Federal Bureau of Investigation

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was established within the Department of Justice in 1908. Initially called the Bureau of Investigation, it went through several name changes before finally becoming the FBI in 1935.

The most famous director of the FBI was J. Edgar Hoover (1895–1972), who led the bureau for nearly forty-eight years (1924–72). Under his leadership, the FBI disgraced itself when, at the start of World War I (1914–18), it rounded up thousands of young men suspected of being draft dodgers (people trying to illegally escape serving in the military). Only a handful of them were found guilty as accused.

In 1919, the U.S. attorney general conducted raids on individuals suspected of having ties to the Communist Party or of holding anti-American views. Hoover prepared legal cases against twenty-five hundred suspects and earned a reputation as an expert on radicals and subversives. It was common knowledge that the director tended to exaggerate the danger of these potential radicals, however, and many questioned his tactics and ethics.

Mistakes aside, Hoover was highly respected during his tenure with the FBI. Under his direction, the organization became the leading authority on domestic intelligence, and Hoover was directly responsible for the development of the FBI laboratory in 1932. The lab was used to examine all evidence collected by the bureau's agents. Hoover brought a level of professionalism to the FBI that was previously nonexistent. For example, Hoover implemented a system that promoted agents based on their performance rather than by seniority, or how long they had worked for the bureau. Only those agents who lived up to the standards of the FBI were promoted and given raises. One of Hoover's most important achievements was establishing a criminal identification division that collected and maintained fingerprints.

By the 1930s, a decade marked not only by the Great Depression (1929–41; a time of economic downturn in the United States) but also by an increase in crime, the FBI's agents were nicknamed “G-Men” (for “Government Men”). In large part because of Hoover's skill at marketing the FBI and its special agents, for the first time the public understood FBI agents to be better trained than any other law enforcement agents. These G-Men were credited with the capture or killing of several notorious gangsters, including “Pretty Boy” Floyd (1904–1934), “Machine Gun” Kelly (1895–1954), and John Dillinger (1903–1934).

The organized crime wave gave way to further threats—either real or perceived of subversives and radicals as World War II (1939–45) loomed. With Americans still concerned about the potential spread of communism (a fear enhanced by the war), each of the FBI's forty-two field offices included at least one agent specially trained in defense plant protection. Through its own networks and informational sources, the FBI stayed abreast of and investigated all serious threats to national security. In 1940, Congress reestablished the draft, by which all males over the age of seventeen were required to enlist in the military and participate in the war. As they did during World War I, FBI agents again went after draft dodgers and deserters (soldiers who left their units without permission).

Most of the early to mid-1940s were taken up with war-related and traditional criminal investigations. By 1945, the spread of communism was a threat foremost in Americans' minds. Work related to stemming communism almost completely took over the FBI, and its investigations included looking into the personal lives of anyone involved or trying to get involved in government work. The FBI conducted investigations on anyone suspected of possible espionage (spying) or treason (disloyalty). No one was exempt from Hoover's investigations, and he kept files on important figures such as civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–68), President John F. Kennedy (1917–63; served 1961–63), and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy (1925–68). As the American public learned of these “secret” files, many became concerned that Hoover had too much power and that the FBI had lost its focus on crime.

By the time Hoover died in 1972, most experts agreed that the FBI and Hoover had overstepped their bounds and infringed upon the individual rights of many people. Reforms and standards were implemented to limit the FBI's power. The debate over the bureau's role in federal government continues in the early twenty-first century.