Smoot, Dan

Dan Smoot (1913-2003) was an FBI agent and a conservative political activist. From the 1950s to 1971, he published The Dan Smoot Report, which chronicled alleged communist infiltration in various sectors of American government and society. In 1970, he opposed the selection of a future U.S. president, George Herbert Walker Bush, as the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate from Texas. He claimed that Bush's political philosophy was little different from the Democrats that he sought to oppose. Bush lost the Senate election that year to popular Democrat Lloyd M. Bentsen, Jr. In 1972, Smoot oppos...