When Betty Medsger received an envelope in the mail 53 years ago, she didn’t know it would change her life. The journalist had recently uprooted her life, moving from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., for a job covering religion at the Washington Post. But she was about to break a major story outside her usual beat, involving mass government surveillance on ordinary citizens.
The envelope contained explosive documents, stolen by an anonymous group of activists from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s office in Media, Delaware County. The memos and reports inside showed that the FBI, under the leadership of J. Edgar Hoover, was spying on anti-war protestors and college students, particularly Black coeds. This racist targeting was in line with a much wider and nefarious FBI program called COINTELPRO, which had surveilled and sabotaged civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Fred Hampton, whom law enforcement killed in his home in 1969.
Medsger quickly wrote a story, which spawned more articles and the 2014 book “The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover’s Secret FBI.” Now, it’s also a podcast. “Snafu,” hosted by actor Ed Helms is dedicated to “history’s greatest screw-ups,” The second season retells the details and subsequent fallout of the FBI heist that ocurred March 8, 1971, about 12 miles from Center City. New episodes are released on Wednesdays.
How did a venerated journalist wind up working with Andy Bernard from “The Office”? A family connection got the ball rolling, but Medsger was quickly impressed with Helms’ sincere love of history.
“Ed Helms’ aunt is a close friend of mine here in in New York,” Medsger said. “And when my book came out in 2014, she gave a copy to every member of her family, which is quite a large family. And she liked to say later that she thinks that the only member of the family who may have read the book was Ed.”
The story stuck with Helms, who began hosting “Snafu” in 2022. The first season focused on a 1983 military exercise that nearly sparked nuclear war between the U.S. and former U.S.S.R. But when it came time for Season 2, he returned to the 1971 FBI case, nicknamed Medburg by bureau officials – a portmanteau of “Media” and “burglary.”
“Before we started talking … I was told that he was a history buff, and that was why he created this series,” Medsger said. “So the first thing I did once I realized that he was interested was listen to the first (season). … I was impressed by what he did.”
Still, she had one note for her friend’s history-loving nephew.
“I thought it was a little snarky in some places,” she said with a laugh. “And I expressed concern about that. They understood and they were very direct about the fact that, in our case, this was a story about a group of people, most of whom were still alive. And that he had no interest in doing anything except honoring them, and that there would be no humor at their expense.”
Medsger is naturally a bit protective of these sources. She’s been working with the seven people who broke into the FBI office in Media for decades now, though she didn’t know who they were at first. During her initial reporting, she knew them only as the Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI. Decades later, she learned the identities of two of thieves while catching up with sources from her earlier years in Philly.
Before she joined the Washington Post, Medsger had been a religion reporter for the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. That beat took her to some unexpected places, like protests against the Vietnam War, which often featured Catholic, Episcopalian and Quaker leaders. In Medsger’s estimation, Philadelphia had “probably the largest anti-war community in the country” in the 1960s. She saw “sizable” demonstrations at least once a week.
“Philadelphia was really quite amazing at the time,” she said. “It’s a very active place, right and left. The pull from each direction was strong. That’s when (former Mayor Frank) Rizzo was becoming very powerful and doing some dreadful things. And there was also a very strong push and pull from the right and left inside the Catholic Church, which was huge in Philadelphia. … You also had this very strong infusion of young people who came to Philadelphia specifically because they thought this was a place where you could really have an impact in the anti-war movement.”
Medsger had met John and Bonnie Raines, a married couple, through these demonstrations and John’s job as a religion professor at Temple University. When she joined them for dinner in 1989 during a return visit to the city, they shocked her by revealing they were part of the Citizen’s Commission. From there, Medsger methodically pieced together the rest of the puzzle.
She eventually met and interviewed all eight of the members, and got most of them to go on record with their real names for her book – with two exceptions. Ralph Daniel did not go public until 2021, outing himself in a story for the San Francisco Chronicle. And Sara Shumer only revealed her identity for “Snafu.”
Medsger, an executive producer for the podcast’s second season, was instrumental in this scoop.
“She was just so afraid,” Medsger explained. “She was enthusiastic about the story being told, but she didn’t want to have her name used. So I got in touch with her. Anytime anything fresh happened, I would get in touch with everybody through the years. … (I was) certainly thinking she wouldn’t participate (in the podcast).
“I didn’t hear back, and I became concerned. I have an adult grandchild in Berkeley, where she lives. So I wrote a letter that he then printed out and took to the last address I had for her and delivered it. I was away for a couple weeks, and when I came back, I had this letter from her written in pencil explaining that she had had a serious stroke a year earlier and was still recovering, but was doing okay, but that none of her technology worked …”
Emails Medsger had sent Shumer never reached her, but when the two reconnected Shumer surprised Medsger with some news: She wanted to participate in “Snafu” and she was willing to publicly reveal her name.
Medsger, who later visited Shumer in person, said she didn’t offer a reason for her change of heart. But a near-death experience and general aging can spark personal reflection. Medsger herself hopes that listeners to the podcast, whether they’re familiar with the story or not, glean a message from Shumer and her colleagues on the commission.
“This is a story that is so important because it’s about an act of resistance by completely unknown people that had an enormous impact,” she said. “I thought just as a piece of history, it was important. But for people to know what an average person can do – the power of individuals and the power (that) a small group of individuals working together can have – was just a very important thing for the public to have access to.”
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