Description:

Hoover J.

J. Edgar Hoover Lambasts One of His Staff "You Were Certainly Most Derelict …"

 

Single page typed letter signed, 8" x 10.5", on letterhead of United States Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, D.C.. Dated "March 4, 1953", and signed by John Edgar Hoover as "J. Edgar Hoover". Two staple holes along top margin, else near fine with the notation of "personal #5" along the bottom in an unknown hand.

 

An angry J. Edgar Hoover thoroughly lambasts one of his employs for repeatedly displaying poor judgement during an apprehension. The letter is shown in full below:

 

"The Bureau's attention has been called to an arrest in which you participated on February 11, 1953, in the case entitled "Arthur Phillip Baloga, Fugitive - Deserter." During the arrest and preliminary search of this subject you were stationed at the rear of the house to prevent any possible escape by the subject in that direction. However, when an attempt was made by the agent inside the house to contact you through one of the occupants, he was unsuccessful. Furthermore, you should have made certain that additional assistance was requested from the office before this apprehension was attempted since the fugitive was known to have been convicted of inflicting a wound upon himself and to have escaped from military custody. In such a situation it was essential that sufficient manpower be utilized to insure that no difficulty was encountered in making the apprehension.

 

You were certainly most derelict in failing to maintain close enough contact with developments to be aware that you services were needed inside the house by the other agent and you displayed poor judgement in not having insisted that additional help be requested from the office for such an apprehension. It is expected that you will exercise more judgement and be more alert in carrying out your assignments so that the Bureau will have no occasion to again criticize you for similar derelictions."

 

Hoover cleaned up a Bureau that had been notorious for corruption and inefficiency, replacing it with an agent corps that became a byword for integrity. One veteran defined the ideal new recruit as a man who had to represent "the great middle class," who "will always eat well and dress well, but will never get that sleek Packard or sumptuous house. He belongs to the Bureau body and soul." Hoover brought modernity and co-ordination at a time of disorganization. He built the first federal fingerprint bank, and his Identification Division would eventually offer instant access to the prints of 159 million people. His Crime Laboratory became the most advanced in the world. He created the FBI National Academy, a sort of West Point for the future elite of law enforcement. While all this was positive, Hoover's Division 8, euphemistically entitled Crime Records and Communications, had a priority mission to release propaganda that fostered not only the image of the FBI as an organization that spoke for what was right and just, but also the Director himself as a champion of justice fighting "moral deterioration" and "anarchist elements."

 

For better or worse, he built the FBI into a modern, national organization stressing professionalism and scientific crime-fighting. For most of his life, Americans considered him a hero. He made the G-Man brand so popular that, at its height, it was harder to become an FBI agent than to be accepted into an Ivy League college.



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