Sex & the Single FBI Man

On the night of Aug. 16, as the Federal Bureau of Investigation solemnly recorded soon afterward, Thomas Henry Carter, 25, an unmarried white male, shared a bedroom in an apartment building near Washington with an unmarried white female from Texas. Moreover, the agency was to learn, Carter's sleeping arrangements that night were known to three other bachelors, who nonetheless failed to report them to the FBI.

Said dereliction was of great concern to the Federal Bureau of Investigation because the four men in question--roommates all--were then working for the FBI. And, as plainly stipulated to them in the secret handbook issued to them when they were hired, "Personal misbehavior of Bureau employees, reflecting unfavorably on themselves or on the Bureau, and neglect of duty, cannot be tolerated. And such misconduct, or neglect of duty, or allegations of such nature, must be promptly reported to the Bureau by any employee learning of it."

Gallant Squeeze. Actually, according to one roommate, Michael L. Kadrobach, 19, "We were--and still are--absolutely certain that nothing improper took place during the night. I know Tom too well to suspect otherwise." The girl from Texas, an old friend of Carter's, had arrived in Washington and could find no other suitable place to spend the night. The other three roommates gallantly volunteered to squeeze themselves into one bedroom of the apartment so that she and Carter could share the other (which had two beds).

The building itself was fairly overrun with other FBI types because the Bureau has long recommended it as a nice place to live. Subsequently, someone fingered Carter, whose FBI job was as a fingerprint clerk. Two days later, he was summoned before the agent in charge of his division. He was told that a formal complaint had been filed about his behavior and ordered to write a statement explaining why he had slept in the same room with a woman. Tom Carter wrote his report, which failed to satisfy his superiors. On Aug. 26 he was fired from the FBI for "conduct unbe coming a member of this Bureau." The hapless clerk then confided his troubles to an attorney, who wrote to the FBI expressing doubt about the rationale behind Carter's firing. J. Edgar Hoover, an unmarried male himself for 71 years, replied personally: "The action involuntarily separating Mr. Carter from the FBI was based on a careful review and evaluation of the facts which established his improper conduct, and it is felt that the action taken was proper under the circumstances."

Fired Foursome. As a result, Carter filed suit, charging that his "arbitrary and capricious" discharge had violated his right to privacy as well as his future employment prospects. Later, when Carter applied for a job in a Washington bank, two of his three roommates loyally volunteered character-reference letters to help offset the stigma of being an ex-FBI man at 25. The third refused to help Carter; instead, he told his superiors about his friends' action, which also violates the FBI code. The upshot was that all three--including the informer--were pressed to resign because none had reported Carter's original indiscretion.

Carter's suit, which will be heard in district court within the next few weeks, has clearly had no effect on the Bureau's code of conduct for employees. As one of its spokesmen explained: "We have hundreds of young men and women coming to work for the FBI in Washington. We must be sure that their parents can be confident that they and their colleagues are living under exemplary standards."

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