In conversation with Bonnie and John Raines and Keith Forsyth

In 1971 a group of unlikely activists—ordinary people from diverse walks of life—broke into an FBI office just outside of Philadelphia and stole thousands of files that documented the dirty tricks, Constitutional violations, and domestic spying of J. Edgar Hoover’s “shadow” agency. Washington Post reporter Betty Medsger was the first to receive and report on these files. For three years she made headlines and history with this information, and continued her investigation long after she left the paper. After decades of silence, the former Philadelphia Evening Bulletin reporter convinced the anonymous activists to come forward with their story. In The Burglary, Medsger details how their actions “dealt the first significant blow to an institution that had amassed enormous power and prestige” (The New York Times) in this chillingly prescient tale that seems to foreshadow post-9/11 spying and state secrets. A former chair of the Department of Journalism at San Francisco State University and the founder of its Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism, Medsger is also the author of Winds of Change, Framed, and Women at Work.