Letter and headline insult great agency

Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, June 12, 2002

I am insulted and offended by the letter to The Herald from Robert Glenn on June 7 (“FBI: A repository for the unemployable”). I dislike the caption placed over the letter by The Herald, even though you were paraphrasing Glenn’s words. This unnecessarily adds to his offensive material, in my personal opinion. However, I respect your right to do so.

I worked for over 30 years as an FBI agent and am proud of that service and the many fellow FBI employees with whom I served and still have as friends. I am also proud of the many accomplishments of the FBI over the years under the leadership of J. Edgar Hoover and a number of subsequent directors up to and including the present. Mistakes may have been made recently. Not only by the FBI, but many others unfortunately. However, this is no reason to castigate a great investigative agency and its many employees past and present.

Glenn takes it upon himself to reach conclusions that no one in the position to know has yet reached, to my knowledge. He says that the FBI’s “existing authority did in fact serve to uncover the planned attack against the United States previous to Sept. 11.” Glenn reaches heights beyond anything I have seen, heard or read: “FBI Agent Colleen Rowley reported everything but the exact minute of the plan to destroy strategic targets as early as Aug. 16.” I have read the Time Magazine’s summaries of her letter and I suspect that she would be surprised to hear what Glenn credits her with knowing.

The FBI is not a repository for the unemployable but a dedicated group of public servants who are generally considered to be among the world’s best. One only has to look to the many accomplishments past and present. Even out of some alleged failures to “connect the dots” this time, one has to respect the fact that it appears many of the pieces had and were being developed.

Glenn chooses to describe Mr. Hoover as “our nation’s first credentialed voyeur.” For Mr. Glenn’s information, these charges have long since been disproven and discredited and such an allegation is irrelevant and immaterial to his present complaint.

I would suggest, in the future, that Mr. Glenn might research and verify his facts before spreading so much misinformation and erroneous opinion.

Everett