Thursday June 22 05:41 PM EDT
FBI Kept Tabs on Helen Keller
NEW YORK (APBnews.com) -- J. Edgar Hoover was so concerned with the
communist scare during the Cold War that his FBI even turned its suspicions
on Helen Keller, champion of the blind and handicapped.

Keller is best known for her heroic struggle to overcome a childhood
illness that left her deaf, dumb and blind, but the FBI was more concerned
with her support for the loyalist cause in the Spanish Civil War and her
supposed exultation upon entering the Soviet consulate in New York,
"Finally, I am on Soviet soil."

The FBI did not launch a full-scale investigation into Keller, but did keep
a 43-page file on her that includes a letter accusing her of being a member
of "the Communist, Nazi or Fascist parties." But she was in good company:
Also on the list were Albert Einstein and Mrs. Louis D. Brandeis, wife of
the Supreme Court chief justice.

The complete Keller file was obtained by APBnews.com through a Freedom of
Information Act request.

Conquered her 'no world'

Keller, born in 1880, was 19 months old when she was struck by a disease --
perhaps scarlet fever -- that robbed her of the ability to see and hear.
She would grow wild and unruly, caught in the dark and silent prison of her
mind that she described as "no world."

On the advice of Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, Keller
was placed in the care of his student Annie Sullivan. Sullivan helped teach
Keller to communicate with the outside world and unlock her inborn
intelligence -- earning Sullivan the title "The Miracle Worker," which
later became the name of famous play and film based on their relationship.

Keller went on to graduate cum laude from Radcliffe College and travel the
world fighting for her causes and receiving awards and honors.

But all was not rosy, at least in the eyes of the FBI.

'A true soldier'

According to a Feb. 8, 1943, FBI letter signed by a W.R. Glavin, Keller was
cited along with Einstein, Brandeis and 19 others for possible membership
in "the Communist, Nazi or Fascist parties." Also on the list were noted
civil rights workers and educators Mary McLeod Bethune and Charlotte
Hawkins Brown.

A later page accuses Keller of being a supporter of a group innocuously
known as the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, which is
accused of "supporting and defending Russian foreign policy" and opposing
American policy. She again finds herself among such well-known figures as
actor Raymond Massey, New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia and Einstein
yet again.

Another section, dated July 1, 1953, compiles a number of newspaper stories
that somehow connect Keller with communist organizations and people. Her
support of the loyalist cause in the Spanish Civil War -- the U.S.
supported the other side -- is of particular interest.

In one story from the communist newspaper The Daily Worker, she lauds a
fellow member of the Friends of the American Lincoln Brigade -- yet another
suspected communist organization -- for being "a true soldier in the cause
of Loyalist Spain."

A known socialist

There's no indication Keller knew the FBI was keeping a file on her, but
it's likely she would not have denied the files' allegations, said Jessica
Mathewson of the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB).

"She was known as a socialist in those days," said Mathewson, manager of
the AFB Library of Information Resources and the Helen Keller Archives.
"She was very forward-thinking, fighting for the rights of the disabled and
of women before it was a popular thing to do."

"She was linked with those organizations, and she probably wouldn't have
had a big problem being associated with them."

But Keller's support for communist and socialist causes, as with many
Americans in those days, was more idealistic than revolutionary. She hoped
to create a world where all people -- disabled, poor, repressed -- could
live in equality, said Mathewson.

In fact, there's evidence in the FBI file that her support of socialism did
not include support for the Soviet government. One story from the
Washington Star says she spoke out against a communist peace conference in
Vienna, calling it a "mask for the products of Stalinist propaganda."

Letter to Hoover ignored

Also in the FBI file are a number of letters Keller sent directly to
Hoover, requesting his help for the AFB.

In one, Keller pleadingly asks Hoover to use his power, influence and
"noble impulses" to help so that "those who cannot see and hear may regain
life's goodness and the dignity of useful work," and escape the "tomb of
the mind and a dungeon of the body."

When forwarded to Hoover, the curt reply was: "This letter not to be
acknowledged."


By Kenneth Pringle, managing editor of APBnews.com.


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