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Marguerite Higgins, who was formerly employed by the New York Herald Tribune. Miss Higgins is widely known around Washington. Her reputation is spotty. The newspapermen refer to her as ‘mattress-back Maggie.’ She is currently married to retired Lieutenant-General William E. Hall. Miss Higgins is very close to Peter Lisagor … My source feels that Miss Higgins obtained this information from her husband …

Citizens who sent telegrams to the President criticizing policy would have been appalled to know the FBI ran checks on them. So would members of the U.S. Senate, had they known how Johnson sat in the White House chuckling over FBI reports on their sex lives. He would slap his thigh in delight as he read about a senator’s visits to a brothel.

A 1968 memo, reporting presidential curiosity about Senators Stephen Young and William Fulbright, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, sums up the conspiratorial atmosphere:

Marvin Watson [presidential aide] called last night at 7 P.M. Watson stated that he and the President wanted to make certain that the FBI understood that when requests were made by the President, Watson, or Mrs Stegall [White House secretary], concerning matters of extreme secrecy, the FBI should not respond in writing by formal memorandum. Watson stated that what the President actually wanted was a blind-type memorandum which bore no government watermarks or letterhead signifying the source of the memorandum …’

Edgar simply scrawled ‘OK.’ This was a technique he had been using for decades. The President was soon bragging that he knew within minutes what Senator Fulbright had said at lunch at the Soviet embassy.

Never was secrecy more necessary to Johnson, or FBI acquiescence more unethical, than in August 1964, during the Democratic Convention in Atlantic City. When the delegates poured into town, FBI wiretaps and bugs were ready at key locations, with DeLoach heading a force of no fewer than twenty-seven agents, a radio technician and two stenographers. Secure phone lines linked a control center in the Old Post Office Building with the switchboards of the White House and FBI headquarters in Washington. After talks with the White House, Edgar was mounting a massive surveillance operation.

Johnson’s nomination was a foregone conclusion, but he was haunted by the memory of his defeat by the Kennedy brothers in 1960. ‘He was afraid,’ said Clark Clifford, ‘that because they had planned a tribute to John F. Kennedy and Bobby was to deliver it, he might very well stampede the Convention and end up being the vice presidential nominee.’ Waiting and watching in Washington, Johnson juggled the timetable to ensure nominations were completed before Robert Kennedy appeared to eulogize his dead brother. Only then did the President descend on Atlantic City to be acclaimed the victor.

Some wondered how Johnson had managed to manipulate the Convention so brilliantly. ‘The interesting question,’ wrote Walter Lippmann, ‘is why he had such complete control …’ The FBI files supply the answer.

‘We were able to keep the White House fully apprised,’ read a DeLoach report, ‘by means of informant coverage … by infiltration of key groups through use of undercover agents, and through utilization of agents using appropriate cover as reporters.’ ‘Through cooperation with the management of NBC News,’ read another memo, ‘our agents were furnished press credentials.’

NBC executives have denied all knowledge of this, suggesting that the phony passes were supplied by officials of the Democratic National Committee. DeLoach, for his part, has said the ruse proved very successful. We can only guess how often the FBI used this trick. Later, during the Nixon administration, an agent would be caught asking questions at a press conference.

While DeLoach has suggested the Bureau’s primary task at the Convention was to preempt violence, former Agent in Charge Leo Clark told a different story. He was warned in advance, he told a Senate committee, that the mission was to be concealed from the Secret Service. Prevention of violence was just