From the Southtown Star:
Jack Lemon was known around Park Forest as a father of two and a family man with an active role in the town’s Area J cooperative housing development.
The Jack Lemon who climbed aboard a commuter train for Chicago each day, briefcase in hand, was much more mysterious.
Lemon, who died Aug. 6 at 80, was a professional digger for the Federal Bureau of Investigation for almost 30 years.
He conducted audio surveillance on the unsuspecting. He combed over documents in hard-to-find places. He mined public records at courthouses, looking for any nugget of useful information. He interviewed friends, friends of friends and friends of friends of friends to learn more about a person.
He accumulated the dirt and provided the background for J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI during the 1950s and 1960s, a time when any American could find themselves under bureau scrutiny.
While talking with her dad in his last years, Jacqueline Winters was surprised to find out what he did for a living. Winters, of Little Rock, Ark., said she knew he worked for the FBI in Chicago, but that’s about it.
“It wasn’t exactly the kind of career where he could come home and talk about what he did all day,” Winters said. “My dad was pretty adamant about not sharing anything.”
Read more here: SouthtownStar.com
