any possible violation of federal laws to charge the Brown Berets. The U.S. Attorney “advised no violation of U.S. laws apparent at this time” (p. 3). One line of interest states: “Remaining members of group and three of the vehicles are missing and whereabouts unknown at this time.” Hoover must have turned red with rage at reading this note. How could the Brown Berets and vehicles disappear? Hoover certainly springs into action mode with his December 6th five-page confidential memorandum to 24 FBI field offices across the country, not just the Southwest, and the Legat in Mexico City. Again, the reader of these files is left to guess and surmise what the actual content could be because the only paragraph with narrative is redacted on page one, half of page two is redacted and the remaining three are entirely withheld under exemptions “b1, b7c, b7d.”73 The only clues are the last sentences before the redaction: “As of 11/30/71, Sanchez and a group of followers were in the area of Silver City, New Mexico. They were reported to be leaving for Albuquerque, New Mexico on 12/4/71” (p. 2). Hoover was probably still in a rage when he realized that SAC, Los Angeles had not submitted the report due by November 26th. He wrote the SAC, Los Angeles on December 9th a curt and terse two sentence admonishment: “By 0-1 dated 10/26/71, you indicated report would be submitted by 11/26/71. Advise date report submitted and reporting employee.” In the Note: section at the bottom of page Hoover adds: “Up to date report promised by Los Angeles by 11/26/71 has not been received.” The FBI Director perhaps was trying to catch his SAC in a lie by asking him to report when it was sent and by whom knowing it had not been received at the Bureau and ensuring this copy would go into the SAC’s personnel file along

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with whatever response he may submit. SAC, Los Angeles was not intimidated by Hoover because he responded the next day with his excuse that his Special Agent [name redacted] was absent and adding fuel to the fire that he would file it late until January 14, 1971 (sic). It should be 1972. The next ten pages in the FBI file were withheld entirely. These pages relate either to the exchange above or as preface to the next chronological transmission dated December 15, 1971 from SAC, Detroit to Hoover expressing no knowledge or record of any organization named YCCA or Brown Beret in their files. He also checked with the Michigan State Police and they had no record either. SAC, Portland dated the 23rd of December sent Hoover a confusing one-page response regarding the Brown Berets. The bottom half of this solo-page is entirely redacted but the first paragraph is intact. The SAC wrote: Logical sources did not know of any Brown Berets from the State of Oregon traveling either to Las Cruxes or Albuquerque, New Mexico, for a national convention, 12/19–21/71, of the Crusade for Justice, Alliance for Progress or Brown Berets.

Christmas eve the SAC, Albuquerque informed Hoover by one-page teletype posted at 2:08 pm that 25 Brown Berets had been arrested in the city the day prior: four females and two juveniles among them. They were charged with disorderly conduct, unlawful assembly, carrying deadly weapons, and walking on roadways. “The municipal court set bonds at three hundred dollars each with trial set for December 27, 1971.” The next six pages were entirely withheld under exemption b7d. Sanchez had previously stated that the local District Attorney, Donaldo Martinez, nicknamed Tiny, had posted bail for all of them. This action prompted a political and jurisdictional fight between the DA and the Attorney General and Governor of the state. SAC Albuquerque informed Hoover on December 27th at 5:45 pm by two-page teletype that Governor Bruce King had requested a full report from the Attorney General on this action by the DA. The teletype does mention that one Brown Beret was tried by the municipal court, found guilty, and sentenced to ninety days in jail. The other cases are pending. The SAC, Albuquerque also conferred with the U.S. Attorney who did not see any violation of federal laws in these activities or proceedings (p. 2). The next day, SAC, Albuquerque is again sending a three-page teletype to Hoover on the latest development. DA Martinez will post all bail bonds and appeal all cases to the District Court because “there was no crime proven in the courtroom.” Questions were also raised about Martinez allowing the Brown Berets housing in the West Las Vegas High School without school board action authorizing that action. Martinez reportedly stated he took this action as head of the school board (p. 2). The first and third pages of this teletype were redacted as to the narrative portions



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and the four subsequent pages in chronological order were also withheld entirely. As the year was coming to a close, Hoover sent a one-page airtel to the SAC, Albuquerque wanting details leading up to the arrests of the 25 Brown Berets. He wanted to “include identity, descriptive data and home address of each individual arrested. Furnish copies to interested offices, along with Los Angeles as office of origin.” SACs from Sacramento, Houston, and New York between January 11 through 20, 1972, respectively, reported to Hoover in one-page memorandums they had no information on the Brown Berets or of any national convention to be held in New Mexico. SAC, El Paso did report on January 25th to Hoover in a four-page memorandum that the Midland field office reported no leads as to Brown Berets. The next two pages are withheld entirely. The names of informants they relied on for the information are listed at the top half of the page but redacted (p. 4). SAC, Miami on January 26th reported no Brown Berets from Immokalee area were involved or attending any Brown Beret meeting in this one-page memorandum. Two years prior a person [name redacted] tried to organize a chapter but failed for lack of interest of local inhabitants. He did verify that [name redacted] had been in Immokalee on December 20, 1971. Hoover was still upset at SAC, Los Angeles for not submitting his report timely and after first warning, he still did not file his report, according to Hoover’s airtel dated January 26th to him. SAC, Los Angeles disputed that reprimand the 28th with his response: “Bureau is referred to report of SA [name redacted] at Los Angeles dated 1/14/72.” SAC, San Antonio finally submits his report on the Brown Berets on February 1st claiming there is no chapter in the Division only in the city but this one is “not affiliated with the west coast militant group of the same name.” RITO G. CANALES AND JAMES ANTONIO CORDOVA WERE POLICE MURDERS An urgent teletype posted at 2:05 pm on February 1, 1972 by the SAC, Albuquerque reached Hoover with information that two possible members of the Black Berets of New Mexico were killed by police agents the night before. The five-page report quoting the Albuquerque Journal of January 30th stated the police received a tip that burglary of dynamite was to be committed and set up a stake-out. When the perpetrators appeared, the police claimed they shouted “Freeze” but the thieves began shooting. Police responded in kind (p. 1). They killed two persons, Rito G. Canales and James Antonio Cordova.74 After the killings, the police obtained a search warrant for Cordova’s home

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and found three large homemade bombs, an ounce and a half of marijuana, and six members of the Black Berets of Albuquerque. They arrested everyone. The homemade bombs used the same dynamite as was in the shed at the stakeout location. The shed had been burglarized before. Two weeks prior to his incident an Albuquerque bar had been bombed with dynamite and burned. The Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Division was investigating all these federal crimes (p. 2). In the newspaper article, Richard Moore, the head of the Black Berets, was quoted as saying this was a police murder and that the marijuana and dynamite found at their headquarters was planted by the local police. As a result, the Governor asked the Attorney General of New Mexico to investigate the deaths of these two men. The Attorney General, however, is quoted as saying that if thought it necessary he would investigate (p. 3). The U.S. Attorney, Victor Ortega, is quoted as saying the FBI would do a preliminary investigation but he felt all had been done by procedure and nothing would substantiate Richard Moore’s allegation of a police murder (p. 4). The SAC recommended against an investigation citing all other investigations going forward on this incident (p. 5). BEGINNING OF THE END SAC, Los Angeles on February 11, 1972 sent Hoover a two-page memo stating most chapters of the Brown Berets in his Division “are either inactive, defunct or have deteriorated into social clubs. Sanchez’s whereabouts are unknown to the members of the Brown Beret and he “has been out of town for several months reportedly on a tour of the southwest. [Name redacted] is reluctant to return to East Los Angeles, not only out of fear for possible police harassment but because of internal dissension within the chapter.” The remaining last two paragraphs are redacted as is the top half of the next page. “A supplemental report is being prepared” (p. 2). SAC, Dallas reported to Hoover on March 2nd by eight-page teletype posted at 8:20 pm that the local Brown Berets are protesting by marching and a sit-in at the Dallas Community Action Agency Headquarters [War on Poverty Program] for cutting funding for work training and recreational programs for students (p. 1). Police responded to the Director of the program’s call for help but his superior, Richard Hughes, agreed to stay overnight with the protestors in the building (p. 2). Apparently, the matter was resolved when the decision to cut funds was rescinded on March 3rd and new funding of $20,000 was authorized for that specific program (p. 4). Two major paragraphs were redacted on this page and two more entirely withheld under exemption b1, then only page 6 followed.



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SAC, Minneapolis on March 17, 1972 notified Hoover in a two-page memorandum quoting a redacted source of the Law Enforcement Assistance Unit of the St. Paul Police Department that “approximately 2–3 years ago a feeble attempt was made to form a Brown Beret Chapter in the St. Paul area. Lack of interest and support on the part of the local Spanish-speaking community contributed to the failure of the chapter ever being formalized.” There is no indication that a Brown Beret Chapter exists in the St. Paul area. The next paragraph repeated the same information as to no Brown Beret Chapter in the other twin city coming from a redacted source of the Intelligence Unit of the Minneapolis Police De4partmentLaw Enforcement (p. 1). This FBI Division closed its case on the Brown Berets (p. 2). SAC, Seattle in a one-page memorandum echoed the same information on March 22nd. “No information has been developed to indicate a Brown Beret chapter is currently active in Seattle.” Again, on May 26, 1972 and referencing this first report, SAC, Seattle advised on a one-page memorandum that “sources have not reported any information to indicate the tour of the David Sanchez group has reached the State of Washington.” On the 24th of March even SAC, Los Angeles was stating in a solo page memorandum that “the national headquarters of the BB has seriously deteriorated in the past months due to lack of leadership.” Furthermore, the SAC added that “efforts to reorganize the BB in San Gabriel, El Monte, and San Pedro” had failed. SAC, Phoenix in a two-page memorandum dated March 27, 1972 also reported the BB has “no established meeting place nor are there any self-proclaimed leaders” (p. 1). “The recent tour” by Sanchez through the Southwest indicated “that with the exception of a few persons no real support was shown them while in Arizona” (p. 2). In a second two-page memorandum, SAC, Phoenix adds more information to the effect that “There are good relations in the Phoenix area between Pheonix police and the Chicano leaders, which has been a great help in suppressing militant attitude” (p. 1). “Brown Beret activity in the Phoenix Division is practically non-existent at the present time. There have been no incidents which could have been attributed to this group in the Phoenix Division” (p. 2). The SAC, Detroit on March 28, 1972 sent his two-page memorandum to Hoover on the BB. This SAC cited several sources as his basis for concluding “that the Brown Beret from Los Angeles had been in the area” (p. 1). His sources included the Intelligence Division, the Intelligence Section, Michigan State Police, and the Intelligence Section, Lansing, Michigan, Police Department. Michigan FBI closed its case on the BB with this memorandum (p. 2). Yet, Sanchez wrote that they had spent several days in Detroit. Their housing was a former bank turned community service agency. He bragged he slept in the bank vault. The next morning, they left for Adrian, Michigan to visit with Chicano farm workers but returned to Detroit and toured the Strohs Brewery courtesy of a

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Chicano engineer with the brewery. He gave them a hundred dollars to help them on the rest of the journey.75 Someone is manufacturing stories. If it was the FBI operatives in Michigan wrong information that division, the local police and the state’s domestic security agency are in bad shape relying on false data. SAC, Chicago on March 28th reported to Hoover on his request about BB activity in their division. But this three-page memorandum with other attachments is entirely redacted of its contact but for the references to six other BB files held in Los Angeles, one file in Albuquerque, and five more files from their indexes (p. 1). The next page is entirely withheld, and the memorandum ends with a request for the Bureau to identify persons in an attached photograph and that they will keep asking sources to establish whereabouts of any Brown Berets from California and New Mexico in the Chicago area. The SAC also enclosed an article from the BB newspaper, La Causa, in which Alejandro Noriega is one of fifteen signatories to the declaration that they declare the Chicano people in the Southwest a Nation (p. 2). Who Noriega is or what is the context of only including this name is not explained. SAC, Los Angeles advised Hoover in two separate airtel teletypes, March 28th and 30th, that a rally on the 23rd by the Brown Berets in Santa Paula, California to protest police brutality against Mexican-Americans had drawn opposition from another group of Chicanos in Oxnard who threatened to come and “Teach Santa Paula Chicanos a Lesson.” The Santa Paula police requested help from area law enforcement agencies. But nothing violent happened despite “approximately 200 persons attended the rally.” Documents from the Legat, Mexico City to Hoover, sorted by chronological order, have a date of March 29, 1972 referring to the airtel from Los Angeles three months earlier on December 6 and 19 through 21, 1971 but the information is entirely redacted. Intriguing as to content are the 11 pages entirely withheld that are part of this transmission. One page does have one-line which states that the file on the BB used by the FBI for years, 105-178715, was changed on July 28, 1972 to 105-196274. RICARDO CHAVEZ-ORTIZ: THE MEXICAN AIRPLANE HIJACKER SAC, Los Angeles reported to Hoover by two-page nitel teletype posted at 6:05 pm on April 17, 1972 that one of his Special Agents [name redacted] had observed a demonstration at the U.S. Courthouse in Los Angeles in support of Ricardo Chavez-Ortiz, who is in custody on charge of hijacking Frontier Airlines plane April 13th last. Approximately one hundred and fifty persons took part . . . They carried placards and shouted slogans (p. 1). Dem-



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onstrators were led by Sal Castro, former Los Angeles teacher. Demonstration was peaceful, and no arrests were made. The next demonstration is scheduled for April 18th at 10am. (p. 2)

The continued interest in Sal Castro was for his role in the Chicano student walkouts of March 1968; as well as his being a mentor to the incipient leadership of the Brown Berets. They were first organized as the Young Citizens for Community Action as part of Mayor’s Sam Yorty’s Youth Advisory Council, then Young Chicanos for Community Action. In 1972, few Brown Berets were involved in the Free Ricardo Chavez-Ortiz campaign, they were out of town on the Reconquista caravan. Moreover, the Chavez-Ortiz campaign had many other supporters locally and nationally. Chavez-Ortiz was found guilty and given a life sentence later reduced to 20 years. He only actually served nearly six years and was deported to Mexico.76 To make amends and comply, SAC, Los Angeles updated his report to the Acting Director, FBI on May 22nd sending a 16-page plus perhaps memorandum and LHM on the Brown Berets to cover the period January 13 through May 17, 1972 with copies going to Chicago, Denver, San Francisco, and the local Secret Service. Hoover had died on May 2nd. The SAC listed [names redacted] all the Brown Beret subjects with their local file numbers. Penciled in next to these are another set of file numbers suggesting that a change in numbering had occurred (-B- Cover Page). The first five pages of this transmission are numbered with letters from B to P with five additional pages entirely withheld under exemptions “b7c, b7d.” Page “-H*- Cover Page” which follows the exemptions page contains three more listings with redacted portions but making reference to letters to Bureau from Seattle, Phoenix and Albuquerque with FBI file numbers next to each city entry. The actual LHM begins on what is marked as page “-P-“ (p.1 of LHM). The Table of Contents of the report has more redacted material next to chapter identifiers for II., III., and VI. Only Chapters I., IV., and V. are clear and the last two of these is of importance to this writing. Chapter IV. is subtitled “Brown Beret Chapters Outside of the Los Angeles Area . . . page 10” and Chapter V. is subtitled “Brown Beret Chapters Within the Los Angeles Area (page 16.)” (p. 2). All but the first four lines of page 5 is redacted and the next five pages are withheld entirely under exemptions b1 and b7d. For “Kansas City Area” all content is redacted but for one sentence in the middle of the redacted material that reads: “Source advised that there were no activities on the part of the BB in the greater Topeka, Kansas area.” The bottom half of this page is also redacted on content regarding “Minneapolis Area” but for last sentence on this page: Sources advised that approximately two or three years ago a feeble attempt was made to form a BB chapter in the St. Paul area. “Lack of interest and support . . . There is no indication that a BB chapter exists in the St. Paul

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area. Sources advised that there is no known BB chapter in Minneapolis” (pp. 11–12). Seattle’s FBI sources also advised the no BB chapter was currently active in that city. Phoenix also reported that “BB activity in Arizona is practically non-existent at the present time.” The only reference in this entry was during the Sanchez expedition that some BB activity was reported (p. 12). Albuquerque area, Milwaukee area and Houston area all reported no BB activity (p. 13). The material on the remaining pages about BB chapters in the Los Angeles area is more complete but for some redacted paragraphs. Many cities are reported as either having had a BB chapter in the recent past and none being active now or ever had a BB chapter: Coachella Valley, Redlands, San Bernardino, Blythe, and Santa Paula. The only active group was identified by the FBI to be at Riverside (pp. 14,16). Page 15 was entirely withheld, so the BB landscape as to other cities such as San Fernando to the north or San Diego to the south of the Los Angeles Division is incomplete based on this omission of data. The SAC, El Paso reported on June 6, 1972 responding to the January 26th request from Hoover on status of the BB with no BB activity in their division. ACTING FBI DIRECTOR L. PATRICK GRAY, III SAC, Albuquerque reported to the Acting Director, FBI on May 30th that cases against six of the BB previously charged with disorderly conduct had been dismissed by District Judge Frank Zinn on May 5th (p. 1 of the LHM portion). Those pending would be tried on June 15th (p. 2*). The Acting Director for the FBI had no experience with domestic intelligence or any of the ongoing COINTELPRO operations. He seemed to have inherited the Hoover bias and paranoia about BB subversives and communists operating under a new FBI category of Mexican American Militancy, at least during the first months on the job. On June 9th he writes a two-page memorandum to the SAC, Denver about their report of May 31st to him and the earlier Bureau letter of March 10th demanding they follow instructions with regards to “Mexican American Militancy, IS- Spanish American” the subject of the mentioned letters. Specifically, Gray was referring to Section 87B of the [FBI] Manual of Instruction that required “Identity of all known members who are officers or active workers furthering the aims of the organization.” He also wanted file numbers, LA and Bureau, tied to the names “and if included in the ADEX.” In the NOTE: portion of the transmission, Gray tips his hand on the inherited bias and paranoia from Hoover: “Review of referenced letter and its enclosure indicates captioned organization is preparing for possible urban guerrilla warfare” (p. 2). The only real weapons the



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BB members carried were bayonets in a scabbard if they could afford to buy one. Most members only sported the beret because of financial reasons, much less a bayonet. Sanchez and his group took a breather from the Marcha de la Reconquista in June by returning to California briefly. He appeared in Banning Park in the Wilmington area of Los Angeles on June 17th at 2pm as the main speaker before three hundred persons at a protest rally against the war in Vietnam, political prisoners, and repression of workers. Sanchez also declared “that the Chicano people were a Nation.” Other speakers were Ignacio Uribe of the Centro de Accion Social Autonomo (CASA). Uribe asked for support for Ricardo Chavez-Ortiz, the man charged with hijacking an airplane to protest the conditions of Mexicans in the United States. He also invited persons to protest the visit to LA of the Mexican President [Luis Echevarria Alvarez] on June 19th. SAC, Los Angeles had sent a three-page nitel teletype to Gray posted at 8:18 pm with that information. The BB had marched down the street carrying placards and shouting through the Housing Project near Harbor Park in that area of Los Angeles and back to Banning Park. At front of the march were “approximately sixty-five uniformed Brown Berets” (p. 2). Other speakers were not identified, and the rally ended at 4:45 pm “peaceful and no arrests were made.” Four Special Agents of the FBI’s LA Division were present [names redacted] and the subsequent five pages were withheld entirely. After this protest, Sanchez and some BB member returned to the tour of the Southwest and headed to Texas. The various FBI division beginning with El Paso down to Laredo and San Antonio to the Rio Grande Valley and across to Houston and back around to Dallas all reported to Gray during the remaining days of June and months of July, August, September and October the activities of Sanchez and his band of marchers in these localities. An occasional report would reach Gray about some activity at which some participants sported brown berets, but none indicated the existence of a formal group or chapter affiliated with Sanchez. One example was during the visit to Sacramento, California by U.S. Treasurer, Romana Bañuelos and other public officials, mostly Republican women, to Governor Reagan’s Capitol office. The women speakers were not allowed by speak by noisy protesters “blowing plastic police whistles and shouting them down” (p. 1). A few among the protestors wore brown berets, according to the SAC, Sacramento two-page nitel of October 31, 1972 posted at 7:53 pm to Gray. “No arrests, injuries or property damage was reported. Governor Reagan described the group as McGovern riffraff” (p. 2). Another report trying to link the BB with a stolen vehicle was the subject of the solo-page report by SAC, San Antonio on November 17, 1972 to Gray. Apparently, an automobile was reported stolen by the LAPD back on March 18th. When the BB were in Brownsville, Texas they were driving the stolen

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vehicle, “a 1965 Ford Galaxy, two-door sedan, with California plates: WCR 925” as they were stopped by U.S. Customs. The BB were not arrested and subsequently wrecked and abandoned the car in Brownsville. The U.S. Attorney declined to prosecute based on these facts (p. 1). Gray turned his attention to another component of their new subject, perhaps a COINTELPRO operation, Mexican American Militancy. On September 15th, the SAC, Los Angeles sent Gray a possibly seven-page memorandum listing publications “belonging to the Chicano Press Association: El Alambre de MAYO, El Chicano, Ideal, La Raza de Bronce, and La Raza Habla. Each newspaper was further described by city location sometimes with specific address and its director or editor. Omitted were the main publications in Los Angeles proper such as La Raza, La Verdad and Sin Fronteras, for example or the UFW’s El Malcriado. The report also contained a short list of six communities with BB chapters and one not affiliated with Sanchez, the San Pedro chapter (p. 3). The remaining four pages of the memorandum were withheld entirely, as were 81 pages entirely withheld during the balance of reports made to FBI headquarters or from the FBI, Director to the Divisions. LAST REPORTS RELEASED No report in late 1972 mentioned the attempted takeover of Santa Catalina Island off the coast from Los Angeles. The Reconquista march ended with a defiant symbolic attempt to reclaim Santa Catalina land not adjudicated under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848). And, no report in late 1972 mentioned that Sanchez had resigned from his Prime Minister position or that he attempted to disband the Brown Beret organization on November 1, 1972. The March 29, 1973 LHM from SAC, Los Angeles finally wrote, “David Sanchez, Brown Berets Prime Minister, made public statement on November 1, 1972, disbanding the Brown Berets.” Many groups ignored this directive and continued organizing chapters and carrying on with activities in line with the original National Policies, Aims and Purposes and the Ten Point Program. SAC’s continued to submit reports. Carlos Montes, for example, has continued his activism to the current time. He and his wife, Olivia Velasquez, went underground for a time in 1970 by going to Mexico. They resurfaced to become active once again and the subject of more police surveillance, harassment, and arrests. On June 16, 2011 he obtained documents via litigation to show the illegal maneuvers the LA police and Sheriff’s deputies in collusion with the FBI used in raiding his home and taking his computer, cell phones, notes, and files. He ran for the LA City Council in 2015. His papers are archived at California State University-Los



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Angeles, John F. Kennedy Memorial Library, Special Collections.77 Moctesuma Esparza continued his higher education goals during the turbulent years of police harassment of the Brown Berets. He managed to complete his bachelor’s degree in 1971 and his master’s in fine arts in 1973. He has enjoyed a successful career as a commercial filmmaker and documentarian building two enterprises, Maya Cinemas in 2005 and Maya Entertainment in 2007. The first business is a chain of theatres in California and Texas, primarily and the second is a video distribution company.78 Victoria “Vickie” Castro was among the high school students to form the Young Citizens for Community Action (YCCA) in 1966. By the summer of 1967, YCCA had changed one of the C for Citizens to a C for Chicano. She left the group when she enrolled at California State University at Los Angeles; David Sanchez took over the group and by the winter of 1967, the YCCA but identifying as Chicanos began wearing the distinctive garb of military field jackets and brown berets.79 Vickie did not join the Brown Berets but continued her activism during her college years at California State University-Los Angeles until she graduated in 1973. In 1986 she became a junior high school principal at Belvedere and in 1993 was elected to the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education until 2001. She returned to school administration as principal of Hollenbeck Middle School until she retired in 2006.80 Denver FBI, for example, reported on events involving the residence of Priscilla Falcon, the widow of murdered Ricardo Falcon in Oro Grande, Arizona by Perry Munson in August 1972. Munson was acquitted of the crime. The SAC, Denver four-page report was dated September 28, 1973 and it was regarding arrests made over gunshots heard in Brighton, Colorado on September 4, 1973. At the home of Falcon’s widow, Priscilla, the police arrested the inhabitants of the residence [names redacted] and found five weapons listed by model and serial number, spent cartridges in the back yard, electrical detonator, several vehicles with Colorado license plates, and “approximately forty pounds of ammonium nitrate” (p. 3.) The ammonium nitrate was traced back to a construction site in Temple Mountain, Utah but it was not reported as stolen (p. 4). There is no link to the Brown Berets in any part of this incident but for the subject heading of the report and LHM being the “Young Chicanos for Community Action.” The last report released under FOIA on the Brown Berets is dated September 27, 1973 and is from the SAC, Los Angeles. He refers to a Bureau letter of July 9, 1973 about the BB activity in Santa Maria, California but the context is lost due to half the page being redacted. In this one-page report, the closing paragraph is important: “In view of no activity on the part of the

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Brown Berets in Los Angeles and surrounding areas since December 1972, no further investigation is being considered in captioned matter.” Contrary to other sources, Ian H. Lopez citing the Ernest Chavez dissertation of 1972 states that David Sanchez allegedly was accused of murder, rape, and theft of Brown Beret monies and expelled from the organization on October 21, 1972. He was in court as late as 1995 over copyright of the Brown Beret symbol.81 NOTES 1.  Armando Navarro, The Mexican American Youth Organization: Avante-Garde of the Chicano Movement, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998). 2.  See my Foreword, xiii–xvi, and her writing on the subject in Amy Aldridge Sanford, From Thought To Action: Developing a Social Justice Agenda, (San Diego: Cognella, 2020.) 3. Ernesto Vigil, The Crusade for Justice: Chicano Militancy and the Government’s War on Dissent, (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999). See also F. Arturo Rosales, CHICANO!: The History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement, Houston: Arte Publico Press, 1997 the companion book to the 4-part documentary by that same name produced by the National Latino Communications Center, Los Angeles, California, 1996. 4. Rosales, Ibid., 175–177, 186–190, describes the origins of the Brown Berets in a different light and places the role of Vicky Castro after the rise of David Sanchez as their leader while other sources place her as leading the youth group comprised of David Sanchez and others before they opted to become the Brown Berets. 5.  Expedition Through Aztlan, (La Puente, CA: Perspectiva Publications, 1978), 1. 6.  For a treatment of the role sal Castro played in the historic 1968 student walkouts in Los Angeles see Mario T. Garcia and Sal Castro, BLOWOUT! Sal Castro and the Chicano Struggle for Educational Justice, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011). 7.  Jennifer G. Correa, “Chicano Nationalism: The Brown Berets and Legal Social Control,” master’s thesis, Oklahoma State University, July 2006, 46. Dr. Correa utilized FBI files obtained by Freedom of Information Act request in her thesis but is not clear on who initiated the request and where these files are located at this time, 79–80. She claims the FBI consists of more than 1,200 pages. The FBI files she reviewed also begin with the March 8, 1968 report on the stolen automatic weapon, pp. 80–81. Her thesis was re-worked into an article in 2011, “The Targeting of the East Los Angeles Brown Berets by a Racial Patriarchal Capitalist State: Merging Intersectionality and Social Movement Research,” Critical Sociology 37: 83–101. 8.  Ibid., 186–187. 9. Ibid., 46. See also the doctoral dissertation of Rona Marcia Fields, “The Brown Berets: A Participant Observation Study of Social Action in the Schools of Los Angeles,” University of Southern California, January 1970. The Fields dissertation has a



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focus on the Brown Berets once they began activities against the Los Angeles police and not it early beginnings as the Young Citizens for Community Action. 10.  Brown Berets, “Brown Berets 2.0,” www.brownberet.us/chapter-issues/ Accessed March 12, 2012. 11.  Correa, “Chicano Nationalism,”47. 12. No author listed, “The Beret Project,” www.beretandboinas.blogspot.com /2018/02/belgian-brown-beret-html/ Accessed March 13, 2018. 13.  See email from Vickie Castro to author on April 22, 2018 and short biography attached, both in archive with Brown Beret FBI file. 14. See article “Young Chicano Revolutionaries,” in www.fightbacknews.org /2003winter/brownberets.htm/ posted February 1, 2003 as an interview with Carlos Montes. Downloaded March 13, 2018. 15.  Rosales states the coffee house came first then the YCCA, p. 187, while Correa states the YCAA started the coffee house, 48. 16.  Correa, “Chicano Nationalism,” 48. 17.  See Mario T. Garcia, The Chicano Generation: Testimonios of the Movement, (Oakland: University of California Press), 131–132. 18. Garcia, Testimonios, 129–132, 177–189. 19.  University of California, San Diego, 2010. See www.Proquest.com.1474777/ Download attempted on April 8, 2018 but only a partial read was possible. 20.  Erin Blakemore, “How the Black Panthers’ Breakfast Program both Inspired and threatened the Government, “ www.thisdayinhistory.com/ downloaded February 6, 2018. 21.  Sanchez, 2. 22.  Page 50. 23.  Fields, 290. 24.  The Ten Point Program is reprinted in many sources and readily available. One such source is the SAC, Los Angeles LHM report dated March 8, 1971 but covering an extensive period of activity from October 23, 1968 to February 26, 1971, 3 25.  “Interview: Prime Minister of the Brown Berets, Dr. David Sanchez,” Interview of Sanchez by Dr. Alan Carlos Hernandez, Herald de Paris, August 8, 2010. See Heralddeparis.com/interview-prime-minister-of-the-brown-berets-dr-David-sanchez /102019/ 26. Sanchez, 3. 27.  Ibid., 5. 28. Sanchez, Expedition, 17. 29. Ibid., 54. 30.  David Sanchez Papers consist of 25 linear feet of records from 1971–2012 and find link to his papers under the title, http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030 /c8z3231p/ or try http://www.ucla.chicano.ucla.edu/ 31.  In 1978, Sanchez obtained his PhD from The Union Institute and University, www.mexicanamericanuniversity.org/ Accessed October 29. 2019. 32. Amy Goodman, Nermeen Shaikh, Carlos Montes, Democracy Now!, “FBI Crackdown on Antiwar Groups Targets Chicano Brown Beret Activist Carlos

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Montes,” Accessed October 29, 2019, https://democracynow.org/2012/5/16/fbi _crackdown_on_anti_war_groups/ 33.  Richard Valdemar, “Chicano Power and the Brown Berets,” Police: The Law Enforcement Magazine, October 11, 2011, 1. 34.  Ruben Salazar, “Brown Berets Hail ‘La Raza’ and Scorn the Establishment,” June 16, 1969 and reposted August 27, 2014 on Notes from Aztlan, www.notes fromaztlan.com/ Accessed March 12, 2018. 35.  Frank Donner, Protectors of Privilege: Red Squads and Police Repression in Urban America, (Los Angeles; University of California Press), 271. For a time line of LAPD spying and surveillance from 1923 to May 2011 see https://stoplapdspying .org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Tinmeline-of-LAPD-Spying-Surveillance.pdf/ Accessed March 12, 2018. 36.  Sanchez cited in n.24 above. 37.  During my Oregon years, on November 29, 1982 I received 834 pages of material from the FBI about the Brown Berets based on my FOIA request no. 221,214/190. A 3-page letter from the DOJ/FBI accompanied the documents. The actual number of pages was “Pursuant to your request 1,211 pages were reviewed and 377 pages were withheld in their entirety. The person to withhold exempt portions of our records is the responsibility of William H. Webster, Director of the FBI” (p. 1). The statement at top of p. 3 reads: “Enclosed are 834 pages pertaining to the Brown Berets of California—1966–1975 as you requested. One Secret Service document containing FBI information was referred to this Bureau for release to you.” There were no files included for years 1966 or 1967. 38.  In addition to my material there are 25 linear feet of archival material under the name of David Sanchez Papers, 3, on the Brown Berets (BB) are at the Library of the University of California-Los Angeles, UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center; the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on the BB materials are in Box 2, Folder 3 of this archive. 39.  The Los Angeles FBI file number on Castro was 157-2265 and opened under various names: Salvador Burnel Castro, Salvatore B. Castro, and Salvador Bernal Castro. The FBI headquarters open their file on Castro under the number 100-451095 IS-Spanish American. IS is for an Internal Security matter. 40.  Los Angeles Times, Home edition, Section C-1, March 17, 1968. 41.  Wannall, joined the FBI in 1942 as a Special Agent and retired in 1976 as the Assistant Director of the Intelligence Division the last five years of his career with the FBI. He authored The Real J. Edgar Hoover, For the Record, (Paducah, KY: Turner Publishing Company, 2000). 42.  Sanchez makes mention of such an incident with a bayonet in Expedition, 64. 43.  “Poor Protest ‘Beret’ Arrests,” Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, June 3, 1968, A-1. 44. Enciphered 2-page Teletype from FBI, Los Angeles to Hoover, on June 4, 1968 at 2:10 pm. At the bond reduction hearing several other attorneys besides Hannon represented the BB: A.L. Wirin, Oscar Acosta and Paul Posner. 45.  See letter in my personal file with all FOIA and Privacy Act (FOIPA) requests and responses.



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46.  See Ann Mari Buitrago and Leon Andrew Immerman, Are You Now or Have You Ever Been in the FBI Files; How to Secure and Interpret Your FBI Files, (New York: Grove Press), Chapter V “A Glossary of Terms, Abbreviations and Symbols,” 159–215. 47. Garcia, Testimonios, 150, 159. 48.  The Los Angeles Committee for Protections of the Foreign Born. See People v. Zammora [sic], 66 Cal. App. 2d, 1944 as well as the book by Mark A. Weitz, The Sleepy Lagoon Murder Case: Race Discrimination and Mexican-American Rights, (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2010). 49.  Buitrago and Immerman, 212. 50.  Juan M. Perez, self-appointed Prime Minister of the Dallas Brown Berets relates his story with the Brown Berets in his personal Memoir, Through Brown Eyes; A Short History of the Texas Brown Berets Organization and the Chicano Movement from my Point of View, self-published in 2014, ISBN 13-978-1537156446 and 10-1537156446. The last 67 pages of his book contain nothing but photographs of people, events, and activities. 51.  David Montejano did publish the history of the San Antonio Brown Berets in his book, Sancho’s Journal: Exploring the Political Edge with the Brown Berets, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2012). 52.  Sanchez, 17. 53.  Ibid., 5–6. 54.  Ibid., 15. 55.  Ibid., xi. 56.  Ibid., 19. 57. Ibid., 21–53. 58.  Ibid., 21–53. 59.  Ibid., 52. 60.  Ibid., 54. 61.  Ibid., 63. 62.  Ibid., 63–64. 63.  Ibid., 66–67. 64.  Ibid., 68–69. 65.  Ibid., 70–71. 66.  Content analysis of the subheadings and narrative in the applicable portions naming places in the Sanchez book, 63–190. 67.  Rather than continue citing page after page of entries by Sanchez to support the assertions made, I recommend interested readers to examine and conduct their own content analysis of his diary of events. 68.  Sanchez, 93. 69. Ibid., 120. 70.  Ernesto Vigil, colleague at Michigan State University during summers, 2016, 2018 and 2018, and I have had long discussions about the Chicano Movement and its major components such as Black Berets in New Mexico and San Jose, California and the Brown Berets. The local chapter in Pueblo, according to Vigil was the largest Brown Beret grouping in the state. His recollection of the meeting between members

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of the Crusade, including him and Corky Gonzales, and the advance party representing Sanchez just days prior to the visit did not go well and no courtesies were extended to them. Anyone interested in further details will have to contact Ernesto Vigil at the Julian Samora Research Institute, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, telephone: 512-342-1317. 71. Sanchez., 173. 72.  Ibid., 190. 73. B1 is permitted from disclosure if it is classified information stated in an Executive Order; b7c has been previously explained and b7d is authorized to protect identity of informants. 74.  See my Chapter 7. “Tim Chapa: The Informant,” in my book, Tracking King Tiger: Reies Lopez Tijerina and the FBI, (E. Lansing, Michigan State University Press, 2019) 229–256 for discussion of this police murder and no FBI investigation. 75.  Sanchez, 116. 76.  Aircraft piracy is in violation of 49 U.S.C. Sec. 1472(i). See U.S. A. v. Ricardo Chavez-Ortiz, 488 F.2d 175 (9th Cir. 1973) for the appeal and remand that resulted in the reduced sentence. He was released from McNeil Island Federal Prison on June 5, 1978 after serving nearly six years at www.nytimes.com/1978/06/10/archives/notes -on-people.html/ 77.  See also http://calstatla.libguides.com/content.php/ The archivist in charge can be reached at 323-343-3997. Downloaded April 8, 2018. 78. See www.tft.ucla.com/about/executive-board/moctesuma-esparza/ Accessed April 8, 2018. 79. See Ian F. Haney Lopez, Racism on Trial: The Chicano Fight for Justice, (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2003), 178–182. 80.  See email cited above in my endnote 12 for biographical attachment with this information. 81. Lopez, Racism, 203 and in Chavez dissertation, endnotes 127, 299, and endnotes 3, 293.

Part III

THE ONE EVENT

Chapter Eight

Operation Wetback President “Ike” Eisenhower’s Ethnic Cleansing Program

The conceptual origins of Operation Wetback begin with the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution in 1910 or perhaps earlier in the late 1880s early 1900s with the revolutionary activity of Ricardo Flores Magon and his brother, Enrique. By January 1911, the Magon brothers had taken military control of Mexicali after crossing into Mexico from the U.S. side to launch their revolution in Baja California.1 As Carey McWilliams pointed out in a pioneering and handy teacher’s guide, “In all mass migration movements, two sets of factors are at work: ‘push’ factors—those that set people in motion—and ‘pull’ factors—those that pull them to a particular place.”2 Approximately 1 million Mexicans crossed over into the United States to avoid the perils of civil war which lasted until the 1930s before all of society returned to normalcy. By not fleeing another 2 million lost their lives during the period of 1910 to 1924. Other estimates are higher, such as Robert McCaa, he estimates 1.9 million to 3.5 million died, not just from the war but from disease, infant mortality, malnutrition among the elderly, and other non-military causes.3 Those that left Mexico for the United States not only formed the critical mass of humanity in the Southwestern states predominantly but also became the pipeline for other relatives and friends to join the flow. In a bilateral attempt to regulate the flow of Mexicans entering the United States, both governments initiated the first Bracero or guest worker programs in 1917 and 1921.4 The cruel treatment of Mexican laborers at the hands of U.S. growers, however, quickly ended these first accords.5 Mistreatment of Mexican laborers since these years was not only experienced on the U.S. side of the border, the Mexican government supervised process of qualifying Braceros for U.S. work and also receiving those deported was most corrupt. Elizabeth W. Mandeel describes the various methods of extortion Mexican officials employed from paying a fee on average of forty 243

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pesos (Mexican currency) for the privilege of signing up as an aspirante (would-be Bracero); fees for necessary documents to prove eligibility; fees for a contract; travel and food costs to the recruitment centers; ten percent of wages withheld and kept by the Mexican government until return to Mexico; and, compulsory non-occupational accident insurance premiums deducted from pay.6 Kitty Calavita documents similar abuses by Mexican officials in her work.7 Another interesting “push factor” that brought more Mexicans into the United States, according to Jorge A. Bustamante, was the defeat of Pancho Villa’s army in Juarez, Chihuahua in 1919. His soldiers were being hunted by Venustiano Carranza, the new Mexican President, to exterminate the northern menace to the last man. Villa’s loyalists fled to Los Angeles, California. When they were apprehended by U.S. authorities, they accepted deportation to Tijuana, Baja California rather than the interior of Mexico. They regrouped on the outskirts of Tijuana and began their own neighborhood known today as Colonia Libertad.8 On May 19, 1921, the passage of the Emergency Quota Act helped bring more Mexicans into the United States.9 Under its terms immigration from Europe was limited to 357,000 persons per year but not for those coming from the Western Hemisphere. At that time, a job-seeking Mexican could walk across the imagined or real (Rio Grande river in Texas) Mexican border with impunity.10 During the Cristero Wars which lasted from 1926 to 1929 perhaps as many as 100,000 were killed in Mexico and drove many more Mexicans across into the United States.11 During the early 1920s, U.S. border agents patrolled the Mexican border looking to prevent Chinese nationals from entering the country in violation of the Chinese Exclusion Act which barred them from entering. This law was passed and signed during the presidency of Chester A. Arthur on May 6, 1882 and remained in effect until it was repealed by the Magnuson Act on December 17, 1943, a period of 72 years of exclusion based on race.12 1920S DEPORTATIONS: BEGINNINGS OF ETHNIC CLEANSING When the violence of the Mexican Revolution reached U.S. border cities such as El Paso, Texas, the United States not only sent troops to vigil the activity at that border but also passed several legislative items that caused the need for more federal personnel along the entire border. First, the 1917 Immigration Act, which became known as the Literacy Test Act, was passed. Besides listing a long list of undesirables barred entry into the United States, it also required the border crosser to have literacy in some language which required



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testing. When word spread into Mexico, this began the first circumventing of U.S. border personnel and established check points. The second piece of legislation was the 1918 Wartime Measure Act also known as the Passport Act which required a passport for entry and travel in the United States. Again, this inspection of documents required more personnel at the border. In 1924 the United States created the Border Patrol and housed it within the Department of Labor and named the Bureau of Immigration. This was done May 28, 1924 with the first office opened in Detroit, Michigan by June and the El Paso office in July 1924. The hunting for Chinese was switched over to apprehending and deporting Mexicans and began in earnest at this time.13 Deportation of Mexicans became a business. The Wabash Railway Company in 1921 sought to do business with the Bureau of Immigration. The company wrote a letter “regarding the plans to move a large number of Mexicans from Saginaw, Michigan to ‘The Mexican Frontier.’”14 In Los Angeles, the first raids to round up Mexicans took place at La Placita Park where Mexican families would congregate to socialize and picnic. Quoting former California State Senator Joseph Dunn, creator of a memorial at La Placita park to document that history and author of the California Apology Act of 2006 that made a public statement of regret for those atrocities against Mexicans, The Republicans decided the way they were going to create jobs was by getting rid of anyone with a Mexican sounding name . . . then go and arrest and deport those people, and there was a job opening.15

The California deportations of the 1920s were also more calculating and inhumane. Some 2,762 Mexican deportees in 1920, many of which were U.S. citizens, were sent to the border at Tijuana, Baja California. That destination was purposeful in preventing the easy return to the United States. Baja California is not contiguous to the Mexican mainland. The only way out of Baja California is by boat or walking back across into the United States and over to Arizona to enter Mexico thru Sonora. Those deported to Tijuana simply became squatters on vacant land on the Mexican side of the U.S. border east of the city. This new community became known as La Colonia Libertad, comprised of deported Mexicans and Mexican Americans.16 1930S DEPORTATIONS: ETHNIC CLEANSING CONTINUED The literature on Mexican deportations during the 1930s is contradictory. Some accounts claim the millions reported as having been deported are fictitious. They argue that more realistic figures would be roughly 121,000 persons during Herbert Hoover’s administration, 3.4 million during Truman’s

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administration, and 1.3 million during Operation Wetback by President Eisenhower. Oddly, figures during the Roosevelt’s several administrations are omitted by at least one source.17 Part of the discrepancies in numbers deported is the role of others in the round up dragnets and the deportation process. Some claim it was not INS or the Border Patrol who hunted down Mexicans to deport but the local police, state authorities, the FBI, and even the Mexican Consulates in the U.S. who offered bus tickets to return to Mexico.18 These latter paid-to-leave Mexicans were not deported; they were repatriated. The change in nomenclature also moves them out of any statistics of those deported. In February 1930, Steven Mintz wrote “5,000 Mexicans and Mexican Americans gathered at the city’s railroad station to depart the United States for settlement in Mexico.” Later, “in August, [of that same year] a special train carried another 2000 to central Mexico.”19 During a raid in a downtown Los Angeles park the local police “detained some 400 adults and children.”20 Mintz provides some larger numbers of those deported, “some 400,000 repatriodos,” (sic) from the Southwestern states of “Arizona, California, and Texas. Texas’ Mexican-born population was reduced by a third. Los Angeles also lost a third of its population.”21 Early in 1931, the Hoover Administration appointed a commission to study the law enforcement problems presented by Prohibition and created a Committee on Official Lawlessness which became known as the Wickersham Commission.22 By 1933, Prohibition had been repealed but the Commission continued to look at law observance and enforcement across the nation. Deportations was only one small area of their investigations, nevertheless the Wickersham Commission found objectionable features of the deportation system. It “described immigration officials forcibly detaining groups of people many of whom are aliens lawfully in this country, or even United States citizens, without warrant of arrest or search.”23 The result of these practices is reported by the Department of Justice in annual reports prepared by INS. The 1952 Annual Report of the Immigration and Naturalization Service contains tables of statistics on “Aliens Apprehended, Aliens Deported, and Aliens Departing Voluntarily Under Proceedings” as does the 1961 Annual Report which changes the title of a similar table on statistics by substituting “Aliens Required to Depart” for “Aliens Departing Voluntarily.”24 From these statistics, the number of deportees during the Hoover Administration is reduced drastically from what Balderrama and Rodriguez report in their work and a 2006 report in USA TODAY.25 The encyclopedia Britannica states the figure of persons apprehended and deported and repatriated at 886,000 in 1953 and another 1.1 million as a result of the 1954 Operation Wetback purge.26



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THE BRACERO PROGRAM: AN EMERGENCY WAR MEASURE The lawful entry into the United States by male, Mexican laborers, approximately 4.5 million, took place over the several decades during the 1940s and World War II. This program became the second Bracero Program in existence between Mexico and the United States; the prior one of the 1920s has previously been mentioned. Deemed an emergency war measure by the U.S. government in 1942, it was extended over 22 years with several re-authorizations until 1964.27 “From 1942 to 1964, 4.6 million contracts were signed, with many individuals returning several times on different contracts making it the largest U.S. contract labor program.”28 The Mexican Farm Labor Program, its official name, was an accord first drafted in July 23, 1942 and revised on August 4, 1942 and again on April 26, 1943.29 Some sources claim it was the result of an Executive Order signed in July 1942 but I found no record of such an order.30 The first group of Braceros, 4,200, signed agreements and traveled to California on September 29, 1942 but promptly went on strike due to not being paid wages agreed upon. The growers, particularly in the Stockton, California area, quickly raised the harvest wages to what had been promised under contract. Texas was banned by Mexico as a place of employment for Braceros not only during the 1917 and 1921 agreements but also in the first year of the second August 24, 1942 program. Relations between Mexico and the United States over this abuse and mistreatment reached a breaking point. In 1940, President Roosevelt initiated the creation of an Office of InterAmerican Affairs (OIAA) to ease tensions and promote good will among Latin American countries, especially Mexico. He called his new approach the Good Neighbor Policy. President Roosevelt also pressured the Texas governor to create some entity to resolve these issues and the Good Neighbor Commission was born in 1943. By 1944, about 118,182 Mexican laborers were toiling on U.S. farms and railroad, but not in Texas. Braceros working on railroads was suspended on August 24, 1945.31 As a result of both initiatives, Texas removed the Bracero ban in 1947. Despite best efforts to curb abuse of Mexican labor in Texas, there were increased grievances aired by Mexican officials and the Mexican government temporarily did suspend and cease the export of their laborers to the United States. In retaliation, without any federal authorization, the INS Border Patrol in Texas in 1951, allowed hundreds of thousands of Mexican laborers to cross into the U.S., only to arrest them and turn them over to the Texas Employment Commission who in turn delivered these men to select growers in the states. Estimates of how many unlawful entries by Mexican laborers occurred reached a million. Huge profits were made quickly by the unscrupulous tactics of growers, state officials, and INS.

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Mexican laborers in South Texas were being paid half the wage scale paid elsewhere in the state.32 The peak years of legal importation of Mexican workers were in 1952 and 1956 during which the numbers reached 197,100 and 445,197, respectively, according to Fernando Ferrer which corroborates similar numbers posted on Wikipedia.33 The numbers who crossed illegally far outpaced those admitted, according to Carey McWilliams, “For every Mexican legally imported under the Bracero Program, at least four alien Mexicans or ‘Wetbacks’ were apprehended by the Border Patrol . . . In 1953, the number of wetbacks rose to 1,034,282.”34 THIRD PARTY CONTRACT PROBLEM The Bracero Program’s founding and revised document of 1943 utilized a third-party format for the contract placing the individual worker at a great disadvantage. A third-party contract typically is used in the purchase of high-priced items, such as home, car, appliance and the like. The customer, for example, buys a home from a developer and the debt is financed by a mortgage company. Should the buyer have an issue with the home, he has no relationship with the developer anymore, his contractual relationship is now with the mortgage company. The mortgage company has no responsibility for the terms or enforcement of the purchase contract. The alternative is for the purchaser to file civil suit against the developer for whatever the issue is with the home and must continue to pay the mortgage. The Bracero, as an individual worker, signed his contract with the Farm Security Administration of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, not the grower, and any issue with the work, housing, food, safety, wages, health care, and transportation had to be resolved with the Department of Agriculture. The Bracero theoretically could sue the U.S. government, none did, and attempt to get the Mexican Government to intervene but the Mexican government was not a party to the contract either. To get out of the contract or location of employment required the express approval of both the worker and the Mexican Government. The worker had no right to strike, stop work or lockout and mediation of such disputes would be handled by procedures prescribed by the U.S. Government. In addition, the U.S. Government also signed contracts with the states requesting Braceros. This was another set of contracts in which the worker had no rights.35 The most prolific and constant critic of the Bracero Program was Dr. Ernesto Galarza. His contributions to the history of abuses in the Bracero Program consist of several books, many out of print now but available in research libraries.36



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THE EISENHOWER PRESIDENCY: BORDER CONTROL AND SECURITY President Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States holding office from 1953 to 1961. He was a lifetime military career man, except for a brief stint as a university president (Columbia, 1948–1953). That job was interrupted within months by taking a leave of absence in 1950 to head the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). He returned, not to Columbia but to run for President of the United States as a Republican. Previously, New York lawyer and staunch Republican Herbert Brownell, Jr., had tried to get the Republican Party to nominate Eisenhower in 1948 and was unsuccessful. Ike’s military life began with appointment to West Point in 1911 based on the recommendation of U.S. Senator Joseph L. Bristow (R-Kansas) and his excellent entrance exam score which was among the top of the group seeking admission. He did not keep up the good grades and finished in the middle of his class on June 12, 1915 and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant. He was sent to Texas where he met and married Mamie Doud, an Iowa girl, the following year. For the next decade, he made higher rank almost annually until 1924 when he became a Major and a decade later was elevated to Lt. Colonel on July 1, 1936. He reached full Colonel on March 6, 1941 and again made higher rank each year until April 11, 1946 when he became the General of the Army, Regular Army, with five stars. After his two-term presidency, January 20, 1953 to January 20, 1961, he returned to active duty in 1961.37 BEGINNINGS OF THE MILITARIZATION OF THE US-MEXICAN BORDER In 1954, President Eisenhower sought a military solution befitting his profession to the unlawful presence of many Mexican laborers in the United States that several important economic interests were pressuring him to do something about. The information on the evils of the Bracero Program did not reach Mexicans in Mexico yearning for better wages and working conditions. Not much prevented many Mexicans from crossing into the United States in search of work and by-passing the recruitment process of the Bracero Program. California seemed particularly impacted with more Mexican laborers than there were available jobs to hire them, according to news accounts the president read and heard about. The end of World War II brought home many soldiers in search of jobs; and Mexicans, lawful entry or not, were made the scapegoat for Anglo unemployment. In response to this labor problem and

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growing civil rights concerns among black Americans, President Eisenhower appointed as U.S. Attorney General a politically savvy Republican strategist, Herbert Brownell, Jr. Brownell’s credentials were impeccable, both professionally as a Yale-trained law graduate and politically as a former Chair of the Republican National Committee (1944–1946), and the chair of Thomas Dewey’s gubernatorial campaign in New York. Brownell had been a state assemblyman for two terms in New York.38 Brownell was Ike’s man for domestic policy and politics. When confronted with the Mexican labor issue, particularly in California and Texas, Brownell was the man for the job. Little did Brownell know but Joseph M. Swing, who to him was just another fresh face from New Jersey, had been a classmate of Dwight D. Eisenhower at West Point. Swing was a graduate of West Point Military Academy and also commissioned as a Second Lieutenant with Ike in 1915. More importantly, he had been assigned to General John J. Pershing during the “Punitive Expedition, U.S. Army” tasked to hunt down the Mexican revolutionary Francisco “Pancho” Villa from March 14, 1916 to February 7, 1917 in retaliation for his attacks on Nogales, Santa Isabel, and Columbus, New Mexico. Villa, up to that point in time, was the only foreign leader to launch an attack on U.S. soil and escape retribution. He was never captured by the dynamic duo of General Pershing and Lt. Swing. But for the advent of U.S. entry into WWI and both Pershing and Swing being called back for combat elsewhere on January 1917, they both escaped severe criticism for that failure. They were both deployed to Europe to fight Germans. Their Mexican campaign had been a total failure.39 Surely, this Mexican-failure memory stayed with Swing as he became the Commissioner of INS. He now had a second chance to hunt down, apprehend, and deport Mexicans. He finally was going to be able to do this successfully. General Swing, in the summer of 1953, had been the Commander of the 6th Army based in California. According to Kitty Calavita, Swing met with U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell when he toured the California Mexico border on a fact-finding mission that August. General Swing proposed the United States militarize the border with 4,000 of his troops to “stop the horde of invaders.” His proposed name for the military dragnet was borrowed from a Border Patrol agent he met, “Operation Cloudburst.”40 Rebuffed on his proposal by AG Brownell for border control and security, Swing retired from the military in February 1954 only to be resurrected three months later by his former classmate and buddy, Ike, the President.41 Swing was nominated and confirmed by the U.S. Senate as Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization Service on May 24, 1954. He served for eight years until January 5, 1962.42



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GENERAL JOSEPH M. SWING BEGINS “OPERATION WETBACK” As head of INS, Commissioner Swing not only had control over an agency specifically charged with capturing Mexicans present in the United States without the proper visas, work permits, or passports but also had the President’s ear. He could by-pass his superior, the Attorney General, at will. General Swing’s Operation Cloudburst became Brownell’s Operation Wetback within a month of his appointment. Within days, Commissioner Swing ordered more Border Patrol (BP) agents to be deployed to the Mexican border; initiated traffic stops; set up road blocks; boarded buses and trains; and even cordoned off neighborhoods for inspection. Local police were recruited to arrest profiled persons under vagrancy laws and to call the BP immediately to run background checks on all those detained. As the numbers of those apprehended without papers began to increase, Swing initiated buslifts to transport undocumented Mexicans to the interior of Mexico regardless of their native domicile in Mexico.43 On June 17th, a week into Operation Wetback, Swing created a Special Mobile Force (SMF) of 800 BP agents to conduct round up in select cities in California and Arizona. The SMF began averaging 1,000 detentions per day. The next month the SMF was doing roundups in the Midwest and the rest of the Southwest.44 The Annual Report of the INS for 1959 indicates that over 1,089,583 persons were apprehended and deported during 1954.45 Ironically, the more effective the BP was at apprehending and deporting Mexicans, the greater the need for contracted Braceros became, particularly in states like Texas. Calavita notes that in 1953 only 700 Braceros were contracted in Texas but by 1954 the Reception Center at Hidalgo, Texas, had processed 50,326 contracts solely to Rio Grande Valley growers.46 President Eisenhower astutely sought out the Mexican government to assist in receiving their deported nationals. Surprisingly, the Mexican government not only agreed to meet those being deported at Mexican border crossings, railroad stations, airports, and sea ports, the Mexican government’s military and police personnel actively sought to prevent their citizens from crossing into the United States. This complicity and collusion by Mexican President Adolfo Ruiz Cortines with Operation Wetback was analyzed in 2006 by Kelly Lytle Hernández.47 In 1980, Juan Ramon Garcia, the only secondary source on Operation Wetback, provided some statistical data on the numbers of Mexicans the militarized round-up hunted down and detained for deportation.48 These numbers were former Braceros who probably jumped their contracts with growers and countless others who had crossed over the border without documentation

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at the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution in 1910.49 Garcia estimates the Bracero Program which spanned a twenty-two-year period, September 27, 1942 to 1964 contracted some 4.5 million Mexican workers, an average of 200,000 per year.50 Garcia obtained data on numbers apprehended from 1951 through 1964 for a total of 3,594,359. Operation Wetback existed as an official presidential mandate to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), specifically, the Border Patrol (BP) until 1955. Those numbers from 1951 through 1955 add up to 3,237,726.51 The peak number of 1,075,168 apprehensions were registered for 1954.52 Apprehensions, however, are not deportations as critics have since pointed out, the INS exaggerated their numbers as did local media.53 Executive Order 6166 was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during his first term on June 10, 1933 moving the Border Patrol from the Department of Labor to the newly created Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in the Department of Justice.54 The responsibility for border enforcement and immigration, combined, was put in place in the DOJ with this new agency. CAPTIVE LABOR AND RENT-A-SLAVE Among growers and Congressional members who held hearings on migratory labor, it was common knowledge that only those persons without skills or other employment options worked in the agricultural fields of the United States. During the slavery decades, people did not pick cotton by choice; post-slavery only captive or indentured domestic labor picked cotton, or any other crop needed for the tables of the rich and middle-class families in the country. Braceros, on the other hand, had none or few labor options in Mexico and no options in the United States once assigned to a grower, fishery, forester, railroad, or processing plant; they also were captive labor. They could not leave the assignment. If they did, and many did, it was because they refused the cruel treatment, deplorable working conditions, scarce wages, and horrible food. Once they jumped their labor contract, they became the targets for BP’s Operation Wetback the next day and for weeks, months, years, and decades into the future. As Calavita details, in Arizona growers paid for transportation of winos, vagrants, homeless, and hobos to their farms knowing these reluctant workers had no means to transport back to their former places and no means to collect wages if they walked off the job. During WWII the prisoners of war brought over from South America, Italy, Germany, and Japan, and the Japanese Americans in concentration camps were also contracted out to work in agricultural fields. Many a sheriff rented out prisoners



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for day labor. In Oregon, school districts shut down classes during peak tree fruit and berry harvest times so students could fill in for labor shortage. These captive labor types were temporary; only the Bracero was permanent because he was locked into a contract and a job assignment.55 MORE TRICKS As the Bracero Program began to convert the growers, particularly in Texas, away from the cheap labor paid to Mexicans without papers to legal workers, the BP created new opportunities to keep those workers, Braceros, and those without papers who met their demands but whose contracts were expiring. These tricks were called by different names. The contractual requirement to pay a “prevailing wage” could be set by the farmer/grower and also allowed to be moved away from a wage, hourly or daily, to a piece-rate. The “shortage of labor” certification to bring more Braceros was used to hire both legal and undocumented Mexicans at the same time. The presence of such undocumented workers were grounds to terminate grower eligibility in the Bracero Program. The BP instead authorized the grower to post a “compliance bond” and not lose his Braceros. This practice became known as the “Texas Proviso” whereby a grower had to have personal knowledge of undocumented status of his worker to be fined or otherwise punished for harboring such persons. Braceros had a ten percent deduction from wages that went to a Mexican bank, Banco Nacional de Credito Agricola, to hold in trust until the Bracero returned home to claim his monies. On February 6, 1947, the Banco Nacional de Credito Agricola revealed in its annual internal audit that the 12 million pesos (about $4 million in 1947) had been used for daily operations by the bank; there was no individual trust fund for Braceros. Similarly, U.S. states with an income tax also deducted their share from Bracero wages and these monies have not been returned to any Bracero. There was a class action law suit filed in 2001 by a Chicago law firm in the Northern District of California and District Judge Charles Breyer approved a settlement to pay each Bracero his share only for the years 1942 to end of 1946, of the compromised amount, $14.5 million if they applied by January 5, 2009. Doing the math of the settlement agreement which was for five years of the program only; did not include refunds for state income taxes paid; some 40 years since the end of the Bracero program who was alive; and, who heard of the litigation.56 Commissioner Swing authorized the issuance of a special permit, the I-100 card, which validated the holder as “Special” of “Skilled” or “Key Man” or simply “Satisfactory” worker. Without such a card, the Bracero could not renew his contract. This process bypassed Mexico’s supervision of a new

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contract with the United States arguing that such a worker had been previously recruited and was not again being recruited.57 The worker with a I-100 card stamped “Special” never caused any trouble, did all that was asked of him, and certainly never exhibited any signs of being a subversive, agitator, much less a communist, qualified for the “Special Program” developed by the BP for Texas ranchers. Commissioner Swing in 1956 had prepared a new enforcement program, “Infiltration of Bracero Program by Agitators,” and focused on work stoppages or strikes reported by the Department of Labor. The BP would immediately investigate each reported incident to ferret out the Braceros engaged in any such activity.58 The BP or rancher would transport the I-100 Special workers to the border for crossing into to Mexico and promptly returning to the U.S. side for signing and entering into a new contract. No need for Mexico or the Department of Labor getting involved and delaying the retention of good workers.59 THOSE GRANTED PERMANENT VISAS Sociologist Gilberto Cardenas in his research found records to indicate that during the years 1940 to 1955, the U.S. authorities granted 180,783 Permanent Visas to Mexicans. Of these visas, 88,228—almost half—were issued in the peak years of Operation Wetback.60 Perhaps one of these was the Mexican maid recruited in Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico by Commissioner Joseph M. Swing to become his maid in Washington, D.C. or the first woman Bracera contracted for domestic service. In sworn testimony before U.S. Senator Lyndon B. Johnson, Commissioner Swing admitted as much.61 Juan Garcia provided data on the number of contracted Mexican Braceros during 1951 through 1964: 4,215,499 men.62 Data provided on the annual Mexican population estimated the total population to have been 29.6 million in 1954 and 39.9 million in 1964, a growth of 10 million persons.63 While it is unknown from these statistics if Braceros were included in these numbers, and assuming they were not, some 10 percent of the Mexican population, exclusively adult males, legally left Mexico for the United States during the Bracero Program. According to Garcia, Hernandez and Virgilio PartidaBush, Mexican male laborers continued to flow without documents into the United States in the decades that followed; women joined in the exodus in the latter part of the 20th century. While this flow eased pressures on the Mexican government to create jobs and expand the economy while receiving hefty amounts of remittances sent back to the mother country by these workers, a window of opportunity was created to industrialize Mexico and raise its Gross National Product. This window of opportunity, according to



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Partida-Bush, will close around 2030 because population growth and aging of the population is overtaking growth in the Mexican economy.64 THOSE THAT JUMPED THE BRACERO CONTRACT The term “skip” was used by INS and the BP to denote those Braceros who jumped their contracts by fleeing the workplace and seeking refuge in nearby cities to their place of employment or other farms. The term was defined and explained by internal memo from General Frank H. Partridge, Special Assistant to the INS Commissioner by memo dated July 14, 1954. He wrote to all District Directors at Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Antonio, and El Paso: I refer to a situation created by those who, prior to the termination of their contracts, take off for another locality with the express purpose of remaining in this country. In other words, they have used the contract as a device to gain legal entry and avoid the hazard of crossing the border as an illegal entrant. This type of illegal is known as a “skip.”

He asked the District Director for “your ideas of what can and should be done to keep braceros from becoming a ‘skip’ and developing a new problem.” The safest havens were cities where large numbers of Mexican ancestry people lived such as San Antonio, San Jose, El Paso, Albuquerque, Denver, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Chicago, and St. Louis. In 1955, for some unexplained reason other than incompetence, the state of Arkansas was never included in planning or assignment of personnel during the first years of Operation Wetback. In 1960, Arkansas had 30,000 Braceros working in the state, but hundreds of them had skipped during the 1959 cotton picking season. Not until this notice came to the BP’s attention did they dispatch 18 agents to seek out deserters.65 They were too late, many Braceros had over the years married Anglo women and left for Chicago. When found and apprehended those that had skipped and those who did not have the necessary papers to prove lawful presence in the United States were sent to locations to be deported. They were deported by various methods depending on budget allocations and constraints: walked across border bridge, bus, train, airplane, and boat. Those deported from Chicago were first flown to Brownsville, bused to Port Isabel, then put on a boat to Veracruz.66 Some at early stages of the deportations were merely walked across the bridge. When many of those recently deported re-appeared and were apprehended, the BP realized that Mexico’s cooperation was necessary to make return to the United States more difficult by having the final destination for those deported to be deep into Mexico.67 Those deported by boat from Brownsville/Port Isabel,

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Texas are the focus of the documents obtained for this research.68 There were two main vessels contracted to take deported Mexicans to Veracruz, Mexico, the Mercurio and the Emancipacion. While no information was readily available on the Mercurio, it appears from records that the Emancipation, first named Lake Ogden or War Maple, under number 216093 was built by American Ship Building Company in Loraine, Ohio in 1918. It was operated by Cunard Steamship Co. Ltd. of London, England until 1925 then owned by Atlantic & Caribbean Steam Navigation Company in 1925 to 1937. It was registered in the United States partly in 1936 when ownership changed to Transportes Maritimes y Vias Fluviales and registered in Mexico later in 1936. The name in Spanish was changed to Trujillo in 1925, then Emancipacion in 1937. It was owned by the Mexican company until 1968.69 When seven Braceros jumped from the Mercurio into the Gulf of Mexico waters and drowned, an on-board mutiny ensued and public clamor over the inhumanity of leaving men to drown caused the use of ships to transport deportees to end by fall 1954.70 THE INS FILES: 1950–1955 The first documents of the 894 pages on Operation Wetback I obtained from the INS/DOJ did not materialize until October 13, 1982; eight pages were withheld entirely under exemption (b) (7) (C) which is the protector of personal information.71 My Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request was number 212,236/190- and I was refunded my advance payment of $223.20 and only billed $89.40 for the duplication of these obtained pages.72 This was the explanation: Dear Mr. Gutierrez: The Federal Record Center has not been able to locate the entire Operation Wetback file. Volumes 3 and 4 are missing. Because we have no idea when those volumes will be located, we are sending you the portions that are available.73

I appealed the decision requesting they continue searching for the missing volumes of documents on Operation Wetback that I had first requested on May 21, 1981. I also requested they make available files on Project Intercept which the INS never did to this day.74 The documents obtained begin with letters and telegrams from the public on the topic of “Wetbacks.” Approximately a third of documents released are copies of such letters and telegrams and the responses to some of these communications. There is no distinction within the documents as to which pages belong to Volume 1, 2, 5 or 6. There is one, hand written, insert of very poor copy quality stating at the top right corner: “#10 X V 56657/466 Supple-



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ment.” Then at almost center “Special BP Force—San Antonio Thru 7-2654” with the more numbers as those at top right at the far right of the page, “56864/45.6.” At the very center of the page in bigger hand written letters: “Wetback, Operation”—BPSPEC Task Force— General “1954” [and in even larger letters], “Vol V” Another third of the documents are newspaper clippings of articles germane to the issue of Mexican labor, legal and unlawful. Reports and intra-office transmissions between the Border Patrol, INS, and the DOJ make up the rest of the documents. LETTERS AND TELEGRAMS: 1950–1953 The first letter in the documents released is from Louis Renshaw, 1124 Tamarini Avenue, Hollywood, California dated March 2, 1950 to J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI. Renshaw simply proposes a national identification program so every citizen and those not deported can be identified. There is no response from Hoover in the documents. There are no documents for 1952. The file released does begin with documents from 1953. The two major civil rights groups in the 1950s among Mexican Americans were the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) founded in 1929 and the American G.I. Forum (AGIF) founded in 1948. Both groups opposed the Bracero Program and sent a flurry of telegrams dated between August 6 and 17. Those sending the telegrams belonged to the American G.I. Forum. Those sending telegrams objected to the illegal entry by Mexicans and invited the U.S. Attorney General, Herbert Brownell, to come tour Texas, especially the Rio Grande Valley. They recommended closing the border. By telegram campaign beginning on May 13, 1953 to Herbert Brownell, U.S. Attorney General, the American G.I. Forum, the second oldest civil rights group organized by Mexican Americans in 1948, sent messages in support of Operation Wetback. Several state officers of the American G.I. Forum such as Gilbert C. Garcia, Chairman of District 9 AGIF in Fort Worth, Texas, wrote, “American G.I. Forum would like the entire border from California to Texas be closed against wetback influx.” It also urged him to visit Texas because the problem was not just in California. Among other American G. I. Forum state officers sending such telegrams were Trinidad R. Gonzalez, a member of the AGIF Texas State Board of Directors, who wrote, “This organization is against Wetback influx, labor wages go down. Our people (taxpayers) suffer

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consequences. Crime races to all time high. Problem not minor.” James Baca, AGIF State Chairman of New Mexico wrote, We urgently call your attention huge invasion of wetbacks entering illegally from Mexico along entire border from California to Texas which are exploited by unscrupulous employers. They seriously endanger wage scales and law enforcement in all border states.

Ed Idar, Jr. Executive Secretary, AGIF of Texas, wrote, This organization urges entire Mexican border from California to Texas be closed against Wetback influx. Immigration records show more than 300,000 wetbacks apprehended in Texas during last fiscal year. Problem not repeat not strictly a California one.

The following month beginning on August 14th, the telegram campaign was renewed. David A. Moreno, Chairman AGIF of Elsa, Texas, wrote, Wetback influx California to Texas has seriously hurt the ecomomy [sic] of border regions complicating social situations hindering public health and creating new crime waves. Urge you visit Texas near future to familiarize yourself with situation here. Statistical survey of Rio Grande Valley confirm above facts for this region.

Rev. Erwin A. Juraschek, Archidioecesan Moderator Counsel of Catholic Men and Women of San Antonio, Texas wrote, In pursuance with your investigation of the wetback problem we urge attention to the plight of Texas. The entire 1700-mile border between Mexico and US is in dire need of greater policing and our border patrol should receive an immediate increase of appropriations to serve this purpose.

From the AGIF District Chairman in McAllen, Texas, Elias Z. Olivares came this message to AG Brownell as part of the renewed telegram campaign of August 14th We emphatically urge that entire U.S. Mexican border be closed against illegal entry of aliens. Wetback problem has reached crisis stage in Texas. Mass invasion by hordes of illegal aliens at will poses great economic educational and social problems in Texas and certainly undermines security of our country in these dangerous times. We cordially extend you invitation to make tour of Valley in Texas.



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The next day, August 15th, two more telegrams were sent by AGIF leaders beginning with L. M. Lopez, Acting State Secretary of the State of Colorado, who wrote We urge you close Mexican border to wet back traffic. Thousands displaced by wet backs forced to migrate other states including Colo. Problem serious our state. Immediately action necessary.

The founder and Chairman of the AGIF Board of Directors, an organization formed to protect and advocate for civil rights of returning Mexican American soldiers from WWII, Dr. Hector P. Garcia, from Corpus Christi, Texas wrote a lengthy message by telegram, As Founder and organizer of the American G.I. Form [sic] veterans organizations mostly of Spanish American origin urge that whole border from California to Texas be effectively patrolled and closed to Wetback invasion which is undermining our American standard of living. Problem is serious and it is causing unnecessary hardship suffering and bad health to our Americans of Mexican origin who are rooted by the cheap labor furnished by Wetbacks. Problem is California Arizona New Mexico and Texas. Problems should be attacked simultaneously in all areas. Will be glad to personally conduct you on tour of our substandard housing throughout the Southwest United States conditions which is caused by the cheap labor of illegal wetback workers. Spanish veterans of World War II and Korea feel that federal government should protect their families job and their own jobs by eliminating the tremendous source of cheap labor.

A final telegram from F. D. Fervin, the Texas Vice Chairman, also from Corpus Christi, Texas sent on August 16th and stamped August 17th at 9:29 A.M. stated the same AGIF line to close the border and deport the 3 million wetbacks already in the United States. The telegram blitz was because A.G. Brownell had just traveled earlier to the California-Mexico border for a firsthand inspection of the terrain and issue.75 Another 3-page document from the American Legion California Department Headquarters dated sometime in August listed Resolutions and budget appropriations. At the state convention of the American Legion they passed Resolution 29 which recommended the U.S.-Mexico border be closed to juveniles. The national convention of the American Legion held in New York late August 1952 had passed Resolution 607 which recommended additional and enough funding for the full enforcement of the law by Immigration and Naturalization Service. Apparently, supplemental appropriations began to flow to the INS in the amount of $3 million in 1951; it was the same in 1952,

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and the same in 1953 with an additional $1,695,300 to hire 200 additional investigators (p. 2). L. W. Wonn from Arlington, California on August 10th wrote a letter to AG Brownell asking him to renew the Air Patrol to “stop the smuggling of all birds. The smuggling of dope and Parrots, . . . [which] seems to be on the increase.” Lee Ringer from Los Angeles sent a telegram to AG Brownell on August 11, 1953 at 11:52 p.m. asking him to view a televised report on the Wetback Problem broadcast by KTTV Channel 11 in Los Angeles. The program seemed too sympathetic toward the illegal immigrants and with District Director of INS, Herman Landon, on the program “thereby lending an air of official sanction to it.” Ringer wanted to know who stepped into this “propaganda booby trap? If so, who planted it?” Ringer followed up with a letter dated August 12th asking the same questions. Also, on the 11th of August, E. L. Zeigler wrote a letter to AG Brownell urging him to give thought to his idea of building a Military Road with a good fence along the entire border with only openings for cities. All other crossings had to be over and under the Military Road. Not all letters in the INS files released are anti-Mexican labor coming to the United States; for example, George W. Kohler in a letter dated August 12, 1953 to AG Brownell had some very practical suggestions such as prosecuting employers who hired illegal workers and having Mexico provide visas to all those coming to work legally and share that data with the United States so everyone knew who should and shouldn’t be hired to work. Mr. Kohler also made mention of an obstruction of justice case by the DOJ which began on February 13, 1950 and was being carried on by “the invisible government of America.” AG Brownell scribbled at the top of the letter: “No Reply Complaint is w/o understanding HB.” Miss Irene A. Irwin from Los Angeles with a sister who lived in the Imperial Valley sent her letter dated August 14th to AG Brownell. She urged him to find a way to have growers hire this type of Mexican labor who “make the two-day walk over the hot desert, with very little food and water, in order to get to the Imperial Valley to do this very work.” THE CALIFORNIA-MEXICO BORDER TOUR: A PRELUDE Most of the California dailies carried stories of the Brownell three-day tour of the border with stops at El Centro, Calexico, and San Ysidro across from Tijuana and a press conference in Los Angeles before returning to Washington, D.C. He made sensational headlines with his findings. AG Brownell termed the issue a “Wetback Invasion.” He reported that in 1952 his INS had apprehended 839,000 “wetbacks” and of those “406,000 were from Southern



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California alone. But only 200,000 Mexican farm hands allowed by law to enter the United States each year to help harvest crops.” His main criticism was toward Congressional spending which had thinned out the Border Patrol to the point that “one man has more than five miles of the 1,600-mile Mexican border to guard.” He dismissed any concern with subversives crossing the border or huge drug smuggling operations in place. He pledged to make this “the No. 1 law enforcement problem, and it will take all the efforts and cooperation of law enforcement officials to combat the illegal entry of aliens.”76 The San Diego Chamber of Commerce took advantage of the Brownell visit to weigh in on the Mexican labor issue and passed a Resolution on August 12, 1953 urging the federal government to issue crossing cards for agricultural workers because while there may have been many illegal persons seeking work in California, the San Diego famers and growers were complaining about the lack of labor. From Brawley, California came a letter dated August 13th from B.D. Diaz asking the AG to meet with him in person to discuss a telegram [not included] but Brownell declined the invitation. Similarly, the Community Service Organization (CSO) in Los Angeles also sought to meet with the AG by letter dated August 14th and signed by A. P. Gonzalez, Executive Director. The CSO did not look with favor at the growing number of unemployed Mexican laborers in the area. No meeting was held with the CSO. Kern County, further north from Los Angeles, sent the AG a lengthy 3-page statement signed by Joseph F. Briggs, Assistant Welfare Director, attributing a rise in welfare expenditures to the “wetback problem.” They focused on new births from Mexican fathers who are usually deported and local girls that must receive aid for needy children in the absence of the breadwinner. Costs at the County Hospital were growing due to the increased birth rate, illnesses and injuries sustained by “wetbacks and tuberculosis which has a high incidence among Mexican people” (p. 2). The problem was summarized by claiming it would not be solved because making this labor illegal made them hide and stay out of the public eye for fear of apprehension and deportation. And, “they are housed in quarters without proper sanitation facilities” (p. 3). The lone document in favor of Mexican labor was an “Open Letter to Attorney General Herbert Brownell, Jr.” dated August 15, 1953 from the Executive Secretary, Issacs Partridge, of the Northern California Committee for Protection of Foreign Born. It demanded “this whole campaign of intimidation and terror be stopped!” The letter cited mass harassment of Mexicans in the state, home invasions, questioning citizens and non-citizens, and threatening deportation. It urged repeal of the Walter-McCarran Act of 1952. AG Brownell stopped in Denver to meet with President Eisenhower and give him an assessment of the Mexican labor issue in California. The open source newspaper clippings in the INS file indicate that meeting went very

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well for Brownell, who was given carte blanche to use any and all resources to curb the flow of Mexican laborers into the United States. He told the President he needed 2,000 more Border Patrolmen to do the job. The El Paso Times editorial, “Why The Mexicans?” posed the question and why not deport all illegal immigrants from Europe and Canada as well?77 This question had been raised and ignored by policy makers and U.S. political leaders for decades. In 1979 proponents of zero population growth (ZPG) continued to argue that population control was the real issue, not unlawful entry immigrants. In a publication by them, they argued historically it had been unlawful-entry Canadians that comprised most “illegals” in the United States, not Mexicans.78 The problem overlooked by Erlich et al., however, was blatant U.S. racism, personal and institutional, Canadians who look like white Americans until they talk cannot be suspected of unlawful entry. The southern border is a different problem because Mexicans are not seen as being “like Americans.” They talk in Spanish, their skin is brown, what they eat is different, and they are Catholic not Protestant. Overall they are perceived by white Americans as being culturally deficient. Moreover, the U.S. history books do not teach children that the United States was a Spanish America, centuries before it was Anglo. They learn of the heroics by President Lincoln when the Congress was free of the overtly racist Southerners during his tenure to push through the Transcontinental Railroad taking millions of acres of land belonging to Native American tribes and Spanish and Mexican land grantees. He did not pay a penny nor offer apology for that enormous theft of land prohibited by the Takings Clause of the 5th Amendment. President Lincoln followed up by pushing through the first of many Homestead Acts giving these stolen lands to White European immigrants for a pittance and a few years of labor. Currently, this illegal transfer of land to “Settler Colonialists” is the elimination of the native population’s presence and ownership from the U.S. history books and national memory.79 What public school children do learn are the racist terms associated with persons at the Southern border who have been historically residing in the western United States. The racist terminology conflates history with xenophobia and hatred as if the Mexicans just got here yesterday and are “Illegals, Aliens, Illegal Aliens, Mojados,” and “Wetbacks.” THE 1954 CORRESPONDENCE AND IMPLEMENTATION OF OPERATION WETBACK The only piece of correspondence in the released documents is an illegible handwritten 2-page letter addressed to the U.S. Attorney General. It begins



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with writing at top right indicating it was dated January 6, 1954 and sent from Tracy, California. It is signed by what appears to be the name of (illegible) E. Clemmens. The content of this letter deserved a response because on the right side near the top is a handwritten instruction that reads, “Ms. Marshall: Pls prepare letter pls. HPB.” The few legible sentences indicate the author is encouraging AG Brownell to continue with Operation Wetback because “around California and West Region . . . the chatter . . . especially of Labor Contractors . . . they will resume their Wetback operations again.” And, in other lines: I hope you will be ready to meet the challenge same as last year which was first time in years anything noticeable had been done to curb the use of Alien Slave Labor in America. (p.1)

The released files resume with the last half of 1954, May 18th, specifically an office memorandum from the INS District Director, J.W. Holland in San Antonio, Texas to Robert H. Robertson, Acting Assistant Commissioner, Border Patrol, Detention & Deportation Division, Central Office. The onepage memo was to the “ATTENTION: HARLON B. CARTER, Chief Border Patrol Branch.” Apparently, the number of persons apprehended and needing transportation to deport them was increasing to the point that extra personnel was needed to drive vehicles. The author is relaying a telephone conversation between himself and Mr. Carter a few days prior about “our using temporary employees . . . for the purpose of driving motor vehicles . . . transporting illegal aliens.” The second part of the paragraph referred to a report from H. P. Brady, Chief, Border Patrol Section” in McAllen, Texas to address the new influx of Patrol Inspectors, 100, to his district. In a separate one-page sheet dated May 18th also, Brady proposed to Holland the allocation of these new 100 Patrolmen “be assigned as follows: McAllen 25, Mission 15, Mercedes 15, Harlingen 15, San Benito 10, Brownsville 15, Rio Grande City 5.” Chief Brady also mentions that he agrees with the recommendation to use temporary employees to drive “Government-owned [typo] buses and trucks in conveying apprehended illegally entered aliens from places of apprehension to point of expulsion would be very effective.” Chief Brady also takes the opportunity to add that if these temporary employees who are Security Officers become drivers, his sector will need more Security Officers. He proposes a list of eight cities where he would allocate new Security Officers with McAllen as the largest pool of 21 down to 2 each for San Benito and Brownsville. That subject of new drivers and increased numbers of Security Officers was not revisited in any documents released.

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WHO WAS HARLON BRONSON CARTER? Harlon Bronson Carter was born in Granbury, Texas, August 10, 1913, son of a Border Patrol officer, assigned to Laredo, Texas. At that time, the Border Patrol, particularly in the southern sector stretching from Laredo east to Brownsville, Texas was comprised primarily of ex-Texas Rangers. As a teenager, Harlon shot and killed 15-year-old Ramon Casiano who allegedly had pulled a knife on Harlon while holding a shotgun. Reportedly, Harlon’s mother had complained of some Mexican teenagers out in the street who scared her by being loud. The Carters had their car stolen just weeks before. Harlon went looking for the loud teenagers, suspected car thieves, and found them. Harlon was charged and convicted of this premeditated crime but was released after two years in prison, based on a successful appeal. In 1936, several years after this incident, Harlon joined the Border Patrol.80 Within months he began formulating a plan to rid Texas of all Mexicans. He mirrored his plan based on the “Greaser Act” of 1855 passed in California. The term “Greaser” was used in the legislation to define Mexicans in Section Two of the actual law, the Anti-Vagrancy Act. It called for removal of all Mexicans and half-breeds from the state. When Harlon became the Sector Chief of the Border Patrol, now based in McAllen, Texas, he proposed Operation Cloudburst to President Dwight Eisenhower to rid the country of Mexicans. The Carter plan was quickly dismissed. By 1950 Carter was named the Head of the U.S. Border Patrol. His Operation Cloudburst proposed utilizing military troops to hunt down, round up, detain, and deport undocumented Mexicans from the United States. President Truman in deference to Posse Comitatus of 1878 did not want federal troops involved in this type of mass dragnets across the country. Harlon was instrumental in the implementation of Operation Wetback when it came to Texas first beginning in California and Arizona on June 17, 1954 after President Eisenhower announced it to the public on June 9th of that same year. After his service to the Border Patrol he retired and went to work for his favorite organization, the National Rifle Association (NRA), There, he rose up the ranks to become president and also head of a lobbying entity, Institute for Legislative Action. His efforts at the helm of both resulted in a membership increase in the NRA from 1 million to 3 million.81 SHAMEFUL CONDITION Harlon Carter ignited a new firestorm on June 22, 1954 by handwritten letter to “Dear Rex:”. “Here are the names [redacted] on the first 3 men sent home



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from this detail,” he wrote and closed with “I shall later request replacements for men needed to bring (and keep) this Special Force up to strength. Regards, Harlon.”82 This issue of “unfit men for duty” as Border Patrol men must have been addressed by telephone or perhaps, personally by Carter and Commissioner Swing, because that same date of June 22nd, two letters were sent by Carter to others on this matter. One such letter went to the District Director in St. Albans, New York stating Dr. Stanley Edwin Monroe of Chula Vista, California concerning Inspector Lord’s physical condition and a copy of a letter from Chief Patrol Inspector John P. Swanson stating that Inspector [Lord] terminated his detail at 11:45 AM on June 20, 1954 and departed for this official station Massena, New York via train.

The second letter went to the “District Director, Seattle, Washington” with copies of supporting material on the release of Chief Patrol Inspector John P. Swanson. He was “released from detail and departed for his official station on June 20, 1954 at 7:30 PM by airplane.” In both letters, Carter informed the addressee he had also sent all the supporting documents to the Central Office “with the recommendation . . . to have Inspector [Lord] accorded a physical examination in order to determine his physical fitness for continued employment in the position of Immigration Patrol Inspector.” And, the same language was used in the letter on Nelson. Carter finished both letters with “CC:” at bottom To E.A. Loughran, from Harlon B. Carter. There are attached copies of the correspondence described above for your information. Yesterday Commissioner Swing comment on such cases as this and stated that I should initiate the most vigorous action concerning those men who are no longer able to carry on the arduous duty of Border Patrol Officers. I am accordingly forwarding these to you.

The following month, July 20, 1954, D.R. Kelley (perhaps the R is for Rex mentioned earlier) sent a one-page report to Harlon B. Carter listing the personnel sent to California and Texas from nine districts including some from the Los Angeles district sent to Texas. A total of “574 officers and 14 other employees assigned to the special operations in California and Texas” were listed as coming from the districts of “Buffalo, Baltimore, Detroit, Miami, New York, Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago, and St. Albans.” K. A. Loughren whom Carter misspelled as “E.A” was the Assistant Commissioner, Administrative Division of the Border Patrol in Washington D.C. He received a memo from K.K. Salisbury, District Director, St. Albans, Vermont reporting action being taken on some Patrol Inspectors and “other officers who were not sent on the Mexican Border detail whom may be in just as bad physical condition as these three [names redacted earlier

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in memo].” The three were “tried and found wanting.” Director Salisbury further reported that he had “12 patrol inspectors on duty in this district who are over 55 years of age.” Pregnancy became another issue for being returned home. There were no women deployed to the Mexican Border, but fathers-to-be were. In a most progressive and liberal thinking moment for the time, a BP agent on duty in El Centro, California was requested by letter dated July 23, 1954 from Dr. J. S. McArdle “To whom it may concern” that he be returned to his home base in Minot, North Dakota because his wife was pregnant and about to deliver. “In view of her present nervous condition, it is highly desirable that [name redacted] be returned home as soon as possible. “That letter found its way to the District Director in Los Angeles with the request the man be released and returned to Minnesota. The request came from John. P. Swanson, Chief Patrol Inspector, El Centro, California. Swanson must have checked on the facts of this case and alternatives because he closed his letter dated July 27th with this suggestion: “you are advised that replacements are available in the Grand Forks Sector” in the event this agent was released and needed to be replaced. Carter’s early termination of some BP agents and call for more fit men, did cause some shakeup in the ranks of the personnel from top to bottom. He saw duty until the end of the program and then left the Border Patrol. He went to work for the National Rifle Association. He had been a member of the NRA since he was sixteen years of age. Over the years he rose to become the head of the NRA during the Reagan presidency. Carter died in 1991.83 OPERATION WETBACK BEGAN JUNE 9, 1954 After the announcement of Operation Wetback on June 9, 1954 it began to be unfolded across California and then on the Arizona.84 Commissioner Swing went to Texas to meet and greet both supporters and detractors of Operation Wetback scheduled to hit Texas within days of the June 9th announcement. Austin E. Anson, the Executive Manager of the Texas Citrus and Vegetable Growers and Shippers, based in Harlingen, Texas met with INS Commissioner, General Joseph Swing on June 17, 1954 while he was on his “way through to Hidalgo.” The letter is most grateful for that opportunity to meet and discuss their concerns. One line in the last paragraph is provocative of what also went on in the meeting: “Again, we want to thank you for relieving us in the matter of ‘specials’ in such a direct and forceful manner and also for making it possible for all of us to become personally acquainted with you.” The American Agriculture Council (AAC) issued a 2-page statement in early June 1954 in advance of Operation Wetback removing Mexican labor



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from South Texas and jeopardizing the multi-million-dollar cotton crop that summer. The statement was titled “Braceros vs. Wetbacks.” The statement included encouragement and detailed instructions in three steps for growers to enlist in the Bracero Program as a precaution. Step 1. Go to the nearest Texas Employment Commission (TEC) office and get certified (Form 366) as being short on local labor and willing to pay the required pay scale for Mexican labor. Step 2. Take Form 366 to the Bracero Reception Center in Hidalgo, Texas with a check made out to the U.S. Treasury to cover the cost of Bracero insurance at $3 a person (p. 1). Step 3. When the requested number of workers are available, the grower will be notified to go pick them up. The process, the AAC stated, would take up to 72 hours from request made and approved to Bracero workers pick up time (p. 2). The AAC also informed everyone with their memo that the $25 bond previously required per Bracero to be posted by growers to help curb the “skipping” on the contract had been terminated. And, any dissatisfaction with any Bracero about any matter would be investigated by the TEC and if found valid, the Bracero would be returned to Mexico. The same held true for Braceros whose contract was ending but the grower sought an extension, TEC would investigate and make a recommendation at no charge (p. 2). But not all those who General Swing, as INS Commissioner, visited were as effusive in their praise and gratitude—for example, one Jim Griffin, a cotton producer. In a one-page memo from D. R. Kelley to Mr. James L. Hennessy dated June 25, 1954, the former is reporting that a “Mr. Holland” was passing on information from an official with the Texas Employment Service, Mr. Henry LeBlanc. Apparently, Mr. Le Blanc was following up with growers General Swing met with such as the “Porter and Wends farm” who were attempting to hire “as much domestic labor as is possible.” But, small growers were a problem, it was reported, such as Griffin, who refused to pay “the required $2.05 per hundred for cotton as it was too high a price. He [Mr. LeBlanc allegedly] stated that “Jim Griffin was advising them not to agree to pay more than $1.50 per hundred.” Obviously, if domestic labor would not pick cotton for those low prices, unlawful-entry Mexicans would. This pull of work for Mexican laborers would defeat the purpose of Operation Wetback. MEXICAN GOVERNMENT COMPLICITY Transporting those apprehended became a thorny and difficult issue to resolve between the United States and Mexico. When is a Mexican free to move about his own country? This question slammed the Mexican government in the face when the United States proposed to deport Mexicans with Mexican

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government help to the interior of Mexico away from the border. Dated June 28, 1954, a one-page memo from the Assistant Commissioner of the Border Patrol to the INS Commissioner informed that the task force assigned to deport persons would begin operating on July 15th but he was requesting help in approaching the Mexican government to agree to use Ojinaga, Mexico, across from Presidio, Texas “to transport by train between 1,000 to 1,400 illegals” daily. Specifically, “the Mexican Government will be requested to take these illegals south of Durango, which is a considerable distance from the border.” He also informed the Commissioner that “cable instructions were immediately sent to the Ambassador requesting him to take up the negotiations.” The Ambassador was further informed “that our Mr. Marshall in Mexico City would be available to assist in any way.” No identification provided on Mr. Marshall but by inference it would be reasonable that INS would have a personal agency representative in Mexico City. The BP would apprehend, detain, and deport Mexicans at first by sending them back across the border only to learn and apprehend the very same persons within days if not the same day. This phenomenon also raised questions about the statistics released by both the BP and INS on the success of Operation Wetback dealing with apprehension and deportations. How many of the numbers reported were the same persons? The idea of making it harder for the deportee to return by placing him deep into Mexico was a reasonable idea to the INS, but not Mexico. The matter must have been resolved promptly by Mexico because a press release issued by the DOJ on July 2, 1954 reported that henceforth not just California and Arizona would continue to be areas for apprehending “wetbacks” but now Texas as of July 15th would become the new area for implementing Operation Wetback. Ground Zero would be “a special effort along the Texas border in the lower Rio Grande Valley opposite the Mexican states of Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas.” And, later on July 9th, General Partridge by one-page memo to General Swing corroborates the agreement with Mexico. “The Mexican Government has agreed to accept their aliens during the south Texas operation as shown below: El Paso 500 aliens a day commencing 10 July; 1,000 a day commencing 15 July. Presidio 1,200–1,500 a week commencing 15 July.” Mexico also required the boats carrying Mexicans to Tampico give “‘5 days’ notice.” General Swing further stated in this one-page press release that “an advance party to man rail and road blocks will arrive in McAllen, Texas on July 6.” INS Commissioner followed up with another one-page memo to his District Director in San Antonio, Texas, John W. Holland, instructing him “to aid and assist Mr. [Harlon B.] Carter in every possible way to ensure the success



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of this effort.” The dragnets in San Antonio would begin July 15th under the direction of Harlon B. Carter. In closing, Commissioner Swing wrote, “Please report to me from time to time the progress being made in this effort.” And, Commissioner Swing also wrote to the Governor of Texas, Allan Shivers, informing him of the plans to conduct road and rail stops, raids, apprehensions, and deportations from Texas especially the Lower Rio Grande Valley beginning July 6th and with full force by July 15th. His District Director will “keep in close touch with such of your State officials as may be affected.” The Governor did not respond to this request until much later and then only routine press release. Cheap labor addicts among the lower Rio Grande Valley growers pushed back support for Operation Wetback as being responsible for killing their profits. Using the local newspapers, according to J.W. Holland, in a letter with copies of articles to Commissioner Swing dated July 4, 1954, they had the support of the owner of The McAllen Monitor, The Harlingen Star, and The Brownsville Herald: all owned and published by one R. C. Hoilee who also publishes newspapers in California, Colorado, and other states. He has a reputation of fighting all law enforcement agencies and the Valley papers under his control have consistently opposed all efforts to enforce the immigration laws.

The next day, July 5th, Arizona Governor Howard Pyle sent a letter wanting information from the President about “the handling of the Mexican alien program” because he had a telegram from David Moore of Yuma, Arizona which he enclosed making serious accusations. The matter was referred to INS Commissioner Swing who in turn responded to Sherman Adams, Assistant to the President. Adams then wrote back to Governor Pyle assuring him all aliens were treated “in a humanitarian way.” He also rebutted the charge that the removal of illegal laborers was contrary to labor needs in Arizona; Adams cited the Bracero Program as the legal way for Mexican labor to work in the United States. Lastly, he addressed transportation of deportees and assured the Governor that Mexico paid for the transportation of such men to the interior of Mexico. This was a blatantly false statement on the part of Sherman Adams. Mexico did not pay for transportation of its citizens to the interior of Mexico, it agreed for the U.S. to do it at their expense. Unknown to many at this time the San Antonio District of INS was to implement a policy charging those deported to pay part of their transportation costs. Lester Whipple, a San Antonio attorney, wrote to his congressman Paul Kilday and Commissioner Swing complaining of the high cost of “three million dollars to buy planes and jeeps to herd these people . . . is a cruel wrong and ought to be corrected some way.” With his letter dated July 17,

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1954, Whipple sent a clipping taken from the San Antonio Express containing photos and the cost figures mentioned above. He posed the question as to why not just process them after apprehension into the Bracero Program instead of taking them into the interior of Mexico. Telegrams also began to reach the President complaining of Operation Wetback. On the 19th of July, W.M. Taylor asked the President to “Please help alleviate unpleasantness due to Border Patrol’s present Wetback Operation. Border relations becoming strained and cotton fields becoming insect ridden.” On July 20th, Carl E. Hall from Harlingen, Texas sent his telegram to the White House: “Conduct of Border Patrol in Rio Grande Valley Texas Abominable. Worst possible reaction on Latin American relations. Border relations becoming strained.” D. K. Kelley remained busy trying to respond and counter such allegations, including one about charging deportees for bus transportation. Kelley wrote another memo to the file dated July 20th explaining that the INS had statutory power to do so and cited the statute, but it was not included in the memo. SEDUCTION OF THE AMERICAN G. I. FORUM J.W. Holland astutely wrote a letter on July 7, 1954 to each of the major civil rights organizations for the Mexican American community and their leaders: The American G.I. Forum, President Chris Aldrete and Chairman of the Board, Dr. Hector P. Garcia. Frank Pineda, National President of the League of United Latin American Citizens and Ed Idar, Jr. the Executive Secretary. He wrote to Commissioner Swing about why he sent the letters that same day justifying why he “felt it would be a good gesture on my part to inform them of our contemplated action in order to obviate some complaints from Spanish-speaking people.” Holland did warn these leaders that Operation Wetback would begin July 15th in South Texas out of the San Antonio district office, “an intensive drive to apprehend and evict thousands of aliens illegally in this country.” He made the argument that many thousands of Spanish-speaking American families residing near the border had suffered serious economic harm because of illegal aliens taking their jobs. He reminded them that it would be difficult to estimate the number of such families who have given up their homes, taken their children out of school, and move elsewhere in search of new homes, and employment.

He then specifically asked them for their aid in bringing this matter to the attention of your many members and their friends, in order that they will know that we are working in their behalf, and if they are



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questioned regarding their citizenship, they will understand the motive behind our actions.

The American G.I. Forum did mightily step up to help the INS accomplish Operation Wetback. On July 8th, 1954 on the eve of their national convention to be held in Houston, Texas the Executive Secretary, Ed Idar, Jr., mailed out to “all State Offices, Directors, Forums, Auxiliaries, and Junior Forums in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado” a lengthy bulletin with two major points: the Houston Convention and the Holland Letter asking for help with Operation Wetback. On this second agenda item, Idar explained in detail how badly the Wetbacks hurt “our people.” He asked they “call public meetings and use newspapers and the radio to alert our people to this drive” and he requested they cooperate with the Immigration Service. He further asked that any “incidents to discredit the drive and the officers” of the INS be reported and “referred immediately to Virgilio G. Role and Robert F. Sanchez for investigation.” THE GROWERS HOLD FIRM Commissioner Swing was informed by one of his special assistants, General Frank H. Partridge, in a short one-page memo dated July 7th that both Mr. Holland out of the San Antonio district and he had been in touch with the Texas State Employment Office head, Henry LeBlanc, who informed them the Texas growers would not pay more than $1.25 to $1.50 per hundred pounds of cotton. The Bracero Agreement called for the pay to be $2.05 per hundred pounds. The problem was the locals would not work for less wages than the Braceros and the illegals would. Furthermore, “an editorial in the Brownsville papers is very critical of the drive and borders on a threat to the Border Patrol, according to Mr. Holland.” Mr. Holland as District Director was also very perturbed by what he saw among the officers of the BP in his area. He sent a terse memo dated on July 7th to all “Officers in Charge, Chief Patrol Inspectors, and Supervisory Officers, San Antonio District” about “Good housekeeping and neat personal appearance.” Apparently, Mr. Holland had broached this subject “on various occasions during the past several years . . . and put out instructions” on the subject. Now, exasperated it seems from the language used, he admitted to being “greatly embarrassed by the lack of interest shown by some employees in connection with their personal appearance,” and in particular, “by the attitude of others regarding the maintenance of offices and equipment.” In this memo he directed supervisory personnel to see that officers were properly attired while on duty. He further directed that “any instances of non-compliance

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should be handled summarily. Perhaps admonishments or reprimands maybe in order in some instances.” In closing his command, he wrote: “I shall hold all employees, as well as supervisors, personally responsible for the compliance with these instructions.” Harlon B. Carter returned to the issue of a dress code and appearance once again a week later by memo dated July 14th to all personnel in the San Antonio District. He demanded “all highway inspection, including road blocks, bus stations and airports be done in official uniform.” He did allow for an exception at bus stations, airports, and railway depots. He would allow officers to be in “plain clothes” but these persons must be “accompanied by one or more patrol officers in full uniform. Ties may be worn loose with top button down.” Another exception he allowed was for “work on farms, ranches, brush details, and the River.” This work could be done while wearing the “rough duty uniform, either sun tan or green.” While he dispensed with ties while on this duty, he allowed “only one button at throat of shirt may be open.” No officer was allowed “to go on duty in mixed uniform or wearing parts of the uniform.” Holland sent an additional one-page memo to Commissioner Swing excusing himself from not being able to meet with the Governor or his Executive Assistant as they were on the campaign trail. He did report calls to him from various editors of area newspapers and the New York Times wanting to cover Operation Wetback. Holland supplied the names of their reporters such as Ed Castillo from the San Antonio Light and Mr. Gladwin Hill of the New York Times who had called in wanting information and to join the roundups as they happened. Holland assured the Commissioner that Castillo would be favorable as he had previously written articles “very favorable towards the Immigration and Naturalization Service.” He also sent the Commissioner an article from the San Antonio Express dated the 7th of July that covered the press briefing conducted by Harlon B. Carter announcing the commencement of these second phase raids on July 15th to rid South Texas of illegal aliens. The first phase was underway in California and Arizona. Some local public officials got behind the INS program such as the Chief of Police, John L. Guseman, from Harlingen, Texas who wrote on July 13th in response to a letter the Chief Patrol Inspector Fletcher Rawls based in McAllen had sent him on July 11th asking for cooperation. Guseman did not offer any specific assistance just the polite offer to “be sure and call on us for any assistance we may be able to give you.” Some local newspapers got behind them also such as Steve M. Elam, publisher of the San Benito News. He sent a telegram on July 23rd to President Eisenhower “alleging a labor shortage due to Immigration Service activities in the Rio Grande Valley.” The matter was addressed by letter from General Swing to Mr. Elam dated July 30, 1954. The INS Commissioner urged him



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to check with the Department of Labor’s Processing Center of Braceros at Hidalgo, Texas. As of July 26th, Commissioner Swing reported to Mr. Elam “some 44,000 braceros have been admitted through that Center . . . [and] prepared to process another 16,000 by the end of the month.” Eventually, Texas Governor Allan Shivers came around to putting in writing by press announcement dated July 12th his offer to help the INS with Operation Wetback. Addressing the request by Commissioner Swing dating back to July 2nd, the press statement read: “If there is any way in which my office can be helpful to you, please let us know.” This self-serving offer did not please J.W. Holland, District Director, San Antonio, Texas, who had tried twice unsuccessfully to meet with Governor Shivers about the July 2nd letter from the INS Commissioner. He sought a meeting with the staff member in charge of such matters for the Governor, a man only identified as “Mr. Osorio.” Holland told Osorio, according to the memo he sent the Commissioner dated July 13, 1954, that California’s Governor, [Goodwin] Knight by contrast had “furnished men and equipment to assist in the California operation,” including the “California Highway Patrol.” He also suggested that Osorio tell the Governor to “openly request the state, county and civil authorities, and also the general public in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, to cooperate with us and lend all assistance possible.” While the public relations campaign was underway by proponent and adverse parties, telegrams were shooting across the country to Harlon Carter in McAllen responding to his request for more manpower. From different sectors of INS and the Border Patrol the four telegrams all dated July 16 and made part of this declassified document file, read tersely: St. Albans, FLD, Personnel assigned Special Operation, 6 Senior Patrol Inspectors and 39 Patrol Inspectors, (signed) Salisbury. Boston, 7 Investigators Detailed From this District to California and San Antonio Districts. (signed) Nicholls San Francisco Calif Detail of Officers Special Operation California as Follows . . . 19 Investigators, 1 Chief Patrol Inspector, 5 Senior Patrol Inspectors, 17 Patrol Inspectors, 4 Detention Officers. Total 46 from San Francisco District. (signed) Barber. San Francisco Calif Please Correct Our Previous Report of Officer on Special California Operation. Instead of 19 Investigators, show 16 Investigators and 3 Immigrant Inspectors. (signed) Barber.

The telegrams continued for the next several days from throughout the country to the INS office in Washington, D.C. Los Angeles reported on July 16th that this district sent “2 Chief Patrol Inspectors, GS-11, 5 Patrol Inspectors, GS-9, 5 Patrol Inspectors, GS-7, and 45 Patrol Inspectors, GS-5. (Signed)

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Landon.” The Chicago district reported on the same day that this district sent “One Chief Patrol Inspector 15 Immigration Border Patrol Inspectors and One Automotive Mechanic (signed) Sahli.” Another person signed “Gee” reported form St. Albans Field also on the 16th that this district sent “Forty Five Patrol Inspector” as did Seattle (signed by someone named) “Boyd” reported this district sent “One CPI 32 Patrol Inspectors and One Electronic Technician.” New York and Chicago districts also chimed in the same day with more personnel numbers like those already reported: investigators, auto mechanics, radio engineers, inspectors, and maintenance chiefs. Miami reported on the 19th of more personnel sent including “Colon Airplane Pilot PAREN CS-11.” Baltimore also reported on the 19th sending “two immigrant inspectors and eight investigators.” Buffalo district topped the numbers sent to Los Angeles with “20 immigrant patrol inspectors (signed) Karnuth.” San Antonio district office reported on July 20th it was sending “Chief Administrative Branch 1, Officer in Charge 1, Investigators 11, Pilots 3, Electronic Technicians 2, Motor Mechanics 1, Senor (sic) Patrol Inspectors 4, Patrol Inspectors 78 (signed) Ringel.” Strangely, if San Antonio’s district action was by sending personnel south a few hundred miles to the Mexican border, El Paso situated on the Mexican border across from Juarez, Chihuahua, reported on the 20th that this district sent “2 Chief Patrol Inspectors, 2 Assistant Chief Patrol Inspectors, 80 Patrol Inspectors, 5 Detention Officers, 3 Airplane Pilots, 2 Motor Mechanics, 1 Radio Technician, 1 Property and Supply Clerk, and 13 Investigators (signed) Neely.” I must assume illegal border crossings were not a problem in El Paso when Operation Wetback began. THE LEAGUE OF UNITED LATIN AMERICAN CITIZENS (LULAC) JOINS IN SUPPORT OF OPERATION WETBACK Previously mentioned was the overture made by San Antonio District Director, J.W. Holland to leaders of LULAC and the American G. I. Forum (AGIF) in early July 1954 to help with Operation Wetback. That reaching out paid off enormously for both the INS and BP. Holland reported in a one-page memo to the INS Commissioner dated July 22nd about his activities with LULAC and AGIF. At the insistence of the American G.I. Forum a local Spanish language newspaper in Del Rio, Texas, Novedades, published an article of praise on July 15th for both the AGIF for it support and the INS/BP for their program Operation Wetback. On July 17th, Holland and Willard F. Kelly, former Assistant INS Commissioner, both attended the AGIF annual convention and a banquet held in Houston, Texas. The work of INS and BP in “evicting the thousands of illegal resident aliens from this country” was praised.



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Frank Pinedo, National President of LULAC, on July 29, 1954 sent a letter to John Holland, the San Antonio INS District Director expressing support for Operation Wetback. From the wording of the letter, the two had met in Houston, and discussed the program. At that time, Holland must have expressed concern to Pinedo over those within the Mexican-origin population of the United States who would criticize the INS and the Border Patrol for their actions in apprehending and deporting Mexicans. Pinedo wrote: Your prediction of efforts to discredit the work of the men in the Border Patrol and to minimize the importance of the all-out effort to clean out the wetbacks from South Texas has already started, and a message to all the LULAC Councils has gone out in our July publication of LULAC News.

A San Antonio native, perhaps following the LULAC lead, “Philip Rodriguez, 3114 W. Commerce” by letter with newspaper articles attached dated July 30th wrote to the U.S. Attorney General “Mr. Brownell.”85 He complained that he used to live in the Rio Grande Valley “but was fortunate to leave, before this influx of wetbacks.” Their presence, Rodriguez stated, “will not do thing [sic] but lower our standard of living.” Mr. Rodriguez sent a second letter to AG Brownell that same day, and the next, July 31st. This latter letter was typed while the others were handwritten. Rodriguez in his second letter of the 30th wrote: Now that Mr. Eisenhower and you, give[n] the order to clean the Texas Valley of Wetbacks, continue with the cities, [be]cause they have infiltrate, Hospitals, Stores, Restaurants, theaters, Industries [be]cause they work for nothing and the employers like it, even our Gobernator [sic] Shivers relatives have them in their farms. Mr. Garner, the Ex-Vicepresident say one time, it is the only way for farmers like him to make money, with wetbacks. Please, now that you did start this magnificent job please finish it. Not [sic] of them like U.S. but they like our money.

In the third letter, Rodriguez sent more articles written by Clarence LaRoche (not released) and made this observation: There are lots of law enforcement officers, businessman, attys and others that they are not in fabor [sic] of the present campaign, because they have maids, yardman, laundry womans, [sic] and dont [sic] pay them nothing, here in San Antonio, there is a woman working at a local hospital, for $15.00 dollars a week, 56 hours, there is persons that have maids here, that keep them like slaves, dont [sic] let them speak to nobody, keep them secluded, and they are taking the natives jobs.

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There was pushback and criticism of the Border Patrol and Operation Wetback. For example, by handwritten note, Ewell A. Johnson from Danbury, Wisconsin to AG Brownell dated July 14, 1954 sent a one-paragraph item from the San Benito News which asked, “How about putting the 700–800 invading Border Patrolmen into the cotton fields, picking?”86 To which Johnson added in his note: “I think too it would do more good; help the starving wetbacks pick the cotton. Hope you ease up on the wetbacks.” By letter dated July 30, 1954, the publisher of The Weslaco News, Patrick H. O’Brien, to President Eisenhower accused the BP of “creating a great deal of unrest” which is resulting in “unnecessary antagonisms” between the “patriotic and loyal people of the United States of American who dwell in the border country” and the Executive Branch. O’Brien cited the San Antonio Express of July 29, 1954 for his source of who initiated this order for a “Wetback Roundup” and wanted to know “the accuracy of the above statement. I quite naturally want your answer for publication.” O’Brien sent copies of his letter to three prominent Texas politicians: Lyndon Johnson, Price C. Daniel, and Lloyd M. Bentsen. Similarly, the Corresponding Secretary of the Pan American Round Table, “Maria M. Cash (Mrs. C.M.),” wrote to General Joseph M. Swing, Chief of the INS on July 31st a terse one-paragraph complaint: The Pan American Round Table of San Benito, Texas, whose aim is to promote friendly relations and understanding among our Latin American Countries hereby feel that we are justified in submitting our protest to the inhumane treatment of “Wetbacks” in the Rio Grande Valley by the United States Border Patrol.

BOATS, BUSES, PLANES, AND MORE MEN In addition to the quick and fast re-assignment within the two agencies, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and its subsidiary, the Border Patrol, of its personnel to the Mexican border, the BP and INS faced two other perplexing problems in trying to deport Mexicans: where to find available and reasonably priced buses and boats to augment the removal being done by trains. D.R. Kelley sent a memo on July 21, 1954 to General Partridge about the failure to find a ship, “either of Mexican or American registry” to move deportees to Mexican ports. A ship, the “Vera Cruz,” he reported probably would not meet safety inspection and the owners probably would expense modifications to meet those requirements set out by the Coast Guard. Given the Mexican government being “100% cooperative on the matter of receiving aliens by boat at either Tampico or Vera Cruz” maybe the U.S. Navy would provide a ship, he proposed.



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An agent for a boat owner was in Mexico City and called Mr. Loughran who reached an agreement for boat transport from Brownsville, Texas to Tampico, Mexico and to Vera Cruz. The quoted price per person to be deported was $5 and $9 USD, respectively. The negotiations took place between a “Mr. Beechie” and Mr. Loughran, previously identified. INS had to guarantee 800 passengers per trip and an $800 demurrage fee “if the ship is detained more than 24 hours.” They could begin boat removals on August 6th and the one-page memo outlining these terms dated July 30, 1954 with the letter “D” at bottom indicating to me it was part of a lengthy document not released stated “the offer will be open until August 10. The Contract will be a monthly one with the option of renewal.” There are no other documents on boat contracts. I did find film evidence of boatlifts from Brownsville to both Tampico and Vera Cruz.87 The boat lifts had serious problems from the start. A teletype dated August 20th from Acting District Director R.I. Abbott to the District Director for the INS in Chicago, Illinois reported “chartered vessel for transporting aliens Brownsville to Mexico temporarily delayed pending repair of vessel which recently ran aground. Suggest you continue operations via El Paso until further notice.” By coded message telegraphed between entities within the Coast Guard and U.S. Navy and INS dated September 1st the ship Emancipation was made ready to load 800 persons in two days hence. At the bottom of the second coded message there appear hand written notes from Swing, D. R. Kirk, and Hennessy all signing off on this event. The problem besides a ship running aground was that the press reported the incident without any mention of what happened, if anything, to the passengers being deported. U.S. Senator Lyndon Johnson from Texas wanted to know this as well. The problem of the boat lift was solved by August 31, 1954 when a second ship was recruited, Emancipacion, to dock, load and sail from Port Isabel in South Texas the afternoon of September 3rd, according to a Western Union telegram dated then from someone named Marshall in Mexico City to General Frank Partridge in the Commissioner’s Office. The ship arrived at Port Isabel on September 2nd at 5 in the afternoon, according to the 2-page report dated September 14, 1954 from Peter J. Wareing and J.D. Tice were assigned to board the ship and accompany those deported to Vera Cruz. They did and looked around the ship for sleeping accommodations, sanitary services, food serving area, and the security of the decks. Telegrams crossed wire paths to and from Mexico City and Washington, D.C., with no hint of what the problems were with this new vessel. The Coast Guard Naval Commander telegrams the INS on September 1st without any wording of significance. Another telegram followed the same day but with handwritten notes on the page. Apparently the 800 persons to be loaded were ready but the ship had not been inspected by U.S. authorities, perhaps

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the Coast Guard. The handwritten note states, “Hennessy notified. Ship will have to be inspected” and another note states, “Gen. Swing notified. DRK” On September 7th, as a one page memo to the file by D.R. Kelley, he wrote that the “EMANCIOPATOR” (sic) had set sail on September 3rd at 2:30 p.m. from Port Isabel to Vera Cruz and it was expected to arrive there by Tuesday afternoon, September 8th. That day as the ship set out to open sea feeding the passengers became an issue. The food area or diner could only accommodate 77 persons at a time and 800 were on board. Some were fed two or three times others none, so the problem was remedied by issuing meal cards with time slots. At each meal the card was punched. From then one feeding only took two hours. Prior to landing in Vera Cruz, a Mexican official, according to the September 14th 2-page report, boarded the ship and began administering inoculations to each passenger. As soon as they docked the human cargo was turned over to the Mexican official representing Gobernacion and two other officials representing Mexico’s Immigration Service, Dr. Manuel E. Caldejas and Aaron Pelaes. The ship returned to Port Isabel the next day and arrived for a second cargo of humans on September 9th (p. 1). That second trip by the Emancipacion was most problematic. The ship left Port Isabel knowing there was a hurricane building in the outer limits of the Gulf of Mexico named Florence. According to the one-page report signed by Ernest G. Garrison, Patrol Inspector and dated September 20th, the 800 “illegally entrant aliens” were loaded and the ship began to sail, the deportees began shouting insults to the BP and local police agents on the dock. Upon entering the dock, the waves began to rock the ship, a result of the approaching hurricane. “Sea sickness took charge of the majority of the aliens almost immediately. A large number of the aliens were seasick the entire voyage.” The next day, a Saturday, the gale force of winds and higher waves hit the ship. “The aliens that had overcome sea sickness again became ill because of the extremely heavy seas and high winds.” The ship had to skirt the hurricane for about eight hours so as to arrive late but arrive safely into “Vera Cruz about 11 p.m. September 11.” Given the late hour and no advance notice from ship to Mexican immigration, the passengers were not allowed to disembark. By next morning, the ship crew agreed to feed the passengers a breakfast and “the people were then allowed to get off the ship and go into a large warehouse nearby.” The ones with money were allowed to board buses to their destinations in Mexico. Those without money were put on trains bound for Mexico City. The women were given preferential treatment by boarding trains with seats, the men were boarded into freight cars. Garrison adds at near end of his report that the trains were not supervised, and he understood the “aliens got off wherever they pleased.” And, why not, Mexican citizens were in Mexico now. The ship returned to be



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“docked at Port Isabel, Texas Sept. 19, at 10:30 a. m.” This last line indicates more boat lifts took place, but no records were released on subsequent trips but one to be detailed at end of this section on use of boats. The prior failed boatlift by the VeraCruz became a controversy between a “Mr. Paredes” of the boat company and INS as it is reported in a one-page letter dated September 9th from E. A. Loughran, Assistant INS Commissioner and Rear Admiral N.K. Dietrich of the U.S. Navy. Paredes had presented to an Assistant Immigration Attache at the Mexico City U.S. Embassy, an invoice for $4,000 USD, the amount contracted for transporting 800 or less passengers from Port Isabel to Veracruz, Mexico on that ship. The INS position, however, was that the ship did not pass muster and ran aground, therefore it was the ship’s problem not a fault caused by the INS and “no liability exists on the part of the charterer.” The Emancipacion may have left Port Isabel and arrived into Veracruz timely but not without incident. In a subsequent 4-page report dated September 14, 1954, two men nicknamed Penjamo and Pulga, jumped ship as it began its journey. The BP inspectors had followed the ship as it made its way past the jetties out into open water but could not see well; it was beginning to get dark and the ship billowed much smoke. The BP boat turned back and did not see anyone jump (p. 1). Besides, when told of the jumpers later that night, the BP agents doubted they could have survived the jump and swim back to shore from that location. The case was closed. The next day, the search for the jumpers began without success but workers at the Port made mention that two men had swam back to Port Isabel and later crossed into Matamoros Mexico (p. 2). The two men were identified as being Jose Camarena-(Vasquez) aka Penjamo and Ciro Fano aka Pulga (p. 3). The case was closed again, but with two recommendations made. One, “have a bigger and better BP ship, maybe from the Coast Guard to follow the transporting ship into the open sea.” Two, that “the transporting ship leave in the early daylight hours and not near nightfall” (p. 4). General Frank Partridge, Commissioner Swing’s Special Assistant, sent a one page note to General Swing dated October 13th reporting that [DeWitt] Marshall, the Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City had called to report he was in Vera Cruz when the Emancipacion unloaded the human cargo it carried form Port Isabel. Supposedly Marshall posed as a Mexican newspaper reporter and quizzed some of those deported about the trip and their treatment. “A considerable number of the ‘wets’ . . . didn’t like the period they spent in detention at McAllen.” Marshall also reported that Mexican officials had jailed 20 of those on the boat for fifteen days without further explanation as to why. Another interesting note was that Marshall relayed information that the other sister ship, the Vera Cruz, “would be put into drydock in Galveston, Texas, if we will guarantee them 4 full trips (800 passengers per

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trip) after all repairs have been made.” The ship could be ready in 30 days, if an early answer was given on this verbal contract. “The rate quoted was $8.00 per head.” On October 19, 1954 one other 2-page document is provided submitted by Thomas J. Brady, Task Force C, McAllen, Texas. It makes mention of Mexican complicity in the removal and punishment of undocumented Mexican laborers. Those who were repeaters in being deported, some 20, “were held in Vera Cruz and sentenced to 15 days in jail.” Several Vera Cruz newspaper articles from EL Dicatmen a daily, and La Tarde, an evening edition, relating these stories were attached to this report but not included in the released materials (p. 1). The report makes mention of the Emancipacion leaving Vera Cruz, Mexico bound for Tampico, Mexico on October 13, 1954 about 2:00 P.M. with a cargo for Tampico. The ship arrived Tampico October 14, 1954, 1954 and was in port at Tampico. The ship left Tampico October 16, 1954 about 4:00 P.M., arrived Port Isabel, Texas Sunday, October 17, 1954 about 7:00 P.M.

There is no explanation for the insertion of the ship’s travel log by Brady, unless he was on board during all this time and possibly the “cargo” alluded to were more undocumented persons taken to Tampico for off-loading. Buses were an easier problem to tackle because many districts already had buses in their inventory. General Swing, previously on July 13, had approved an agreement by contract with the U.S. Army Supply Depot in Atlanta, Georgia to supply ten buses for transport work in South Texas. By one-page memo, for example, Frank M. Partridge, Special Assistant to the Commissioner to M.R. Landon, District Director in Los Angeles to read the memorandum to “Mr. Loughran today requesting he issue necessary orders” on August 18, 1954 to “transfer four large Greyhound-type road buses from McAllen to El Centro.” These were to be used to increase volume between Nogales and El Centro. Another bus was transferred from the Los Angeles district for that same congestion in Nogales and El Centro. The San Antonio district office responded by telegram on August 20th that the “four greyhound type buses are leaving McAllen today and tomorrow.” Back on July 8, 1954, Mr. Harlon Carter was informed by A. S. Hudson and Donald R. Kelley that contracting bus services for such a bus lift out of McAllen, Texas would be expensive. The memo quoted the rates of $8.09 per alien to Presidio and $9.78 to El Paso, both designated departure points to move aliens into Mexico. In addition, there was to be a “mileage charge of $0.65 a mile with a maximum load of 50 aliens per bus.” This high cost of private contracts must have been the factor to utilize their own BP/INS buses. The estimates provided by Carter to Kelley were that 100,000 aliens were to be hauled by bus from the McAllen sector. Since the July 8th memo,



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however, Harlon Carter had revised his estimates downward to 72,000 for the period “from July 15, 1954 to June 30, 1955.” Another cost of deporting Mexicans was that of detention after arrest pending deportation. The BP opened a McAllen Detention Camp, according to a July 13th memo from Harlon B. Carter to “All Officers, Special Mobile Force, San Antonio District” regarding detainees in McAllen awaiting bus lift to El Paso. Aware of special needs of some persons apprehended, Carter exempted three “classes of aliens” from the bus lift to El Paso: “1. Aged, infirm or crippled 2. Children under 16 years of age 3. Women.” While Carter sent out this memo, the details of what to do with these classes if not to be bus lifted like all others, were left out of any documents released. Harlon B. Carter was made to reduce to writing the facts surrounding the rumor-mill starting by the press over his imposing a money charge on those being deported. By memo reduced to writing on 2-pages based on a phone call to the Commissioner’s Office on July 16th at 10:55 A.M. (EDT) Carter said his policy was to accept $10.00 for transportation to Juarez from those illegal aliens who have at least $13.00; to accept a portion of $10.00 from any alien who had less than $13.00 but more than $4.00; to take only even dollars, and always to leave the alien at least $3.00 if he had that much on him.

Carter asked two questions of the INS Commissioner’s Office during that telephone conversation, after the fact of admitting charging deportees for their transportation. 1.  What is our authority for collecting from illegal aliens [sic] funds used to defray the cost of their transportation to ports for their expulsion distant from their place of apprehension? 2.  What is our authority for expelling aliens at ports other than the ones nearest their place of apprehension? Carter also proposed language for a press release on the issue claiming the INS had “statutory authority to require apprehended illegal aliens to pay their transportation costs.” The alternative would be to hold them “for considerable periods in detention camps or jails during formal deportation proceedings.” His second argument for the proposed press release was that Mexico had agreed on the transportation methods. The statutory authority is never cited nor were the agreements with Mexico made part of this file. Both assertions are false based on my knowledge of the subject. There is no document among those released indicating any discussion at any time about affording those apprehended any type of hearing prior to

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deportation. I assume that all those apprehended were neither informed of their rights to a hearing or even bail pending a hearing on deportation. I assume all were coerced in some fashion to sign a voluntary deportation document of some sort. Another ignored area pertaining to this issue is how much money had been collected by the BP during Operation Wetback and implementation of this Carter policy and from whom. Where did the money go? Carter must have been asked these latter questions earlier, but his comments were not reduced to writing in the first memo; he talked by telephone with the Commissioner’s office at 1:30 P.M. This second transcribed memorandum signed by D. R. Kelly on the brewing scandal does have a notation “Read by Commissioner” on bottom left. Carter reportedly stated a 5-point policy implemented in McAllen for collecting bus fares from aliens. The bus company representative “is present at all times in the processing of quarters” (1.) and is “responsible for the money” (2). The third point is confusing: “3. He [bus representative] gets money from the box in which the alien puts it.” Allegedly, the bus representative “has a manifest showing name of each alien,” how much he paid, and the manifest is signed by the bus representative (4). Lastly, Carter stated, “Beginning today the bus company will issue a chit or ticket to each alien showing transportation paid” (5). Carter pointedly told Kelley that two reporters, Tom McCabe of the United Press and Brad Smith of Station KRGV, were going with their stories that day “blasting him (Mr. Carter) and the Immigration Service” if they were not furnished a statement on this matter. This time, however, Carter put the matter in the Commissioner’s office laps. He referred the media to call the main office in D.C. for answers, this memo stated. The questions remained about the money because the buses used were either government property or under contract and paid by INS to transport deportees. And, if in fact deportees were given receipts for monies paid, were they not entitled to be reimbursed with interest? The bus fare scandal continued to plague the INS Commissioner. More telegrams continued to arrive. F. Ferree, President of Volunteer Border Relief, on July 19th sent his telegram complaining of the practice of charging deportees’ money to transport them back to Mexico. He stated, “Our Government is made to appear cheap to the general public by such a policy. Cannot this new precedent be ended.” C.B. Ray, manager of the Valley Farm Bureau also telegrammed asking, “What is the legal basis for Border Patrol stripping Deportees of their money at McAllen Concentration Camp. Urgently request your reply.” To this telegram of July 20th, D. K. Kelley hand written note at bottom of document reads: “I cited the section of the law which give authority to require alien to pay expense of his return.” In the documents released, not one cites a statute or Executive Order authorizing such a fee; but memo after



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memo contains the assertion that the INS had statutory authority to do so. Again D. K. Kelley wrote a memo to the file dated July 20th memorializing a phone conversation with Mr. McNeil of the Washington News about the fare money from deportees. Kelley punted the caller to the Commissioner’s office. Meanwhile, Carter by one-page memo to the Commissioner reported on July 20th that the numbers of those returning to Mexico on their own volition were slackening. Yesterday Brownsville 1341, Progreso 217, Hidalgo 926. Apprehensions yesterday were 2591 plus 3 smugglers. 2000 buslifed [sic] to El Paso. Included among apprehensions were two Italians on whom separate wire reports being furnished. Hidalgo Bracero Center putting out 2500 daily with 18,000 scheduled through Tuesday July 27. Eagle Pass Bracero Center has been opened buy Valley farmers thus far decline to use it on grounds of added costs for transportation which amounts to about two dollars per head.

The calls, letters, and telegrams on this subject forced the INS to stop the practice. In a prepared statement by the INS phoned to H. Carter and D. Kelley for release the afternoon of the 21st Kelley released it to the press on the 21st of July read “the Border Patrol stopped charging bus fare ‘on orders from Washington.’” A letter response from the INS Commissioner’s office was sent on August 4th to U.S. Senator Lyndon B. Johnson who had also inquired about this unauthorized fee informing him that “the practice has been discontinued.” Aliens had been charged a maximum of $10 for the trip.” It was further explained that the fee was used to transport deportees from the Rio Grande Valley to El Paso “in the hope they will not return.” Additional information was released by the BP indicating that “50,000 illegal aliens either been deported or have left the lower Rio Grande Valley of their own accord in the first week of the Border Patrol’s Operation Wetback.” On the flip side, in a 3-page memo dated July 26, 1954 from the Executive Assistant to the Attorney General to various officials indicated by a check mark on the first page, including Commissioner Swing, statistics were provided as of June 30, 1954. Admitted at Reception Centers under Public Law 78 [the Bracero Program]: in “San Antonio, Texas 65,644 El Paso, Texas 80,431 Los Angeles, Calif. 67,688” (p. 2). “Figures received from Mr. Schoenthal U.S. Employment Service—El Centro, California As of June 18–33, 115 As of July 16—40, 213 Lower Rio Grande Valley, Texas From 4/21/54 As of 6/30/54 9, 574 7/9/54 13, 047 7/16/54 18, 266 7/22 32 988* *Mr. Schoenthal said contracts have been averaging about 3,000 per day and that you might want to add approximately 10,000 to this figure to bring you

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current—This would be for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Daily figures are given to Mr. Devaney by Mr. Schoenthal. (p. 3)

Problems with the bus lifts, like the boat lifts, also generated problems involving deportees who escaped. In a two-page report dated September 16th from Robert E. Gardner, Senior Patrol Inspector in McAllen, Texas to Charles R. Kirk, the Chief, Patrol Inspector, it was reported that buses with “120 Mexican male aliens” left McAllen Alien Detention Center at about 2 p.m. September 14th on two Valley Transit Company buses, each carrying “60 aliens.” Each bus had a driver and a guard. At Laredo, a deportee asked to stop briefly at a roadside store so he could cash his check. The driver accommodated the person and both he and the guard exited the bus while five other persons jumped out the back-emergency exit door. No one said anything about this incident until the buses stopped at the border check point station “approximately 15 miles north of Laredo.” Upon arrival into El Paso and checking the names of persons exiting from the bus it was discovered that “10 were missing from one bus and 11 from the other” (p. 1). The escapees were never found. The Valley Transit Company put bars on the windows, placed emergency alarms on the back door, and trained their drivers and guards to be more vigilant (p. 2). AGRICULTURAL INTERESTS KEEP PROTESTING The contracting of Braceros obviously impacted the hiring of undocumented persons by farmers and cotton growers across the Southwest. There was no statistical information provided for the Midwestern states or Pacific Northwest. The politicians from Texas kept complaining to the INS Commissioner about the treatment of undocumented persons apprehended and citizens, such as U.S. Representative Lloyd M. Bentsen, Jr. representing the Rio Grande Valley. He forwarded a telegram his office received on July 27th from C. B. Ray, Executive Manager of the Valley Farm Bureau making allegations of brutality and abuse: “Allegations have been made of Aliens being struck and kicked, of entry into homes and of intimidation and threats of violence to both citizens and aliens.” And, Mr. Ray was also stating that “Congress should investigate activities and Department of Justice to determine causes of such alleged misconduct.” The Congressman sent his own note to the INS Commissioner stating, “If you will advise me of your action in the matter and have the letter returned to me with your reply, I will appreciate it.” The Commissioner’s office informed him by letter response dated August 4th that General Swing would “tour the Rio Grande Valley sometime during the week of August 1 to 7 and would enjoy discussing this matter with your person-



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ally.” I wonder what Congressman Bentsen thought of this written response dated mid-way into the Commissioner’s tour and why a telephone call would not have been more expeditious if in fact he did want to meet personally. The Director of the FBI was notified on August 5th by Assistant Attorney General, Warren Olney III, regarding contact at the San Antonio FBI office by Harlon B. Carter providing photostatic copies of a Rio Grande Valley newspaper, The Monitor, from McAllen, Texas that contained photos and lengthy article on Border Patrol abuse of undocumented persons. Carter denied such allegations as “false and are the results of a planned attempt to discredit the Border Patrol.” Moreover, Carter stated, “the evidence being planted, and the Mexicans coached as to what to say.” No investigation occurred because Carter also had volunteered in his message that the “alleged victims have been deported and Jennings Young, on whose farm the incident took place, has taken the families of the alleged victims to Mexico.” Harlon Carter of the McAllen Field office forwarded by telegram dated August 3rd to Commander Bekeb his own version of complaints his BP office received from Carl E. Hall and Wm. Taylor leveling four charges of “abominable conduct of officers”: First, requirement that voluntarily departing illegals pay their own way. Second, removal of aliens to distant place. Three, loading of aliens in truck and leaving it in sun while officers guarding aliens were in shade. Four, conducting drive at season of need for labor in south Texas.

Carter denied these allegations and added that “58,400 Braceros admitted up to today and no responsible report known as to labor shortage or crop loss in Valley.” Responses to these allegations of misconduct and abuse did occupy numbers of personnel hours from bottom to top of the chain of command within the INS and its delegate agency the Border Patrol. Mrs. C. M. Cash, Corresponding Secretary, Pan American Round Table, San Benito, Texas was not happy with her response. She complained of the “inhumane treatment of wetbacks in the Rio Grande Valley” by the BP only to get a written response from the Executive Assistant to the INS Commissioner asking her to “provide us with specific instances of inhuman treatment of wetbacks . . . and careful investigation will be conducted.” Difficult to do if the practice as cited above of deporting victims or removal of entire families by farm employers took place. Mayor H.L. Holland, Jr. of Bellaire, Texas by letter dated August 7th to President Eisenhower also complained that he had been trying to get “a young Mexican and his family into the United States, legally, with the help of three attorneys and as yet have had no success.” He pointed out in closing of his letter some sage advice, “We cannot build a fence around the United

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States with one-way gates and expect to have very many friends on the outside.” Similarly, by handwritten 4-page letter dated August 6th to President Eisenhower, a couple, Mr. and Mrs. Victor Berg of Lyford, Texas in Willacy County enclosed an editorial from her local newspaper (not attached) and their own experience with undocumented workers. “They were the best labor you could get (p. 1). Now, about the Border Patrol, some of them mistreat the wetback, the wetback is a human, just like you and I and should be treated as a human from the Border Patrol” (p. 2). The Bergs did get a response dated August 20th from Commissioner Swing very similar to prior responses about BP abuse. Swing wrote: “I am anxious for you to know that in every case where the facts are established the offending employee has been and will be appropriately punished.” There is no record on either “offending employees” or those “appropriately punished” in the files released to me. Philip Rodriguez, who had written before, sent a hand-written note to “Mr. Brownell” file stamp dated August 10th which is worth quoting in full: There is a Ranch, that belong to the Kleberg family, a million acre ranch were nobody are welcome, even the officers of the law, don’t dare to enter, probably the immigration can, who know. Yours very truly Philip Rodriguez

American G. I. Forum Executive Secretary, Ed Idar, Jr. continued to express support for the INS and Operation Wetback on behalf of his organization. By letter dated August 14th, Mr. Idar, sent copies of his letter to Dr. Hector P. Garcia of the American G. I. Forum, Richard M. Casillas, head of LULAC in San Antonio, and John Holland, the BP District Director also in San Antonio, Texas. In this letter to Commissioner Swing, Idar used praiseworthy and very nationalistic language, “We are all veterans . . . we are happy to see that our national security which had been threatened by this problem of illegal entry is in the hands of an officer as yourself who has such a high regard and devotion to duty.” Senator Lyndon B. Johnson continued to forward letters and telegrams he received on Operation Wetback to the INS and Attorney General. He also continued to ask for information on the issues raised in those transmissions. One such letter dated August 18th from Senator Johnson to the U.S. Attorney General asked him to respond to allegations made by one of his constituents, Retired Colonel, U.S. Army, James N. Adamson of Sonora, Texas in a letter dated August 13th. Colonel Adamson’s 2-page letter made some serious accusations. Summarizing, he was most critical of “Joe Swing.” He knew him well, he wrote, and the present conditions are a result of his policies. Among these policies was charging deportees fees to transport them far back into Mexico. A boat transporting deported persons went aground and there was no report on the fate of the passengers. The media only reported on the crew



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safely being returned to the United States. Buses containing undocumented persons being deported traveled through Sonora. Local people inspected those buses and found “passengers so jammed in that there was not even anymore standing room in the aisle.” The Border Patrol men assigned to duty in Texas but recruited in the East who appear to be “shoe clerks and soda jerks who impress one as not knowing the difference between a bump gate and the seat of their pants.” In closing he wrote, “The conditions which I have outlined above are on a par or even worse than the handling of those sent to Siberia by the Kremlin.” The boat incident was reported by E.M. Dierlam, a surveyor, on August 16th by telephone and transcribed into a 2-page memo to a “Mr. Marshall.” The first page contains his four findings with Notes that were unintelligible to me, as one totally inexperienced with ships and boats. Notes on the second page, however, are most telling of the boat’s condition. The ship was “34 years old and not dry-docked for over 3 years.” I assume the required dry docking is to inspect the vessel, perform maintenance, and correct deficiencies. “At about 4:00 A.M. August 9, 1954” the vessel “grounded on Gulf of Mexico beach on Mexican coast approximately 35 miles south of Brazos Santiago Pass entrance to Port Isabel and Brownsville, Texas.” The vessel’s bottom “suffered damage as a result of grounding on hard sandbar.” The surveyor, not identified as to is role or responsibility in this matter, wrote of his findings: “the vessel is not in a seaworthy condition and not considered safe to perform the service of which she was chartered.” Mr. Dierlam also consulted another surveyor, “a leading Marine surveyor at Houston, Texas . . . who concurred.” Another Member of Congress, Bob Poage, 11th Congressional District, was contacted by letter written by John A. Smith, President of Milam County Farm Bureau and dated August 18th. Smith wrote asking the Congressman why the BP was picking up “‘Wet Backs’ ” in something like a ‘Pickup Campaign’?” at this time, “since we are in the midst of our harvest.” He added a personal note, “On yesterday they picked up one Mexican from a cotton field, and this particular Mexican has been over here for about 40 years.” Earlier on August 16th, San Antonio Director Holland of the BP had reported to Washington, D.C. that after traveling extensively over the four-county Lower Rio Grande Valley he found 90 percent of cotton or about 370,000 bales have been ginned. Estimated 30 to 40,000 bales remain to be ginned but some of this has already been picked. Two weeks remain before plow under date and Braceros and Native cotton pickers are plentiful and if any cotton is left *upicked it will not be because of any labor shortage. Over a period of years, I do not recall that the area ever had the cotton so thoroughly picked two weeks prior to plow under deadline. *unpicked

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DEPORTATION NUMBERS The words “deportation” and “repatriation” are used in several of the transmissions cited in this chapter which makes for a complicated and difficult narrative to understand. Assuming the BP informed an apprehended person of their rights under U.S. law to a hearing to determine if he was subject to deportation and even a bond for release pending the hearing date, the person then could waive those rights and be repatriated voluntarily. If he was not advised or informed, then he was summarily deported. In all I have read, Operation Wetback’s aim and purpose was to immediately apprehend and deport persons unlawfully present in the United States. The only detention was brief pending transportation into Mexico. I assume most persons were deported without any information on their rights and not repatriated voluntarily. By letter dated August 18th, the District Director in San Antonio for the BP reported to D. J. Shipman, the BP Acting Chief in Chicago, Illinois on the removal of Mexicans to the home country. “A party of seventy-five (75) aliens departed from Chicago and Kansas City on August 17th and were transferred to El Paso . . . the next movement from this area will operate about September 1, 1954.” Holland in San Antonio wanted to know when the next delivery of aliens would occur by day and numbers so he could plan their deportation by ship, bus, or train. He suggested an alternative to sending deportees to McAllen that it be El Paso which now had daily trainlifts to the central part of Mexico daily. Harlon Carter, now Chief of the BP Branch of INS in Washington, D.C., was prompted on August 20, 1954 to respond with a one page press comment on the high numbers of Mexican families being deported as that category of deportees did not fit the Bracero profile of a single man who had skipped his contract. Chief Carter did not address the issue, he simply reported that some families using the Reynosa train were being “permitted voluntary departure locally and frequently return as repeaters.” The high numbers, generally, being reported out of El Paso were due to the “emptying of the camp after having assembled there 800 for the boat.” And, he added that “McBee” has been “instructed to report more fully as to conditions in future daily radio reports.” HUMAN RESOURCE DILEMMAS The thorny issue of re-assignment of personnel continued to plague the effectiveness of Operation Wetback. A 2-page report dated July 20th addressing a radio request from some office asking for numbers of employees detailed by district to make up the Special Border Patrol Force to execute Operation



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Wetback was provided. In summary, this report states “574 officers and 14 other employees were assigned in California and Texas from 13 different districts in the country.” In ranked order, San Antonio sent 101, El Paso 89, Miami sent 62, Los Angeles provided 60, San Francisco 46, St. Albans 45, New York 42, Detroit and Chicago 36 each, Seattle 34, Buffalo 20, Baltimore 10 and Boston 7. With this large number of uniformed and armed Border Patrolmen new to the Rio Grande Valley, incidents occurred. Harlon B. Carter reported on such embarrassing incidents to Frank H. Partridge, the Special Assistant to the Commissioner on July 22nd. In this 2-page report on incidents are eight instances described. All involve “the people in the Valley” but careful reading of the incidents suggest that it was local Anglos concerned about local Anglo farmers and growers who provoked the BP agents and not Mexicanorigin people as may be expected given the mission of the BP to hunt down Mexicans. In short, the BP agents were not welcomed at banks (item 3) restaurants and cafes (items 2, 5), motels (item 1), other stores (item 7), and in newspaper articles and radio comments (items 6, 8). Item 4 involving a rumor that a deportee bitten by a rattlesnake was not afford treatment and died in the custody of the BP was false. The man was bitten, taken to hospital, recovered, and then deported. Increasingly, individual agents filed for return to their home bases and some were being recommended be relieved of duty due to unfitness for the job. From August 17th to the 30th telegrams and memorandums found their way to Frank H. Partridge, the Special Assistant to the Commissioner of INS in charge of personnel and logistics. Some requests Partridge denied quickly such as “Patrol Inspector Herbert E. Sellies should remain at official station for assignment [in Los Angeles]” by telegram on August 18th to the District Director in Seattle. Chula Vista field office sent telegram on the 18th of August to the Assistant Commissioner also stating in very odd language that the request to transfer investigator [name redacted] was not submitted by him nor was there an emergency but “in view of family situation . . . certain officers believe he should be released from detail.” In a memo “for the file” dated August 19th, D. R. Kelley noted Mr. Landon called and stated he was prepared to release 24 officers from the El Paso District to return to their official stations. He stated that in addition there were 13 officers listed below [names redacted] whom he would also like to relieve of their detail at Los Angeles for various reasons which made their services unsatisfactory within the District. In addition to the 37 officers mentioned above, he stated that he could release 12 additional officers from the California Operation . . . and to release the 36

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officers mentioned on August 23 (Monday) and the 13 unsatisfactory officers on Wednesday, August 25th.

Special Assistant Partridge also terminated 28 officers from the San Francisco district on August 19th by telegram to that office on that day. The officer [name redacted] on duty in Calexico with the pregnant wife in Minot, Minnesota was terminated from detail and approved to return to her on August 20th. On August 25th Partridge also permitted Inspector William T. Moore on detail in McAllen to travel by government “car 71, license number J-4461” to Little Rock, Arkansas by August 30th “as a witness in a prosecution case.” The next day, August 26th, Partridge by telegram to the District Director in San Antonio, instructed him to “Please terminate detail and return to official stations all investigators from the El Paso district. A proportionate amount of motorized equipment should be returned with them.” The most prevalent excuse for re-assignment back to the home base was a personal or family issue. As previously noted, the BP permitted a man to return home to be with his expectant wife. These requests opened new categories of criteria that allowed men to return to the home base such as an ear infection found by Dr. O. V. Lawrence of Brownsville, Texas on officer [name redacted] that needed “lengthy treatment, with rest.” The officer was a Patrol Inspector from Niagara Falls, New York. Another officer from Niagara Falls on detail in Brownsville, Texas [name redacted], also requested he be returned there because his son a honor student in his senior year “who is studying nuclear physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology” needed him to arrange “financial matters before September First.” And, added to the last line of the telegram sent to the Chief Patrol Inspector G.J. McBee in McAllen, Texas was this information: “Writer also wishes to mention that he does not speak Spanish is in his fiftieth year of age in his twenty fourth year in the Border Patrol on Southern Border detail since June Ten.” I assume the two months of duty during very hot, humid, summer days in Brownsville, Texas was a shock to someone from Niagara Falls, New York. This assumption is based on the subsequent memorandum dated August 29th from Charles E. Kirk, Chief Patrol Inspector to Harlon B. Carter, Chief, Border Patrol Branch, now stationed in Washington D.C. In this one-page memo, he wrote a senior in college, should be able to handle the details of starting a school year and if financial arrangements were necessary notes or other necessary papers could be mailed to his father for signature.

Kirk nevertheless recommended the officer be sent back to his home base with this pointed and terse instruction:



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It is recommended that this officer be given a strict physical examination looking toward a determination as to his fitness for the position of Patrol Inspector as he is obviously of less value to this service than a physically fit man who can be detailed as required.

It certainly was the hot and humid temperature of the summer months in South Texas that aggravated an existing condition in officer [name redacted] who had “contracted a fungus infection of the groin, scrotum and buttocks while on duty with the U.S. Navy in the Southwest Pacific. This condition has become chronic whenever I have been exposed to extended periods of hot, humid weather.” While in Brownsville, his condition “steadily spread and became raw and inflamed.” He asked on August 27th that he be sent back to Buffalo, New York by one-page memo to his superior of Task Force “D” in Brownsville, Texas. R. H. Lawrence, Medical Director, examined the complainant that same day and suggested instead sick leave for a few days with treatment to see “whether a satisfactory recovery can be obtained here.” He sent that recommendation to the Inspector in Charge of the BP in Brownsville who approved the request to leave Brownsville. The approval was based on how much it would cost the BP service for this man to be on sick leave and treatment as opposed to sending him home as he requested and let him deal with his condition. Kirk wrote on August 28th: In view of a very definite possibility that his officer is utilizing a chronic condition without true justification to secure release from a detail he dislikes, it might be well to suggest that he be asked to submit to treatment that could alleviate the chronic nature of the complaint and at the same time prevent placing him in a limited-service category.

More importantly for this man’s future service with the BP, Kirk added his memo with copies of the entire file on the request to the Chief, Border Patrol Branch, Washington, D.C., now Harlon Carter, “that he be accorded a strict physical examination” and “consideration should be given to according him a medical retirement.” Other officers were relieved of duty as of August 27th by telegram notice from El Paso, “Frank Gardner, William E. Kelly, and James R. Speaks” and were traveling in a district automobile. No mention is made as to the final destination. Another officer was also asked to be released that same day by telegram in Los Angeles on order of James L. Hennessy, the Executive Assistant to the Commissioner, for [name redacted] because his father had a heart attack. This was a problem for Hennessy because the Los Angeles Field office responded on the 30th of August that “no investigator from El Paso District on detail in Los Angeles District.” Another problem was a

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delayed telegram dated as received August 30th from Seattle, Washington but the content inquired “July 27 please advise if detail Jack Paladin at McAllen, Texas is to be extended and length of extension.” The other personnel problem that surfaced during the Operation Wetback program was that of annual leave and normal working hours. In most cases working more than forty-hour weeks accrues extra leave or overtime pay; only authorized leave was capped at 26 days maximum by the INS rules. During this Operation Wetback period, records released indicate by memo that most personnel were working six-day weeks and more than forty hours, so they had accrued leave and regular annual leave. The memo sent from Chief Patrol Inspector Kirk to All officers and employees of Task Forces “C” and “D” on August 31st addressed that issue. He wanted to know how many officers had such leave earned and wanted to take some, but not all, before December 31, 1954 or lose the benefit. Kirk outlined three factors he would take into consideration in granting leaves requested: 1.  Amount of leave which will be lost during current calendar year. 2.  Length of time away from home on present detail. 3.  Amount of leave already taken. Kirk did inform all that any travel taken during any granted leave would be at the officer’s expense including no per diem. He sent a questionnaire to be filled out in applying for such leave. Another step taken by the higher ups in the service was to reduce the work week to only 5 days, not the customary six. Los Angeles reported on August 31st that at El Centro ten officers and technicians would be capped at 5 days while at Chula Vista another eleven would be capped. San Antonio, also on August 31st reported 53 persons would be reduced from 6-day work week. “This is the maximum number that can be released from overtime assignments without impairing special force operations in lower Valley.” Both the Chula Vista sector on August 27th and other districts in California on August 31st reported on such sectors as El Paso, Tucson, Marfa, and the San Antonio District from Sectors like El Paso, Marfa, and Tucson which personnel by name were on duty at those locations. The Chula Vista report also included position title, GS grade, and Official Home station they were from. The California report only contains names and, in some cases, position title. But this report does include the description of government vehicles assigned out of the district as of August 31, 1954 that needs to be accounted for and returned if not necessary to continue with the overall program. The oldest vehicle was a 1947 GMC 2½ ton truck and most were Ford sedans, Jeeps, Dodge pickup and 2½ ton truck, International Bus, and a “1949 Federal Truck.”



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By mid-August, transfers and terminations of personnel began to increase as they were being moved further south to the border. On August 18th Frank H. Partridge, Special Assistant to the Commissioner notified John W. Holland, the San Antonio District Director to “please have transferred twentyfour Border Patrol officers and positions from the Laredo Sector to the McAllen Sector and eight Border Patrol officers and positions from the Del Rio Sector to the McAllen Sector.” That same day, Partridge also notified by telegram both District Directors in El Paso and San Antonio to send the “50 Probationary Officers . . . to report promptly . . . to the Chief Patrol Inspector, McAllen, Texas.” Those in McAllen, according to Partridge in another telegram of the same day, who were Probationary Officers from the Los Angeles District were to be terminated from this detail and sent to the Los Angeles District. “It is understood these number 49.” A 6-page report titled DEPLOYMENT OF PERSONNEL IN EL CENTRO SECTOR AS OF SEPTEMBER 1, 1954 listed six field stations: Blythe, Brawley, El Centro Headquarters, El Centro Station, Calexico, Yuma, and Indio at which a total of 239 men were on duty. The list also contains the names of each person and main duty such as Ranch and Town Check or Road Block or Detention Facility. During the months of September through October the re-assignment of men continued to be an almost weekly headache for the Field Stations and District Directors. For example, on September 5, 1954, Henry V. McCalls, and Investigator, on detail at Chula Vista, California from Detroit District, asked of Denis E. Wolstenholme, his superior, to be released from duty because his mother had suffered several heart attacks and “is now in a hospital in Hicksville, Ohio, and is not expected to live.” An investigator from Detroit Michigan [name redacted] asked to be relieved from duty at Chula Vista, California because his mother was dying. He was granted emergency leave by letter dated September 7, 1954 from Denis E. Wolstenholme, Chief Patrol Inspector at Chula Vista to John P. Swanson, Chief of the Border Patrol for the Los Angeles, California Section. Ultimately, the Border Patrolman was relieved from detail. I assume he returned to Detroit, but the records on hand do not reflect the final outcome. By telegram also on the 7th “return of Patrol Inspector [name redacted] to official station” was requested by F. H. Partridge from the District Director in Los Angeles. The patrolman’s wife was to have surgery which was being deferred until his return. Special Assistant Partridge, again on the 7th by telegram to District Directors in Los Angeles and San Antonio asked for termination from detail “all officers from the Chicago District, including proportionate equipment.” The most provocative line followed: “Advise this office numbers concerned.” In other words, Partridge was terminating all personnel originally from Chicago in two districts

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without knowing how many men he was asking to be relieved from duty or what their job assignments were. On the 8th, someone named CLAYTON by telegram to San Antonio Field office notifies them that “Detail terminated for 13 officers from Chicago District and they will depart for official station today with 5 Chicago District Cars.” Partridge on the 8th must have realized he was getting ahead of himself in granting terminations and relieving personnel from detail without complete facts on personnel; he sent a blanket telegram to all eleven Districts in the country asking these Districts “extend detail of all your officers of your district now assigned to special operations in Los Angeles and San Antonio Districts through October 1, 1954.” Someone named LANDON also by telegram of the 8th alerted Washington that in the Los Angeles District 16 Chicago District Officers terminated their detail on September 7th and returned to their stations, R. C Baurenfiend, John E. Gorham, J.D. Herman, Bruce A. Peterson, Peter Wold, Michael N. Zieuchkowski, Fred M. Mackenzie, Eberhard Bollman, Earl W. Jones, Louis R. James, Eugene D. Harvey, George E. Eidler, Rex M. Griffin, Bertram A. Wanstreet, Wayne A. Ryllun and Everett L. Kelley. Investigator John T. McClellan also Chicago being held over until September 9 in order he may return Chicago automobile now undergoing repairs.

On October 12th, Partridge sent two telegrams to the District Director in Los Angeles to “terminate details of Richard White of Baltimore, District and return him to official station” and “of Patrol Inspector Vernon E. Gregory at Yuma [Arizona] and return to official station Blytheville, Arkansas, promptly.” The case of Jack Paladin from the Seattle District assigned to McAllen, Texas under the mandate of Harlan Carter presented a persistent problem for three months. Somebody, perhaps Paladin, wanted him back in the Seattle District. The telegrams and memos on this subject are not clear other than the request to return him to the Seattle District. Carter by memo dated September 3rd first asked of Seattle’s District Director “to extend detail of Jack Paladin through month September 1954.” Partridge was asking by personal handwritten note to Carter “How are we coming along in switching Seattle people with San Francisco men?” This note is on the top right of a telegram from someone named BOYD to the Seattle District Director dated October 6th. It was about Jack R. Paladin, again “as his services needed at Billings.” Paladin must have been from the field office in Billings, Montana. Carter adds his own handwritten note at the bottom that reads tersely, ”Joe Let’s Terminate HBC.” Partridge interjects with his own memo on Paladin dated October 13th to the Seattle District Director; “Paladin may be terminated if you can furnish replacement to travel at expense your district.”



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The challenge of moving large numbers of men and equipment such as vehicles from one field station to another during Operation Wetback caused a huge Human Resources problem compounded by the fact that these employees were covered by Civil Service regulations and policies. They could not easily be re-assigned, suspended, much less terminated at will. But it did happen and caused political problems for the INS Commissioner who began receiving letters from U.S. Senators inquiring about such terminations, relieved status, suspensions, vacations, and the like. Two examples in the released files are from Senator Margaret Chase Smith and Senator John L. McClellan. Both wanted to know the INS policy for returning men from the duty stations in the Southwest to their home districts when relieved of duty and or for leave purposes. Many men had accrued vacation time and Operation Wetback seemed to be preparing for a winding down mode. Commissioner Swing had to prepare a blanket response letter for such important inquiries from prominent politicians. Swing wrote in response to these two senators and others, “The work has now progressed to the point where arrangements can be made to return gradually men now on that duty to their home stations in the near future under a rotation and replacement plan.” To ease matters, the Commissioner also prepared a blanket letter dated to suit the timing of such a change in the employment relationship with the Border Patrol and or INS to use when men terminated or were relieved of duty. The letter which must have been prepared by mid to late October 1954 makes mention of that time window: “By early October, approximately 163,000 aliens had been rounded up and deported to Mexico.” And, in the final paragraph, Commissioner Swing closed with this praise: “On your relief from this duty I want you to know that your splendid service on this occasion is fully appreciated by the Attorney General and me. A copy of this letter is being placed in your personnel file.” Perhaps this flurry of personnel movement was precipitated by more than rumor as alleged in an early one-page memo dated September 6, 1954 from the McAllen Chief to Harlon Carter, Chief of the BP in Washington, D.C. The memo simply stated, rumors have reached this office that some 11 copies of this letter have been forwarded by employees to their congressmen with letters complaining of this proposed procedure. We do not know who the employees are nor do we know to which congressmen these copies were mailed.

The letter alluded to is dated August 31st and sent by Charles E. Kirk, Chief Patrol Inspector, McAllen sector for Special Task Forces C and D about annual leave. Kirk proposed any BP agents who were allowed to take annual leave or leave for other reasons pay their own way back to their home station and also that any accrued annual leave be used for any other requested

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leave. To determine this accrued leave, Kirk enclosed a questionnaire for BP personnel to fill out on that topic and add also how long in terms of days the individual had been away from home. It is no wonder that the rumor may have been true because what BP officer had paid his way to the duty station. The agency should return the officer back to where he started from, was probably what they complained to congressmen about. No letters are in the files released to any congressmen or from congressmen on this issue. ABUSE ACCUSATIONS AND BULLETS FLY On July 10, 1954 BP agent Luther Fisher working in Parlier, Fresno County, California, according to a one page letter from Commissioner Swing to the U.S. Secretary of State about an incident involving this agent who had “fatally wounded the Mexican national, Odon Calderon.” The shooting prompted a Coroner’s inquest during which some sixteen witnesses testified and returned a verdict of “justifiable homicide in the case.” The defense was that “Odon Calderon was shot after he had attacked the officer to avoid arrest.” The Mexican Ambassador to the U.S. was not satisfied with this sanitized finding and asked the State Department for the complete report from all involved on this incident. In turn, the State Department in a terse one-page memo dated September 11, 1954, asked the U.S. Attorney General to ask INS to ask the BP for that information as well as “an account of any instructions to the Service’s Inspectors which may be designed to safeguard from injury illegal entrants into this country who are located and returned to Mexico, in order that an appropriate reply may be made to the Ambassador of Mexico.” Jesse E. Holmes, the Senior [Border] Patrol Inspector in Laredo, Texas filed a 3-page report with the BP District Director in San Antonio about perhaps an exaggerated account of abuse by the BP in Cameron County, Texas. This report dated September 3, 1954 was forwarded by R. F. Abbott, the Acting District Director in San Antonio to Frank H. Partridge in the INS Commissioner’s office. The Milam County Farm Bureau President, John A. Smith, had filed the complaint alleging the BP had apprehended and deported a man who had resided in that area “for over forty years” (p. 2). Holmes details the circuitous route of their investigation into this case from the Rio Grande Valley up to Hearne, El Paso and Abilene, Texas. The BP found and Holmes reported that the person in question was Miguel Coronado Robles, A-6177555 with a long record of eleven arrests and six deportations, including a 31-month stint in a federal penitentiary in the United States (p. 2). His latest arrest was in El Paso, Texas on June 5, 1954 and a subsequent criminal charge for drunkenness and indecent exposure. He was arrested by Holmes



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and Patrol Inspector Charles O. Deeg on August 17, 1954 on the Smith brothers’ farm near Hearne, Texas. Nothing further is in the final page of the report as to the disposition of this case. Who are we to believe: the Farm Bureau president or the BP officers as to the accuracy of the details on this report about Miguel Coronado Robles? Only one incident of gunfire is reported in the released documents. This mention is in a memo from the Chief Patrol Inspector in McAllen, Texas to his superiors in Task Forces C and D, McAllen and Brownsville, respectively. Dated September 5th this one-page report states that gunfire from the Mexican side toward the vicinity where Border Patrolmen were concealed was heard and felt over a period of five consecutive days. First it was from a “small calibre [sic] rifle and the point of impact could not be determined.: Then “on ensuing days they reported shots were apparently fired by heavy calibre [sic] sidearms. On each occasion several shots varying from two to six were fired.” Immediately, the U.S. diplomats in Matamoros Mexico [border town across from Brownsville] were asked to “arrange a meeting with the Commanding General of the Mexican Garrison at Matamoros, Mexico, a General Macias.” Accordingly, General Macias “immediately agreed to investigate” and “take what ever steps might be necessary to eliminate the shooting.” This incident is the only mention and documentation on this topic. An odd complaint and investigation provided in a 3-page report dated September 10, 1954, led to a confrontation between the BP, Task Force D agents and the Commanding Officer of Harlingen Air Force Base in Harlingen, Texas. On September 7, 1954 Senior Patrol Inspector in Harlingen “received reliable information that a number of illegally entrant aliens were employed in construction work and and [sic] in the Post Exchange at the Harlingen Air Force Base” He assigned officers from “Unit D-3” to investigate. They found and apprehended “eight (8) illegally entrant Mexican aliens (p. 1). The two BP officers also filed a 2-page report made part of this entire file and dated the same. The BP agents, Roy N. Tuder and Robert Gallagher, presented themselves at the gate at 7:45 A.M. with credentials and explained the purpose of their visit. They were allowed in and proceeded to a construction site where they apprehended the first four of eight Mexican nationals, then the cafeteria where they found four more (p. 1 of the agent’s report). Upon trying to exit they were told to return and report to Colonel White, the Executive Officer in charge for the Wing Commander, Colonel Olive, of the base. They were interrogated as to whether the BP was a U.S. government agency, why they had not informed him, why they were removing the personnel who were critical to the mission of the base, and to “leave the illegally entrant alien woman dishwasher there to finish the days [sic] work.” The BP agents refused returning only the Pass Card held by one of the detainees

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(p. 2 of their report). Apparently, on the one hand a federal agency was apprehending Mexican nationals without permits and another federal agency, a military base no less, was hiring them without checking immigration status. Astonishingly, a high-ranking Air Force commander requested the BP release his Mexican dishwasher and let her finish the day! No wonder some farmers were upset with this double standard of recruitment and enforcement. TOTAL NUMBERS OF ALIENS REMOVED JUNE 10 TO OCTOBER 25, 1954 That is the title of a single page without date of issuance or location of source. It contains significant information on locations and numbers of those apprehended and deported. Perhaps the numerous pages released in this 3rd quarter of the year and six months after Operation Wetback began were prompted by a solo-page office memorandum from Arthur C. West, Senior Patrol Inspector, Oceanside, California to his superior, the Chief Patrol Inspector at Chula Vista, California on September 28th. West lists six employers in their area of duty “who have repeatedly and knowingly employed aliens illegally in the United States.” The list provided by West without his annotation is as follows: Los Cerritos Ranch in Capistrano, California; Rancho Mission Viejo in San Juan Creek by Ortega Highway, Capistrano, California; Nick Huntalis, Vista, California; Frank Natwick Ranch, Vista, California; Crew’s Café, Encinitas, California; and Seafood Grotto in Cardiff, California. BP raids at each of these locations has resulted in apprehension of 43 undocumented persons after 23 raids. Employers refuse the BP entry to their land, buildings, homes, and offices; speak abusively to the BP agents; refuse to unlock gates on their lands; and, often conceal their employees “upon officers’ appearance,” wrote BP officer West. On another 3-page report from Ventura County, California to the District Director dated September 29th lists by business or industry type the names of employers where the BP made apprehensions and their numbers. For example, there were six categories listed: Hotels, Restaurants, Vegetable & Fruit Packing Companies, Labor Contractors (p. 1), Farmers, and Miscellaneous. Raids on these establishments resulted in a total number of apprehensions that reached 96 from June 29th to September 29th (p. 2). The unidentified preparer of this report also made “5 Suggestions of Things That Might Be of Assistance in Discouraging the Use of Wetback Labor” which included issuance of valid work permit cards, confiscation of fraudulent Social Security cards, prohibiting labor contractors from hiring undocumented persons, prohibiting labor placement services to also not refer undocumented persons, and asking Congress to make the employer guilty of



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a crime in hiring undocumented Mexican labor. Employer sanctions did not make it into the legislation related to immigration until two decades later. Also included were four more practical suggestions: create a pamphlet for employers on the law and its enforcement followed up with a personal visit; make presentations to the many service clubs and organizations such as Labor, Farm groups, Contractor groups. Merchant and Manufacturers groups, Hotel and Restaurant Owners; publish statistics on percentage of taxes that go to paying for immigration enforcement; and prepare BP raids by 5-square area blocks and repeat in other tracts in given area, and upon apprehension in the fields go speak with grower or farmer about such hiring and benefits of contracting under the Bracero Program. The San Luis Obispo district in California also filed a 2-page report undated and unidentified as to preparer. It listed two categories only, 16 under Agriculture and 11 under Industry. Below each category were listed the employers by name that were raided and how many persons were apprehended for a total of 32 in Industry businesses and 16 in Agricultural businesses, including one each per category utilizing fake U.S. citizen documents (p. 1). This report identified by name the three major employers of undocumented labor as being John Mansville Company, Union Sugar Company, and Sheehy Barry Farms. It also reported that after visiting these companies in the recent months, all agreed to have future prospective and all current employees fill out a questionnaire aimed at detecting immigration status. Successful was this implementation in reducing the undocumented workers at John Mansville Company from “60 and 100 ‘Wetbacks’ to none at time of report.” The report further stated that many labor contractors themselves were not U.S. citizens but residents and should be apprehended as well. They estimated that “at least half of all ‘wetbacks’ employed in agriculture” were due to these labor contractors (p. 2). El Cajon and Temecula districts also filed similar reports naming employers, raids conducted, and undocumented persons apprehended. El Cajon district reported apprehending as of October 1, 1954 some 5 persons at three authorized employers [Had Bracero Contracts] and 6 others at six other locations of unauthorized employers according to Jerome G. Hibbard, Patrol Inspection in Charge, dated October 1, 1954. Bakersfield, California presented a new headache for the District Director in Los Angeles. The jurisdiction of the Bakersfield district covered 28,000 square miles, according to J.E. Keegan, the station chief. He complained in his one-page report dated October 1, 1954 of being understaffed with only two men. He submitted two additional pages listing the farms with a long history of hiring undocumented labor from Mexico. He listed 29 ranches (p. 1); four more on the next page; and, 16 labor contractors (p. 2). Of these 16 labor contractors, two did not have a Spanish

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surname, Jack Kern and Manuel Bonn (p. 2). Some of the names of ranches are well known brands to this day because they were targets of organizing by Cesar E. Chavez and the United Farm Workers Union of America in the early 1960s: Schenley Industries, Giumarra Brothers Vineyards Corporation, Zaninovich Farms, Dan Sabovich Farms, and Sardini Ranch. Returning to the report bearing the title of this subheading, California reported 63,520 persons buslifted to the border at Nogales and Calexico. In the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas, it was reported that 54,189 were deported by bus to El Paso (33,225), by family trainlift from Reynosa Mexico to the interior (15,364) and boatlifted to Vera Cruz (5,600). From the Chicago area, airlifted to Brownsville, Texas thence by boat to Vera Cruz 1,157. Handwritten into this report page are the words under Chicago D. Estimated number who returned voluntarily to avoid deportation, 100,000. Also entered on this report is the number of resignations and requests for retirements from the Border Patrol during this June 10th to October 25th period in 1954 of 70 and in the same period during 1953 were 32.

To accomplish these numbers operating costs were involved per districts and the entire Operation Wetback plan. There is a one-page report based on McAllen, Texas for half a month from July 15 through July 31, 1954. To apprehend and remove 83,066 “aliens” the total cost was estimated at $297,366.38 or an average cost of $3.58 per person. This figure is not complete on operating costs without entering BP personnel salaries and benefits; automobile and other vehicles, buses, boats and airplanes, utilized, maintained and their consumption, rental of facilities for the BP, and supplies and other materials necessary for their jobs. On the flip side of the campaign to rid the United States of undocumented labor in favor of Braceros, as contract labor, there is a single sheet, unsigned, and undated but for the period for reporting with title of “Number of Braceros Processed at Hidalgo, Texas Processing Center From June 10, 1954, Date of Commissioner’s Announcement, to August 5, 1954. The number of Braceros processed via Hidalgo, Texas during this period was 53,799, Eagle Pass, Texas from July 22 to July 31st was 3, 262; at El Centro, California from July 22 to July 31st were 2,916 and in parenthesis was the entry “(El Centro expects to process 3,000 first two weeks in August and 35, 000, August 15 to 31).” No further information is provided on this expected huge increase, more like surge, ever materialized. There are more single and multi-page reports unsigned and undated on numbers of self-removals and even numbers of apprehension by day with pencil graphs to accompany the figures. I did not include mention because it seemed repetitious given, I do not have final figures on persons deported and costs involved in the pages released. There is one progress report dated



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October 8, 1954 from Commissioner Swing to the Attorney General consisting of at least 3 pages but not all released. The first page simply provides information on the cooperation of Mexico in the endeavor to remove Mexicans without documents from the United States. A second page is missing. The third and fourth pages begin to list seven recommendations of what do next after Operation Wetback is concluded. Interestingly, recommendation 2 and 7 note that more Spanish Speaking investigators be hired as part of the BP force. Another interesting document is an Office Memorandum with the same date as the Commissioner’s letter to the AG, from E. DeWitt Marshall, Attaché, Mexico City to the Special Assistant to the Commissioner, Frank H. Partridge. Marshall attached a copy of “an item prepared by this office and released by the Embassy on October 7 to approximately 150 newspapers in the interior of Mexico. The press Attaché’s office advises me that the estimated minimum total circulation of these newspapers is 300,000.” And this release also appeared in the Mexico City press the next day. The copy in English runs a page and one half, double-spaced. It basically states that the United States will continue with the campaign “to remove all wetbacks (illegal Mexican workers) from the farms of Texas as well as other parts of that country.” The statement claims the United States had deported 150,000 since the removal began and another 150,000 had repatriated voluntarily. And, it boasts that “over 60,000 braceros (legally contracted Mexican workers) in an area in Texas where only wetbacks had been employed before” (p. 1). The closing was menacing: “the Federal border forces will further be strengthened until a situation is reached where it is impossible for an alien to enter the United States illegally and remain there for any period of time.” No copy of any translation of this document that may have been published by a newspaper in deep Mexico is provided, not even the Mexico City articles. The last quarter of 1954 was spent in counting numbers, evaluating expenditures, the personnel problems emerging, and sending letters of appreciation to each man “who served creditably for at least thirty days in the Special Mobile Operations in California and Texas so far.” A list was circulated beginning on October 19th by General Partridge in the Commissioner’s office to the District Director in San Antonio. And, despite a copy being in the files, I assume a similar note was sent to other states, particularly California. There is an Office Memorandum from Einar A Wahl, Chief of the Border Patrol Detention and Deportation Branch, San Antonio, Texas to General Partridge dated December 1st on a handbill written in Spanish with an English version on the same one-page putting Mexicans on notice that “the day of the wetback in the United States has ended.” It threatens “to apprehend all who enter illegally, and repeaters will be punished by law and then deported to a distant port by boat.” It encourages those who seek work to contract as Braceros and enter legally and

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repeats the opening line: “Tell all of your friends and families that the day of the wetback in the United States has ended.” Copies of this handbill in both languages were given in quantities to all who were being deported by boat and those who voluntarily left. Apparently, from day one not a single person pointed out to those in charge how insulting and offensive the name of the operation was as was the continued use of the wetback/mojado term to any person of Mexican ancestry. It never occurred to anyone that the only river crossing was in Texas, the other states along the border have no river to cross. Moreover, if I may point out, the pilgrims crossed an ocean, not just a river into Indian lands, are they not the real wetbacks? The last documents for 1954 are few. Extension of service for thirty more days was ordered by Gen. Partridge to thirteen District Directors on November 30, 1954 and again another thirty-day extension for personnel sent from five Districts for detail along the U.S.-Mexico border. Another item is dated December 2nd from Gen. Partridge to the District Director in Miami, Florida announcing the closing of three BP stations in “Memphis, Tennessee, Blythesville and Little Rock, Arkansas.” And, a lengthy 8-page report from Intelligence Officers, John S. Puster and Oran G. Pugh, stationed in McAllen, Texas and dated December 23rd to the Chief Patrol Inspector in McAllen who in turn forwarded the material to the San Antonio District Director. The report contained information on a survey conducted by the Intelligence Officer consisting of oral interviews held with individuals, police officers, both state and local; businessmen and reputable organizations, and the records in Hidalgo County. The narrative’s first three pagers are very laudatory of the BP work in the Rio Grande Valley in reducing crime committed previously by undocumented Mexicans. The Hidalgo County records revealed that prior to the BP drive there had been 22 felony indictments involving Mexican laborers and in the current term only 3 felony complaints were awaiting Grand Jury action (3.). On the Mexican side, the head of the Mexican equivalent of the BP, reported a drop-in alien smugglers (p. 3). Deaths by drowning on the Rio Grande of those seeking to cross into the US were reported down from 41 in 1952 to 24 in 1953 and only 1 since Operation Wetback began (p. 5). Infant mortality due to dysentery and diarrhea was another area that Puster and Pugh gave credit for Operation Wetback’s success. Reportedly, both diarrhea and dysentery cases were dramatically reduced in Hidalgo County from 179 deaths in 1953 to only 24 since July 1st to November 30, 1954. “This indicates that a large majority of the deaths were among the children of people from Mexico,” was their conclusion; and, not from U.S.-born children which they failed to mention was checked in their fact finding (p. 5). Incredibly, the report claims the business people they interviewed at the J.C. Penny store, the two Garza Drug stores, the Round-Up Tavern, the Terry-Farris stores (p. 6)



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and only one critic, Jack Fisk, manager of Sibleys (sic) Café, were happy that business had not dropped. And one even claimed it has picked up with trade from the Braceros coming in to shop. This may be true but doubtful. This author worked as a child dishwasher when I was 9 years old at the Bracero camp 7 miles from my hometown of Crystal City. Those men could not leave the camp; businesses loaded their wares in cars, pickup, and vans and came to them. The critic, Fisk, complained that removing the “Wets,” the term reportedly used by everyone interviewed, caused him an increase in labor costs. He explained that his dishwasher from Mexico earned $16 a week; and now he had to pay domestic help $0.45 an hour for an average weekly wage of $25 (p. 7). Pugh and Puster also reported having interviewed five residents who worked in the northern states part of the year and returned to the Rio Grande Valley until the following year. These seasonal agricultural workers and one factory worker all complained of “Wetback” labor taking their jobs. This conclusion is doubtful as well. First, agricultural work in South Texas, including ranching and livestock care, is year-round. South Texas has three to four, and in some cases more, seasons to grow vegetables and fruits. Cilantro, a vegetable heavily used by Mexicans primarily, for example, only takes 45 days to grow and be ready for harvest. Second, the northern states only have one growing season given the weather. The work available is seasonal and temporary. I was also a migrant from Southwest Texas to the state of Wisconsin for years and we only had work during the summer months. Those interviewed also reported the same employment cycle as I experienced: going north in late spring and returning in early fall (pp. 7–8). In short, the report presented facts, some doubtful, that bolstered the impact of Operation Wetback as one of mission accomplished. Their concluding sentence was not only their expectation but a prophecy for the future: “We assured each of them that there would be no return to the days of the wetback” (p. 8). FILES ON OPERATION WETBACK: 1955 The few documents released dated in 1955 focus on three major topics. First, communication with various railroad companies asking for assistance in patrolling the rail lines by BP personnel. Typical is the letter from Harlon B. Carter, Chief of Border Patrol to the San Francisco District Director dated January 27, 1955 about a letter he had received the day before on January 26, 1954. Chief Carter received this letter from D. J. Russell, president of Southern Pacific Company, in which Russell made it clear the Southern Pacific Company would “cooperate with this Service in connection with our efforts to control the border.” This was a last piece missing in Operation Wetback:

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how to police desolate areas of the country without roads for access and only rail lines transporting cargo. Many an undocumented laborer, reminiscent of the Hobo movements in the 1930s, hopped on railcars for free and rapid transportation in search of work. The second major contribution of documents is the concern and attention to prepare final reports on the success of Operation Wetback. This last 8-page document is from the FBI and is a copy of a major press release issued July 20, 1955 by the Office of the Commissioner Joseph Swing. It provides important statistics from the Department of Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Service and was introduced in the opening line as a mid-year report. General Swing stated as per the press release that Operation Wetback “has paid off by reducing illegal entries in the southwest by more than 86.4 percent, reducing the alien crime rate, and freeing Service personnel for other tasks” (p. 1). He claimed that prior to the program, there were an average of 3,000 apprehensions of illegally entered Mexicans per day in the Southwest. This was allegedly true for 1952, 1953, and parts of 1954 before the program. In few months of operations in 1954, they deported 12,475 persons, of which 10,366 were Mexicans, and so far into 1955, another 6,805 persons which includes 4,543 Mexicans (p. 1). Those not of Mexican ancestry are not identified by nationality. One document in the entire file had a handwritten notation that some 31 persons apprehended and deported were Canadians. Another major claim of results was in the reduction of crime. During the twelve months of Operation Wetback in 1954 and 1955, 588 criminals were deported and 313 or 55 percent were Mexicans in 1954; and, 366 criminals were deported in 1955. No nationality identification noted in the last statistic. Given the reduction in crime by deportation of criminals, the Service manpower was directed to investigation of other special investigations of criminal and subversive activity (p. 2). The Commissioner explained the area of “Special Investigations” and provided statistics of pending and completed cases. Of the pending cases in June 30, 1954 which were 20,733, the Service completed 5, 574. The same time in 1955 resulted in 20, 426 pending and 8, 224 completed. He also provided now many new cases after June 30th in both 1954 and 1955 were now pending. General Swing took time to name names of Communists apprehended and under final orders of deportation such as Cedric Belfrage, Vera Hataway, Irving Potash, and John Williamson. Where they were to be deported to is not mentioned. And, the Service also went in pursuit of “racketeers” such as Nick Circella, personal bodyguard to Al Capone, and Neufio Scottof of Toledo, Ohio whose naturalization was cancelled on May 9, 1955 (pp. 3–4). The Service also conducted “Investigative Search Operations” and “Document Fraud” detection. In Los Angeles and New York, the Service met with success finding 1,200 persons to deport from the former area and while



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no figures are provided for New York, credit is claimed for apprehending an “alien wanted for a jail break in Cuba, one with a long criminal record in Canada, and one who, when apprehended was armed with a revolver and knife lying (sic) in wait for a man he alleged had cheated him” (p. 4). Document fraud rings were busted in San Antonio, Texas which charged from $75 to $150 for a set of documents to pass as residents or legal entrants based on a visa. Similarly, another ring was busted in New York, selling Puerto Rican birth certificates to Cubans, many of whom are involved in prostitution, according to General Swing’s statements (p. 4). Interesting material on deportation methods is found in the last pages of this press release. General Swing claimed 10,316 aliens were airlifted out of the country by “using four Service-operated airplanes” (p. 5). Another 55 mentally ill aliens were deported via charter airplane on June 24, 1955. Naturalization applications, part of the work of INS during this time; both policing and processing naturalization applications. It was stated that pending was 101,358 application for naturalizations when he took charge, and now in 1955 that figure was reduced to 49,458 by January 1, 1955. Over 105,000 persons were admitted to citizenship the recent six months of 1955, he claimed, up from only 66,643 the year prior (p. 6). The Service also began to police ships and planes entering the U.S. by having more than 4,700 BP officers board such vessels and airplanes. Cases of Adjustment of Status from temporary visa to permanent resident under Section 6 of the Refugee Relief Act went up to 6,000 completed during his tenure and only 1,500 are pending at time of the press conference (p. 7). The last kudos he gave the Service was in the creation of a Border Patrol Training School on January 1955. Heretofore, agents were just recruited and placed in charge of policing immigrants with gun and badge. Now they went to a six-week school. Applicants were selected based on aptitude tests. Three classes totaling 138 officers had completed the training by July 1st. (p. 8). The third and final set of pages are pages and pages of lists of names to which the Commissioner sent a personal letter of appreciation and sometimes a letter of commendation to each officer. The letter dated February 15, 1955 from Bruce G. Barber the District Director out of San Francisco to the Commissioner is typical. This communication makes mention of three letters of appreciation which have been returned to him for Armando Lawrence, John F. Reilly and Jack. G. LaVeille. The original letters from the Commissioner had been sent out beginning early in 1955 from lists. One such lists consists of 17 numbered pages, with each page listing from 42 to 44 names. The second list consists of three additional pages to augment the first list. This second list has 110 more names. A quick perusal of surnames names indicates but a handful of Spanish surnamed personnel among the Special Mobile Operations

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Force of the Border Patrol that served in 1954; approximately four on numbered list and four more in the additional list. MEXICAN-ORIGIN BORDER PATROL AGENTS? A careful perusal of the name rosters of BP personnel from 1954 reported in this narrative does not show any Spanish surnamed personnel among the 64 names listed for the Chula Vista Sector; only five in the El Paso sector: Bernardo Alderete and Alberto Guzman, both Detention Officers, and Gilbert Trujillo, not identified by position. In the Marfa Sector two more Spanishsurnamed Detention Officers are listed: Tomas L. Blanco and Elias Medina. Numbers of Spanish-surnamed personnel are not provided in the history link of the BP’s national museum either; only that a handful were employed when the BP was first commissioned in 1924.88 Sensational news, however, were made by the Border Patrol in 2008 when it reported that more than half of its personnel were now Hispanics, actually 53 percent of a force consisting of some 18,000 persons growing from 9,300 in 2006 and to 19, 437 in 2017.89 The first female BP agent was not hired until half a century and a year later in 1975.90 By 2015, the BP force consisted of over 18,000 persons; it became the goal of the agency to hire up to 1500 women. The result was only 50 were hired.91 Hispanics in the Border Patrol ranks, at any level or position, are not good news to some old timers and other vested interests such as the semblance of a labor union, the National Border Patrol Association. They endorsed Donald Trump for president and earlier had filed suit against their boss, President Barack Obama. Neither does James Dorby, a director of the National Association of Retired Border Patrol Officers, who believes that the integrity of the BP is placed at risk with the hiring of Hispanic officers, particularly of Mexican origin. They cite as evidence the arrests and subsequent convictions of such BP agents as Reynaldo Zuniga from Harlingen and Leonel Morales of Zapata, both from Texas who are in prison for participating in drug smuggling. None of these critics, however, have made similar pronouncements about the crimes committed by other BP agents, including some Hispanic officers, dealing with rape of women immigrants, murder of unarmed immigrants, and severe physical abuse of detainees. A recent publication on the border security industry built on these abuses is a border story from 1987.92 These Hispanic agents are helping the new renamed agency, ICE, to apprehend, detain, and deport illegal entrants to the U.S. The numbers of deportations in recent presidential years indicate that Operation Wetback has not ended, it has continued to the present time with a new face and no name. It



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is a new culture of criminalizing and racializing individual immigrants and groups, Mexicans in particular. For example, during the Clinton presidency, his administration over two terms deported 12, 290, 905 persons; President Bush’s team deported 10,328,850, and President Obama who was tagged as the Deporter In Chief removed 5, 281, 115 persons.93 In 2017, President Trump’s number of those deported reached 310, 539.94 The intelligence functions General Swing touted as being most successful in ferreting out fraudulent document selling rings and busting organized crime activities grew into a full-fledged component of surveillance that now includes those who protest immigration policy and advocate dissenting positions. ICE targets those engaged in 1st Amendment rights who are advocates for immigrants themselves. The Nation magazine won a FOIA suit that compelled ICE to turn over documents on the surveillance of those who in 2017 proposed that ICE be abolished.95 Similarly, an ICE target in New York, the New Sanctuary Coalition, sued for disclosure and its case was appealed successfully as of April 25, 2019 to prevent continued harassment, surveillance, intimidation, detention, and home raids of its members and supporters. In all probability, this case will reach SCOTUS and be reversed further emboldening ICE and its parent, the Department of Homeland Security, to further trample the civil rights of all in years to come.96 NOTES 1.  Lowell L. Blaisdell, The Desert Revolution: Baja California, 1911. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1962). 2.  “The Mexicans in America: A Student’s Guide to Localized History,” in Clifford L. Lord, ed. Localized History Series, (New York: Columbia University, 1968), 9. 3.  “Missing Millions: The Human Cost of the Mexican Revolution,” University of Minnesota Population Center, 2001, see www.users.pop.umn.edu/~rmccaa/missmill /mexrev.htm/ downloaded March 5, 2018. For the one to two million estimate see emersonkent.com/wars_and_battles_in_history/Mexican_Revolution.htm/ Accessed March 5, 2018. 4.  Bracero in Spanish means a person that works with his arms (brazos). In many occupations, the trade is the prefix and “ero” is the suffix such as panadero (baker), carnicero (butcher), cocinero (cook), jardinero (gardener), and cantinero (bartender), for example. 5.  “Braceros: History, Compensation,” in their online publication Rural Migration News, April 2006, Vol. 12, No. 2,.1, https://migration.ucdavis.edu/mn/more.phd ?id=1122/ 6.  “The Bracero Program 1942–1964,” American International Journal of Contemporary Research, Vol. 4, No. 1, January 2014, 171–184.

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 7. Inside the State: The Bracero Program, Immigration, and the I.N.S., (New Orleans: Qui Pro Books, 2010, Routledge 1992), 66–67.   8.  Jorge A. Bustamante, Historia de la Colonia Libertad, (Tijuana: Colegio de la Frontera Norte, 1990), 9.   9.  Ch.8. 42 Stat.5. 10. Julia Young, “How Mexican Immigration to the U.S. Has Evolved,” The John Kluge W. Center at the Library of Congress, March 12, 2015 at www.Time .com/3742067/history_Mex_Immigration/ Downloaded March 5, 2018. See also Arianna Shojaee, “Mexican Immigration in the 1920s,” at http://prezi.com/1oyzegimcatpf /mexican_immigration_in_ the_ 1920s/ Accessed March 5, 2018. 11.  Read that history in Alice G. Young, Mexican Exodus: Emigrants, Exiles, and Refugees of the Cristero War, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015). 12.  For a detailed history of the U.S.-Mexico border see Rachel St. John, Line in the Sand: A History of the Western US-Mexico Border, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011). 13.  A first-hand account of patrolling the U.S. border with Mexico during these early years, see Clifford Alan Perkins, Border Patrol: With the U.S. Immigration Service On the Mexican Boundary 1910–1954, (El Paso: Texas Western Press, 1978) and another account of a Collector of Customs and also Intelligence officer for the State Department during 1913–1918, see John F. Chalkley, Zach Lamar Cobb; El Paso Collector of Customs and Intelligence During the Mexican Revolution, 1913–1918, (El Paso: Texas Western Press, 1998). 14.  Emily Pope-Obeda, “’This Deportation Business’: 1920s to the Present,” in Solidarity Newsletter, https://solidarity-us.org/atc/182/p4640/ downloaded February 27, 2019. 15. Pope-Obeda, Ibid. 16.  Patrick McDonnell, Tijuana Neighborhoods: La Libertad: Aliens’ Last Mexico Stop,” The Los Angeles Times, September 7, 1986, p. B3-7. By 1986, Colonia Libertad had grown to approximately 200,000 residents divided almost evenly between the old deported settlers and their progeny and the new immigrants called “pollos” waiting to cross over illegally into the United States. According to McDonnell the Prohibition era in the U.S. fueled the growth of population in Tijuana and its neighborhoods. 17. Brooke Jackson, “Hoover, Truman & Ike: Mass Deporters?” in www.fact check.org posted July 9, 2010. Downloaded March 5, 2018. 18.  Steven Mintz, “Historical Context: Mexican Americans and the Great Depression,” History Now, The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, at www .factcheck.org/2010/07/hoover-truman-Ike-mass-deportations/ downloaded on March 5, 2018. 19. Ibid., 1. 20. Ibid., 1. 21.  Ibid., 1. 22. See Records of the Wickersham Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement, Part 1. Records of the Committee on Official Lawlessness, ed. Samuel Walker and compiled by Rudolph Boehm (Bethesda, MD: University Publications of America, 1997). This source obtained documents from the National Records and



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Archives Administration, Record Group 10 and reproduced them into 15 reels of microfilm. 23. Jackson, Ibid., 6. 24. Jackson, Ibid,, Cited as Sources, 12. 25.  Francisco E. Balderrama and Raymond Rodriguez, Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s, (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006) and the USA TODAY report is Wendy Kock, “U.S. Urged to Apologize for 1930s deportations,” April 5, 2006, p. 1 and quoted in Jackson Ibid., Sources, 12. 26.  Brent Funderburk, “Operation Wetback, U.S. Immigration Law-Enforcement Campaign,” www.britannica.com/topic/Operation_Wetback#ref1233494/ Accessed February 28, 2019. 27.  Bracero History Archive, Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, University of Texas El Paso, www.bracerohistoryarchive.org for ample information on this program and an excellent bibliography. 28.  Bracero History Archive, “About,” 1. 29. No author listed, “The Official Bracero Agreement,” www.farmworker.org /bpaccord.html/ Accessed March 7, 2018. 30. Fernando Ferrar, www.mrfernandoferrar.com/uploads/2/1/6/1/21611146/bra cero_program_powerpoint.pdf/ and website https://oregonencyclopedia.org/articles /bracero_program.WqAHEOFzIU/ for this mention of an Executive Order issued July 1942. Accessed March 7, 2018. 31. Timeline of events at www.latinamericanstudies.org/immigration/bracero -timeline.htm/ Accessed March 7, 2018. 32.  Fred L. Koestler, “Operation Wetback,” Handbook of Texas Online, at https:// tshaonline.org/ Accessed February 28, 2019. 33.  See n16 above for power point by Ferrer. 34.  Carey McWilliams, The Mexicans in America: Student’s Guide to Localized History, (New York: Teachers College Press, 1968), 14. 35.  See copies of these two contracts in Garcia, Operation Wetback, Appendix 1 and 2, 241–251. 36. See, for example, Ernesto Galarza, Strangers in Our Fields, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Section, Joint U.S.-Mexico Trade Union Committee, 1956), out of print, but available for download as an ebook from www.ebook.downloads.xyz/search /strangers-in-our-fields/; Merchants of Labor: The Mexican Bracero Story, (Santa Barbara: McNally and Loftin, 1964, 1972) that focused on abuses of the program; Spiders in the House and Workers in the Fields, (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1970); Tragedy at Chualar, Santa Barbara: McNally, Loftin, West, 1977). This latter work details the incident at a rail road crossing between a labor contractor transporting Braceros to early morning work and a train at a rail road crossing without any warning sign that resulted in 32 Braceros killed and no liability on any party involved. 37. There have been many biographies written on Dwight David Eisenhower. Among the most widely read and cited is Stephen E. Ambrose, 2 volume work, Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army and President-Elect and Eisenhower: The President, both from (New York: Simon & Schuster, Vol. 1 in 1983 and Vol. 2 in

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1984), respectively, with subsequent editions in 1990, 2003, and 2014. Reviews of other biographies give the better grades to John Edward Suth, Eisenhower in War and Peace, (New York: Random House, 2012) and Carlo D’Este, Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life, (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2002). 38.  Information taken from the Obituary written by Eric Pace in The New York Times of May 4, 1996. 39.  See partial biography, particularly military service, of Joseph May Swing at https://www.uscis.gov/history-and-geneology/our-history-5/ Downloaded March 7, 2018. 40.  Calavita, 54–55. 41.  Ibid. 55. 42. See https://www.uscis.gov/history-and-generalogy/our-history-5/ for a short biography of his career at INS and also “Joseph May Swing Takes Office as Commissioner,: The I&N Reporter, Vol. III, No. 1 (July 1954).. 43.  Calavita, 57. 44.  Ibid., 58. 45.  Ibid., Appendix A, p. 237. Calavita in her endnote for this reference states the number is probably an exaggeration. A more realistic number would be 52,374 as also reported by Juan Garcia his book cited below in n31. 46.  Ibid., 59. 47.  “The Crimes and Consequences of Illegal Immigration: A Cross-Border Examination of Operation Wetback, 1943 to 1954,” The Western Historical Quarterly, 37(4), 421–444. 48.  Operation Wetback: The Mass Deportation of Mexican Undocumented Workers in 1954, (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980). There is a 36-page booklet by Jerry Cunningham, Operation Wetback, (Grandview, Missouri: Penoaks Publishing, LLC, 2016), a Kindle product which is a very short summary of Mexican labor contracted for agricultural work in the from the 1900s to Operation Wetback deportations. 49. Ibid., 35. 50. Ibid., 23. 51.  Ibid. Table 9 Number of Undocumented Persons Apprehended, 1951–1964 and citing the U.S. Immigration Service as the source of information, 236. 52.  Ibid., 236. Kitty Calavita, Appendix A, 237 has slightly higher number for 1954. 53. Handbook of Texas Online, Fred L. Koestler, “Operation Wetback,” Texas State Historical Association, June 15, 2010 at http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook /online/articles/pqo01/ Accessed March 4 2018. 54.  After 9/11, INS was moved once again on March 1, 2003 into the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, a new cabinet-level Secretary position begun in November 25, 2002. The budget in 2017 appropriated $40.6 billion. In 2012, the Border Patrol division reported 21, 394 employees of which an astounding 52 percent are Hispanic, the highest ratio of any federal agency for this minority group. Typically, the personnel records of the U.S. government show a second from bottom percentage of Hispanic employees in all other agencies but for the military and Border Patrol. And, of the 21, 394 Border Patrol employees, 8,516 are deployed along the Mexi-



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can border. Only 2,206 are patrolling the Canadian border and 224 agents patrol in Florida. The remainder, 450 or so, I assume are working in administrative regional offices and Washington, D.C. 55.  Calavita, 60–62. 56. See various sources for this information such as “Bracero Timeline,” published in The Dallas Morning News, January 27, 2002 and taken from www .latinamericanstudies.org/immigration/bracero-tiumeline.htm/ and www.banderas news.com/0811/nw-bracero.htm and www.coha.org/bracero-back-wages-settlement -a-farce and Eric Brazil, www.SFGate.com/ July 15, 2001, San Francisco, California. Downloaded February 28, 2019. 57.  Ibid., 95. 58. Ibid., 85. 59.  Ibid., 100, 118. 60.  “United States Immigration Policy Toward Mexico: An Historical Perspective,” Chicano Law Review, Vol 2, p. 90 and referenced by Calavita in her Appendix C, 239. 61.  Calavita, 111–112. 62.  Garcia, Table 10, Number of Braceros Contracted, 1951–1954,.237. 63.  See www.populstat.info/Americas/mexicoc.htm/ downloaded March 5, 2018. 64.  See also Virgilio Partida-Bush, “Demographic Transition, Demographic Bonus and Ageing in Mexico,” National Council on Population, Mexico City, Mexico, 285–307. Partida-Bush claims that population explosion in Mexico began after the Bracero Program ended in 1964 to 1984 when Mexico’s population doubled in these twenty years from 39.9 million to 81 million people. Partida-Bush also predicts that given these rates of population growth Mexico will not realize a bright future but sink to an ageing poverty-stricken nation in the near future., at www.un.org/population /meetings/Proceedings_EGM_Mex_2005_Partida.pdf/ Accessed on March 5, 2018 65.  Calavita, 83–84. 66. See photo image from 1954 at Midway airport in Chicago and story by Ron Grossman. “Flashback: The 1954 deportation of Mexican immigrants and the ‘wetback’ airlift in Chicago,” Chicago Tribune, March 4, 2017 at www.chicago tribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-flash-deportation-migrant-mexican-0305 -20130303-story.html/ Accessed March 8, 2018. 67.  See Gabe Paoletti, “The Story Behind America’s Infamous ‘Operation Wetback’,” November 1, 2017 for a photo of a long line of person being escorted across the border back into Mexico in 1955, at www.allthatisinteresting.com/operation -wetback/ Accessed March 8, 2018. 68.  For a silent film on such a deportation see www.texasarchive.org/library/in dex.php?file=2012_00583/ Note that toward end of the film clip several women are also being loaded onto the ship. Almost all those deported carried only the clothes on their backs, rare was the person with a bag, box, bundle or suitcase with his or her belongings. Downloaded and viewed on March 8, 2018 from Texas Archive of the Moving Image, Dr. J.A. Hockaday Collection-Operation Wetback (1954), Donald L. Hockaday. 69.  See www.greatlakes.bgsu.edu/vessel/upin/003474/ Accessed March 9, 2018.

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70.  Fred L. Koestler, “Operation Wetback,” See Handbook of Texas Online, at www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/pqo01/ Accessed March 9, 2018. 71.  Guide is at www/foi.af.mil/Guide-to-FOIA-exemptions/ Under (b) (7) (C) it “provides protection for personal information in law enforcement records the disclosure of which ‘could reasonably be expected to contribute to an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.’” Accessed May 7, 2019. 72.  Letter from FOIA/PA Reviewing Officer to this author dated February 8, 1984 and in my possession. 73.  Letter to author from FOIA/PA Reviewing Officer, Immigration and Naturalization Service, U.S. Department of Justice, file stamped 8 FEB 1984 in response to my FOIA request first filed almost three years prior on May 27, 1981. I have never received Volumes 3 and 4. This chapter is based on 894 pages of files released that may constitute Volumes 1, 2, 5, and 6. There is no certainty in the total number of Volumes in this file or total number of pages. 74.  See my letter dated March 15, 1984 that refers to both mentions of the missing documents in Operation Wetback and the new file on Project Intercept, and in my possession. 75.  Western Union telegram dated “1953 Aug 15 AM 11 20” from Dr. Garcia to Hurbert (sic) Brownell. 76.  Open source newspaper clipping from San Francisco Examiner, with headline of “Brownell Urges Action on ‘Wetback’ Invasion,” no date, no page. 77.  August 19, 1953, 4. 78.  See Paul R. Erlich, Loy Bilderbach, and Anne H. Erlich, The Golden Door: International Migration, Mexico, and the United States, (New York: Ballantine Books, 1979). 79.  Patrick Wolfe, “Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native,” Journal of Genocide Research, December 2006, 8,4: 387–409. 80.  “Leader of Rifle Group Affirms That He Shot a Boy to Death in 1931, UPI byline, The New York Times, May 6, 1981, A 20. 81.  See Greg Grandin, The End of Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of Americans, (New York: Metropolitan Books) 2019), 166–167. 82.  Rex is not identified in prior or subsequent documents but he must have been a superior BP administrator and one who could respond to Harlon’s complaint of unfit men being sent to his district and him sending them home. Given that the letter was handwritten and in a personal tone, Harlon and Rex must have been close, professionally and personally. 83.  Bruce Lambert, “Harlon B. Carter, Longtime Head of Rifle Association, Dies at 78,” The New York Times, November 22, 1991, A 29. 84.  Joseph Swing, Commissioner, Annual Report of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, End of Fiscal Year 1954, Washington, D.C. Department of Justice, p. 31. In this report the official commencement is listed as June 9th but other reports place date as being the 17th of June. 85.  The article, one in a series of four, attached was by Clarence J. Roche, “Farmers in Valley Don’t Pay Enough , Contractor Claims,” No source or page number is provided on the article but I suspect it was the San Antonio Express.



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86.  July 8, 1954, no page provided. 87.  See endnote 71 above. 88. www.borderpatrolmueum.com/history-of-the-border-patrol/ Accessed March 24, 2019. 89. James Pinkerton, “Hispanics hold 53 percent of Border Patrol jobs,” The Houston Chronicle, December 29, 2008, at www.chron.com/news/article/Hispanics hold 53 percent of BorderPatrol-jobs-1528577.php/ Accessed March 24, 2019. By 2016 that percentage was adjusted down to 50 percent of all BP staff not just agents of the force numbering 21,000. See Emily Larsen, “Fact check: Are half of Border Patrol Agents Hispanic?” The Daily Caller News, June 26, 2018. See www.daily signal.com/2018/06/26/fact-check-are-half-of-border-patrol-agents-hispanics?/ Accessed March 24, 2019. 90.  Ibid., Border Patrol Museum, 91.  Lisa Rein, “The Border Patrol Went Looking For a Few Good Women,” The Washington Post, October 6, 2015. See www.washingtonpost.com/news/federal-eye /wp/2015/10-06/the border-patrol-went-looking-for-a-few-good-women/ Accessed March 24, 2019. 92.  Aaron Bobrow-Strain, The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez, A Border Story, (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019). 93.  Muzzaffar Chisti, Sarah Pierce and Jessica Bolti, “The Obama Presidency on Deportations: Deporter-in Chief?” Migration Policy Institute, January 16, 2018. 94. Editorial Board, “Trump’s Deportation Tough Talk Hurts Law-abiding Immigrants, “ The Washington Post, December 12, 2017. 95.  “Exclusive: ICE’d Over,” April 1, 2019, 4, 8. 96.  See Case no. 18-cv-1159 from the Southern District of New York. The case appealed has been reversed and remanded for rehearing to the U.S. District Court in that district.

Appendix List of Exemptions From Disclosure by the FBI under Freedom of Information Act as Amended in 19741 All begin with (b) followed by a number and sometimes another letter in capitals: (1)    is the National Security Exemption, the most abused by the FBI and mandated under Executive Order 12065. (2)    is used for the withholding of information on internal personnel rules and practices. (3)    Is used to withhold information prohibited from released by federal statutes. (4)    is used for withholding inter- or intra-agency communications. (5)    is used for withholding inter- or intra-agency communications related to attorney work product and Secret Service forms. (7) (A)   is used for withholding law enforcement records. (7) (C)   is used for withholding law enforcement records pertaining to investigations. (7) (D)   is used to withhold identities of confidential sources. (7) (E)    is used to withhold information on secret techniques, methods, and procedures utilized for investigations by and for law enforcement. PA (k) (5) is from the Privacy Act and used to withhold information compiled to determine multiple criteria relied upon for Federal civilian and military employment.

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NOTE 1.  See Buitrago and Immerman, Are You Now? and the section titled “The Exemption ‘Games’”, p. 49–78 for fuller explanation and some history on Executive Orders that created these exemptions. Every FOI/PA request for declassification when complied with contains a sheet listing and defining the exemptions used in current use by the FBI.

Bibliography

THE NAMES OF FBI FILES CITED IN THE BOOK *Denotes files posted online at FBI website at https://vault.fbi.gov/ and or under the FBI’s Name Check Program. All other files are in the author’s possession obtained from others or from www.fbi.gov/foia/. A.D. Horn F. K. Fay Byron H. Uhl *Walter Winchell Frederick B. Lyon *COINTELPRO “Daly” Diego Rivera *J. Edgar Hoover *Leon Trotsky, Section 1 Natalia Trotsky David Alfaro Siqueiros *Gus T. Jones Hector Rivera Colon Bolivar Pagan Maurice F. Farabee F. Tomlin Bailey Douglas G. Bills Frida Kahlo Bertram Wolfe

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Index

AAC. See American Agriculture Council Abbott, R. F., 296 Abbott, R. I., 277 abuse of power, 65 Adams, Sherman, 269 Adamson, James N., 286 Adams-Onis Treaty (1819), 5, 187n5 Advocating Rights for Mexican American Students (ARMAS), 126– 27, 142n39 “Aftermath of Revolution” (Mills, C.), 87 AGIF. See American G. I. Forum Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), 45 agriculture, 284–87 Alatorre, Richard, 191 Albuquerque, NM, 228 Albuquerque SAC, 226, 227 Alcala, Chuck, 181 Alderete, Bernardo, 306 Aldrete, Chris, 270 Alianza Hispano Americana, 149, 161 La Alianza Nacional Mexico-Americana (ANMA), 149 Allende, Salvador, 70 Alliance for Progress, 73–74 Una Alma Pura (film), 76

Alvarez, Carlos, 97 Ambassadors, 57, 88–90, 296 American Agriculture Council (AAC), 266–67 American G. I. Forum (AGIF), 11, 257, 270–71, 274 American jobs for real Americans, 13 American Protective League (APA), 10, 158 Anderson, Clark D., 75 Anglo Protestants, 127 ANMA. See La Alianza Nacional Mexico-Americana Anson, Austin E., 266 APA. See American Protective League APD. See Austin Police Department Apology Act (2006), 245 AR-15 automatic weapon, stolen, 197–201 Araujo, Gerardo, 181 Arbenz, Jacobo, 70 Arce, Rachel, 184 Arellanes, Gloria, 192–93, 207 Arenas, Claudio, 185 ARMAS. See Advocating Rights for Mexican American Students Armendariz, Alexandro, 185 Army Intelligence, U.S., 122 Army Reserve bombing, 217–18 337

338

arrest, of Sanchez, D., 203 Arthur, Chester A, 244 Articles of Confederation, 4 art study, of Rivera, D., 26–27 assassination, of Trotsky, L., 32 Austin Police Department (APD), 117 Avila, Robert, 208 AWOC. See Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee Baader-Meinhof Group, 214 Baca, James, 258 Bacon, William H., 49–50 Bailey, F. Tomlin, 39 bait and trap maneuver, 77 Baldwin, James, 71 Ballejos, Gilberto, 213 Bañuelos, Romana, 233 Barni, Margaret, 81 Barrerras, Mario, 221 Barrios Unidos (coalition of parents), 126 BB. See Brown Berets BBNM. See Brown Berets of New Mexico BBP. See Black Panther Party Beam, Louis, 138 Beeche, Charles J., 84 Belanger, Lionel E., 211 Belfrage, Cedric, 304 Belgian United Nations Command (BUNC), 192 Bell, Patricia, 179 Beloff, Angelina, 27–28 Bencomo, Hector, 183 Bender, Albert M., 29 Benites, Joe R., 185–86 Bentsen, Lloyd M., Jr., 284–85 Berg, Victor, 286 Berle, Adolf A., Jr., 154, 171–72 Bermea, Emilia, 115 Bertelsen, Elmer, 137 Biddle, Frances, 57 bi-lateral agreement, 55–56 Bill of Rights, 4

Index

Bills, Douglas G., 39 Birdwell, Walter, 1, 16, 116; ACLU supporting, 124; background of, 118– 19; black extremist organizations connection with, 133; death of, 140; FBI files on, 125–26; fingerprint history of, 131; Garza, Y., marriage to, 118; hearing investigations of, 131; Honorable Discharge of, 117; military information of, 130–31; press conference of, 124–25; Rio Grande Valley relocation of, 140; Special Agent rating rescinded of, 122; U.S. Army and, 118–24; West, T., attempted murder by, 139 Birdwell, Yolanda Garza, 1, 16; Birdwell, W., marriage to, 118; China trip of, 138; Cuban trip of, 136–37; dead main file of, 136; demonstration involvement of, 136; FBI files on, 125–26; FBI monitoring, 137; impromptu speeches of, 128–29; information on, 130; MAYO involvement of, 117–18, 120–21; MAYO led by, 129; potentially dangerous of, 134; Rio Grande Valley relocation of, 140; Security Index inclusion of, 132; Sociedad Mutualista Mexicana meetings with, 115–16; teen pregnancy and, 127; U.S. citizenship of, 117–18; VB report on, 133–35 Birns, Larry, 108 Black Berets, 227–28, 239n70 black extremist organizations, 133 black nationalists activities, 102–3 Black Panther Party (BBP), 71, 134, 143n47, 193, 206–8 Blanco, Geronimo, 221 Blanco, Tomas L., 306 Blumenthal, Florence Meyer, 29 Boal, Pierre de L., 56–57 boat incident, 287 boatlifts, 277–79 Bobbitt, H. I., 52, 55



Index 339

BOCOV. See Border Coverage Program Bohus, Irene, 31 Boletin del Instituto Nacional de Chile (Fuentes), 68 Bolivia, fair labor legislation in, 55 Bolivian Ambassador, 57 Bollman, E., 89 Bolshevik Party, 34 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 4–5 Bonilla, William D., 179 Bonn, Manuel, 300 Border Coverage Program (BOCOV), 10–11, 71–72, 104, 107, 109, 181 border crossing card, 31 Border Patrol (BP), 13, 251–52, 264; budget for, 310n54; Carter and unfit men of, 312n82; criticism of, 276; gunfire incident with, 297; immigrant policing by, 305; INS employees with, 295–96; Kelley’s memo on, 289–90; leaves from duty granted in, 292; Mexican agents in, 306–7; Mexican deportation problem of, 276–77; officers of, 285, 291, 293; Operation Wetback and, 282–84; public relations and, 273–74; rail line patrolling by, 303–4; Rio Grande Valley with armed, 289; Texas duty of, 287; undocumented immigrant abuse by, 285; unfit for duty of, 265 border security, 249 BP. See Border Patrol Bracero Program, 49; agreement in, 271; bi-lateral agreement of, 55–56; border militarization and, 249–50; cheap labor from, 253–54; as emergency war measure, 247–48; humane treatment in, 269; laborers jumping contracts in, 255–56; LULAC and opposition to, 174; Mexico’s population and, 311n64; third party contract problem in, 248 Braceros, 307n4, 309n36 Brady, H. P., 263 Brady, Thomas J., 280

Brennan, C. D., 210 Breyer, Charles, 253 Briggs, Joseph F., 261 Briker, Kathryn, 53 Bristow, Joseph L., 249 British colonists, 3 Bronstein, Lev Davidovich. See Trotsky, Leon Brown, D. K., 174 Brown Berets (BB): armed with bayonets, 225; arrest of, 226–27; Black Berets and, 227–28, 239n70; Canon City prison visit by, 223; Dallas Community Action Agency protests of, 228–30; East Los Angeles chapter, 224; FBI investigation of, 195–202, 222–27, 231–32; federal law violations by, 225–26; FOIA report on, 235–36; founding of, 192–93; grocery store picketing by, 212–13; as hard core activists, 224; Hoover, J., order on, 204–5, 223–24; informants infiltrating, 207–10; international expansion of, 210–14; Los Angeles SAC report on, 231–32; machine gun possession of, 201; members arrested of, 202–5; New Mexico branch defunct of, 212; origins of, 236n4; in Phoenix, AZ, 219, 232; La Piranya coffee house opened by, 193–94; police harassment of, 214–15, 218–20; Porterville police played by, 206–7; in Pueblo, CO, 239n70; Puerto Rican Young Lords Party links with, 213–14; Sacramento Division and, 216–17; Sanchez, D., founding, 192–93, 236n4; Security Index and, 209; services facility opened by, 211–12; sheriff’s department infiltrating, 195; shots fired at, 221; Southwest trip of, 218–22; student meeting by, 198–99; 1000-mile march from, 195, 214–15, 218–20; To Serve Observe

340

Index

and Protect motto of, 194; warrants issued for, 197 Brown Berets of New Mexico (BBNM), 213 Brown Berets Ten Point Program, 194, 209, 215, 237n24 Brownell, A. G., 259–61, 263 Brownell, Herbert, 95, 249–50, 257 “‘Brown Power’ Conferees Deplore Absence of White House Aides” (Kossen), 63–64 Bryant, D. F., 47 Las buenas conciencias (Fuentes), 68, 72 BUNC. See Belgian United Nations Command Bureau Index Cards, 153–54 Burns, S. R., 186 bus lifts, 280–81 Bustamante, Jorge, 49, 244 El Cajon district, 299 Calavita, Kitty, 244, 250 Caldejas, Manuel E., 278 Calderon, Manuel, 185 Calderon, Odon, 296 Calero, Roger, 96 Caletti, Hector Villagra, 107 Calhoun, Howard, 52 California border, 260–62 Calles, Plutarco, 7 Camarena-Vasquez, Jose, 279 Camejo, Peter, 95 Campa, Arturo, 160 Camp Hess Kramer, 191–92 Campo, German de, 28 Camp Pendleton, 197–201 Canales, Jose Tomas, 10, 149–50, 187n11 Canales, Rito G., 227–28 Canon City prison, 223 Cantinflas (comic), 32 Cantu, Mario, 99 captive labor, 252–53 car accident, 99

Cardenas, Lazaro, 30, 32, 40n12, 68 Cardenas, Raul R., 163 Carlos Fuentes International Prize for Literary Creation in the Spanish Language, 69 “Carlos Fuentes Papers,” 93n34 Carlson, George, 117 Carmichael, Stokely, 103 Carranza, Venustiano, 147, 244 Carrigan, William D., 6 Carrillo, Felipe, 27 Carter, Harlon Bronson, 264–66, 268– 69, 272, 280–81; BP’s unfit men and, 312n82; Kirk, C., memo to, 290; memo to Commissioner from, 283; officer conduct complaints and, 285 CASA. See Centro de Accion Social Autonomo Cash, C. M., 285 Casillas, Richard M., 286 Castillo, Ed, 272 Castillo, Leonel, 126, 128 Castillo, Martin G., 128 Castro, Fidel, 69 Castro, Joaquin, 188n22 Castro, Raul Hector, 151 Castro, Rosie, 188n22 Castro, Sal, 194, 199, 205, 208, 231; FBI file on, 238n39; YCCA formed by, 192 Castro, Vickie, 192, 235, 236n4 catch and release policy, 96 Ceballos, Jose, 195 Census Bureau, U.S., 14–15 Census Question, 14 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 108–10, 111n6 Centro de Accion Social Autonomo (CASA), 233 CER. See Comite Estudiantil Revolucionario Certificate of Citizenship, 52 Cesar E. Chavez Farm Workers Union, 214 CHAOS, CIA project, 108–10



Index 341

Chaplin, Charlie, 31 Chavez, Cesar, 181, 184, 300 Chavez, Dennis, 177–78 Chavez, Ernest, 236 Chavez, Hugo, 69 Chavez, John R., 6 Chavez-Ortiz, Ricardo, 141n28, 230–32 cheap labor, 253–54, 269 Chicano Issue Summits, 191 Chicano Liberation Front (CLF), 218 Chicano Manifesto (Rendon), 183 Chicano Movement, 2, 190n56, 239n70 Chicano Power chant, 219 Chicano school walkouts, 180–81, 198 Chicano students, 194–95 Chicano Youth for Civic Action, 16 Childs, Marquise M., 53 Chinese Exclusion Act, 244 Chula Vista sector, 265, 289, 292–93 Church Committee, 112n29 CIA. See Central Intelligence Agency Circella, Nick, 304 CISPES. See Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador citizenship, 20n52, 57 Civil Attache, 37–38, 43n78 Civil War, 6 Clark, Tom C., 171, 174 Clark, William, 4 class action suit, 96 Cleaver, Eldridge, 206 Clemmens, E., 263 CLF. See Chicano Liberation Front Club Latino-Americano, 163 coalition of parents, 126 Coast Guard Naval Commander, 277–78 Coghlan, J. Raymond, 78 COINTELPRO. See CounterIntelligence Program Colon, Hector Rivera, 39 Colonia Libertad neighborhood, 244–45 Comite Estudiantil Revolucionario (CER), 98

Commission on Civil Rights, U.S., 180–81 Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), 108 Common Cause v. Lewis, 20n52 communal land (ejido), 140n1 Communism, Hoover, J., and, 13, 69–70, 155 Communist Party (CP), 10–11; COINTELPRO disruption of, 100–104; Freeman adhering to, 59; Fuentes and membership in, 73; informants against, 78; Mexican youth and, 171; not illegal, 70; Rivera, D., joining, 27–28 Communist Party of Mexico (MCP), 76; Rivera, D., and, 28–30, 33, 38; as Socialist Worker’s Party, 40n12; teletype and, 89–90 Communist Party USA (CPUSA), 100 Community Service Organization (CSO), 178 Condell, Ricardo, 97 Confederacion de Trabajadores Mexicanos (CTM), 41n16, 60 Confederacion Regional Obrera Mexicana (CROM), 41n16 Conference of Unity and Action (Conferencia de Unidad y Accion), 183–84 El Congreso de Pueblos de Habla Español (Spanish Speaking Congress), 15 Congressional Committee on Education and Labor, 49 Congressional hearings, 58 Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation, 169 Constitution, of LULAC, 150–51 Continental Congress, 4 Coolidge, Calvin, 188n19 Cordova, James Antonio, 184, 227–28 Correa, Jennifer G., 236n7 Correlation Summary (CS), 86

342

Cortazor, Julio, 73 Cortez, Raoel A., 174 Cortines, Adolfo Ruiz, 33, 251 Cotter, R. D., 210 cotton growing, 287 Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO), 10, 71; black nationalists activities and, 102–3; Communist Party disruption by, 100–104; of FBI, 104; MAM focus of, 232–34; Mexicans focus of, 181–82 counterintelligence techniques, 117 Cox, Hugh B., 57–58 CP. See Communist Party CPUSA. See Communist Party USA criminal acts, 92n10, 170 CROM. See Confederacion Regional Obrera Mexicana Crump, George W., 49 Crusade for Justice, 191 Cruz Olmeda, Gilberto, 203–4 CS. See Correlation Summary CSO. See Community Service Organization CTM. See Confederacion de Trabajadores Mexicanos Cuba, 88, 136–37, 305 Custodial Detention Index, 51–53, 57–58 Dallas Community Action Agency protests, 228–30 Dávila, José Maria, 32 Davis, Angela, 101 Davis, William Rhodes, 59 DC. See Departamento Confidencial dead main file, 136 death squads, of CIA, 111n6 Deeg, Charles O., 297 De la Rosa, Julian W., 185–86 Delgado, Richard, 185 Dell, George, 203 democracy, 4 Democratic National Convention, 208

Index

demographic changes, 14 demonstrations, 136 Dennis v. United States, 100 Denver SAC, 161 Departamento Confidencial (DC), 7 Department of Justice (DOJ), 82, 95, 184 Department of State, 76, 85, 296 De Pinedas, Andreas, 222 De Pinedas, Manuel, 222 deportations: BP and INS, 276–77; Marroquin case of, 104–5; of Mexicans, 149, 267–70, 288; money charged for, 281; Operation Wetback and, 149, 306–7; in Rio Grande Valley, 300; silent film of, 311n68; from U.S., 267–70, 301–3 Desmond, John F., 72 Detroit SAC, 79, 229–30 Diamond, Stanley, 77 Diana o la cazadora solitaria (Fuentes), 71 Los dias enmascarados (Fuentes), 68 Diaz, B. D., 261 Diaz, Porfirio, 7–8, 46, 147–48 Diaz Ordaz, Gustavo, 81–82, 110 Diego Rivera vs. The United States, 39 Dierlam, E. M., 287 Dietrich, N. K., 279 DiGiorgio Fruit Corporation, 58, 65 disclosure exemptions, under FOIA, 315–17 discrimination, 164–65, 172, 178 disorderly charges, against MAYO, 121–22 Doctrine of Discovery, 3 document fraud rings, 305 DOJ. See Department of Justice domesticated animals, 3 Domestic Intelligence Division, 218 Dooley, Alwyn, 162 Dorby, James, 306 Dowds, Norman R., 205 Dreiser, Theodore, 36 dress codes, 272

Index

duces tecum subpoena, 112n18 Durand, A. C., 167 Dutton, C. L., 175 The Eagle Has Eyes (Gutierrez, J.), 1 Eastland, James, 119, 137 East Los Angeles chapter, of BB, 224 East Los Angeles school walkouts, 194–95 Eastman, Max, 34 Echave, Ralph A., 182 Echevarria Alvarez, Luis, 49, 81–82, 233 Eckhardt, William R., 175 Eckhart, Joseph, 60 economic elites, 4 Edcouch-Elsa high school walkout, 126 Edgar, Juan, 116–17 Edwin, Stanley, 265 EEOC. See Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Eisenhower, Dwight D., 13, 246, 249–50 ejido (communal land), 140n1 Elam, Steve M., 272 El Paso SAC, 183 Emancipacion (ship), 256, 277–80 Emergency Quota Act, 244 emergency war measure, 247–48 English language, 188n16 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), 48 Erlich, P., 262 Ernesto, Don, 46–47 Ernst, Morris L., 59 Ervin, Sam. J., 119 Escalante, Alicia, 193 Escalante, Lorraine, 193 Esparza, Moctesuma, 192, 203, 235 Espinosa, Gilberto, 161 Estrada, Robert Gene, 210 ethnic cleansing, 244–46 ethnic minorities, 13–14 Evans, C. A., 52

343

Everett, Ronie McKinley, 209 exemptions, disclosure, 315–17 fair labor legislation, 55 Falcon, Ismael C., 60–61 Falcon, Priscilla, 235 Falcon, Ricardo, 235 Farabee, Maurice F., 39 Faris, Wendy B., 67 Farmer, James, 130 farm laborers, 46 Farrell, Raymond F., 61 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 8, 15, 238n41; Birdwell, W., files of, 125–26; Birdwell, Y., monitored by, 137; Brown Berets investigation by, 195–202, 222–27, 231–32; Castro, S., file of, 238n39; COINTELPRO operations of, 104; FOIA for files of, 236n7, 238n37; Fuentes file of, 72–73, 77–78, 89–90; Galarza, E., file of, 47–49, 58–64; Garza, Y., file of, 125–26; Gray, L., acting director of, 232–34; Hoover, J., and seat of power of, 66n19; informant payroll of, 101; intelligence findings shared by, 120; Jones, G., as agent of, 43n78; Los Angeles Field Division of, 167–69; LULAC surveillance by, 153–55, 173; Marroquin file of, 100– 104; materials available of, 92n17; Mexican security agents collusion with, 104–8; Operation Wetback files of, 303–6; Rivera, D., file of, 42n72; SAC of, 73; Senate Select Committee Report and, 112n29; Trotsky, L., file of, 33–35; U.S. activities assessment by, 158–65; WFO of, 132 federal law, BB violations of, 225–26 Felix Tijerina, et al v. Herbert Brownell, Jr. Attorney General of the United States, et al, 176 Felt, W. Mark, 137

344

Ferdinand VII (king of Spain), 5 Fernandez, Benjamin, 185 Ferree, F., 282 Fervin, F. D., 259 Fierro, Josefina, 1, 15 fingerprint history, 131 First Amendment rights, 123 Fisher, Hugo, 179 Fisher, Luther, 296 Fisk, Jack, 303 Flores, Jenny Lisette, 96 Flores v. Reese, 111n7 FOIA. See Freedom of Information Act Ford, Edsel, 29 Ford, Gerald, 49, 109 Fort Sam Houston, 118–19 “Four Horsemen of the Chicano Movement,” 184 Fourth International, 30–31 Franco, Leslie, 83 Frazier, Donald A., 163 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 33, 153; BB report from, 235–36; disclosure exemptions under, 315– 17; FBI files from, 236n7, 238n37; litigation over non-disclosure of, 112n14; Operation Wetback documents from, 256 Freeman, Leon, 59 Freud, Sigmund, 30 Friedman, Mel, 120, 123–24 La frontera de Cristal (Fuentes), 69 Frontier Airlines, 230–32 Fuentes, Carlos, 1, 15; as Ambassador, 88–90; background of, 67–69; “Carlos Fuentes Papers,” 93n34; Communist Party membership and, 73; in Cuba, 88; death of, 91; FBI file on, 72–73, 77–78, 89–90; Hoover, J., and, 70, 78; INS report on, 82–83; Khrushchev analyzing ideas of, 74–75; Latin American writers inviting, 84; literature teaching by, 84–85; Mexican passport of, 80; Mexico City Legat

Index

and visa of, 75–80; revolutionary ideas of, 87; ship disembark denied to, 82; subversive activities report of, 82–83, 85–86; surveillance of, 67, 86–87; UACB code for, 79; U.S. and, 68–69, 80–81, 83–84; visa application of, 85, 89; whereabouts of, 78–79; writings of, 67–71 Funston, Frederick, 9, 158 Galarza, Ernesto, 248; background of, 45–46, 53; Certificate of Citizenship for, 52; character and personality of, 59; on Congressional Committee on Education and Labor, 49; in Congressional hearings, 58; Custodial Detention Index placement of, 51–53; DiGiorgio Fruit Corporation suing, 65; FBI file on, 47–49, 58–64; Hoover, J., requesting information on, 61–62; information source on, 61; Latin American lecture by, 54; Meadows report on, 54; Nicholson’s report on, 50–51; Nobel Peace Prize nomination of, 64; Occidental College scholarship for, 46; PAU employment of, 55–57; public presentations of, 62; Selective Service Board classification of, 54–55; Strangers in the Field by, 58 Galarza, Karlan Rosel, 62 Galarza, Mae Elenchina Taylor, 63 Galarza, Mae Rosel, 53 Gale, Linn, 62 Gallagher, Robert, 297 Gallardo, Gloria, 127–28 Gallegos, Frank, 155 Gallegos, Herman, 185 Garcia, Gilbert C., 257 Garcia, Hector P., 189n48, 259, 270, 286 Garcia, Juan Ramon, 251–52, 254 Garde, Daniel F., 79 Gardner, Frank, 291 Gardner, Robert E., 284



Garrison, Ernest G., 278 Garrison, Lindley M., 8, 157 Garza, Ben, 149–51, 188n19 Garza, Cristino, 115 Garza, Elias G., 154 Garza, Tomasa, 115 Garza, Yolanda. See Birdwell, Yolanda Garza Gavin, John, 90 Gentry, Kurt, 70 George III (king of England), 3 Gibson, William B., 82 G. I. Forum at Corpus Christi organization, 174, 189n48 Gladys March, 25 GLAPAC. See Greater Los Angeles Peace Action Council Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), 11 Goddard, Paulette, 31 Golden Gate International Exposition, 32 Gomez, Ampee, 220 Gomez Alonzo, Felipe, 111n6 Gonzales, M. C., 166 Gonzales, Rodolfo (“Corky”), 48, 184, 221–22, 239n70 Gonzales Flores, Robert, 207 Gonzalez, A. P., 261 Gonzalez, Charles, 151 Gonzalez, Henry B., 151 Gonzalez, M. C., 149 Gonzalez, Trinidad R., 257 Good Neighbor Commission, 172, 247 Goodwin, Robert, 3, 68 Graham, Charles, 181 Grant, Ulysses W., 6 Grapp, Wesley G., 210 Graves, Curtis, 119, 124 Gray, J. F., 174 Gray, L. Patrick, III, 106, 134, 184, 190n63, 232–34 Greaser Act (1855), 264 Greater Los Angeles Peace Action Council (GLAPAC), 209 Gregory, Vernon E., 294

Index 345

Griesa, Thomas P., 95, 112n14 Griffin, Jim, 267 Griffin, William, 50 Guardiola, Gloria, 125 guerilla warfare training, 137 guns: AR-15 automatic weapon, stolen, 197–201; gunfire incident, 297; M-16 rifle, 200; machine gun possession, 201 Guseman, John L., 272 Gutierrez, J., 1 Guzman, Alberto, 306 GWOT. See Global War on Terrorism Haldeman, H. R., 211 Hall, Carl E., 270, 285 Hall, David, 212 Hall, Gus T., 37–38 Hampton, Carl, 131, 143n47 Hanna, Richard T., 182 Hannon, Michael, 203 Harlingen Air Force Base, 297 Harris, J. P., 120 Harrison, Bernard A., 61 Harte, Robert Sheldon, 31 Hataway, Vera, 304 hate-mongers, 103 Hawkin, Henry O., 174 Hay, Eduardo, 30 Hayden, Albert C., Jr., 62 Hayden, Tom, 109 HCUA. See House Committee on Un-American Activities hearing investigations, 131 Hearsay Rule, 61 Hennessy, James L., 267, 277, 291 Hernandez, Alfred J., 178 Hernandez, Alpha, 99 Hernández, Kelly Lytle, 251, 254 Hernandez, Mariano, 163 Herrera, Andres, 207 Herrera, John J., 163 Heuer, Michael A., 198 Hibbard, Jerome G., 299 Hicks, Walter B., 123

346

Index

Hidalgo Bracero Center, 283 hijacking, 121, 141n28, 230–32 Hill, Gladwin, 272 Hippard, James, 124 Hispanics, in U.S., 13–14 The History of the Russian Revolution (Trotsky, L.), 34–35 Hitler, Adolph, 30–31 Hofeller, Thomas, 20n52 Hofheinz. Fred, 175 Hoilee, R. C., 269 Holland, H. L., Jr., 285 Holland, J. W., 263, 269, 270–74, 286–87 Holmes, Jesse E., 296 Holmes, Thomas H., 10 Homestead Acts, 6 Honorable Discharge, 117 Hood, R. B., 155 Hoover, Herbert, 147 Hoover, J. Edgar: abuse of power by, 65; Army Reserve bombing information for, 217–18; bait and trap maneuver, 77; BB and, 204–5, 223–24; Bolivian Ambassador’s letter from, 57; Bryant’s letter to, 47; Communism obsession of, 13, 69–70, 155; Cox’s letter to, 57–58; criticism of, 182; Custodial Detention Index and, 57–58; death of, 190n63; disruptive demonstration information sought by, 224–25; FBI as seat of power, 66n19; Fuentes and, 70, 78; Galarza, E., information requested by, 61–62; Hearsay Rule and, 61; Hottel letter to, 51; Los Angeles directive from, 199–200; Los Angeles SAC report and, 225–27; LULAC information sought by, 162–63, 176–78; Mexican race classification by, 177; Mexican subversives sought by, 171–72; political material for, 179–80; Rivera, D., surveillance of, 25–26, 35–36; San Antonio SAC memo to,

173–74; San Diego SAC report to, 60–61; Sex Deviates File from, 71; subversive expressions and, 70–71; Trotsky, L., file of, 34; U.S. citizen and, 76; Watson letter from, 63; world view disagreement and, 90–91 Horn, A. D., 34 Hottel, Guy, 51 House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), 15, 60, 62 Houston, Sam, 5 Houston SAC, 131 Hudson, A. S., 280 Hughes, Richard, 228 human cargo, 279–80 human resource issues, 288–96 Hurtado, Emma, 33 Icaza, Xavier, 59 Idar, Ed, Jr., 258, 270–71, 286 Iduarte, Andres, 32 Immerwahr, Daniel, 7 immigration: BP policing of, 305; from Mexican Revolution, 151–52; of Mexicans, 148; refugee status in, 96–97; undocumented people in, 284–85; U.S. entered through, 308n16 Immigration Act, 244 Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), 13, 16; application review by, 79; BP employees with, 295–96; Carter’s questions for, 281; Fuentes report of, 82–83; Marroquin investigation by, 105, 107; Mexican deportation problem of, 276–77; Operation Wetback files of, 256–57, 273; reorganizing and, 310n54; statistics provided for, 304; Tijerina investigation by, 175–77 imperialist policies, 84, 89–90 impromptu speeches, 128–29 independent school districts (ISDs), 129 informants: BB’s infiltrated by, 207–10; against Communist Party, 78;

Index

Conference of Unity and Action with, 183–84; FBI payroll for, 101 Ingraham, Joe MacDonald, 176 INS. See Immigration and Naturalization Service intelligence agencies, 2, 120 Intelligence Department of the Army, 217 Internal Revenue Service (IRS), 12 Inter-University Committee for Debate on Foreign Policy (IUCDFP), 76 IRS. See Internal Revenue Service Irwin, D. E., 55 Irwin, Irene A., 260 ISDs. See independent school districts Iturbide, Agustin de, 7 IUCDFP. See Inter-University Committee for Debate on Foreign Policy Jackson, Andrew, 5 Jaraque, Renaldo Serrano, 160 JBRL. See John Brown Revolutionary League Jefferson, Thomas, 4 Jennevides, Emiliano, 164 JFK. See Kennedy, John F. John Brown Revolutionary League (JBRL), 134 John Mansville Company, 299 Johnson, Benjamin Heber, 6 Johnson, Ewell A., 276 Johnson, Henry C., 77 Johnson, Joseph (“Joe”), 96 Johnson, Kimbell, 176–77 Johnson, Lee Otis, 119 Johnson, Lyndon Baines (L.B.J.), 48, 80, 181, 283; Mexican American Affairs created by, 128; Operation Wetback and, 286–87 Johnson & Graham Lesee v. M’Intosh, 3 Jones, Gus T., 9, 43n78 Jordan, Barbara, 119, 124 Josefe, Omar, 164

347

Juan Marcos Presbyterian Church takeover, 127–28 Juraschek, Erwin A., 258 Kadlec, Joseph H., 89 Kahlo, Frida. See Rivera, Frida Kahlo de Kay, Marvin, 123, 124 Keegan, J. E., 299 Keenan, Thomas J., 34, 39 Kelley, D. R., 267, 270, 276, 278, 280; BP officers and, 289–90; memo on scandal by, 282–83; special operations and, 265 Kelly, Clarence, 184–85, 190n63 Kelly, John, 111n6 Kelly, Willard F., 274 Kelly, William E., 291 Kennedy, Edward M., 183 Kennedy, John F. (JFK), 68, 80 Kenney, Robert W., 169–70 Kern, Jack, 300 Khrushchev, Nikita, 74–75 Kibbe, Pauline, 172 Kilday, Paul, 269 King, Bruce, 226 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 103 Kirk, Charles R., 284, 290–92, 295–96 Kirk, D. R., 277 Kissinger, Henry, 81 KKK. See Ku Klux Klan Knight, Goodwin, 273 Kohler, George W., 260 Kossen, Sidney, 63–64 Kreneck, Thomas, 176–77 Krupp, Richard, 221 Ku Klux Klan (KKK), 138 KULF (Radio Station), 123 laborers, 255–56, 303, 310n48 LACDBR. See Los Angeles Committee for Defense of the Bill of Rights land grabs, 6–7 Landon, Herman, 260 Landon, M. R., 280

348

Index

land transfer, to U.S., 5 LaRoche, Clarence, 275 LASCO. See Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office Latin America, 54, 84 Laurel, Oscar, 179 LaVeille, Jack G., 305 Law Enforcement Assistance Unit, 229 Lawler, J. E., 50 Lawrence, Armando, 305 Lawrence, O. V., 290 Lawrence, R. H., 291 L.B.J. See Johnson, Lyndon Baines League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), 16; Alianza Hispano Americana and, 149, 161; Bracero Program opposition and, 174; Constitution of, 150–51; Cuero, TX branch not active of, 175; discriminatory incident reports and, 172; founding of, 148; Garza, B., president of, 151; Hernandez, A., president of, 178; Hoover, J., and, 162–63, 176–78; leaders of, 159–60; Mexican Consuls using, 164; Mexican discrimination fought by, 150, 160; Operation Wetback support by, 274–76; organization of, 149–51; origins of, 187n11; San Antonio SAC information on, 163– 64; subversive influence lacking of, 182; surveillance of, 153–55, 166– 67, 173, 179–80, 186–87; Tijerina as president of, 190n49; women’s membership in, 152–53, 166 LeBlanc, Henry, 267, 271 Legal Attaché (Legat), 75–81, 83–84, 93n19, 106 Legal Defense Fund Committee, 205 Lemus, Silvia, 69, 89 Lenin, Vladimir Illich, 30 Letterhead Memorandum (LHM), 79–80, 83–86, 196–97, 200–207, 231 Levario, Miguel Antonio, 8 Lewis, John L., 59

Lewis, Merriweather, 4 LHM. See Letterhead Memorandum Liebman, Annie Meyer, 29 Lincoln, Abraham, 6 Literacy Test Act, 244 literature, Fuentes teaching of, 84–85 Longoria, Felix, 189n48 Longren, John, 111n6 Lopez, Armando Jesus, 207 Lopez, Fred, 192 Lopez, Ian H., 236 Lopez, L. M., 259 Lopez Mateos, Adolfo, 70 Los Angeles Committee for Defense of the Bill of Rights (LACDBR), 207–9 Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office (LASCO), 200 Los Angeles Field Division, 167–69 Los Angeles Police Department, 203–4 Los Angeles SAC, 167, 172, 199, 207, 228–30; BB’s report by, 231–32; Brown Berets Ten Point Program and, 237n24; Hoover, J., and, 225– 27; M-16 missing and, 200 Loughran, E. A., 265 Loughren, K. A., 265 Louisiana Purchase, 4–5 Lovestone, Jay, 43n77 Luce, John B., 192, 200–201 Lucero, Jenoveno, 155 Lucero, Tony, 155 LULAC. See League of United Latin American Citizens “LULACs Seek Smith Talks Over Controversy at UTEP” (article), 184 Lyon, Frederick B., 37 M-16 rifle, 200 Macedo, Rita, 68–69 MacGregor, Robert, 42n45 machine gun possession, 201 MacShane, Frank, 82 Magnuson Act, 244 Magon, Enrique, 8, 147, 243 Magon, Ricardo Flores, 8, 147, 243



Index 349

Makeba, Miriam, 103 Maldonado, Braulio, 88 Malley, John F., 79 MAM. See Mexican American Militancy Mandeel, Elizabeth W., 243 Mann, Thomas, 70 Mao Tse-Tung, 208 MAPA. See Mexican American Political Association Maquin, Jakelin, 111n6 Marcha de la Reconquista, 195, 201, 214–20, 233 Mariscal, Bob, 185 Marnham, Patrick, 26 Marquez, Gabriel Garcia, 73 Marroquin, Hector, 1, 16, 96; car accident of, 99; FBI file on, 100–104; INS investigation of, 105, 107; Mexican passport of, 108; Mexico City Legat and, 106; murder charge of, 97–98; political asylum case of, 108; prison time for, 100; Rubenstein testimony on, 107; Socialist Workers Party role of, 110; student demonstrations with, 110; Subversive-Deportation case of, 104–5 Marshall, E. DeWitt, 279, 301 Martinez, Donaldo Tiny, 221, 226–27 Martinez, Jerry, 218 Martinez, Louis, 167 Martinez, Phillip, 184 Marumoto, William, 185 Mauretania, (ship), 36 MAYA. See Mexican American Youth Association MAYO. See Mexican American Youth Organization McAllen Detention Camp, 281–84 McArdle, J. S., 266 McCaa, Robert, 243 McCabe, Tom, 282 McCalls, Henry V., 293

McCarran-Walter Immigration Act, 73, 84, 149 McCarthyism, 15 McClellan, John L., 295 MCP. See Communist Party of Mexico McQuay, Geraldine, 52 McWilliams, Carey, 243, 248 Mead, Robert G., 84 Meadows, R. W., 54 Medina, Elias, 306 Melendez, Lucino, 159 Mella, Julio Antonio, 28 Mercader, Ramon, 31 Mercurio (ship), 256 MERRIMAC, CIA project, 108–9 Mexican Ambassador, 296 Mexican American Affairs, 128 Mexican American Militancy (MAM), 183, 205–7, 232–34 Mexican American Political Association (MAPA), 178, 181 Mexican Americans: Commission on Civil Rights and, 180–81; community, 127–28; intelligent class of, 152; MAYO educating, 134; militancy of, 181–87; Military Intelligence and youth of, 155–57; population data on, 182 Mexican American University, 195 Mexican American Youth Association (MAYA), 181, 183, 205–6 Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO), 16, 48, 113n34, 181; Birdwell, Y., leading, 129; Chicano Issue Summits by, 191; disorderly charges against, 121–22; Garza, Y., interest in, 117–18, 120–21; in Houston, TX, 126–27; Mexican American educated to, 134; racist tension and, 131–32 Mexican Border Crossing Identification Card, 105–6 Mexican Consuls, 164 Mexican Expropriation Decree, 60

350

Index

Mexican Farm Labor Program, 247 Mexican Legat, 83–84 Mexican Nationals, 167–68 Mexican Organizations, 159 Mexican Radical Matter, 36 Mexican Revolution (1910), 7–9, 13, 115; ethnic cleansing during, 244–46; Mexicans crossing border causing, 147–49; migration from, 151–52; Neutrality Act in, 157; Operation Wetback during, 243 Mexicans: BP agents, 306–7; BP and INS deportation of, 276–77; COINTELPRO focus on, 181–82; deportation of, 149, 267–70, 288; Hoover, J., and, 171–72, 177; immigration of, 148; labor contracts for, 310n48; LULAC fighting discrimination of, 150, 160; Mexican Revolution crossing border of, 147–49; mistreatment of, 243–44, 285–86; Operation Wetback and, 149, 284–87; passports for, 80, 108; U.S. and, 19n37, 243–44, 267–70, 302–3 Mexican youth gangs (Pachucos), 169–71 Mexico, 35; bi-lateral agreement of, 55–56; California’s border with, 260–62; as historic enemy, 158; military surveillance and, 8; nationality groups of, 147; population of, 311n64; security agents collusion of, 104–8; student politics in, 98; Texan population loss of, 148–49; Texas and land loss of, 187n5; U.S. and, 9, 157, 249–50; voter registration in, 40n12 Mexico City Legat, 75–80, 106 Meyer, Eugene, 29 MID. See Military Intelligence Division military information, 130–31 Military Intelligence Division (MID), 8, 157 military service, 54

Mills, C. Wright, 87 Mills, Herbert S., 50 mining industry, 56 Minneapolis SAC, 213, 217, 229 Mintz, Steven, 246 Mitchell, John, 82, 182 Miyarez, Marcellino, 185 Modotti, Tina, 28 Mohr, J. P., 210 Monroe, Marian L., 121 Monroe, Marilyn, 71 Montes, Carlos, 192, 195, 203, 234 Montes, Regino, 184 Moore, David, 269 Moore, Richard, 228 Moore, William T., 290 Morales, Leonel, 306 Moreau, Jeanne, 71 Moreno, David A., 258 Moreno, Guadalupe, 163 Morrow, Dwight D., 29 Moschella, Emil P., 121 La muerte de Artemio Cruz (Fuentes), 68 Muñoz, Rosalio, 224 Munson, Perry, 235 murder allegations, 236 Murtagh, Edward J., 54 NACLA. See North American Congress on Latin America NARA. See National Archives and Records Administration National Agricultural Workers Union (NAWU), 45 National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), 47, 125–26 National Border Patrol Association, 306 National Economic Development Association (NEDA), 185 National Farm Labor Union (NFLU), 45, 58, 61 National Intelligence Program (NIP), 12 nationality groups, 147 national parks, 6–7

Index

National Rifle Association (NRA), 264, 266 national security, threats to, 109 National Student Association, 109 National University of Mexico (UNAM), 110 National Whistleblowers Association (NWA), 12 Native American tribes, 3, 219, 262 NATO. See North Atlantic Treaty Organization Navajo Indian Reservation, 219 Navo, Mike, 211 NAWU. See National Agricultural Workers Union NEDA. See National Economic Development Association Neruda, Pablo, 73 Neutrality Act, 8, 157 New Organization of MexicanAmerican Students (NOMAS), 180 Newton, Huey, 130 NFLU. See National Farm Labor Union Nichols, Dorothy, 53 Nicholson, G. A., 50–51 Nicolas V (pope), 3 NIP. See National Intelligence Program Nixon, Richard, 12, 81, 95, 128, 184–85 Nobel Peace Prize, 64 NOMAS. See New Organization of Mexican-American Students Noriega, Alejandro, 230 North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA), 104 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 249 NRA. See National Rifle Association Nulsen, C. K., 34 NWA. See National Whistleblowers Association OAS. See Organization of American States Obama, Barack, 96, 306 Obregon, Alvaro, 7, 29, 36

351

O’Brien, Patrick H., 276 Occidental College scholarship, 46 Ochoa, Rachel, 192 O’Conner, Gerald, 106 October Revolution, 28 Office of Inter-American Affairs (OIAA), 247 officer conduct, 285 OIAA. See Office of Inter-American Affairs Olivares, Elias Z., 258 Olivarez, Pete, 185 Olney, Warren, III, 285 “An Open Letter to The People of the United States” (Fuentes), 73 Operation Cloudburst, 250–51, 264 Operation Wetback, 13, 16, 95; AGIF and, 270–71; aliens removed after, 298–303; beginning of, 266–67; of BP, 282–84; cheap labor from, 269; criticism of, 276; deportations in, 149, 306–7; Eisenhower and, 246; FBI files on, 303–6; final reports on, 304–5; FOIA documents on, 256; human resource issues in, 288–96; illegal entries reduced by, 304; implementation of, 262–63; INS files on, 256–57, 273; laborers jumping contracts and, 255–56; L.B.J. and, 286–87; LULAC supporting, 274–76; during Mexican Revolution, 243; Mexicans and, 149, 284–87; permanent visas in, 254–55; recommendations for after, 301; second phase raids in, 272; slavery and, 252–53; Special Border Patrol Force for, 288–89; success of, 302–3; Swing, J., begins, 251–52; telegrams on, 286; wetback apprehension in, 260–61, 268, 284– 87; winding down of, 295 Order of the Condor of the Andes, 55 Organization of American States (OAS), 74 Ortega, Victor, 228

352

Index

PAC. See Peace Action Council Pachucos (Mexican youth gangs), 169 Pagan, Bolivar, 39 Palacio de Bellas Artes mural, 30, 32 Paladin, Jack, 292, 294 Palmer, Alexander Mitchell, 95–96 Palmer Raids, 96 Pan American Union (PAU), 50, 55–57, 64 Pancho Villa, 244 parents, coalition of, 126 Paris Legat, 81 Partida-Bush, Virgilio, 254, 311n64 Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), 70, 98 Partridge, Frank H., 289–94, 296, 301; Emancipacion’s human cargo and, 279–80; memo from, 255, 268, 271 Partridge, Issacs, 261 Passport Act, 245 PAU. See Pan American Union PDID. See Police Department’s Intelligence Division Peace Action Council (PAC), 209 Peace and Freedom Party, 206 Pelaes, Aaron, 278 Peña, Albert A., Jr., 151 Peña, Eduardo, Jr., 148 Perales, Alonso S., 149, 159–60, 164, 187n11, 188n19 Peralta, Gabe, 166 Perez, Jose, 163 permanent visas, 254–55 Pershing, John J. (“Black Jack”), 157 personal privacy, protecting, 312n71 Personnel Security Investigations (PSI), 122 Peterson, Cecil, 84 Peyronnin, J. O., 154 Philip II (Spanish king), 3 Phoenix, AZ, 219, 223, 232 Phoenix SAC, 229 picketing, of grocery store, 212–13 Pinedo, Frank, 275 La Piranya coffee house, 193–94

Pitt, Leonard, 148 Plan de San Diego, 8–9 PLP. See Progressive Labor Party Poage, Bob, 287 Poitevant, George J., 131 police department, 227–28 Police Department’s Intelligence Division (PDID), 195 police harassment, 194–95, 214–20 Political Affairs, 179 political asylum, 96, 108 political material, 179–80 Political Rights Defense Fund, 95 Pompa, Gil, 186 Poor People’s Campaign (PPC), 103, 203–4 population data, 182 population loss, 148–49 Porterville police, 206–7 Portillo, Jose, 82 Posse Comitatus, 264 Post, Louis, 57 Potash, Irving, 304 Poverty in the Land of Plenty (documentary), 45, 58 Powell, Adam Clayton, 49 PPC. See Poor People’s Campaign Prairie Fire Bookstore, 138–39, 143n52 pregnancy, 266 prejudices, 164–65 press conference, of Birdwell, W., 124–25 Pressman, Lee, 59–60 PRI. See Partido Revolucionario Institucional Primm, B. E., 53 Progressive Labor Party (PLP), 135 PSI. See Personnel Security Investigations psychological tactics, 11 public relations, 273–74 Pueblo, CO Brown Berets, 239n70 Puerto Rican Young Lords Party, 213–14 Pugh, Oran G., 302



Index 353

Pugh, Raymond L., 216 Puster, John S., 302 Pycior, J., 149 Pyle, Howard, 269 al-Qaeda, 11 “The Quotable Karenga” (booklet), 209 racism, 116, 131–32, 149–50 Rafael, Carlos, 89 Rafael, Natascha, 89 railroad patrolling, 303–4, 309n36 RAM. See Revolutionary Action Movement Rama, Angel, 73 Ramirez, Henry M., 142n46, 185 Ramirez, Jess M., 177 Ramirez, Mike, 159 Ramirez, Ralph Luna, 192, 203 Ramirez, Salvador, 220 Rangel, Juan, 116, 130 Rawls, Fletcher, 272 Ray, C. B., 282, 284 Raza Unida Party, 48–49, 106, 140, 143n48, 188n22 Razo, Joe Angel, 203–4 Reagan, Ronald, 64, 111n6, 233 Reconquest March, 214–20 Reeve, Richard, 67 Refugee Relief Act, 305 refugee status, 96–97 La region mas transparente (Fuentes), 68 Reilly, John F., 305 Rendon, Armando, 183, 190n56 Reno v Flores, 111n7 Renshaw, Louis, 257 RESISTANCE, CIA project, 108–9 Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), 103 revolutionary ideas, 87 Revolutionary Union (RU), 138 Revolutionary Union of Technical Workers, Painters and Sculptors, 27

Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM), 135 The Revolution Betrayed (Daladier), 35 Reyes, Bernardo, 8, 157 Reyes, Grace, 193 Reyes, Nick, 185 Ringer, Lee, 260 Rio Grande Valley, 140, 269, 275, 283, 287; armed BP’s in, 289; deportations in, 300 Risco, Eliezer L., 203 Rivas, Berta Macias, 67 Rivera, Diego, 1, 9, 15; art study of, 26–27; background of, 26–27; birth name of, 25; border crossing card of, 31; Communist Party joined by, 27–28; death of, 33; FBI file of, 42n72; MacGregor handler of, 42n45; MCP and, 28–30, 33, 38; mural commissioned to, 29; penis cancer of, 32–33; Pennsylvania station arrival of, 36; quote by, 40n6; surveillance of, 25–26, 35–38; Trotsky, L., rift with, 31–32; workers right advocated by, 39–40 Rivera, Frida Kahlo de, 28, 30–32 Rivera, Jesus, 98, 107 Rivera, Lupe Marin, 27–28 Rivera, Marika, 27 Rivera, Ruth, 27 Robertson, Robert H., 263 Robeson, Paul, Jr., 71 Robles, Miguel Coronado, 296 Rockefeller, Nelson A., 109 Rodriguez, Antonio, 185 Rodriguez, Philip, 275, 286 Rogers, William, 81 Romero, Linda, 221 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 58–59, 172, 252 Roosevelt, Theodore, 189n38 Root, Elihu, 189n38 Rosenbaum, Robert J., 6 Rowe, L. S., 50–51 Roybal, Edward R., 151

354

Index

Roybal, Lucille, 151 RU. See Revolutionary Union Rubenstein, Roger, 107 Ruckelshaus, William, 190n63 Rusk, David Dean, 80–81 Russell, D. J., 303 Ruth, Henry S., Jr., 184 Ryan, Robert F., 49 RYM. See Revolutionary Youth Movement SAC. See Special Agent in Charge Sacramento Division, 216–17 Saenz, Jose de Maria Luz, 149, 187n11 Sainte Dominque, France losing, 4 Salazar, Gregory, 127, 137 Salazar, Ruben, 178 Salisbury, K. K., 265 San Antonio SAC, 159–60, 163–65, 173–74, 212 Sanchez, David, 233; arrest of, 203; BB founded by, 192–93, 236n4; Mexican American University founded by, 195; murder allegations of, 236; Phoenix rally information from, 223; police harassment comments of, 194–95, 215–16; Reconquest March and, 214–20 Sanchez, George, 160 Sanchez, Joseph, 221 San Diego SAC, 200 Sandinistas, 29 Sandino, Augusto, 29 Sandoval, Moises, 148 San Joaquin Valley, 168 San Juan incident, 82 San Luis Obispo district, 299 Santa Anna, Antonio de, 5, 148 Santa Catalina Island, 234 Santa-Cruz, Roberto, 220 Santa Ysabel incident, 9–10 Santoscoy, Luciano, 179 SCDCP. See Southern California District Communist Party

scholarship, Occidental College, 46 SCLC. See Southern Christian Leadership Conference Scott, William S., 8, 157 SCOTUS. See United States Supreme Court SDS. See Students for Democratic Society Seale, Bobby George, 208 sea sickness, 278 Seberg, Jean, 71 Secret Service (SS), 135 Security Index, 132 segregation, 116, 178 Selective Service Act, 165 Selective Service Local Board, 54–55 Sellies, Herbert E., 289 Senate Select Committee Report (1976), 112n29 September 11, 2001 attack, 11 Serrate, E. Louis, 116 Serve Observe and Protect motto, 194 Sessions, William, 107 settler colonialism, 2–3, 262 Sex Deviates File, 71 Shipman, D. J., 288 ship passengers, 278–79 Shivers, Allan, 269, 273 Sibleys Café, 303 Simpson, C. F., 52 Sinarquista Organization, 172–73 Siqueiros, David Alfaro, 31–32, 38, 40, 83 SIS. See Special Intelligence Service Sisente, Bob, 139 sky-jackers, 121, 141n28 slavery, 5–6, 252–53 Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee, 169, 171 Sloss-Vento, Adela, 187n11, 188n19 SMF. See Special Mobile Force Smith, Brad, 282 Smith, James, 99 Smith, John A., 287, 296



Index 355

Smith, L. M. C., 51 Smith, Margaret Chase, 295 Smith Act, 70, 92n10, 100 SNCC. See Student Nonviolent Coordinating Sobarzo, Alejandro, 6 Socialist Worker’s Party (SWP), 16, 99, 106, 110; “An Open Letter to The People of the United States” and, 73; Marroquin and, 97; Mexican Communist Party from, 40n12 Sociedad Mutualista de Jornaleros group, 159 Sociedad Mutualista Mexicana de Jornaleros, 165 Sociedad Mutualista Mexicana meetings, 115–16 South America, 56 Southern California District Communist Party (SCDCP), 209 Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), 103 Southwest trip, of BB, 218–22 Soviet Embassy luncheon, 87 Spain, Philip II king of, 3 Spanish colonization, 17n9 Spanish Empire, 4 Spanish falange, 165–66 Spanish Mexican population, 169, 172 Spanish Speaking Peoples Congress, 15, 155, 165 Speaks, James R., 291 Special Agent in Charge (SAC), 60–61; Albuquerque, 226, 227; Denver, 161; Detroit, 79, 229–30; El Paso, 183; FBI with, 73; Houston, 162, 175; Los Angeles, 167, 172, 199–200, 207, 225–32, 237n24; Minneapolis, 213, 229; Phoenix, 229; San Antonio, 159–60, 163–65, 173–74, 212; San Diego, 200 Special Agent rating, 122 Special Border Patrol Force, 288–89 Special Intelligence Service (SIS), 10, 158

Special Mobile Force (SMF), 251, 305–6 SS. See Secret Service Stakes, Brigida, 115 Stalin, Joseph, 28, 30–31, 74–75 Stapleton, Syd, 95 Steagall, Mildred, 63 Steele, Walter S., 62 Stern, Rosalie Meyer, 29 St. Paul Police Department, 229 Strangers in the Field (Galarza, E.), 58 Student National Coordinating Committee, 130 Student Nonviolent Coordinating (SNCC), 103 students, 98, 110, 199, 219; Chicano school walkouts, 180–81, 198; East Los Angeles school walkouts, 194–95; Edcouch-Elsa high school walkout, 126 Students for Democratic Society (SDS), 116, 119, 134, 206 Suarez, Joseph, 185 subversive activities: expressions of, 70–71; Fuentes report of, 82–83, 85–86; Hoover, J., seeking Mexican, 171–72; LULAC lacking influence of, 182; Spanish Mexican population and, 172 Subversive-Deportation, 104–5 Sullivan, William, 75, 77, 201, 204, 210 Sumaya, Fernando, 195 Supremacy Clause, 21n56 surveillance, 8; of Fuentes, 67, 86–87; by Hoover, J., 25–26, 35–36; of LULAC, 153–55, 166–67, 173, 179– 80, 186–87; of Rivera, D., 25–26, 35–38; U.S., 11–12 Swanson, John P., 265–66, 293 Swing, Joseph M., 251–54, 266, 304 SWP. See Socialist Workers Party Szulc, Ted, 72 Taft, Howard, 8 Tanguma, Leo, 125

356

Index

Taylor, W. M., 270, 285 TCPP. See Texas Conference for Political Prisoners teen pregnancy, 127 telegrams, 9–10, 158, 286 teletype, 89–90, 218, 224 Tenney, John, 182–83 Terra Nostra (Fuentes), 67, 69 Texas, 178; BP duties in, 287; Mexican population loss of, 148–49; Mexico’s land loss to, 187n5; U.S. joined by, 5–6 Texas Conference for Political Prisoners (TCPP), 129 third party contract problem, 248 Thirteen Colonies, 3–4 1000-mile march, 195, 214–15, 218–20 Tice, J. D., 277 Tijerina, Felix, 175–77, 190n49 Tijerina, Janie, 175 Tijerina, Reies Lopez, 1–2, 48, 184, 208 Toledano, Vicente Lombardo, 27, 59 Tolson, Clyde, 190n63 Torres, Joe Campos, 139 trabajo, 46 Transcontinental Railroad (1863–1869), 6 Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, 6, 49, 148, 234 Treaty of Velasco, 148 Trevino, Albert, 185 Trotsky, Leon, 15, 28; assassination of, 32; dangerous times for, 35; FBI file on, 33–35; Fourth International and, 30–31; Mexico destination for, 35; Rivera, D., rift with, 31–32 Trotsky, Natalia, 30 Trujillo, Gilbert, 306 Trump, Donald, 96 Tuchman, Barbara W., 19n37 Tuder, Roy N., 297 UACB. See Unless Advised to the Contrary by the Bureau Uhl, Byron H., 34

UNAM. See National University of Mexico undocumented immigrants, 284–85, 298–304 Uniform Crime Reporting Program, 177 Union Nacional Sinarquista group, 156 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), 31 “United Action Wins New Housing for 520 Families” (article), 174 United Farm Workers Union of America, 300 United Parents Council, 197 United States (U.S.), 2; antiMexican attitudes in, 19n37; Army Intelligence, 122; bi-lateral agreement of, 55–56; Birdwell, W., as Army spy for, 118–24; Census Bureau of, 14–15; Civil War in, 6; class action suit against, 96; Commission on Civil Rights of, 180–81; demographic changes in, 14; Department of State of, 76; deportations from, 267–70, 301–3; domesticated animals in, 3; FBI’s assessment of activities in, 158–65; Fuentes and, 68–69, 80–81, 83–84; Garza, Y., citizenship of, 117–18; Hispanics in, 13–14; Hoover, J., and citizenship of, 76; immigrants crossing into, 308n16; imperialist policies of, 84, 89–90; land grabs by, 6–7; land transfer to, 5; Mexican Ambassador to, 296; Mexicans crossing into, 19n37, 243–44, 267–70, 302–3; Mexico and, 9, 157, 249–50; Spanish colonization in, 17n9; surveillance by, 11–12; Texas joining, 5–6; wetbacks in, 302–3 United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS), 14–15, 70, 100 Unless Advised to the Contrary by the Bureau (UACB), 79 Upton, Emory, 7 urban politico, 151–52



Index 357

U.S. See United States U.S. Army Investigative Records Repository (USAIRR), 122 U.S. A. v. Ricardo Chavez-Ortiz, 240n76 U.S. Customs and Immigration Service (USCIS), 97 USSR. See Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Valdemar, Richard, 195 Valley Transit Company, 284 Varelli, Frank, 108, 113n34 Vasconcelos, Jose, 27 Vasquez, Santos, 165 Vasquez, Willie, 185 Veceremos Brigade (VB), 133–35 Vega, Osvodo, 185 Velasquez, Olivia, 234 Veracruz (ship), 30, 279 La Verdad newspaper, 205–6 Veterans for Victory Over Communism (VVOC), 138 Viereck, George Sylvester, 37 Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), 135 Villa, Francisco (“Pancho”), 9–10, 250 Villanueva, Nicolas, Jr., 6 Villapando, Ignatius, 160 violence, 216 Virginia de Churruca (ship), 81–82 visas, 85, 89, 254–55 Volkov, Vsevolod (“Seva”), 31 Volkova, Zinaidal, 34 Vorobyov-Stebelska, Marevna, 27 voter registration, in Mexico, 40n12 Voting Rights Act (1965), 14, 20n52 VVAW. See Vietnam Veterans Against the War VVOC. See Veterans for Victory Over Communism Wagley, Charles, 82 Wahl, Einar A., 301 Walker, William O., 103

Wallace, Charles, 185 Walter-McCarran Act (1952), 261 Wannall, Raymond, 201, 204, 210–11, 238n41 War College, 189n38 Ware, R. W., 60–61 Wareing, Peter J., 277 Warren, Earl, 169 Wartime Measure Act, 245 Washington Field Office (WFO), 132 Watergate, break-in at, 95 Waters, Helen, 51 Watkins v. U.S., 92n10 Watson, Marvin, 63 Webb, Clive, 6 “The Web of the Red Spider” (Viereck), 37 Webster, William H., 186, 238n37 Wechsler, James A., 66n19 Weeks, Oliver Douglas, 152–53, 174 Weitz, Mark, 171 West, Arthur C., 298 West, Thomas Gene, 139 wetback apprehension, 260–61, 268, 284–87 Wetback Invasion, 260–61 Wetter, Peter De, 181 WFO. See Washington Field Office Wheaton, Evelyn, 54 Whipple, Lester, 269–70 whistle blowers, 12 White, Richard, 294 Wickersham Commission, 246 Williamson, John, 304 Wilson, Woodrow, 8–9, 157 Winchell, Walter, 34 Wolfe, Bertram, 25, 27, 33, 42n71 Wolstenholme, Denis E., 293 women, LULAC and, 152–53, 166 Wonn, L. W., 260 Woodrow Wilson International Center, 89 workers rights, 39–40 Worker Student Alliance (WSA), 135

358

Index

world view disagreement, 90–91 Wormuth, Romeyn, 154 WSA. See Worker Student Alliance Ximenes, Vicente, 128, 181

Younger, Evelle J., 194, 202 Young Socialist Alliance (YSA), 16, 99, 105, 110 Youth International Party (Yippies), 210 YSA. See Young Socialist Alliance

Yates v. United States, 92n10, 100 YCCA. See Young Chicanos for Community Action; Young Citizens for Community Action Yearling School, 52 Yellowstone National Park, 6–7 Young Chicanos for Community Action (YCCA), 202, 216, 235 Young Citizens for Community Action (YCCA), 192, 231

Zamora, Aguinaldo, 178 Zamora, Roberto, 110 Zeigler, E. L., 260 zero population growth (ZPG), 262 Zimmerman (Tuchman), 19n37 Zimmerman, Arthur, 9, 158 Zinn, Frank, 232 Zoot Suiters, 168–70, 172 ZPG. See zero population growth Zuniga, Reynaldo, 306

About the Author

José Angel Gutiérrez, PhD and JD, is an Emeritus Professor of Political Science formerly with the University of Texas in Arlington, Texas, and a licensed attorney in Texas and some federal courts. He is busy at work on subsequent volumes of this type of material and subject-matter on FBI surveillance of Mexican origin and Chicano people in the United States. He also has been a foundation executive and former elected and appointed public official in both Texas and Oregon. He is an award-winning author whose most recent books have won 1st and 2nd place in different categories for Albert A. Peña, Jr.: Dean of Chicano Politics (2017) and The Eagle Has Eyes: The FBI Surveillance of César E. Chávez of the United Farm Workers Union of America, 1965-1975 (2019), respectively. He has an extensive publication history including three children’s books, I am Olga: 1st Latina Jet Fighter Pilot; I am Ignacio Zaragoza; and Ignacio Zaragoza, the Hero of the Cinco de Mayo for middle grade readers.

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