Identifier

FBI_00147

Title

Memo on Potential FBI Probe into Race Riots

Creator

Tamm, Edward A. (FBI)

Description

Internal memo to an assistant to J. Edgar Hoover, D.M. Ladd regarding Victor Rotnem’s, a member of the Department of Justice’s Civil Liberties Unit, being quoted in a newspaper stating that the FBI should order a “full-fledge probe to expose the sources” of race rioting in the United States. The memo writer had a conversation with the U.S. Attorney General about the danger of Rotnem’s statement. He believed that this would be bad publicity even if the FBI was involved in this kind of work, which the writer proclaimed was not happening. The memo writer also stated that the Attorney General was in agreement that this work was not in the primary interest to the FBI. This is contradictory to the surveillance and intelligence the FBI was conducting during this WWII time period. It is important to note, although this was claimed to be not in the interest in of the FBI, this type of surveillance did take place in subsequent years during the formalization of COINTELPRO.

Source

100-HQ-135-Serial140, 23 June 1943, Federal Bureau of Investigation Records, "Foreign Inspired Agitation Among American Negroes", Detroit FBI Files - Black Freedom.

Theme

Criminalization and Resistance, Community and Resistance

Type

Government Records

Level 1 Tag

Surveillance

Government Correspondence

"Race

Racism

Racialization"

COINTELPRO

Resistance

Level 2 Tag

Racial Unrest

Profiling

Informants

Infiltration

Abuse by Government

Race & Ethnic Identity

COINTELPRO - Foreign Inspired Agitation Among American Negroes

Racial Inequality

Level 3 Tag

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Department of Justice

Wendell Berge

Francis Biddle

U.S. Attorney General

Victor Rotnem

Civil Liberties Unit

Date

1943-06-23

Location

Washington, D.C.

Rights

Public Domain acquired through Freedom of Information Act