Public Enemies_ America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI - Bryan Burrough [9]
Hoover’s first priority was transforming his force of field agents (which numbered 339 in 1929). His vision was precise: he wanted young, energetic white men between twenty-five and thirty-five, with law degrees, clean, neat, well spoken, bright, and from solid families—men like himself. He got them. In a matter of weeks Hoover cleared out the deadwood, stopped patronage hiring, and instituted a meritocracy. Applicants were screened on “general intelligence,” “conduct during interview,” and “Personal Appearance,” either “neat,” “flashy,” “poor,” or “untidy.”
Hoover ruled by absolute fiat. His men lived in fear of him. Inspection teams appeared at field offices with no notice, writing up agents who were even one minute tardy for work. Hoover tolerated no sloth, sloppiness, or deviation from the new rules that came pouring into every field office, each commanded by a special agent in charge, known as a SAC. (There were twenty-five in 1929.) The tiniest infraction could cost a man his job; when a Denver SAC offered a visitor a drink, he was fired.
“I want the public to look upon the Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice as a group of gentlemen,” Hoover told an audience in 1926. “And if the men here engaged can’t conduct themselves in office as such, I will dismiss them.”
Those who survived, and those Hoover hired, were a homogenous lot. Many were Southern. More than a few came from Hoover’s alma mater, George Washington, especially its Kappa Alpha chapter. Hoover’s wizened number two man, Harold “Pop” Nathan, a BI administrator since 1917, was a KA; for years he was also the Bureau’s only Jew. Visiting agents sometimes stayed at the Kappa house. It was there that Hugh Clegg, a courtly young Mississippi attorney who would rise to become an FBI assistant director, was hired. Like all new men, Clegg was rotated through a series of field offices in his first few months. It was in the field that many of the new hires first encountered the hostility of police departments, who viewed Hoover’s men as unarmed, inept dilettantes intent on seizing their territory. They mocked them as “Deejays” or “College Boys.”
The cops were onto something. In Hoover’s new Bureau, appearance, loyalty, and hard work were prized above law-enforcement experience. Few of his new hires had any, as Hoover was uncomfortably aware; the saying within the Bureau was that Hoover liked his men “young and grateful.” While publicly mandating that all agents have law degrees, Hoover quietly retained some nonlawyers as well, mostly veteran Southwestern lawmen. These “Cowboys” were a breed apart. They chewed tobacco and drank and spit, infractions Hoover ignored. The Cowboys knew how to run investigations, and that’s what they did. In violation of Bureau regulations, several carried guns: in Washington, John Keith wore matched Colt .45s; in Dallas, Charles Winstead used a .357 Magnum; in Chicago, the former Texas Ranger James C. “Doc” White favored a bone-handled Colt, accenting it with a knife hidden in his boot. The two agents assigned to run key cases in Hoover’s early years were veteran Cowboys: Gus T. Jones, the San Antonio SAC, and Doc White’s older brother, an ex-Ranger named Thomas White, the Oklahoma City SAC.
Hoover’s reorganization transformed the Bureau. Unproductive field offices were closed. Bureaucracy was streamlined. A chain of command was drawn. Paperwork was standardized. After six months the Bureau was on its way to becoming the very model of a modern, efficient government organization. The “interim” was removed from Hoover’s title. Once the Bureau was retooled, the challenge became finding something for its agents to do. In Hoover’s first six years his men spearheaded a corruption investigation at the federal prison in Atlanta and a probe of murders and oil-rights thievery