FBI FOUNDED:

FBI FOUNDED:
July 26, 1908

On July 26, 1908, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is born when U.S.
Attorney General Charles Bonaparte orders a group of newly hired federal
investigators to report to Chief Examiner Stanley W. Finch of the Department of
Justice. One year later, the Office of the Chief Examiner was renamed the Bureau
of Investigation, and in 1935 it became the Federal Bureau of Investigation.When
the Department of Justice was created in 1870 to enforce federal law and
coordinate judicial policy, it had no permanent investigators on its staff. At
first, it hired private detectives when it needed federal crimes investigated
and later rented out investigators from other federal agencies, such as the
Secret Service, which was created by the Department of the Treasury in 1865 to
investigate counterfeiting. In the early part of the 20th century, the attorney
general was authorized to hire a few permanent investigators, and the Office of
the Chief Examiner, which consisted mostly of accountants, was created to review
financial transactions of the federal courts.Seeking to form an independent and
more efficient investigative arm, in 1908 the Department of Justice hired 10
former Secret Service employees to join an expanded Office of the Chief
Examiner. The date when these agents reported to duty--July 26, 1908--is
celebrated as the genesis of the FBI. By March 1909, the force included 34
agents, and Attorney General George Wickersham, Bonaparte's successor, renamed
it the Bureau of Investigation.The federal government used the bureau as a tool
to investigate criminals who evaded prosecution by passing over state lines, and
within a few years the number of agents had grown to more than 300. The agency
was opposed by some in Congress, who feared that its growing authority could
lead to abuse of power. With the entry of the United States into World War I in
1917, the bureau was given responsibility in investigating draft resisters,
violators of the Espionage Act of 1917, and immigrants suspected of
radicalism.Meanwhile, J. Edgar Hoover, a lawyer and former librarian, joined the
Department of Justice in 1917 and within two years had become special assistant
to Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. Deeply anti-radical in his ideology,
Hoover came to the forefront of federal law enforcement during the so-called
"Red Scare" of 1919 to 1920. He set up a card index system listing every radical
leader, organization, and publication in the United States and by 1921 had
amassed some 450,000 files. More than 10,000 suspected communists were also
arrested during this period, but the vast majority of these people were briefly
questioned and then released. Although the attorney general was criticized for
abusing his power during the so-called "Palmer Raids," Hoover emerged unscathed,
and on May 10, 1924, he was appointed acting director of the Bureau of
Investigation.During the 1920s, with Congress' approval, Director Hoover
drastically restructured and expanded the Bureau of Investigation. He built the
agency into an efficient crime-fighting machine, establishing a centralized
fingerprint file, a crime laboratory, and a training school for agents. In the
1930s, the Bureau of Investigation launched a dramatic battle against the
epidemic of organized crime brought on by Prohibition. Notorious gangsters such
as George "Machine Gun" Kelly and John Dillinger met their ends looking down the
barrels of bureau-issued guns, while others, like Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, the
elusive head of Murder, Inc., were successfully investigated and prosecuted by
Hoover's "G-men." Hoover, who had a keen eye for public relations, participated
in a number of these widely publicized arrests, and the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, as it was known after 1935, became highly regarded by Congress
and the American public.With the outbreak of World War II, Hoover revived the
anti-espionage techniques he had developed during the first Red Scare, and
domestic wiretaps and other electronic surveillance expanded dramatically. After
World War II, Hoover focused on the threat of radical, especially communist,
subversion. The FBI compiled files on millions of Americans suspected of
dissident activity, and Hoover worked closely with the House Un-American
Activities Committee (HUAC) and Senator Joseph McCarthy, the architect of
America's second Red Scare.In 1956, Hoover initiated COINTELPRO, a secret
counterintelligence program that initially targeted the U.S. Communist Party but
later was expanded to infiltrate and disrupt any radical organization in
America. During the 1960s, the immense resources of COINTELPRO were used against
dangerous groups such as the Ku Klux Klan but also against African American
civil rights organizations and liberal anti-war organizations. One figure
especially targeted was civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., who endured
systematic harassment from the FBI.By the time Hoover entered service under his
eighth president in 1969, the media, the public, and Congress had grown
suspicious that the FBI might be abusing its authority. For the first time in
his bureaucratic career, Hoover endured widespread criticism, and Congress
responded by passing laws requiring Senate confirmation of future FBI directors
and limiting their tenure to 10 years. On May 2, 1972, with the Watergate affair
about to explode onto the national stage, J. Edgar Hoover died of heart disease
at the age of 77.The Watergate affair subsequently revealed that the FBI had
illegally protected President Richard Nixon from investigation, and the agency
was thoroughly investigated by Congress. Revelations of the FBI's abuses of
power and unconstitutional surveillance motivated Congress and the media to
become more vigilant in the future monitoring of the FBI.