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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLate Sen. Byrd's FBI files reveal CIA leak uproar
There was the Robert Byrd of the before and after. Thank God he decided to join our side.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd obtained secret FBI documents about the civil rights movement that were leaked by the CIA and triggered an angry confrontation between the two agencies in the 1960s, according to newly released FBI records.
Byrd, who died in June 2010 at age 92, had sought the FBI intelligence while suspecting that communists and subversives were guiding the civil rights cause, the records show. Decades before he became history's longest-serving member of Congress, or gained the title "King of Pork" for sending federal funds to West Virginia, the Democrat had stalled and voted against major civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s. He also belonged to the Ku Klux Klan while a young man in the 1940s, and the FBI cited that membership while weighing his requests for classified information, the records show.
"He eventually had a change of heart about a lot of that stuff," said Ray Smock, a former historian for Congress who now oversees Byrd's archives. Smock said Byrd's hardline belief in law and order played a role in his view of the civil rights movement. Byrd also repeatedly called his time with the hate group a serious mistake, Smock noted.
The FBI released more than 750 pages from its files many of them with words, sentences or entire paragraphs redacted in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by The Associated Press. The records date to the mid-1950s, when Byrd served in the U.S. House. He was elected to the first of his record nine terms in the U.S. Senate in 1958.
http://enews.earthlink.net/article/us?guid=20120804/20ffcfb7-7ad3-4bd9-9572-8c2734a02074
BlueToTheBone
(3,747 posts)to change his heart and mind.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)"Why can't a United State Senator, the best friend the FBI has in the Senate, get information directly from the FBI which he has already received from a third party," Byrd was quoted as saying. The memo said Byrd then showed the agent Xerox copies of two secret FBI investigative reports and one internal memo.
Major Hogwash
(17,656 posts)That's unbelievable, hiding crap from a U.S. Senator.
And now, they're hiding it from us, years after that Senator has passed away!!
Entire paragraphs redacted.
What the hell for??
At this late date??
Pterodactyl
(1,687 posts)Why, oh why, would we ever make an "ex" klan official a US senator?