4/CHRONICLESnHangouts for the KGB are whatnlibraries have become, according to thenFBI. In a new report to the Senate, thenBureau says that libraries have beenntargets of espionage efforts since atnleast 1962. The Soviets have foundnthat laying hands on secret documentsnis frequently unnecessary; they cannsimply collect what they need in publicnresearch libraries, identifying “the nation’snemerging technology before itsncomponents can become classified ornrestricted.” Among other activities,nKGB agents engage in “large-scalentheft of microfiche records” and makenspecial attempts to recruit librarians,nwhose familiarity with research techniquesnmakes it possible to pursuen”thousands of topics and areas of interest.”nFaced with this problem, the FBInhas recently sought the help of librarians.nThe librarians, ever alert for thenreal enemy, have issued a call to armsnagainst the FBI.nCULTURAL REVOLUTIONSnThe Bureau’s request, directednmainly at 21 scientific and technicalnlibraries in the New York City arean(home of the United Nations andnseveral hundred Soviet-bloc “diplomats”),nhas been for notification ofnsuspicious behavior by persons fromnhostile countries. Librarians’ unionsntreat this as tantamount to establishingna police state. Margaret Chisholm,npresident of the American Library Association,nimagines “the specter of . . .nthe FBI, or its surrogates, gazing overnone’s shoulder, following one throughnthe stacks and to the photocopyingnmachine, and making reports on databasensearches or items requestednthrough interlibrary loan.” VariousnALA officials warn of “the gaze of BignBrother” and “a chilling impact on thenFirst Amendment rights of each andnevery one of us.” People for the AmericannWay, predictably suing the FBInover the program, warns that “ordinarynIn the forthcoming issue of Chronicles:nBack in the U.S.S.R.n”From Lenin’s and Pol Pot’s experience we know that thenmore ideologues hurry, the more they kill. The era ofndetente, when the U.S.S.R., Romania, Poland, and EastnGermany began to exchange their undesirable subjects fornWestern subsidies (instead of murdering them) resulted innan implicit consensus that the slave-trade is a progressivenimprovement upon uncorrupted, idealistic communism.”n— from “Solzhenitsyn: The Russian Liberal” bynMikhail S. Bernstamnnncitizens engaged in harmless researchncould easily become enmeshed in anweb of suspicion.”nBut FBI officials have proposed anlimited program, involving not politicallyn”dangerous ideas” but sensitiventechnical information which may determinenthe life and death of Americannsoldiers and civilians. And, notwithstandingnthe talk of “webs of suspicion,”nthere are far too few FBI agentsnto deal with existing foreign agents;nthey have little time to make life miserablenfor “ordinary citizens.” (Otherngovernment agencies do that job.) Innthis program, they are doing the leastnthey can do without forfeiting theirnduty of defending the United States.nIf librarians are concerned about anpolice state on the horizon, they mightnreserve some alarm for the big one tonthe East. But on that issue they are thensoul of equanimity. Moscow may benlearning how to build a better bombernor a more powerful laser from ournlibraries, but ALA high-mindedly proclaimsn”our role to make available andnprovide access to a diversity of information.”nChisholm declares that “foreignnnationals in this country are entitled tonthe same First Amendment protectionsnof speech as are citizens.”nAs this episode reminds, the publicnimage of librarians is out of date. Thenprim-and-proper ladies who saw themselvesnas guardians of our civilizationnhave retired. Their replacements,nmany of them children of the 1960’s,nmay not be able to discern the totalitariannthreat in the Soviet Union, but theynspot it all over America — in the FBI,nthe Moral Majority, parents who don’tnwant their children raised on JudynBlume. The most generous explanationnfor this world view is that today’snlibrarians aren’t too well-read. Some ofnthem might benefit from checking outnThe Gulag Archipelago. (MK)n