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KF5JRV > TODAY 26.07.19 13:46l 6 Lines 5794 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 11190_KF5JRV
Read: GUEST
Subj: Today in History - July 26
Path: IZ3LSV<IW0QNL<JH4XSY<N3HYM<KF5JRV
Sent: 190726/1143Z 11190@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA BPQ6.0.18
On July 26, 1908, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is born whenU.S. Attorney General Charles Bonaparte orders a group of newly hiredfederal investigators to report to Chief Examiner Stanley W. Finch ofthe Department of Justice. One year later, the Office of the ChiefExaminer was renamed the Bureau of Investigation, and in 1935 it becamethe Federal Bureau of Investigation.When the Department of Justice was created in 1870 to enforce federallaw and coordinate judicial policy, it had no permanent investigators onits staff. At first, it hired private detectives when it needed federalcrimes investigated and later rented out investigators from otherfederal agencies, such as the Secret Service, which was created by theDepartment of the Treasury in 1865 to investigate counterfeiting. In theearly part of the 20th century, the attorney general was authorized tohire a few permanent investigators, and the Office of the ChiefExaminer, which consisted mostly of accountants, was created to reviewfinancial transactions of the federal courts.Seeking to form an independent and more efficient investigative arm, in1908 the Department of Justice hired 10 former Secret Service employeesto join an expanded Office of the Chief Examiner. The date when theseagents reported to duty–July 26, 1908–is celebrated as the genesis ofthe FBI. By March 1909, the force included 34 agents, and AttorneyGeneral George Wickersham, Bonaparte’s successor, renamed it the Bureauof Investigation.The federal government used the bureau as a tool to investigatecriminals who evaded prosecution by passing over state lines, and withina few years the number of agents had grown to more than 300. The agencywas opposed by some in Congress, who feared that its growing authoritycould lead to abuse of power. With the entry of the United States intoWorld War I in 1917, the bureau was given responsibility ininvestigating draft resisters, violators of the Espionage Act of 1917,and immigrants suspected of radicalism.Meanwhile, J. Edgar Hoover, a lawyer and former librarian, joined theDepartment of Justice in 1917 and within two years had become specialassistant to Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. Deeply anti-radical inhis ideology, Hoover came to the forefront of federal law enforcementduring the so-called “Red Scareö of 1919 to 1920. He set up a card indexsystem listing every radical leader, organization, and publication inthe United States and by 1921 had amassed some 450,000 files. More than10,000 suspected communists were also arrested during this period, butthe vast majority of these people were briefly questioned and thenreleased. Although the attorney general was criticized for abusing hispower during the so-called “Palmer Raids,ö Hoover emerged unscathed, andon May 10, 1924, he was appointed acting director of the Bureau ofInvestigation.During the 1920s, with Congress’ approval, Director Hoover drasticallyrestructured and expanded the Bureau of Investigation. He built theagency into an efficient crime-fighting machine, establishing acentralized fingerprint file, a crime laboratory, and a training schoolfor agents. In the 1930s, the Bureau of Investigation launched adramatic battle against the epidemic of organized crime brought on byProhibition. Notorious gangsters such as George “Machine Gunö Kelly andJohn Dillinger met their ends looking down the barrels of bureau-issuedguns, while others, like Louis “Lepkeö Buchalter, the elusive head ofMurder, Inc., were successfully investigated and prosecuted by Hoover’s“G-men.ö Hoover, who had a keen eye for public relations, participatedin a number of these widely publicized arrests, and the Federal Bureauof Investigation, as it was known after 1935, became highly regarded byCongress and the American public.With the outbreak of World War II, Hoover revived the anti-espionagetechniques he had developed during the first Red Scare, and domesticwiretaps and other electronic surveillance expanded dramatically. AfterWorld War II, Hoover focused on the threat of radical, especiallycommunist, subversion. The FBI compiled files on millions of Americanssuspected of dissident activity, and Hoover worked closely with theHouse Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and Senator JosephMcCarthy, the architect of America’s second Red Scare.In 1956, Hoover initiated COINTELPRO, a secret counterintelligenceprogram that initially targeted the U.S. Communist Party but later wasexpanded to infiltrate and disrupt any radical organization in America.During the 1960s, the immense resources of COINTELPRO were used againstdangerous groups such as the Ku Klux Klan but also against AfricanAmerican civil rights organizations and liberal anti-war organizations.One figure especially targeted was civil rights leader Martin LutherKing, 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 FBImight be abusing its authority. For the first time in his bureaucraticcareer, Hoover endured widespread criticism, and Congress responded bypassing laws requiring Senate confirmation of future FBI directors andlimiting their tenure to 10 years. On May 2, 1972, with the Watergatescandal about to explode onto the national stage, J. Edgar Hoover diedof heart disease at the age of 77.The Watergate affair subsequently revealed that the FBI had illegallyprotected President Richard Nixon from investigation, and the agency wasthoroughly investigated by Congress. Revelations of the FBI’s abuses ofpower and unconstitutional surveillance motivated Congress and the mediato become more vigilant in the future monitoring of the FBI.
73, Scott KF5JRV
Pmail: KF5JRV @ KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA
Email: KF5JRV@GMAIL.com
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