A dense and well-detailed history of army surveillance that throws
light on a shadowed aspect of our past. Jensen (History/New Mexico
State Univ.) focuses on the interplay between the shifting tides of
American political ideology and the Constitution itself, which
dictates a "minimal internal security apparatus." The author
documents incidents of the US military using spies and ad hoc
security forces from the Benedict Arnold case through the Civil
War, when Allan Pinkerton was hired to form a secret service to
keep watch on "disloyal Americans." Jensen notes, however, that
prior to the 1920's, "no systematic plan existed to guide the
army's response in case of a domestic rebellion." Then, after WW I,
a plan was formulated by the War Department to transform "a system
to protect the government from enemy agents [into] a vast
surveillance system to watch civilians who violated no law but who
objected to wartime policies or to the war itself." Labor struggles
and fear of Bolshevism led to the government spying on a "vast
number of workers," including members of the International Workers
of the World, a precedent that constituted the army's "first
extensive internal security experience with American civilians."
Jensen goes on to examine "War Plans White," the military's
"contingency plans for a war at home"; FDR's concern "about Russian
attempts to influence domestic affairs"; the later fears of an
alliance between religious pacifists and American Communists; and,
during the Vietnam era, the "massive army surveillance of
dissenters." Jensen's contention that government spying has always
been "curtailed by public outcry" seems a bit optimistic, and it is
arguable that our "internal security policy" has evolved "to become
one that maintained restraint." Still, the author capably reveals
the conflict between politics, security, and policy. (Kirkus
Reviews)
Since the Revolution, Americans have debated what action the
military should take toward civilians suspected of espionage,
treason, or revolutionary activity. This important book-the first
to present a comprehensive history of military surveillance in the
United States-traces the evolution of America's internal security
policy during the past two hundred years. Joan M. Jensen discusses
how the federal government has used the army to intervene in
domestic crises and how Americans have protested the violation of
civil liberties and applied political pressure to limit military
intervention in civil disputes. Although movements to expand and to
constrain the military have each dominated during different periods
in American history, says Jensen, the involvement of the army in
internal security has increased steadily. Jensen describes a wide
range of events and individuals connected to this process. These
include Benedict Arnold's betrayal of West Point; the colonial wars
in Cuba, where Lt. Andrew Rowan, the nation's first officer spy,
won a medal for carrying a "Message for Garcia"; the development of
"War Plans White" in the 1920s to guide the army's response in the
event of domestic rebellion; the activities of J. Edgar Hoover and
the FBI in the 1950s and 1960s; the use of the National Guard in
the South at the height of the civil rights movement; and the
surveillance of and violence against protesters during the Vietnam
War. Scrutinizing the historic workings of the American government
at closer range than has ever been done before, Jensen creates a
vivid picture of the growing invisible intelligence empire within
the United States government and of the men who created it.
General
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