For Immediate Release Dec. 16, 1999 Contact: Ron Kirksey
330-672-2727 [email protected]
Claire Culleton
330-672-2571
Kent State University Researcher Untangles an Irish (Would-Be) Murder Mystery
By pulling a thread in her research on the FBI's interest in the late Irish writer James Joyce, Dr. Claire Culleton is unraveling an 80-year-old story that has all the elements of a top-flight murder mystery: conspiracy, celebrity, government involvement, international intrigue. It has everything - except the murder.
In fact, the intended victim, labor leader James Larkin, is now remembered as an Irish hero. And the names of the would-be murderers are still being kept secret in an FBI file. But Culleton, an associate professor of English at Kent State University, has generated interest in such media as The Irish Times, just as Ireland is back in the international news for a historic agreement that attempts to heal decades-old differences.
Here is what Culleton has pieced together about a plot that might have changed history.
Four men, called a "committee of disposal," met in New York City on Dec. 1, 1919, and decided that Irish labor activist James "Larkin must be assassinated for the good of the Irish Republic," according to a Bureau agent. The conspirators feared that Larkin, about to be tried in New York for his anti-government writings, would flee to Ireland in time to arouse the Irish socialist vote against Sinn Fein, which Larkin considered too capitalistic. The FBI described them as "men of the type who will not hesitate at violence of any sort to attain their ends."
J. Edgar Hoover, then an underling in the U.S. Department of Justice, learned of the conspiracy and, fearful of Larkin's socialist influence on the American labor movement, did nothing to stop it, Culleton said. "The Irish were galvanizing the labor movement in the U.S.," Culleton explained. "From the moment Larkin set foot on American soil, the FBI tried to find ways to get rid of him. They thought that America had a lot to gain by getting him out of here."
For Culleton, who has received Kent State's prestigious Distinguished Teaching Award, this tantalizing mystery has been gradually revealed through the lengthy process of obtaining FBI files on Joyce and Larkin. While she has hints about the identity of some of the conspirators, she is trying to convince the FBI to reveal the names. The FBI says that revealing their identities might constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.
"My work with the FBI dates back to 1991," Culleton explained, "when, acting on a hunch that seemed ridiculous even to me, I wrote to the FBI and asked whether they had kept a classified dossier on Joyce."
It took three years of correspondence before a slim, 20-page file marked "James Joyce" arrived at her house in 1994. "Most of the Joyce file was blacked out," she said. Her curiosity, piqued by what Hoover might have feared from Joyce, has led her to more questions than answers, and to plans for a book. She considered titling the book Joyce and the G-Men, but the publisher prefers the more academic Anti-intellectualism, American Politics, and the Radical Literary Left. The book is to be published by the end of next year.
Culleton believed that Hoover's distrust of intellectual public opinion makers might hold the answer. Using the Freedom of Information Act, she has since received additional files on Joyce's family members, friends, and business associates. The Joyce files label him a Communist. "Hoover feared that Joyce was one of those writers who could remold public opinion," she said.
Culleton's search for the Larkin files arose from a suggestion by Irish poet Eavan Boland, who gave a reading at Kent State in 1995. Boland thought the FBI might have made a connection between the writer and the labor activist. Three years later, Culleton received a 500-page file.
"It presents a very interesting narrative of early 20th century Communist Party paranoia and anti-intellectualism in American politics," Culleton said.
Larkin, known as the "Lion of Irish Labor," came to the U.S. in October 1914 on a lecture tour and soon was deeply involved in the American labor movement. In 1920 in New York, he was convicted of criminal anarchy for his involvement in a manifesto published in The Revolutionary Age. The jury felt it advocated the overthrow of the government by force. Larkin insisted his writings promoted a peaceful change of government.
Three years later, New York Gov. Al Smith aroused Hoover's anger by pardoning Larkin, saying the conviction interfered with free political discussion. Hoover, who had worked on the Larkin case as special assistant to the U.S. attorney general and later was FBI director, initiated a successful campaign to deport Larkin. Immediately after being released from prison, Larkin was shipped out of the country. Larkin lived until 1947, becoming Ireland's most celebrated trade unionist.
"When Larkin arrived in the U.S. in 1914, he had just suffered through a year of tremendous upheaval with the working classes in Ireland," Culleton said. "I suspect he was seen as a very real threat to American capitalism. The Department of Justice spared no expense in keeping Larkin under surveillance."
"What was it that drove Hoover, that prompted his highly motivated assaults and his sweeping public actions?" Culleton wondered.
In 1919-20, Hoover supervised the Palmer Raids, which successfully rounded up some 6,000 "subversives" and eventually deported more than a thousand of them. This was the first Red Scare, when the press and big business joined forces against the powerful labor movement. In 1920, Hoover learned of the plot against Larkin.
"Hoover spent a great deal of time and energy pursuing Larkin for his communist thinking," Culleton said. "That neither Hoover nor any of the other Bureau chiefs saw it necessary to put into motion an anti-assassination plan makes it clear to me that the Bureau silently conspired with the violent conspirators, hoping to end the Larkin problem one way or another."
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12/16/99
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