The Year of Fear
Page 29
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After coming so close to losing his job in 1930 at the hands of FDR’s ill-fated first choice for attorney general, Thomas Walsh, Hoover hung on to his job with amazing tenacity. When he reached the government’s mandatory retirement age of seventy in 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed an executive order exempting him from compulsory retirement. Calling Hoover “a hero to millions of decent citizens and an anathema to evil men,” Johnson noted that the nation could not afford to lose the services of the man who had created “the greatest investigative body in history.”
On May 2, 1972, Hoover died in his sleep, still at the FBI after fifty-five years of government service, having served under ten presidents as its director. By then, his reputation had been irreparably damaged by his blackmailing of politicians, abuses of power and relentless hounding of individuals and organizations he suspected of having communist ties, ranging from Eleanor Roosevelt to Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Congress on Racial Equality and many of the leading civil libertarians of the time.
Even so, obituary writers and eulogists could not ignore his remarkable accomplishments in building the FBI into a law-enforcement agency that was both feared and envied around the world and promoting the idea of professionalism in American law enforcement.
Jack Anderson, the nationally syndicated investigative reporter whom Hoover had characterized as one of the “lowest forms of human beings to walk the earth,” paid homage to him, noting that “when [Hoover] took over the FBI forty-nine years ago, it was loaded with hacks, misfits, drunks, and courthouse hangers-on. In a remarkably brief time he transformed it into a close-knit, effective organization with the esprit de corps exceeding that of the Marines.” He also noted that “not a single FBI man has ever tried to fix a case, defraud the taxpayer, or sell out his country.” That unblemished record would not last long.
The New York Times was equally impressed with Hoover’s accomplishments, particularly those early in his tenure.
Hoover’s power was a compound of performance and politics, publicity and personality. At the base of it all, however, was an extraordinary record of innovation and modernization in law enforcement—most of it in the first decade or so of his tenure.
The centralized fingerprint file (the print total passed the 200-million mark this year) at the Identification Division (1925) and the crime laboratory (1932) are landmarks in the gradual application of science to police work. The National Police Academy (1935) has trained the leadership elite of local forces throughout the country. Mr. Hoover’s recruitment of lawyers and accountants, although they now make up only 32 percent of the special agent corps, set a world standard of professionalism.
The National Crime Information Center enables 4,000 local law enforcement agencies to enter records and get questions answered on a network of 35 computer systems, with its headquarters at the F.B.I. office here.
From the start, Mr. Hoover got results. His bureau rounded up the gangsters in the nineteen-thirties. It made the once epidemic crime of kidnapping a rarity (“virtually extinct,” as the director’s friends like to say). It arrested German saboteurs within days after their submarines landed them on the Atlantic Coast. And, in one of its most sensational coups, the F.B.I. seized the slayers of Mrs. Viola Gregg Liuzzo only hours after the civil rights worker’s shotgun death in Alabama in 1965.
Mr. Hoover always understood the subtle currents of power among officials in Washington better than anyone knew him. Not a New Dealer at heart, he had nonetheless dazzled President Franklin D. Roosevelt with his celebrated success against kidnappers.
In catching the Kellys and hunting down the rest of their ilk—Dillinger, Floyd, the Barkers, Karpis and others—Hoover had launched one of the most remarkable careers in American government. His mastery of image-making and media manipulation turned the public’s attitude on its head. No longer were outlaws automatically romanticized and admired. Lawmen gained new stature as heroes in the ongoing story of American criminality. He’d meticulously crafted their tough-guy confidence and their investigative invincibility until, in the public’s mind, the FBI had become the elite force of American law enforcement. He’d made enlistment in that force the aspiration of millions.
In the eighteen months following the Kansas City Massacre, Hoover fought a war on Western outlaws and won. But Hoover was more a warrior of words than of weapons. And, as history is written by the winners, Hoover did not shy away. The story was as clear as it was long-lasting: The Wild West had been tamed and he, J. Edgar Hoover, was the man who tamed it.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alix, Ernest Kahlar. Ransom Kidnappings in America, 1874–1974: The Creation of a Capital Crime. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University, 1978.
Barnes, Bruce. Machine Gun Kelly: To Right a Wrong. Perris, California: Tipper, 1991.
Bjorkman, Timothy W. Verne Sankey, America’s First Public Enemy. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007.
Burns, James MacGregor. Roosevelt, the Lion and the Fox, 1882–1940. New York: Harcourt Brace and World, 1956.
Burrough, Bryan. Public Enemies, America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933–34. New York: The Penguin Press, 2004.
Congdon, Don. The 1930s: A Time to Remember. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1962.
Cooper, Courtney Ryley. Here’s to Crime. Boston: Little Brown, 1937.
______. Ten Thousand Public Enemies. Boston: Little Brown, 1935.
Cummings, Homer, and Carl Brent Swisher. Selected Papers of Homer Cummings: Attorney General of the United States, 1933–1939. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1939.
Denton, Sally. The Plots against the President: FDR, a Nation in Crisis, and the Rise of the American Right. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2012.
Egan, Timothy. The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006.
Ellis, George. A Man Named Jones. New York: Signet Books, 1963.
Esslinger, Michael. Letters from Alcatraz. San Francisco: Ocean View Publishing, 2013.
Felt, Mark. A G-Man’s Life. New York: Public Affairs, 2006.
Floherty, John J. Our FBI: An Inside Story. Philadelphia and New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1951.
Ganz, Cheryl R. The 1933 Chicago World’s Fair: A Century of Progress. Urbana, Chicago and Springfield: University of Illinois Press, 2012.
Gentry, Curt. J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets. New York: W. W. Norton, 1991.
Hack, Richard. The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover. Beverly Hills: New Millennium Press, 2004.
Haley, J. Evetts. Robbing Banks Was My Business. Canyon, Texas: Palo Duro Press, 1973.
Hamilton Stanley. Machine Gun Kelly’s Last Stand. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2003.
Haskell, Harry. Boss-Busters and Sin Hounds: Kansas City and Its Star. Columbus, Missouri and London: University of Missouri Press, 2007.
Hayde, Frank R. The Mafia and the Machine: The Story of the Kansas City Mob. Fort Lee, New Jersey: Barricade Books, 2010.
Helmer, William, with Rick Mattix. Public Enemies: America’s Criminal Past, 1919–1940. New York, Checkmark Books, 1998.
Hoover, J. Edgar. Persons in Hiding. Boston: Little Brown, 1938.
Johnson, David R. American Law Enforcement History. Wheeling, Illinois: Forum Press, 1981.
Karpis, Alvin, with Bill Trent. The Alvin Karpis Story. New York: Coward McCann & Geoghegan, 1971.
Karpis, Alvin, with Robert Livesey. On the Rock. Don Mills, Ontario: Musson/General, 1980.
Kennedy, David M. Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Kessler, Ronald. The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003.
King, Jeffery S. The Life and Death of Pretty Boy Floyd. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Pres
s, 1998.
Kirkpatrick, E. E. Crimes’ Paradise: The Authentic Inside Story of the Urschel Kidnapping. San Antonio, Texas: Naylor, 1934.
______. Voices from Alcatraz—the Authentic Inside Story of the Urschel Kidnapping. San Antonio, Texas: Naylor, 1947.
Knowles, Ruth Sheldon: The Greatest Gamblers: The Epic of American Oil Exploration. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1978.
Maccabee, Paul. John Dillinger Slept Here: A Crook’s Tour of Crime and Corruption in St. Paul, 1920–1936. St. Paul, Minnesota: Minnesota Historical Press, 1995.
McElvaine, Robert S. The Great Depression: America, 1929–1941. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2009.
Medsger, Betty. The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover’s Secret FBI. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014.
Miles, Ray. King of the Wildcatters: The Life and Times of Tom Slick. College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press, 1996.
Owens, Ron. Legendary Lawman: The Story of Quick Draw Jelly Bryce. Nashville: Turner Publishing, 2010.
Pegler, Martin. The Thompson Submachine Gun: From Prohibition to World War II. New York: Osprey Publishing, 2010.
Potter, Claire Bond. War on Crime: Bandits, G-Men and the Politics of Mass Culture. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1998.
Poulsen, Ellen. Don’t Call Us Molls: Women of the John Dillinger Gang. Little Neck, New York: Clinton Cook Publishing, 2002.
Powers, Richard Gid. G-Men: Hoover’s FBI in American Popular Culture. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1983.
______. Secrecy and Power: The Life of J. Edgar Hoover. New York: Free Press, 1987. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1983.
Purvis, Melvin. American Agent. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1936.
Reddig, William M. Tom’s Town: Kansas City and the Pendergast Legend. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1947.
Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr. The Age of Roosevelt, Volume I, 1919–1933. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1957.
______. The Age of Roosevelt, Volume II, 1933–1935. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1958.
Smith, James R., and W. Lane Rogers. The California Snatch Racket, Kidnappings During the Prohibition and Depression Eras. Fresno, California: Craven Street Books, Linden Publishing, 2010.
Smith, Richard Norton. The Colonel: The Life and Legend of Robert R. McCormick, Indomitable Editor of the Chicago Tribune. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997.
Sterling, Bryan B., and Francis N. Sterling. Forgotten Eagle: Wiley Post, America’s Heroic Aviation Pioneer. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2001.
Strunk, Mary Elizabeth. Wanted Women: An American Obsession in the Reign of J. Edgar Hoover. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2010.
Summers, Anthony. Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1993.
Theoharis, Athan. J. Edgar Hoover, Sex, and Crime: An Historical Antidote. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1995.
Tuohy, John W. When Capone’s Mob Murdered Roger Touhy: The Strange Case of Touhy, Jake the Barber and the Kidnapping that Never Happened. Fort Lee, New Jersey: Barricade Books, 2001.
Unger, Robert. The Union Station Massacre: The Original Sin of Hoover’s FBI. Kansas City, Missouri: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 1997.
Wallis, Michael. The Life and Times of Charles Arthur Floyd. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992.
Ward, David, with Gene Kassebaum. Alcatraz: The Gangster Years. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.
Whitehead, Don. The FBI Story: A Report to the People. New York: Random House, 1956.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am indebted to an army of friends and associates who helped make this book possible. Notably, my publisher, Andrew Martin, at Minotaur, whose enthusiasm for the project was both infectious and inspiring. Kathy Huck and Marc Resnick, my editors, who shepherded this book through the process and who taught me so much about the nonfiction narrative form. Hector DeJean was masterful in getting the word out and getting the book noticed, no small task these days.
My agent, Wayne Kabak, believed heartily in the story and provided many brilliant insights and suggestions as it was shaped into a book.
Several of the descendants of the main characters in the story were most helpful, guiding me to sources and sharing their own collected resources and knowledge of the events. Kent Frates, a lawyer in Oklahoma City and occasional golf partner of Charles Urschel, has spent a lifetime collecting material related to the case and has written extensively about it himself. He was generous with his time and resources and toured me through the stately federal courtroom in Oklahoma City, where the principals in the case were tried. Valerie Urschel Guenther, the granddaughter of “Big Charles,” was kind enough to share her materials and recollections.
Research librarians at the Library of Congress and the Oklahoma Historical Society were enormously helpful and patient, as was Linda Lynn at the Oklahoma Publishing Company.
Several colleagues from my days in the news business provided valuable editing advice and encouragement, particularly Cathy Trost, Susan Bennett and Sharon Shahid.
I never could have written this book without the loving support of my wife, Donna, my daughter, Liz, and my son, Eric. Their wise counsel, editing and constant cheerleading were invaluable. I love them immeasurably.
Newspapers of the 1930s were coming of age during the Gangster Era, and their emerging professionalism and competitive zeal left us with a treasure trove of material on events and personalities that, if it wasn’t for the reporters’ and editors’ fascination—and the fact that crime sells newspapers—might have been lost to history. E. E. Kirkpatrick, a principal in the Urschel kidnapping, was a former newsman, and if it hadn’t been for his efforts to get the Urschel story down in print with his two books on the subject, many of the great details of this seminal crime would have been lost. Popular historians and journalists drew heavily on his accounts as they pursued the story in later years, adding great detail and context with their reporting and research. Among their writings, the work of Stanley Hamilton, Robert Unger, Bryan Burrough, Rick Mattix and Paul Maccabee were immensely informative—and great reads.
The FBI files on the era are informative and fascinating, and now, for the most part, readily accessible. Ironically, it would be those extensive files of the FBI’s later years, kept so meticulously and obsessively by J. Edgar Hoover, that would ruin his reputation after a band of antiwar protesters broke into an FBI field office in Media, Pennsylvania, stole voluminous amounts of the agency’s files and released them to the press in 1971. That event and its consequences are marvelously recounted in Sue Medsger’s book, The Burglary, published in 2014.
INDEX
The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your e-book. Please use the search function on your e-reading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.
Akers, Dutch
Al Spencer gang
Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary
Alcatraz Express
as bad for prisoner health
creation of
draconian rules of
dungeon in
notorious inmates of
Alcorn, Gordon
Alderson Reformatory for Women
Allegretti, Mike (“Bon Bon”)
Alterie, Louis (“Diamond Jack”)
Anderson, Jack
Anderson, “Little Steve”
Arlen, Richard
Arnold, Flossie Marie
Arnold, Geraldine
Kelly enslavement of
Kelly Memphis hideout located through
as named in press
testimony of
Arnold, Luther
assassination
Associated Press
automobiles. See getaway car
aviation
&n
bsp; Bailey, Harvey
as Alcatraz inmate
as arrested for Memorial Day escape
bank robbery success of
Brennan alias of
as captured by Jones
as contemptuous of Floyd
death of
escapes of
Jones focus on
as Kelly mentor
as Leavenworth inmate
life sentence of
Mathers attorney for
Oklahoma City transfer of
in Ottumwa robbery
Urschel kidnap trial of
in Willmar robbery
women not trusted by
Balzar, Fred
bank robbing. See also Kelly, George (“Machine Gun”), as bank robber
Bailey success in
cities in
demise of
getaway car for
people cheering for
people wounded during
St. Paul center for
war on bandits
weapons in
bankers
banking collapse
Barker, Doc
Barker, Fred
Barker, Ma
Barnett, J. E.
Bates, Albert (“Al”)
as Alcatraz inmate
Davis, G., alias of
death of
Denver capture of
Feldman wife of
as Leavenworth inmate
life sentence of
Memorial Day escape of
Urschel exchanged letters with
Urschel kidnap trial of
as Urschel kidnapper
Urschel kidnapper named by Shannon, A.
Bates, Stanford
Beck, E. L.
Bennett, James V.
Bergl, Joe
Berman, Edward
Berniel, Mrs.