{"product_id":"the-burglary-the-discovery-of-j-edgar-hoovers-secret-fbi-9780804173667","title":"The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI","description":"\u003cb\u003eINVESTIGATIVE REPORTERS \u0026amp; EDITORS (IRE) BOOK AWARD WINNER - The story of the history-changing break-in at the FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, by a group of unlikely activists--quiet, ordinary, hardworking Americans--that made clear the shocking truth that J. Edgar Hoover had created and was operating, in violation of the U.S. Constitution, his own shadow Bureau of Investigation. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Impeccably researched, elegantly presented, engaging.\"--David Oshinsky, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review \u003cb\u003e- \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"Riveting and extremely readable. Relevant to today's debates over national security, privacy, and the leaking of government secrets to journalists.\"--\u003ci\u003eThe Huffington Post\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIt begins in 1971 in an America being split apart by the Vietnam War . . . A small group of activists set out to use a more active, but nonviolent, method of civil disobedience to provide hard evidence once and for all that the government was operating outside the laws of the land. The would-be burglars--nonpro's--were ordinary people leading lives of purpose: a professor of religion and former freedom rider; a day-care director; a physicist; a cab driver; an antiwar activist, a lock picker; a graduate student haunted by members of her family lost to the Holocaust and the passivity of German civilians under Nazi rule. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBetty Medsger's extraordinary book re-creates in resonant detail how this group scouted out the low-security FBI building in a small town just west of Philadelphia, taking into consideration every possible factor, and how they planned the break-in for the night of the long-anticipated boxing match between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali, knowing that all would be fixated on their televisions and radios. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eMedsger writes that the burglars removed all of the FBI files and released them to various journalists and members of Congress, soon upending the public's perception of the inviolate head of the Bureau and paving the way for the first overhaul of the FBI since Hoover became its director in 1924. And we see how the release of the FBI files to the press set the stage for the sensational release three months later, by Daniel Ellsberg, of the top-secret, seven-thousand-page Pentagon study on U.S. decision-making regarding the Vietnam War, which became known as the Pentagon Papers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Burglary\u003c\/i\u003e is an important and gripping book, a portrait of the potential power of non­violent resistance and the destructive power of excessive government secrecy and spying.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eBetty Medsger first wrote about the Media files as a reporter at \u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e in 1971. She is a founding member of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) and founder of the Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism at San Francisco State University, where she was chair of the Department of Journalism. She is the author of \u003ci\u003eWomen at Work, Framed: The New Right Attack of Chief Justice Rose Bird and the Courts \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eWinds of Change: Changes Confronting Journalism Education. \u003c\/i\u003eShe lives in New York with her husband, John T. Racanelli.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50461179314450,"sku":"9780804173667","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_d6e14c83-7685-4de8-8d83-ed165cd7cd5b.jpg?v=1730059136","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-burglary-the-discovery-of-j-edgar-hoovers-secret-fbi-9780804173667","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}