Betty Medsger. (2014). The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

Betty Medsger. 2014. The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

Betty Medsger, The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2014.

Betty Medsger. The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2014.

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   • bioText:

     Betty Medsger was born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Medsger is a former chair of the Department of Journalism at San Francisco State University and is the founder of its Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism. She is the author of Winds of Change, Framed, and Women at Work. She lives in New York and Connecticut.

   • name: Betty Medsger

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The Burglary

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The never-before-told full story of the history-changing break-in at the FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, by a group of unlikely activists—quiet, ordinary, hardworking Americans—that made clear the shocking truth and confirmed what some had long suspected, that J. Edgar Hoover had created and was operating, in violation of the U.S. Constitution, his own shadow Bureau of Investigation.
It begins in 1971 in an America being split apart by the Vietnam War . . . A small group of activists—eight men and women—the Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI, inspired by Daniel Berrigan’s rebellious Catholic peace movement, set out to use a more active, but nonviolent, method of civil disobedience to provide hard evidence once and for all that the government was operating outside the laws of the land.
           
The would-be burglars—nonpro’s—were ordinary people leading lives of purpose: a professor of religion and former freedom rider; a day-care director; a physicist; a cab driver; an antiwar activist, a lock picker; a graduate student haunted by members of her family lost to the Holocaust and the passivity of German civilians under Nazi rule.
Betty Medsger's extraordinary book re-creates in resonant detail how this group of unknowing thieves, in their meticulous planning of the burglary, scouted out the low-security FBI building in a small town just west of Philadelphia, taking into consideration every possible factor, and how they planned the break-in for the night of the long-anticipated boxing match between Joe Frazier (war supporter and friend to President Nixon) and Muhammad Ali (convicted for refusing to serve in the military), knowing that all would be fixated on their televisions and radios.
Medsger writes that the burglars removed all of the FBI files and, with the utmost deliberation, released them to various journalists and members of Congress, soon upending the public’s perception of the inviolate head of the Bureau and paving the way for the first overhaul of the FBI since Hoover became its director in 1924.  And we see how the release of the FBI files to the press set the stage for the sensational release three months later, by Daniel Ellsberg, of the top-secret, seven-thousand-page Pentagon study on U.S. decision-making regarding the Vietnam War, which became known as the Pentagon Papers.
           
At the heart of the heist—and the book—the contents of the FBI files revealing J. Edgar Hoover’s “secret counterintelligence program” COINTELPRO, set up in 1956 to investigate and disrupt dissident political groups in the United States in order “to enhance the paranoia endemic in these circles,” to make clear to all Americans that an FBI agent was “behind every mailbox,” a plan that would discredit, destabilize, and demoralize groups, many of them legal civil rights organizations and antiwar groups that Hoover found offensive—as well as black power groups, student activists, antidraft protestors, conscientious objectors.
The author, the first reporter to receive the FBI files, began to cover this story during the three years she worked for The Washington Post and continued her investigation long after she'd left the paper, figuring out who the burglars were, and convincing them, after decades of silence, to come forward and tell their extraordinary story. 

The Burglary is an important and riveting book, a portrait of the potential power of non­violent resistance and...

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: San Francisco Chronicle
   • content:

     "Rich and valuable."
     -David J. Garrow, The Washington Post
     
     "Impeccably researched, elegantly presented, engaging...For those seeking a particularly egregious example of what can happen when secrecy gets out of hand, The Burglary is a natural place to begin."
     -David Oshinsky, New York Times Book Review
     
     "A cinematic account . . . By turns narrative and expository, The Burglary provides ample historical context, makes telling connections and brings out surprising coincidences . . . makes a powerful argument for moral acts of whistle-blowing in the absence of government action."

2. • premium: False
   • source: The Wall Street Journal
   • content: "An important work, the definitive treatment of an unprecedented and largely forgotten 'act of resistance' that revealed shocking official criminality in postwar America. One need not endorse break-ins as a form of protest to welcome this deeply researched account of the burglary at Media. Ms. Medsger's reporting skill and lifelong determination enabled her to do what Hoover's FBI could not: solve the crime and answer to history."
3. • premium: False
   • source: The Huffington Post
   • content: "Riveting and extremely readable. Not just an in-depth look at a moment in history, The Burglary is also extremely relevant to today's debates over national security, privacy, and the leaking of government secrets to journalists."
4. • premium: False
   • source: Daniel Ellsberg
   • content: "Astonishingly good, marvelously written...the best book I've read about either the antiwar movement or Hoover's FBI; a masterpiece."
5. • premium: False
   • source: Frederick A. O. Schwarz, Jr., former Chief Counsel to the U.S. Senate's Church Committee investigating America's intelligence agencies and author of the forthcoming Unchecked and Unbalanced
   • content: "The break-in at the FBI offices in Media, Pennsylvania changed history. It began to undermine J. Edgar Hoover's invulnerability. Betty Medsger writes a gripping story about the burglary, the burglars, and the FBI's fervid but fruitless efforts to catch them. Her story of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI (and today's NSA) teaches the dangers of secret power."
6. • premium: False
   • source: Rita Henley Jensen, founder and editor-in-chief, Women's eNews
   • content: "I stayed up until 3 a.m. today. Now it's nearly 6 p.m. I have not done laundry, paid my bills or washed the dishes. I can't put the damn book down. What a triumphant piece of work!"
7. • premium: False
   • source: Athan Theoharis, author of Abuse of Power: How Cold War Surveillance and Secrecy Policy Shaped the Response to 9/11
   • content: "A riveting account of a little-known burglary that transformed American politics. Medsger's carefully documented findings underscore how secrecy enabled FBI officials to undermine a political system based on the rule of law and accountability. This is a masterful book, a thriller."
8. • premium: False
   • source: Gloria Steinem
   • content: "Ordinary people have the courage and community to defeat the most powerful and punitive of institutions -- including the FBI. That's the unbelievable-but-true story told by Better Medsger, the only writer these long term and brave co-conspirators trusted to tell it. The Burglary will keep you on the edge of your seat -- right up until you stand up and cheer!"
9. • premium: False
   • source: Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold's Ghost
   • content: "A masterpiece of investigative reporting. As a writer, I admire the way Betty Medgser has explored every angle of this truly extraordinary piece of history and told it with the compelling tension of a detective story. As an American, I'm grateful to know at last the identities of this improbable crew of brilliant whistle-blowers who are true national heroes. As someone appalled by recent revelations of out-of-control NSA spying, I'm reminded that it has all happened before, and that then, as now, it took rare courage to expose it. This brave group of friends were the Edward Snowdens of their time."
10. • premium: False
    • source: Frida Berrigan, Waging Nonviolence
    • content: "There is joy and fun--and lots of law breaking--in Betty Medsger's book. The Burglary answers the question long asked and speculated about within Catholic Left, as well as law and order, circles: Who did the 1971 Media, Pa., FBI break-in . . . Fast paced, fascinating . . . studded with timely insights for today's WikiLeaks, intelligence breaches and NSA scandals."
11. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      November 11, 2013
      When a huge trove of classified documents was stolen from the Media, Pa., branch office of the FBI in 1971, Medsger (Women at Work) was one of the first journalists to cover the story. Four decades later she has tracked down the perpetrators, whose identities had never before been revealed, and written the definitive account of what she calls “perhaps the most powerful single act of nonviolent resistance in American history.” The burglary revealed to the public how the Bureau served as “secret judge, secret jury, and secret warden” in its efforts to “intimidate people from exercising their right to dissent.” The richly detailed narrative flows seamlessly from the planning and commission of the break-in to the FBI’s bungled investigation to the explosive aftermath of the files’ release. In its zeal to bring the perpetrators to justice, the FBI provided much support for the Camden 28, mistakenly believed to have committed the Media burglary as well, to rob a draft board—an attempted sting that became instead a watershed moment for the antiwar movement when the defendants were acquitted by jury nullification. Medsger concludes by following up with each of the plotters, most of whom have since enjoyed quiet lives since, unlike those who have appropriated classified files more recently.

12. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      January 1, 2014
      Ambitious, meticulous account of a successful burglary of the FBI, during a different time of controversy regarding governmental surveillance. In 1971, Washington Post reporter Medsger was surprised to receive pilfered FBI documents from "The Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI." While the break-in at the FBI's satellite office in Media, Penn., had garnered minimal attention, the release of the documents to journalists and politicians caused a national furor. At the time, bitterness over Vietnam fueled suspicion among activists of covert governmental harassment. Several disciples of the Catholic peace movement came together as the "Commission" and hatched the audacious plan following similar actions at draft boards, which combined subterfuge with a commitment to nonviolent resistance. The deftly executed burglary soon became longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's "worst nightmare," in that the documents revealed that the FBI had aggressively harassed leftists, blacks and civil rights activists since the 1940s and kept tabs on many others, although Hoover's inner circle had long claimed "there were no FBI files on the personal lives of government officials or other prominent people." As the files were released to the Post and elsewhere, mainstream outrage prefaced that which greeted the impending Watergate scandal. Remarkably, the burglars were never caught, though Hoover's FBI pursued them doggedly, even interviewing an activist who'd quit before the burglary without realizing his significance. Years later, Medsger found they'd generally lost touch with each other and their radical past: As one told her, he was shocked to see in a documentary that "somebody apparently thought that our little action was that important." Yet, as the author points out, comparisons to post-9/11 America and recent revelations about the National Security Administration are inescapable. Medsger captures the domestic political ferment of the 1970s on a large canvas, though the narrative's extreme detail and depth occasionally make for slow going or repetitive observations.

      COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

13. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      January 1, 2014
      

      The 1971 burglary of an FBI office in Media, PA, set off a chain of events leading to the investigation, and attempted reform, of the Bureau itself. This detailed history of that time period presents the burglary as an exemplar of civil disobedience, ably setting it in politico-historical context. Medsger covered the burglary as a reporter for the Washington Post, and her personal involvement lends credence and added weight to the narrative, which is extremely topical post-Snowden. The author (Winds of Change; Women at Work) occasionally repeats or leaves out details, the former presumably for dramatic effect and the latter presumably because she assumes readers know who the Watergate Plumbers were. This is unfortunate, as the events in question--the burglary in particular--are compelling enough on their own merits not to require deliberate narrative flourishes, and a history that takes such pains elucidating intricacies should not lose readers on account of leaving some out. VERDICT Students of American history and civil rights will be momentarily gratified to learn that, in the past, revelations of massive, secret government spying motivated good citizens to action.--Ricardo Laskaris, York Univ. Lib., Toronto

      Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

14. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      January 1, 2014
      In 1971, somebody burgled an FBI office in Pennsylvania, stole secret files, and sent them to journalists. One of the recipients, Medsger revisits the story because she has discovered who the burglars were (the FBI never identified them). Organized by a college teacher, they were a small group of academics and students whose act Medsger recounts with sympathy for their audacity and antiwar motivations. In discursive detail, Medsger recounts the protester-burglars' movements, from casing the building to publicizing the purloined documents (with interludes of their worries about their fates if caught), and follows the course of the futile FBI investigation into the caper. Besides dramatizating the incident, Medsger pursues its historical significancethe documents' revelation of extensive domestic surveillance by the FBIinto the congressional investigations of the 1970s. Medsger also discusses J. Edgar Hoover's appointment in 1924 and NSA activities in the present. Though it could have been more tightly organized, this work encapsulates an important event of interest to readers of the history of the antiwar movement.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

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The never-before-told full story of the history-changing break-in at the FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, by a group of unlikely activists—quiet, ordinary, hardworking Americans—that made clear the shocking truth and confirmed what some had long suspected, that J. Edgar Hoover had created and was operating, in violation of the U.S. Constitution, his own shadow Bureau of Investigation.
It begins in 1971 in an America being split apart by the Vietnam War . . . A small group of activists—eight men and women—the Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI, inspired by Daniel Berrigan’s rebellious Catholic peace movement, set out to use a more active, but nonviolent, method of civil disobedience to provide hard evidence once and for all that the government was operating outside the laws of the land.
           
The would-be burglars—nonpro’s—were ordinary people...

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