The book that put the idea of Walt Disney as an FBI operative into the public's mind: Walt Disney: Hollywood's Dark Prince by Marc Eliot.

Profiting By Creating Hoaxes
A very profitable hoax that has no doubt damaged the reputation of the late Walt Disney is Marc Eliot's book Walt Disney, Hollywood's Dark Prince. Millions of people now believe Disney was an FBI spy, etc. thanks to this book. The fabrications in it will probably be passed on for many generations, just as many people have insisted for the last 35 years that Disney's body was frozen at the time of his death. If you believe it was frozen and will be brought back to life someday, you will be happy to know that Elvis was seen on February 30, 2002 in the Haunted House at Disneyland.

Eliot's end-notes on the sources of his information are detailed at times, but he doesn't reveal how he discovered some of his most important "facts." Eliot's scholarship has been called into question by several people. Diane Disney Miller, Walt's daughter, says, "There are more than 150 glaring factual errors." David Hilberman, who was interviewed for the book has been quite adamant about his being misquoted by the author. I've also asked dozens of former Disney employees if any of Eliot's claims that Disney was sexist, racist, Fascist, anti-Semitic, heavy drinker, etc. were true. Some think some of the rumors might be true, but nobody ever saw him expressing negative feelings toward any race, religion or creed. The worst things I found out is that he swore from time to time and was addicted to tobacco. If he had a bias against a group of people he was smart enough not to express those opinions in public.

I know a woman Eliot consulted when he began his research. She says she told him that there was a lot of dirt on Disney somewhere, but she didn't know what most of it was. She also could not confirm that any of it was true, but she was sure that if he searched hard enough he would find a wealth of information. I believe he didn't find much, but since he had invested a lot of time in the project and wanted to write a best seller exposing Disney's past, he invented it. As for the woman, she was motivated to tell him what little she knew because she hated Disney. She had never met or worked for him. Her hatred was based on her late husband's feelings about the studio. He had been laid off after going on strike in 1941. Disney held a grudge against most or all of the strikers and she never forgave Walt for what he did. It didn't matter that she didn't begin going out with the man she married until ten or twelve years after the strike. Some of the questionable things she told him are presented in the book as true facts.

The closest I came to confirming some of Eliot's material was when I interviewed a man who said he had worked on Snow White, Fantasia and other features as an animator. His yarns were so amazing that I checked with the studio and found out their records showed he had only worked there for about 6 months in the camera department. I later found an old Motion Picture Annual that included him in their Who's Who section. His biography said he was only at Disney in 1937.

For Eliot and others who insist Disney became an ultra-conservative after the strike and that he hated Jews -- explain why he hired and worked closely with writer Maurice Rapf from 1944-'46? Disney knew Rapf was Jewish, had a left-wing background and possibly that he had traveled to Russia in the 1930s. I've interviewed Rapf several times while writing Forbidden Animation and when I've asked him about Eliot's claims he could not confirm any of them.

When Eliot's book came out I was researching the contents of Disney's FBI file. In his book Eliot falsely reported the contents of FBI documents to weave his yarn about Disney and the FBI. For example a newspaper article in the file dated November 10, 1940 said that Disney was in Washington, D.C. for a two-day visit to see the sights over a weekend. He had been in the South doing research for a film that eventually was titled Song of the South. Eliot saw the article and claims that, "On November 10, 1940, Disney apparently struck the following deal with the Bureau. It appears that in exchange for its continuing assistance in his personal search to find out the truth of his parentage, Walt agreed to assist Hoover's crusade against the spread of communism in Hollywood by becoming an official informant of the FBI. His initial contact was..." Nothing in the FBI file suggests that any of this information is true and there are no blacked out memos from this period of time. So where did Eliot get his information?

Eliot claims that the two tasks he knows Disney undertook as a spy were to fly to New York City in 1943 and 1944 to attend left-wing cultural events. Eliot says Disney then returned to Los Angeles each time and wrote reports on the events for the FBI. While Disney or his studio donated money to the events and was listed as a sponsor (today we use the word "sponsor" when we give friends money for taking part in a walk-a-thon for a good cause), nowhere in the file, which includes news clippings, advertisements and two FBI reports about the events, does it say Disney was going to attend or that he attended either event. Eliot ignored the note that said the FBI reports were filed in New York (Eliot said they were filed by Disney in Los Angeles). The agent's name is blacked out on each report so we do not know who filed them, but why would the FBI ask Disney to attend the events? He wouldn't recognize who was in the audience, and the FBI had more than enough people available in New York to spy on the crowds.