The FBI released its files on Gordon B. Hinckley last week in response to a FOIA request from the Salt Lake Tribune. Apparently the FBI conducted a background check on President Hinckley in 1951 in order to ensure he wasn’t a communist and clear him for a potential position with Voice of America. The results… no dirt. The verdict seemed to be that this Gordon B. Hinckley was a “loyal American” whose reputation and work ethic were unimpeachable. The whole (slightly redacted) file is pretty interesting and definitely worth a look.
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Interesting. And I find it comical that they deleted the name of his wife.
I did a FOIA request on Ezra Taft Benson a couple months ago and so far have gotten have of the documents. If for nothing else, it’s good for a chuckle to see the kind of investigations that take place.
These guys are just as boring as they seem. I’d be interested to see the E.T. Benson documents, especially since his government involvement was cabinet level.
Signature published a limited edition volume of the Ezra Taft Benson FBI files this year. I understand that there wasn’t anything particularly earth-shattering.
I don’t understand why these things are released instead of destroyed. The release of such files is 1,000 times the incursion upon privacy that the compilation of them was. And if historical interests dictate that such things be released to the public, one year from the death of the subject is far too short a time. Twenty or fifty years might be about right.
I expect to see this in an anti-Mormon tract soon. FBI INVESTIGATED MORMON “PROPHET” !
Interesting. I tend to agree with John on this. So you’ve got reams of papers delving into someone’s life–just to show, “THERE’S NOTHING TO SEE HERE!”
Joe Cannon seems to have had a newsgasm over this, I’ve never seen so many stories in my RSS feed from the Deseret News regarding the investigation into GBH’s background.
Background check Joe. Move along, Move along.
Anyone applying for a government job gets a background check. This has got to be the biggest non-story I’ve ever seen in a newspaper.
If that’s a “pretty interesting” file I would hate to see a dull one. The Trib’s headline was comical though (something like “GBH Investigated By FBI to See if He was a Spy.” It might as well have been “Hinckley Investigated by FBI to see if he Murdered Puppies and Smoked Grass With Cab Calloway while Sacrificing Goats to Satan.” Turns out they didn’t find any evidence of those things either, but they might have.
I thought reading through the contemporary assessments of Gordon B. Hinckley from friends, colleagues, associates, etc. was pretty fascinating actually. Perhaps I’m a history geek though.
Hinckley investigated by FBI to see if he worshipped alien lizards in extensive underground tunnels.