The FBI’s “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” file

Yesterday, the FBI tweeted – without context –a link to their file on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Protocols of Learned Elders of Zion: https://t.co/BpI5Tc8oKc

— FBI Records Vault (@FBIRecordsVault) August 19, 2020

There is no problem, of course, with the FBI having a file on the famous antisemitic Russian forgery, nor in their making those files public. 

There is a serious problem with them tweeting out these copies without any context.

It included a number of different copies of the book, all of which had been sent to the FBI by either informants or US citizens who either wanted the FBI to know about the secret plot of Jews to control the world, or who were asking whether the book was true.

Here is part of a 1949 letter by a Clarence Fausett, typed up for the FBI from a handwritten original, where he wanted to make sure that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was aware of this Jewish/Communist conspiracy.

 

The FBI replied in Hoover’s name:

 

As with all of the copies of the letters that the FBI sent, at the bottom are notes about whether the FBI has any information on the correspondent.

The FBI continued to receive similar letters from the 1940s through the 1970s, not only about the Protocols only but also with copies of other antisemitic tracts, covered in this file.

The responses, by not mentioning that the book was a lie, can be construed as a tacit support for their contents.

 

Here’s a 1968 letter where the correspondent is pretty convinced that Jews are controlling the government already, and he hopes that J. Edgar Hoover can clean things up.

 

 

This portion of a 1964 letter to the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee was copied to the FBI. It was written by a woman who wanted to know if the Talmud says the horrible things that the antisemites claim it says.

 

On one occasion, a special agent sent a copy of the Protocols to FBI headquarters asking about it, and they responded with a reference to a book that discredits the work.

The file is an interesting slice of history of American antisemitism as seen through the letters of concerned, often anti-communist citizens. It is reasonable to ask whether the FBI should have answered the letters of those who honestly wanted to know whether the antisemitic works were legitimate – it would require the FBI to become a fact-checking organization for the entire country which is not its purpose, but its refusal to answer the questions may have contributed to antisemitism itself.