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N0KFQ > TODAY 26.07.15 15:55l 119 Lines 5932 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - Jul 26
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1908
FBI founded
On July 26, 1908, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is
born when U.S. Attorney General Charles Bonaparte orders a group
of newly hired federal investigators to report to Chief Examiner
Stanley W. Finch of the Department of Justice. One year later,
the Office of the Chief Examiner was renamed the Bureau of
Investigation, and in 1935 it became the Federal Bureau of
Investigation.
When the Department of Justice was created in 1870 to enforce
federal law and coordinate judicial policy, it had no permanent
investigators on its staff. At first, it hired private detectives
when it needed federal crimes investigated and later rented out
investigators from other federal agencies, such as the Secret
Service, which was created by the Department of the Treasury in
1865 to investigate counterfeiting. In the early part of the 20th
century, the attorney general was authorized to hire a few
permanent investigators, and the Office of the Chief Examiner,
which consisted mostly of accountants, was created to review
financial transactions of the federal courts.
Seeking to form an independent and more efficient investigative
arm, in 1908 the Department of Justice hired 10 former Secret
Service employees to join an expanded Office of the Chief
Examiner. The date when these agents reported to duty-July 26,
1908-is celebrated as the genesis of the FBI. By March 1909, the
force included 34 agents, and Attorney General George Wickersham,
Bonaparte's successor, renamed it the Bureau of Investigation.
The federal government used the bureau as a tool to investigate
criminals who evaded prosecution by passing over state lines, and
within a few years the number of agents had grown to more than
300. The agency was opposed by some in Congress, who feared that
its growing authority could lead to abuse of power. With the
entry of the United States into World War I in 1917, the bureau
was given responsibility in investigating draft resisters,
violators of the Espionage Act of 1917, and immigrants suspected
of radicalism.
Meanwhile, J. Edgar Hoover, a lawyer and former librarian, joined
the Department of Justice in 1917 and within two years had become
special assistant to Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. Deeply
anti-radical in his ideology, Hoover came to the forefront of
federal law enforcement during the so-called "Red Scare" of 1919
to 1920. He set up a card index system listing every radical
leader, organization, and publication in the United States and by
1921 had amassed some 450,000 files. More than 10,000 suspected
communists were also arrested during this period, but the vast
majority of these people were briefly questioned and then
released. Although the attorney general was criticized for
abusing his power during the so-called "Palmer Raids," Hoover
emerged unscathed, and on May 10, 1924, he was appointed acting
director of the Bureau of Investigation.
During the 1920s, with Congress' approval, Director Hoover
drastically restructured and expanded the Bureau of
Investigation. He built the agency into an efficient
crime-fighting machine, establishing a centralized fingerprint
file, a crime laboratory, and a training school for agents. In
the 1930s, the Bureau of Investigation launched a dramatic battle
against the epidemic of organized crime brought on by
Prohibition. Notorious gangsters such as George "Machine Gun"
Kelly and John Dillinger met their ends looking down the barrels
of bureau-issued guns, while others, like Louis "Lepke"
Buchalter, the elusive head of Murder, Inc., were successfully
investigated and prosecuted by Hoover's "G-men." Hoover, who had
a keen eye for public relations, participated in a number of
these widely publicized arrests, and the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, as it was known after 1935, became highly regarded
by Congress and the American public.
With the outbreak of World War II, Hoover revived the
anti-espionage techniques he had developed during the first Red
Scare, and domestic wiretaps and other electronic surveillance
expanded dramatically. After World War II, Hoover focused on the
threat of radical, especially communist, subversion. The FBI
compiled files on millions of Americans suspected of dissident
activity, and Hoover worked closely with the House Un-American
Activities Committee (HUAC) and Senator Joseph McCarthy, the
architect of America's second Red Scare.
In 1956, Hoover initiated COINTELPRO, a secret
counterintelligence program that initially targeted the U.S.
Communist Party but later was expanded to infiltrate and disrupt
any radical organization in America. During the 1960s, the
immense resources of COINTELPRO were used against dangerous
groups such as the Ku Klux Klan but also against African American
civil rights organizations and liberal anti-war organizations.
One figure especially targeted was civil rights leader Martin
Luther King, Jr., who endured systematic harassment from the FBI.
By the time Hoover entered service under his eighth president in
1969, the media, the public, and Congress had grown suspicious
that the FBI might be abusing its authority. For the first time
in his bureaucratic career, Hoover endured widespread criticism,
and Congress responded by passing laws requiring Senate
confirmation of future FBI directors and limiting their tenure to
10 years. On May 2, 1972, with the Watergate affair about to
explode onto the national stage, J. Edgar Hoover died of heart
disease at the age of 77.
The Watergate affair subsequently revealed that the FBI had
illegally protected President Richard Nixon from investigation,
and the agency was thoroughly investigated by Congress.
Revelations of the FBI's abuses of power and unconstitutional
surveillance motivated Congress and the media to become more
vigilant in the future monitoring of the FBI.
73, K.O. n0kfq
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E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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