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90-607: In October 1963, Valachi testified before Senator John L. McClellan 's congressional committee on organized crime , the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the U.S. Senate Committee on Government Operations . He gave the American public a firsthand account of Mafia activities in the United States. Valachi had agreed to testify against the mafia and expose its dark past after landing in prison for

180-494: A U.S. Representative (1894–1907) and Governor of Arkansas (1907). His mother died only months after his birth, and he received his early education at local public schools. At age 12, after graduating from Sheridan High School , he began studying law in his father's office. He was admitted to the state bar in 1913, when he was only 17, after the Arkansas General Assembly approved a special act waiving

270-648: A U.S. Senator (1943–1977) from Arkansas . At the time of his death, he was the second most senior member of the Senate and chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee . He is the longest-serving senator in Arkansas history. John Little McClellan was born on a farm near Sheridan, Arkansas to Isaac Scott and Belle (née Suddeth) McClellan. His parents, who were strong Democrats , named him after John Sebastian Little , who served as

360-506: A black student group at a Pennsylvania military college and the daughter of Congressman Henry S. Reuss of Wisconsin . The country was "jolted" by the revelations, which included assassinations of political activists, and the actions were denounced by members of the Congress, including House Majority Leader Hale Boggs . The phones of some members of the Congress, including Boggs, had allegedly been tapped. When President John F. Kennedy

450-744: A blind eye towards right-wing extremists while disseminating "conspiracy theories" on the origin of COVID-19 . The FBI is organized into functional branches and the Office of the Director, which contains most administrative offices. An executive assistant director manages each branch. Each branch is then divided into offices and divisions, each headed by an assistant director. The various divisions are further divided into sub-branches, led by deputy assistant directors. Within these sub-branches, there are various sections headed by section chiefs. Section chiefs are ranked analogous to special agents in charge. Four of

540-599: A civil rights leader, surgeon, and wealthy entrepreneur in Mississippi who had criticized FBI inaction in solving recent murders of George W. Lee , Emmett Till , and other blacks in the South. The FBI carried out controversial domestic surveillance in an operation it called the COINTELPRO , from "COunter-INTELligence PROgram". It was to investigate and disrupt the activities of dissident political organizations within

630-621: A dedicated FBI SWAT team dealing primarily with counter-terrorism scenarios. Unlike the special agents serving on local FBI SWAT teams, HRT does not conduct investigations. Instead, HRT focuses solely on additional tactical proficiency and capabilities. Also formed in 1984 was the Computer Analysis and Response Team , or CART. From the end of the 1980s to the early 1990s, the FBI reassigned more than 300 agents from foreign counter-intelligence duties to violent crime, and made violent crime

720-614: A delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1940 (Chicago), 1944 (Chicago), and 1948 (Philadelphia). In 1942, after G. Lloyd Spencer decided not to seek re-election, McClellan, a self proclaimed racist, ran for the Senate again and this time won. He served as senator from Arkansas from 1943 to 1977, when he died in office. During his tenure, he served as chairman of the Appropriations Committee and served 22 years as chairman of

810-580: A dispute with Richard Jewell , who was a private security guard at the venue, along with some media organizations, in regard to the leaking of his name during the investigation; this had briefly led to his being wrongly suspected of the bombing. After Congress passed the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA, 1994), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA, 1996), and

900-580: A few hours after the attack, and over the next several weeks more than 5,500 Issei men were taken into FBI custody. On February 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 , authorizing the removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast. FBI Director Hoover opposed the subsequent mass removal and confinement of Japanese Americans authorized under Executive Order 9066, but Roosevelt prevailed. The vast majority went along with

990-556: A geographic area, who make up Cosa Nostra's Commission , the final arbiter of the syndicate's affairs, and who act as a sort of Cosa Nostra Executive Board. While revealing the existence of these syndicates and that they were referred to as "families," he also disclosed the names of New York City's Five Families . According to Valachi, the original bosses of the Five Families were Charles Luciano , Tommaso Gagliano , Joseph Profaci , Salvatore Maranzano and Vincent Mangano . At

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1080-615: A heroin charge alongside his boss, Don Vito Genovese . Fueled by anger at his former organization and a fear for his life after receiving the kiss of death from Genovese, Valachi reached out to testify, knowing the only other likely option was death. A low-ranking member of the New York–based Genovese crime family , Valachi was the first ever government witness to come forward from the American Mafia itself. Before Valachi, federal authorities had no concrete evidence that

1170-399: A law office and served as city attorney (1920–26). In 1922, he married Lucille Smith, to whom he remained married until her death in 1935; they had three children. He was prosecuting attorney of the seventh judicial district of Arkansas from 1927 to 1930. In 1934, McClellan was elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives from Arkansas's 6th congressional district . He

1260-562: A lot of steam out of Robert Kennedy's war on the mafia. However, later, due in part to Valachi's disclosures, the United States Congress eventually passed two new laws to strengthen federal racketeering and gambling statutes to aid the Federal Bureau of Investigation 's fight against mob influence. The Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 provided for the use of court-ordered electronic surveillance in

1350-556: A national campaign against the book on the grounds that it would reinforce negative ethnic stereotypes. If the book’s publication was not stopped they would appeal directly to the White House. Katzenbach reversed his decision to publish the book after a meeting with President Lyndon B. Johnson , an action that embarrassed the Justice Department. In May 1966, Katzenbach asked a district court to stop Maas from publishing

1440-629: A pacemaker. He was buried at Roselawn Memorial Park in Little Rock. A VA Hospital in Little Rock is named in his honor. A chapter of the Delta Theta Phi Law Fraternity at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Bowen School of Law is named in his honor. Ouachita Baptist University is the repository for his official papers. Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation ( FBI )

1530-543: A report whose conclusions called into question 30 years of FBI testimony. It found the analytic model used by the FBI for interpreting results was deeply flawed, and the conclusion, that bullet fragments could be matched to a box of ammunition, was so overstated that it was misleading under the rules of evidence. One year later, the FBI decided to stop conducting bullet lead analyses. After a 60 Minutes / The Washington Post investigation in November 2007, two years later,

1620-515: A soldier of La Cosa Nostra , including its rites of initiation . These televised hearings brought home to average Americans the violence and intimidation routinely used by the Mafia to further and protect its criminal enterprises. Much of the knowledge accessible to the public today about the American Mafia was first disclosed in Joseph Valachi's televised testimony. Valachi disclosed that

1710-585: Is not used before "Cosa Nostra").The term was often prefixed with “La” (La Cosa Nostra), in the media and even in the FBI , but this is inconsistent with the Italian language as well as Valachi’s testimony. He also revealed the organizational structure of the Mafia. Valachi revealed that "soldiers" are organized into "regimes" and led by a " caporegime " ("lieutenant"). The regimes, in turn, are organized into "families" and bossed by " capos " (bosses), each representing

1800-597: Is only one way out for you." with audio recordings of King's sexual indiscretions. In March 1971, the residential office of an FBI agent in Media, Pennsylvania was burgled by a group calling itself the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI . Numerous files were taken and distributed to a range of newspapers, including The Harvard Crimson . The files detailed the FBI's extensive COINTELPRO program, which included investigations into lives of ordinary citizens—including

1890-547: Is still used today for all organized crime and any individuals who may fall under the Act's provisions. In 2003, a congressional committee called the FBI's organized crime informant program "one of the greatest failures in the history of federal law enforcement." The FBI allowed four innocent men to be convicted of the March 1965 gangland murder of Edward "Teddy" Deegan in order to protect Vincent Flemmi , an FBI informant. Three of

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1980-688: Is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency . An agency of the United States Department of Justice , the FBI is a member of the U.S. Intelligence Community and reports to both the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence . A leading U.S. counterterrorism , counterintelligence , and criminal investigative organization,

2070-648: The Communications Act of 1934 , which outlawed non-consensual phone tapping, but did allow bugging. In the 1939 case Nardone v. United States , the court ruled that due to the 1934 law, evidence the FBI obtained by phone tapping was inadmissible in court. After Katz v. United States (1967) overturned Olmstead , Congress passed the Omnibus Crime Control Act , allowing public authorities to tap telephones during investigations, as long as they obtained warrants beforehand. Beginning in

2160-706: The Economic Espionage Act (EEA, 1996), the FBI followed suit and underwent a technological upgrade in 1998, just as it did with its CART team in 1991. Computer Investigations and Infrastructure Threat Assessment Center (CITAC) and the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) were created to deal with the increase in Internet -related problems, such as computer viruses, worms, and other malicious programs that threatened U.S. operations. With these developments,

2250-670: The January 6, 2021 attack on democratic institutions in Washington D.C. later testified in support of the Proud boys , who were part of the plot. Revelations about the informant raised fresh questions about intelligence failures by the FBI before the riot. According to the Brennan Center , and Senate committees , the FBI's response to white supremacist violence was "woefully inadequate". The FBI has long been suspected to have turned

2340-477: The Osage Indian murders . During the "War on Crime" of the 1930s, FBI agents apprehended or killed a number of notorious criminals who committed kidnappings, bank robberies, and murders throughout the nation, including John Dillinger , "Baby Face" Nelson , Kate "Ma" Barker , Alvin "Creepy" Karpis , and George "Machine Gun" Kelly . Other activities of its early decades focused on the scope and influence of

2430-415: The U.S. Army Signal Corps , Fort Monmouth, New Jersey , where Soviet spies Julius Rosenberg , Al Sarant and Joel Barr all worked in the 1940s. He was a participant in the famous Army-McCarthy Hearings and led a Democratic walkout of that subcommittee in protest of Senator Joseph McCarthy 's conduct in those hearings. McClellan appeared in the 2005 movie Good Night, and Good Luck in footage from

2520-429: The U.S. Secret Service , for personnel, investigators in particular. On May 27, 1908, Congress forbade this use of Treasury employees by the Justice Department, citing fears that the new agency would serve as a secret police department. Again at Roosevelt's urging, Bonaparte moved to organize a formal Bureau of Investigation , which would then have its own staff of special agents . The Bureau of Investigation (BOI)

2610-581: The white supremacist group Ku Klux Klan , a group with which the FBI was evidenced to be working in the Viola Liuzzo lynching case. Earlier, through the work of Edwin Atherton , the BOI claimed to have successfully apprehended an entire army of Mexican neo-revolutionaries under the leadership of General Enrique Estrada in the mid-1920s, east of San Diego, California. Hoover began using wiretapping in

2700-563: The 1920s during Prohibition to arrest bootleggers. In the 1927 case Olmstead v. United States , in which a bootlegger was caught through telephone tapping, the United States Supreme Court ruled that FBI wiretaps did not violate the Fourth Amendment as unlawful search and seizure, as long as the FBI did not break into a person's home to complete the tapping. After Prohibition's repeal, Congress passed

2790-399: The 1940s and continuing into the 1970s, the bureau investigated cases of espionage against the United States and its allies. Eight Nazi agents who had planned sabotage operations against American targets were arrested, and six were executed ( Ex parte Quirin ) under their sentences. Also during this time, a joint US/UK code-breaking effort called "The Venona Project "—with which the FBI

Valachi hearings - Misplaced Pages Continue

2880-508: The 1980s, put almost all the major traditional crime family heads in prison. In 1964, the US Department of Justice urged Valachi to write down his personal history of his underworld career. Although Valachi was only expected to fill in the gaps in his formal questioning, the resulting account of his thirty-year criminal career was a rambling 1,180-page manuscript titled The Real Thing . Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach authorized

2970-434: The American Mafia even existed. His disclosures did not lead directly to the prosecution of many high-ranking Mafia leaders, but he was able to provide many details of its history , structure, operations and rituals, as well as naming many active and former members of the major crime families. Valachi testified in vivid and minute detail on his day-to-day life in organized crime in a first-time-ever public account of life as

3060-586: The Bureau agreed to identify, review, and release all pertinent cases, and notify prosecutors about cases in which faulty testimony was given. In 2012, the FBI formed the National Domestic Communications Assistance Center to develop technology for assisting law enforcement with technical knowledge regarding communication services, technologies, and electronic surveillance. An FBI informant, who participated in

3150-610: The Bureau of Investigation, the BOI or BI for short. Its name was changed to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 1935. The FBI headquarters is the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, D.C. The FBI has a list of the top 10 most wanted fugitives . The mission of the FBI is to "protect the American people and uphold the Constitution of the United States ". Currently, the FBI's top priorities are: In

3240-637: The Committee on Government Operations. McClellan was the longest serving United States Senator in Arkansas history. During the later part of his Senate service, Arkansas had, perhaps, the most powerful congressional delegation with McClellan as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, J. William Fulbright as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Wilbur Mills as chairman of

3330-632: The Democratic nomination for the United States Senate . During the campaign, he criticized Caraway for her support for the 1937 Reorganization Act and accused her of having "improper influence" over federal employees in Arkansas. Nevertheless, he was defeated in the primary election by a margin of about 8,000 votes. He subsequently resumed the practice of law in Camden , where he joined the firm Gaughan, McClellan and Gaughan. He served as

3420-617: The FBI created the Top Hoodlum Program. The national office directed field offices to gather information on mobsters in their territories and to report it regularly to Washington for a centralized collection of intelligence on racketeers . After the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act , for RICO Act, took effect, the FBI began investigating the former Prohibition-organized groups, which had become fronts for crime in major cities and small towns. All

3510-699: The FBI has jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crimes . Although many of the FBI's functions are unique, its activities in support of national security are comparable to those of the British MI5 and NCA , the New Zealand GCSB and the Russian FSB . Unlike the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which has no law enforcement authority and is focused on intelligence collection abroad,

3600-647: The FBI increased its electronic surveillance in public safety and national security investigations, adapting to the telecommunications advancements that changed the nature of such problems. During the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center , FBI agent Leonard W. Hatton Jr. was killed during the rescue effort while helping the rescue personnel evacuate the occupants of the South Tower, and he stayed when it collapsed. Within months after

3690-534: The FBI is primarily a domestic agency, maintaining 56 field offices in major cities throughout the United States, and more than 400 resident agencies in smaller cities and areas across the nation. At an FBI field office, a senior-level FBI officer concurrently serves as the representative of the director of national intelligence . Despite its domestic focus, the FBI also maintains a significant international footprint, operating 60 Legal Attache (LEGAT) offices and 15 sub-offices in U.S. embassies and consulates across

Valachi hearings - Misplaced Pages Continue

3780-490: The FBI work was done undercover and from within these organizations, using the provisions provided in the RICO Act. Gradually the agency dismantled many of the groups. Although Hoover initially denied the existence of a National Crime Syndicate in the United States, the Bureau later conducted operations against known organized crime syndicates and families, including those headed by Sam Giancana and John Gotti . The RICO Act

3870-563: The FBI's auto mechanics and janitors. For over 40 years, the FBI crime lab in Quantico had believed that lead alloys used in bullets had unique chemical signatures. It was analyzing the bullets with the goal of matching them chemically, not only to a single batch of ammunition coming out of a factory, but also to a single box of bullets. The National Academy of Sciences conducted an 18-month independent review of comparative bullet-lead analysis . In 2003, its National Research Council published

3960-649: The FBI, CIA, and the rest of the United States Intelligence Community . The book blamed the FBI's decentralized structure, which prevented effective communication and cooperation among different FBI offices. The book suggested that the FBI had not evolved into an effective counter-terrorism or counter-intelligence agency, due in large part to deeply ingrained agency cultural resistance to change. For example, FBI personnel practices continued to treat all staff other than special agents as support staff, classifying intelligence analysts alongside

4050-503: The FBI, and the Origins of 9/11 . The Post reported, from Zegart's book, that government documents showed that both the CIA and the FBI had missed 23 potential chances to disrupt the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The primary reasons for the failures included: agency cultures resistant to change and new ideas; inappropriate incentives for promotion; and a lack of cooperation between

4140-454: The FBI. While the FBI did accede to most of the recommendations, including oversight by the new director of National Intelligence , some former members of the 9/11 Commission publicly criticized the FBI in October 2005, claiming it was resisting any meaningful changes. On July 8, 2007, The Washington Post published excerpts from UCLA Professor Amy Zegart's book Spying Blind: The CIA,

4230-734: The House Ways and Means Committee, Oren Harris as chairman of the House Commerce Committee, Ezekiel C. "Took" Gathings as chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, and James William Trimble as a member of the powerful House Rules Committee. McClellan also served for eighteen years as chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (1955–1973) and continued the hearings into subversive activities at

4320-530: The Mafia was called Cosa Nostra ("our thing" or "this thing of ours" in Italian ) among the members of the organization and that the term "Mafia" was an outsider term. At the time, Cosa Nostra was understood as a proper name, fostered by the FBI and disseminated by the media. The designation gained wide popularity and almost replaced the term Mafia. (in Italy, the article la precedes the general "mafia" term but

4410-589: The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, into the union benefit plans of labor leader George Barasch , alleging misuse and diversion of $ 4,000,000 of benefit funds. McClellan's notable failure to find any legal wrongdoing led to his introduction of several pieces of new legislation including his own bill on October 12, 1965 setting new fiduciary standards for plan trustees. Senator Jacob K. Javits (R-NY) introduced bills in 1965 and 1967 increasing regulation on welfare and pension funds to limit

4500-495: The September 11, 2001, attacks. The 9/11 Commission 's final report on July 22, 2004, stated that the FBI and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) were both partially to blame for not pursuing intelligence reports that could have prevented the September 11 attacks. In its most damning assessment, the report concluded that the country had "not been well served" by either agency and listed numerous recommendations for changes within

4590-679: The United States, including both militant and non-violent organizations. Among its targets was the Southern Christian Leadership Conference , a leading civil rights organization whose clergy leadership included the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. . The FBI frequently investigated King. In the mid-1960s, King began to criticize the Bureau for giving insufficient attention to the use of terrorism by white supremacists. Hoover responded by publicly calling King

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4680-736: The actual hearings. He led two other investigations, both televised, uncovering spectacular law-breaking and corruption. The first of these, under the United States Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management , also known as the McClellan Committee, investigated union corruption and centered on Jimmy Hoffa and lasted from January 1957 to March 1960. In April 1961, during an Investigations subcommittee hearing, contractor Henry Gable asserted that Communists would not be able to do

4770-432: The area during the 1992 Los Angeles riots . HRT operators, for instance, spent 10 days conducting vehicle-mounted patrols throughout Los Angeles , before returning to Virginia. Between 1993 and 1996, the FBI increased its counter-terrorism role following the first 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York City , the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing , and the arrest of the Unabomber in 1996. Technological innovation and

4860-510: The attacks, FBI Director Robert Mueller , who had been sworn in a week before the attacks, called for a re-engineering of FBI structure and operations. He made countering every federal crime a top priority, including the prevention of terrorism, countering foreign intelligence operations, addressing cybersecurity threats, other high-tech crimes, protecting civil rights, combating public corruption, organized crime, white-collar crime, and major acts of violent crime. In February 2001, Robert Hanssen

4950-568: The book—the first time that a U.S. attorney general had ever tried to prevent publication of a book. Maas never published his edition of Valachi’s original memoirs, but he did publish a third-person account based upon interviews he himself had conducted with Valachi. These formed the basis of the book The Valachi Papers , which was published in 1968. The book was made into the 1972 film The Valachi Papers starring Charles Bronson as Valachi. Francis Ford Coppola , in his director's commentary on The Godfather Part II (1974), mentioned that

5040-422: The control of plan trustees and administrators. Provisions from all three bills ultimately evolved into the guidelines enacted in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) . In 1977, McClellan was one of five Democrats to vote against the nomination of F. Ray Marshall as United States Secretary of Labor . McClellan's second wife died of spinal meningitis in 1935 and his son Max died of

5130-465: The desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock. Prior to the sending of the troops under the command of Major General Edwin A. Walker , McClellan had expressed "regret [regarding] the ... use of force by the federal government to enforce integration. I believe it to be without authority of law. I am very apprehensive that such action may precipitate more trouble than it will prevent." McClellan and fellow Senator Robert S. Kerr of Oklahoma were

5220-427: The federal government, from the lowliest clerk to the more powerful position of White house aide." On May 27, 1953, Executive Order 10450 went into effect. The program was expanded further by this executive order by making all federal employment of homosexuals illegal. On July 8, 1953, the FBI forwarded to the U.S. Civil Service Commission information from the sex deviates program. Between 1977 and 1978, 300,000 pages in

5310-423: The fiscal year 2019, the Bureau's total budget was approximately $ 9.6 billion. In the Authorization and Budget Request to Congress for fiscal year 2021, the FBI asked for $ 9,800,724,000. Of that money, $ 9,748,829,000 would be used for Salaries and Expenses (S&E) and $ 51,895,000 for Construction. The S&E program saw an increase of $ 199,673,000. In 1896, the National Bureau of Criminal Identification

5400-417: The globe. These foreign offices exist primarily for the purpose of coordination with foreign security services and do not usually conduct unilateral operations in the host countries. The FBI can and does at times carry out secret activities overseas, just as the CIA has a limited domestic function . These activities generally require coordination across government agencies. The FBI was established in 1908 as

5490-412: The government. Hoover was substantially involved in most major cases and projects that the FBI handled during his tenure. But as detailed below, his tenure as Bureau director proved to be highly controversial, especially in its later years. After Hoover's death, Congress passed legislation that limited the tenure of future FBI directors to ten years. Early homicide investigations of the new agency included

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5580-411: The houses of prostitution in preparation for enforcing the "White Slave Traffic Act" or Mann Act , passed on June 25, 1910. In 1932, the bureau was renamed the United States Bureau of Investigation. The following year, 1933, the BOI was linked to the Bureau of Prohibition and rechristened the Division of Investigation (DOI); it became an independent service within the Department of Justice in 1935. In

5670-424: The investigation of certain specified violations. The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Statute of 1970 allowed organized groups to be prosecuted for all of their diverse criminal activities, without the crimes being linked by a perpetrator or all-encompassing conspiracy. Along with greater use of agents for undercover work by the late 1970s, these provisions helped the FBI develop cases that, in

5760-555: The list belonged to Issei community leaders, as the FBI investigation built on an existing Naval Intelligence index that had focused on Japanese Americans in Hawaii and the West Coast, but many German and Italian nationals also found their way onto the FBI Index list. Robert Shivers, head of the Honolulu office, obtained permission from Hoover to start detaining those on the list on December 7, 1941, while bombs were still falling over Pearl Harbor . Mass arrests and searches of homes, in most cases conducted without warrants, began

5850-459: The men were sentenced to death (which was later reduced to life in prison), and the fourth defendant was sentenced to life in prison. Two of the four men died in prison after serving almost 30 years, and two others were released after serving 32 and 36 years. In July 2007, U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner in Boston found that the Bureau had helped convict the four men using false witness accounts given by mobster Joseph Barboza . The U.S. Government

5940-400: The most "notorious liar" in the United States. In his 1991 memoir, Washington Post journalist Carl Rowan asserted that the FBI had sent at least one anonymous letter to King encouraging him to commit suicide. Historian Taylor Branch documents an anonymous November 1964 "suicide package" sent by the Bureau that combined a letter to the civil rights leader telling him "You are done. There

6030-463: The normal age requirement for certification as a lawyer. As the youngest attorney in the United States, he practiced law with his father in Sheridan. Also in 1913, McClellan married Eula Hicks; the couple had two children, and divorced in 1921. During World War I , he served in the U.S. Army as a first lieutenant in the aviation section of the Signal Corps from 1917 to 1919. Following his military service, he moved to Malvern , where he opened

6120-450: The program by issuing a memo establishing a "uniform policy for the handling of the increasing number of reports and allegations concerning present and past employees of the United States Government who assertedly [sic] are sex deviates." The program was expanded to include non-government jobs. According to Athan Theoharis , "In 1951 he [Hoover] had unilaterally instituted a Sex Deviates program to purge alleged homosexuals from any position in

6210-435: The public release of Valachi’s manuscript. He hoped that publication of Valachi’s story would aid law enforcement and possibly encourage other criminal informers to step forward. Author Peter Maas , who broke Valachi’s story in The Saturday Evening Post , was assigned the job of editing the manuscript and permitted to interview Valachi in his Washington, D.C., jail cell. The American Italian Anti-Defamation League promoted

6300-434: The regulation of interstate commerce since 1887, though it lacked the staff to do so. It had made little effort to relieve its staff shortage until the Oregon land fraud scandal at the turn of the 20th century. President Roosevelt instructed Attorney General Charles Bonaparte to organize an autonomous investigative service that would report only to the Attorney General . Bonaparte reached out to other agencies, including

6390-402: The same amount of damage to the American missile effort as done by labor at Cape Canaveral . McClellan suggested that the comments bordered on accusations of subversion and called for more testimony from the unions. The second televised major investigation led by McClellan was in 1964 and known as the Valachi hearings . These hearings investigated the operations of organized crime and featured

6480-713: The same disease in 1943 while serving in Africa during World War II . His son, John L. Jr., died in 1949 in an automobile accident, and his son James H. died in a plane crash in 1958. Both men were members of the Xi chapter of Kappa Sigma fraternity at the University of Arkansas. To honor their two fallen brothers, the Chapter initiated Senator McClellan into Kappa Sigma in 1965. McClellan died in his sleep on November 28, 1977, in Little Rock, Arkansas , following surgery to implant

6570-649: The same year, its name was officially changed from the Division of Investigation to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). J. Edgar Hoover served as FBI director from 1924 to 1972, a combined 48 years with the BOI, DOI, and FBI. He was chiefly responsible for creating the Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory, or the FBI Laboratory , which officially opened in 1932, as part of his work to professionalize investigations by

6660-498: The scenes depicting the Senate committee interrogation of Michael Corleone and Frank Pentangeli are based on Valachi's federal hearings and that Pentangeli is like a Valachi figure. John L. McClellan John Little McClellan (February 25, 1896 – November 28, 1977) was an American lawyer and segregationist politician. A member of the Democratic Party , he served as a U.S. Representative (1935–1939) and

6750-415: The sex deviates program, collected between 1930 and the mid-1970s, were destroyed by FBI officials. During the 1950s and 1960s, FBI officials became increasingly concerned about the influence of civil rights leaders, whom they believed either had communist ties or were unduly influenced by communists or " fellow travelers ". In 1956, for example, Hoover sent an open letter denouncing Dr. T. R. M. Howard ,

6840-693: The sixth national priority. With cuts to other well-established departments, and because terrorism was no longer considered a threat after the end of the Cold War , the FBI assisted local and state police forces in tracking fugitives who had crossed state lines, which is a federal offense. The FBI Laboratory helped develop DNA testing, continuing its pioneering role in identification that began with its fingerprinting system in 1924. On May 1, 1992, FBI SWAT and HRT personnel in Los Angeles County, California aided local officials in securing peace within

6930-618: The skills of FBI Laboratory analysts helped ensure that the three cases were successfully prosecuted. However, Justice Department investigations into the FBI's roles in the Ruby Ridge and Waco incidents were found to have been obstructed by agents within the Bureau. During the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia , the FBI was criticized for its investigation of the Centennial Olympic Park bombing . It has settled

7020-614: The sponsors of the bill that authorized construction of the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System , maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers . The system transformed the once-useless Arkansas River into a major transportation route and water source. Although his Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management already had been dissolved by 1960, McClellan began a related three-year investigation in 1963, through

7110-483: The subsequent exclusion orders, but in a handful of cases where Japanese Americans refused to obey the new military regulations, FBI agents handled their arrests. The Bureau continued surveillance on Japanese Americans throughout the war, conducting background checks on applicants for resettlement outside camp, and entering the camps, usually without the permission of War Relocation Authority officials, and grooming informants to monitor dissidents and "troublemakers". After

7200-660: The testimony of Joseph Valachi , the first American mafia figure to testify about its criminal activities. McClellan continued his efforts against organized crime (including backing the anti-organized-crime (RICO) law) until 1973, when he switched to investigating political subversion. During this period, he hired Robert F. Kennedy as chief counsel and vaulted him into the national spotlight. McClellan investigated numerous cases of government corruption including numerous defense contractors and Texas financier Billie Sol Estes . In 1957, McClellan opposed U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower 's decision to send federal troops to enforce

7290-486: The time of his testimony in 1963, Valachi revealed that the current bosses of the Five Families were Tommy Lucchese , Vito Genovese , Joseph Colombo , Carlo Gambino , and Joe Bonanno . These have since been the names most commonly used to refer to the New York Five Families, despite years of overturn and changing bosses in each. The assassination of President Kennedy one month after the hearings took

7380-511: The war, the FBI was assigned to protect returning Japanese Americans from attacks by hostile white communities. According to Douglas M. Charles, the FBI's "sex deviates" program began on April 10, 1950, when J. Edgar Hoover forwarded to the White House, to the U.S. Civil Service Commission, and to branches of the armed services a list of 393 alleged federal employees who had allegedly been arrested in Washington, D.C., since 1947, on charges of "sexual irregularities". On June 20, 1951, Hoover expanded

7470-487: Was caught selling information to the Russian government. It was later learned that Hanssen, who had reached a high position within the FBI, had been selling intelligence since as early as 1979. He pleaded guilty to espionage and received a life sentence in 2002, but the incident led many to question the security practices employed by the FBI. There was also a claim that Hanssen might have contributed information that led to

7560-544: Was created on July 26, 1908. Attorney General Bonaparte, using Department of Justice expense funds, hired thirty-four people, including some veterans of the Secret Service, to work for a new investigative agency. Its first "chief" (the title is now "director") was Stanley Finch . Bonaparte notified the Congress of these actions in December 1908. The bureau's first official task was visiting and making surveys of

7650-442: Was founded, providing agencies across the country with information to identify known criminals. The 1901 assassination of President William McKinley created a perception that the United States was under threat from anarchists . The Departments of Justice and Labor had been keeping records on anarchists for years, but President Theodore Roosevelt wanted more power to monitor them. The Justice Department had been tasked with

7740-448: Was heavily involved—broke Soviet diplomatic and intelligence communications codes, allowing the US and British governments to read Soviet communications. This effort confirmed the existence of Americans working in the United States for Soviet intelligence. Hoover was administering this project, but he failed to notify the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of it until 1952. Another notable case

7830-659: Was ordered to pay $ 100 million in damages to the four defendants. In 1982, the FBI formed an elite unit to help with problems that might arise at the 1984 Summer Olympics to be held in Los Angeles, particularly terrorism and major-crime. This was a result of the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany , when terrorists murdered the Israeli athletes . Named the Hostage Rescue Team , or HRT, it acts as

7920-715: Was re-elected to the House in 1936. In March of that year, he condemned CBS for airing a speech by Communist leader Earl Browder , which he described as "nothing less than treason." During his tenure in the House, he voted against President Franklin D. Roosevelt 's court-packing plan , the Gavagan anti- lynching bill, and the Reorganization Act of 1937 . In 1937, he wed for the third and final time, marrying Norma Myers Cheatham. In 1938, McClellan unsuccessfully challenged first-term incumbent Hattie Caraway for

8010-458: Was shot and killed, the jurisdiction fell to the local police departments until President Lyndon B. Johnson directed the FBI to take over the investigation. To ensure clarity about the responsibility for investigation of homicides of federal officials, Congress passed a law in 1965 that included investigations of such deaths of federal officials, especially by homicide, within FBI jurisdiction. In response to organized crime, on August 25, 1953,

8100-462: Was the arrest of Soviet spy Rudolf Abel in 1957. The discovery of Soviet spies operating in the US motivated Hoover to pursue his longstanding concern with the threat he perceived from the American Left . In 1939, the Bureau began compiling a custodial detention list with the names of those who would be taken into custody in the event of war with Axis nations. The majority of the names on

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