People We're Surprised The FBI Kept Files On - And Why

Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz came to the FBI’s attention in 1986 after he received bizarre correspondence from a man in Eugene, OR. United Feature Syndicate, the comics distributor that contacted the FBI on Schulz’s behalf, characterized the letters as “nonsensical” and the writer “mad as a hatter,” but likely harmless. However, he possessed “very apparent hostility to [then US president] Mr. Reagan,” which, as you’ll see from excerpts of the letters preserved by the FBI, manifested itself through Snoopy.

“Dear Mr. Shultz; I have attempted correspondence to you through United Features Syndicate, to where I have continued to have my rights to life, happiness, and productive gainful employment devastated due to your allowing the US government to engage in scenario characterizations about those things of which the apartheid ethetics [sic] of Pagan Ronald presumes is a state free will and denial ethetic [sic] being your lord and savior as a man of estute exective privledges [sic all],” begins the 13 pages of Schulz-directed letters in the FBI file. 

The man enclosed clippings of certain strips, most of which involve Snoopy, and wrote “…any more mind f*cking snoopy at the typewriters is gonna become a hall mark of instinctual brainwashing delievered [sic] directly from your cohort and good/ bad guy president as being an aparthetid [sic] political marking.” The man addressed himself as “Agent and Inventor of the Stereopsis.”

The man did get a few things right: Schulz was a friend of Reagan’s and may have injected some of their shared views into the comics, but not in strips where Snoopy writes a Valentine’s letter or makes a literary pun. “These are not coinsidences [sic] Mr. Shultz [sic].” Also, the moon probably wasn’t a co-conspirator as the man alleged:

From this day, you have jumped from conditional new moons, to full moons and I’m calling it defamation of my character should you conit ue [sic] this type of involvement using snoopy at the typewriter, or I will sue.

Moreover, the man sent Schulz his own version of Peanuts. In one panel, Snoopy types “Mein Kampf.”

As a probable explanation, the file contains a letter the man sent to the US Department of Health and Human Services, in which he laments the psychotropic drugs he had been taking for 12 years. Schulz suffered from cancer and passed in his sleep in 2000 from a heart attack; he wasn't assassinated by his correspondent, who evidently was harmless.

A duty of the FBI is to investigate threats made against prominent people, including musicians, actors, and politicians. Agents probably did a double take when they learned that the latest victim of a graphic death threat (warning?) was Colonel Harland Sanders.

“This is to inform you that you are in grave danger of being murdered,” reads a letter received by the KFC founder in 1974. “U.S. Armed Forces” was the sender, and the explanation, according to “The General,” could be found at the Los Angeles Nike Missile Base. Someone at KFC contacted the feds, who interviewed Sanders but said that “the FBI could not afford him protection.” Clearly they didn’t consider the threat serious.

Perhaps they thought it said “gravy danger.”

Stan Lee is the subject of a 213-page FBI file, which covers a business scandal recent enough to have been largely redacted for privacy’s sake. We do know that it occurred in the early 2000s and involved bankruptcy, fraud, stock manipulation, political fundraising, then-president Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Cher, Diana Ross, Spider-Man, the X-Men, and The Incredible Hulk. 

The catalyst for that cavalcade of celebrity controversy was not Lee but his then-business partner Peter F. Paul, through their company Stan Lee Media. After Lee's break with his namesake company, Stan Lee Media shareholders unsuccessfully sued for the rights to Lee's lucrative characters.

His FBI file is noteworthy for containing at least four mentions of Spider-Man, four of Hulk, two of the X-Men, and one of Daredevil.

As time lessens the need for redaction, the involvement of such superheroes and supervillains should become clearer.

Shirley Temple wasn’t just a bubbly child star. As an adult, she became part of the US government, filling various diplomatic roles overseas. One of the FBI’s jobs is to vet governmental candidates, so Temple got a 400-page dissection of her past and character. Because she eventually became a diplomat, the feds didn’t find anything too scandalous, but there were some surprises.

Although most of the FBI’s interviewees complimented Temple, her ex-husband advised “he would hesitate to recommend [her] for a position of trust and confidence in the Federal Government as he considered her emotionally unstable in that she tended to overreact if she did not get her way.” Another dissenting voice was politician Lucile Hosmer, who described Temple as somewhat aloof, naïve, and not a deep thinker. However, both dissenters extolled Temple's other virtues. 

A possible conflict of interest in the file was her longstanding friendship with FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, who declared that she was not to be subjected to neighborhood surveillance unless the need arose and it was cleared beforehand.

Perhaps the biggest surprise was Temple being targeted by assassins. One acted with a suspected letter bomb (likely a fake) addressed to MGM Studios with “I'd like to kill Shirley Black [Temple]” written on the side. The FBI, once contacted, explained that agents were “not going to come out and pick it up." They advised the recipient to contact the postal inspector and LAPD bomb squad.

Another would-be assassin brought a gun to a performance to avenge Temple's alleged theft of her daughter's soul. This was documented in Temple's memoir Child Star. Also, as the US Ambassador to Ghana, she became a potential target for the Japanese Red Army, a far-left terrorist group.

Post-WWII America was so bent on destroying communism that it targeted Hollywood - the country's ideas factory. Charlie Chaplin was likely the biggest star to have been accused of - and shamed for - having communist sympathies, but Lucille Ball may be the most surprising.

The funny female accrued a not-so-funny 150-page FBI file, largely based on her activity in the 1930s, long before the Soviet Union irreparably damaged communism's reputation. By the time Ball testified for the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1953, she “stated she [had] never been a member of the Communist Party ‘to her knowledge.’” 

As for her early sympathies, Ball blamed her socialist grandfather. “A review of the subject's file reflects no activity that would warrant her inclusion on the Security Index,” the FBI concluded.

Abbott and Costello, although once a celebrated comedy duo, have separate FBI files with similarly dark - yet still comedic - content.

“…A police informant furnished information to the effect that Bud Abbott, the well known motion picture and TV star, is a collector of p*rnography and allegedly has 1,500 reels of obscene motion pictures which he shows in his home where he has a projector of his own," reads the file on the ironically straight man of the duo. 

Moreover, “The police informant was approached by Abbott to furnish some girls for a private party he is having at an early date.” LAPD's Vice Squad intended to raid the party and confiscate the randy reels, but the file doesn't say whether it actually happened or if the collection was confirmed.

“…Information was secured reflecting that two prostitutes put on a lewd performance for Lou Costello, the movie actor, while he was in Portland in connection with the premiere of a motion picture," reads the file on Abbott's partner. “The show was arranged by a man known as [redacted] and the girls were paid $50 apiece for their part in the show.” 

Like Abbott, Costello was said to have a giant p*rn collection - “the largest library of obscene films in Hollywood,” according to a dubious informant - and it appears the FBI neither followed up with nor verified the debauchery.