Thought you might appreciate this.
. . . And the Building
By Richard Cohen
Thursday, June 13, 2002; Page A37
My lonely campaign to wipe the name of J. Edgar Hoover from the FBI building may yet bear fruit. It is not, alas, that Congress has finally recognized Hoover for the racist and scoundrel that he was, it's rather that in one respect at least he has met his match. Someday the FBI building, or maybe the Justice Department across the street, will bear the name of John Ashcroft.
Not since J. Edgar has Washington seen such a publicity hound. With Hoover, there was nothing the FBI could do that was not announced in the director's name. Yet from somewhere -- and I have my guess -- Hoover must have watched in absolute awe as Ashcroft announced that the government was holding an ex-con named Abdullah al Muhajir, the former Jose Padilla of Chicago, for allegedly plotting to detonate a radioactive bomb. Ashcroft did it all the way from Moscow, in a hastily arranged video hookup that shows the government can act fast when it has to.
In both form and substance, Ashcroft was merely doing what Hoover did back in 1942, when four German saboteurs landed on a Long Island beach (four others landed in Florida), buried their explosives in the sand and were instantly discovered by the Coast Guard. The Germans were not immediately detained, but one of them went down to Washington and tried to turn himself in to the FBI. It apparently took some doing but the Bureau, after what we now know were SOP delays, made the arrest.
Hoover dashed to New York to make the announcement. Somehow he forgot to mention the Coast Guard. Somehow he forgot to mention that one of the Germans had come to the FBI -- and not it to him. Somehow he left the impression that the FBI was waiting for the Nazis on the beach, and somehow he failed to consult with military intelligence, which wanted to wait until two more teams of saboteurs were expected to come ashore.
It was this World War II incident that served as a precedent for President Bush's Nov. 13 order authorizing the government to establish military tribunals to try terrorists. Such a tribunal did try the eight Germans, and six of them were promptly executed. It was the outcome that President Roosevelt wanted.
These are dicey times. The United States has suffered a grievous wound by terrorists. In New York, in particular, the psychic dust from Sept. 11 has not yet settled -- and, for many it probably never will. Clearly, we face a new threat, and we have to have new ways of dealing with it. For that reason, I try to give the government the benefit of the doubt.
But Ashcroft's incessant grandstanding makes me wonder if sometimes some of what goes on is more about politics than national security. He personifies the suspicion that terrorism alerts, even arrests, are being timed and manipulated for the nightly news. It seems every revelation of some FBI or CIA screw-up is followed by yet another terrorism alert of one color or another.
It was supposedly sheer coincidence that the testimony of FBI agent Coleen Rowley was virtually obscured by the announcement that the new homeland security Cabinet post was being proposed. Maybe so, but the announcement was clearly rushed and made with insufficient consultation.
My problems with Ashcroft go back to when he was a Missouri senator and distorted the record of a judicial nominee to block his confirmation. Ashcroft's agenda was purely political -- he was up for reelection in what was looking like a tight race with Gov. Mel Carnahan. (In the end, he lost, in effect, to Carnahan's widow, Jean.) He showed, there and then, that for all his piety he can be cynical and mean-spirited.
So, I wonder about a detention policy that has kept a former Boston cabdriver -- once touted as an important terrorism suspect -- in jail for eight months for what turns out to be a minor immigration offense. I wonder, too, why al Muhajir was busted at O'Hare International Airport and not followed to see what he did and whom he talked to. (He was a long way from getting a bomb of any kind.) I wonder, too, why as an American citizen he is being held on a military base and not able to see his attorney.
These questions of mine -- the product of a naturally suspicious mind -- might not arise at all were it not for Ashcroft's déjà vu quality. In his tenacity, his conviction that he is in sole possession of the truth and his compulsive need to hog the spotlight, he reminds me of J. Edgar himself. In Washington, such behavior is almost always rewarded. Among other things, you get your name on a building.
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