The Gordon File

A Screenwriter Recalls Twenty Years of FBI Surveillance

Biography & Memoir
Cover of the book The Gordon File by Bernard Gordon, University of Texas Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Bernard Gordon ISBN: 9780292744257
Publisher: University of Texas Press Publication: October 1, 2008
Imprint: University of Texas Press Language: English
Author: Bernard Gordon
ISBN: 9780292744257
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Publication: October 1, 2008
Imprint: University of Texas Press
Language: English
For twenty-six years, the FBI devoted countless hours of staff time and thousands of U.S. taxpayer dollars to the surveillance of an American citizen named Bernard Gordon. Given the lavish use of resources, one might assume this man was a threat to national security or perhaps a kingpin of organized crime—not a Hollywood screenwriter whose most subversive act was joining the Communist Party during the 1940s when we were allied with the USSR in a war against Germany. For this honest act of political dissent, Gordon came to be investigated by the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1952, blacklisted by the Hollywood film industry, and tailed by the FBI for over two decades.In The Gordon File, Bernard Gordon tells the compelling, cautionary story of his life under Bureau surveillance. Drawing on his FBI file of over 300 pages, which he obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, he traces how the Bureau followed him from Hollywood to Mexico, Paris, London, Rome, and even aboard a Dutch freighter as he created an unusually successful, albeit uncredited, career as a screenwriter and producer during the blacklist years. Comparing his actual activities during that time to records in the file, he pointedly and often humorously underscores how often the FBI got it wrong, from the smallest details of his life to the main fact of his not being a threat to national security.Most important, Gordon links his personal experience to the headlines of today, when the FBI is again assuming broad powers to monitor political dissidents it deems a threat to the nation. "Is it possible," he asks, "that books like this will help to move our investigative agencies from the job of blackmailing those who are critical of our imperfect democracy to arresting those who are truly out to destroy us?"
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
For twenty-six years, the FBI devoted countless hours of staff time and thousands of U.S. taxpayer dollars to the surveillance of an American citizen named Bernard Gordon. Given the lavish use of resources, one might assume this man was a threat to national security or perhaps a kingpin of organized crime—not a Hollywood screenwriter whose most subversive act was joining the Communist Party during the 1940s when we were allied with the USSR in a war against Germany. For this honest act of political dissent, Gordon came to be investigated by the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1952, blacklisted by the Hollywood film industry, and tailed by the FBI for over two decades.In The Gordon File, Bernard Gordon tells the compelling, cautionary story of his life under Bureau surveillance. Drawing on his FBI file of over 300 pages, which he obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, he traces how the Bureau followed him from Hollywood to Mexico, Paris, London, Rome, and even aboard a Dutch freighter as he created an unusually successful, albeit uncredited, career as a screenwriter and producer during the blacklist years. Comparing his actual activities during that time to records in the file, he pointedly and often humorously underscores how often the FBI got it wrong, from the smallest details of his life to the main fact of his not being a threat to national security.Most important, Gordon links his personal experience to the headlines of today, when the FBI is again assuming broad powers to monitor political dissidents it deems a threat to the nation. "Is it possible," he asks, "that books like this will help to move our investigative agencies from the job of blackmailing those who are critical of our imperfect democracy to arresting those who are truly out to destroy us?"

More books from University of Texas Press

Cover of the book Brazil and the World System by Bernard Gordon
Cover of the book Nabokov's Fifth Arc by Bernard Gordon
Cover of the book Imagining Literacy by Bernard Gordon
Cover of the book Big Thicket Guidebook by Bernard Gordon
Cover of the book Despite this Flesh by Bernard Gordon
Cover of the book Palestinian Lawyers and Israeli Rule by Bernard Gordon
Cover of the book Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian Reality by Bernard Gordon
Cover of the book The Best I Recall by Bernard Gordon
Cover of the book Cooking Texas Style by Bernard Gordon
Cover of the book Voices from the Global Margin by Bernard Gordon
Cover of the book The Poetics of Appearance in the Attic Korai by Bernard Gordon
Cover of the book Eavesdropping on Texas History by Bernard Gordon
Cover of the book Arab Responses to Fascism and Nazism by Bernard Gordon
Cover of the book Experimental Latin American Cinema by Bernard Gordon
Cover of the book Between Art and Artifact by Bernard Gordon
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy