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Less spectacularly, but just as efficiently, FBI agents recommended security precautions for thousands of U.S. factories, seized quantities of guns, charts and code books, rounded up more than 16,000 enemy aliens. So successful was the home-front campaign against saboteurs that not one case of enemy-directed sabotage was discovered throughout the war; this time there were no Black Tom explosions. Ranting Douglas Chandler, the "Paul Revere" of Radio Berlin, tried and convicted of treason, bitterly complained that his confession had been extracted by an FBI agent with "malign, hypnotic power."
First Pinch. Hoover had long since won over most of his earlier detractors. Even the local cops, who had once resented the G-men's headline-grabbing talents, were boosters now. The last time Congress even questioned an FBI appropriation was in 1936, when Tennessee's querulous Senator Kenneth McKellar wanted to know why G-man Hoover wasn't out risking his own neck. Hoover had to admit that he had never personally made a pinch.
Boiling mad, he returned to his office and demanded the latest reports on Alvin Karpis, the last of the Barker gang. Then he flew down to New Orleans, personally led the raiding squad into Karpis' hideout. Since then no one has ever questioned either Hoover's courage or his budget.
Witch Hunt? Sometimes, caught up as he is now in the pursuit of private beliefs, and the difficult measurements of loyalty, G-man Hoover looks like a man who longs for the simple combat of gangster days, when a criminal could sometimes be flushed out into the open and caught with a gun in his hand, instead of a lie on his tongue. But, conscientious cop and efficient public servant that he is, J. Edgar Hoover regards his new mission, and the attacks he receives because of it, as part of his job. He knows that he cannot afford to be too particular about the information he collects: 75% of FBI convictions began as tips. As for accusations that he is engaged in a witch hunt, he points to the FBI's record. If only 91 out of 2,597,000 Government employees checked by the FBI have been discharged for disloyalty, he argues, the FBI can hardly be accused of drumming up a reign of terror.
Except for the Communists in Foley Square, most of the U.S. seemed inclined to agree. As long as the U.S. felt the need to keep G-man Hoover checking up on its fellow citizens, the uneasy feeling was bound to persist. But without the assurance of the FBI's eternal vigilance, the U.S. might feel uneasier still.
* The 1936 kidnap-murder of ten-year-old Charles Mattson in Tacoma, Wash.; the 1938 kidnap-murder of twelve-year-old Peter Levine in New Rochelle, N. Y.