How the FBI Proved That My Father Wore Overalls
His troubles began when he was accused of being a Communist by co-workers who disliked him.
By Paul Margolis
In the frightening post-9/11 world, Americans seem all too willing to give up civil liberties in exchange for a greater sense of security. But whenever I hear about our government’s urgent need to search and detain, I can’t help thinking of the excesses of a previous era of fear, and how they affected my family.
My father, Samuel Margolis, was unwittingly caught up in the anti-Communist hysteria of the early 1950s. His troubles began when he was accused of being a Communist by co-workers who disliked him. He lost his job and was investigated by the FBI and several other federal agencies, until they finally gave it up because there was nothing to pin on him.
My father was a radio telegrapher who had served in the Merchant Marines during World War II. He survived convoy duty in the North Atlantic, dodging torpedoes aboard ships loaded with fuel and ammunition.
After the war, he and my mother wanted to start a family so he “swallowed the anchor” and settled in Southampton, Long Island. There my parents found themselves practically the only Jews in what was then an isolated, provincial community 100 miles from Manhattan. He’d been hired as a telegrapher at a coastal radio station that relayed messages from ships at sea, and became one of a “bench” of operators who worked in shifts around the clock.
He was a virtuoso of the telegraph key, still an important tool of global communications in those pre-satellite days. He prided himself on his “fist” – his ability to send and receive Morse Code at 40 to 50 words a minute.
Unfortunately, his social skills were somewhat lacking. He had been spoiled by years as a shipboard radio officer, where his authority almost equaled the captain’s. He didn’t suffer fools gladly, and never developed that internal mechanism for self-censorship that allows the rest us to survive at work. He apparently made himself unpopular on the job almost immediately. He refused to suck up to his supervisors, barely spoke to anyone, and would occasionally get into fistfights with co-workers.
Not surprisingly, his employers wanted to fire him, but somehow they had let the end of his six-month probationary period go past by a day or two. My cantankerous father stayed on at the coastal station, hardly beloved but grudgingly tolerated. He was, after all, a first-rate telegrapher; he just had some difficulties dealing with people.
Meanwhile the world had become increasingly threatening. A hostile Soviet Union tightened its Iron Curtain around the countries it occupied after World War II. China was “lost” to the Communists, and U.S. troops were nearly driven off the Korean Peninsula. In Washington, fingers were being pointed, and Senator Joseph McCarthy claimed he had “proof” that Communists infiltrated the government at all levels. Congressional committees were set up to determine the extent of the Communist threat. Some people were jailed, others had their lives and careers ruined; some committed suicide.
This anti-Communist fervor gave Sam’s co-workers the idea that they could get rid of him and be patriotic Americans at the same time by simply denouncing him as a Communist. Anonymously. Shortly thereafter my father was fired without explanation, and his union wouldn’t lift a finger to help him. He tried to go back to sea, but even the steamship companies turned him away.
The Coast Guard, which issued maritime papers, told my father that his radio license had been suspended “pending a federal investigation,” and advised him to get a lawyer. That’s how he learned he had been accused of being a Communist, although he didn’t know who had done it, or why.
Meanwhile, other strange things started to happen: Men in suits came from the city to interview Sam’s neighbors and co-workers. Did they ever notice anything unusual about him? What sorts of visitors did he have?
Years later, thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, my father was able to obtain a copy of his 200-page FBI dossier. In it were several examples of “suspicious” behavior provided by the locals: He was occasionally seen sporting a two-day growth of beard, and he often wore overalls. Cars with New Jersey license plates – belonging to visiting relatives – were sometimes spotted in the driveway. My father’s less than stellar workplace behavior was mentioned. The feds probably thought they’d discovered a pair of rustic Rosenbergs.
After spending thousands of taxpayer dollars, the FBI apparently decided that there was no reason to believe my father was then or ever had been a Communist. The “evidence” they had collected showed that he was, at worst, a social misfit.
My parents had a rough couple of years until my father could clear his name and get his radio license reinstated so he could work again. My mother was pregnant with me. They had bought a house just before the troubles started, but they burned through their savings and ran up legal bills. My father had almost no income during that period, except for an occasional day’s work from a sympathetic carpenter who wasn’t afraid to hire a suspected Communist.
For many years afterward, my father was viewed with suspicion in the small community where we lived. People wouldn’t patronize his TV and radio repair business because of the Communist taint. There were unexplained delays in renewing his radio license, which forced him to ask our local congressman to intercede on his behalf in Washington.
In the end, Samuel Margolis got the best revenge: He outlasted all of his tormentors and lived to the ripe age of 87. But he was scarred by the experience, which he never forgot. Not surprisingly, I grew up with a lack of trust in the government and countless negative feelings about authority in general.
I wish I could believe that giving the FBI and other federal agencies a freer hand to snoop and imprison would enable them to make our lives safer. However, I worry that there will be many abuses, and many innocent people will have their lives turned upside down, just as they did in the McCarthy era.
