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Raw. Nixon had a valid point in objecting to any dissemination of raw files. Yet so far the only FBI information that Gray has furnished to the Senators has been not raw, hearsay material but conclusions drawn from admissions made by men like Kalmbach and Chapin to FBI agents. The President raised no objection when the White House received those even rawer Democratic telephone transcripts.
Nixon repeated his insistence that Dean, as his counsel, cannot be questioned by Congress about the Gray nomination. He challenged the Senators to take the matter to court if they wish. There is little chance that they will do so over the Gray hearings, but North Carolina Senator Sam Ervin, who is just beginning a Senate investigation of the entire Watergate matter, has indicated that his special committee will probably seek such a judicial showdown. If Gray does not withdraw, there will be a strong move in the Senate to delay any final action on his nomination until after Ervin's committee reports on Watergate—which may not be until next year. The FBI could hardly function effectively that long while its leadership remained in doubt.
Certainly, Patrick Gray seems too compromised to regain the confidence of either the FBI or of much of the public. But his withdrawal or rejection would not resolve the basic questions about the kind of leadership that the FBI needs, the role that it should play or how it can be supervised by higher authority without becoming politicized.
To deplore a politically subservient Gray is not to exalt an autocratic Hoover. There is too much potentially dangerous power in such a large force of skilled agents, such a vast collection of incriminating or harassing information about so many people, to allow the FBI to become either the vehicle of one man's whims or the tool of any Administration's political ambitions.
Does the FBI need to be so large and collect so much data? As long as so many offenses are considered federal crimes—ranging from the most petty violation on any Indian reservation to draft dodging, espionage, gambling, and every burglary involving more than $5,000—some federal agency must gather evidence to enforce the law. Certainly, the mobility and connections of criminals are so extensive today that state and local police cannot be expected to cope with all the federal-law violators. To create multiple investigative agencies for various classes of crime would be wasteful and could create pointless rivalries. Some modernization of federal criminal codes could ease the burden, however, by eliminating such mainly victimless crimes as gambling and prostitution.
An argument can be made for relieving the FBI of its jurisdiction over subversive activities and violence-prone radicals. Generally, the FBI has been much more effective in investigating conventional criminals than in the far trickier business of distinguishing between those who advocate violence and those who merely exercise their freedom of speech. Indeed, the FBI has fumbled this task, partly because it gets little firm guidance from Justice Department attorneys charged with prosecuting nebulous conspiracy laws.