MAGGI PICAYUNE

This book was 30 years in the making thanks to the FBI stalling over the numerous FOIA requests Rosenfeld made; my review felt almost as long, I finished reading this in May and I had to rewrite this at least twice. It’s no surprise how much time Rosenfeld needed because the author uncovered many very damning facts. The big one being how much Reagan was Hoover’s lapdog. I’ve never found the GOP saint to be a champion of freedom, democracy or peace thanks to his unwavering support for murderous, embezzling foreign dictators (Guatemala, Philippines, Indonesia). Now there’s a book exposing Reagan’s larger involvement in domestic spying, snitching on his peers and proving his style of governance was more akin to the evil Communists he kept claiming were in league with LBJ’s Great Society.

Subversives focuses on the events at UC-Berkeley from the late Fifties to the early years of Reagan’s divisive time as governor. Thanks to the student demonstrations, the campus is still called the People’s Republic of Berkeley by the Right; I’ve also heard this jab for Madison and Austin. Throughout the Sixties university campuses staged protests over the Vietnam War, desegregation, poverty, free speech, etc. What made UC-B special were the numerous old-guard Right wingers who believed the widespread “national” unrest originated in Berkeley. In their delusional minds, this one particular branch of the UC system was the “test kitchen” of an internal Soviet menace. It’s easier to look back now and dismiss this kind of activity as inevitable when half of America was under 30.

After a quick primer on why Hoover had it out for UC-B in WWII, there’s a recap on Reagan’s past (“fighting” WWII from the safety of Fort Roach with the other chicken hawks, using his SAG officer status bone aspiring actresses 10-15 years younger than him and Nancy being pregnant before they were married). Allegedly Saint Ronnie was a Liberal who wised up. More like an opportunist not wanting to pay taxes. This sets the stage on why things would come to an ugly conclusion with Reagan’s 1966 election.

With the villains established, Rosenfeld introduces the narrative’s tragic hero, Chancellor Clark Kerr. Although Kerr was personally conservative and no fan of the hard left, he was a champion of academic freedom. One of his great quotes was, “The university is not engaged in making ideas safe for students. It is engaged in making students safe for ideas.” Pretty infuriating stuff to those who strived to oust him. Kerr’s long-term goal was to make UC-B the Ivy League school of the West Coast. When he fought back against loyalty oaths in the Fifties, the Uber Conservative Hearst faction was now hellbent on having him fired. They just had one major obstacle, Governor Pat Brown.

As the Fifties rolled into the Sixties, Kerr’s plan to accommodate the surge of college-age Boomers into the UC system through junior colleges and satellite campuses hits a snag called the Free Speech Movement (FSM). At the movement’s center was Mario Savio. To me, what Savio wants is what most intelligent people are good with…the right to speak freely, engage in honest conversations regardless of the political or philosophical alignment. A Communist wants to to debate Libertarian, sure, why not. The problem with Savio is he’s like most people in their teens-to-early twenties, he acts like a pain-in-the-ass absolutist incapable of compromise. I was the same way when I was younger. Mario Savio is famous for giving a speech about the university system being a factory and to defeat it, everyone needs to throw their metaphorical bodies on the gears to stop it. He’s partially correct to this day, American education continues to follow the flawed assembly-line strategy from what I can see going on at UT. But higher education doesn’t necessarily work like K-12, you get what you put into it. Maybe it was different in the Sixties from when I went in the Eighties.

Savio is also the embodiment of why I hate the Boomers. They’ve got their underpants in a  knot over segregation, Vietnam, poverty and so on. However, they have no plan to address these inconsistencies in America other than bitching and protesting. Then when the rubber meets the road, many transformed into what they hated (their parents), embraced Jesus in middle age and voted Republican. Plus someone like Savio wants an overnight solution to these woes which will take at least a generation to undo. All he succeeded in doing was being put on Hoover’s short list and giving votes to Reagan from people the Gipper would later screw over; the working class and the elderly.

Subversives entails other players such as the numerous sleaze bag FBI agents, the Hell’s Angels (I never knew they were pro-war, I figured they were apolitical like the Mafia), other Hippies and corrupt public officials. We know how it ends. Reagan becomes governor, Kerr is fired, Reagan introduces tuition into the UC system while slashing its budget, Hoover has an ally indebted to him so he can violate the law with impunity in California and the Sixties end as a decade of lost potential.

The things Rosenfeld uncovered were truly upsetting, namely Hoover’s system for rounding up those he considered enemies of the state should the nation go to war. All the Constitutional violations the FBI engaged in (and still does) so they could chase Hoover’s unicorns. My personal favorite highlights were Reagan’s blatant hypocrisy regarding “government dependency.” The FBI intervened several times on his behalf: investigating his daughter Maureen’s relationship with a married cop, tipping him off about his son Michael associating with the son of Joe “Bananas” Bonanno (a major Mob figure in NYC), feeding his campaign “intelligence” during the 1966 election.

It’s disgusting that the myth…no, the deification of Reagan continues 25 years after his retirement from the presidency. This book’s focus isn’t entirely about Reagan but it documents how he and his thugs came to power user our tax dollars. It also makes the case on how the FBI needs to be seriously purged. Their excesses have never stopped, they just get exposed every couple decades.

I highly recommend this as mandatory reading for real Liberals. Conservatives maybe but they’re too enamored of the B-Movie Star to understand reality. It explains why Reagan Flak and well-known know-nothingPeggy Noonan continues to be on TV.