The Justice Department has given up its appeal of a $264,000-damage ruling against the FBI for its 38-year-long campaign of harassment of a tiny socialist party, ending an embarrassing chapter that dates back to the era when both the Communist Party and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover were major forces in America.

Lawyers for the Socialist Workers Party plan to announce today that they have finally prevailed in a suit that began in 1973, three years before the FBI ended its campaign.

The federal court ruling left intact by the department’s withdrawal declared that the FBI had “no legitimate basis” to spy on the radical leftist group because it had no evidence that the party or its members were violating the law.

Hired 1,300 Informants


The long trial in the case disclosed that since 1938, the FBI had hired 1,300 informants and spent at least $1.7 million to disrupt the radical leftist party, whose membership did not top 2,000. The FBI campaign apparently reached its peak in the late 1960s, when paid infiltrators tried to break up the coalition of groups who were actively opposing the Vietnam War.

In ruling against the FBI in August, 1986, U.S. District Judge Thomas P. Griesa in New York said its massive surveillance operation failed to discover “any violation of federal law” and did not lead to “a single arrest for any federal law violation.”

“This is a historic victory because it shows that even the FBI cannot act with impunity,” said Jack Barnes, national secretary for the Socialist Workers Party. “This destroys the myth that federal police agencies can just override constitutional rights if they think it is in the national interest. It also gives an important legal weapon to anyone who wants to practice politics without being subjected to government interference.”

Just two months ago, government files were released showing that from 1981 to 1985, the FBI spied on hundreds of political groups that were opposed to the Reagan Administration’s policies in Central America. But new FBI Director William S. Sessions said that effort--now ended--was justified because of information that the groups were aiding a “terrorist organization” in El Salvador.


Changes in the FBI

“This lawsuit resulted in changes in the FBI,” said Leonard B. Boudin, the lawyer who represented the Socialist Workers. “We just don’t know how deep they go. I’m troubled by what I’ve been hearing lately,” he added.

The changes Boudin referred to were in the 1976 decision by then-Atty. Gen. Edward H. Levi to end the surveillance of the Socialist Workers and to draw up internal guidelines intended to keep the FBI out of domestic political activities. However, bureau officials say its agents will engage in surveillance of a political group if they have reason to believe that it will violate federal laws.

Peter C. Salerno, an assistant U.S. attorney in New York who handled the case, confirmed that his office filed court papers late Wednesday saying that the government would not appeal Judge Griesa’s ruling. In January, his office had reserved its right to appeal the539243062injunction that forbids the FBI from ever using the information compiled during the illegal operation.


“We are withdrawing that notice of appeal. This effectively ends the case,” said Salerno, while refusing to reveal why the Justice Department chose to give up.

Split From Party

In the 1930s, the Socialist Workers Party split from the Communist Party of America because it refused to follow the lead of Joseph Stalin. FBI Director Hoover considered the many revolutionary leftist parties to be a grave threat to the nation’s security and ordered his agents to spy on and disrupt their political activities. The campaign continued long after communism and socialism ceased to be a major force in American politics.

From 1960 to 1976, the FBI committed 206 burglaries at the offices or homes of the Socialist Workers, stole 12,600 documents and tapped their telephones for at least 20,000 days, according to Judge Griesa’s findings.


“As far as the evidence now shows, the materials involved contain little or no information bearing on national security, and no information about actual or planned violence against public officials,” the judge said, “but rather a mass of information about peaceful political activities and the private lives of individuals.”