Freedom's Detective

February 1, 2019
The story of the second head of the Secret Service, whose relentless efforts at criminal apprehension paved the way for today's controversial domestic terrorism operations.Lane (Stay of Execution: Saving the Death Penalty from Itself, 2010, etc.)--a Washington Post board member and op-ed columnist and a former foreign correspondent and editor of the New Republic (1997-1999)--follows the intensive, though short-lived career of Hiram C. Whitley, a daring impresario with steady nerves who, during the Ulysses S. Grant administrations, served as the newly minted chief of the Treasury Department's Secret Service Division. Tracking down counterfeiters was Whitley's main focus, but he also served as a key detective in domestic surveillance during this time of Reconstruction, when the defeated Southern states were determined not to accept the various Reconstruction Acts passed by Congress in 1867 as well as the 14th Amendment. These events contributed to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. A spy, saboteur, and detective with little experience outside of living by his own wits, Whitley managed to build a small but capable "semiclandestine national police bureaucracy" that was unprecedented at the time, featuring "its own system of ranks and promotions, and full autonomy to recruit, pay, and supervise informants within the civilian population." In short order, Whitley began to use questionable methods of stealth and entrapment to achieve his aims. Moreover, a botched entrapment operation that the press called "The Washington Safe Burglary Case," along with a switch in political winds, ensured the end of Whitley's government career in the mid-1870s. Though the narrative is occasionally convoluted, Lane, in addition to providing a welcome biography of a somewhat forgotten figure, methodically pursues how "the dilemmas of a permanent federal covert apparatus are with us still" in the form of CIA and FBI "excesses in the 'war on terror.' "A detail-laden, arduously researched chronicle that delineates an important early era of the Secret Service.

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Starred review from February 25, 2019
Lane (The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court, and the Betrayal of Reconstruction) provides the definitive look at the federal government’s efforts to counter the threat posed by the KKK during Ulysses S. Grant’s presidency in this well-written and carefully researched account. When Grant entered the White House in 1869, hopes were raised that the Republican party platform of “equal rights, regardless of race or caste, for every man in every state” would extend to the South. But that agenda was violently opposed by the Klan, leading to the assassination of George Ashburn, a member of Georgia’s convention responsible for drafting a new constitution. Federal authorities dispatched Hiram Whitley, a veteran investigator, to Columbus, Ga., to crack the case, and he obtained evidence against 12 men, including a member of the U.S. Army. That achievement led to Whitley’s continuing to campaign against the Klan as the head of the Secret Service. Parallels between what Lane calls the first war on terror and the current one—both featured “military commissions, selective suspensions of habeas corpus, isolated interrogation centers, and torture against terrorists”—make clear why this lesser-known chapter in American law enforcement merits attention. American history buffs won’t want to miss this one. Agent: Scott Waxman, Waxman Literary.

March 15, 2019
Lane (Stay of Execution, 2010) tells the fascinating story Hiram Whitley, who became head of the Secret Service in the wake of the Civil War. The organization switched from routine criminal investigations, including Whitley's work battling Southern moonshiners, to addressing new forms of violence and terror during Reconstruction as Southern whites reacted to the election of African Americans to government offices in conjunction with the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant. Whitley proves to be an intriguing figure as he is called upon to investigate the murder of a white Radical Republican by members of the new white supremacist hate group, the Ku Klux Klan, for his support for African American voting rights. Lane's well-researched book portrays a complex lawman with questionable ethics, who long pursued shady businesses yet made his mark fighting the Klan as it gathered strength in many Southern states and threatened to grow ever larger. This is an important, highly readable, and timely study of a key historical period, the origins of the KKK, and one man's battle against its campaign of hatred and bloodshed.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

November 15, 2018

Emerging after the Civil War, as white supremacists resisted the ascendance of newly free African Americans, the Ku Klux Klan stirred concern in Washington, DC, with its first political assassination. That meant involvement by the Secret Service, which had heretofore focused on counterfeiting. Led by new head Hiram C. Whitley, the service used the novel technique of undercover work to battle the KKK, whose crimes amounted to what we now call terrorism. With a 50,000-copy first printing; from a Washington Post editorial board member who was a finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in editorial writing.

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