Very well-researched and well-written, this book provides an
excellent discussion of the activities of federal surveillance agencies
in the Pittsburgh mill district (western Pennsylvania, northern West
Virginia, and eastern Ohio). However, Seeing Reds is neither
about surveillance agencies nor the Pittsburgh Left per se, but rather
about their intersection: the “federal government's effort to
define, understand, and suppress leftists” during the period of
World War One. It begins with an excellent survey of the early history
of federal surveillance agencies, including the Bureau of Investigation
(BI), the Office of Naval Intelligence, the Military Intelligence
Division, and the American Protective League. McCormick pays special
attention to the BI, the original name of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation. He looks closely at four men who, as special agents in
the Pittsburgh Field Office, played a particularly important part in his
story. Each had a background in either police and/or private
investigative work or a college degree and/or legal training.