>Psychic Jeane Dixon Was FBI Stooge >Maligned Civil Rights Movement With Hoover's Approval >Dec. 27, 1999 ><http://www.apbnews.com/media/gfiles/dixon/index.html> >By Joe Beaird > >NEW YORK (APBnews.com) -- Soothsayer Jeane Dixon helped the FBI fight >leftist campus agitators during the 1960s by secretly serving as the >bureau's mouthpiece, according to her FBI file, which was obtained by >APBnews.com. > >Dixon -- who vaulted to fame when credited with foretelling President John >F. Kennedy's death in office -- was one of the nation's highest profile >psychics when she died of a heart attack in 1997. > >Her FBI file, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, also documents >a brazen extortion attempt against her, a cozy relationship with J. Edgar >Hoover, and angry requests for the bureau to investigate her for her >sometimes-inflammatory prophecies. > >But Dixon, the Wisconsin-born daughter of German immigrants who went on to >advise first lady Nancy Reagan, had friends and support at the highest >levels of the bureau. Personally approving her offer to help the FBI in >1966, Hoover hand wrote on her file: "OK. She is a very reputable person." > >Dixon speaks against civil rights movement > >After casually meeting an FBI special agent at a social function, Dixon >asked him for materials to include in her speeches that would undermine >support for left-wing groups, according to a bureau memo. She pledged to use >the information in her speeches "in such a manner that it cannot be >attributed to the FBI," the memo reads. "Thus, the 'left-wing' groups could >not claim she was a mouthpiece for the FBI." > >The feds ultimately sent Dixon background information on groups >orchestrating the Vietnam War and civil rights protests that the FBI deemed >"campus turbulence." > >And Dixon, in turn, told the public that saw her as an oracle that the >country's "real enemy is Russia." In a newspaper article included in her >file, she is quoted as saying that the Russians were the masterminds behind >the civil rights movement. > >Hoover comes aboard > >Dixon's good relations with the FBI continued through 1968, when Hoover >agreed to serve as an honorary director to the psychic's Children to >Children Inc., a foundation established to alleviate child suffering and >disease. > >The foundation still exists today, although its fund raising has suffered >since Dixon's death, according to Tony Tringale, the group's current vice >president. Dixon lived off the family real estate business and donated her >celebrity prophecy income to the charity, Tringale said. > >"She was a very dear lady," Tringale told APBnews.com. "Once you get away >from The Star and the predictions, she had a very big heart." > >FBI raised an eyebrow at controversial statements > >But her life was never free of controversy. And she touched off a flurry of >internal memos at the FBI with a 1969 National Enquirer article claiming >that four Soviet leaders "instigated, financed, and controlled" student >uprisings and race riots in the United States. > >"While we have no information as that referred to by Jeane Dixon," reads a >bureau memo by C.D. Brennan, "we felt it necessary to note Communist >participation in international peace groups including those from the Soviet >Union, the U.S. and other nations." > >But in a handwritten note at the bottom of Brennan's memo, Hoover defends >Dixon's basic conclusions. He stresses that Soviet financial support for the >U.S. Communist Party is well-established, and that the party helped lead >many student demonstrations. > >"I still think we are playing a game in semantics," Hoover wrote. "We know >that the Soviet Govt. is financially supporting the U.S.C.P. [U.S. Communist >Party] & we know U.S.C.P. has led many of the student uprisings and race >riots." > >She asked for protection, but didn't get it > >But while Hoover appeared to look kindly on Dixon, the bureau denied her >1970 request for personal protection for a speech she was giving in >Greenwood, Miss. > >Dixon had received a telegram telling her that her speech would be delivered >to a "completely segregated" group, which she felt was an implied threat. >Nevertheless, the bureau denied her request and referred her to the >Greenwood Police Department for protection, if necessary. > >Life as a public oracle inspired at least one person to send a string of >threats against Dixon, her file reveals. > >In 1977 alone, one extortionist -- whose name has been redacted from the FBI >file -- sent her 10 threatening telegrams and letters. > >"I'm terribly hard pressed for money," one telegram reads. "Send me some >financial help immediately or I'll take drastic action. Either you help me >quick or it's going to be the worst." > >Another letter predicts the psychic's "total ruination." > >The Seattle FBI field office investigated the threats, but the results are >not included in the file. > >Request that Dixon be investigated > >If Dixon was sometimes an extortion target, others saw her annual >predictions -- which were widely syndicated in The Star tabloid and >elsewhere - as such a threat that they sent them to the FBI with a request >that their author be investigated. > >In a 1971 letter to Hoover and Sen. Hale Boggs, one disgruntled conspiracy >theorist claims that Dixon, through partisan bloodlust, "has been permitted >to mark all of our Democrat Leaders [sic] for bodily harm. She has marked >Ted Kennedy for murder over and over again ... and has everybody thinking >kill, kill, kill." > >"I am requesting an official investigation into the actions of Mrs. Jeane L. >Dixon," the letter concludes. > >In 1971, after Dixon revealed that there was a spy highly placed in the U.S. >government who reported directly to Russia, several government informants >sent the article directly to Hoover. > >"Why don't you ask her who it is?" one alert citizen wrote Hoover. There is, >in Dixon's file, no record of what action the FBI director took. >---- >Joe Beaird is an APBnews.com staff writer (joe.beaird@apbnews.com). Read the FBI file here --> <http://www.apbnews.com/media/gfiles/dixon/file.html>
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