Official and Confidential_ The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover - Anthony Summers [41]
It was the second time in three weeks that Dillinger had made the Bureau look like the Keystone Cops. At Bohemia, according to one source, some of Edgar’s fabled agents had ‘mutinied and taken their superiors into custody.’ The press began calling for Purvis’ resignation – even for Edgar’s.
Edgar, rarely silent, said little in public about the incident. Behind the scenes he sent a trusted Washington inspector, Sam Cowley, with thirty handpicked men to form a special Dillinger squad in Chicago. Yet, although Purvis had committed a glaring breach of the rule all veteran agents still recall: ‘Don’t Embarrass the Bureau,’ he remained Agent in Charge. Jayee was looking after Melvin.
Dillinger, whom Edgar called ‘a beer-drinking plug-ugly,’ was rated Public Enemy Number One and featured on Wanted posters all over the United States. Attorney General Cummings said that agents should ‘shoot to kill – then count ten.’ Although Dillinger himself was not known to have killed anyone, eliminating him had become a public relations imperative.
For Edgar it was a matter of saving face and, as with Machine Gun Kelly, settling a personal challenge. Dillinger was taunting the Director with a series of defiant postcards. With no word from Chicago of a breakthrough, his correspondence with Purvis took on a tone of stern formality. Suddenly it was no longer ‘Dear Mel’ but ‘Dear Mr Purvis’:
June 4: I was very disturbed today when I learned from you that the order which I had issued this morning had not been complied with … You have absolutely no right to ignore instructions …
June 16: I had occasion this afternoon to try to reach you by telephone … I then learned you had gone to one of the Country Clubs for golf … There is no reason why the Agent in Charge should not leave word where he can be reached at any time …
Very truly yours,
J. Edgar Hoover
On July 21, just when his future prospects seemed to be evaporating, Purvis received the phone call that broke the Dillinger case. An Indiana policeman tipped him off that Anna Sage, a Chicago madam, knew where Dillinger was and was prepared to betray him. Sage, a Romanian émigré in trouble with the law, hoped to be rewarded with a permit to stay in the United States.
Edgar was advised the following day that Dillinger’s capture was imminent. In Chicago, Purvis and Inspector Cowley briefed a team of handpicked agents. In early evening, after a call from Sage, they moved into position around the Biograph Theater. In Washington, Edgar was at home with his mother, waiting for news.
Dillinger emerged from the theater at 10:30 P.M., and Purvis gave a prearranged signal. ‘I was very nervous,’ he recalled. ‘It must have been a squeaky voice that called out, “Stick ’em up, Johnny! We have you surrounded.”… Dillinger drew his .380 automatic pistol, but he never fired it. He dropped to the ground; he had been shot.’3
In the capital, Edgar hurried to his office to hold a midnight press conference. He praised Purvis for ‘almost unimaginable daring,’ while Attorney General Cummings sent fulsome praise. Edgar poured scorn on the dead bandit, insisting that his agents had opened fire only when Dillinger went for his gun. In fact, there is evidence to the contrary.
Whatever the truth, Edgar had no regrets. ‘Personally,’ he said, ‘I am glad Dillinger was taken dead … The only good criminal is a dead criminal.’
In a 1970 book, The Dillinger Dossier, author Jay Robert Nash offered the thesis that Dillinger did not die in Chicago at all, that an underworld fall guy was sent to the Biograph in his place. He cited striking flaws in the autopsy evidence, and detailed supporting testimony. An angry Edgar insisted that Dillinger’s identity had been proven through fingerprints, but no hard evidence was ever produced.
Days after the Dillinger shooting he was showing the press the dead man’s straw hat, his smashed spectacles, his fifty-cent cigar and a .38 automatic with a damaged barrel that had supposedly belonged to the bandit. These items remained on show in Edgar’s reception room, like hunting trophies,