FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin on Policing the New Left and Outmoded Police Practice: Complete 12 Issue Run, 1966

FBI Policing the New Left

Periodical

FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, complete 1966 run from the J. Edgar Hoover era, documenting the Bureau’s response to the New Left, civil disorder, criticism of police conduct, psychedelic drugs, and the modernization of American policing. The twelve issues pair Hoover’s warnings about civil disobedience, campus radicalism, and Communist organizing with practical instruction on police training, pursuit driving, criminal information systems, aviation, firearms, and administration. The May issue introduces the developing National Crime Information Center, while the October issue places Hoover’s attack on the “new left” beside an article on LSD and psychedelic drugs. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin. Vol. 35. Washington, D.C.: Federal Bureau of Investigation, United States Department of Justice, January to December 1966. Complete run of 12 monthly issues, Nos. 1 through 12, published under J. Edgar Hoover as Director. The January issue opens with Hoover predicting that 1966 might prove “one of the most significant in the annals of law enforcement” and addressing “unrest, civil disobedience, and violence,” criticism of “police brutality,” and the obligation of officers to resist political pressure while maintaining public trust. By May, the Bulletin announced the National Crime Information Center, then under development at FBI Headquarters, as a computerized national repository initially planned to contain information on stolen automobiles, other stolen property, and wanted persons; the Bureau expected limited operation by January 1967 and envisioned a network connecting Federal, state, and local police information systems. Other issues address a central controversy of the period, arguing against external civilian oversight of police while acknowledging complaints involving brutality and civil rights violations and noting that such allegations reported to the FBI were investigated for referral to the Department of Justice. The October issue brings political and cultural conflict into particularly close proximity. Hoover’s “Message From the Director” attacks renewed Communist Party organizing, campus activism, the W. E. B. DuBois Clubs, and what he calls the “new left,” while the issue’s lead article, San Francisco Police Inspector John F. Kerrigan’s “Some Observations on Psychedelic Drugs,” introduces police readers to LSD and other hallucinogens as an emerging law enforcement problem. The 1966 run records both the growth of centralized information systems in American policing and the expanding treatment of political conflict as a law enforcement concern. The May issue presents the proposed National Crime Information Center as the future “hub” of a national network based on uniform standards and rapid information exchange; NCIC began operating in 1967 and became a central component of national criminal justice infrastructure. At the same time, the Bulletin addressed police accountability, civil rights, campus radicalism, Communist influence, and psychedelic drugs within the same professional framework. Hoover’s language belonged to a broader FBI policy environment in which domestic counterintelligence expanded against civil rights and New Left organizations, a history later scrutinized by the Church Committee and followed by the 1976 Levi Guidelines restricting domestic security investigations. Light to moderate cover and edge wear, with occasional rubbing; internally complete. Overall good condition. A complete 1966 record of the FBI’s effort to modernize police information while defining political dissent, civil rights conflict, and emerging youth culture as matters of law enforcement.

Item #23772

Price: $485.00