Transcripts For CSPAN3 The Idea Of Deep State In American History 20240713

Aaron owe control and teach at university of texas in austin. Im pleased to share this panel today on the deep state. Joining me here to talk about this quite important topic are three fantastic historians all of whom study politics and power in American History. Professor beverly gauge of yale. And balker of duke and p professor allen of Northwestern University. Im going to set the stage with four or five minutes of introductory remarks and then introduce each panelist individually before they speak 15, 20 minutes apiece and then well open the floor to discussion in this roundtable. Were here today to talk about the ore ethic origins and effects of what we call the deep state. This is not really new. Today we call it the deep state, in earlier eras activists spoke about the washington establishment, the power elite, the system, and even the military Industrial Complex. Even though those terms varied throughout the ages they usually share a lot in comment so the arguments that typically accompany these terms about the deep state or the washington system theyre almost always conspirity, almost always talk about a cabal in the government thats working in secret to drive policy towards their own ends, the cabals own ends, not the common good. The actual people in the deep state seem to range all over the map. Depending on the politics of whomever is talking. They could be the intelligence agencies, the cia, the fbi, the military, the National Security council, the bankers and the globalists, the fossil fuel companies, or unspecified elites, but they almost always have or are pursuing some sort of effort that undermines the government. The core message over and over again. Is that this cabal is either il legitimate itself, its making the government illedge il legitimate or in cahoots with those. The arguments really span the political divide. In this redblue state america, you can find common usage of the deep state on both sides. Today we hear mostly about it from donald trump and his allies in the Republic Party who want to cast doubt on lawful enforcement, fbi, at times cia. Not long ago there was a alleged compliance between deep state alliance with companies driving policy in iraq and even afghanistan. So where did these terms come from. How new are they . Did they come from the United States . Were they imported from outside the United States . And perhaps the most important question by my like even more important than asking where they came from is where are they going and what deeper cultureal currents are empowering and propelling these arguments forward, giving them force. cur propelling these arguments forward, giving them force. Al currents are empowering and propelling these arguments forward, giving them force. Historians like to look for what persistent on commonality persist over time that produce a common response even if it has different names in different places. Thats what were going to do with our introduction and remarks. Well speak about 15 minutes each and then open the floor to the audience and have a round table discussion on the deep state. So our first panelist is michael j allen, associate professor of history at Northwestern University where he researches the history, memory and politics of the american empire in the 20th century. Hes the author of until the last man came home. Pow. And i just want to add after teaching it this past semester for the first time it taught me an enormous amount about the strange, strange legacies about the pow flags i see in every cremet airy and parade i go to. Learned a lot about ross parot too. He is working on new book problem of democratic power. 19331981. It offers the first indepth study how debates sparked by america and vietnam altered the post World War Two u. S. Policy. So will talk about the legacy of distrust on the cold war era shape the conversation today. On the deep state today. Id like to start by thanking aaron for stepping in. Our original chair and commentator robert dean is unable to be here due to family emergency to call him away and aaron is generous enough to join us today and im sure he will add valuable insight to the conversation later. Let me get start sod we have plenty of time to have that conversation. My task here, i think, is in part to lay out the what the current conversation about the deep state is in the United States and talk about american thinking on this problem of state power, particularly in the post world war ii era and how it led us to the current moment. In the deep state, army of bureaucratic krats working with davey obrien defined his subject as the permanent class of democrats, republicans, federal bureaucratic kr bureaucrats a entrenched trying to destroy President Trump. Aided by trumps endorsement over twitter, debuted at 7 on the list joining book of the scheme to frame clinton and trump and debuted at one on the list spent ten weeks there and fox news, who had liars and leakers and liberals debuted at one and spent 13 weeks on the list. For those with the hand out you can see these are just three of the many, many books k. That have been published by trump insiders. Supporters. Fox news it analysts and the like. Over the past 18 months or so. These three titles which were all on the New York Times best seller list at the same time in the fall of 2018 improved on the performance of course killing the deep state, the fight to save President Trump which just spent three weeks on the New York Times list earlier in 2018 but like other trump operatives and supporters over the past year of course he had the distinction battling the deep state beyond the page having been called before a grand jury in testifying his role in coordinating the Trumps Campaign dealings with wiki leaks about plans to push russian hacked email to dnc servers in the 2016 election. Having argue in print the Russian Investigation was quote a deep state plan to put president under investigation with unlimited scope, unquote. Of course he couldnt be surprised when fbi agents knocked on his door with subpoenas to testify which he called to force lying testimony if thats what it takes to achieve deep state political objectives. After all special Counsel Robert Mueller was a deep state operative who served both bush and Obama Administration as attorney general from 2001 to 2013 and in fact mueller was director of the fbi not attorney general. An error typical of his work but makes dill difference given the conspiracy of his work, which i include in this page which you want to look at, its fairly amazing, which included quote the cia, nsa, and other intelligence agencies that maintain a commitment to a globalist new world order in cooperation with the federal reserve, the comp troller of the occurrencery as well as federal Law Enforcement agencies including the fbi, and doj to include il listit drug dealings and to terrorist groups to further the goals of the global elite who control the International Nations and Monetary Fund and european union. Couldnt get it out in a single breath. Last week dismissed this cast of characters as a simple side show it must be emphasized how centralized these ideas are to foreign politics and International Relations at the present moment and are clearly engaged and taken serious gli by the president and advisor and les most is avid supporters and motivated couldnt kwent marshall p firingful the Tevin Coleman and sflm 1kw679 zbraexts 12k3w45e789z zmufrpt dplovrmtd 1y6789 . [ reading ] is [ reading ] these examples are only the tip of the iceberg just as mueller is for trump space only visible sign of a deeper problem. The deep state trump and those around him describe a broader system of il legitimate, power that they see concentrate in washington and extending to new york, paris, berlin and branches in london and menlow park, including the key elements of military and financial might in europe and includes mooelds and intelligence that dominate the Global Economy and gio politics. As it has been put u. S. President s come and go, Political Parties win one election and win the next but the deep state goes on. Its the state within a state. What trump calls the swamp. At other times the elites. These ideas are broadly understood. March 2018 poll showed just 37 of americans had heard of the deep state or are familiar with that nomanclature. Trump war with his is fundamental from his hatred of the press and ed to his embrace of program regimes to contempt of diplomacy. Be ed ed since Richard Nixons election republics have prided themselves on close ties to the Nations Armed forces and National Security agencies while blasting democrats as weak on defense. Democrats have tried to disprove such charges both bill clinton and barack obama regularly appointing republicans as secretary of defense and naming republican hold overs that 367 zblavpt 235078d k34r8gsds 3wrz 14r50uksz 12k3wr09sd 12y50u6r7 2340e78sz among with keep Robert Mueller on with the fbi is in part responsible for the idea of permanent security establishment in the current moment. Former staffer put it in his 2016 book the deep state, did hope and change really change anything . And that is not just a question that he asks of course is a question sarah palin asked hows that hope and change thing working out for you. Given this history it is a surprise to see a republican president embroiled with such bureaucracy including james comey who trump fired, after taking office, and former cia director john brenn an who trump threatened to strip of security clearance after he was accusing trump of treason along with mueller and his witch hunt of the administration. Trumps hostilility towards these men surprised washington more than anyone. When trump took to twitter in 2016 to needle brennan on the intelligence briefing on the socalled quote russian hacking unquote to suggest more time was needed to build a case. Chuck schumer took to cnn to warm hip. You take on the intelligence they get back at you. Two and half months later, trump remains unbowed by washingtons rules and democrats have no plan for bringing him to heel beyond hoping mueller will testify into capable hill in ways proved incapable of doing themselves which under scores the question who really rules washington, elected officials or washington boourkt burkts. Bureaucrats. Eaucrats. Bureaucrats. Accused of ties to Vladimir Putin who illegally invade the crimea and thought to have murdered political opponents saying our country does plenty of killing. Causing House Committee adam schiff to say this is bizarre and untrue. Does he not see the damage he does with comments like that. Most assuredly trump does but we may want to debate just how scholarly it is, deep state deceptions are not designed to deceive americans enemies but to deceive americans conditioning them to accept security measures at home and abroad. Trump and inhouse intellectuals are teaching voters to think in these terms which once were reserved for graduate seminars, via his own reality show, theatricics. These ideas predate trump and imfist industrily they explain his rise. First and foremost, accounts for the growing inequivalent inequivalent in ality inequivalent in second, it explains the oddly birfurcated power in the United States where they seem unable to address basic needs of american. Finally, explains why political movements and politicians they send to washington to effect change have found themselves stymied that every turn defined as il legitimate and unamerican by government insiders who resurgents dont respect but cant convict of power. Each liberals legitimate and una by government insiders who resurgents dont respect but cant convict of power. Each liberals all were present at the creation if you will at the National Security state and i existed alongside permanent war United States into 1941. Opposition to an enlarged military establishment he and his successor harry truman helps to create. Senators like robert taft warned put the nation on slippery slope. Tafts successors made peace with the Security State left liberals came to suspect the cold war sensor require substitute of promise and 4 20 for the promise of social democrats offered in the new deal. The 1956 book the power elite argued as American Power expanded in the 40s 507bds it became concentrated among small executive decision makers, the ones who decide, who operated to a military definition of reality. Formed and reenforced through what he called administrative routines in small, closedin tim at group thats were inaccessible to the public rather than to paint in economic terms as progressive historian might, mills emphasized the interlocking and overlapping nature of corporate and state power. In washington as well as on you wall street and at west point he argued that a small group of men gained power through appointments rather than elections with unified authority unchallenged by politicians in congress where he said differences between the two parties so far as National Issues are concerned are very narrow and very mixed up. Mills contemporaries soon coined the phrase the establishment to describe this power elite. Interestingly, conservative f buckley claimed to have used the wortd the establishment in a speech to the National War College in 1956 admitting the audience was confused by its meaning. But buckley borrowed the term from british journalist who used to in 195 5 to refer to the matrix of official and social relations within which power is exercised. The web of associations so dense and assumptions so deep they dont need to be articulated. Mills himself referred in his work what he called the executive establishment, the military establishment, the permanent war establishment and the National Establishment throughout his book. The establishmented he used is a general term for those who hold the principle machine your of power and influence in this country irrespective of what administration occupies the white house. The perfect establishment figure agreed harvard economist was quote the republic called to service in a Democratic Administration or the vice versusa. They were, he equipped, the pivotal figures who made possible the cold war consensus. For mills, galgrij and contemporary vision historians who were busy redefining u. S. Diplomatic history in 50s and 60s to emphasize continuity and consensus rather than conflict and rupture there was something inherently suspect about shape shifters who won power by forged consensus behind closed doors. They these men raised a generation of new left scholars and activists who learn to executeinize washingtons best and brightest in order to explain how and why u. S. Leaders embarked on disasters in cuba, vietnam, iran, chili and the Watergate Complex in the 60s and 70s. And they blamed figures like george bundy, the republic turned accolade turned phd who led two democrat president s to disaster as National Security advisor. Henry kissinger who worked in the white house. For what was called the convergence between the republic and democrats parties to eliminate Foreign Policy from campaigns. Both sides as well as the tom haydens of sds agreed the only way to fix the broken system of misgovernance and quote establish greater democrats if democracy in america was to abolish the Political Party stalemate in favor of what sds called two genuine parties centered around issues and essential values as it was put in a statement. Both sides set out to do just that. Reformers who stripped conservative cold war democrats of power through reform, while conservatives purge rockefeller republicans from their ranks. Backed by liberals who launched hearings in 1966 ending with Church Committee hearings in 1975 which dragged deep state dirty laundry into the harsh light of public scrutiny and National Public security establishment found itself under siege and drift, wandering in the wilderness of electoral dominance of insurgence of those such as jimmy carter and ronald reagan. In that state hunkering down into what we call the deep state to reemerge with new power after 9 11 but perhaps with no Greater Public legitimatecy. To conclude. What take away does this history offer as we puzzle over the deep state in current politics and what can discourse about it teach diplomatic historians how we can approach the foreign relations. Id like to offer three thoughts to keep brief and hope to elaborate on q a. First public distrust of National Security state is not new nor limit the to the political fringe. Second, the persistence of public debate about the proper role of the authority of the establishment highlights the importance of the diplomatic history that look to internal dynamics and conditions to explain u. S. Actions in the world. Third an finally this history demonstrates danger empire postseasons to democracy and trumps power feeds on the same fears of imperial power that motivated you u. S. Histories in 60s 70s and beyond however unlikely it is that trump will address the conditions that give rise to fears, persistence on both end of the political spectrum indicates broader loss of american democracy. Let me conclude with this 1980 essay, empire as a way of life, he wrote imperial has airreducible mean, loss of sovrnt, control over central issues and decisions. Unquote. In that fundamental sense, he continued, quote, the cost of empire is not properly taboo lated in debt or named in wasted resources rather in the loss of our citality as citizens. Weve increasingly ceased to participate in the process of selfgovernment granting sovereignty to the establishment, those in and out of government, who order the priorities and relationships in america and in the world. In a democracy, we the citizens are supposed to be the establishment. But by a scribing our governance to what he called vague shapes haunting the corridors of power we limit our selves to choosing from minor variations on one theme and foster an illusion that electing or appointing different people will produce change that never comes. His analysis says much about where we are, how we got here, but offers no easy solutions as to how to get out. Thank you. [ applause ] thank you, michael. Our second speaker, associate professor from duke university, he researches the history of militaryism, empire and warfare in germany and the United States in the 20th century. Hes an author of several books demonstrating existing of Trans National culture of professional naval officers and elites sharing similar hanbits and min on both sides of the atlantic ocean. He is working on a book on military as a concept in modern america in american, connected to the first book, and will give upstairs background on the Trans Nationalment wills of this notion of the deep state and show it is not necessarily an allamerican phenomenon. Dirk. Thank you, aaron. I First Encounter the concept of deep state when reading a book in 2012 it is rudy b made a persuasive case for the existence of the secret warfare state committed to prepare for military defense of the nation. Using the concept of a deep state as a analytic, he referenced u. S. Debates in general and one of his mentors in particular it is perhaps only appropriate to encounter the deep state as analytic in the cept of this co by scott, the scholar usually credited with introducing the term deep state to the debate and was arguably its most prolific and imaginative analyst. We can trace scotts notion of the deep state in the underlying idea for dual state via a series of references, that is the writing of hans, here in 1955 article published in the bulletin of atomic scientist and republished in the purpose of american politics, and the famous book on the nazi dual state First Published in 1941. The link between scott and these j german is, whom scott had credited repeatedly for shaping his thinking about state tudualy and the deep state, including the coining of the term itself. But it is not my intention to make an argument about the emigres for u. S. Discourse and the deep state, it is too obvious that to talk about the deep states various origins and developed in multiple contexts. Academically, the concept of the deep state has developed its greatest power and scholarship on modern turkey and egypt. In the United States, the term deep state has attained great prominence in contemporary political discourse thanks to President Trump and his political allies. Remain rare in the academic writing about the u. S. State and politics and in our field. The phraseology of the deep state is new in u. S. Political semantics, but it did not come out of nowhere, the specter of seemingly Hidden Forces capturing control of the state or scheming against the duly elected representatives of the people has cast a long shadow on the american political imagination. In what follows, i want to do two things. First i will place a discourse on the deep state within the context of three broader ways of thinking and arguing, and second,ly focus on what i consider one of the most important previous iterations of the idea of some sort of state tuelt tu duality, the notion of the military complex as proffered by president eisenhower. We can talk about the deep state within the continuous making and remaking of three broader and partially overlapping ways of thinking and arguing, each with their own registers of conspiratorial assumptions and analytical complexity. First, theres a long history of conspiracy theories in general of paranoid styles of thinking to involve richard hoff stetters famous expression, conspiracy theorists have always been an entirely legitimate form of thought and knowledge shared by both elites and ordinary people and central to political discourse whether they involve the British Crown, the catholic church, the money power or communism as a key plotting subjects to just name some of the more prominent ones in the 19th and 20th centuries. But contrary to hoffstetter, these conspiracy theories were never confined to the margins but as much at the Political Center as the periphery, nor the product of clinical paranoia and mental disturbance but rather se seemingly reasonable ways of explaining the human world and the movement of society in politics in secular terms, and it continued in the 20th century despite efforts undertaken by a sector of the nations Political Class including most prominently hoffstetter himself, of course to stigmatize them. So second, theres a more specific history of particular mode of thinking and arguing about politics, which sets a virtuous people against the interests or elites, again, with its own distinct conspiratorial insinuatio insinuations. The history of the populous persuasion has always exceeded the history of late 19th and early 20th century capitalized populism, to produce a Mass Movement of protests in the plains, and its distinct Party Political expressions, nor should it be collapsed into todays nativist, populism in the United States or for that matter europe. In the modern United States, populist politics has been profoundly machiavellian placing atop different ends of ever changing political spectrums. Time and kwen its been available as a form of political motivation, an expression of discontent in response to recurring crises of representation within the u. S. Form of Representative Democracy. And third, there is the emergence of a diffuse language about some form of state duality involving the public constitutional state and some more hidden and powerful entity besides it. As a permanent feature of political rule in securitized government in the era of the National Security state and the government, coming into view, this language never cohered into a single discourse. Talked about the existence of what he called the dual state in his aforementioned 1955 study of the u. S. State department. A dual composed of the rule bound regular state hierarchy and a more or less hidden security hierarchy which would act in parallel to the former, yet also monitor and exert control. David wise and thomas ross on the cia and u. S. Intelligence published in 64, it distinguished between the visible conventional government and an invisible shadow government, a quote, hidden interlocking machinery representing the real power comprised of individuals and agencies drawn from the visible government but also individuals and agencies relating to the sphere of business and nongovernmental organization. But the most prominent and consequential formulation of a duality built into the National Security state, one that purposefully sets government against a new quasi Autonomous Center of power from within was framed in different terms, and im referring here, of course, to the notion of the military Industrial Complex that president eisenhower advanced in his farewell address from january 1961 to which i will now turn. Eisenhowers farewell address and his discourse on the military Industrial Complex do not require much exposition. Everyone in the room will be familiar with the context for this president ial act of speech. The speech represented a culmination point of eisenhowers longstanding frustration with a course of policy making in the field of National Security, his inability to impose his priorities in terms of projects and military needs on congress and the pentagon and his critique of the deliberate heightening of military threats and requirements by vested interest. Broadly speaking, what we have here then is a prominent member of the policy making elite of america voicing his concerns about the ramifications of the creation of the National Security state and sustained militarization of the american polity it entailed. Eisenhower talked about the conjunction of an immense military establishment and large arms industry and the claims to power by, quote, a scientific technological elite registered the realities of the political economy of americas Defense Sector in its fully developed early form. Vast, lavishly funded networks of contractors, military agencies, nonprofit think tanks and universities, military economy on the verge of its incipient proivatization, deregulation and demilitarizati demilitarization. For our purpose, three features of eisenhowers discourse on the military Industrial Complex mark it as a precursor of todays target by the deep state. First, eisenhower describes the military Industrial Complex not simply as a lobby exercising what he called unwarranted influence in the consoles of government, but rather he presented the military Industrial Complex as a powerful somewhat Hidden Center of power from within. In his rendering the military Industrial Complex was nothing less than an autonomous deeply entrenched nexus of power located outside of public rule and democratic control, and straggling the Public Private divide encompassing state institutions, private industry, and organized science. Second, the location of a military Industrial Complex represented a move away from images that eisenhower had used before when describing what he considered to be the unfalling condition of american politics in the era of the court wall, most prominent among them the garrison state as first outlined by politics scientist, harold laswald. He described that state as a unified structure leaving remarkably little room for meaningful civilization. Prior to 61, eisenhower repeatedly talked about the impending garrison state and what he called its grim paraphernalia, without going into much detail or drawing on laswalds more specific arguments, but he was clearly talking about a unidirectional all encompassing transformation, a view of change that all was present in an idea about military ascendency or the militarization of america then circulating was in americas Political Class. And third, what is also striking about iepzen hours invocation of the term military Industrial Complex is a certain ambivalence, its openness to different readings. The brief speech leaves many questions open because of its level of generality. It can be read as a democratic critique on behalf of a more rationally organized National Security state or a vigorous defense of a fiscally conservative government of a free nation or both. The notion capacious enough to be appropriated by actors across the political spectrum. Critics tied to a more systematic critique of corporate capitalism than military state, or they could use it in liberal or conservative fashions to denounce particular practices of the military economy as a wasteful and the unfortunate product of selfish interests run amuck, and to demand more effective control on rational organization, and regulatory public acts on market mechanisms. So eisenhowers notion of a military Industrial Complex fit in the third way of thinking and arguing within which i have suggested to contextualize current talk about a deep state in the u. S. Ways that registered the emergence of the National Security state in Big Government at mid20th century. In its emphasis on a duality built into the state, it represented a shift away from a more one dimensional, more conspiratorial populous critique of the military and industry as selfish interests which had occupied center space in american politics in the early to mid1930s. It had done so in the context of broad based political motivation against the Armaments Industries and its military allies in general and the work of the socalled committee in particular that is the senates 1934 to 1936 special committee on investigation of the armaments industry. As mark wilson has suggested, there were at least two broader contexts nor this mobilization in the work of the committee. First a vigorous transnational politics to confront the systemic problems causing the war. Second the u. S. Debate about the merits of increased public ownership, control and regulation in a military industrial sphere that was already effectively seminationalized. The debate also linked to other political struggles over public enterprise. Most direct is the origins lay in the effort of the Womens International league for peace and freedom, which in 1932 had asked congress to investigate the munitions industry. So there was nothing particularly outlandish about the investigation of the committee, including its share to repeat the talk about a full scale nationalization of the armaments industry. The political mobilization against the armaments industry and the Committee Investigation was framed in the terms of the populous persuasion, setting the people against the interests and warning in conspiratorial terms against the interest of the political process for their own selfish ends. At the center here were images of corruption, of interests operating nefariously outside the law and accountability meaning arms manufacturers engaging in bribery and other shady public other shady business methods, seemingly beating the patriotic drum to mask their pursuit of profit and creating scaring scares and cau Armed Conflicts to sell their products. All of this was best captured in the notion of merchants of deaths, the title of a best selling book on the armaments industry published in 34 by h. C. Evening l brekt. In 1932 published a critique of the interests in the fear of naval policy along such lines. This approach, the devil theory of war in his review of the revelations of the nigh committee emphasizing the merits of a more Structural Analysis of broader conditions of politics and economics. What also characterized just sort of was the committee was not sef 30s the critique of t interest, and sort of the collusion and military elites in a populous conspiratorial key easily functioned as a site for various divergent politics, and. A link to the context over both the u. S. s foreign political posture in the fast moving world of Global Politics and the economic politics of the new deal. As it also extended to a debate over why the United States had entered into world war i. So important ways eisenhowers discourse in the military Industrial Complex was what eisenhower calls a conjunction of immentise military establishment of merchants of death into a different key. Yet, there remained direct echoes. After all, the military Industrial Complex loomed as a big organized interest in a speech that explicitly invoked the danger of misplaced power, whether it was deliberately sought or not. More yo moreover, the terms coupled with the admonition that they ought not to dictate National Policy appeared in a key memorandum for file produced by the president s speech writing staff in october 1960, which identified for the first time the actual subject of the farewell speech. And on more than one occasion, eisenhower himself advanced a more conspiratorial populous view of business elites, quote, there is a real danger of the military ganging up with powerful industry leaders, president eisenhower reportedly once said. The military needed to stand, quote, firm against greed, against corruption, against narrow favoritism, and against monopoly. So im coming to the end, so ive sought to place a current talk about an american deep state in a longer historical perspective. In so doing i first directed attention to three broader ways of thinking and arguiing within which we can place this talk. I focus onnizen howev one of does not talk about the security agencies beyond the military, so important to much of the todays deep state literature. By way of conclusion, let me suggest that thinking about the deep state in the same context as the military Industrial Complex is also salutary for a different reason. The noeks of the military Industrial Complex entered the world in an act of political speech. It wasnt picked up for use by scholars of different persuasions. In other words, thinking about the deep state through the lens of the military Industrial Complex invites us to consider the notion of the deep state as a possible conceptual term with analytical promise. Let us promise not only for the study of turkey and egypt or of germany, the historical place with which i began, but also of the United States. It reminds us that we as historia historians, whether we like it or not, always draw on key words of political discourse for our own analytical categories. We may choose from them carefully, impose our own definitions and use them in a disciplined manner, and thus we may decide that the deep state should not qualify for analytical pickup, but we do well to recognize that theres no meaningful history to be had beyond the political semantics of our own times. Thank you. [ applause ] thank you, dirk. Our third speaker today is professor beverly gauge. Beverly is the Brady Johnson professor of grant strategy at Yale University where shes a professor of history, professor of american studies. Shes the author of the day wall street exploded, and the history of early 20th search terrorism which was recently made into a full length documentary by pbs. She has published in just about every major historical journal i know, is currently a contributing writer at the New York Times magazine, is a regular guest on pbs news hour, and is now writing a major new biography of former fbi director j. Edgar hoover titled gman, j. Edgar hoover and the american century. The floor is yours. Great, thanks. Im going to talk today a little bit about a i would say a case study in the deep state, and that is as aaron suggested, j. Edgar hoover. Im in the final stages of writing a biography of hoover, and i think certainly a popular perception, hoover represents many of the features of what might be labeled the deep state that have already come up here. I wrote down some of aarons key words from the introduction, conspiratori conspiratorial, ill legitimaegi unelected, sort of unaccountable bureaucrat,s, someone who sat in the background exercising great power without a lot of accountability. And theres a lot of truth to this image, just as a reminder of j. Edgar hoover and his place in American History, he was director of the fbi from 1924 through 1972, so he was head of the fbi for 48 years. That means that he came to power in that job at the age of 29 and he died in that same job at the age of 77. He was appointed under calvin coolidge, and he lasted through coolidge and then through herbert hoover, so was there in the early years of the great depression. He was there through the threeplus terms of Franklin Roosevelts presidency, so through the new deal, and into the second world war, which roosevelt died, truman kept him on, so hoover was there through the early cold war, through mccarthyism. When truman left, eisenhower came in and hoover stayed through both eisenhower president ial terms. So through the developing cold war, through the 1950s, through the rise of civil rights politics in the United States. He stayed on through john f. Kennedy. After kennedy was assassinated in 1963, he stayed on for Lyndon Johnsons presidency, and when Lyndon Johnson left office, he stayed on through Richard Nixons presidency, and finally died in the position of fbi director in may of 1972. So throughout this period, as you can see, hoover lasted one of the great themes in this world of kind of bipartisan establishment politics, he lasted through eight president s, through almost two dozen attorneys general, republicans and democrats alike. He was, of course, never elected to this position but was reappointed repeatedly, and over the course of his career he built the fbi from being a rather small and insignificant bureaucracy, the investigative wing of the Justice Department into a really substantial part of the National Security state and an institution that was created almost wholly within his own control and in his own image. And in our popular imagination, i think the answer to how he did that tends to emphasize a lot of these kind of deep state terms. I think most prominently, the idea is that hoover controlled so much power and lasted for such a long time by ruling through fear, through intimidati intimidation, by creating a bureaucracy that emphasized secrecy and that as i suggested really began manipulating politics in a secretive way from behind the scenes, intimidated president s, intimidated congressmen, created a culture of fear that allowed him to stay in office for so long. And in those terms, id logicaow logically i think we understand hoovers to be a conservative political figure who wielded a lot of this power in the service of containing popular movements rather broadly, but in particular for targeting the american left, for targeting liberal, particularly the communist party in the 1940s and 50s, but moving on to many of the left movements of the 60s and 70s. So this is our popular and also our scholarly image of hoover, the ultimate unaccountability bureaucrat, someone who wielded his power as a kind of conservative id l conservati conservati conservativeand did this really in secret, almost as a rogue actor, someone following his own agenda, someone who had enough concentrated power, again, to shape politics from outside of the electoral system and outside of the democratic system in many ways. There is a great deal of truth to this story, but i want to suggest here and maybe push back a little bit against the idea of the deep state that that story is largely overblown or at least it doesnt tell us very much about really key parts of hoovers life and about the creation, particularly of the National Security state that have in many ways, certainly in popular discourse kind of fallen off the map. So i would suggest that far from being a kind of rogue actor and far from being someone who operated outside of electoral politics, hoover we ought to really see as a product of the same kinds of forces that are producing other parts of the state and in particular, that the fbi really emerged as part of the same liberal state that began to grow and had its greatest moments of growth in the 1930s and in the 1960s, and that far from being solely a kind of conservative constraining force on leftists and liberals, the fbi actually was in many ways a product of the same state building impulses that produced the Social Security administration and the Civil Rights Act later on. So i think as we conceive of hoover, i want to make three key arguments. One is that by emphasizing hoover as this unaccountable bureaucrat, as a kind of product of deep state impulses, it doesnt tell us very much about, first of all, how it is that he came to power before he exercised power, how it was that an institution like the fbi was actually built. I think it does explain all of the time and energy that hoover and other figures at the fbi put into cultivating political relationships, in particular relationships with elected public officials. And then finally, and i think most importantly, it doesnt explain hoovers enormous popularity over the course of his career. We tend to think of hoover as one of the great villains of American History. I think largely coming out of this moment that michael discussed in the 1970s a moment of expose, characterized in particular in this case by the Church Committee and its revelations about the practices of the fbi. And i think out of that has come an idea that nobody in washington really understood or knew what it was that the fbi was up to and that the public at large, had they known really what hoover was doing would have rejected the kinds of politics that he represented. But i want to take us p back ban earlier moment before those exposes of the 1970s really to remind everyone that hoover was one of the most Popular Figures in American History in the 20th century. He was one of the best respected Public Servants in this period from the 20s through the 1970s, and while many of the details of what the fbi was up to, programs like intel pro, other secret operations were, of course, secret. Large swaths of what the fbi was doing was perfectly public. Both in terms of its campaigns against its domestic Law Enforcement powers but also in terms of its intelligence operations, political intelligence in the domestic sphere, particularly. Again, against the communist party, against other groups. The details werent necessarily public but the agenda was out there and pretty widely supported by the American Public. So i think as we talk about the deep state, we tend to talk about american suspicions of this kind of power without actually thinking about the ways in which that can actually baucbe embedded in and supported both by elected firofficials in washington and the American Public at large. So to just give you a quick taste of this, i want to talk a little bit about hoovers relationship with two president s who we might not necessarily think of as aligning very well with j. Edgar hoovers own politics. Those are the folks that i would characterize as the two greatest liberal president s of the 20th century, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson, far marathon or any other president s throughout hoovers long reign. These are the figures who first of all in roosevelts case gave the fbi the power it came to have and in johnsons case allowed that power to continue to exist in the critical period of the 60s and 70s when the fbi became so controversial. So starting out with roosevelt, again, i think we tend to roosevelt and hoover in rather different ideological categories, tend to think of Franklin Roosevelt as really the architect of a liberal state and of j. Edgar hoover as operating in some very different sphere, but it really is roosevelt more than any other president who built the architecture of the fbi and, in fact, willingly for his own purposes gave hoover many of the areas of jurisdiction and power that he came to have. The bureau itself had been created in 1908, again, as a rather small investigative body within the Justice Department during world war i it had expanded out from that to perform some of the first rather widespread efforts in political surveillance in the United States, but when hoover took on the job of fbi director in 1924, there will behad been a real ba against those kinds of political operations, and many of the powers that the bureau had had in the teens and 20s, particularly in surveillance of political radicals and other political groups in the United States, had been curtailed. And so hoover spent much of the 1920s working on the bureau as a relatively Small Organization perfecting its bureaucratic processes, not exercising a tremendous amount of power, so it is when the new deal comes along that that really begins to change. And roosevelt really did three critical things for j. Edgar hoover that formed the ultimate architecture of the fbi and particularly gave hoover his own personal power. Many of these were done with the full consent of congress and went through congressional processes. Others were done through executive processes and kind of the accrual of executive power. The first of these was an enormous expansion in the 1930s in the fbis jurisdiction in terms of domestic Law Enforcement. So in the 30s largely in response to concerns about bank robbery, kidnapping, other forms of crime, the fbi began to get a much larger menu of federal crimes that it was responsible for. This is sort of the war on crime moment organized around john dillen jer, some of the storied figures of that age. Its really in that moment that the fbi becomes the dominant federal Law Enforcement agency, particularly having to do with bank robbery, kidnapping. As the federal government is expanding other things are becoming federal crimes. So as youre beginning to get greater regulation of, say, banking, the fbi also comes in and begins to be responsible for bank robbery as a crime. So you begin to build the fbis domestic Law Enforcement duties, and that is through democratic processes, right . That is through Congress Passing laws. That is through the president signing off on them, so thats sort of piece one of the architecture that comes into place during the 30s. Piece two is that its really under Franklin Roosevelt that the fbi learns to sell itself as a popular institution. I think we tend to, again, when we talk about the deep state, we dont tend to talk about its popular constituency, about its popular image about the idea that sesh parts of the National Security establishment the military have a popular constituency that mobilizes on their behalf. In hoovers case in the 1930s drawing upon roosevelts lessons that government and Government Service is something that had to be sold and promoted to the American People, the fbi gains not only its Public Relations apparatus but enormous fame and hoover himself becomes really a household name in the 1930s as a law man and as someone sort of fighting on behalf of the American People. The third and i think most critical thing that happens is that as roosevelt becomes increasingly concerned by really 1936 about the war in europe and its possible ramifications here at home, the possibility at that point of war in europe, he begins to turn to the fbi and reauthorize it to serve a more expansive political surveillance capacity within the United States. So in 1936 through executive order, he authorizes the fbi to begin investigating nazis and communists. By 1939 he gives the fbi control over espionage and subversion and sabotage within the war. And from the period of 1939 to 1941 when roosevelt is feeling deeply constrained by public opinion, which is very much against u. S. Involvement in the war, he works very closely with the fbi to begin building a new intelligence apparatus that is going to serve the purposes of the war. Much of that goes on from 39 through 41 before the u. S. Has officially entered the war. It seems pretty clear that Franklin Roosevelt would have done even more with the fbi both had hoover not stopped him and had roosevelt not died. There are two interesting moments in the 40s in which roosevelt is pushing for fbi expansion and in one case, hoover is a constraint, in another roosevelt dies, when japanese internment comes along, theres a lot of enthusiasm for the fbi to begin managing japanese internment. Hoover actually pushes back against that, the department of justice and fbi both oppose the policy of japanese internment, and so it happens in large part through other channels. And at the moment that roosevelt dies, he was actually considering taking up hoovers idea that when the war came to an end, it ought to be the fbi that was in charge of global surveillance sort of making the fbi into a proto cia. So in the 1930s, the point to take away is that the fbi is not operating on its own. It is operating both in conversation with congress, in conversation with the presidency, and in many ways is being empowered by the president s own agenda. Hoover certainly pushing some of this, but he is certainly not the new jersengine of his own empowerment in many ways. In closing i want to jump quickly to the 1960s and offer a few last thoughts. Assic as i said if roosevelt is really the president responsible for creating the fbi in many ways, it is Lyndon Johnson who allows hoover to stay on. In the natural course of things at this moment, there was a mandatory federal retirement get of 70, so hoover should have retired in 1965 had things been allowed to go their own natural course, and it is Lyndon Johnson who at the moment that he becomes president decides that one of his first acts is going to be to exempt j. Edgar hoover from federal retirement provisions and, in fact, keep him on in power. And theres been a certain amount of speculation about why this might have been. They had been neighbors. They were very good friends. Did hoover have something on johnson, but i think its pretty clear that johnson saw both that hoover was an enormously popular political figure, someone who in part because of his conservative political constituency could help johnson with the more conservative elements of the democratic party, and in part, that hoover would, in fact, serve many of the goals that johnson had for his own presidency. And from 64 into 65, johnson more than any other president really uses the fbi to support his own political agenda to secure his own reelection and to forward both his more conservative and his more liberal political goals. Im happy to talk more about any of that in the q a. But in finishing up, i suppose i want to push back on a few of the concepts of the deep state, at least as they apply to j. Edgar hoover, famously this unaccountable bureaucrat. I think that we cannot see, the quote, unquote, deep state as developing outside of a broader analysis of state development, the fbis own greatest moments of expansion were also the greatest moments of expansion of the liberal state, of the National Security state to some degree, but as i said, the new deal, the great society, these are always moments of empowerment of the fbi. And i think in particular, we need to really contend with the relationship between quote, unquote, unaccountable bureaucrats and, in fact, elected politicians who often support, use the deep state in ways that serve them and to think a little bit about the deep state not simply as a reviled part of american politics, but the one that has an enormous popular constituency as well. [ applause ] wonderful, thank you so much, beverly. All right, folks, we have about 30 minutes for questions, and i think i will start us off with just two to you and to the panel. No one needs to answer my questions, but they might spur some conversation, and then if you have a question, please just raise your hand and join. My two questions as i thought and as i listened to our panelists, the first one is is the deep state a useful term for historians to use to explain american politics . Is there unwarranted, unelected, unacknowledged power with undue influence in american politics in the periods you all study . And if so, where does that power reside, and how should we historians contextualize it, discuss it, and explain it . I dont think we do well by just critiquing the term. Lets try to understand if in its most useful possibilities. The second is what animates some of the more conspiratorial elements of the deep state narratives, the socalled paranoid style in american politics that i think we all agree exists, has always existed in American History, even oddly enough as things like literacy rates have radically improved, Government Transparency has increased, and overall people have more access to information today than, say, in the first two decades of the 19th century. And yet, nonetheless, there are still underlying currents of belief that there are cabals, conspiracies, secret drivers of u. S. Government policy. So is that what propels those currents in the periods you study, if you see them existing . Is it economic disenfranchiseme disenfranchisement . Is it political disenfranchisement . Is it something darker, closer to the darker angels to our nature of et know sen terrorism, right . When we hear global and bankers, it is a short leash to jews, so is it not anything so noble as people grasping for narratives because they feel like theyre not being heard. Those were my starting questions, but why dont we just open the floor, get a few questions out there, and i can either direct your questions to a specific panelist or just to the whole crowd. Welcome. Theres a microphone if youll just wait for it because weve got cspan here right there on your right. You know what happens when someone has a microphone. Okay. Thanks ied li thanks. Id like to start by thanking all four of you for what a brilliant panel. So helpful and interesting. And i have a question but i also sort of want to add another element to the sort of bureaucratic structure because it seems to me that, you know, the thing thats sort of useful to sort of think about, you know, what are the components where, you know, it tends towards conspiracy and what are the components of the state structure that we now have that actually sort of are built in secret and unaccountable . And one technology of, you know, what we might call the deep state or Something Else is law and not legislation, but specifically law made in secret without being subject to review and revision by any democratic process. And thats we need we need sort of serious, deep work to, you know, for want of a better word on the office of Legal Counsel, and so the office of Legal Counsel exists within the Attorney Generals Office and in terms of the law of Armed Conflict now and the law of president ial power over war, which of course matters literally today precedents are, opinions are created about the lawfulness of certain president ial actions by the president s lawyers, so theres no adversary law making process that happens in court, and then those precedents get built upon, right . So this is law that is made generally some opinions are released, but a lot of the relevant law, especially relating to president ial power and the use of force is classified. So if theres any element that we might call sort of deep state, that sure seems like it. And i sort of raise this, you know, as a question for you about sort of technologies of the state as we now have it, and so i wonder about, you know, maybe especially for beverly, but for everyone, you know, to what degree has law been a constraining or enabling feature of your stories . So yeah, thats my question. Yeah, i think that thats a great question and a really important category to think about and to sort of build off aarons question of whether the deep state is the term that we want, a term that i think didnt come up so much as the Administrative State, and in many ways, i think that that still remains the more useful term as opposed to what the deep state contributes that the Administrative State doesnt is that the Administrative State suggests a certain level of transparency, whereas the deep state suggests that much of this is going on in secret. So that that might be a useful distinction. But certainly, regulatory decisionmaking and the question of whos making most of the decisions that are made, right, most of whats going on is not happening through legislative processes. Its not happening through necessarily public discourse, although, of course, some elements of the Administrative State that does occur. You know, and there have been these moments in American History, the 1970s in particular, when there have been real pushes to try to open up some of these processes. I think one of the associated pressing interesting things we might think of now is whether were at one of those moments of reform. So during hoovers life, he the only check on the fbi and the only check on his power, though im making the case that he had all of these kind of elaborate political relationships and popular constituencie constituencies, there were no intelligence committees in congress. There was no one in the federal bureaucracy who had a right to access fbi files, and so that makes them very useful to historians now because we have the freedom of information act. And so the fact that they didnt think that anyone was ever going to be able to access what they were doing, their own internal policies, the notes theyre writing on those, make them pretty valuable and interesting documents. But they always operated on the assumption that they had total control over these kinds of internal decisions. One of the most famous examples of hoovers own discretion was around wire tapping and bugging in which wire taps, which are taps through the telephone system were supposed to be approved by the attorney general, and while they werent always approved, they technically were. But hoover decided that that didnt apply to bugs, right . That didnt apply to microphones that were planted physically in different spaces. And this was a pure this was a secret decision. It was purely an administrative decision. It was internal to the fbi. It was never subjected to outside scrutiny, and it was looking at the technicalities of instructions and carving out an entire sphere of autonomous action. So if you were, say, bugging Martin Luther kings hotel room, you didnt need to have that approved by the attorney general, but if you were wire tapping his phone, you did, and in fact, of course, Robert Kennedy approved the fbi wire tapping Martin Luther kings phone. So the idea that its all as secret as we might like to think it is may not be so true. Last thing that ill say on this question and then open it up is that, you know, in the 1970s, there was this very, very concerted effort to build more transparent structures. The freedom of information ax act is expanded, the intelligence committees, the fisa courts, theres this moment of enormous Reform Energy, that michael said sort of lasted through the 80s and 90s to some degree at least, but was really undone by 9 11, one of the questions is whether we are going to have a moment of that kind of Reform Energy and scrutiny now again. I dont think that the energy is really there for it, the Political Energy but i dont know if it might be one of the one of the end results of a kind of trump battle with the deep state. If i could just i would just briefly comment one of the things that struck me about your question, mary, was the comment that theres no adversarial process, and i think, you know, this speaks to some of the persistent sort of themes of our three papers. You know, we tend to right now exist in what we imagine and what feels like a very adversarial political environment, and i mean, thats long been true. Its not true solely of our own moment, and yet, one of the things that i think makes this various kind of this concept of the deep state both attractive and repellant to us is that it seems to operate largely by consent. Its not sort of burdened with these conflicts and contests that define our open politics. Its sort of governed by administrative procedures and sort of deep affinities and the like. And i mean, we can think of that as a problem as undemocratic, but i think beverlys also calling our attention to the ways in which theres something attractive about that. Theres something efficient about it. Theres something professional about it. Theres you know, theres a kind of way in which it works, and i think that, you know, that sort of explains the sort of different emphasis that beverly is giving us versus maybe what the sort of Jerome Corsis of the world are giving us. Depending on your point of view, it can either be something that, you know, sort of advances your interests and keeps you safe or it can be something that is a kind of conspiracy. But the lack of adversarial process, i think, has persistently struck a lot of americans as somehow undemocratic because, you know, they cant they cant necessarily engage or change these processes or even really understand or comment on them often if theyre happening in secret. If i can add just one quick thing to that is that i think in many ways, you know, part of the progressive tradition that produced the Administrative State and then continued on for many, many years, and you see this quite dramatically in hoovers career is the idea that thats actually going to be the more virtuous part of the state. The part of the state that sits that is professional. That sits outside of the drama of electoral politics, that is somehow going to be acting in the common good as its constructed, this is an enormously popular idea for much of the 20th century. It is the idea that produces a figure like hoover if he is popular, you know, theres anticommunism, but a lot of it is driven, in fact, by this idea that unlike all of these selfinterested politicians who are always fighting with each other and are engaged in these adversarial processes, hes able to stand back from that. He was born in washington, d. C. He very proudly said he never belonged to a Political Party, never voted because d. C. Residents couldnt vote at that point. And so that was supposed to be a kind of virtuous tradition, and i think right now were seeing a real battle over whether that is created a sort of sealed elite world or whether it is, in fact, a virtuous tradition of professional Public Interest work thats going to protect us from demagogues and other figures. Yeah. Yes, sir, and do please identify yourself when you speak, please. From the university of southern denmark. And so i also come to the sort of notion of the deep state from actually the feel of conspiraf Conspiracy Theory studies, and there the deep state might mean something slightly different from lets say the larger tradition of a National Security state and other things. Its much more nefarious. Its to some extent a newer idea. Lets, you know, we can date it perhaps from 1970s on waward bu definitely related to some notions of the new world order. It has, you know, probably its more marginal, though moving towards the center as also the, i think its Monmouth University from march of last year where a lot of people think of ideas of, you know, suspicion, National Security state, but the deep state actually few people knew about that suggesting a more mortgageal thi marginal thing. So i was wondering if you really think or if you think there are differences between what we now talk of as a deep state, at least sort of coming into existence in the last 20 years, and then the more traditional National Security state, talks of a garrison state and Administrative State . Before anyone answers, can i just ask back to you in your remarks about the way that a deep state narrative functions in denmark, are there also these consta constant references to military and Intelligence Services . Which is a commonality across the turkish narrative, the egyptian narrative, the american narrative, and even the narrative about italy originally, its first argument. It was always military and Intelligence Services that had these not only undue not only undue power but often lethal power. It often crossed over into they were killing people, and they were arresting people. Is that also the case . Well, so denmark is a little d different in that sense in that we always almost had a very high degree of trust in the state, so much of the current, im actually an american, but ive worked a little on denmark, but much of the current state in denmark and i think goes for a lot of other European Countries as well is actually imported from the United States through, you know, exfiles, right . X files has had a proven effect on peoples view on the deep state and conspiracy theories in general. The long reach of david duchovny. On International Connections which i think is an essential conversation, dirk, do you want to take this one or michael or bev . I think let me just begin by i think emphasizing how important it is to make the distinction between whether we talk about it as a political keyword or whether were interested in an analytical concept, right . And the term itself, of course we cannot fix its meanings, right . It has so many different meanings. It has fantastical meanings. It has conspiratorial meanings. It may have meanings that register with some practices of the state. So i think its very difficult to sort of identify the core. I mean, one of the things i tried to do in my talk was to sort of emphasize that there sort of one genealogy which is a notion about this duality that is built into the state once we got to the National Security state and Big Government, and ive tried to identify some of the kind of academic thinkers that we take serious, president eisenhower has a pretty good reputation in general. So i think to see that this idea is not like an outlandish conspiratorial idea but there is this there is this longer tradition. The term is not being used, and of course even among people talking about the state duality, there are very different ideas. If you read frank el, thats a te critique of the nazi state that kind of associates the emergency state, was the terrorists and general siocideg the nazis are doing. Thats why it was so surprised in the 1950s references frankel to talk about security hierarchies within the state departments. He does not make an argument about the he plays around with this idea of state duality. I think, again, come back to this question about what are possible analytical promises, thats a very interesting idea. I think thats an invitation to think about to not think about the state as a coherent institution, but to think about dualities built into it, particularly in the field of the military and security agencies. So that i find is potentially a useful idea. What i would also emphasize because aaron talked about about, you know, the association with the military and the security agencies is that, like if you read scott or i use the case of eisenhower, right, it often invites us to not just think about the state, right, it also invites us to think about the relationship between the state institutions or sectors of the state and what is outside the state, right . Private industry. If you read peter dale scott, he writes about drug cartels, banks and other things. So the argument for the deep state also comes with kind of an argument that sort of about like relationships between the state and again, this is an analytical, perhaps an analytical promise, at least its an invitation to take it more serious. I think on the keyword side, i think thats basically an intellectual history of kind of like key words and conspiratorial conspiratorial politics or maybe also populous politics which we may think in part is con spcondition somef us may also think that it kind of like the populous framers thinking about the peoples interests, there may also be some analytical promise to these kinds of analyses. If i could just briefly add to that, i dont i dont see this kind of rhetoric about the deep state today as substantially different than the kinds of arguments that were made in the past. I mean, one of the ways i might try to prove that claim is, you know, one of the kind of key, if you will, debates within the Church Committee was whether or not cia assassination programs were or were not authorized by the president. Did the president know or not know of these programs . Which seems to me to get to the crux of your question, like, is there something deeper about the present deep state than in the past. And you know, i guess the issue the reason i cite that example is it seems to me theres nothing deeper than that basic kind of e persist mow logical question of does some kind of legal Constitutional Authority know and authorize the action of a state agency or not. That is thats the kind of ground level question beneath which you really start to get into the deep, deep state, right . And i think that that question has been there for a long time. You know, the question for instance was raised with did you know, around the Manhattan Project and trumans unawareness of the Manhattan Project until he becomes president. So these kinds of questions have been there for a long time, and i think they get back to marys point about, you know, if the law is made in secret maybe with only two people in the room, how do you even know or establish this basic fact. Its very difficult. And that was the question that was kind of at the heart of the Church Investigations really, as it to whether or not this was part of a sort of legitimate state program, however controversial or unethical it may have been or whether it was a true conspiracy. Yeah, two quick things to add onto that. I think youre right to sort of ask to distinguish between a general set of the, you know, theres the Foreign Policy blob, right . That sometimes the deep state is just used to kind of describe a certain elite world of unelected something more like an Administrative State, and then in other cases were talking about something very, very specific, much more specific, much more secretive, much more conspiratorial. And im also thinking that taking part of what it is that we are talking about, its also interesting to look at the dates within institutions that we might or summit might describe as part of the deep state around precisely the questions that michael was suggesting. For instance, the fbi, and you actually saw a little bit of this after 9 11. The fbi always held and hoover in particular really held the cia in contempt. The cia and the nsa because he didnt believe that their budgets should be secret. He didnt believe that there is enough transparency in what it was that the cia was doing and they found that the fbi was a much more law bound heart because it was a Law Enforcement agency as well as an Intelligence Agency but there were lots of battles even between different intelligence agencies structured differently of, you know, whos really the new various actor . How much accountability there really is . What levels of secrecy are operating and really different and subtle visions of how that all plays out. Yes, maam . Yes, please do, just let us know who you are. Ashley doctoral candidate at the university of kansas. My question about the deep state has been in a local category. I think about president nixon, for him he had a true belief about some establishment of the deep state and that heavily influenced how he thought about policy and i think in a way we need to give credence to this idea because of the effect it has and i wanted to know what you thought of that kind of concept of the deep state, the true belief of it of that in government and in nixon, there were forces acting against him in some respects. He over blew it, definitely, but there were people who wanted to bring him down within government. Excellent question. Anyone want to tackle that one . Ill say a couple of quick words. One is, absolutely. Nixon came into office with a very explicit idea that he wanted to politicize the bureaucracy, in fact one of the problems of american politics is the bureaucrats become too insulated from electoral politics. He wanted to make them do what he wanted them to do and not what they wanted to do, and that was certainly one of the themes of the nixon presidency. I would also say that its one of the things that did bring him down in some sense, right . Hoover, to go back to the example that i know best, he died in may of 1972. He hasnt dealt very well with the question of fbi succession. Nixon had had a lot of battles with whoever. They were very good friends, he had wanted the fbi to do things the fbi didnt want to do and that hoover didnt want to do, many of which were quite political. And so when hoover died he appointed an outsider to the fbi, and the fbi essentially rebuilt against this outsider, this person that they saw as a political operative who most famously, the man who won hoover died, the number three man and the fbi quickly thought that he should become the fbi director, mark felt really went after nixon who famously began deep throat and hope to bring down the nixon presidency, so there is a way which actually watergate was a product of a rebellion of the bureaucracy, deep state conspiracy working in cahoots with the Washington Post and not just nixon might have feared that they would. And i think that is a story that we all need to take seriously. I thought of the deep throat deep state sort of analogy as i was writing this speech, im glad you mentioned it, beverley. I dont think that that language around deep throat, deep sourcing, what not should be overlooked. And i agree with the question, i mean, thats part of the point of making it in my paper that trump clearly takes this notion seriously as did nixon and thats part of the reason why i think people do wish to understand politics and policy making process should also taking seriously, though i agree with dark that it might be useful here to sort of establish some parameters above which we are going to try to use this category if we want to kind of use it to understand how the state works. One of the things that i guess i would just briefly say on the nixon and trump sort of approach to the deep state is that it feels to me and oftentimes with both those figures that there is a degree of projection going on. As beverley said, nixon was trying to politicize law actually very deliberately, and if you read through his papers he is constantly scheming in that regard and one can also clearly see that the same goes for trump. For instance, his authorization of the investigation into the fbis inquiry into the 2016 election, hes politicizing the bureaucracy. And both men are doing that because they already regards the bureaucracy, itself as political. And of course, rightly so, it is. You know, the progressive idea that the Administrative State is above politics, of course, has its own kind of political ideology back then and as outsiders is aware of that and they resisted and they tried to reverse and so i think it kind of brings all of those things to the surface in a way that they arent often brought to the surface. If we are in a moment where there is more calls for transparency and reform, perhaps its because both the seventies and today were moments when president s are really battling the bureaucracy in a way that kind of brings these things to the surface. One of the things howard baker said during that watergate investigations is that the cias involvement was like animals crashing around in the forest. You could hear it but you couldnt see it. And, you know, its that same sort of sense that theres things going on just beneath the surface that we can kind of feel but cant quite understand which i think is also true today. And i think the reasons that thats happening is a battle between president s and bureaucracies in both those moments. If i could push the panel to consider my question laughs . You all studiously ignored, i noticed. I am intrigued by the endurance of the darker elements of the deep state. I hear that we all are agreeing that theres a reasonable set of historical inquiries grounded around is their unwarranted power . Is there an elected power . Does it exist through law, through secrecy, through bureaucracy . We all agree thats valid and important work for historians to undertake. But theres always always a darker historical element that says free masons and peoples are running the world or one guy who controls all standards and also the internet or Something Like that. And the latter half, the story of American History is one of slow and Uneven Movement toward better enfranchisement, more people having involvement in the political process from the 18th century to today. People have more access to information while the government and the state have certainly grown and there is a lot of classified stuff, you can through Information Technology look at the ball budget, look at president proclamations, look at any speech that you could not do in the 19th century. People have more access to information in the country. People have more access to their government in one way or another and yet there is consistently a portion of our society that wants to say this isnt the real power. There is a secret power behind it thats actually driving the train. And so my first question is, in the american context specifically, can you comment on that . Is that just one of the by products of democracy . That as long as people are participating in their political system, if they dont get what they want, they find an enemy to blame for what that is . But given that weve seen that there are in certain nationalist narratives excuse me there are transnational narratives of a deep state, is there something deeper going on . Now, its possible that there are turkish and american narratives about a Security Service with connections to gangs on the mafia because those things exist. It could just be an accurate reading of events. It could also be that there is something deeper, transnational, not specific to one country that wants to explain politics as nefarious, as secret and as the product of a small group that somehow has more power than they should have. I will try to keep it short. The easy thing to say would be that this is a way to engage in sort of, you know, attacks against out groups and jews being the kind of primary villain here. And certainly there is an element of that, i think, at work and the figure of george soros and more broadly this International Financier is the way that gets introduced, but from my point of view whats most surprising in some ways is more often than not the villain is a wasp. A kind of elite figure from the ivy league who speaks multiple languages who has all the right credentials. Those have often been people imagined to be at the center of these kinds of conspiracies. Mac bundy being the sort of exhibit a for that kind of conspiracy. I think that what i would sort of attribute that to is a kind of frustration among broad swath of the American People that both the constitution itself and then the Administrative State thats been built on top of it are forms of government that have empowered already powerful people. And that that strikes Many Americans as undemocratic. I mean, i really think that its kind of as simple as that. So its a kind of populist critique of elite rule. But its motivated in part by the fact that the constitution is a system of government that creates a system of elite rule in large part and it does so through all kinds of systems. The electoral college, senate. You know, it was never designed to be a pure democracy and it has become arguably less democratic overtime and i think that that creates a lot of anger. I would, i think im going to say two things, i think its important, i think, to recognize that when it comes to conspiratorial thinking thats just a part of modern politics and we can go all the way back to the 17th and 18th century, the 18th century theres all the stuff about the British Crown and the free masons, it goes back and its just a condition of politics. Its not a thing simply done by people who are outsiders, i think every american president has believed in some kind of conspiracy theories. So i think its a traditional cycle of politics that you have to have explanations, logical explanations of the politics in society. And then to make sense of that you would have to strictly her sources on that and see what the configurations are at different moments. The second thing about populism, right . Populism, it comes out of a particular moment. Its available as a political language and a system that advantages democracy whenever theres a crisis of representation. You set the source of all authorities of people against the elites, but this kind of populist persuasion has a distinct history. You can kind of locate its beginning in the late 19th century but of course it exceeds capitalist populism and different ways of expressing itself across the 20th century. Its one way of making sense of it but there are other ways. Its available, it has to do with Representative Democracy because you have to have a political system in which you can sort of argue that the people are not being served by those in power. And i think that populism has overlapped with conspiratorial is a. Its distinct overlapping but it also has a very distinct center. Most of these versions we are simply finding as a country, with populism in some of the most interesting conceptual literature on populism actually comes from people studying populism in latin america and other countries, not just the u. S. , etc, and if we talk about the secrets of the deep state i think theres something here which is about the 20th century which is about the National Security state and the Big Government. There is this idea that the secure ties government is built around this. And that register something about this american state in the 20th century. Is it a different state than the 20th century before. And at the same time, which is interesting is that very different people from different ends of the spectrum eisenhower is the ultimate insider. If he has an idea of misplaced power, hes not, despite the pentagon, hes not on the outside. Hes talking from within. So again, i think this also shouldnt be forwarded into some of the other things. As i try to suggest there is some overlap with populism so i think we have to be very careful to distinguish these different, i think, intellectual traditions that are constantly making and remaking themselves and if we wanted to sort of talk about it we then have to kind of attend to this historical specificity. I think about that particular political crises and modes of state formations at various points of time. One of the most valuable things we historians can do on this front is actually separate between valid and invalid critiques of the deep state. What ive seen in this conversation today is actually quite a range of opinions on how useful the term as and how much it actually is describing real processes and phenomenon that we all agree exist and can prove with historical research, exist or existed. And thats very different from just tirelessly throwing around accusations about the powers that control government. We are just about out of time. I would like to offer one historian specific pitch on this which returns to what professor mary started with on secrecy. One of the things that occurred to me over the course of this panel which is incredibly important for our own work is how much the worst parts of deep state narrative reflect one of the additional costs of secrecy in government, right . When governments dont declassified records or refused to release them or dont have the budgets to do the normal declassification and release procedures they agreed on in advance, that radically empowers people to say, well, since theres no one else saying anything, im sure the cia, the jfk association but is right now controlling it seems that its an additional cost and therefore if you are disgruntled with what you consider to be loose and unfair accusations of distrust and deep state, well, maybe join the cause to get the government to release records and to declassify them on time because thats how we can actually this prove some of the crazy claims and prove the very same claims. Can i ask if we have final thoughts because we are just about every time out of time, would you like to close this . All right. Thank you all for joining us, i hope you all enjoy the rest of your day