J. Edgar Hoover, Artist's Assistant

Arnold Mesches, born in 1923, is both a painter and a political activist. Those two lives have just converged in an unexpected way, as Doug Harvey reports in the L.A. Weekly:

From the beginning, Arnold Mesches knew that the FBI was watching him. "What I didn't realize -- until I got the 760 pages of the file [under the Freedom of Information Act] -- was the extent to which they followed me. They not only had FBI agents, they paid and probably threatened some of my students, one or two of the models I had, neighbors -- it was amazing. There were hundreds of people following or reporting on me over 26 years."…

After the initial shock wore off, he began to see the blacked-out pages' potential as drawings.

The results are now on display in Los Angeles, after a successful run in New York:

The blacked-out texts of the re-copied FBI memos, like Dadaist chance compositions or (as the artist suggests) Franz Kline sketches, create powerful graphic jumping-off points for more than 50 of what Mesches envisions as contemporary illuminated manuscripts. Incorporating collaged pop imagery (scenes from B noir films and musicals, ceramic pigs and Aunt Jemimahs, Ferris wheels), news photos (Nixon, a Klansman holding a flag, etc.) and Mesches' expressionistic paint interpretations of the same source materials (Khrushchev? A GI in Nam? A mainstream political convention? They?re realist but not too realist), the mixed-media works on paper have a picture-in-picture density. Bordering these layered cells of information (or lack thereof), and working its way through the interstices, is a constant stream of brightly contrasting pattern, often from as simple a source as a stencil made from a paper doily. This simulated filigree flattens the imagery into a pagelike design and sweetens the ominous content considerably.

You can see some of Mesches' paintings here.

Comments

[JD Weiner]

dhex: Oh, but they did find it! They were looking for continued Congressional funding, of course. Actually stopping crime would be counterproductive to _that_ end.

[Dan]

what the hell were they looking for that they couldn't find with all that time and effort?

Arnold Mesches was a politically active communist; that's why they were watching him. The FBI did a lot of that, primarily for counterespionage and counterinsurgency purposes.

I imagine that, nowadays, the FBI keeps tabs on domestic supporters of Islamic terrorists, for much the same reason. At least, I hope they do.

[thoreau]

What's a supporter of Islamic terrorism? If you're talking the guy who buys the boxcutters for them then yes, I sure hope they're following him.

If you're talking about people who have axes to grind with US foreign policy but who aren't involved in violence, I hope the FBI is minding its own business.

Yeah, right, like that will happen.

[Dan]

If you're talking about people who have axes to grind with US foreign policy but who aren't involved in violence, I hope the FBI is minding its own business.

If you're going around saying "I think al Qaeda has the right idea", I really don't care what your motives are. You've taken sides with the enemy; I would certainly hope the FBI keeps tabs on you. After all, you might be more than just another loudmouthed asshole; you might actually be putting your money, or your actions, where your mouth is.

Mesches actively supported the most genocidal and totalitarian political system in the history of the world, at a time when countries governed by that system were actively attempting to subvert the government of the United States, and during periods where the United States was at war with countries government by that system. Naturally the FBI kept tabs on him. They kept tabs on American Nazis during WW2, too.

[Dan]

with countries government by that system

typo; should be "governed by".

[Douglas Fletcher]

I wonder if the KGB had a file on him, too.

[dhex]

probably.

personally, lots of people support lots of horrible shit. unless they're supporting these things actively, as in committing actual treason, going to such lengths to chase around painters and poets strikes me as so goddamned...stalinist, really.

seeing as he never did anything makes their efforts twice as ridiculous. especially considering the array of highly-placed moles exposed in the last 20-30 years in government security agencies against the numbers of poets and painters and regular ole commie joes committing bad acts rather than just thinking bad thoughts.

[Dan]

personally, lots of people support lots of horrible shit. unless they're supporting these things actively, as in committing actual treason, going to such lengths to chase around painters and poets strikes me as so goddamned...stalinist, really.

No it's not. The FBI spied on Mesches from 1945 to 1972. The Stalinist approach would have been to simply shoot him in 1946, once it was determined he really was sympathetic to the other side. Hell, for that matter the Stalinist approach would have been to shoot him for using an unapproved art style; plenty of otherwise-loyal communists died over aesthetics.

But this is beside the point, because how, exactly, are you supposed to determine if somebody is "supporting these things actively" if you don't watch them? Mesches applied to join the CPUSA, which was funded by, and served as an active espionage tool for, the USSR. Then he hooked up with Henry Wallace's CPUSA-endorsed and heavily-infiltrated Progressive Party. These are reasonable grounds for suspicion that he may have been interested in actively assisting the Soviets, just as it would be reasonable grounds for suspicion that you planned to actively assist terrorists if you went out and joined Hezbollah.

seeing as he never did anything makes their efforts twice as ridiculous.

They never caught him doing anything. The FBI barely qualifies as "competent"; "omniscient" is a little out of their reach. But yes, it seems likely he didn't do much other than the usual useful-idiot bullshit. But the FBI didn't spend much "effort" on this. A 760-page file, assembled over 27 years, isn't exactly the work of a dedicated team. A serious FBI investigation generates that much paperwork in a week.

It's also likely that most of the data was gathered during the 40s and 50s, when the extent of Communist infiltration and espionage was becoming widely understood, and Mesches was actively engaged in pro-Communist (and "anti-anti-Communist") activity. I'd imagine that once he settled down, and focused on producing bad art and diddling his underage students, the FBI mostly lost interest in him.

[thoreau]

OK, I suppose I can see the point of investigating the asshole who says "I share their goals but deplore their methods." But really, after a couple years it ought to be clear one way or another whether he's involved in violence. 27 years seems a bit excessive.

I know that some people here don't care one bit about the notion of privacy or freedom, but let's talk about pragmatism: Every FBI agent who devotes half of his career to following around a non-threat is an FBI agent who could have spent a year following him before concluding that he's a non-threat and moving on to other possible threats. Once it becomes clear that a radical activist is incapable of causing violence because he's full of shit, it's time to move on to other targets.

[Lonewacko]

"he will join Tom Hayden, Ellen Geer and others in a panel discussion etc.etc.etc."

I generally agree with Dan's comments. However, I think what they did was a *bit* much, unless the goal was to follow him around so he could lead them to other people.

[Dan]

27 years seems a bit excessive.

There's not enough information here to determine if it was excessive or not, especially since we only have Mesches's word to go on.

For example: Say the 760 pages are 759 pages covering his involvement with the Communist Party in the mid to late 1940s, plus one page detailing his involvement in an anti-war rally in 1972. That's "760 pages over 27 years", but by no means "excessive". I'm not suggesting it was as lopsided as that -- but it's just not physically possible that it was as excessive as Harvey and Mesches are claiming.

For example, Harvey claims that:

Every week, people who Mesches thought were trusted friends would file reports ? not merely on his political activities, but on every mundane detail of his life

52 weeks * 27 years * a minimum of two "people" in the average week = 2808 reports, supposedly providing exhaustive detail about his life and activities. And this fits into 760 pages... how?

I think my hypothetical scenario is probably closer to reality than the one Harvey and Mesches are selling here. The serious surveillance probably happened during the 40s and early 50s; the latter file entries are probably just from when he showed up as a blip on the radar at his various lefty-CauseHead causes. It is especially likely that it was during the 40s and 50s when his friends were informing on him to the FBI -- a lot of liberals saw the light and became vehement anti-communists during that period, and the FBI relied heavily on such people for information-gathering.

Every FBI agent who devotes half of his career to following around a non-threat is an FBI agent who could have spent a year following him before concluding that he's a non-threat and moving on to other possible threats.

If an FBI agent had spent "half his career" tracking Mesches, his file would have tens or hundreds of thousands of pages long. Hell, if the FBI ever investigated one of *us* they could have a multi-hundred-page file overnight just by subpoenaing records from our banks and various utility companies. In any event, even according to Mesches and Harvey's side of the story, it looks as though the FBI primarily made use of informants, not FBI agents themselves. Even 27 years of tossing informants' reports into a file folder doesn't add up to much total time spent.

Once it becomes clear that a radical activist is incapable of causing violence because he's full of shit, it's time to move on to other targets.

The FBI believed Lee Harvey Oswald to be just another full-of-shit radical activist, right up to the point where he assassinated the President. Erring on the side of "eh, he's just a dipshit commie loser" isn't always the smart move. Besides, even if Mesches himself was legit (something we have only Mesches' word on), he could have been a regular associate of less-legit folks. Even if Person X is as pure as the driven snow, if he hangs around a lot with Notorious Criminal Y and Radical Terrorist Z, he's worth watching just to see if he yields any information on Y and Z's activities.

On a final note:
I know that some people here don't care one bit about the notion of privacy or freedom

It is possible to be strongly pro-freedom and pro-privacy, and yet be relatively unconcerned when Communists' privacy is violated. Life is too short to waste much time worrying about the freedom and privacy of people whose goal is to forever deprive all of us of ours.

To put it in perspective: during the time period when the Mean Old FBI spied on Poor Innocent Mesches, the regimes Mesches supported murdered tens of millions of their own citizens, launched horribly bloody wars in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and enslaved over a billion people. Mesches saw that, and decided "hey, looks good to me". But -- boo fuckin' hoo -- the FBI violated his "privacy".

I worry about the privacy of Communists, fascists, Nazis, et. al., solely because policies developed to deal with them can hurt innocents, too. Mesches isn't an innocent, so he can go fuck himself.

[thoreau]

Right, he isn't an innocent, but he isn't a threat either. He's a "useful idiot." And useful idiots can't cause too much damage. It's when they go beyond "useful idiot" to "actual terrorist" or "actual spy" that I worry.

Let me give you a concrete example of what happens when the FBI fails to properly allocate resources:

I've seen parts of my father's FBI file. Although I haven't seen it all, I'm given to understand that it was considerably less than 700 pages. And I can assure you that my father is a dangerous man who for many years was involved with dangerous people. (Nowadays he just does a little money laundering, plus maybe robbing his denial-prone second wife.) Maybe if the FBI had pulled some of the people investigating activists and put them on my father's tail they would have been able to put him away. My childhood would have been much happier, I can assure you.

Then again, perhaps the reason the FBI didn't give him more attention is that one of his friends used to work in law enforcement. I sometimes wonder if the cops waste time on "useful idiots" because "actual terrorists" are paying them off.

As an aside, I started supporting drug legalization when I learned that my despicable father made money off the drug trade. He's too lazy and thuggish for the above-ground economy, even too lazy to join the ranks of crony capitalists with government contracts. I want to flush all the money out of the black market that he thrives in.

[StMack]

Finally art I'd be delightedly amused to have funded by the NEA

[thoreau]

Why should this guy be upset over the gov't spying on him? Doesn't he know that if he hasn't done anything wrong he has nothing to worry about?

We are at war here, people, do I need to remind you of that? Just like we were at war during the cold war!

Hey, that seems to be the official stance of Hit and Run lately, I'm just trying to fall in line 😉

[dhex]

this is cool as hell.

though i have to wonder about something...

what the hell were they looking for that they couldn't find with all that time and effort?

[thoreau]

Dan-

I'm not upset that the FBI didn't bust him for drug charges. He's been involved in a lot of things, drugs being only the most profitable of his activities. It's the other things that I wish the FBI had gotten him for. I'm thinking of violent radicalism in the 1960's, plus some of the violent activities inherent in a black market, plus some other things that are not my story to tell. (They're somebody else's story.)

[Jesse Walker]

None of us here have read the Mesches files, but I can think of plenty of scenarios in which the FBI would be spying on the painter far later than the 1940s for reasons far less defensible than protection against Soviet espionage. The article states that Mesches was involved in the civil rights fight, for example, and Hoover's paranoia about that social movement is well-known.

[Jean Bart]

Dan,

"My point was simply that if non-FBI people are gathering the data, it does not require substantial FBI effort to stick the data in a folder. The fact that the FBI *normally* used informants is irrelevant -- it's like trying to use the fact that I hire people to mow my lawn to counter my claim that it doesn't take much effort on my part to have other people mow my lawn."

Again you fail to understand how intelligence gathering works; the fact that they normally use informants does not mean that FBI agents do not spend a lot of time working with those informants, etc. Indeed, turning someone, etc., is a great deal of work, and far more complicated than your rather moronic and otherwise poorly informed lawn mowing example. Please, please, please read book on how this works.

"There is no Constitutional protection against either (a) the government gathering publically-available information on you or (b) the government asking people questions about you. And naturally there's no Constitutional protection against other private citizens gathering information on you."

None of which of course addresses my statement at all; you need to check your signal to noise ratio.

"Your genocide apologetics continue to bore me. Perhaps one day you'll learn to actually blame the murderers for the murders. My guess, though, is that you'll remain an ignorant fuckwad."

If anyone is being an apologist for genocide its you. Indeed, I never claimed nor implied that the Khmer Rouge was not involved or the main perpetrator in genocide in Kampuchea (in fact, my language clearly states that the U.S. "significantly set the stage" for those events not that the U.S. was the sole cause for them - but thankyou for the completely dishonest reading of my statement); nevertheless, the U.S. has its own dirty hands in that event, and no amount of hiding on your part will cover that up. In other words, you are the ignorant fuckwad, not me.

"In the sense that we counter-attacked after Soviet and Chinese-backed rebels in those nations attacked us and our allies? Yes. Otherwise, no."

Actually, the reason why the U.S. started its secret operations in Cambodia and Laos was largely due to their use as supply lines for the. But one has to ask, what exactly did the Cambodians or the Laotians benefit from this policy (or the policy of the Soviets and the Chinese)? What we have here are the aforementioned innocent victims, of both sides. The U.S. did not help to save anything in SE Asia; it only added to the misery already there; and significantly aided in the de-stabilization of the region.

[Jean Bart]

Dan,

If you knew anything about intelligence gathering you would know that the primary job of an any agent is not to gather intelligence themselves, but to turn, coerce, etc. people to get it for them. Accordingly, your comment concerning their use of informants seems a bit off the mark.

I would think that one's political beliefs (as opposed to actions) are not a constitutional means by which to differentiate people.

The U.S. helped launch the wars in Cambodia and Laos; indeed, the U.S. significantly set the stage for the killing fields in Cambodia by undermining Prince Sihanook. Indeed, American and French involvement in SE Asia were just as important in the atrocious outcomes there as was Soviet involvement.

[Dan]

Right, he isn't an innocent, but he isn't a threat either

Here is an exhaustive summary of the evidence you used to reach that conclusion:

Mesches implied, but did not openly state, that he did nothing to merit being investigated.

... and that's all. For all we know, the FBI suspected him of smuggling military secrets in his artist's portfolio and could just never prove it. No, I'm not saying I trust the FBI or believe they must necessarily have done the right thing, but given a choice between trusting an FBI agent and trusting a Communist, I opt for the former until further evidence comes to light.

I've seen parts of my father's FBI file. Although I haven't seen it all, I'm given to understand that it was considerably less than 700 pages

Whatever. Post a URL to it and I'll judge for myself.

Also, you're using the present tense to refer to your father's criminal activities, which means either (a) his criminal career has lasted for half a century, which I doubt or (b) he wasn't a crook from 1945 to 1972, and his case is irrelevant to this discussion. The Hoover-era FBI was a LOT more obsessive-compulsive about gathering files on people than the modern FBI is.

Side note: you do realize how silly it is to claim to be "pro-legalization" AND to complain that the FBI isn't devoting as many resources to busting drug pushers as it devotes to tracking actual enemies of the United States... right?

[Dan]

the primary job of an any agent is not to gather intelligence themselves, but to turn, coerce, etc. people to get it for them. Accordingly, your comment concerning their use of informants seems a bit off the mark

My point was simply that if non-FBI people are gathering the data, it does not require substantial FBI effort to stick the data in a folder. The fact that the FBI *normally* used informants is irrelevant -- it's like trying to use the fact that I hire people to mow my lawn to counter my claim that it doesn't take much effort on my part to have other people mow my lawn. 🙂

I would think that one's political beliefs (as opposed to actions) are not a constitutional means by which to differentiate people.

There is no Constitutional protection against either (a) the government gathering publically-available information on you or (b) the government asking people questions about you. And naturally there's no Constitutional protection against other private citizens gathering information on you.

The U.S. helped launch the wars in Cambodia and Laos

In the sense that we counter-attacked after Soviet and Chinese-backed rebels in those nations attacked us and our allies? Yes. Otherwise, no.

the U.S. significantly set the stage for the killing fields in Cambodia by undermining Prince Sihanook

Your genocide apologetics continue to bore me. Perhaps one day you'll learn to actually blame the murderers for the murders. My guess, though, is that you'll remain an ignorant fuckwad.

[BadTux]

Uhm, Dan, we attacked Cambodia and Laos *LONG* before Nixon actively started bombing them. We overthrew the monarchy in Cambodia because it was not sufficiently anti-Communist for our tastes, then supported puppet governments that proved incapable of obtaining the support of their peoples and eventually collapsed. In Laos, the CIA actively conspired against the monarchy because it was not sufficiently anti-Communist (especially because the monarchy kept the Royal Laotian Army down near Vientienne rather than moving it up to block the Ho Chi Mihn Trail), and after the fall of Saigon, the weakened monarchy as a result voluntarily handed power over to the Pathet Lao.

Both Cambodia and Laos were innocent third parties that were being abused by both us and the Communists. They went into the Communist camp because we were, frankly, arrogant idiots who thought we could impose democracy at gunpoint and thus overthrew or refused to support governments that had the support of their peoples but that were insufficiently enthusiastic for our cause. Every bomb we dropped was one more vote for Communism in those countries. I see from current happenings in Iraq that we haven't learned our lessons yet about trying to impose democracy at gunpoint. (The likely outcome of that little fiasco is that we end up handing the reins over to a Shiite theocracy after the American taxpayers get tired of billions of dollars sinking into the sands and hundreds of bodybags coming back, year after year after year).

[Jean Bart]

BadTux,

What's interesting is that one man who could decently lead Cambodia, Prince Sihanouk, is now back in power, despite America's efforts in the 1970s to discredit, etc. him. I also find it interesting that in 1975, when the U.S. no longer needed the puppet government they set up in Cambodia, they left them twisting in the wind. There is the sad tale of the U.S. evacuating the embassy, while their puppets sat in disbelief at their abandonment in their government posts, the Khmer Rouge entering the capital as the U.S. left; of course what followed was nearly five years of genocide that only the Vietnamese stepped into stop.

[dhex]

i don't think one has to be a "genocidal apologetic" to be creeped out by the notion that liberty only belongs to people with the correct - according to dan - political outlook.

health of the state and all that.

[Fruchter Lev]

EMAIL: [e-mail]
IP: 193.251.169.169
URL: http://preteen-sex.info
DATE: 05/20/2004 10:24:12
People are just smart enough to not be happily ignorant.