I Was a Communist for the FBI: The Unhappy Life and Times of Matt Cvetic by Daniel J. Leab (review)

BOOK REVIEWS Daniel J. Leab. I Was a Communist for tbe FBI:Tbe Unhappy Life and Times of Matt Cvetic. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press,2000. 184 pp. ISBN: 0271020539 (cloth), $ 30.95. draft of history"that still holds up wellEric his 1956 work Tbe Crucial Decadea first Goldman noted that the McCarthy years were a time when " on all levels of society,the illtempered , the mean, the vicious in human beings pushed to the fore." That observation explains about as well as possible why an odious creature like Matt Cvetic was able to attain, however briefly, celebrity status in America and with it the power to destroy people' s lives. Cvetic, Daniel Leab concludes, " was very much a man of his time," and Leab's slim but meticulous examination of both the man and the time makes plain that the postwar Red Scare commonly dubbed McCarthyisrn catapulted Cvetic from his proper obscurity to a position of wholly undeserved prominence. ( 57) In a different era,Matt Cvetic never would have commanded respect and applause from the American media and Washington's elite. Even among the disreputable crew of professional anticommunists who named names for congressional committees and security agencies in the late 1940s and early 19504 Cvetic cut an unimpressive figure. He lacked Whittaker Chambers's gravitas,Elizabeth Bentley's idealism, Louis Budenz's industry, and above all Harvey Matusow's selfreproach . Unlike Matusow, who recanted his testimony and apologized for the suffering he caused, Cvetic never experienced any pangs of conscience. His only regret,often voiced, was that he had not " taken better care of Matt"that to say,obtained greater financial reward for his service as an FBI informant and subsequent career as a government witness. ( 95) The Cvetic who emerges from this book lacks any redeeming features. Leab depicts him as a liar,philanderer,deadbeat dad,and alcoholic who once pummeled his sisterin law badly enough to hospitalize her and who suffered recurrent bouts of mental illness. The foundation upon which Cvetic built his fleeting stardomseven years of work for the FBI during which time he infiltrated Pittsburgh's Comiriunist Partywas largely a shani. Leab reveals that Cvetic found out little about the purported secret activities of American communists and that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover fired him because of his erratic behavior in early 1950. Hoover did, however, arrange for Cvetic to appear befc, re the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities and, as Leab puts it, " otherwise to cash in on his years of undercover work. 27) In the event,Cvetic cashed in more handsomely than the Bureau had anticipated. He made dozens of appearances before various cornmittees and fingered about three hundred people as communists,attracting massive press attention. The Saturday Evening Post ran a threepart series detailing Cvetic's (mostly fictional) exploits; Warner Brothers bought the film rights and in 1951 released " I Was a Communist for the FBI"which portrayed Cvetic as singlehandedly saving Pittsburgh from the Red Menace: and the Ziv Company produced a radio series with the same title that ran tor seventyeight episodes and enjoyed one of the biggest budgets of its day. Cvetic earned hefty lecture fees,made numerous radio broadcasts, and even managed a respectable run for Congress. From 1 951 to 1955,he was one of the most admired men in America. Herein lies for Leab the true tragedy of the Cvetic story-" that the standards of American society 104 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY 1 WAS A had become so twisted that a Cvetic becomes a hero." ( 135) Cvetic won renown at a time when carnage in Korea, Soviet Hbomb tests,and seemingly daily crises over " hot spots"like Berlin and Taiwan lashed American anticommunism into a fury and fueled the hunt for subversives throughout the country. By the mid-1950s, however,the panic of the early cold war years had receded and Cvetic found it difficult to Stay in the spotlight. His fc, rmer boss, Hooverfed up with Cvetic's increasingly bizarre testimonyput a stop to his appearances before HUAC and other committees. Cvetic faded from the headlines, tried unsuccessfully to launch a comeback by shilling for Billy James Harcis's Christian Crusade, and died iii...