THE RACE: Parties are looking back to see ahead

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney looks at a shopping list as he arrives at Bradley's Hardware in Wolfeboro, N.H., Monday, Aug. 6, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney looks at a shopping list as he arrives at Bradley's Hardware in Wolfeboro, N.H., Monday, Aug. 6, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

President Barack Obama arrives the White House in Washington, Sunday, Aug. 5, 2012, from Camp David. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney pushes a shopping cart after buying groceries at Hunter's Shop and Save supermarket in Wolfeboro, N.H., Monday, Aug. 6, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

With President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney running neck and neck for weeks, both parties are looking back for guidance to the way ahead.

They see different models for winning.

At first, Democrats eyed 1984 for inspiration. First-term President Ronald Reagan suffered falling approval ratings and the aftermath of deep recession. Federal deficits were soaring, and Democrat Walter Mondale made them a top issue. Still, Reagan won by a landslide.

But he had a surging economy at his back. Deficits had improved. Inflation, peaking at 10.8 percent in November-December 1982, was down to 7.5 percent by August 1984, eventually falling to 7.2 percent in November.

Obama can't count on any such lift.

Unemployment was a brutal 8.3 percent in July and seems likely to stay in that vicinity for the next few months. No post-World War II president has been re-elected with unemployment over 8 percent.

Democrats now are eyeing 2004. President George W. Bush was burdened by two wars and a mostly jobless recovery. His approval ratings in the summer hovered around 50 percent. Yet Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry had his own problems: his wealth, flip-flops on issues and difficulty in connecting with average Americans. Incumbent Bush won narrowly.

Republicans fondly recall 1980, when GOP nominee Reagan beat Democratic President Jimmy Carter. Weighing down the incumbent were a weak economy, energy shortages and a hostage crisis in Iran.

Some Republicans, concerned that Romney has failed to pull ahead despite the listless economy, also look to 1988, when Vice President George H.W. Bush overtook Michael Dukakis. Bush was helped by a strong convention speech, good debate performances and a fierce advertising campaign.

Romney spent Monday at his New Hampshire vacation home. Obama planned to raise funds in Connecticut after White House meetings.

__

Follow Tom Raum on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tomraum. For more AP political coverage, look for the 2012 Presidential Race in AP Mobile's Big Stories section. Also follow https://twitter.com/APCampaign and AP journalists covering the campaign: https://twitter.com/AP/ap-campaign-2012

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-08-06-The%20Race/id-f379337a45c340c4a8a67a9b5a3e1312

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Preschool children who can pay attention more likely to finish college: Early reading and math not predictive of college completion

ScienceDaily (Aug. 6, 2012) ? Young children who are able to pay attention and persist with a task have a 50 percent greater chance of completing college, according to a new study at Oregon State University.

Tracking a group of 430 preschool-age children, the study gives compelling evidence that social and behavioral skills, such as paying attention, following directions and completing a task may be even more crucial than academic abilities.

And the good news for parents and educators, the researchers said, is that attention and persistence skills are malleable and can be taught.

The results were just published online in Early Childhood Research Quarterly.

"There is a big push now to teach children early academic skills at the preschool level," said Megan McClelland, an OSU early child development researcher and lead author of the study. "Our study shows that the biggest predictor of college completion wasn't math or reading skills, but whether or not they were able to pay attention and finish tasks at age 4."

Parents of preschool children were asked to rate their children on items such as "plays with a single toy for long periods of time" or "child gives up easily when difficulties are encountered." Reading and math skills were assessed at age 7 using standardized assessments. At age 21, the same group was tested again for reading and math skills.

Surprisingly, achievement in reading and math did not significantly predict whether or not the students completed college. Instead, researchers found that children who were rated higher by their parents on attention span and persistence at age 4 had nearly 50 percent greater odds of getting a bachelor's degree by age 25.

McClelland, who is a nationally-recognized expert in child development, said college completion has been shown in numerous studies to lead to higher wages and better job stability. She said the earlier that educators and parents can intervene, the more likely a child can succeed academically.

"We didn't look at how well they did in college or at grade point average," McClelland said. "The important factor was being able to focus and persist. Someone can be brilliant, but that doesn't necessarily mean they can focus when they need to and finish a task or job."

McClelland, who is also a core director in OSU's Hallie E. Ford Center for Healthy Children and Families, said interventions aimed at increasing young children's self-control abilities have repeatedly shown to help boost "self-regulation," or a child's ability to listen, pay attention, follow through on a task and remember instructions.

In a past study, McClelland found that simple, active classroom games such as Simon Says and Red Light/Green Light have been effective tools for increasing both literacy and self-regulation skills.

"Academic ability carries you a long way, but these other skills are also important," McClelland said. "Increasingly, we see that the ability to listen, pay attention, and complete important tasks is crucial for success later in life."

OSU's Alan Acock, along with Andrea Piccinin of the University of Victoria and Sally Ann Rhea and Michael Stallings of the University of Colorado, contributed to this study, which was funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and a Colorado Adoption Project grant.

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Journal Reference:

1. Megan M. McClelland, Alan C. Acock, Andrea Piccinin, Sally Ann Rhea, Michael C. Stallings. Relations between preschool attention span-persistence and age 25 educational outcomes. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 2012; DOI: 10.1016/j.ecresq.2012.07.008

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/living_well/~3/QOuyRzsxGFk/120806151405.htm

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Sikh temple shooter said to be white supremacist

A man holds his child during a candle light vigil for the victims of the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin shooting in Milwaukee Sunday, Aug 5, 2012. An unidentified gunman killed six people at the suburban Milwaukee temple on Sunday in a rampage that left terrified congregants hiding in closets and others texting friends outside for help. The suspect was killed outside the temple in a shootout with police officers. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)

A man holds his child during a candle light vigil for the victims of the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin shooting in Milwaukee Sunday, Aug 5, 2012. An unidentified gunman killed six people at the suburban Milwaukee temple on Sunday in a rampage that left terrified congregants hiding in closets and others texting friends outside for help. The suspect was killed outside the temple in a shootout with police officers. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)

A woman uses a phone as people react outside the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in Oak Creek, Wi, where a shooting took place Sunday, Aug 5, 2012. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)

An Indian Sikh devotee offers prayers at the Golden Temple, Sikh's holiest shrine in Amritsar, India, Monday, Aug. 6, 2012.Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Monday that he was shocked and saddened by the shooting attack that killed six people at a Sikh house of worship in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. (AP Photo/Sanjeev Syal)

A man wipes away tears outside the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wis. where a shooting took place on Sunday, Aug 5, 2012. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)

A woman plays soft music at a candle light vigil for the victims of the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin shooting in Milwaukee Sunday, Aug 5, 2012. An unidentified gunman killed six people at the suburban Milwaukee temple on Sunday in a rampage that left terrified congregants hiding in closets and others texting friends outside for help. The suspect was killed outside the temple in a shootout with police officers. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)

OAK CREEK, Wis. (AP) ? The gunman who killed six people at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin before being shot to death by police was identified Monday as a 40-year-old Army veteran and former leader of a white supremacist heavy metal band.

Authorities said Wade Michael Page strode into the temple without saying a word and opened fire using a 9mm handgun and multiple magazines of ammunition.

Page joined the Army in 1992 and was discharged in 1998, according to a defense official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not yet authorized to release the information.

Witnesses said the gunman walked into the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in suburban Milwaukee and opened fire as several dozen people prepared for Sunday services. When the shooting ended, six victims ranging in age from 39 to 84 years old lay dead, as well as Page. Three others were critically wounded.

Page was a "frustrated neo-Nazi" who led a racist white supremacist band, the Southern Poverty Law Center said Monday.

Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the nonprofit civil rights organization in Montgomery, Ala., said Page had been on the white-power music scene for more than a decade, playing in bands known as Definite Hate and End Apathy.

"The name of the band seems to reflect what he went out and actually did," Potok said.

"There is a whole underworld of white supremacists music that is rarely seen or heard by the public," Potok said, describing lyrics that talk about carrying out genocide against Jews and other minorities, he said.

Potok said there's no research showing white supremacists hating Sikhs, indicating that Sunday's attack was almost certainly an example of someone mistaking Sikhs for Muslims.

In a 2010 interview, Page told a white supremacist website that he joined the white-power music scene in 2000, when he left his native Colorado and started the band End Apathy in 2005.

He told the website his "inspiration was based on frustration that we have the potential to accomplish so much more as individuals and a society in whole," according to the law center. He did not mention violence in the website interview.

End Apathy's biography on the band's MySpace page said it was based in Nashville, N.C.

Joseph Rackley of Nashville, N.C., said Monday that Page lived with his son for about six months last year in a house on Rackley's property. Wade was bald and had tattoos all over his arms, Rackley said, but he doesn't remember what they depicted. He said he wasn't aware of any ties Page had to white supremacists.

"I'm not a nosy kind of guy," Rackley said. "When he stayed with my son, I don't even know if Wade played music. But my son plays alternative music and periodically I'd have to call them because I could hear more than I wanted to hear."

Page joined the military in Milwaukee in 1992 and was a repairman for the Hawk missile system before switching jobs to become one of the Army's psychological operations specialists, according to the defense official.

So-called "psy-ops" specialists are responsible for the analysis, development and distribution of intelligence used for information and psychological effect. Fort Bragg, N.C., was among the bases where Page served.

The FBI, which was leading the investigation because the shootings are being treated as domestic terrorism, or an attack that originated inside the U.S., said it had no reason to believe anyone other than Page was involved.

Satpal Kaleka, wife of the temple's president, Satwant Singh Kaleka, was in the front room and saw the gunman enter the temple, according to Harpreet Singh, their nephew.

"He did not speak, he just began shooting," said Singh, relaying a description of the attack from Satpal Kaleka.

Kaleka said the 6-foot bald white man ? who worshippers said they had never before seen at the temple ? seemed like he had a purpose and knew where he was going.

"We never thought this could happen to our community," said Devendar Nagra of Mount Pleasant, whose sister escaped injury by hiding as the gunman fired in the temple's kitchen. "We never did anything wrong to anyone."

Late Sunday, the investigation moved beyond the temple as police, federal agents and the county sheriff's bomb squad swarmed a neighborhood in nearby Cudahy, evacuated several homes and searched a duplex. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent Tom Ahern said warrants were being served at the gunman's home. Residents were allowed to return to their homes Monday.

During the chaotic hours after the first shots were fired, police in tactical gear and carrying assault rifles surrounded the temple with armored vehicles and ambulances. Witnesses struggled with unrealized fears that several shooters were holding women and children hostage inside.

The first officer to respond was shot eight to nine times with handgun as the officer tended to a victim outside.

A second officer then exchanged gunfire with the suspect, who was fatally shot. Police had earlier said the officer who was shot killed the suspected shooter.

The wounded officer was in critical condition along with two other victims early Monday, authorities said.

Tactical units went through the temple and found four people dead inside and two outside, in addition to the shooter.

Jatinder Mangat of Racine, a nephew of the temple's president, said when he learned that people had died, "it was like the heart just sat down."

Balginder Khattra of Oak Creek, said Monday that his 84-year-old father, Suveg Singh Khattra, was among the six people police said were killed. Khattra says his father didn't speak English but loved living in America.

Sikhism is a monotheistic faith founded more than 500 years ago in South Asia. It has roughly 27 million followers worldwide. Observant Sikhs do not cut their hair. Male followers often cover their heads with turbans ? which are considered sacred ? and refrain from shaving their beards. There are roughly 500,000 Sikhs in the U.S., according to estimates. The majority worldwide live in India.

The Sikh Temple of Wisconsin started in 1997 with about 25 families who gathered in community halls in Milwaukee. Construction on the current temple in Oak Creek began in 2006, according to the temple's website.

The New York-based Sikh Coalition has reported more than 700 hate crimes in the U.S. since 9/11 and has fielded complaints in the thousands from Sikhs about workplace discrimination and racial profiling. With their turbans and long beards, Sikhs are often mistaken for Muslims or Arabs, and have inadvertently become targets of anti-Muslim bias in the United States.

The shootings also came two weeks after a gunman killed 12 people at movie theater in Colorado.

___

Associated Press writers Gretchen Ehlke and Scott Bauer in Milwaukee; Patrick Condon in Minneapolis; Sophia Tareen and Michelle Janaye Nealy in Chicago; Larry Neumeister in New York; and Pauline Jelinek and Eileen Sullivan in Washington contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-08-06-Sikh%20Temple-Shooting/id-8ca3ee85c8e84641af4d8a25c588f02f

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How a Chiropractor Can Help You? And When To See A - EzineMark

With the busy schedule people have in their life, they do not only manage their work, money and time. They also manage their health, maintaining the health is one the main problem people have today due to the change in their lifestyle and lack of exercise due to lack of time. As a result many people suffer from ailments like back pain, joint pain and more, to have permanent cure they turn to chiropractors.

How chiropractors can help these people? Chiropractors help these people by providing permanent cure to their ailments by improving the flexibility of the muscles and by curing any misalignment in the lower disc

So, when should you see a Chiropractor? There are several things that you need to know in order to determine when to consult one or even why see one.

You should ask the following questions before deciding when you would see a Chiropractor:

Now as you are pretty sure that chiropractors can help people who are suffering from joint pains by providing permanent solution, you get a question like which is the right time or when you should make sure that you should visit a chiropractor? And also many people could have a question like can the chiropractors be trusted? The below information can provide you better understanding about chiropractors.

Chiropractic can be considered as an alternative treatment where the traditional treatment has not provided any relief. Chiropractic is providing cure more through massages to your nervous system. Or people who are afraid of being operated to cure their back or joint problems can also visit a chiropractor as they do not depend on surgeries to cure.

So, people who have not got any relief from traditional medical treatment and people who area? afraid of surgeries can visit a chiropractor.

Can the chiropractors be trusted? Yes, the chiropractors can be very well trusted. Just like any other medicine course, chiropractors need to study about the human body for a full 4 years to complete their course. In their course they study about the human nervous system and the effects of nervous system in our body. This is because chiropractic is mostly massaging the nervous and provide cure by curing the root cause of the problem. With 4 years of education you can definitely trust a chiropractor.

For what ailments you can seek the help of a chiropractor? You can seek the help of a chiropractor for all problems related to your nervous system. This means a chiropractor can help you in most ailments related to you lower back and joints.

If you suffer from any of the above said problems that is related to your nervous system, lower back and joints you can visit a chiropractor.

Source: http://nervous-system.ezinemark.com/how-a-chiropractor-can-help-you-and-when-to-see-a-chiropractor-7d3774d1612e.html

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Overnight Video: Embrace (Little green footballs)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

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Arlequ?n's Worlds: Wars of the Roses - War and Society

Commissions of Array

The ordinary soldiers of English armies had been traditionally raised through the obligation for all able-bodied free men to serve their king and contribute to the defence of their county and country. The Assize of Arms of 1252 and the Statute of Winchester of 1285, revised the traditional duties of the king's subjects, not only to provide themselves with watchmen, constables and to make them self-policing (the 'hue and cry' requirements), as well as instituting collective responsibility for the acts of their fellows, but also laid out terms of military service. These terms established that all men between the ages of 15 and 60 were liable to do service and set out the levels of equipment they were to provide at their own expense.

Each hundred was to appoint two constables from amongst its population and their duties in this regard was to inspect the arms held by the population in twice yearly musters. They reported to the local justices of the peace and informed them of any defaulters. Some muster rolls have survived, which show that there could be quite a degree of latitude with regard to what was accepted and that in some cases equipment was handed down within a family, but the individual couldn't wear it. While not a breach of the law in itself, it certainly went against the spirit of it.

The raising of such forces was to be at the expense of the individual for a period of forty days and was designed for local defence, i.e. within the confines of their county. Service outside of the county, or in excess of the forty days, was to be at royal expense, with the men receiving wages for their service. Invariably though, the whole levy of men available for service were not called up at the same time. While some individuals might have relished the adventure, most people at this time had never ventured more than a few miles from their homes, for most the possibility of service was a burden and an inconvenience.

These men were not full time soldiers, in truth they were not soldiers at all and their normal role in life was as farmers and craftsmen. The limits on their service also meant that to maintain a continuous armed presence, a succession of summonses of a fraction of the population would be required to maintain it. The needs and requirements of the wars in France had resulted in cash payments being made in lieu of service, in the same way as 'knight service' had been changed to a cash sum. Counties were assessed as to the numbers of men (usually specified as archers) they were required to provide and a tax was levied and paid to the crown to hire troops in their stead.

The process of levying the county militias was undertaken through the issuing of a warrant - the 'Commission of Array' to certain individuals, usually the sheriff of a county, the mayor of a town or city, or royal office holders, like the Warden of the East March etc. The Commissioners were required to present the warrant to the justices of the peace within the areas specified to prove that they had a legal right to do so and then the justices notified the constables, who then raised the requisite numbers.?

It seems that communities often only raised the numbers they had been assessed to provide, yet in some cases they supplied numbers well above this, while in others well below.?The system was open to abuse, in some cases forces were raised without a commission being presented and sometimes by opponents of the king into the bargain. In other cases the lack of a written commission, even if it was actually on the king's behalf, might be refused. John Neville, Lord Montagu failed to raise men in Pontefract, as they refused to be summonsed by anyone but a Percy, the area's traditional holders of the commission to array.

Livery and Maintenance

Even the most mundane tasks were performed by?contract.?

The shift to a more peaceful England led?to the nobility?creating

gardens to surround their?houses.

By the fifteenth century England was no longer a feudal society in the classic sense of the word. Very much like today, commercial and social relationships were the core of day to day life, and were governed through legally binding contracts, called indentures. The bulk of these had no military or political relevance; you might indenture an individual to supply bread to your home, in the same way as you might have a 'standing order' with the Milk Man today, which is essentially an informal indenture (which also existed then). Such arrangements permeated English society from the highest to the lowest levels. Other arrangements however were more significant and while the cash sums ('retainers') that exchanged hands were often merely token payments, it was the implication that an individual would serve another, in return for 'good favour', that was more important and which was to define English politics throughout this period. Two concepts were present in this system, the first was that an individual would be 'maintained', which essentially meant that both the person retaining and the 'retainer' himself would support each other as required.

This might mean that a powerful individual might use his influence to ensure that a legal case was settled in favour of 'his man', even to the point of suborning judge and jury (by a number of methods) to ensure this. More importantly in a wargaming sense, is that a man would 'maintain' his superior by turning out alone, or with others (depending on the agreement previously reached when forming the indenture), armed and equipped to act in accordance with his wishes.

To signify who was 'maintaining' him an individual might often wear a recognisable badge, which identified him to other individuals serving the same person (or indeed his opponents), while those engaged in more direct relationships and duties, might wear a livery in that individual's 'colours' (like a present day jockey wears the horse owner's colours).

Arrangements of this type were termed 'Livery and Maintenance'. Some individuals might have a relatively small number of retainers, numbering less than double figures, while others might have thousands. It was also not uncommon for an individual to be retained by more than one person, especially if they were were political allies.

Feudal Tenure

At the lower levels of society indentures were far less common. While England was experiencing prosperity as a result of the trade in wool, there were still those who toiled in the fields or served those engaged in other industries or crafts. Serfdom, essentially a form of slavery, whereby a class of people where bonded to the land they worked, had largely disappeared following the Black Death. Instead holding land by renting it, or in some cases buying it, were far more common. While this practice had created a wealthier and more industrious yeomen class, there were still those who were less prosperous, or indeed held no land.

'Cottagers'

For such men, the only real change in their fortunes was that they were no longer legally tied to the land that they worked, they could move to another's land to work if they felt that things would be better there. By the same token, they could also be evicted and forced to move elsewhere, should they displease their landlord. Such people rented or held cottages, often with a small area of attached land, with which to feed their own families and worked the fields, mills and other rural tasks, in return for wages. Rents were commonly reduced by agreeing to perform certain services for the landlord, one of which was often to provide military service on demand, usually for the forty days they would be required to serve in law in any case.

With the exception of the Scottish Border regions, where such service was also as self-serving as it was onerous, the requirement to actually provide such service rarely arose. Even the common law requirement to own weapons and equipment could often be ignored, as many of their landlords maintained stocks of weapons and equipment, which they would issue to their tenants if the need arose. Nevertheless the practice of requiring service from tenants, gave many of the landowning classes a potentially large reservoir of additional (if untrained) manpower with which to supplement their households and indentured retinues.

Source: http://arlequinsworld.blogspot.com/2012/08/wars-of-roses-war-and-society.html

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Late Sen. Byrd's FBI files reveal CIA leak uproar

FILE - This Tuesday Nov. 7, 2006 file photo shows the late U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., as he speaks upon winning his ninth term, in Charleston, W.Va. Byrd created a stir in the mid-1960s within the nation's intelligence community when he obtained secret FBI reports leaked by the CIA. (AP Photo/Jeff Gentner, File)

FILE - This Tuesday Nov. 7, 2006 file photo shows the late U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., as he speaks upon winning his ninth term, in Charleston, W.Va. Byrd created a stir in the mid-1960s within the nation's intelligence community when he obtained secret FBI reports leaked by the CIA. (AP Photo/Jeff Gentner, File)

FILE - In this July 5, 1967 file photo, Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., is shown. Byrd was a fiery orator versed in the classics and was a hard-charging power broker who steered billions of federal dollars to the state of his Depression-era upbringing. Byrd created a stir in the mid-1960s within the nation's intelligence community when he obtained secret FBI reports leaked by the CIA. (AP Photo, File)

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) ? U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd obtained secret FBI documents about the civil rights movement that were leaked by the CIA and triggered an angry confrontation between the two agencies in the 1960s, according to newly released FBI records.

Byrd, who died in June 2010 at age 92, had sought the FBI intelligence while suspecting that communists and subversives were guiding the civil rights cause, the records show. Decades before he became history's longest-serving member of Congress, or gained the title "King of Pork" for sending federal funds to West Virginia, the Democrat had stalled and voted against major civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s. He also belonged to the Ku Klux Klan while a young man in the 1940s, and the FBI cited that membership while weighing his requests for classified information, the records show.

"He eventually had a change of heart about a lot of that stuff," said Ray Smock, a former historian for Congress who now oversees Byrd's archives. Smock said Byrd's hardline belief in law and order played a role in his view of the civil rights movement. Byrd also repeatedly called his time with the hate group a serious mistake, Smock noted.

The FBI released more than 750 pages from its files ? many of them with words, sentences or entire paragraphs redacted ? in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by The Associated Press. The records date to the mid-1950s, when Byrd served in the U.S. House. He was elected to the first of his record nine terms in the U.S. Senate in 1958.

The documents that reveal the September 1966 leak also describe how it sparked outrage among top FBI officials and prompted an internal CIA probe that singled out two agency employees as the culprits The episode damaged Byrd's standing with the bureau, though only briefly, the records show. Numerous documents depict him as an outspoken supporter of the FBI and particularly of J. Edgar Hoover, its longtime director, even toward the end of Hoover's tenure as criticism of him mounted.

"Byrd said that the Director's record of public service was unparalleled anywhere and he knew that it would never be possible for any successor to adequately 'fill his shoes,'" one June 1966 memo between top FBI brass said.

The files repeatedly refer to Byrd's "cordial relations" with the bureau, and include numerous thank-you notes and other friendly exchanges between Byrd and Hoover from the early 1960s until Hoover's death in 1972.

"He certainly was a law and order conservative," said Smock, director of the Robert C. Byrd Center for Legislative Studies at Shepherd University in West Virginia. "He had great respect for the Justice Department and for Hoover, as far as I know."

The FBI had provided Byrd only with publicly available information about three unidentified individuals involved in civil rights matters when he revealed the leaked documents to an FBI agent during a September 1966 meeting, a memo to FBI Deputy Director C.D. DeLoach said.

"Why can't a United State Senator, the best friend the FBI has in the Senate, get information directly from the FBI which he has already received from a third party," Byrd was quoted as saying. The memo said Byrd then showed the agent Xerox copies of two secret FBI investigative reports and one internal memo.

Byrd refused to reveal his source, but markings on the documents led the FBI to conclude they were copies of papers provided to the CIA earlier that year.

"(I)t is believed that the Director of CIA should be fully aware of this situation and if the CIA is guilty, as it appears to be, (Director Richard) Helms should be emphatically impressed with our displeasure for such uncalled-for activity," the memo said.

Several of these typed memos feature handwritten notes underscoring the bureau's anger and concern, some signed with Hoover's initial. "This is outrageous breach of security by CIA," one such note read. Helms, meanwhile, was "decidedly disturbed" when told of the leak, another memo said.

"Helms replied that it was difficult for him to believe that anyone would be so stupid to become involved in such activity, but he has learned through bitter experience that 'anything is possible,'" that document said.

The records show that Helms' security chief, Howard Osborne, ran down the leak: Two CIA employees provided the documents to an unidentified Maryland county law enforcement official, who then handed them off to the senator.

Osborne told the FBI that both "he and Mr. Helms are distressed over the incident and that they intend to make an example of the guilty CIA employees to insure that such an incident never occurs again," a follow-up memo to DeLoach said.

The employees' final fate is unclear, though the memo said Osborne was confident Helms would support firing one or both of the culprits.

____

Follow Lawrence Messina at http://twitter.com/lmessina

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-08-04-Byrd-FBI%20File/id-f4c26c0ccaf64f68b11e8b662ab23d73

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