The FBI and UFOs

If you’ve ever watched The X-Files or other sci-fi shows like it, you may think that investigating unexplained phenomena is one of the FBI’s investigative responsibilities—right along with terrorism, espionage, white-collar crime, etc.

In fact, the FBI was only occasionally involved in investigating the possibility of UFOs and extraterrestrials over the years. The first Bureau investigations we are aware of began in the summer of 1947—the time of the now well-known incident in Roswell, New Mexico. A rash of reports of flying objects—some shaped like “flapjacks,” saucers, discs, and even a large circular saw blade that supposedly hit a lightning rod on top of a church—started to surface and make headlines across the nation.

Concerned citizens reported many of these strange sightings to the FBI. That wasn't surprising, given that the Bureau had investigated airline crashes such as the Hindenburg disaster in 1937 and aerial dangers like the balloon bombs launched by Japan toward the U.S. Pacific Northwest near the end of World War II. The FBI’s lead role in protecting the homeland during the war was also well known, and the Bureau remained front and center in ensuring national security as the Cold War began to unfold.

In late July 1947, a woman in Illinois reported to the FBI office in Springfield that she found the flying disc pictured above in her front yard. The Springfield special agent in charge informed FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover that "the alleged flying disc was obtained and it is apparently the concoction of some of the juveniles in the area. It is an old wooden platter, which has assembled on it a silver plate, a spark plug, a timer, and some old brass tubing. ... No doubt this was someone's idea of a prank."

Initially, it was not clear how UFO sightings should be handled. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover recognized that the Air Force—then part of the U.S. Army—clearly had the lead in such issues, but he did want his agents to investigate any “discs” recovered for their potential impact on FBI responsibilities.

The Army did want the FBI’s help—at least at first. On July 30, 1947, the Bureau issued this notice to all of its offices:

(B) Flying Discs – The Bureau, at the request of the Army Air Forces Intelligence, has agreed to cooperate in the investigation of flying discs….You should investigate each instance which is brought to your attention of a sighting of a flying disc in order to ascertain whether or not it is a bona fide sighting, an imaginary one or a prank.

Three years later, that policy changed. A July 1950 FBI statement said that “the jurisdiction and responsibility for investigating flying saucers have been assumed by the United States Air Force. Information received in this matter is immediately turned over to the Air Force, and the FBI does not attempt to investigate these reports or evaluate the information furnished.”

From this point, the FBI’s cases on UFOs dropped off dramatically. Neither the public nor the Air Force sought our expertise as they had during the first few years of the Cold War.

There were a few exceptions. In 1977, for example, the Air Force informed us of the end of their “Project Blue Book” investigation of UFO reports. And in 1988, we were asked to look into the release of what appeared to be a 1952 classified document concerning a UFO-related top secret government group called “Majestic 12”—we determined that the document was a fake.

To learn more, see the investigations of “Unusual Phenomena” in our Freedom of Information Act Reading Room.

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'G-Men and Journalists" Exhibit Extended in Washington

During its first century, the FBI has played a significant role in the nation’s history—and its culture. To see just how significant a role we have played, look no further than the new exhibit “G-Men and Journalists: Top News Stories of the FBI’s First Century.”

A collaboration between the FBI and the Newseum, a museum in the nation’s capital devoted to the news, the display is filled with stories and artifacts from some of our most celebrated cases—everything from John Dillinger’s death mask to the electric chair used to execute Bruno Hauptmann after his conviction in the Lindbergh baby kidnapping case. The exhibit not only showcases our biggest investigations and the historical eras in which they took place, but the multifaceted relationship between the Bureau and the media during the past century.

“G-Men and Journalists” has been so popular—nearly 400,000 visitors have seen it since it opened this past June—that Newseum officials recently extended its run for another year, through the end of 2009.

The exhibit is “awesome,” said Cathy Trost, the Newseum’s Director of Exhibit Development. “It’s been an incredibly popular attraction since the day it opened.”

Trost, who helped create “G-Men and Journalists,” explained that the FBI initially approached the Newseum with the idea, and Bureau employees around the country “opened their desk drawers, their storage closets, and their file cabinets and found some amazing things” to help bring the exhibit to life.

On display are more than 200 items representing remarkable pieces of history. Museum visitors can see:

* Recovered pieces of the Ryder rental truck used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building;
* A full-size replica of the trunk section of the Chevrolet Caprice used by the D.C. snipers in 2002 to show how the John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo shot and killed 10 people without being detected;
* The 10-by-12-foot cabin that was the home of Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, on display for the first time;
* A copy of the 1950 Washington Daily News, which helped launch the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list; and
* The desk, chair, and office accessories used by Director J. Edgar Hoover.

Other displays focus on famous investigations involving spies, mobsters, and the KKK and include video documentaries featuring FBI agents and the reporters who covered their cases.

"We looked at the complicated relationship between the FBI and the media and didn’t sugarcoat it,” Trost explained. “The best testimony about the exhibit is that it’s received very positive reviews from both sides.”

The FBI continues to support the exhibit by participating in public programs at the Newseum that feature current and former agents alongside journalists, authors, and historians.

The popularity of the exhibit “is further proof that the public continues to be interested in the FBI and supportive of our mission,” said Mike Kortan, our Deputy Assistant Director of Public Affairs. Kortan added that we are also featured at the National Museum of Crime & Punishment and the International Spy Museum and will be represented at the upcoming National Law Enforcement Museum—all located near FBI Headquarters in Washington.

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Former Agents Commission Presentation Commemorating the FBI’s 100th Anniversary

On July 26, 2008, the FBI celebrated its 100th anniversary as an intelligence and national security agency. Growing from a small group of 34 investigators into an organization with more than 30,000 employees, the Bureau has proudly played - and continues to play - a unique and prominent role in ensuring the safety and freedom of all Americans. To commemorate this century of service, the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI, Inc. commissioned “The FBI: A Century of Excellence (Legacy and Legends, Part II),” a multimedia presentation that is available for viewing on its Web site at http://www.socxfbi.org/SpecialAgents2.

According to former Society President Richard J. Bernes, “While the FBI is familiar to every American, many are not aware of the Bureau’s roots or how it has successfully evolved to contend with the ever-changing threats that face our nation. ‘The FBI: A Century of Excellence (Legacy and Legends, Part II)’ provides viewers with insight into the leadership, expertise, courage, and integrity that defined the FBI of yesterday and continue to distinguish it today.”

“The FBI: Legacy and Legends, Part I” - honoring the Bureau’s ongoing efforts to protect the United States and its citizens at home and abroad - is also available on the Society’s Web site at http://www.socxfbi.org/SpecialAgents.

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FBI 100: The Legend of 'Machine Gun Kelly'

It was 75 years ago today—September 26, 1933—that wanted gangster George “Machine Gun” Kelly and three others were captured by Bureau agents and local police.

That date might not have meant much to history except for the reporting that followed. As the legend goes, the surrounded and frightened Kelly shouted something like, “Don’t shoot, G-Men, don’t shoot!” Originally slang for all government agents, the term “G-Men” soon became synonymous solely with FBI special agents.

Did Kelly really say those words? Probably not—it appears to have been manufactured by the media. But it quickly grabbed hold of the popular imagination as Hollywood, the press, the American people, and even the FBI accepted it as fact.

Here’s the story behind the myth and how it grew. On July 22, 1933, George Kelly and his gang kidnapped Charles Urschel, a wealthy oil magnate. After Urschel’s family paid a hefty ransom, he was freed. Over the next few months, our agents—then a largely unknown group of investigators—tracked down those involved. Kelly was among the last of the gang to be located by the Bureau.

Our earliest account of what happened was written between three and five days after Kelly’s arrest:

“Agent Rorer saw that Kelly…had proceeded into the front bedroom and was in a corner with his hands raised. He was covered by [Memphis Police] Sergeant [name withheld].”

And that was it, quick and quiet; Kelly wasn’t reported to have spoken at all.

"G-Men" inspired a generation of toys.

When did the “Don’t Shoot, G-Men” storyline begin? It’s unclear. The earliest reference to such a story that we could find was in a Philadelphia newspaper story written many months later. Kelly, according to the reporter, said that he didn’t shoot because, “It was them G’s. Them G’s would have slaughtered me.” According to historian Richard Gid Powers, it was a few months after this version that writer Rex Collier first wrote the myth as we now know it.

By April 1935, the image of the FBI agent as “G-Man” had become part of the popular culture. The movie G-Men, starring Jimmy Cagney, appeared in theaters across the country and was widely successful. It spawned more movies, news stories, films, comic books, radio shows, and even toys and games about the FBI’s G-Men.

In 1956, when reporter Don Whitehead wrote The FBI Story with extensive Bureau help, he included the story as a key event in FBI history. Bureau fact-checkers didn’t question his account, thus tacitly accepting it. The storyline was even included in our 1985 revision of the official case write-up.

Good myths, though, die hard, and this one does make a great story!

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FBI: The Case of the Cuban Spy

Just 10 days after the attacks of 9/11, the FBI arrested a 44-year-old woman named Ana Belen Montes.

She had nothing to do with the terrorist strikes, but her arrest had everything to do with protecting the country at a time when national security was of paramount importance.

Montes, it turned out, was spying for the Cubans from inside the U.S. intelligence community itself—as a senior analyst with the Defense Intelligence Agency, or DIA. And she was soon to have access to classified information about America’s planned invasion of Afghanistan the following month.

Montes was actually the DIA’s top Cuban analyst and was known throughout the U.S. intelligence community for her expertise. Little did anyone know how much of an expert she had become…and how much she was leaking classified U.S. military information and deliberately distorting the government’s views on Cuba.

It began as a classic tale of recruitment. In 1984, Montes held a clerical job at the Department of Justice in Washington. She often spoke openly against the U.S. government’s policies towards Central America. Soon, her opinions caught the attention of Cuban “officials” who thought she’d be sympathetic to their cause. She met with them. Soon after, Montes agreed to help Cuba.

She knew she needed a job inside the intelligence community to do that, so she applied at DIA, a key producer of intelligence for the Pentagon. By the time she started work there in 1985, she was a fully recruited spy.

Montes was smart. To escape detection, she never removed any documents from work, electronically or in hard copy. Instead, she kept the details in her head and went home and typed them up on her laptop. Then, she transferred the information onto encrypted disks. After receiving instructions from the Cubans in code via short-wave radio, she’d meet with her handler and turn over the disks.

During her years at DIA, security officials learned about her foreign policy views and were concerned about her access to sensitive information, but they had no reason to believe she was sharing secrets. And she had passed a polygraph.

Her downfall began in 1996, when an astute DIA colleague—acting on a gut feeling—reported to a security official that he felt Montes might be under the influence of Cuban intelligence. The official interviewed her, but she admitted nothing.

The security officer filed the interview away until four years later, when he learned that the FBI was working to uncover an unidentified Cuban agent operating in Washington. He contacted the Bureau with his suspicions. After a careful review of the facts, the FBI opened an investigation.

Through physical and electronic surveillance and covert searches, the FBI was able to build a case against Montes. Agents also wanted to identify her Cuban handler and were waiting for a face-to-face meeting between the two of them, which is why they held off arresting her for some time. However, outside events overtook the investigation—as a result of the 9/11 attacks, Montes was about to be assigned work related to U.S. war plans. The Bureau and DIA didn’t want that to happen, so she was arrested.

What was Montes’ motivation for spying? Pure ideology—she disagreed with U.S. foreign policy. Montes accepted no money for passing classified information, except for reimbursements for some expenses.

Montes, who acknowledged revealing the identities of four American undercover intelligence officers working in Cuba, pled guilty in 2002 and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

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The Last Steps of John Dillinger

One of the most famous cases in our (FBI) 100-year history celebrates an anniversary today: On July 22, 1934, the gangster John Dillinger was killed in Chicago, moments after leaving the Biograph Theater, where, ironically, he had watched a gangster film starring Clark Gable.

John Dillinger, Public Enemy #1

In the Depression years of the early 1930s, Dillinger’s bank robberies, shootouts, and jailbreaks earned him nationwide notoriety, but to the Bureau, he was just Public Enemy #1. And after months of pursuing him, a tip led Melvin Purvis, Special Agent in Charge of our Chicago office, to the Biograph on a hot Sunday night.

The day before, Purvis and Special Agent Samuel A. Cowley, who had been appointed by Director J. Edgar Hoover to head the Dillinger investigation, had met with a woman calling herself Anna Sage, a friend of Dillinger’s girlfriend, Polly Hamilton. She was hoping that her cooperation with the authorities would earn her reward money and keep her from being deported to her native Romania. She told Purvis that Dillinger planned to take both her and Hamilton to a Sunday evening movie at the Biograph or the Marbro.

Stakeouts were arranged for both theaters. A hand-written document from our Dillinger file, a diagram of the Biograph, illustrates the placement of some 20 men around the theater and across the street. The diagram shows the letters “A,” “B,” and “C” outside the theater box office, with an “X” next to each letter. A legend identifies the significance of the letters: “Dillinger companion,” “Dillinger,” “informant.”

A diagram of the stakeout of the Biograph Theater from our Dillinger files

The informant—Anna Sage—called Purvis at 8:30 p.m. that Sunday to say they were going to the Biograph. Two hours later, Dillinger emerged from the theater with his two companions. Purvis, standing nearby, lit a cigar. It was the signal for his men to move in. As they did, Dillinger realized what was happening and reached for his pistol. Agents fired, and Dillinger was hit. He staggered, then fell.

Dillinger’s death signaled the beginning of the end of the Gangster Era, but the nation’s fascination with those times lives on. A new movie about Dillinger, directed by Michael Mann, is scheduled for release next July. The film, Public Enemies, stars Johnny Depp as Dillinger and Christian Bale as Purvis.

Mann, a Chicago native, spared no expense to re-create the Biograph Theater and the look and feel of 1930s-era Chicago for the film. “Getting it visually right requires a lot of dedication,” he explains, thanking us for our “spectacular cooperation” in helping to make the film authentic.

The actual Colt .380 that Dillinger reached for as agents were closing in

Ross Rice, our spokesman in the Chicago field office, says that when he compared the movie sets with archival photos from those days, “you couldn’t tell the difference. I felt like I was stepping back in time.”

On Lincoln Avenue, where the Biograph still stands, the film crew “essentially rented out the entire block,” Rice says. The façade of every building was redone to look exactly as it did on that steamy night when Dillinger went to see Manhattan Melodrama. Attention was paid to every detail, from the streetlights to the trolley tracks right down to replacing the bricks on the street.

Mann says the film also strives for “period-accurate psychology,” to help illuminate inner thoughts and motivations of Purvis and Dillinger. That process included talking with agents while doing research for the film. Their “zeal and passion,” Mann says, helped him understand just how badly Purvis wanted to catch Public Enemy #1.

FBI’s Greatest Strength

HH Note: Enjoy this story about more of the FBI's history as they get ready for their anniversary on July 26th..

Mr. Schiff: Hi, welcome to "FBI 100, A Closer Look." I'm Neal Schiff of the Bureau's Office of Public Affairs along with FBI Historian Dr. John Fox. John, over the first century the FBI has had many great cases, so different that it’s hard to rank them?

Dr. Fox: "Sure Neal. Anything from the investigations of potential German espionage in World War I through Dillinger and the Gangster Era, the breaking of Nazi espionage just before we entered World War II to some of our biggest cases of more recent years. We’ve had some great successes.”

Mr. Schiff: How did the FBI’s priorities change from the early days of bank robbery and car theft cases?

Dr. Fox: "Over the years we’ve always had duel responsibilities for protecting America’s national security and enforcing our federal criminal law. And over the years one side of that equation or the other has been more important. In World War II, national security was the top of our priority list. But it was only a couple of years before, when, just as you said, car thefts and bank robberies were at the top. How does it change? It’s a matter of our Presidents, Attorneys General, really ultimately what the American people are most concerned with. And it’s also what we see as the future; what kinds of security threats or what kind of crimes are becoming more of a danger and something that we really need to put more resources towards.”

Mr. Schiff: John, what’s the FBI’s greatest strength?

Dr. Fox: "Neal, over the years the FBI’s greatest strength is that because it has such a talented and educated force of agent and professional support; from the scientists to the analysts to specially-trained agents who can go into computer intrusions or the people who can gather the minutest quantities of evidence at the crime scene and analyze it and tell us the story of what happened. These people are able to adapt and change as we look back at what we’ve done; sometimes learn from our mistakes, learn from the successes that we have. Address the new issues as they are arising. Our people have been very good at changing with the times and building on what has been done before.”

Mr. Schiff: July 26, 2008, the FBI’s 100th anniversary. From the FBI’s Public Affairs office, along with Bureau Historian Dr. John Fox, I'm Neal Schiff with "FBI 100, A Closer Look."

FBI 100 - The Top Ten Moments in FBI History

HH Note: Happy Anniversary FBI! Thanks for protecting us all these years!

Over the course of a century—during which we’ve been involved in just about every major event in U.S. history and had countless innovations and famous cases—it’s hard to pick just ten. But here, in chronological order, are our choices for the top ten moments in FBI history…

1) July 26, 1908 – The Bureau is Born

No surprise on this one. But what you may not know is that our origins were somewhat tentative and filled with political intrigue. By early 1908, Teddy Roosevelt’s Attorney General—Charles Bonaparte—was growing weary of borrowing investigators from other agencies for federal cases under his jurisdiction. When Congress outlawed that practice in May, he had no choice but to pull together his own corps of agents. On July 26, Bonaparte sent a memo to his department announcing this new “force of special agents.” It started small, with just 34 agents and no name. And it was considered something of an experiment by both Bonaparte and Congress. But over time the force started making a difference…and the rest is history.

2) May 10, 1924 – Hoover Takes the Helm

Appointed to clean up a scandal-plagued Bureau, 29-year-old Acting Director J. Edgar Hoover immediately began instituting a series of reforms that transformed the FBI into the professional law enforcement organization that it is today. Over the next decade, Hoover strengthened the organizational and hiring practices of the Bureau, created a central repository for criminal identification and criminal history records, instituted a technical laboratory (the forerunner of today’s FBI Lab), began gathering and reporting national crime stats, and fostered a rigorous training program for American and international law enforcement alike. Though often remembered more for controversies in his later years, Hoover played a vital role in lifting the overall capabilities and professionalism of the FBI and U.S. law enforcement.

The scene outside the railroad station shortly after the "Kansas City" Massacre

3) June 17, 1933 – The Kansas City Massacre

It’s hard to imagine today, but for the Bureau’s first quarter-century agents weren’t allowed to make their own arrests, and they only carried weapons in limited cases. That began to change one shocking morning outside a train station in Kansas City, Missouri, when Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd and other gangsters suddenly opened fire on a group of lawmen transporting an escaped con back to prison. Killed in the hail of bullets were two police officers, a police chief, and a Bureau special agent. The public was stunned by what became known as the “Kansas City Massacre,” and Congress responded within a year by authorizing special agents to carry guns, to make arrests, and to tackle a wider array of gangster crime, which has helped us protect the nation ever since.

John Dillinger, who met his end on July 22, 1934

4) July 22, 1934 – The Death of Dillinger

In many ways, John Dillinger was the most notorious of the Depression-era gangsters, the leader of a ruthless band of gun-slinging bank robbers and crooks who was able to charm the press and American people into believing he was a harmless Robin Hood. Dillinger’s fame and ability to elude the law were reaching disastrous levels when we joined the hunt for him in the winter of 1933/1934. Despite a few stumbles along the way, Bureau agents tracked Dillinger down on July 22 and shot him dead in the streets of Chicago as he reached for his gun. The successful investigation catapulted the largely-unknown agency to worldwide fame and was the beginning of the end of the lawless gangster years.

5) June 26, 1939 – Getting Ready for War

More than two years before bombs fell on Pearl Harbor, the FBI was already preparing to protect the nation from its wartime enemies. It started when President Franklin Roosevelt signed a secret order in June 1939 putting the FBI (and the Army and Navy to a lesser extent) in charge of homeland security, including espionage, sabotage, and subversion. In June 1940, we were also asked to collect foreign intelligence in Central and South America. Our ensuing “Special Intelligence Service,” or SIS—a little-known initiative even now—ended up producing a trove of intelligence and outing some 887 Axis spies. Though later dissolved with the creation of the CIA, the SIS laid the groundwork for our network of international offices, which are vital to our ability to combat global crime and terror today. And overall, our work before and during the war ensured that not a single act of enemy-directed sabotage was carried out on U.S. soil.

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg ride with Morton Sobell (far left), another convicted member of the Rosenberg's spy ring, as the jury deliberates

6) September 1, 1947 – To Catch a Spy

Intelligence was not new to the FBI; neither was cooperating with the Army. But in September 1947, these two things started to come together in a powerful way when Special Agent Wesley Reynolds was briefed on a top secret Army cryptanalytic program and brought decoded Soviet spy messages back to the Bureau. In the spring of 1948, Special Agent Robert Lamphere became interested in these messages and combined his expertise and the Bureau’s growing knowledge of Soviet espionage with the work of the Army’s brilliant cryptanalyst Meredith Gardner. Together, the two began to make sense of Soviet telegrams sent from the U.S. and other western countries during World War II. Soon they were on the trail of Soviet spies like Judith Coplon, Klaus Fuchs, Julius Rosenberg, and many others. Their work and that of their successors—a project now known as Venona—allowed the FBI and its partners to identify more than 100 Soviet agents, keep traitors from accessing crucial national secrets, and start moving more proactively against Soviet intelligence in the 1950s and beyond. When Venona was declassified in 1995, it led to a significant re-evaluation of Cold War history.

This burnt-out station wagon led to the case name "MIBURN," short for Mississippi Burning.

7) June 21, 1964 – Mississippi Burning

By the early 1960s the civil rights movement was starting to make headway in America, but the backlash from the KKK and others was growing. When three young men who had volunteered to help register African-American voters in Mississippi disappeared suddenly on June 21, 1964, President Johnson called on the FBI to investigate, and we did so rigorously. Within a short time, we found the young men’s burnt-out station wagon (thus the famous case name “MIBURN”), located their bodies, and gathered important evidence that led to indictments. Although it took a long time (decades, tragically) to secure a measure of justice in the courtroom, national outrage over the crime helped spur passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Together with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, these laws—for the first time—put real teeth into the FBI’s ability to defend the rights and freedoms of all Americans. We’ve used them to great effect ever since.

8) October 15, 1970 – New Law of the Land

In the fall of 1970, Congress passed the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly called “RICO,” as part of a larger bill. What a huge milestone it turned out to be. Finally, the FBI had the legal muscle to go after criminal enterprises like the Mafia the right way—investigating their entire organizations, leaders and all, instead of just individuals who had committed a crime. Thanks to this legislation and other new approaches (like using undercover agents and Title III wiretaps to gather evidence), we were soon working with our partners to dismantle entire mob families from the top down and putting a serious dent in the Mafia’s corrupting and violent ways. We’ve also used the law over the years to combat street gangs, drug rings, corruption activities, and even terrorist financing activities in this country.

The Watergate complex, site of the famous breakin

9) November 18, 1975 – Domestic Intelligence Redefined

During the early 1970s, especially after J. Edgar Hoover died in May 1972, revelations began to surface about potential abuses in the intelligence community. In 1975, on the heels of Watergate and the changing political climate it engendered, Senator Frank Church opened a series of hearings unlike any before into domestic intelligence issues. Front and center was the FBI, which was sharply criticized for its investigation of Dr. Martin Luther King, its surveillance practices, and other concerns. In response, the Bureau accelerated its re-evaluation of its domestic security programs and worked with the Attorney General to craft guidelines governing domestic security operations. These changes established clearer parameters for FBI cases and made agents more respectful than ever of the need to protect constitutional rights.

A pair of FBI employees inside the Pentagon shortly after the 9/11 attacks

10) September 11, 2001 – America is Attacked

In one horrific morning, everything changed for America—and for the FBI. The attacks quickly became the most massive investigation in our history, with a quarter of all agents and support personnel directly involved. And even before the dust settled, we had a new overriding mission: to stop terrorists before they strike. The FBI had prevented dozens of terrorist plots before 9/11—including nearly 60 during the 1990s alone. But these attacks showed that our strategic capabilities had to improve—that we needed to be more forward-leaning, more predictive, a step ahead of the next germinating threat. What followed was one of the most far-reaching transformations in FBI history, as we strengthened our counterterrorism and intelligence capabilities in profound new ways. The result has been innumerable successes over the past seven years, from heading off developing plots here in the U.S. to helping take out key terrorist operatives overseas by sharing key intelligence and information.

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The FBI's Greatest Failure

HH Note: The FBI celebrates its 100th birthday this month. The FBI has been pulling old stories out of the closet for us all to learn more about them and their past. Yes, even they can make a mistake. We thought you'd enjoy this look at one of them.

Mr. Schiff: Hi, welcome to "FBI 100, A Closer Look." I'm Neal Schiff of the Bureau's Office of Public Affairs along with FBI Historian Dr. John Fox. John, the FBI has a lot of major successes over the years that it has served the American public, but sometimes we make mistakes…

Dr. Fox: "Sure Neal. Any agency that's lasted as long as the FBI and has done as many things as it has, is going to make mistakes. Perhaps our biggest one was our involvement in the Teapot Dome Affair in the mid 1920s."

Mr. Schiff: That was a political scandal, wasn't it, John?

Dr. Fox: "At the time Warren Harding had been our President. He had brought in a number of his political cronies into office. And one of them, Albert Fall, the Secretary of the Interior, was actually involved in a big bribery scandal and the Bureau was investigating it. But the problem was, at the time, the Bureau wasn't what it is today. In many ways, it was more of a political organization. People were appointed because of patronage. And its Director, William Burns, had deep connections to a private business he was running, and often mixed the two."

Mr. Schiff: Now, Warren Harding, though, had died as this was breaking out in the news. What did the new president do?

Dr. Fox: "Mr. Harding, of course, had died of food poisoning as some of this was getting going. And Calvin Coolidge came into office and had to face a political scandal. He asked the Attorney General to resign; he ended up firing William Burns who was Director of the Bureau, and had to appoint someone basically to clean house."

Mr. Schiff: And what impact did that have on the FBI?

Dr. Fox: "It led to, among other things, the appointment of John Edgar Hoover, who then served as Director for 48 years. And Hoover was given very strict marching orders on how to reform the Bureau by Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone who came in to clean house. Hoover immediately began to purge the roles of political appointees. He reinstituted very strict hiring criteria for new agents to ensure that the training of those agents was very strong and basically revamp the entire way that the Bureau did business. It was a series of changes that really set the Bureau on the road to its emergence in the 1930s during the whole gangster era that we've talked about a couple of times. And the FBI's emergence as a professional law enforcement and national security agency."

Mr. Schiff: From the FBI's Public Affairs office, along with Bureau Historian Dr. John Fox, I'm Neal Schiff with "FBI 100, A Closer Look."

The Kansas City Massacre

HH Note: This article is one of a series released by the FBI as they celebrate their 100th anniversary. Thanks, G-men. America is better because of you.

The sun rose on June 17, 1933—75 years ago Tuesday—just like any other spring day in America’s heartland. But outside a massive train station in Kansas City, Missouri, a grand tragedy was about to unfold.

Shortly after 7 a.m., a sudden burst of gunfire erupted outside the east entrance of Union Station. Its target was a troupe of lawmen who had just loaded escaped bank robber Frank “Jelly” Nash into a two-door Chevrolet, preparing to return him to nearby Leavenworth prison.

Within seconds, two Kansas City police officers, an Oklahoma police chief named Otto Reed, and Bureau Special Agent Ray Caffrey had been murdered—along with Nash himself. Another two agents inside the car survived by slumping forward and pretending to be dead. Kansas City Special Agent in Charge Reed Vetterli, who had been standing near the front of the car, miraculously escaped with only a flesh wound. An officer who responded from inside the station fired at the escaping killers, but they got away.

This brazen slaughter by submachine gun came to be called “The Kansas City Massacre,” and it turned into one of the early Bureau’s most important investigations, leading to a massive manhunt for the culprits and ultimately helping the agency gain new law enforcement powers.

Who did it and why? That’s what we aimed to find out. It was tough going in the early days, with few solid leads and the recollections of surviving lawmen and witnesses less than clear.

Ultimately, the evidence pointed to a bank robber and underworld assassin named Verne Miller as the leader of the plot. Miller was a good friend of Nash, and Nash’s wife had contacted the gunman to help spring her husband after he was arrested the day before the massacre.

Miller raced to Kansas City, but he realized he needed help to free his friend. There, he was apparently introduced to Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd, a notorious bank robber on the run, and his confederate Adam Richetti. It was these three men, we concluded, who had carried out the crime.

The first priority was to find Miller. In October, agents traced him to the apartment of his girlfriend Vivian Mathias in Chicago. Miller escaped, but Mathias was captured and later pled guilty to harboring the fugitive. A month later, on November 29, the search came to an end when Miller turned up dead in a ditch near Detroit, Michigan, a victim of a dispute with the New Jersey underworld.

Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd (left) and Frank "Jelly" Nash

We then turned our full attention to finding Floyd and Richetti. The two men, we learned, had been traveling with a pair of women. On October 20, 1934, the four were driving in Ohio when Floyd crashed into a telephone pole. While the women took the car into the nearby town of Wellsville for repairs, Richetti and Floyd were spotted by local police and ended up in a firefight. Richetti was quickly captured, but Floyd got away. Two days later, Bureau agents and local authorities tracked Floyd to a farm near Clarkson, Ohio, where he was shot and killed.

The Kansas City Massacre was a dark chapter for law enforcement and for the FBI in particular—at that time, one of the deadliest attacks on the law the nation had ever seen. Within a year of the tragedy, Congress responded by giving us new tools to fight crime—including statutory authority to carry guns and make arrests, both of which have been pillars in our work to protect the nation ever since.

Machine Gun Kelly/G-men

HH Note: Take a look at this insight into a common nickname.

Mr. Schiff: Hi, welcome to "FBI 100, A Closer Look." I'm Neal Schiff of the Bureau's Office of Public Affairs along with FBI Historian Dr. John Fox. John, for years FBI Special Agents have been called G-men? When did that start?

Dr. Fox: "Well Neal it started somewhere in the early 1930s. G-men had been this term that was used kind of as criminal slang for a government agent. But with the arrest, as legend has it, with the arrest of Machine Gun Kelly on December 26th, 1933, that term started to be used exclusively for FBI agents."

Mr. Schiff: Tell us about Machine Gun Kelly?

Dr. Fox: "Kelly was a former bootlegger and he was turning to other crimes as prohibition was obviously coming to an end. One of them was kidnapping. He and a colleague named Albert Bates kidnapped a wealthy Oklahoman named Charles Urschel. He was in the oil business and Machine Gun Kelly, and especially his wife who is sometimes credited with being the brains of the operation, really felt that they could make a quick buck. They kidnapped Urschel; they hid him; eventually collected a ransom and let him go. Thanks to Urschel's memory though, the FBI was able to piece together the path that the kidnappers took to where they hid Urschel and the Bureau was able to begin to track Machine Gun Kelly down."

Mr. Schiff: What about the hunt for Kelly and how he was caught?

Dr. Fox: "With the help of a lot of other police, we tracked Kelly across several states. Eventually working with Tennessee police, we found him in Memphis. He was hiding out in a rooming house and when we entered, as legend has it, he threw up his hands and shouted, 'Don't shoot G-men, don't shoot.' Now, that seems to have been some press license in a story. Whether or not Kelly actually said something like that, chances are he probably didn't, but it was a legend that caught on. And as the FBI became more famous through the hunt for John Dillinger and the rest of the notorious gangsters of the day, the term G-men came to stick with FBI agents. And since then we've been known as the G-men."

Mr. Schiff: On July 26th this year, the FBI celebrates its 100th anniversary. Much more on the Internet at www.fbi.gov. From the FBI's Public Affairs office, along with Bureau Historian Dr. John Fox, I'm Neal Schiff with "FBI 100, A Closer Look."