William C. Sullivan
Encyclopedia
William Cornelius Sullivan ( May 12, 1912 - November 9, 1977) was former head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
intelligence operations.
Born in Bolton
, Massachusetts
, Sullivan graduated from Hudson High School, and held advanced degrees from American University
and George Washington University
. He also held an honorary doctorate from Boston College
.
, when he was dispatched by J. Edgar Hoover
on an undercover intelligence mission to Spain
. Sullivan returned to bureau headquarters in Washington, D.C.
, and took the first in a series of administrative posts that ultimately included a decade as head of the domestic intelligence division starting in 1961, and a brief tenure as the bureau's third-ranking official behind Hoover, the director, and his longtime friend and confidant, Clyde Tolson
. According to his New York Times obituary, Sullivan was "the only liberal Democrat ever to break into the top ranks of the bureau."
laws in the segregated
south. This friction worsened as Sullivan made his opinions public. Whereas many bureau insiders considered Sullivan the logical successor to Hoover, on October 1, 1971. Sullivan's FBI career ended abruptly after Hoover fired him for insubordination and suspected disloyalty, and ordered the lock on his door changed and his nameplate removed.
Sullivan then became even more vocal about Hoover's controversial counterintelligence programs, collectively labeled COINTELPRO
, including some that he himself had conceived and administered. These were intended to spread confusion and dissension among extremist political groups in the U.S., ranging from the Communist Party (CPUSA) on the left to the Ku Klux Klan
on the far right. In 1975, he testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee, "Never once did I hear anybody, including myself raise the question, is this course of action which we have agreed upon lawful, is it legal, is it ethical or moral?"
, that contained secretly taped recordings of her husband Martin Luther King, Jr.
speaking with other women. In a memo, Sullivan called King "a fraud, demagogue and scoundrel". He also gave orders to track down fugitive members of the Weather Underground in the early 1970s.
According to his autobiography
, The Bureau: Thirty Years in Hoover's FBI, Sullivan felt that Samuel Pierce
, later to serve in the Ronald Reagan
Administration, would be a better representative for the civil rights movement than King. He wrote the following recommendation in a letter to Hoover:
It should be clear to all of us that Martin Luther King must, at some propitious point in the future, be revealed to the people of this country and to his Negro followers as being what he actually is - a fraud, demagogue and scoundrel. When the true facts concerning his activities are presented, such should be enough, if handled properly, to take him off his pedestal and to reduce him completely in influence. When this is done, and it can be and will be done, obviously much confusion will reign, particularly among the Negro people... The Negroes will be left without a national leader of sufficiently compelling personality to steer them in the proper direction. This is what could happen, but need not happen if the right kind of a national Negro leader could at this time be gradually developed so as to overshadow Dr. King and be in the position to assume the role of the leadership of the Negro people when King has been completely discredited.
For some months I have been thinking about this matter. One day I had an opportunity to explore this from a philosophical and sociological standpoint with an acquaintance whom I have known for some years.... I asked him to give the matter some attention and if he knew any Negro of outstanding intelligence and ability to let me know and we would have a discussion. He has submitted to me the name of the above-captioned person. Enclosed with this memorandum is an outline of (the person's) biography which is truly remarkable for a man so young. On scanning this biography, it will be seen that (Samuel Pierce) does have all the qualifications of the kind of a Negro I have in mind to advance to positions of national leadership....
If this thing can be set up properly without the Bureau in any way becoming directly involved, I think it would be not only a great help to the FBI but would be a fine thing for the country at large. While I am not specifying at this moment, there are various ways in which the FBI could give this entire matter the proper direction and development. There are highly placed contacts of the FBI who might be very helpful to further such a step. These can be discussed in detail later when I have probed more fully into the possibilities.'
Hoover had learned from the SOLO brothers, Morris and Jack Childs, who were members of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), but in fact were double agents working against the Soviet Active Measures program of the KGB
, that one of King's consultants, Stanley Levinson, was an important active member of the CPUSA. Annually, the Solo brothers would travel to Moscow
to pick up Soviet funding for CPUSA activities and distribute it on their return. Because such contacts suggested the civil rights movement was being co-opted by the CPUSA under the guidance of the KGB's Soviet Active Measures program, Attorney General
Robert F. Kennedy
ordered the tapping of King's telephone. The telephonic surveillance led to information concerning King's affairs , and the reason why Sullivan thought King unworthy of leading the movement and being "a fraud, demagogue and scoundrel." Realizing the danger to the movement, King's Number Two man, Rev. Ralph Abernathy
pleaded, on numerous occasions, that King cease and desist such behavior, as he was putting at risk the credibility of the movement. King refused, saying he did not care what people or the FBI thought. Abernathy wrote in his autobiography When the Walls Came Tumbling Down that King's problem with women plagued him even the night before his 1968 assassination, when he was visited by two women, ending up in a physical brawl with one of them. Eventually, King's behavior led J. Edgar Hoover to publicly call King a "notorious liar."
President Lyndon Johnson, not questioning the reason for Hoover's statement but realizing the political impact for the next election, forced Hoover to apologize. Hoover and King did meet at FBI Headquarters, but no one really knows what happened. Some say Hoover had all of King's files and telephone transcripts on his desk. In the last analysis, it wasn't Hoover who was responsible for gathering all the information on King, but Sullivan.
After Hoover's death in May, 1972, Attorney General
Richard Kleindienst
appointed Sullivan director of the newly created Office of National Narcotics Intelligence
under the Department of Justice
in June, 1972. Sullivan had hoped to replace Hoover as the bureau's director, but was passed over by President Richard Nixon
in favor of loyalist L. Patrick Gray
.
"Sullivan came to our house in the Maryland
suburbs in June 1972 for lunch and a long conversation about my plans for a biography of Hoover (a project I abandoned as just too ambitious an undertaking). Before he left, Bill told me someday I probably would read about his death in some kind of accident, but not to believe it. It would be murder.
"On November 9, 1977, twenty minutes before sunrise, sixty-five-year-old William C. Sullivan was walking through the woods near his retirement home in Sugar Hill, New Hampshire
, on the way to meet hunting companions. Another hunter, a twenty-two-year-old man using a telescopic sight on a .30 caliber rifle, said he mistook Sullivan for a deer, shot him in the neck, and killed him instantly... The authorities called it an accident, fining the shooter (the son of a state policeman) five hundred dollars and taking away his hunting license for ten years. Sullivan's collaborator on his memoir, the television news writer Bill Brown, wrote that he and Sullivan's family were "convinced" that the death was "accidental."
"Sullivan's death did not prevent publication of the memoir, telling all about the disgrace of J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI. After Watergate, with all the principals dead or out of office, it received little attention."
The hunter who shot Sullivan was named Robert Daniels, Jr. Sullivan was one of six current or former FBI officials who died in a six-month period in 1977.
Sullivan is buried in his family's plot at St. Michael Cemetery in Hudson, Massachusetts, with his wife, Marion Hawkes, as well as his parents, sister and other relatives.
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
intelligence operations.
Born in Bolton
Bolton, Massachusetts
As of the census of 2000, there were 4,148 people, 1,424 households, and 1,201 families residing in the town. The population density was . There were 1,476 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the town was 97.76% White, 0.19% African American, 0.05% Native American, 1.30%...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
, Sullivan graduated from Hudson High School, and held advanced degrees from American University
American University
American University is a private, Methodist, liberal arts, and research university in Washington, D.C. The university was chartered by an Act of Congress on December 5, 1892 as "The American University", which was approved by President Benjamin Harrison on February 24, 1893...
and George Washington University
George Washington University
The George Washington University is a private, coeducational comprehensive university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States...
. He also held an honorary doctorate from Boston College
Boston College
Boston College is a private Jesuit research university located in the village of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA. The main campus is bisected by the border between the cities of Boston and Newton. It has 9,200 full-time undergraduates and 4,000 graduate students. Its name reflects its early...
.
FBI career summary
Sullivan joined the FBI early in World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, when he was dispatched by J. Edgar Hoover
J. Edgar Hoover
John Edgar Hoover was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972...
on an undercover intelligence mission to Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
. Sullivan returned to bureau headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, and took the first in a series of administrative posts that ultimately included a decade as head of the domestic intelligence division starting in 1961, and a brief tenure as the bureau's third-ranking official behind Hoover, the director, and his longtime friend and confidant, Clyde Tolson
Clyde Tolson
Clyde Anderson Tolson was Associate Director of the FBI, primarily responsible for personnel and discipline. He is best known as the protégé of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.-Early career:...
. According to his New York Times obituary, Sullivan was "the only liberal Democrat ever to break into the top ranks of the bureau."
The break with Hoover
Sullivan claimed Hoover's concerns about the American Communist Party were overemphasized when compared to violations of Federal civil rightsCivil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
laws in the segregated
Racial segregation
Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...
south. This friction worsened as Sullivan made his opinions public. Whereas many bureau insiders considered Sullivan the logical successor to Hoover, on October 1, 1971. Sullivan's FBI career ended abruptly after Hoover fired him for insubordination and suspected disloyalty, and ordered the lock on his door changed and his nameplate removed.
Sullivan then became even more vocal about Hoover's controversial counterintelligence programs, collectively labeled COINTELPRO
COINTELPRO
COINTELPRO was a series of covert, and often illegal, projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations.COINTELPRO tactics included discrediting targets through psychological...
, including some that he himself had conceived and administered. These were intended to spread confusion and dissension among extremist political groups in the U.S., ranging from the Communist Party (CPUSA) on the left to the Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
on the far right. In 1975, he testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee, "Never once did I hear anybody, including myself raise the question, is this course of action which we have agreed upon lawful, is it legal, is it ethical or moral?"
Civil rights feuding
Sullivan was instrumental in the arranging for the mailing of a tape recording in 1964 to Coretta Scott KingCoretta Scott King
Coretta Scott King was an American author, activist, and civil rights leader. The widow of Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King helped lead the African-American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.Mrs...
, that contained secretly taped recordings of her husband Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for being an iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the...
speaking with other women. In a memo, Sullivan called King "a fraud, demagogue and scoundrel". He also gave orders to track down fugitive members of the Weather Underground in the early 1970s.
According to his autobiography
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
, The Bureau: Thirty Years in Hoover's FBI, Sullivan felt that Samuel Pierce
Samuel Pierce
Samuel Riley Pierce, Jr. was Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.-Early life:Pierce was an Eagle Scout and recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America. Pierce was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha social fraternity and Alpha Phi Omega service...
, later to serve in the Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
Administration, would be a better representative for the civil rights movement than King. He wrote the following recommendation in a letter to Hoover:
It should be clear to all of us that Martin Luther King must, at some propitious point in the future, be revealed to the people of this country and to his Negro followers as being what he actually is - a fraud, demagogue and scoundrel. When the true facts concerning his activities are presented, such should be enough, if handled properly, to take him off his pedestal and to reduce him completely in influence. When this is done, and it can be and will be done, obviously much confusion will reign, particularly among the Negro people... The Negroes will be left without a national leader of sufficiently compelling personality to steer them in the proper direction. This is what could happen, but need not happen if the right kind of a national Negro leader could at this time be gradually developed so as to overshadow Dr. King and be in the position to assume the role of the leadership of the Negro people when King has been completely discredited.
For some months I have been thinking about this matter. One day I had an opportunity to explore this from a philosophical and sociological standpoint with an acquaintance whom I have known for some years.... I asked him to give the matter some attention and if he knew any Negro of outstanding intelligence and ability to let me know and we would have a discussion. He has submitted to me the name of the above-captioned person. Enclosed with this memorandum is an outline of (the person's) biography which is truly remarkable for a man so young. On scanning this biography, it will be seen that (Samuel Pierce) does have all the qualifications of the kind of a Negro I have in mind to advance to positions of national leadership....
If this thing can be set up properly without the Bureau in any way becoming directly involved, I think it would be not only a great help to the FBI but would be a fine thing for the country at large. While I am not specifying at this moment, there are various ways in which the FBI could give this entire matter the proper direction and development. There are highly placed contacts of the FBI who might be very helpful to further such a step. These can be discussed in detail later when I have probed more fully into the possibilities.'
Hoover had learned from the SOLO brothers, Morris and Jack Childs, who were members of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), but in fact were double agents working against the Soviet Active Measures program of the KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
, that one of King's consultants, Stanley Levinson, was an important active member of the CPUSA. Annually, the Solo brothers would travel to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
to pick up Soviet funding for CPUSA activities and distribute it on their return. Because such contacts suggested the civil rights movement was being co-opted by the CPUSA under the guidance of the KGB's Soviet Active Measures program, Attorney General
Attorney General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general, or attorney-general, is the main legal advisor to the government, and in some jurisdictions he or she may also have executive responsibility for law enforcement or responsibility for public prosecutions.The term is used to refer to any person...
Robert F. Kennedy
Robert F. Kennedy
Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy , also referred to by his initials RFK, was an American politician, a Democratic senator from New York, and a noted civil rights activist. An icon of modern American liberalism and member of the Kennedy family, he was a younger brother of President John F...
ordered the tapping of King's telephone. The telephonic surveillance led to information concerning King's affairs , and the reason why Sullivan thought King unworthy of leading the movement and being "a fraud, demagogue and scoundrel." Realizing the danger to the movement, King's Number Two man, Rev. Ralph Abernathy
Ralph Abernathy
Ralph David Abernathy, Sr. was a leader of the American Civil Rights Movement, a minister, and a close associate of Martin Luther King, Jr. in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Following King's assassination, Dr. Abernathy took up the leadership of the SCLC Poor People's Campaign and...
pleaded, on numerous occasions, that King cease and desist such behavior, as he was putting at risk the credibility of the movement. King refused, saying he did not care what people or the FBI thought. Abernathy wrote in his autobiography When the Walls Came Tumbling Down that King's problem with women plagued him even the night before his 1968 assassination, when he was visited by two women, ending up in a physical brawl with one of them. Eventually, King's behavior led J. Edgar Hoover to publicly call King a "notorious liar."
President Lyndon Johnson, not questioning the reason for Hoover's statement but realizing the political impact for the next election, forced Hoover to apologize. Hoover and King did meet at FBI Headquarters, but no one really knows what happened. Some say Hoover had all of King's files and telephone transcripts on his desk. In the last analysis, it wasn't Hoover who was responsible for gathering all the information on King, but Sullivan.
After Hoover's death in May, 1972, Attorney General
Attorney General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general, or attorney-general, is the main legal advisor to the government, and in some jurisdictions he or she may also have executive responsibility for law enforcement or responsibility for public prosecutions.The term is used to refer to any person...
Richard Kleindienst
Richard Kleindienst
Richard Gordon Kleindienst was an American lawyer and politician.Born in Winslow, Arizona, he served in the United States Army Air Corps from 1943 to 1946...
appointed Sullivan director of the newly created Office of National Narcotics Intelligence
Office of National Narcotics Intelligence
The Office of National Narcotics Intelligence was a federal law enforcement agency under the Justice Department that dealt clandestinely in the domestic illegal drugs trade. ONNI was founded in August 1972 under order of President Richard M. Nixon. The agency was headed by former FBI intelligence...
under the Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
in June, 1972. Sullivan had hoped to replace Hoover as the bureau's director, but was passed over by President Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
in favor of loyalist L. Patrick Gray
L. Patrick Gray
Louis Patrick Gray III was acting Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from May 2, 1972 to April 27, 1973. During this time, the FBI was in charge of the initial investigation into the burglaries that sparked the Watergate scandal, which eventually led to the resignation of President...
.
Suspicious death
The following passages were published in 2007 by Robert D. Novak in his memoir, The Prince of Darkness."Sullivan came to our house in the Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
suburbs in June 1972 for lunch and a long conversation about my plans for a biography of Hoover (a project I abandoned as just too ambitious an undertaking). Before he left, Bill told me someday I probably would read about his death in some kind of accident, but not to believe it. It would be murder.
"On November 9, 1977, twenty minutes before sunrise, sixty-five-year-old William C. Sullivan was walking through the woods near his retirement home in Sugar Hill, New Hampshire
Sugar Hill, New Hampshire
Sugar Hill is a town in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 563 at the 2010 census. Sugar Hill is a venerable resort community which overlooks the White Mountain National Forest, with views of the Presidential, Franconia, Kinsman and Dalton ranges.- History :This town...
, on the way to meet hunting companions. Another hunter, a twenty-two-year-old man using a telescopic sight on a .30 caliber rifle, said he mistook Sullivan for a deer, shot him in the neck, and killed him instantly... The authorities called it an accident, fining the shooter (the son of a state policeman) five hundred dollars and taking away his hunting license for ten years. Sullivan's collaborator on his memoir, the television news writer Bill Brown, wrote that he and Sullivan's family were "convinced" that the death was "accidental."
"Sullivan's death did not prevent publication of the memoir, telling all about the disgrace of J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI. After Watergate, with all the principals dead or out of office, it received little attention."
The hunter who shot Sullivan was named Robert Daniels, Jr. Sullivan was one of six current or former FBI officials who died in a six-month period in 1977.
Sullivan is buried in his family's plot at St. Michael Cemetery in Hudson, Massachusetts, with his wife, Marion Hawkes, as well as his parents, sister and other relatives.
Publications
ISBN 4-87187-338-2- World Communism: Strategy and Tactics
- The Need to Teach About Communism in Our Schools
- The University, Communism and the Community: An Address at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, October 18, 1961
- "Freedom is the exception": Three lectures on the values of the open society