Inside the FBI: attracting the Director's scrutiny were Communists, security risks, and people who made untoward jokes

National Review, May 11, 1992 by Natalie Robins

Two years after the parody that provoked Hoover's wrath, the FBI used Buckley as part of a "Black Nationalist-Hate groups" Cointelpro (Counterintelligence Program) operation. This is the first known instance of a prominent person on the Right being used this way.

During the fall of 1969, the FBI wrote Buckley an anonymous letter "setting forth Yale University sanctions of Black Panther Party activities on the Yale campus during May 1969." The FBI's goal was to stir Buckley up so he would write something negative about the Panthers, or about the recent arrest of Bobby Seale for murder and kidnapping.

"The idea was to inflame me?" Buckley asks, adding, "I had a pretty low opinion of Bobby Seale anyway." His office usually keeps anonymous letters, but it could not locate the one the FBI supposedly sent regarding the Panthers. Yale University, which houses Buckley's letters and papers, also conducted an unsuccessful search. Either it was composed but never actually sent, or else it disappeared. In any case, Buckley did write a column on November 13, 1969, about Bobby Seale's trial, saying among many things that "Seale is engaged in traditional revolutionary strategy," and that he is trying "to distract attention" from his murder and kidnapping charges. "I do believe Seale was guilty," Buckley comments, "and he did adopt those strategies."

Buckley, who knew nothing about the Cointelpro scheme, or about being on Hoover's "enemies" list, carried on as usual with the FBI. In June of 1970, he "confidentially" forwarded a letter he had received to Cartha DeLoach; its contents involved a student bomb factory in Maryland. The letter writer described in graphic detail what he had seen and asked Buckley not to contact the police; the FBI managed to contact the letter writer without implicating Buckley.

In 1971, another NATIONAL REVIEW parody was misunderstood by the Bureau. This one, called "The Secret Papers They Didn't Publish," purported to be some missing pages from the Pentagon Papers. The FBI seriously analyzed the article in a seven-page memo, calling it "disjointed and lacking in continuity," and nowhere indicated that they recognized it as the put-on it was.

Buckley recalls that the Washington Post also did not know it was a put-on. He adds that it is "extraordinary" that the FBI report took it so seriously, although he admits it was "ingeniously done, and we got from James Burnham Jr., who had been in Naval Intelligence, the actual series of secret code numbers used by the Navy-so the FBI must have been astonished, if they had checked those out. I can't believe it! I simply can't believe they didn't know it was a hoax. Among other things, one of them might have called me up, right?"

In 1974, Firing Line asked Director Clarence Kelley to be a guest, and although this time the memo stated that "over the years the Bureau has had a cordial relationship with Buckley," nonetheless, the 1967 parody-or, as Buckley calls it, "the event"-was mentioned once again. In addition, other reasons were given for Kelley's not appearing: that the show was seen on non-prime time and, surprisingly, that it was too much a "sounding board" for conservatism, and the Director should not be "affiliated as a partisan."