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→FDR's domestic spying: added Soviet disinformation from Mitrokhin
==FDR's domestic spying==
==FDR's domestic spying==
In 1934 President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] secretly directed Hoover to investigate and monitor the activities of American Nazis. Hoover provided information on the small numbers involved, most of whom were recent immigrants from Germany. Soon soon Roosevelt wanted reports on the prominent American conservatives who opposed his foreign policies. FDR leaked reports to his political friends to use in attacking conservatives. When the debate on intervention in World War II heated up in 1938, FDR had Hoover redouble his efforts, looking especially at the famous hero [[Charles Lindbergh]], long an opponent of Roosevelt. Hoover found no evidence linking any of the conservatives to Nazi Germany.<ref> Douglas M. Charles and John P. Rossi, "FBI Political Surveillance and the Charles Lindbergh Investigation, 1939-1944," ''Historian'' 1997 59(4): 831-847 in [[EBSCO]]</ref> FDR's supporters nevertheless smeared the isolationists<ref>A practice known as "brown smearing," "brown baiting" and "right baiting." </ref> as friends of Hitler, fascism, totalitarianism, anti-Semitism, and even treason. Echoes of the false allegations were repeated against conservatives for decades, even today.<ref> Wayne S. Cole, ''Roosevelt and the Isolationists, 1932-1945'' (1983) p. 530</ref><ref>Richard Gid Powers, ''Not Without Honor: The History of American [[Anti-Communism]]''. (New York: The Free Press, 1995) ,163, 294-295.</ref>
In 1934 President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] secretly directed Hoover to investigate and monitor the activities of American Nazis. Hoover provided information on the small numbers involved, most of whom were recent immigrants from Germany. Soon soon Roosevelt wanted reports on the prominent American conservatives who opposed his foreign policies. FDR leaked reports to his political friends to use in attacking conservatives. When the debate on intervention in World War II heated up in 1938, FDR had Hoover redouble his efforts, looking especially at the famous hero [[Charles Lindbergh]], long an opponent of Roosevelt. Hoover found no evidence linking any of the conservatives to Nazi Germany.<ref> Douglas M. Charles and John P. Rossi, "FBI Political Surveillance and the Charles Lindbergh Investigation, 1939-1944," ''Historian'' 1997 59(4): 831-847 in [[EBSCO]]</ref> FDR's supporters nevertheless smeared the isolationists<ref>A practice known as "brown smearing," "brown baiting" and "right baiting." </ref> as friends of Hitler, fascism, totalitarianism, anti-Semitism, and even treason. Echoes of the false allegations were repeated against conservatives for decades, even today.<ref> Wayne S. Cole, ''Roosevelt and the Isolationists, 1932-1945'' (1983) p. 530</ref><ref>Richard Gid Powers, ''Not Without Honor: The History of American [[Anti-Communism]]''. (New York: The Free Press, 1995) ,163, 294-295.</ref>
After the Nazi-Soviet pact, Hoover began investigating US Communists. The Soviet Union responded by having the KGB's Section A for Disinformation and Active Measures fabricate disinformation smearing Hoover's character. Service A produced clumsily forged letters linking Hoover to the John Birch Society, and accusing him of pressuring a State Department employee to turn over information on suspected leftists.
The KGB leaked forged letters to left-wing gossip columnist Drew Pearson, two of whose legmen, Andrew Older and David Karr, were Soviet assets, and planted a disinformation story that Hoover was a homosexual in an English-language news service in India that it controlled.
==Politics==
==Politics==