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The Top Ten Myths in FBI History
Posted on Saturday, July 26, 2008 (CDT) by Thoth
 For the past century, the FBI has been a vital player in American history, front and center in some of our country’s most high-profile national security and criminal issues.
Not surprisingly, some myths and misunderstandings about the Bureau have evolved over that time, in part because of the complex and sometimes sensitive nature of our work. We’ve picked out what we think are the top ten myths down through the years, leaving aside ones that are so fanciful that they don’t deserve mention here…
Myth #10) The FBI has Nikola Tesla’s plans for a “death ray.”: If you don’t know the name, Nikola Tesla was a prolific inventor and gifted physicist and engineer—most known for developing the basis for AC power—who was born in Croatia in 1856 and settled in the U.S. in 1884.
When Tesla
died in New York in January 1943, his papers—which were thought to
include plans for a particle beam weapon, dubbed a “death ray” by the
press—were temporarily seized by the Department of Justice Alien
Property Custodian Office (“alien” in this case means “foreigner,”
although Tesla was a U.S. citizen). Despite longstanding reports and
rumors, the FBI was not involved in searching Tesla’s effects, and it
never had possession of his papers or any microfilm that may have been
made of those papers. Since 1943, we have told a consistent story to
all who have asked. Reports to the contrary appear to be based on an
initial confusion of FBI agents with other government
officials—especially Alien Property Office personnel. These rumors have
long been repeated in biographies and articles on Tesla without
double-checking the facts as reported in our files.
Myth #9) The FBI has “X-Files.”
Well, first off, the FBI is
NOT on point to investigate the supernatural as Scully and Mulder did
on the X-Files TV show. Yes, we do have files on some unusual
phenomena—like cattle mutilation, UFOs, and Roswell—but generally only
because people reported something and we made a note of it. Some of the
files do involve cases involving a potential violation of federal law
under our jurisdiction that we did investigate. One example is
Operation Majestic 12, the supposedly secret group of government
officials tasked by President Truman to study the Roswell incident.
When what appeared to be a top secret document about the formation of
the Majestic 12 surfaced in the 1980s, we were asked to investigate a
possible breach of classified information. The Bureau concluded that
the document was a fake. So, bottom line: while FBI agents chasing
aliens and other supernatural creatures may make good entertainment,
it’s not part of our job description, and we don’t have a secret
collection of “X-Files” squirreled away somewhere.
Myth #8) Elliot Ness was an FBI agent.
No, actually he never was. But he did work briefly under Director J. Edgar Hoover and applied at one point to be a Bureau agent.
Myth #7) Machine Gun Kelly gave FBI agents their “G-Men” nickname.
It’s somewhat of a legend
now that FBI agents were named “G-Men” when a scared and tired gangster
named George “Machine Gun” Kelly stumbled out of his hiding place, arms
held high, surrounded by lawmen, yelling “Don’t shoot, G-Men, don’t
shoot.” But in reality, Kelly may have never uttered these words. A bit
of editorial license on the part of the press likely crept in…and the
catchphrase ended up capturing the public’s imagination.
Myth #6) The FBI prosecutes cases.
We are investigators, not
prosecutors. Our job is to gather the facts and evidence and present
the results to the local U.S. Attorney in the Department of Justice,
who decides whether or not to bring the case to trial. Because we
developed the facts, we may be asked to present or discuss our findings
in court.
Myth #5) There were no minority agents during the Hoover years.
The FBI was hardly way
ahead of its time in providing equal career opportunities to all
Americans, but it is not true that the FBI was unwilling to hire
minorities during Hoover’s tenure…or (as one variation of the myth
goes) was reluctant to hire minority agents until ordered to do so by
President Kennedy in the early 1960s. The fact is, many minority
special agents worked in the FBI from the early 1920s forward. An
African-American agent named James Amos, for example, investigated
major cases in New York from 1921 to 1953, while the Striders—an
African-American father/son agent team in Los Angeles—served with
distinction from the 1940s through the early 1970s. Hispanic Agent
Manuel Sorola served in a number of our western offices from the 1920s
through the 1940s, and Filipino-born Agent Flaviano Guerrerro served
ably in the 1940s. All told, there were dozens of minority special
agents on our rolls before Hoover died in 1972.
Myth #4) The Bureau routinely spies on the American people.
Absolutely not. We are
governed by and carefully follow a well-defined set of laws,
regulations, and guidelines—honed over a century of practical
experience—that spell out how we can and should conduct our
investigations. It’s always been a delicate balance between harnessing
the tools at our disposal to solve crimes and prevent attacks and
upholding the civil liberties of all Americans. Over the course of a
century, we’ve made some mistakes, but they’ve been few and far between
compared to the vast amount of work we do every day. While some have
long predicted that the FBI would turn into a big-brother-like secret
police force, that scenario simply hasn’t happened. After all, we live
and work in our communities and cherish our country’s rights and
freedoms like everyone else!
Myth #3) The FBI doesn’t cooperate with other agencies.
You’d think from the news
media and the entertainment industry that we do everything from
routinely stiffing our partners…to hogging all the credit in big
cases…to simply not getting along with our colleagues. If you worked
for the Bureau—and saw the close relationships and even friendships
that exist between us and our partners across the country and around
the globe—you’d realize that nothing could be further from the truth.
Yes, there is an occasional conflict or issue (we are all humans, after
all), but relationships have been exceptional over the years and
improved even more since 9/11.
Myth #2) The FBI has files on every American.
Some people think that the
FBI has a vast range of files on all the bad things they’ve ever done.
Not true! We keep investigative files on serious violations of federal
law and major threats to our national security. We won’t have a “file”
on you unless you’re a spy or terrorist or criminal or are suspected of
being one (and we use the word “file” loosely, as we generally organize
materials by cases, not individuals). Some people do appear in our
files if they’ve provided us with information or were a victim in a
case…or because an authorized third party requested information about
them—but this kind of information is held under strict laws and for a
legally specified period of time.
Myth #1) The FBI can’t or shouldn’t do intelligence.
It’s an old saw that has
been oft-repeated since 9/11. But a century of history says
differently. From our earliest moments we’ve used intelligence (under
the laws and guidelines of the day) to get our arms around major
threats and disable them—from gangsters to mobsters, from yesterday’s
Soviet spies to today’s terrorists. The fact is, the FBI has always
been both an intelligence agency and a law enforcement/national
security organization…and like our police and intelligence community
counterparts, gathering and sharing and acting on intelligence is part
of what we do on a daily basis. We’ve certainly gotten better at it
since 9/11, and you can bet that we’ll keep improving in the days
ahead.
Copyright: www.fbi.gov
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