Editing McCarthyism (section)

====J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI====
[[File:Hoover-JEdgar-LOC.jpg|upright|thumb|[[J. Edgar Hoover]] in 1961]]

[[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] director [[J. Edgar Hoover]] designed President Truman's loyalty-security program, and its background investigations of employees were carried out by FBI agents. This was a major assignment that led to the number of agents in the bureau being increased from 3,559 in 1946 to 7,029 in 1952. Hoover's sense of the communist threat and the standards of evidence applied by his bureau resulted in thousands of government workers losing their jobs. Due to Hoover's insistence upon keeping the identity of his informers secret, most subjects of loyalty-security reviews were not allowed to cross-examine or know the identities of those who accused them. In many cases, they were not even told of what they were accused.{{sfn|Schrecker|1998|pp=211, 266 et seq}}

Hoover's influence extended beyond federal government employees and beyond the loyalty-security programs. The records of loyalty review hearings and investigations were supposed to be confidential, but Hoover routinely gave evidence from them to congressional committees such as HUAC.{{sfn|Schrecker|2002|p=65}}

From 1951 to 1955, the FBI operated a secret "[[Responsibilities Program]]" that distributed anonymous documents with evidence from FBI files of communist affiliations on the part of teachers, lawyers, and others. Many people accused in these "blind memoranda" were fired without any further process.{{sfn|Schrecker|1998|p=212}}

The FBI engaged in a number of illegal practices in its pursuit of information on communists, including burglaries, opening mail, and illegal wiretaps.{{sfn|Cox|Theoharis|1988|p=312}} The members of the left-wing [[National Lawyers Guild]] (NLG) were among the few attorneys who were willing to defend clients in communist-related cases, and this made the NLG a particular target of Hoover's; the office of the NLG was burgled by the FBI at least 14 times between 1947 and 1951.{{sfn|Schrecker|1998|p=225}} Among other purposes, the FBI used its illegally obtained information to alert prosecuting attorneys about the planned legal strategies of NLG defense lawyers.{{sfn|Schrecker|1998|p=224}}<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nlg-npap.org/sites/default/files/Breach%20of%20Privilege%20NLG%20April%202014.pdf|title=Breach of Privilege: Spying on Lawyers in the United States|last=Yoder|first=Traci|date=April 2014|access-date=February 5, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180925213950/https://www.nlg-npap.org/sites/default/files/Breach%20of%20Privilege%20NLG%20April%202014.pdf|archive-date=September 25, 2018|url-status=dead}}</ref>

The FBI also used illegal undercover operations to disrupt communist and other dissident political groups. In 1956, Hoover was becoming increasingly frustrated by [[U.S. Supreme Court|Supreme Court]] decisions that limited the Justice Department's ability to prosecute communists. At this time, he formalized a covert "dirty tricks" program under the name [[COINTELPRO]].{{sfn|Cox|Theoharis|1988|p=312}} COINTELPRO actions included planting forged documents to create the suspicion that a key person was an FBI informer, spreading rumors through anonymous letters, leaking information to the press, calling for [[Internal Revenue Service|IRS]] audits, and the like. The COINTELPRO program remained in operation until 1971.

Historian [[Ellen Schrecker]] calls the [[FBI]] "the single most important component of the anti-communist crusade" and writes: "Had observers known in the 1950s what they have learned since the 1970s, when the [[Freedom of Information Act (United States)|Freedom of Information Act]] opened the Bureau's files, 'McCarthyism' would probably be called 'Hooverism'."{{sfn|Schrecker|1998|pp=239, 203}}