A Reporter's Last Battle

Why the FBI wants to search the private papers of the late investigative journalist Jack Anderson

Investigative reporter Jack Anderson made a 50-year career of annoying officialdom. President Nixon put him near the top of his enemies list, prompting a wry and very Andersonian response: "Maybe it was alphabetical." With characteristic restraint, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover said the columnist was "lower than the regurgitated filth of vultures." But Anderson has now performed a feat of Mau-Mauing perhaps unique among all muckrakers: he is irritating the government from the grave. You see, Anderson died four months ago at age 83.

In February the FBI contacted Anderson's family to request that agents be allowed to search his files for...

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