Hearings, Reports and Prints of the House Committee on Post Office and Civil Service

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in room 210, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Robert N. C. Nix presiding. Mr. Nix. The subcommittee will be in order.

Justice Brandeis, long before he became a Justice of the Supreme Court, was the coauthor of an article in 1890 in the Harvard Law Review on "The Right to Privacy." The substance was the right of privacy and this began the modern debate on the issue of privacy. Although the Constitution provided no specific right of privacy, it did provide protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, as well as the guarantee of due process of law. Privacy then is a continually developing right based on the bedrock of a flexible Constitution. In a society as complicated and as big as ours, we must provide new protections for our people against the panderer, the propagandist and the unsolicited mailing of potentially dangerous products.

Great work has been done in the Congress by Congressman Cornelius Gallagher, Senators Long and Ervin, as well as our own Glenn Cunningham and Jerry Waldie, who are members of this subcommittee. One of the responsibilities of this subcommittee is protection from invasion of privacy by mail. There is an attack on the mailbox. It is our position that the primary right in the mailbox as part of the home is in the homeowner. We are going to do what we can to protect that right.

I can think of no more appropriate time for respect for this right of privacy than when there is a death in the family. This past March I was shocked to read in the Philadelphia Inquirer an editorial entitled "Hate Mail Evil," which I quote in part.

I shall make that article a part of the record. (The article follows:)

[From the Philadelphia Inquirer, Mar. 27, 1968]

THE HATE-MAIL EVIL

A particularly ugly activity resulting from U.S. involvement in Vietnam is harassment of mourning relatives of soldiers killed in the Far Eastern war zone by means of anonymous hate letters and telephone calls.

The people who engage in this callous practice deserve a fate in keeping with their cruel deeds, though often they have been cunningly careful to stay just within the bounds of legality so it may be impossible to prosecute them for breaking any specific law. The vicious intent of what they are doing, however, is all too plain, and every effort should be made to trace both letters and telephone calls.

Sometimes grounds may exist for prosecution, but even when no such grounds may be found, focusing the spotlight of publicity on the offenders may be beneficial. Unsigned mimeographed hate letters are being mailed to the parents of servicemen whose names appear in newspaper death and casualty reports. This use of the mails may not be illegal but it ought to be. There is no question that it is maliciously intended, vicious and morally indefensible. It seems to us that if present laws do not adequately cover it, Congress should take specific action to protect servicemen and their families from the emotionally deranged individuals or saboteurs responsible.

Meantime, all hate mail should be turned over to the post office. Telephone calls should be reported both to police and the telephone company, and we hope that the Federal Bureau of Investigation can find adequate grounds for joining in an effort to bring the offenders to justice.

Mr. Nix. (reading):

A particularly ugly activity resulting from U.S. involvement in Vietnam is harassment of mourning relatives of soldiers killed in the Far Eastern War Zone by means of anonymous hate letters.

The people who engage in this callous practice deserve a fate in keeping with their cruel deeds, though often they have been careful to stay just within the bounds of legality so it may become impossible to prosecute them for breaking any specific law. The vicious intent of what they are doing is all too plain.

Last week a front page story in the Washington Star on July 17 described the ordeal of a mother in Mercedes, Tex., who had lost her son in Vietnam. Mrs. Reeves had been proud of her son and she was even prouder of him when she received posthumously on his behalf the Distinguished Service Cross, the Bronze Star, the Air Medal, and the Purple Heart. She was deluged with hate mail which asked her again and again, "Would you rather have a dead hero or a live son?" Her answer was "Much as I loved him, I would rather my boy be where he is now, than to be one of them."

We will make this a part of the record. (The article follows:)

[From the Evening Star, July 17, 1968]

TAUNTING ANTI-WAR MAIL-BETTER A DEAD HERO, HIS MOTHER ANSWERS MERCEDES, TEX. UPI.—The crudely printed pamphlet, mailed from Brownsville, Tex., by an anonymous anti-war group asked the family of a Mercedes, Tex., soldier killed in the Vietnam war:

"Which would you rather have a dead hero or a live son?"

Yesterday, Mrs. W. B. Reeves, the mother of Army Sgt. Harold S. Reeves, had an answer the senders of the pamphlet might not have expected:

"Much as I loved him," she said, "I would rather my boy would be where he is now, than to be one of them."

"I thought these protesters claimed their actions were based on love. This is the cruelest thing I've ever seen.'

Sgt. Reeves died at his machine gun aboard a helicopter gun ship in the battle for the city of Hue in February.

Mr. and Mrs. Reeves received the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Bronze Star, the Air Medal and the Purple Heart at a special ceremony last week at their home.

But Mrs. Reeves said medals for valor on the battlefield were not the only things they had received since their son's death.

She said the taunting pamphlet, with its reference to a "dead hero," was just one item in an avalanche of anti-war literature which has clattered down upon the family since word of her son's death was published.

"It's some of the most awful stuff I've ever read," she said, "and it started coming before we even buried him. I'd like to tell them they're wasting their time and their stamps, sending it to me, but I can't do that because there are no return addresses on any of it."

Sgt. Reeves was one of six soldier sons in the Reeves household. Mrs. Reeves said he volunteered for Vietnam duty after his younger brother, Douglas, was critically wounded there in 1965.

"He wanted to take his brother's place," she said, "and he did. Both were in the 1st Cavalry. He did all he could-gave all he had. And now, we have to get things like this in the mail. It's sickening."

Mr. Nix. This type of activity dates back at least to February of this year, and as I understand it, much beyond that before it received front page attention.

An Associated Press story which appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer described the beginning of an investigation by the Federal Government into the activities of anonymous hate mailers who have sent vicious material to the widows of men killed in Vietnam. A Mrs. Schwellenbach of Fayetteville, N.C., received a vicious antiwar diatribe upon her husband's death at her in-law's home in Chico, Calif., and later at her own home near Fort Bragg.

The material she received described American troops in Vietnam as cannibals. The news story went on to say that Timothy May, General Counsel of the Post Office Department, was looking into the matter. He is with us today and he will give us a briefing on this case. The story will be made a part of the record.

(The article follows:)

[From Phila. Inquirer, Feb. 14, 1968]

U.S. IS PROBING HATE MAIL SENT TO GI'S WIDOW

WASHINGTON, FEB. 13 (AP).—The Federal Government began an investigation Tuesday of incidents in which bitter antiwar propaganda was sent anonymously through the mail to a woman whose husband was killed in Vietnam.

Some of the material said American servicemen fighting in Vietnam are worse than cannibals. The young widow received it twice within a month after her husband died.

Pentagon sources said the Army's Criminal Investigations Division would take charge and would call in FBI to investigate the source of the mailings.

POST OFFICE TO ACT

Timothy J. May, general counsel to the Post Office Department, said his office would examine the material to determine if there were grounds for prosecution. "When women are contacted in this manner we're encouraging them to let us know about it," a Pentagon spokesman said. "This junk is all objectionable from a moral and ethical sense, but legally there is often little we can do except appeal to the sender to stop it.

SCOPE RESTRICTED

"But where we find material that is actionable, we'll take action." Only obscene or seditious material is actionable, he added.

The antiwar diatribe in question was sent by first class mail to Carol Schwellenbach, 26, of Fayetteville, N.C. She received it first at her in-laws' home in Chico, Calif., shortly after her husband, Pfc. Gary Schwellenbach, was killed, and again three weeks later at her own home near Fort Bragg.

The Pentagon has a program for tracking down the sources of such harassment. In 34 months, it has pinpointed 205 sources. There has been only one successful prosecution, and that involved a paroled convict who sponged off the family of a dead Marine by posing as a buddy from Vietnam.

ATROCITIES CHARGED

The three printed pages of antiwar material received by Mrs. Schwellenbach included an essay which accused U.S. forces of "bombing hospitals, kindergartens, private homes" and then added:

"A cannibal is a barbarian. He kills one of his kind to eat. The sin is in the killing, not in the eating. We self-styled civilized people kill thousands for no cause at all which makes us a thousand times the barbarian the cannibal is."

Mr. Nix. The problem is much broader than the hate that lurks in the heart of the disloyal. It is the fact that today all kinds of business

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