Cold War feuds led to the FBI investigating accusations that the government was compromised by a network of secret socialists
Bureau’s “derogatory information” on CIA spymaster James Angleton remains classified more than 50 years later, and more than 20 years after his death
In the late ‘50s, a former Army Intelligence chief alleged that a secret cabal of socialists and Communists were infiltrating the government. As part of these allegations, the Federal Bureau of Investigation received 122 names, 119 of whom had a total of over 5,500 references in FBI files. Of these, there was derogatory information on 105 individuals, including some senior officials and even hardline anti-communists such as Central Intelligence Agency spymaster James Angleton.
The Bureau dismissed the accusations as the result of an interagency feud, and performed minimal research into them. However, the FBI did congratulate itself on having already been aware of most of the individuals and their alleged subversive tendencies, which included their sometimes having thoughts similar to those of socialists.
The Bureau believed that the allegations resulted from, or at least related to, what it described as a “feud” between CIA and G-2 (Army Intelligence). This feud including General Arthur Trudeau, who made the accusations, being relieved of his command and transfer as a result of charges made by CIA Director Allen Dulles. FBI redacted the charges as classified.
Trudeau’s charges alleged “that certain individuals in and out of Government were influencing the United States to take a soft policy against Soviet Russia and world communism.” The General provided a number of names, some with alleged “Fabian socialist leanings and possible some with communist leanings.” These individuals had allegedly penetrated policy making government organizations, including in the State Department and CIA, as well as a number of academic institutions that did research for the Government.
These “Fabian socialists” used tactics of patient concession, compromise and avoid of conflict while permeating society with socialist ideas to create “a slow, steady, peaceful transformation of the social order from capitalism to socialism.” The name was taken from the Roman general Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus famous for weaponizing patience against Hannibal.
The FBI saw “no urgency” in the Trudeau’s claims, which were essentially investigated in the Bureau’s spare time. In the end, the FBI concluded they’d already looked at most of the individuals.
https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2018/oct/30/fbi-angleton-fabian-society/