It seems in the end it often came back to J. Edgar Hoover, a man with a lot of power and a healthy ego.
By John Rogers
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES – Talk about irony. Comedian George Carlin spent decades pushing the bounds of free speech by saying the seven words you can never say on television, but not one of them made it into an FBI file on him.
Among the 12 pages that do make up a file recently released by Carlin’s family are a couple of letters from outraged citizens who complained that the “alleged comedian” had made fun of the FBI and its director, J. Edgar Hoover, during TV appearances in 1969 and 1970.
There’s also a letter from Hoover himself thanking one of Carlin’s critics for defending his honor, and an internal FBI memo that quotes the director as asking: “What do we know of Carlin?”
Not much, as it turned out. The memo notes the FBI has “no data concerning Carlin” other than the two letters from his critics.
For Full Story
