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Reading the FBI Files:
Some Observations and Hints
The FBI files on Chaplin contain a wide variety
of information. They include memos between FBI agents and offices, which are often quite
short--a page or two--and longer reports and summaries of the status of an investigation,
often prepared at the request of the head of a particular FBI office or even the Director
himself, J. Edgar Hoover. In addition to or as a part of these documents, other kinds of
information appear. There include such documents as letters from private citizens to the FBI,
newspaper clippings that report on Chaplin or some event related to his file, transcripts of a
recorded interview that the INS did with Chaplin about his political views, and correspondence
between the FBI and other government agencies like the State Department. There are even copies
of reviews of Chaplin films like Monsieur Verdoux and a photocopy (in Russian--English translation
included) of a 1923 article praising Chaplin in the Soviet newspaper Pravda, dredged up in 1947
as the investigations of Chaplin as an internal security risk heated up. Commentary begins as
early as 1922 and continues until after his death, when the last files comment on a botched
attempt by two garage mechanics in Switzerland to extort money from the Chaplin family after they
had stolen Chaplin's body from his grave.
First encountering FBI files can be a frustrating experience: the documents are often filled with
blacked-out sections, hand-written notes, mystifying numbers, and puzzling abbreviations.
Here are a few hints to help readers along:
DON'T LET "CLUTTER" GET YOU DOWN--on some pages, especially the first page of most documents,
there is a lot of "clutter," some put on after the fact by those charged with releasing the
documents under the FOIA. If you persist, you can learn to ignore inessential information.
CASE FILE NUMBERS--The start of many documents
includes a number separated by a hyphen. This is the case file number. The first number is the
classification under which the person is being investigation, while the number after the hyphen
is the person's specific case number. In Chaplin's case, the numbers are usually either
100-127090 (100 is the "domestic security" classification) or 31-68496 (31 is the Mann
Act--or the "White Slave Traffic Act"--classification).
CODES FOR BLACKED-OUT WORDS, SECTIONS, AND
DELETED PAGES--The Freedom of Information Act permits the FBI to delete and black out parts of
files before releasing them for a variety of reasons. But they are also supposed to indicate
why some information is being withheld by using a code, usually a letter, then a number, then
sometimes another letter. On p. 19, for example, two names are blacked out for reason "b7D."
Category "b7" allows deletion of information or records "compiled for law enforcement purposes if
certain enumerated adverse conditions could be reasonably expected to result from disclosure of
the information." When placed third in the code, letter D usually refers to the identity of an
informant, while letter C usually refers to the identity of an FBI employee. Another category
that shows up often in Chaplin's domestic security file is "b1," which refers to
information kept secret "in the interest of national defense or foreign policy." (See, for
example, p. 126.)
FBI ABBREVIATIONS: the FBI loves abbreviations,
and knowing a few makes reading the files much easier. (A full list of the abbreviations can be
found in Haines and Langbart, Appendix I--see the final note at the end of this document.) Here are a few:
- SA--Special Agent, a prefix before an FBI agent's name
- SAC--Special Agent in Charge, the head of an FBI office, so ”SAC, Los Angeles" [or LA] is the
agent in charge of the Los Angeles office
- REBULET--reference is made to a Bureau letter
- REBUTEL--reference is made to a Bureau teletype or telegram
- WSTA--White Slave Traffic Act
- C) and (U)--Sometimes each paragraph of a report ends with a "(C)" or a "(U)"--that stands for classified or unclassified, and were written by FBI employees going through the files before releasing them under the Freedom of Information Act. The paragraphs followed by the "(C)" are usually blacked out, and the code number justifying that deletion is next to the paragraph. (See, for example,
p. 163.)
SLOG THROUGH, AND MAYBE EVEN COME TO ENJOY, THE
BUREAUCRAT ESE--just as the movie trade magazine Variety has its jargon (HIX NIX STIX
PIX--meaning, roughly unsophisticated people from small towns reject movies about their world), so
does the FBI. People don't "phone" someone in FBI reports, they "telephonically communicate with"
them. Keep an eye out for such Newspeak.
READ CRITICALLY--Although there is a lot of
interesting information in FBI files, not everything in them is necessarily true.
Informants were sometimes paid for their information, and there must have been a
temptation to tell agents what they wanted to hear. It's telling that after all the hundreds of
pages of memos and reports in Chaplin's domestic security file, the FBI couldn't find a single
informant willing to testify against him in the fall of 1952, after his reentry permit had been
revoked. So it's important to take the contents of the files with a grain of
salt. |
