Howard Drummond Smoot, known as Dan Smoot (1913 - 2003), was a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent and a conservative political activist. From 1957 to 1971, he published The Dan Smoot Report, which chronicled alleged communist infiltration in various sectors of American government and society. In 1962, Smoot wrote The Invisible Government concerning early members of the Council on Foreign Relations. Other books include The Hope of the World, The Business End of Government and his autobiography, People Along the Way. Additionally he was associated with Robert W. Welch, Jr.'s John Birch Society and wrote for the society's American Opinion bi-monthly magazine. In 2000, Conservative activist Peter Gemma wrote a biographical sketch of Smoot in The New American. Gemma recounts that Smoot, among his other aberrant positions, challenged Barry Goldwater during the 1964 presidential campaign for the nominee's embrace of NATO, which Smoot called a globalist organization of questionable value. In 1970, Smoot opposed the selection of a future U.S. President, George Herbert Walker Bush, as the Republican nominee for the United States 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 Lloyd M. Bentsen of Houston and McAllen. Oddly, eighteen years later, Bush would head the Republican presidential ticket and Bentsen would be the unsuccessful Democratic nominee for vice president. Smoot was a victim of the Federal Communication Commission's Fairness Doctrine which prior to 1987 mandated "equal time" for opposing sides in political debate. As Smoot's critics demanded equal time to reply to his broadcasts, station after station dropped The Dan Smoot Report. His last broadcast was issued on March 1, 1971.