Interesting connection. First from Robinson's autobiography:

"Right at the beginning of my [FBI] file appears a letter (April 26, 1941) from old J. Edgar himself to Assistant Director E. J. Connelley in New York, stating that I am being considered for "custodial detention," in other words, a round-up of supposed subversives without benefit of trial. Curious, right at the height of my popularity with Ballad for Americans. The timing can actually be traced to President Roosevelt, who extended these fact-gathering privileges to Mr. Hoover in light of the clear and present wartime danger. But from the beginning the FBI concerned itself far more with the left than the pro-Nazi right." p.103

And from an article today in the New York Times:

Hoover Planned Mass Jailing in 1950
By TIM WEINER, Published: December 23, 2007

A newly declassified document shows that J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had a plan to suspend habeas corpus and imprison some 12,000 Americans he suspected of disloyalty.

Hoover sent his plan to the White House on July 7, 1950, 12 days after the Korean War began. It envisioned putting suspect Americans in military prisons.

Hoover wanted President Harry S. Truman to proclaim the mass arrests necessary to "protect the country against treason, espionage and sabotage." The F.B.I would "apprehend all individuals potentially dangerous" to national security, Hoover's proposal said. The arrests would be carried out under "a master warrant attached to a list of names" provided by the bureau.

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One wonders if the current administration has a similar list today in case of a major terrorist attack. And how many innocent people are being held at Guantanamo without benefit of habeas corpus? Are these times much different?

Cheers, S. in Seattle