Matt Cecil Papers

29.0 linear feet (29 records boxes)

The Matt Cecil Papers comprise photocopied Federal Bureau of Investigation files on hundreds of twentieth-century journalists, editors, broadcasters, publishers, news organizations, and related government officials, obtained by Matthew Cecil through the Freedom of Information and Privacy Acts. The materials document FBI monitoring, contacts, and public relations activities during the J. Edgar Hoover era and after. Inclusive dates span 1918 to 2000, with the bulk from the 1930s to the 1970s.

The collection consists of FBI case files, correspondence, memoranda, routing slips, teletype messages, surveillance reports, news releases, interviews, essays, investigations, clippings, and magazine tearsheets. Files are organized by creator or entity and include broadcasters, columnists, reporters, writers, cartoonists, editors, publishers, federal agents and government officials, news agencies, periodicals, and film, radio, and television programs. Examples include files on figures such as Steve Allen, Eric Sevareid, Dorothy Kilgallen, I. F. Stone, Westbrook Pegler, and Ed Sullivan; editors including James Wechsler and Freda Kirchwey; publishers including William Randolph Hearst and Katharine Graham; agencies and outlets such as Associated Press, United Press International, the Chicago Tribune, the New Republic, and the Nation; and entertainment properties and programs including the FBI radio series and television series and Hearst Metrotone News. Topic files include materials on public relations practitioners, academic and political figures, and organizations such as the Society of Former Special Agents. Documentation includes standard FBI redaction sheets inserted where pages were withheld under Title 5 U.S.C. 552 and 552a. Some photocopies are light or blurred as noted by FBI reproduction statements. A subset of folders is marked water damaged; papers are dry but warped and may be brittle.

The papers provide primary evidence of FBI interactions with and assessments of the news media, publishing, and entertainment industries, with emphasis on the Bureau’s public relations strategies during the Hoover era. The records support research on government and the press, media history, and the professional activities of individual journalists and editors. Topical coverage includes Communism, McCarthyism, organized crime, kidnapping, threats, the Kennedy assassination, and smear campaigns, offering source material for studies of twentieth-century American political culture, information control, and media influence.

This collection is arranged into series:

• Series 1. Broadcasters
• Series 2. Columnists, reporters, writers, cartoonists
• Series 3. Editors
• Series 4. Federal agents and Government officials
• Series 5. Publishers
• Series 6. News agencies
• Series 7. Periodicals
• Series 8. Television, radio, and film
• Series 9. Other

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Bibliography

• Cecil, Matthew, "Bad Apples: Paradigm Overhaul and the CNN/Time Tailwind Story." Journal of Communication Inquiry, 26, no. 1 (October, 2001): 46-58.
• Cecil, Matthew, "Friends of the Bureau: Personal Correspondence and the Cultivation of Journalist-Adjuncts by J. Edgar Hoover's FBI," Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 88, no. 2 (Summer 2011): 267-284
• Cecil, Matthew, "Justice in Heaven - The Trial and Execution of Ann Bilansky."Minnesota History 55, no. 8 (Winter 1997-1998): 350-363.
• Cecil, Matthew, "Monotonous Tale: Legitimacy, Public Relations, and the Shooting of a Public Enemy," Journal of Communication Inquiry, 28, no. 2 (April 2004): 157-162.
• Cecil, Matthew, 'The Path to Madness: McCarthyism and New York Post Editor James A. Wechsler's Battle for Press Freedom," Journal of Communication Inquiry, 35, no. 3 (July 2011): 275-291
• Cecil, Matthew, "Press Every Angle: FBI Public Relations and the Smear Campaign of 1958." American Journalism, 19 no. 1 (Winter 2002): 39-58.
• Cecil, Matthew, "Whoa, Edgar! The Des Moines Register and Tribune, Cowles Media, and J. Edgar Hoover's FBI," Annals of Iowa (Spring 2012)

Copyright and Use Statement

In Copyright This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses, you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

Materials in this collection may be subject to Title 17, Section 108 of the United States Copyright Act. Users are responsible for ensuring compliance with copyright, privacy, trademark, and other applicable rights for their intended use. Obtaining all necessary permissions is the user's responsibility. Written authorization from the copyright and/or other rights holders is required for publication, distribution, or any use of protected materials beyond what is permitted under fair use.