Subversives
In case you鈥檝e forgotten or are too young to know, the 1960s were the template for today鈥檚 political divisiveness. In Subversives, Seth Rosenfeld chronicles how the abyss formed. His book is crucial history. It鈥檚 also a warning.
In this work about unrest at the University of California Berkeley, Rosenfeld tells the stories of the frail, impassioned student leader Mario Savio; the measured but liberal Berkeley president Clark Kerr; and Ronald Reagan, the B-actor who, with the secret help of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, polished the conspiratorially based law-and-order message he formulated in the 鈥�40s as the rabidly anti-Communist head of the Screen Actors Guild to become governor of California in 1966.
Reagan is a hero to today鈥檚 GOP, which regards him as sunny, even moderate, but the way he handled unrest at UC Berkeley was cunning, vindictive, and excessive. Rosenfeld鈥檚 interviews with participants in student uprisings at Berkeley in the 鈥�60s and with Reagan鈥檚 associates depict this avuncular icon as ready and all too eager to crush dissent in the name of protecting American values.聽
A former investigative reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, Rosenfeld spent decades accumulating this material, filing Freedom of Information Act requests that prompted the FBI to spend more than $1 million beating back his demands until it grudgingly released more than 250,000 pages of files. Rosenfeld has an agenda in this book of patience and passion: setting straight a previously hidden 鈥� and consequential 鈥� record. The way his stories converge evokes 鈥淭hey Marched Into Sunlight,鈥� David Maraniss鈥� similarly structured 2003 book about a Vietnam War firefight.
Through FBI documents and interviews with players including Reagan right-hand man Edwin Meese III, Richard Masato Aoki (a FBI informer who also may have been a student radical), and protestors, Rosenfeld paints a chilling picture. Law enforcement organizations in Reagan鈥檚 California joined in a systematic attempt to smear students and professors, infiltrate their associations with moles, discredit the intellectual enterprise, and instigate actions designed to justify deployment of organizations spanning local police and the National Guard.
All came to a head in People鈥檚 Park, 鈥渨here 鈥� six months before the violence at Altamont and a year before the killings at Kent State 鈥� the end of the sixties would begin.鈥� People鈥檚 Park was a university-owned parcel UC Berkeley wanted to develop as a soccer field. But city residents and students resisted, instead seeking a 鈥減ark to be a cultural, political freakout and rap center for the Western world,鈥� according to the April 18, 1969 Berkeley Barb.
That May 15, Reagan had what Rosenfeld calls a 鈥渟howdown,鈥� setting law against demonstrators. By the end of the day, at least 169 people had been injured; no officer had been shot or seriously hurt, but more than 58 civilians were, 51 by police birdshot 鈥� or buckshot, which killed San Jose laborer James Rector and blinded Berkeley carpenter Alan Blanchard. Reagan put Berkeley under martial law.
Subsequent probes by state authorities and President Richard Nixon鈥檚 Justice Department absolved Reagan of responsibility for the tragedy. 鈥淭he police didn鈥檛 kill the young man.... He was killed by the first college administrator who said some time ago it was all right to break the laws in the name of dissent,鈥� Reagan told a Republican fundraiser a week after the incident.
The People鈥檚 Park chapter is the climax of 鈥淪ubversives,鈥� a book bristling with information. Rosenfeld also reveals Hoover鈥檚 role in covering up the friendship of Reagan鈥檚 son, Michael, with the son of mobster Joe Bonanno; the FBI chief鈥檚 hiding of details about his daughter Maureen鈥檚 love life; the way California鈥檚 informer-ridden, right-wing media built support for Reagan against incumbent Governor Edward Brown; and Reagan's character assassination of Clark Kerr, perhaps the most complex figure in the book. Kerr continued an academic career after being fired as UC Berkeley president in 1967. Kerr died in 2003 at 92. Hounded by Hoover, Savio is the book鈥檚 troubled lighting rod. He died in 1996. He was 53.
Hoover died in 1972 at 77, Reagan in 2004. He was 93.
In his Appendix, Rosenfeld says files he pried loose 鈥渟how that during the Cold War, FBI officials sought to change the course of history by secretly interceding in events, manipulating public opinion, and taking sides in partisan politics. The bureau鈥檚 efforts, decades later, to improperly withhold information about those activities under the FOIA ate, in effect, another attempt to shape history, this time by obscuring the past.鈥�
Profound thanks to Seth Rosenfeld for outing the truth and speaking truth to power.
Cleveland freelance writer Carlo Wolff lived in Berkeley and Oakland in the summer and fall of 1965.
