From Stars and Stripes Editor to FBI Informant

Abstract

By the time Sgt. Kenneth Pettus became managing editor of the Tokyo edition of the Stars and Stripes military newspaper in 1945, he had spent years involved in low-level Communist Party activities in the United States. But it wasn't until Pettus was accused of disloyalty and removed from his post that the FBI began tracking him, in an effort that lasted for the next decade. After initially denying his Communist activities, Pettus eventually became an FBI informant who divulged the names of ninety-five others whom he revealed as Communists or Communist sympathizers, including writer and activist Louis “Studs” Terkel. What the FBI really wanted, however, was for Pettus to induce the cooperation of his brother Terry Pettus, a much more prominent Communist activist who got his start leading a Newspaper Guild strike in Seattle. While Ken Pettus named names, Terry Pettus refused, costing him seventy-three days in jail on contempt charges.