Public Enemies_ America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI - Bryan Burrough [298]
The FBI was one step behind. Connie Morris was naïve enough to mail a letter to her mother from Corpus Christi. Agents were on the Texas coast within hours, but Karpis was gone. Connelley, meanwhile, had Grace Goldstein picked up. She confirmed that Karpis had visited the Hatterie, but said little else. Connelley, unaware how well she actually knew Karpis, released her and returned to Ohio. He didn’t think her important enough to place under surveillance.
Karpis was gone, but agents lingered in Hot Springs. Everyone they contacted pointed them to Grace Goldstein. In Youngstown, Clayton Hall said he thought he could get her to confide in him. Connelley approved the plan, and on Tuesday, April 10, Hall arrived in Hot Springs, escorted by Agent John Madala. The two checked into the Majestic Hotel, and at 2:00 Hall telephoned the Hatterie. He was told Goldstein had left town, and wasn’t expected back for two weeks. News of Goldstein’s disappearance triggered a frantic scramble to find her; agents now assumed she had run off with Karpis. When Clayton Hall said Karpis had once mentioned visiting Goldstein’s family in East Texas, agents poured into the area trying to locate them.
It was notable that Washington politics had seldom interfered with the War on Crime. The day of Goldstein’s disappearance produced a moment when it did. That morning Hoover walked into a Senate hearing room to seek a doubling of the FBI’s budget. He was expecting trouble. All the hoopla over the War on Crime—the fawning press, the movies, the radio serials—was generating a backlash against the Bureau, especially among supporters of other law-enforcement arms. The budget subcommittee’s chairman, a Tennessee senator named Kenneth McKellar, was an old Hoover enemy, his animus dating to Hoover’s refusal to hire a pair of Tennessee men the senator had endorsed. When McKellar complained, Hoover had promptly fired three Tennessee agents.11
That morning Hoover made his case with an array of statistics, charts, and graphs, pointing out that the FBI had all but eliminated kidnapping as a national threat. When he finished, McKellar attacked.
“Is any money directly or indirectly spent for advertising?” he asked.
“There is not,” Hoover said. “We are not permitted in any way to engage in advertising.”
“Do you take part, for instance, in the making of any moving pictures?”
“That is one thing that the Bureau has very strongly objected to. You have seen several of the G-men pictures, I believe.” Hoover had in fact objected to some of the movies, but only because he wanted the FBI, not Hollywood, to produce them and reap the profits.
“I have,” McKellar said. “They virtually advertised the Bureau, because your picture was shown in conjunction with them frequently . . . I think they have hurt the Department [of Justice] by advertising your methods.”
McKellar was just getting warmed up. He pressed Hoover whether any writers or publicists were on the FBI payroll. Another senator asked why the Bureau didn’t cooperate more with local police. Hoover insisted it did, when they weren’t corrupt.
“It seems to me that your department is just running wild, Mr. Hoover,” McKellar said. “I just think that, Mr. Hoover, with all the money in your hands you are just extravagant.”
“Will you let me make a statement?” Hoover interjected.
“I think that is the statement,” McKellar said.
They proceeded to quibble over how many cases the FBI had solved. “How many people have been killed by your department since you have been allowed to use guns?” McKellar asked.
“I think there have been eight desperadoes killed by our agents and we have had four agents in our service killed by them.”
“In other words the net effect of turning guns over