Mont Wesley Swearingen (May 20, 1927 Steubenville, Ohio - November 13, 2019 Hemet,

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

) was an

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

Special Agent from 1951 to 1977. He wrote two books drawn from his experience: ''FBI Secrets'' (1995), and ''To Kill a President''(2008), an examination of the John F. Kennedy assassination.

Biography

Born in Steubenville, Ohio, Swearingen served in the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

from 1945 to 1946. After the war, he used the GI Bill to study at

Ohio State University The Ohio State University (Ohio State or OSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio, United States. A member of the University System of Ohio, it was founded in 1870. It is one ...

, where he graduated. He joined the FBI and began his career conducting black bag jobs on

Communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

s in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

.
- In

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

and

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, he spent years doing serious criminal investigations, which had been his goal in joining the FBI. But Director J. Edgar Hoover had become fixated on the threat in the 1950s and 1960s that he believed was posed by civil rights groups: first because of links to American communists. posed by such groups as the

Black Panther Party The Black Panther Party (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was a Marxism–Leninism, Marxist–Leninist and Black Power movement, black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newto ...

. and the Weathermen. Assigned to the Los Angeles FBI field office, Swearingen burglarized the Tucson Five and their lawyers during the FBI's efforts to prosecute them, but no incriminating evidence was found. The Tucson Five were exonerated. After 25 years with the FBI, Swearingen retired in 1977. Swearingen was interviewed in the documentary films '' All Power to the People!''(1997), which explored issues related to the Black Panthers, and '' The U.S. vs. John Lennon''. He died in

Hemet, California Hemet is a city in the San Jacinto Valley in Riverside County, California, United States. It covers a total area of , about half of the valley, which it shares with the neighboring city of San Jacinto, California, San Jacinto. The population w ...

on November 13, 2019.

Publications

''FBI Secrets: An Agent’s Exposé''.
Boston: South End Press, 1995. / . *''To Kill a President: Finally—an Ex-FBI Agent Rips Aside the Veil of Secrecy that Killed JFK''. BookSurge Publishing, 2008. / .(self-published)

References

1927 births 2019 deaths American male writers Federal Bureau of Investigation agents Law enforcement officials from Chicago Law enforcement officials from Kentucky Law enforcement officials from New York City People from Steubenville, Ohio Burials at Riverside National Cemetery {{US-writer-stub