Woody Guthrie's Post-1950's FBI File Once More

In a July 15, 1946 letter, Woody Guthrie wrote the following:

“I think that I have proved that a folk singer, to sing best what the people have thought and are thinking, is forced to turn his back on the bids of Broadway and Hollywood to buy him and his talents out. I feel like my work in this field will someday be seen as the most radical, the most militant, and the most topical of them all…

“Every folk song that I know tells how to fix some things in this world to make it better, tells what is wrong with it, and what we’ve got to do to fix it better. If the song does not do this, then, it is no more of a folk song than I am a movie scout…

“When you ask yourself which of the so-called folk singers live up to the real name, you can cross lots of their names entirely off of your list…Ask yourself, does the singer, (artist or poet), take part in the fight to win a better world for the worker? There is only one big fight with a million and one legs to it, the fight of the worker to win his fair share from his owner (boss, etc.). The more the owners allow a singer to be heard around, the less he can sing the tale of the worker’s fight. Before your voice can be heard or your face fotographed, you must actually turn into a weapon of the owner against the workers. I know from a hundred cases of my own experience that any work of protest, fight, militance or plan for the worker, was blue penciled, and censored a dozen times. Any word that was too true, too strong, or too loud in criticizing the world owned by the big boss was scratched out by several hands under a thousand reasons.”
Coincidentally, among the pages contained in Woody Guthrie’s declassified post-1950s FBI file (#100-29988) is an April 10, 1951 memorandum from the FBI’s New York City office to the FBI Director on the subject “Woodrow Wilson Guthrie, Security Matter,” which states that “It is recommended that a Security Index Card be prepared on the above captioned individual.” This April 1951 document also categorizes Woody as “Communist,” indicates that “49 Murdock Court, Brooklyn, NY” is now Woody’s residence address and lists Woody’s “business address” as “Free Lance Folk Singer.”

For more information about Woody Guthrie’s historical contribution to U.S. musical history, you can check out the official Woody Guthrie site at www.woodyguthrie.org.

Next: Grit TV Host and Blue Grit Author Laura Flanders: A 1991 Downtown Interview—Part 4

Woody Guthrie's Post-1950's FBI File

In a July 15, 1946 letter, Woody Guthrie wrote the following:

“It is not just a question of you, as an artist, selling out, and becoming harmless to the owning side. No, you are never actually bought nor bribed till they have decided that they can use you in one way or another to rob, to deceive, to blind, confuse, to misrepresent, or just to harass, worry, bedevil, and becloud the path of the militant worker on his long hard fight from slavery to freedom. Your art helps to preserve, to prolong, to keep alive, and to glorify the essences and the principles of the owning, ruling side. If your art did not add new life to their side, kid not yourself, they would certainly never shake your hand and drop their bloody money down into your lap. And it is the highest form of your owner’s joy when he buys you out from the union side (where you) have spent several years of your life getting people to follow, to hear, or to stand for a while and listen to what you have to say, or to live their lives in spirit and in action in the way that you lived your own. This makes you worth lots more to your owner…

“This is the bad part of a capitalist system, this dog eat dog, this spying, tracing, tracking and trailing after one another always under the covers of night and the shades and shadows of day…This is the system which the owners would like to prolong, to keep alive, to prolong as long as they possibly can, because in the wild blindness of it all, they get all of us to fighting against one another, and rob us coming in the fields of production, and going, in the realm of distribution. This is the system I would like to see die out. It killed several members of my family, it gassed several and shell shocked several more in the last world war, and in this world war just past, it scattered lots more. It drove families of my relatives and friends by the hundreds of thousands to wander more homeless than dogs and to live less welcome than hogs, sheep, or cattle. This is the system I started out to expose by every conceivable way that I could think of with songs and with ballads, and even with poems, stories, newspaper articles, even by humor, by fun, by nonsense, ridicule and by any other way that I could lay hold on.”
Coincidentally, among the pages contained in Woody Guthrie’s declassified post-1950s FBI file (100-29988-5,6,7,8) is a June 2, 1950 memorandum sent to the FBI Director by the FBI’s Los Angeles office on the subject “Woodrow Wilson Guthrie, Woody Guthrie, Security Matter,” which states:

“Re: El Paso letter to New York dated 2-15-50 in captioned matter, report of Special Agent [censored] dated 4-30-50 at Los Angeles entitled `Factionalists Sabotage Group,’ Internal Security-C:
“On April 18, 1950 CNDI [censored] identified a photograph of GUTHRIE as being the individual to whom he had previously referred to as (WOODY), and who was a member of the Factionalist Sabotage Group. According to CNDI [censored] GUTHRIE from approximately April 15, 1950 to May 15, 1950 resided at the home of [censored] Los Angeles, California, and an individual who has also been identified as a member of the above group.
“On May 15, 1950 CNDI [censored] ascertained that GUTHRIE left Los Angeles on that date and on May 18, 1950 CNDI [censored] was advised by [censored] that GUTHRIE was in El Paso, Texas where he would contact his children and former wife. Reference telbu reflects that GUTHRIE’s children resided at 4002 Bliss Street, El Paso, Texas.
“For the information of the El Paso office CNDIS [censored] have furnished this office since [censored] with information concerning a group of approximately thirty men and women, some veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and expelled Communist Party members who are regularly meeting in Los Angeles. According to [censored] this group has a headquarters in Mexico City, Mexico, and one of the group [censored], known to your office, left Los Angeles in December 1949 to work in this headquarters; her residence has been verified in Cuernevaca, Mexico.
“The [censored] of this group, [censored] has advised CNDI [censored] that the ultimate purpose of this group is sabotage against the United States during war with Russia and has outlined to him group policy in recruitment, method of operation, publications, finances, and has advised the informant that his group has a direct contact with the `Comintern.’
“By letter dated May 15, 1950 in the referenced matter the Bureau requested that individual investigations be opened concerning members of this group and security index cards be considered.
“El Paso is requested to verify the residence of the subject in El Paso through [censored], El Paso County Court House, El Paso, Texas, it being noted that [censored] has previously furnished your office with information regarding GUTHRIE.

“Upon receipt of this verification, Los Angeles will submit a RUC report covering GUTHRIE’s activities known to this office.”
And a July 21, 1950 memorandum to the FBI Director from the FBI’s Los Angeles office on the same subject states:

“Rebutel dated July 14, 1950, entitled `FACTIONALIST SABOTAGE GROUP, INTERNAL SECURITY C ‘Bufile 100-369268’…

“CNDI [censored] on July 4, 1950, advised he had ascertained from [censored], also a member of the referenced group, that the subject was presently residing at 3520 Mermaid Avenue, Brooklyn 24, New York.

“A pending report setting out leads to verify the subject’s residence in New York is presently being transcribed and will be forwarded to the New York and El Paso Offices at an early date.”
Also included in Woody Guthrie’s declassified post-1950’s FBI file is an August 3, 1950 document summarizing the articles that appeared in the left-wing Daily People’s World in 1948 and 1949 that either mentioned Woody or were written by Woody; and which states that “T-1 advised that he specifically recalls Guthrie having attended” six political meetings between March 26, 1950 and May 6, 1950 that were held at 932 or 932 ½ North Lucile Ave. in Los Angeles. Yet this August 3, 1950 admits that “[censored] Guthrie [censored] advised that he personally has never, [censored] made any statement relative to sabotage…”

For more information about Woody Guthrie’s life and work, you can check out the official Woody Guthrie site at www.woodyguthrie.org .

Next: Grit TV Host and Blue Grit Author Laura Flanders: A 1991 Downtown Interview—Part 1

Woody Guthrie's FBI File Revisited

In a July 15, 1946 letter, Woody Guthrie wrote the following:

“I have decided, long ago, that my songs and ballads would not get the hugs and kisses of the capitalistic `experts,’ simply because I believe that the real folk history of this country finds its center and its hub in the fight of the union members against the hired gun thugs of the big owners. It is for this reason I have never really, sincerely, expected nor dimly prayed, nor hoped for a single solitary minute for a penny’s worth of help from the hand of our landlord and ruler….
“To the big owners, an artist of any note or fame, that can be said to work or fight over on the union side, is classed by the big boys as a soldier, a technical, or an artistic captain or a general. The money paid to clip off working class artists may start at a measley Ten or Fifteen Thousand, and run up very quick to the sum of, A Hundred, Two Hundred Thousand, or a Half Million long greens. (This is no money at all to the big handlers that toss bales of money back and forth across their tables to the tune of a Million, a Billion, or more, Dollars)….
“It is not only a question of buying you and your art out of circulation, to keep you from stirring up your people against their blind owners; it is, lots of times a question of blocking your hand on every side, or causing you to get all lost and tangled up in a thousand traps of their psychological, emotional, economical, legal and illegal sorts of personal warfare. This will take the form of bribery, social disgrace, exposes’, running down your work, discouraging your talents, and insulting you on every turn.”
Coincidentally, among the 55 pages contained in Woody Guthrie’s de-classified FBI file (100-29988-5) is a July 15, 1943 Memorandum for E.A. Tamm, regarding “Department of Agriculture Nationwide Production `It’s Up To You’,” from D. M. Ladd of the FBI which states:

“I am attaching a program of the production `It’s Up To You,’ which was staged at the Department of Agriculture Auditorium in Washington, D.C. for a ten day period commencing on June 22, 1943. The production was attended by Special Agent [censored] and because of the tenor of the production Agent [censored] checked the Bureau file and ascertained that the following named individuals connected with the production of this show are either closely associated with the Communist Party or members thereof: Earl Robinson, Woody Guthrie…

“…In November, 1942 the Baltimore Field Office reported that through the medium of a confidential informant it was learned that a mass meeting was held at the negro Elk’s Hall in Baltimore, on which occasion the speakers were James Ford, an official of the Communist Party, USA, and Woody Guthrie. Guthrie is identified as having associated with one John R. Forrest, a song writer…Forrest is the subject of a Bureau file and is closely associated with Communist and Communist infiltrated groups in and around Los Angeles, California. Guthrie has been a resident of both New York City and Los Angeles.”
For more information about Woody Guthrie’s life and his historical impact on U.S. cultural life, you can check out the official Woody Guthrie website at www.woodyguthrie.org

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Woody Guthrie's FBI File

In a July 15, 1946 letter, Woody Guthrie wrote the following:

“I have never sung nor made songs just to entertain the upper classes, but to curse their clawing, reckless racketeers, and to warn the nervous ones that live and die by greed....

“Not all of us folk and ballad makers and singers stand where I stand. Not all of them see the world as I see it. Some would rather be a `character’ and to be fotographed and filmed, broadcast and recorded, and paid big money by the big money side. They would rather occupy a certain social position, to be well known, to play the game of publicity gangsters and to enjoy the crowds that clap and yell when you tell them directly or indirectly that this old world is okie dokie, she is all right, she is a nice good place to live on, and if you kick or argue, or make too much noise with your mouth, then you are just a native barnkicker, and a griper, and you are kicked out by your own inability to `cooperate’ with the high moguls…

“If your work gets to be labeled as communist or even as communistic or even as radically leaning in the general direction of bolshevism, then, of course, you are black balled, black listed, chalked up as a revolutionary bomb thrower, and you invite the whole weight of the capitalist machine to be thrown against you…”
Coincidentally, among the 55 pages in Woody Guthrie’s de-classified FBI file [100-29988] , is a July 18, 1941 “Memorandum to Mr. Matthew F. McGuire, The Assistant to the Attorney General” from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover which states:

“From a confidential source, information has been furnished this Bureau that one Woodrow W. Guthrie, who is employed by the Department of the Interior, is allegedly a member of the Communist Party. This individual is reported as being at the present time on the West Coast, engaged in the making of a motion picture for the Department of the Interior…”

Also contained in Woody Guthrie’s de-classified FBI file is an October 17, 1941 letter to the “Special Agent in Charge, San Francisco, California” from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, “Re: Woodrow W. Guthrie, Internal Security”, which states:

“…Guthrie is no longer an employee of another Governmental agency and in the event the files of your field division reflect the desirability of conducting an investigation into his activities and sympathies in order to determine whether they are inimical to the best interests of this Government you are at liberty to do so.”
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