It took six months and two more letters, both apparently signed by FBI Director Clarence M. Kelley, before they were convinced I was the Richard Arthur Barry in the file.

When the file finally arrived, I just stared at it for a while. I even opened the rest of the mail first. While I was intensely curious, I was also somewhat frightened. Why, I'm not sure.

Tearing away the packing tape and brown paper, I tore away my self-appraisal as a relatively anonymous citizen, a regular taxpayer, no criminal record (save one speeding ticket), virtually no affiliations.

The pages were photostatic copies. None was intact. Each had major blocks of type blacked out.

In some cases only phrases, paragraphs or names here and there were excised. In others, entire pages were inked over or, as a cover letter explained, entire ducuments were missing.

That cover letter explained: The Freedom of Information Act entitled me to copies of whatever FBI documents made reference to me-except those which are: "classified" for "national defense or foreign policy" reasons; pertain solely to FBI rules and practices; identify confidential informants; or . . (an obvious favorite) disclose investigative techniques and procedures.

Among those procedures doubtless are opening mail, tapping telephones and overlapping activities with agencies responsible for foreign intelligence gathering. During the pre-Watergate world dominated by Hoover, the public knew little of such techniques.

It seems to have started in mid-December of 1969 while I was still in the service. Someone perhaps an eager clerk in the Philadelphia office of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service-must have noticed I had applied for a passport while in the Army, holding a potentially sensitive position.

Was I about to skip the country with a briefcase full of secrets? No one asked, but someone was wondering.

The FBI file shows the information trickled in at first. On Jan. 23, for example, a memo shows that the special agent in charge at Newark reported to Washington that his men had obtained a description of my car and its license number.

They also obtained the number of my post office box in a small north New Jersey town where I had been stationed. Then they obtained a forwarding address in White Plains (the home of my then-in-laws).

There followed a brief resume of my military career which ultimately included the fact that I had been discharged on Jan. 2.

On Jan. 26, the Newark office sent virtually the same information, but now classified as "Confidential," to other offices and, apparently, to some outside agency, since at the bottom of page two it is noted: "This document contains neither recommendations nor conclusions of the FBI. It is the property of the FBI and is loaned to your agency; it and its contents are not to be distributed outside your agency."

The addressee is blacked out.

So is much of the text.

Three days later, the Washington field office verified the forwarding address and suggested that "Since Barry was to have been discharged from the service 1/2/70, he may have been anticipating vacation travel to Europe . . ."

That was the obvious but boring truth.

On the 30th, a New York City-based agent reported he had attempted to conduct a "pretext inquiry" in White Plains, but discontinued when he found the neighborhood was one of single-family homes which somehow minimized the chances of "discreet inquiry."

Agents later did make "periodic spot checks" for my car and noted that "captioned car was not observed."

That's understandable since the car had been sold and the Barrys were in the south of France, probably sipping brandy and coffee and munching a Napoleon. Meanwhile, agents in St. Louis were trying to find my service files. Others in White Plains were trying to verify my residence and employment. In New York City they were considering "requesting Bureau authority to interview" me.

On Feb. 23, a copy of the passport file review was forwarded to Washington. That review was not in the file supplied me, but a cover letter did note “Barry anticipated departure for Europe on 1/15/70."

On March 3, the agent in charge at New York informed his bosses in Washington that the agents in St. Louis had determined my service file was not there, but might be in Alexandria, Va. Agents there were ordered to check it out.

Meanwhile, the New York agents noted: "Barry's application for passport dated 8/1/69 lists his occupation as student when he undoubtedly was in the Army and makes no mention of anticipated travel to . . ."

The rest is blacked out.

The names of all foreign countries are routinely excised, but the information that I had obtained a Czechoslovakian visa in Washington apparently had reached the FBI and inquiry was intensified.

Another request by a field agent for a personal interview was denied.

A "confidential" Washington report on March 3 noted my personal background, physical description, the identity of my wife and the results of a clandestine questioning of my in-laws which confirmed we were already overseas. It also noted I had been an English major in college and that my mother lived in Florida. Do English majors make better spies?

Within a week, another document reported copies of my passport photo had been duplicated and distributed and the negative placed on file in Washington.

While the file I received contained no documents dated between early March and late July, other memos it contained refer to considerable correspondence during that period.

Those dates roughly correspond to when we were in Europe.

(We ran out of money and returned to the United States June 15, visited with the in-laws and then drove to Florida.)

On July 17, New York agents conducted another "pretext interview" with my in-laws, learning from them we had "moved" and could be reached through my mother in Sarasota.

Then a July 27 document instructs the Tampa office to "handle in accordance with section 105-K (I'd give my eye teeth to see a copy of that one) of the manual of instructions." And in the margin is the big unanswered question:

"Is Barry leftist?"

Three months later, Tampa notified Washington that I was employed by a "weekly newspaper published principally for Negro residents" and that I wrote a commentary column "In Black and White."

The memo also noted my home telephone number had been obtained through directory assistance although it was "not listed in the current directory." The subject of the memo is blacked out, making it difficult not to suspect a telephone tap.

Authority to interview me was again requested "in accordance with existing instructions relating to interviews of racial and/or security subjects." The words "racial and/or" are underlined.

Cryptically, the memo continues: "If this subject is cooperative, no affirmative steps will be taken during the initial interview to direct his activities."

I am later described as a "white male" (white underlined) and was married to a "white female."

Most of the second page of that correspondence is blacked out, but it does note neither of us is known to have been a member of any "subversive group" and indicates "Richard A. Barry would be sympathetic toward the United States, as would his spouse.'

On Nov. 10, official approval to interview me came from W. C. Sullivan and T. E. Bishop, two of Hoover's senior staff assistants.

Ten days later I was driving those 28 blocks to the meeting.

Both agents introduced themselves as "Smith.”

I sat down across a table from one of them as instructed.

After a little small talk, one of the Smiths popped the biggie, and here I approximate the dialogue "So. We underderstand you had a Top Secret security clearance while you were an officer in the Army (air defense missile work) and that you went to Europe after you were discharged?"

"That's right.'

"And that you went to Czechoslovakia?" he asked pointedly.

"That's right. We were over there nearly six months. We saved for the two-anda-half years I was in the service, bought a car in Germany and visited 22 or 23 countries. We also visited East Germany, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia," I volunteered, at last aware of the reason for his interest.

He wrote furiously as I spoke, then asked why I, a white person, worked for a black newspaper.

I told him I got the job through a local branch of a national employment agency and that there were no other newpaper jobs in Sarasota when we returned from Europe.

The interview lasted perhaps 20 minutes. They learned I was starting a new job with the local daily newspaper the following Monday and seemed reassured.

They asked if I had been contacted by anyone during our travels who might have been trying to elicit information from me about our national defense. I told them, no.

Any contact subsequent to your return?

No.

At some point, I don't recall now, they asked why I listed my occupation as "student" on my passport application when I was still an Army officer.

I told them I did so because the European vacation was scheduled for after I completed my military service and that I had considered graduate school as an alternative upon my return. And, I told them, I'd figured we might risk additional red tape and delays obtaining visas to enter Iron Curtain countries if I acknowledged I was (formerly) an Army officer.

"Student" sounded more innocuous than "Air Defense Artillery Officer."

The agents agreed and the interview terminated on a vaguely friendly note.
The final document in the stack sent me was dated Dec. 15.

It contains the results of that interview and was apparently classified "Confidential".

Its subject was: "Changed-Richard A. Barry."

Then there is a censored portion.

Most significant is the conclusion of the special agent in charge of the Tampa office and his recommendation to Washington:

"Barry presents no apparent informant potential . . . He presents no apparent threat to the internal security of the United States and his activities do not warrant his inclusion on the Security Index or Agitator Index. No additional investigation is being conducted and this case is being closed."

Perhaps significant is the placement of a bold letter "H" next to my name on both the first and last references to me as "subject" in the FBI file.

In a recent column reminiscing about his college days working for the FBI, Miami Herald editorial writer Tom Doran recalls: "J. Edgar Hoover was a diety. We all knew the cryptic letter 'H' that meant he'd read and initialed a paper, giving it—and its effects-the force of heavenly writ."

Me? The subject of a probe that went all the way to the desk of The Man himself? Not really unlikely, according to Doran. After all, I was offically declared a suspected spy, one must presumably be officially declared a non-spy. At least it's official.

This story by our publisher, John Seigenthaler, appeared in our newspaper on July 10. Because of its implications, I thought it would be of interest to you.

WAYNE WHITT.

PUBLISHER FINALLY GETS HIS FBI FILES, OR SOME OF THEM

[From the Tennessean, Sunday, July 10, 1977]

(By John Seigenthaler)

I have been reporting and writing for this newspaper, The Tennessean, for most of the last 28 years-and this is the most difficult assignment I have undertaken. This is a story about myself. It is personal. It is painful.

The allegations cited in the FBI communication printed above, dated May 6, 1976, are not true. But they were repeated, in substance, in another communication to FBI Director Kelley four days later, on May 10, 1976.

I found out about it two weeks ago-when, after more than a year of denial and delay, Director Kelley finally complied with provisions of federal laws and sent me my FBI files. At least he sent me some of my files.

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I have now been assured by ranking officials of the Justice Department that the words cited in the May 6 and May 10 "telexes" will be purged from my records. But as of this moment they are part of the "official" FBI files. I have been given access, under law, to some FBI reports mentioning my name. But nothing I have received from the federal Bureau explains how such information could get into my files, why it was sent on May 6 to Director Kelley, or why it was repeated in another message to him a few days later.

The law which allows citizens the right to examine their files also allows the FBI to decide arbitrarily what records will not be shown. I am appealing Kelley's decision in my own case to try to get more information.

Like most Americans, I grew up believing completely in the integrity of the FBI. I know many agents I like and admire. The hard work of agents like them gave the Bureau a reputation which was unblemished for decades. I am aware that disclosing the mere fact that this material is in my files will raise doubts about me in the minds of some people. It will raise the inevitable questions: "If there is smoke isn't there fire? If the FBI had it in the files isn't it true?" That realization is why I would prefer not to write this.

But I appeared before a Congressional Committee May 20, 1976 and stated under oath that if could get access to my FBI files I would publish what was there, no matter how scurrilous or scandalous or false.

I then wrote a letter to FBI Director Kelley. I told him I was convinced that his agency had collected defamatory gossip about me. I demanded access to my FBI records. I told Kelley that I was going to publish that material if I could get it. Then, recently, I was honored in New York by the Sidney Hillman Foundation and given an award for "courage in publishing.'

Having accepted that award, and having told Kelley I would publish what was in my files, and having sworn before a committee of congress to do so, I can hardly lock it up in a filing cabinet now and forget it.

For years the FBI has engaged in a "vacuum cleaner" approach to intelligence gathering. That means that some FBI agents will solicit or accept any information, even hearsay, rumor or gossip, and put it into the Bureau's "raw files."

At the time I testified before Congress I had an idea that if I would voluntarily expose the "vacuum cleaner" method of information gathering that it might help stop that corrupt practice.

For some time it has been clear that J. Edgar Hoover, when he was FBI Director, collected titillating tid-bits of gossip about high-ranking officials in Washingtonmembers of congress, senators, cabinet officers, even presidents.

But nobody ever thinks the FBI is collecting common gossip about them; nobody realizes that the "vacuum cleaner" is always turned on, possibly sucking up information about them. Before May, 1976, I did not suspect that the FBI had collected damaging or discrediting information about me. I didn't want to think that about myself; I didn't want to think it about the FBI.

Then, on May 13 last year an FBI official named Homer Boynton, while visiting the Washington offices of the New York Times, made disparaging comments to members of the Times' staff about me and the Tennessean.

Boynton said "Seigenthaler . is not entirely pure."

I don't know why he said it. I can't prove what he meant.

But for more than a year I have suspected the worst; now, having received my FBI records-or some of them-I know the worst. I know that in the week before Deputy FBI Director Boynton made those comments about my "purity" the FBI in Memphis sent two messages to Director Kelley which included false allegations that "Seigenthaler involved in having illicit relations" with young girls.

If this is a difficult story for me to relate, it also may be difficult for the reader to follow. It involves complex events and confusing relationships with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The job of a journalist is to make complexities simple and confusion easy to understand. Because of my personal stake in this story, I may fall short of doing the reporter's job.

My conflict with the FBI dates back more than a year-to May 5, 1976, the day before the first Memphis FBI telex was sent off to Kelley.

It was on that day that Mrs. Jacque Srouji, then a part-time copy editor for The Tennessean was separated from the newspaper.

On May 3, 4 and 5 I had talked at length with her about what the FBI has since described as her "special relationship" with the Bureau. I was concerned about how that special relationship affected our newspaper's staff. On May 5 I made the difficult decision to dismiss Mrs. Srouji.