J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets (27 page)

McKellar waited until after Hoover had finished explaining why the Bureau needed additional funds before he sprung his trap.

S
ENATOR
M
C
K
ELLAR
: “Is any money directly or indirectly spent for advertising?”

M
R
. H
OOVER
: “There is not. We are not permitted in any way to engage in advertising.”

S
ENATOR
M
C
K
ELLAR
: “Do you take part, for instance, in the making of any moving pictures?”

M
R
. H
OOVER
: “That is one thing that the Bureau has very strongly objected to. You have seen several of the G-men pictures, I believe.”

S
ENATOR
M
C
K
ELLAR
: “I have…They virtually advertised the Bureau, because your picture was shown in conjunction with them frequently.”

Hoover had to admit that this was correct, but he claimed it wasn’t his doing. “We declined emphatically to lend any form of endorsement and had nothing to do with their production; furnished no advice, technical advice, or other advice as to the production of those pictures.”

Hoover
had
objected to these pictures, to his closest aides. Why should Hollywood make all the profits? Also, if the Bureau produced its own motion pictures, it would have complete control over their content, he argued.

Assistant Director Harold “Pop” Nathan, who was still acting as a counterbalance to Hoover’s wilder enthusiasms, had persuaded him to drop the idea, saying it would leave the Bureau open to far greater criticism than McKellar’s.

McKellar pressed on: “I think they have hurt the Department very much, by advertising your methods.”

Hoover claimed that the Bureau had, “in every instance,” registered its official disapproval.
¹⁶

Fortunately for Hoover, McKellar did not ask about radio programs. Shortly before his appearance before the committee, Hoover had given Phillip H. Lord permission to broadcast a series of FBI adventures under the title “G-men.” The first episode, which aired three months later and which was entitled “The Life and Death of John Dillinger,” was prefaced by the following remarks by Lord:

“This series of ‘G-men’ is presented with the consent of the Attorney General of the United States and with the cooperation of J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Every fact in tonight’s program is taken directly from the files of the Bureau.

“I went to Washington and was graciously received by Mr. Hoover and all of these scripts were written in the department building. Tonight’s program was submitted to Mr. Hoover who personally reviewed the script and made some very valuable suggestions.”

Nor did the senator ask about comic strips, such as “War on Crime,” whose continuity was written by Hoover’s friend and longtime Bureau publicist, the newspaperman Rex Collier. The first episode, which appeared the month after Hoover testified, also claimed to be “based on the official files” and produced “with the consent and cooperation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
¹⁷

McKellar did ask, however, whether Hoover’s disapproval applied to magazine articles and stories.

Hoover admitted that “upon a few occasions, a very few,” the attorney general had permitted writers to come in and write stories.

Hoover did not define “very few.” In just the past year, more than fifty feature-length articles on the FBI had appeared, many evidencing Bureau cooperation.

S
ENATOR
M
C
K
ELLAR
: “Was anything appropriated to pay these writers?”

M
R
. H
OOVER
: “No, sir; not a cent.”

S
ENATOR
M
C
K
ELLAR
: “Have you any writers in your Department, or do you employ any writers?”

M
R
. H
OOVER
: “Not in the Bureau of Investigation.”

S
ENATOR
M
C
K
ELLAR
: “No writers are employed?”

M
R
. H
OOVER
: “Not in the Bureau of Investigation.”

Hoover’s answer was carefully qualified. Henry Suydam was on salary to the Department of Justice.
^*

McKellar moved on, criticizing the Bureau for claiming successes when the real credit was due to other law enforcement agencies or the tips of publicspirited citizens.

Senator Joseph O’Mahoney of Wyoming wondered if there was any truth in the stories that the Bureau didn’t cooperate with local police. Hoover responded that they did cooperate, “whenever we find that the local police are honest and will cooperate and will not give information to the press.”

A month earlier Alvin Karpis had evaded an FBI trap in Hot Springs, Arkansas, after being tipped off by a contact on the local police.

Disputing Hoover’s need for additional funds, McKellar concluded, “It seems to me that your Department is just running wild, Mr. Hoover…I just think that, Mr. Hoover, with all the money in your hands you are just extravagant.”

M
R
. H
OOVER
: “Will you let me make a statement?”

S
ENATOR
M
C
K
ELLAR
: “I think that is the statement.”

Not all the committee members were antagonistic. The senator from Missouri was clearly on the FBI director’s side. Ironically, in years to come, they became bitter enemies.

S
ENATOR
T
RUMAN
: “How many unassigned cases have you pending?”

M
R
. H
OOVER
: “We have pending 6,790 unassigned cases because of inadequate manpower to assign them.”

S
ENATOR
T
RUMAN
: “How much money did you turn in, in fines?”

A master of statistics, Hoover was once again on safe ground. “We turned in, in fines, recoveries, and savings, $38 million last year as against a four-and-a-half million dollar appropriation.”

Although McKellar tried to dispute these figures, he was obviously ill prepared and clearly came off second best. He then delivered a very low blow: he implied that Hoover was at least in part responsible for the deaths of four of his own men.

S
ENATOR
M
C
K
ELLAR
: “How many people have been killed by your Department since you have been allowed to use guns?”

M
R
. H
OOVER
: “I think there have been eight desperadoes killed by our agents and we have had four agents in our service killed by them.”

S
ENATOR
M
C
K
ELLAR
: “In other words the net effect of turning guns over
to your department has been the killing of eight desperadoes and four G-men.”

Suppressing his rage, Hoover explained that his agents were under strict orders to apprehend a man alive, if at all possible, and that only if a suspect pulled a gun, or was in the act of firing it, were the agents permitted to use their own weapons.

McKellar ignored him: “I doubt very much whether you ought to have a law that permits you to go around the country armed as an army would, and shoot down all the people that you suspect of being criminals, or such that you suspect of having guns, and having your own men shot down.”

Persisting over Hoover’s objection, McKellar added, “I am not blaming you for the enactment of those statutes, Mr. Hoover, because that is Congress’ fault. If we turned guns over to you and told you to kill the people that you suspect of crime, why, that is our fault.” Even if a law enforcement officer knew a man was a murderer, he shouldn’t have authority to kill him, McKellar asserted. “We have courts to take care of that situation.”

M
R
. H
OOVER
: “Even if he pulls a gun on you?”

S
ENATOR
M
C
K
ELLAR
: “We have established courts to look after those matters, and we ought to look after them in that way.”

This was more than Harry S Truman could stand. “How would you catch them, Senator, if they commenced shooting at you?”

McKellar was forced to admit that there “might” be cases where “it may be necessary.”

Angered as Hoover was by McKellar’s charges, one exchange infuriated him more than any other and still rankled years later whenever he recounted the story.

Senator McKellar asked Hoover what his qualifications were for his job. Hoover snapped off his answer: nineteen years with the Department of Justice, twelve of them as director of the Bureau of Investigation.

“I mean crime school,” McKellar interrupted.

He had set up a training school in the Bureau, Hoover explained.

But this wasn’t good enough for McKellar: “So that whatever you know about it you learned there in the Department?”

M
R
. H
OOVER
: “I learned first-hand; yes, sir.”

S
ENATOR
M
C
K
ELLAR
: “Did you ever make an arrest?”

M
R
. H
OOVER
: “No sir; I have made investigations.”

S
ENATOR
M
C
K
ELLAR
: “How many arrests have you made, and who were they?”

M
R
. H
OOVER
: “I handled the investigation of Emma Goldman and I prosecuted that case before the immigration authorities up to the Secretary of Labor. I also handled the Alexander Berkman case, and the case of Ludwig Martens, the former Bolshevik Ambassador to the United States.”

McKellar drove his point home: “Did you make the arrests?”

M
R
. H
OOVER
: “The arrests were made by the immigration officers under my supervision.”

S
ENATOR
M
C
K
ELLAR
: “I am talking about the actual arrests…You never arrested them, actually?”
¹⁹

It did no good for Hoover to explain that the Bureau didn’t even have the power of arrest until 1934. McKellar had made his point. America’s top cop had never arrested anyone.

That it was a ridiculous charge—one which not only ignored Hoover’s tremendous talents for organization and leadership but somehow found his courage deficient because he, the commanding general, had never personally led his troops into battle—mattered not at all. McKellar’s accusations stung.

Hoover felt, according to one biographer, “that his manhood had been impugned.”
²⁰

As his testimony before the Senate subcommittee indicated, Hoover still considered the deportation of Emma Goldman one of his greatest achievements. Although this had occurred seventeen years earlier, to Hoover it was in no way ancient history: as far as he was concerned, it was still an open case.

Following their 1919 deportation aboard the “Soviet Ark,” Goldman and Berkman had hoped to find sanctuary in Russia. They had soon become disillusioned with the Communist government, however, and had set out on a long pilgrimage across Europe, in search of a country willing to grant them residence. It appeared, for a time, that they would be allowed to remain in France. But in 1931 they were told that their request had been denied, “to please the U.S.”

It did not occur to them that one man might be responsible. After being asked to leave France, Berkman wrote Roger Baldwin and other friends, “It is hardly probable that any American busybody or some individual Secret Service man (as suggested by Roger) would have so much influence with the French government.”

However, as one of Goldman’s biographers, Richard Drinnon, notes, “Even if Emma and Berkman had pretty well forgotten the colorless functionary who had helped hustle them out of the country, Hoover had by no means forgotten them and his first and most important ‘cases.’ And a concerned word from him to his French counterparts, by way of commendable follow-up, was quite sufficient to thicken their plot.”
²¹

In early 1934 Emma Goldman requested permission to return to the United States for a lecture tour. Despite J. Edgar Hoover’s strong objections, Roosevelt’s Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins, reacted favorably to Goldman’s request—which was supported by such eminent figures as John Dewey, Roger Baldwin, H. L. Mencken, Sherwood Anderson, Sinclair Lewis, and Theodore Dreiser—and granted her permission to return for ninety days. Hoover won a
compromise, however. Emma wanted to arouse world opinion against Hitler and fascism. Instead she was allowed to lecture on only two subjects: literature and drama.

Hoover kept her under surveillance
almost
every day she was in the country. When, in a Philadelphia speech, she departed from the permitted topics to state that the people of the United States were lucky to have freedom of speech and that Americans should never give up this freedom, one of his agents reported her remarks to Hoover, who in turn suggested to his Justice Department superiors that possibly “her activities in this country at the present time are in violation of the agreement upon which she was permitted to enter.”
²²