It’s now the summer break for me, and with it comes time to process some of the information I’ve gathered and scout around for more new material. This is more than a little overdue – you’d be surprised, for instance, how little I’ve done with all the documents I gathered from my trip to the Wisconsin Historical Society last year, but between the demands of work and the sudden need to get another manuscript in shape by last December, I just hadn’t the time or brainpower to spare.
Sometimes, though, a little distance between gathering the materials and going through them is useful. I’ve certainly found that to be true as I begin sorting through the documents I hurriedly photographed during that whirlwind visit eleven months back. There are treasures to be found, and already I’ve unearthed some really nifty revelations from the NBC files that I don’t believe anyone else has reported.
But other incredible finds haven’t required me to go on the road. Some of them have been as close as my computer, even if they meant I had to wait a while.
About a year ago I had a hunch. With the Federal Bureau of Investigation posting files on on popular culture figures via the Bureau’s website, why not see if there was a file on Dave Garroway? I didn’t expect there to be much, if anything, but you’ll never know unless you ask. So I used the handy online system to put in a FOIA request.
Anyone who’s ever dealt with FOIA (and I did, back in the pre-internet days) knows it can be a glacial process. Not only do files have to be located, but they have to be scanned, reviewed, redacted (with rationale provided)…the whole process. Not to mention, this is subject to the staff’s ability to handle these requests in between official business. (There are also times when you deal with agenices or FOIA offices that get happy with the redactions or exemptions, but that’s a story others can tell better than I can, as I’ve been fortunate in that regard.) If I were still a working journalist, my patience with FOIA would be different from what it is as someone working on a project with a long lead time. But since I’m not on a deadline yet, I found it oddly helpful that I’d forgotten I made the request – it kept me from agonizing or getting impatient, and since my expectations were so low anyway I figured even one or two documents would be a win.
That’s why it was a surprise the other day when an e-mail arrived from the Bureau’s FOIA office telling me I had four document files ready for download…and when I saw that one of those files was pretty substantial. I don’t want to give away too much, because there has to be a reason for you to buy the book when it comes out. I will tell you I got a lot more from my request than I expected. A good portion of the file was taken up with a controversy over a 1949 episode of Garroway at Large, in particular a musical number that ribbed the FBI’s investigations during the Red Scare. In response, the FBI wanted nothing to do with Garroway’s programs for several years after, refusing requests for FBI personnel to appear on Today and so forth. Not until a 1956 segment on Wide Wide World did the ice begin to thaw.
As with all FBI files, you have to be careful not to take the information as gospel; some elements of the files contain what’s obviously rumor, gossip, hearsay, and other unreliable information, but even if it’s bad data it’s useful nonetheless because you can gauge what was feeding the Bureau’s perceptions.
Be that as it may, there is one section in these files that is heartbreaking to read, and it’s a section dating from the spring of 1961. It’s an account of a conversation Garroway had with an FBI investigator, and in those notes you really get an idea of Garroway’s condition at that point. I’m still sorting through it all, but even on a quick review it’s truly sad and haunting reading.
My thanks to the FBI FOIA office for getting these documents to me. It’s one more element of my quest to not only tell the Dave Garroway story, but to tell it as thoroughly as I’m able, with as few stones unturned as possible.