Forgotten Tales of Pennsylvania (16 page)

Then things began to fall apart with his undercover work. By the late 1940s, Cvetic had revealed his FBI affiliation several times while intoxicated. After he committed other violations of his agreement, the FBI discontinued his service in 1950. Cvetic always claimed that he had quit because he had spent too much time undercover. The FBI refused to publicly issue a report stating that he had been employed by the bureau, so he allowed his story to reach the press after he was called as a federal witness. He exaggerated his exploits and the value of his information, as well as the danger that he regularly faced. He served as a witness in several important trials after leaving the employment of the FBI, but his testimony soon became unusable because he became a “professional witness.” His only source of income and pride was to tell his increasingly exaggerated version of his story to whoever would listen.

For a brief period of time, he became a celebrity. Mayor David L. Lawrence declared April 19 Matt Cvetic Day in Pittsburgh in 1951. There was a luncheon for the city's prominent officials and a parade in Cvetic's honor. His life even inspired a movie and subsequent radio show entitled
I Was a Communist for the FBI
. Unfortunately for Cvetic, he was not prepared to deal with the sudden fame. His exaggerations of his activities became so bad that the FBI distanced itself from him as much as possible, and many of his new friends began to back away as his credibility waned. By 1955, he was no longer being called as a witness. His own book about his exploits,
The Big Decision
, sold well enough but did not bring the profits that he expected. It seemed to be based more on the movie than on real life. Tales of his dysfunctional personal life surfaced in the press, and Cvetic sank back into relative obscurity. He died of a heart attack in 1962 while in California, but he was buried in Pittsburgh.

About the Author

Thomas White is the university archivist and curator of special collections in the Gumberg Library at Duquesne University. He is also an adjunct lecturer in Duquesne's History Department and an adjunct professor of history at La Roche College. White received a master's degree in public history from Duquesne University. Besides the history of Pennsylvania, his areas of interest include folklore, public history and American cultural history. He is the author of
Legends and Lore of Western Pennsylvania
, also published by The History Press.

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