Tighter laws against left behind US slanging

Workers Press no. 306, 19 November 1970 · scan page 5

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DEMOCRAT Senator George McGovern added his contribution to the Washington political slanging-match around 76-year-old FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover yesterday.

The FBI director, McGovern said, had slandered the late Robert Kennedy and former Attorney - General Ramsey Clark.

Clark's recent book 'Crime in America' portrayed Hoover as an egotistical tyrant, obsessed with reds under the bed and constantly seeking personal glory.

Ioover replied with a sting ng attack on Clark—a 'softie and 'the worst Attorney-General I have ever known'-and details dispute with Robert Kennedy, Clark's predecessor as AttorneyGeneral.

Clark claims the clash was 'because the FBI so coveted personal credit that it will sacrifice even effective crime control before it will share the glory of its exploits.

"This has been a petty and costly characteristic caused by the excessive domination of a single person - J. Edgar Hoover and his self-centred concern for his reputation.' "The trouble with Kennedy,' Hoover replied, 'was that he wanted loosen standards and qualifications: that agents hold requirement discard agents or acçounting. He even wanted to discard the chelor's degree as a requirement. In short, he wanted more Negro agents.' DIDN'T SPEAK Hoover refused, and eventually took the dispute president Johnson:

"The president said "Stand by your guns". I didn't speak to Bobby the last six months he was in office.' Hoover's attack on Clark and Kennedy is undoubtedly linked with Nixon's • plansworked out in close collaboration with the FBI directorto purge the 'liberalism' out of the Administration and escalate the witch-hunt against left-wing militants. • At the end of last month, Hoover wrote a lengthy "open letter' college students, for against 'the extremism which and disrespect for the rights many rampuses the named by this hunter are Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Weathermen, Young Socialist Alliance - youth organization of the revisionist Socialist Workers Party described the Trotskyist youth group as and the Communist Party's Young Workers' Liberation League.

Trotskyist-dominated anti-war '-is the Student Mobilization Committee.

and Hoover are clamouring for tighter laws more police to dealostensibly-with 'student terrorism.

n reality, their preparatior epresent i grave threat to