to help HUAC hold the hearings that wracked Hollywood and led to the blacklisting and ruin of many people in the film industry.

Reagan took great satisfaction from his work with the FBI, which gave him a sense of security and mission during a period when his marriage to Jane Wyman was failing, his acting career faltering, and his faith in the Democratic Party of his father crumbling. In the following years, Reagan and FBI officials courted each other through a series of confidential contacts. And after Reagan emerged as a leading conservative spokesman in the 50s, Hoover secretly gave him personal and political help that, a federal court ruled in my FOIA challenge, served "no legitimate law enforcement purpose." He even lent Reagan a hand in keeping trackof his own wayward children, Maureen and Michael. Now the long courtship between the FBI director and the former movie star would pay off for them both.

The FBI would become deeply involved in the clash over free speech at Berkeley among the powerful social forces represented by Reagan, Kerr, and Savio. Each of those men had a transforming vision of America and has exerted extraordinary and lasting influence on the nation. Tracing the bureau's involvement with these iconic figures reveals a secret history of America in the 60s. It shows how the FBI's dirty tricks helped energize the student movement, damage the Democratic Party, launch Reagan's political career, and exacerbate the nation's continuing culture wars. Above all, the story that emerges from the once-secret files illustrates the dangers