I contacted Al Feldstein in early August 2002 and asked if he would be willing to talk about his and MAD's experiences with the FBI. Luckily for us he agreed and below is the conversation we had through email. - Ed Norris

Norris: MAD #37, January 1958, has an article titled "MAD's Xmas Games" that featured a game called "Draft Dodger." When the player completed the game he or she was a full-fledged draft dodger. The player needed to write to J. Edgar Hoover for his or her membership card. You had full editorial control of the articles that appeared in MAD; did it ever cross your mind that MAD readers would actually send requests for the membership card to the FBI? And, did you expect a reaction from the FBI?

Feldstein: All through my years as editor of MAD, I was constantly and continuously surprised and amazed at reader reaction to the satirical, humorous, tongue-in-cheek, absolutely outlandish articles we'd run. After all, MAD was admittedly a "Humor" and "Satire" magazine. It was edited with that in mind. People with no sense of humor had no business reading it... because they obviously would never even "get" it! Some readers would take us deadly serious...and chastise us and berate us for whatever we'd just published. Some readers (not necessarily "fans") would go even further...and accuse us of being Un-American, etc. (See further information about these no-humor morons below, in the context of another of your questions!) Some readers would delight in our idiotic approaches and actually try to out-do us with further idiotic actions of their own. Some Hollywood celebrities loved our MAD take-offs of the movies that they'd starred in that they would ask us (even beg us) for the original art so that they could frame it and hang it in their Beverly Hills mansions. And some readers, like an FBI Director with real problems about his public image, would send his Agents to attempt to intimidate us.

But to get to your question: In an article spoofing the idiocies of some of the board games being produced at the time, we created several new ones that jumped from reality into satirical fantasy. One was called "Draft Dodger" and, as part of our point of departure, ended with the winner earning the title of "Official Draft Dodger"...and instructing him to send his name to J. Edgar Hoover for his "Official Draft Dodger Card." I mean, who in heck would ever expect any MAD reader to actually do that?! But obviously, many did...much to the consternation of Mr. J. Edgar Hoover, the Director of the FBI.

When Bill Gaines and I returned from our lunch and learned from John Putnam, our Art Director, that two deadly serious FBI Agents had actually visited our offices and expressed Mr. Hoover's anger and objection to being included in our "Draft Dodger Game", we were appalled and frightened...not about Mr. Hoover's fury!...but because some of our readers might have gotten themselves into trouble by admitting to him that they were Draft Dodgers! After our initial concerns had passed and we learned more about the FBI Agents' visit...and what they had requested us to do...it became clearly apparent that Mr. Hoover was more interested in the use of his name in MAD, and the sullying of his reputation by it, than in any thoughtless reader action... we rolled on the floor, laughing.

The Agents had instructed us that Mr. Hoover would expect a letter of apology from us and with it an assurance that his name would never appear in MAD Magazine again...or else!

Norris: Were you involved in composing the Gaines' apology letter to the FBI? I'm sure both of you came up with some drafts that you couldn't send.

Feldstein: Not directly. Bill took care of that himself, not wanting me to waste even a moment on such nonsense, what with my other responsibilities. (Or maybe he was a little afraid of what I would write!) He did, however, to his credit, compose and send Mr. Hoover a carefully worded, so-called "apology" ...that promised absolutely nothing in the way of future material that might be published in the magazine.

Norris: After Gaines sent the letter to Hoover apologizing for MAD's misuse of Hoover's name. Did the FBI become a forbidden subject at that point?

Feldstein: Of course, at the time, we were intimidated by the visit. And we laid off...for a year or so. But not because the FBI had become a forbidden subject! No...it was strictly coincidental. Nothing had came across my desk in the way of script submissions that contained any trenchant and biting satirical use of "FBI" subject matter.

Norris: You were back on the attack with MAD #53, March 1960. That issue featured J. Edgar Hoover Hair Tonic and called him J. Edgar Electrolux in the "Stories from the Files of the F.B.I." article. Did the FBI contact MAD about this issue?

Feldstein: No! I do not remember any FBI Agents ever returning to the MAD Offices about anything we published concerning their organization.

Norris: Coronet magazine published an article about MAD and the FBI was not happy that you mentioned them visiting the MAD office about the Draft Dodger Club. Obviously the MAD staff found it comical that the FBI needed to visit the MAD office, so that story would make good "press", but was it also an attempt to give them another little dig?

Feldstein: That story about the FBI visit was just one of many anecdotal stories that we were requested to supply to "Coronet Magazine" for their flattering analytical article about MAD and its exploding popularity.

Of course it was comical that good taxpayer money was irresponsibly wasted by sending two FBI Agents to the MAD Offices because of a personal agenda on the part of its Director...but our mentioning that experience was not in any way calculated to be a "dig"...but merely to demonstrate MAD's growing positive and negative influence...and the interesting reactions it had received.

Norris: The last incident in the FBI files concerns the MAD #63, June 1961, article entitled "Mad's Modernized Elementary School Textbooks." One of the texts had a letter that could be used to extort money. A couple of kids in Seattle decided it was a good idea and got themselves in trouble. Again, did it ever cross your mind that MAD readers would actually follow your "advice"?

Feldstein: I hate repeating myself, but MAD was a "Humor" and "Satire" magazine.

Everything in it was supposed to be some form of a "joke"! If I were to have edited MAD with the cautious, fearful, tip-toeing approach that some idiot out there would take what we were publishing serious...that they would actually follow our satirical, tongue-in-cheek" examples or "advice"...there would have been no MAD Magazine as I perceived it and edited it. The key is in the title..."MAD's Modernized Elementary School Text Books"...satirically illustrating the deteriorating morality and lowering ethical standards of our society at the time.

Norris: This incident seems to be the most serious with it reaching Robert F. Kennedy's (The Attorney General) office. The FBI visited MAD again and you were interviewed. According to their documents you stated MAD was "intended for readers on the college level" and expressed surprise that children were reading it. Did you really believe that middle and high school children weren't reading MAD? Can you describe what happened during this meeting?

Feldstein: I was delighted to be present when they returned to our offices for that furshlugginer reader-reaction incident. The whole thing was totally ridiculous...and my "surprised" and "amazed" reactions to it were the only thing I could think of at the time. It was my tongue-in-cheek, knee-jerk response. Yes, I did tell them that MAD was "intended for a college level audience" and I did, indeed "express surprise that 'children' were reading it." But did I actually believe that elementary, middle and high school kids were not reading MAD? Of course I didn't. We were probably selling around one and a quarter million copies per issue at that time, and I was certainly aware of the age level of the majority of our readers by their Letters To The Editor, etc. But the whole stupid, unreal situation demanded a stupid, unreal response... and I gave it to them.

Norris: In Frank Jacob's book The MAD World of William M. Gaines, he mentions an incident with MAD #115, December 1967, and a three-dollar bill that worked in change machines in Las Vegas. Jacobs says that the FBI again visited the MAD offices. The FBI files do not reference this incident. Can you tell us what happened?

Feldstein: Frank Jacobs was in error in describing that visit. It was not the FBI...but the Agents of the U. S. Treasury Department that visited us. We had published a three-dollar bill with Alfred's, instead of some President's, picture, on it. It was not a stat of any U.S. denomination bill. It was a Bob Clarke "simple" rendering of one. It lacked etched details, machined scrolls and all of the accouterments of a genuine bill. But it was, however, freakishly being recognized as a one-dollar bill by the newly-introduced, relatively primitive, technically unsophisticated change machines...and giving back quarters or whatever to anyone who inserted it into one. It was probably the owner of those machines in Las Vegas that complained to the U. S. Treasury Department.

Mind you, this is with obviously extraneous MAD typography and illustration material on the bill's back...from another article or a continuation of the one with the bill! Unbelievable! But the U. S. Treasury Agents demanded the original Bob Clarke artwork for confiscation...and we shrugged and gave it to them. Of course, they knew there was no serious intent upon our part to "counterfeit" U.S. currency...and that it wasn't our fault that the machines were mechanically inadequate. They were just doing their job and confiscating the offending original art was their job. (They also demanded the "printing plates"...but we explained that the press run was long ago concluded, that whatever plates there had been were probably destroyed, but that they were welcome to them it they still existed...and we gave them our printing company's address.) As I said, unbelievable!

Norris: Most of the documents in the FBI files are from readers who claimed MAD and Bill Gaines were Communists. Did MAD receive similar letters and did the FBI ever address this claim with the MAD staff?

Feldstein: The FBI addressing this claim with the MAD staff? Not that I recall.

Similar letters? Quite a few! From people with no sense of humor...who will always lack the ability to laugh at themselves...and who were panicked and frightened by the political hysteria and temperature of the times. (See next answer!)

Norris: Generals Edwin Walker and Clyde Watts both attacked MAD; calling it Communistic. FACT magazine made it out that you counter-attacked the John Birch Society, in the article "MAD Interviews A 'John Birch Society' Policeman" from MAD #97, September 1965, because of the Generals' statements. Was this true?

Feldstein: No! Anti-Communist panic...Red-baiting...and the Cold War with Russia was going on at that time, reaching a peak...and like every other era, including today!...contained serious, frightening reactionary organizations and movements in support of those causes that were beginning to infringe upon our basic Constitutional Liberties and Freedoms. The John Birch Society was one of the more infamous and outstanding of those organizations...and invited, no, begged for a biting, critical, MAD satirical treatment...hence the article, "MAD Interviews a 'John Birch Society Policeman"...an extreme point of departure that stressed how the "John Birch Society" thinking... in the hands of a Law Enforcement Officer... could be devastating and dangerous to our Civil Liberties, etc.

Norris: The FBI only has two reports after 1965. Do you think America had learned to live with Communists a missile-throw-away and therefore didn't see "Communist activity" everywhere or do you think MAD's editorial position was changing to be less "anti-government"? Al Jaffee's "Hawks and Doves" was definitely anti-government-policy.

Felstein: The FBI's intimidating visits to the MAD Offices never affected my Editorial Policy! I just kept on doing what I was doing.

I believe that the FBI withdrew from their monitoring and pressure tactics at Mr. Hoover's behest because he came to realized that we were a maverick crazy group of guys who would publish what we deemed fit to publish, and he didn't want any more satirical personal attacks by us. I also believe that he realized that he was playing with fire...mainly Freedom of the Press...and that additional publicity, like the "Coronet Magazine" article...was not in the FBI's...and his...best interests.

I do recall reading, somewhere in one of those FBI files, a memo about "cooling it" with us (but not using that exact terminology)...and ignoring our MAD shenanigans.

Norris: The last complaint to the FBI was from the American Federation of Police and they were upset about MAD's use of the US Flag. If Jack Albert (lawsuits) had notified you that depicting the US Flag in various satirical formats was a violation of the US Flag Code (according to the US Attorney's Office) would you have changed your use of our flag?

Feldstein: I do not remember ever being made aware that there was such a Code by our Lawyer...and even so, I don't think that I would have acted any differently if I had been offered another idea like that wonderful, satirical concept of using the American Flag to paraphrase The Pledge of Allegiance.

In all of my years Editing MAD, I firmly believed that I would always be protected by the "Freedom of the Press" Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in regard to anything that MAD did...as long as it constituted a legitimate "Journalistic Criticism and Opinion"...which the Amendment guarantees.

Norris: Frank Jacobs also mentions in his book that the FBI was called in by Gaines because The Phantom was destroying and stealing MAD property. There is no record of the FBI taking any action on this case. Did you hear why they wouldn't react? Could it be because MAD had been a sore spot with the FBI?

Feldstein: The "Phantom" had stolen our mail... possibly in the belief that it contained cash for subscriptions... and Bill, if I'm not mistaken, called the United States Postal Service about it. I don't remember his calling the FBI directly. Perhaps he was referred to the FBI by the Postal Service and it went no further. Whether the FBI was called... and it chose to ignore it or not... I cannot answer with any certainty.

Norris: Did you ever find out who The Phantom was?

Feldstein: No! Hey! Maybe it was an FBI Agent!

Norris: Finally, we covered just a few of the 36 separate incident reports the FBI has about MAD. Are you surprised at the amount of activity MAD "caused" the FBI?

Feldstein: Really? That many?!

I have to assume that most of the complaints were from people with absolutely no understanding of what we were doing, using satire as a form of gentle chiding... and people with absolutely no ability to laugh at themselves.

I am not surprised, though, considering the insanity of the times...the paranoiac fear of anything resembling anti-establishment activity...the personal agendas of many individuals and organizations bent on curbing or silencing all forms of contrary opinion...and the very real threat to our Constitutional Freedoms that, like today!, were constantly being attempted by favor-owing politicos, urged on by their controlling, power-hungry rich elite and corporate backer.

Norris: Thank you very much for taking the time to answer my questions. It's nice to hear the other side of the story.

Be sure to check out Al Feldstein's web site.

Copyright 2002 by Edward Norris. All rights reserved.