The Gordon File: A Screenwriter Recalls Twenty Years of FBI Surveillance

Rating:
Summary: Great Book, Great Writer, Great American
Review:
True heroes who are also literary heroes come along only once in a generation. A few that come to mind include Henry David Thoreau (Walden), John Reed ("10 Days that Shook the World"), T.E. Lawrence ("The Seven Pillars of Wisdom"), Anne Frank ("The Diary of Anne Frank"), Ernest Hemingway ("For Whom the Bell Tolls") and Jack Kerouac ("On the Road"). Now there is another name to add to this short list of literary and real-life heroes: Bernard Gordon.
Gordon, a prolific Hollywood screenwriter ("55 Days at Peking," "The Thin Red Line," "The Day of the Triffids," "Battle of the Bulge") was blacklisted in the 1950s because of his politics. Now he has written a great and important book, "The Gordon File: A Screenwriter Recalls Twenty Five Years of FBI Surveillance," which weaves documents from his voluminous FBI file together with his remarkable life story.
Gordon, who is one of the last surviving members of the brotherhood of blacklisted writers, took a courageous stand 50 years ago when he refused to bow to the government's - and the film studios' - pressure to "name names." His brave stand cost him dearly. He had to write under phony names, and then had to leave the country to find work on films in Europe. All this is recalled with great style and remarkable wit, and is masterfully interwoven with more than two decades worth of the FBI's hilariously inaccurate reports that document their surveillance of him.
Never before has anyone shown, in such embarrassing detail, how the government wasted so many resources trying to punish dissent while the country was in real danger. As the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war in October of 1962, the FBI was still fanatically pursuing Gordon. And as Lee Harvey Oswald was preparing to shoot President Kennedy, the FBI was pursuing Gordon.
"And just what of any value did they find out during these...years of unremitting `investigative efforts?'" Gordon asks.
The answer is: nothing.
"From all this effort, any intelligence office with the least amount of intelligence should have been able to see that GORDON never knew anything that could be of any value to anyone, much less to any enemy of the United States," he writes. "It is a comment on the timid bureaucracy of the FBI that no one had the honesty, the courage, or even the common sense to say to someone in authority: `We've been following this guy for years, and it is apparent he has no knowledge of anything meaningful, and has had no contact with anyone like an enemy, so why go on? Why not drop this fruitless pursuit?'"
But this book is not just a chilling - and often very funny - story about a shameful and distant chapter of American history. It is a wake up call for America today.
Gordon reminds us that the same bungling mentality at the FBI that allowed agents to pursue him while the country was in real danger 40 years ago is still prevalent inside the FBI's J. Edgar Hoover Building today - only now they are armed with the First Amendment-crushing powers of The Patriot Act.
And unlike the FBI, Gordon asks the right questions.
"When will we demand that they spend their billions of dollars and millions of hours pursuing perpetrators of crime and true threats to our safety rather than political dissidents?" he writes.
Gordon's book is the best reminder that dissent is not only good, but also that it is patriotic; and that attempts to quash dissent are not only bad, but un-American. Everyone worried about the future of this democracy should read this book. It should be taught in every high school and university in the country.


Rating:
Summary: A great story, timely and important
Review: This is a highly readable, smartly written, surprisingly entertaining, but ultimately sobering look at a very disturbing chapter in our history, the era of the blacklist and the hysteria about 'communists' in our midst. What becomes quickly clear, and what Mr. Gordon effectively shows, is that this sad story is almost certainly being repeated right now in 2004 with the FBI's newly expanded mandate from the Patriot Act and the 'War on Terror'.

Those of us on the left who have been protesting the war, who subscribe to certain progressive magazines or web sites, or who are active in liberal causes will benefit greatly from reading Mr. Gordon's reflections on his FBI files. These files, obtained through the Freedom of Information act, are fascinating and hugely revealing about how our government works. One cannot help but conclude after reading this fine book that little of substance has changed since the McCarthy era, especially with the current administration in Washington. The book makes it abundantly clear that all activist, progressive citizens remain at risk of being treated suspiciously by their own government, and of having their civil rights and rights to privacy violated.

Let's hope that this book is widely read. Mr. Gordon belongs in the company of our best liberal writers, those who are fighting for democracy, justice and human rights (Roy, Zinn, Vidal) and who are not afraid to speak truth to power.