ACTION: I do solemnly swear.... that I will support and defend ... the constitution of the United States... against all enemies. That I will bear true faith. RICHARD BAKER OOV: To me the FBI means the premier law enforcement agency in the world and a model for all law enforcement agencies to look to. ACTION: ...so help me god ... congratulations. COMMENTARY: The FBI is the symbol of law enforcement in America. It's 10,000 agents chase the worst criminals, but they also protect the nation from spies and those who use violence for political ends. At times they've aroused fierce controversy. FRANK WILKINSON OOV: If you read the files in my own case, everything negative in my life was orchestrated directly by the FBI. COMMENTARY: For the first time, the Bureau has opened its doors to outsiders. This series will show how FBI special agents work and why they arouse such strong feelings. And it will explore the legacy of J. Edgar Hoover - the man who ran the FBI for almost half a century. He created it. He built its formidable reputation. And he nearly destroyed it. The jacket, the tie and fedora hat were the Trademarks of Hoover's FBI. This is the modem image - transformed to tackle an ever-more violent America. MUSIC CRESCENDO ACTION: KFV95 Dallas ..Go ahead SFC61 COMMENTARY: The FBI has offices in 56 major cities. Special agent Biff Temple works in Dallas. He's the leader of the Special Weapons and Tactics squad. The SWAT team as its called, makes the most dangerous arrests. LIVE ACTION: GEORGE "BIFF"TEMPLE: OK, the situation that we've got, this is a joint operation which includes the IRS, US Customs, Dallas County Sheriff's Office and the FBI. We have two arrest warrants, one for Marco Zepada, a hispanic male, also Marco has an alias, of Chicki, OK, so he may respond to that. All of 'em do speak English hut we'll do most of the commanding in Spanish, at least in the beginning. Marco pursued one of the undercover agents working this thing, our surveillance agent, and actually chased him from the scene and er.. fired a couple of shots at him .. So we've got the potential for an A & D - an Armed and Dangerous - subject, his family has committed several murders already, so they're not above using weapons, so don't take it too lackadaisical, and get anyone hurt on this thing. COMMENTARY: At dawn the next day the squad sets off on the raid. SWAT teams were introduced in 1973 to deal with the rise in violent crime. GEORGE "BIFF" TEMPLE IN VIS: The area that we're working in - it's the known drug area, and alot of look-outs - people that are posted out there almost 24 hours a day, just to keep an eye on police and for law enforcement officers. DON BORELLI IN VIS: As soon as we get there we're going to get out of the van, set up a perimeter and secure the front of the residence. Hopefully the people are gonna comply with our instructions - they're gonna come out voluntarily. If they don't then we are going to basically just take whatever action is necessary to go in and get them out. OOV: I think once they see what they 're up against they 're gonna comply. I don 't expect any problems from them. LIVE ACTION: Come out with your hands up this is the FBI COMMENTARY: The FBI has never before permitted such unrestricted access to its operations. Until today, the SWAT team had always worked unobserved. It's philosophy is clear: threaten the use of overwhelming force and any opponent will give up without a fight. ACTION: SPANISH I ENGLISH INSTRUCTIONS GIVEN TO SUSPECTS IN HOUSE: Chicki, stand up on your feet, put your hands up in the air. All the way up. Now start walking back towards us. Come back here towards me. You, the other one, wait right there, hold. Keep your hands up, hands up. Chicki, hands up. Walk backwards, backwards. Keep coming. Stop. Alright get down on your knees right now. Take them all the way down on your stomach. Hands all the way out on the street, put your palms up. GEORGE "BIFF" TEMPLE OOV: The first individual that came out was one of the subjects that we had a warrant out for and is known to be armed and has fired shots at law enforcement officers in the past. ACTION: Keep coming. Alright, keep comin' towards me. GEORGE "BIFF" TEMPLE OOV: There was another individual who came out with him, we called them from the house, brought them back, and took custody of them behind cover. ACTION: Right don't move. I don 't want you to be history, OK. GEORGE "BIFF" TEMPLE IN VIS: I think the citizens of the United States are really concerned with the violence that's taken over a large part of our country, and to combat that the FBI OOV: has taken their resources and they're trying to combat that on a National level. ACTION: Tum around. You don 't need to look this way. COMMENTARY: 60 years ago - at the height of another crime wave - the FBI was first permitted to carry guns. ACTION: Don't move right now it's only a little bit longer COMMENTARY: The violence of the 90's has brought a further response. The traditional FBI approach - now frequently gives way to a style more suited to the modern era. OLIVER REVELL IN VIS: You have to remember alot of these people have automatic weapons, some of them have explosive devices, so what may appear to be excessive force could very quickly turn into a minimum necessary force. QUESTION: This is a very different image of the FBI to the traditional fedora collar and tie image, is it a comment on modern America would you say? OLIVER REVELL OOV: Unfortunately to a great extent IN VIS: we have to be on the street and enforcing the drug laws and the violent crime laws and searching for dangerous fugitives and a great deal of our work is with SWAT teams, tactical teams, hostage negotiators OOV: so the white collar image is only partially true, we always have to be prepared for that ultimate contingency. ARCIIlVE SYNC: A typical FBI agent in training is Richard Sperlman, 25 of Baltimore, Maryland .... (ARCHIVE MUSIC) COMMENTARY: For nearly half a century Richard Sperlman epitomised the image of the special agent. ARCHIVE SYNC: ...like every candidate has to be a U.S. citizen, college trained in law, accounting or in languages ... COMMENTARY: It was a clean-cut, wholesome and moral image. And it dominated the public's perception of the FBI for as long as the man who created it, dominated the Bureau. This was J. Edgar Hoover's vision. ARCHIVE SYNC: HOOVER A special Agent must be a good marksman and have the courage to shoot it out with the most venomous of public enemies. He must know how to take fingerprints and what to do with them afterwards. He must know that no clue - no matter how seemingly unimportant - can be overlooked CUT TO CU HOOVER: and he must realise that no case ever ends for the Federal Bureau 's Investigation until it is solved and closed, with the conviction of the guilty, or the acquittal of the innocent. COMMENTARY: Hoover worked from the FBI' s headquarters - then housed in the Justice Department in Washington DC. It was a polished and elegant location - quite fitting for a man who was to become one of the most powerful in the Federal Government. MUSIC NEIL WELCH OOV: Mr Hoover was a man of tremendous stature, his accomplishments and his failures were all of gigantic proportions. He felt that the FBI was his home, his territory to a great extent. It was something he sacrificed his life to, and as a result he felt that it was more or less his property to some extent. COMMENTARY: Hoover was single-minded in his devotion to his work. His early years were a productive and transforming time. Working from this private inner sanctum , the young Director dragged the FBI out of obscurity. Later years were filled with controversy, but the modem FBI is a direct consequence of Hoover's vision and of his skills. MUSIC ENDS NEIL WELCH IN VIS: One of his great achievements I think was setting very high standards for his personnel - he had a very disciplined core of agents - they were very talented. ..very motivated, he worked them very hard and they accomplished a great deal. ARCHIVE SYNC: In every important U.S City are the inconspicuous Headquarters of men who's job is to see rather than be seen. RICHARD BAKER OOV: His contribution to law enforcement in this country was immeasurable because when you consider that at the time when he took over the FBI. .. RICHARD BAKER IN VIS: ...there was a lack of professionalism, and there was a considerable amount of corruption and he started to establish law enforcement as a profession, and he used the FBI as an example that it could be done ... RICHARD BAKER OOV: that you could hire the proper people, you could develop the proper technical and support systems, such as the lab and fingerprints and so on, and that sort of dragged along the whole law enforcement profession in this country. ARCHIVE SYNC: How does it look on the Chart? Belongs to the same blood group as the other one alright. ARCHIVE SYNC In command of all Special Agents fighting on the FBI Front is their tireless and hard-hitting director, John Edgar Hoover. ART NEHRBASS IN VIS: The image of the agent was that of a conservative businessman and Mr Hoover and the Bureau wanted us to wear ... OOV: ...dark business type suits, dark shoes, white shirts. There was that identity to the agents - clean cut, dark suit - and we just did it. DENNIS BRADY V0: To do the kind of work that we have to do we have to be in neighbourhood's where we don't necessarily stand out. We can't wear a suit and a snap brim hat. PAUL SHANNON VO: If I go out in to the neighbourhood I' m gonna look awful funny like that when I put my body armour on over the top of it anyway. DENNIS BRADY VO: We dress down quite a bit in our arrests, but when we hit a trial, when we testify, we wear the suit, and tie, and we kinda look the look and walk the walk. ACTION: car door slams COMMENTARY: There are warrants out for the arrest of more than 12,000 people in the Dallas area. The FBI is doing its best to reduce that figure. DENNIS BRADY OOV: We're going after two attempted murder subjects er.. Nico Riley and Lawrence Mask. IN VIS: We have information that they might be in an apartment complex in North Dallas. OOV: They got into an altercation with a twenty year old black male named Rodney Grey, and at the end of the altercation they weren't satisfied I guess, but they came back, broke into his apartment, pinned him to the wall and shot him in the chest five or six times, and had a separate gun battle with some other witnesses - there's a good possibility that if they' re there that they're armed and that there'd be a weapon somewhere inside that apartment. COMMENTARY: The FBI's job is to chase only the most dangerous fugitives. Agents always work in pairs and in close cooperation with the local police. ACTION: Do you wanna hit this one or do you wanna take the guys front or what do you wanna do? DENNIS BRADY OOV: I think most of the people that work in the Bureau are the kind of people that get an adrenalin rush from making a good arrest or being involved in an investigation that takes a dangerous person or predator off the streets, puts them behind bars where they can;t hurt anybody - its very satisfying work. DENNIS BRADY SYNC: We'll just knock first DENNIS BRADY OOV: You can see the accomplishment there - when that guy doesn't get to hurt anybody anymore - you produce something - it's almost like a blue collar work ethic where you can see the results of your work - because this man or whoever can 't commit that same crime again - he's locked up. You know you took him off the street - you took him out of society. -THE BllREAll- PROGRAMME 1- ACTION: FBI, we have a warrant. He's not here Go over to the other one? Yes DENNIS BRADY OOV: A good Special Agent goes beyond just coming to work every day, just feeling he's an 8.15 to five kinda guy, and just filling out the paperwork. DENNIS BRADY IN VIS: A good agent gets involved. And gets after his cases, gets after these people, and he creates a feeling among these people that he's chasing, that he's everywhere, that they can't get away, and that for lack of a better word, maybe they ought to just give up. PAUL SHANNON OOV: Well we gotta call from an intelligence officer - that's a Dallas Police Officer who has IN VIS: indicated that he has a murder warrant on an individual and he has the guy put down OOV: that's all the information we have - he said come on down as quick as you can. It's called runnin' and gunnin'. ACTION SYNC: Michael Raney, Michael come on out. He's in that bedroom Slowly, slowly Michael. Come on out, come on out COMMENTARY: Over the past ten years, violent crime has been one of the fastest growing offenses. It's now a top priority for the FBI. ACTION: David and Tom are still inside DENNIS BRADY OOV We have to be prepared when we go to work to have a violent confrontation and possibly to kill somebody - that's something that we have to deal with everyday, when we get up and go to work, and if that trade off ever happens and they get us instead of us getting them it's a pretty poor trade off because there are people in our homes who depend on us, and the people who we chase are the kind of people who the only thing they've ever left behind them is a trail of victims. ACTION SYNC SHANNON: Got a gun in the back? Yes. PAUL SHANNON OOV: Based on my experience m working hundreds of robbery investigations in the years I've been in the FBI I can say with all honesty PAUL SHANNON IN VIS: and without any hesitation that I have never arrested a robber who I think there is any substantial hope that they are ever going to reform. ACTION: 160'S Just relax. OK just hold it down. PAUL SHANNON OOV: You know we're in a crisis mode all the time PAUL SHANNON IN VIS: and the only thing that one can do as FBI agents is go after 'em, and put the ones that we can put in jail , in jail, because whenever we put one of those people in jail, everyday they are in jail that's a potential victim that they didn't get. ACTION One more ... DENNIS BRADY OOV: The FBI has a very good reputation in American law enforcement, it's seen as a professional entity that has a great history of accomplishment. DENNIS BRADY IN VIS: It gets you credibility wherever you go and whoever you 're talking to. It gets you off on the right foot almost every time. DENNIS BRADY OOV: J. Edgar Hoover is the man that's responsible because the reputation of the Bureau is his creation, we are a direct result of his legacy. -IDB BUREAU- PROGRAMME 1- ARCHIVE SYNC: Director Hoover supervising field practice and the target might be a gangster car. COMMENTARY: The FBI made its name during the gangster era of the 1930's. ARCHIVE SYNC: Machine gun sharp shooting from a fast moving car. COMMENTARY: Hoover branded a few violent outlaws - he called them Public Enemies and sent his men after them . ARCHIVE SYNC: Every shot hits the anatomy of that public enemy. he will kill and kidnap no more. MUSIC COMMENTARY: With each arrest, the FBI's reputation soared. ARCHIVE SYNC: HOOVER The depredations of vicious outlaws roaming from state to state like packs of wolves amounted to an actual armed invasion of America. I must remind you that the forces of underworld today are greater than the entire number of soldiers enlisted for the defence of this country in the World War. With a personnel of less than 600 men it has been possible for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to carry on a successful campaign of detection and apprehension of the most deadly characters in the history of American criminality RICHARD BAKER OOV: He was a celebrity. Wherever he went everybody was very impressed that Mr Hoover was in their midst. RICHARD BAKER IN VIS: He was concerned by a large measure as to the Bureau 's reputation because the Bureau 's reputation was a big part of the Bureau's success and if anything came along that would in any way affect or damage that reputation it would damage our effectiveness in the job we were trying to do. MUSIC COMMENTARY: The FBI was Hoover's life. He was unmarried and had few outside interests. Eventually his concern with its reputation became an obsession. Critics risked an uncontrollable wrath. When Jack Shaw crossed Hoover - his promising career as an agent came to an abrupt halt . Shaw was a high flier - hand-picked for a top management job and sent for training by his FBI bosses to John Jay College of Criminal Law in New York. His professor had criticised the FBI in his classes. Shaw replied with his own assessment of the Bureau - in a private critique to the lecturer. JACK SHAW IN VIS It was not an anti -Hoover diatribe but from my perspective as an agent I felt winds of change were clearly blowing around the Bureau OOV: and the Bureau was slow, the Bureau being Mr Hoover. I felt the Bureau was suffering rust, varicose veins if you will. COMMENTARY: A colleague found Shaw's letter and handed it to his boss. There was a major row. Shaw was suspended and given a disciplinary transfer. He resigned in protest. Hoover's involvement became clear only when Jack Shaw read his own FBI file. JACK SHAW IN VIS: There were marginal notes throughout the file in Hoover's handwriting with his initials on it, so I would say that, er, he didn't mark every page but he clearly was made aware of the developments of the internal investigation and had been clearly the one who had made the decision. ARCHIVE: JACK SHAW SYNC I feel I've been man-handle.cl and mis-treate.d officially and non-official!y. I don't feel that I have done anything of a subversive or a derogatory nature to bear that stigma for the rest of my life, or for however arbitrary time Mr Hoover decides it should be attached. And Iwant my name vindicated. Iam not going to accept arbitrary and capricious reasoning in this because I apparently have offended an institution. JACK SHAW IN VIS I mean this thing was going to be a large stone around my neck - I sensed that, I called New York immediately and discussed it with an SAC there and he said there's nothing that we can do - they're mad. I mean what d 'you mean mad - upset? He said no I mean mad, insane, and there's nothing that no-one can restore any reason to this and it's not going to affect you; as long as you don't seek work in the Federal Government. 22 COMMENTARY: Jack Shaw's professor, Adrian Blumberg had also criticised the FBI, so intolerant of critics was Hoover that he sent a senior agent to the college President to insist that he fire the Professor. DONALD H. RIDDLE IN VIS: He said he was instructed by the Director, that is J. Edgar Hoover, to inform me that as long as Professor Blumberg was on our Faculty, that no FBI agent would be permitted to attend John Jay College. I told him that in that case there would be no FBI agents at John Jay college because Blumberg's staying. MUSIC COMMENTARY: As he aged, Hoover's management style became increasingly authoritarian. His approach to some investigative techniques was at times dogmatic and rigid. One technique Hoover actively discouraged was undercover work. He believed contact with criminals would corrupt his agents. Today covert FBI investigations are common place. In Dallas an undercover operation is about to begin against a gang of car thieves. ACTION: This is where they're gonna pick you guys up. COMMENTARY: This is the first time any FBI undercover mission has been filmed. Each year, auto theft costs the nation more than 7 billion dollars. The FBI only targets career criminals - those who make a regular living by stealing cars. MICHEAL MORGAN OOV: This is the fourth time we've met this individual to purchase cars from him. IN VIS: We've been able to identify him through police records and photographs positively identify him and we're continuing to attempt to locate his base of operations. COMMENTARY: Just ahead of the control vehicle is the team's surveillance agent. His job is to act as lookout - (PAUSE FOR SYNC SOUND) a second pair of eyes watching the thieves. MICHAEL STARKES OOV: I think the most interesting part about a surveillance is to gain information without a bad guy or a subject knowing that you' re following him, you have to create your own lot of tricks - usually I keep several types of MICHAEL STARKES OOV: CONT. hats in the car. If he picked up on anything either I take my hat off, put another hat on, just something different to throw him off. RADIO SYNC: You got a gang of bikers sitting in there also... COMMENTARY: The undercover agent has taken the lead as they near the location and radios back a report. MICHAEL MORGAN IN VIS: It's our lead car apparently there is a vehicle in the area where we normally do our deals - whether it's our car or not we don't know at this point we're gonna have to go on in and see, and get situated before the undercover agent arrives. COMMENTARY: The agents believe there are six members in the gang they're chasing. ACTION: I think that's probably not going to be our guys... anyone in the parking benches that you can see? No, I don 't see anybody - look like may be somebody's snoozing. What d'you think. I'm gonna pull up. Yeah, that'd be fine, I think we're alright. Right about here .. COMMENTARY: Safety is the watchword in these operations. The surveillance team does have to get the evidence to bring the gang to justice - but its main function is backup in case anything goes wrong. ACTION SYNC: Actually as long as these blinds are closed on one side, they can't see through. COMMENTARY: Over the past year, 33,000 vehicles were stolen in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Throughout the nation more than one and a half million cars and trucks disappeared in the same period. ACTION: That's all I need. There's some guy roamin' around and moving around inside the truck. I got one chevrolet pick up possibly on one subject in the cab, our undercover agent should be moving into position very shortly here, and when they make contact we'll know it's the intended party. A 34 ton Duelly How many 's in the truck? Looks like a black male OK RADIO SQUELCHING SOUND That is the transmitter that has just turned on of the undercover agent. That be the man, that be the man. OK that's our subject in the blue pick up. 7-20 to all units we've confirmed that is our subject in the Blue Chevrolet Duelly pick-up and the UCA is on the scene now. JOHN TAYLOR OOV When I got there he got out of the vehicle and came over to me and we exchanged our greetings and he JOHN TAYLOR IN VIS: explained to me that he'd been to Louisiana and on the way back the car that he was driving broke down so he pulled into a truck stop and he saw the vehicle -this pick up - drive in, and the man got out of it, parked it and walked away. So he needed a ride home, so he broke into it and stole it, and that he would sell that one to me as well as the one that was going to be brought up by his brothers. ACTION: RADIO J.R our subject is getting in. John's walked over to meet with them and now they 're gonna load up it looks like, to get out of here. 12 is pulling out now. Subject went North on main street COMMENTARY: The surveillance agent now has to tail the thieves to ensure they don't double back and catch the agents inspecting the stolen vehicles. He'll follow them until they are a safe distance away. ACTION: OK there's the vehicle RADIO: Yes 10-4 we've got em OK that's one of our chase cars right there Black vehicle going COMMENTARY: The undercover operation over-the agents take two stolen vehicles back to Dallas. They'll buy several more before they arrest the gang. QUESTION: What did they cost you -111B BUREAU- PROGRAMME 1- JOHN TAYLOR OOV: 900 each QUESTION: What would they sell for on the open market? JOHN TAYLOR IN VIS: This truck in this condition would be over $20,000. QUESTION: And the other one? TAYLOR IN VIS: In its condition right now probably about 12 - 13 thousand. QUESTION: Quite a bargain? JOHN TAYLOR IN VIS: Wish Icould do it every day - legally. MUSIC. COMMENTARY: The first FBI undercover operations were very different to today's highly organised affairs. In the early days, the rules were made up as they went along. They began in New York - pioneered by agents who realised the benefits of a technique that was officially frowned upon. 29 GUY BERADO OOV: It was new, there was no .. nobody had done it before and we did one job and it just seemed to flourish because we did well and the other agents who had cases came to us to see if they could work in an undercover deal with these cases ... GUY BERADO IN VIS: ...and er it wasn 't like getting permission from anybody we just set our own guidelines and did what we thought had to be done to get the job finished. OOV: You know you tried to dress like the people you were associating with were dressed ,and those things we would design ourselves and we would go out and purchase our own undercover clothing - if you will. GUY BERADO IN VIS: ..and when it came time to show a diamond ring or a classy watch - we had contacts in the city, we worked the city for years - so we got us some of our jewellery contracts and they would on the basis of what we were and our reputation, and they would loan us this stuff - so that we could go ahead. PAUL BRANA IN VIS: They would loan us all types of things, fancy looking wrist watches GUY BERADO IN VIS: ...Diamonds, gold you know which we weren 't in a position to buy. QUESTION: Did the Bureau headquarters give you an allowance to buy these things? OOV: No of course not. PAUL BRANA IN VIS: Back in the early days I mean the Bureau was always very tight ... GUY BERADO IN VIS: Very zealous about money. PAUL BRANA IN VIS: You 're playing with the tax payers money - we don't want you to go out and blow the money - you gotta treat it like it was your own, and that's how the Bureau was initially you know. From what I understand today they're very very generous with the tax payers money, but in those days under J. Edgar Hoover you had to account for every penny that you were spending out there. COMMENTARY: Leaming to use the undercover techniques that Hoover disapproved of has been a slow and at times painful process for the Bureau. Lack of experience and over-enthusiasm helped to tum some early undercover operations into serious embarrassments. In 1978 FBI agents raided the Municipal Courthouse in Cleveland, Ohio. They thought court employees were taking bribes to fix cases. And when the documents failed to flush out the culprits - they began an undercover operation. It became a comedy of errors: the agents were conned - they targeted the wrong people - and seriously damaged honest reputations. JUDGE CLARENCE GAINES OOV: I believed in the FBI IN VIS: I believed they were infallible. It was a shock to me to find that they were not. OOV: They could have walked into our court room and arrested the - totally the wrong people. JUDGE LILLIAN BURKE IN VIS: I felt very very bad about the whole thing - I just couldn't believe it that it would happen in America. I just couldn't believe it. PIANO MUSIC COMMENTARY: Lilian Burke has a long and distinguished record in Cleveland. She was the first black judge in the State of Ohio. Her hallway is a testimonial to the high regard in which she is held in her own community. But the FBI thought she was a crook. They 'd been told she was taking bribes. BURKE OOV: I just couldn't think of any reason why I should be singled out - IN VIS: ...it's terrifying to think that I could have been caught up into something of that I knew absolutely nothing about, just horrifying. I would hope that would never happen to anybody. COMMENTARY: The other judge accused of dishonesty - according to the FBI's information - was Clarence Gaines. He'd had an impeccable 7 year career on the Cleveland bench when his integrity was questioned. JUDGE CLARENCE GAINES OOV: At that time I was just about destroyed. GAINES IN VIS: To be called a thief - it was terrible - for a long time I would sit on the bench making a decision , and I would think I wonder if all these people out there think I'm a thief - it was hard to get it out of my mind. COMMENTARY: The key to this courtroom fiasco - lay with the insider the agents got to help them. Marvyn Bray was the court bailiff. The FBI paid him $100,000. to help find the criminals. Bray blamed the two judges - and said he'd prove it by offering them bribes himself. An undercover FBI agent, wearing a hidden microphone, taped several of the meetings in a court office. It looked like a watertight case - except for one problem: Bray had lied for his money. He'd even used imposters to play the parts of the two judges. JUDGE CLARENCE GAINES OOV: I was a 68 year old man IN VIS: and the man who was playing me was the same age as my own son - my son was at the same time as old as Mr Harris was. OOV: He was not an educated person - I think he was several shades of a different colour than I. IN VIS: I don 't see any way that this young man could have been mistaken for a judge. JUDGE LILLIAN BURKE IN VIS: We just dido 't look alike at all - she was one size and I was another size, there was just no comparison. OOV: She was short, I was tall, she was obese, I was thin IN VIS: so I just don 't know too much about the lady - I know that she was a bus driver, and I just could hardly understand how they could confuse the two. COMMENTARY: The FBI taped 12 meetings with the fake judges before realising they'd been taken for a ride. And that only happened when an agent saw a TV interview with the real Lillian Burke. No one was ever charged with case fixing in Cleveland. The only prosecutions were the court bailiff and his two imposters. They all served jail sentences. JUDGE CLARENCE GAINES IN VIS: The biggest shock here was that they went this far without finding out who I was. If they had followed me, if they had tapped my phone - I said before that if they had been tapping my phone they would have known that the most important conversation was my wife telling me that a robin had landed on my porch or something equally important. If they had followed me then they would have found - nothing. -111B BUREAU- PROGRAMME 1- COMMENTARY: The targeting of two black judges in this way left the FBI open to accusations of racism. The American Bar Association asked Congress to investigate what they called this "unwarranted attack" on black judges. This was not the first time the FBI has been criticised for a discriminatory approach. Its legendary creator ran the Bureau as an almost all-white affair until the day he died. Hoover did employ black Americans. The Director's housekeeper was black. So were most of his chauffeurs. But as late as 1971 little more than 100 of his 8500 agents came from minority groups. In Hoover's FBI, black Americans were only fit for jobs that didn't carry real responsibility. JESSE HOUSE OOV: I looked at that time as a phase of plantation. Back in the days of slavery IN VIS: the masses always had black in their kitchen, they had black nannies, so I equate that with the same mentality. COMMENTARY: Jesse House joined Hoover's FBI as a clerk. He had to struggle hard to become an agent. JESSE HOUSE OOV: I thought it was extremely difficult in those days, you were not pursued, in other words they were not actively recruiting black agents IN VIS: You were in an almost complete white environment and you didn't know who your friends would be, who you could trust, you certainly had to walk in a straight line, and there was always a fear of making one big mistake and be out on the street or fired the next day. JESSE HOUSE OOV: They were very sceptical of having blacks in the role of an FBI agent IN VIS: because they hadn't done before, they dido' t know whether it would work, I felt that they also they wondered how you would be perceived as a black person representing the FBI on the outside. QUESTION: Would it be fair to describe Mr Hoover as a racist? RICHARD BAKER IN VIS: No, I don't think that is correct - he was a product of his time, he had grown up in Washington D.C. - Washington was pretty segregated at the time that he grew up, and I think that he reflected his culture. RICHARD BAKER OOV: The Bureau was more or less symptomatic of much of the rest of the US Government and the blacks had not made the progress that they had made in subsequent years in gaining equal rights. MUSIC COMMENTARY: Racism still poses problems in the FBI. It forced Donald Rochon to give up his job as an agent as recently as 1991. DONALD ROCHON OOV: There was a variety from blatant to subtle, for example someone put a picture of a monkey over a photograph of my children, there would be photographs in my mail slot in the office of a black man who was beaten up. They would sabotage my car, harassing telephone calls to my home and make derogatory statements. COMMENTARY: Rochon asked for a transfer. His bosses moved him to Chicago - the very same FBI office to which they'd just transferred his main tormentor. DONALD ROCHON OOV: He was simply just a few feet from me, he started the whole pattern over again. He would give death threats on the phone -and I reported this to my superiors and they did IN VIS: absolutely nothing about the harassment, and they refused to record the telephone calls and even told me not to record any telephone calls that came in that were obscene, that were harassing or that were even threatening. OOV: Its all part of a legacy that's been left by J. Edgar Hoover. COMMENTARY: 540 Black agents have jointly sued the FBI for discrimination. In 1993 the Bureau settled their case by promising many of them long overdue promotions and career enhancements. ROCHON OOV: If I were gonna re-build the FBI I'd start by changing the name of the Headquarters from the J. Edgar Hoover building to simply FBI Headquarters and move the photographs of J. Edgar Hoover from all FBI buildings - simply outlaw it. COMMENTARY: The Bureau is now making amends for Hoover. More agents are being accepted from minority groups. But the Director's closing years left a long legacy. NEIL WELCH OOV: Hoover wasn 't with the world of reality that his agents lived with he was ... IN VIS: whimsical and capricious, often times in his dealing with his staff, he liked to encourage his agents in charge to be firm and fair, and I think he violated those principles constantly himself. OOV: With advancing years he just didn't keep pace - he just was increasingly out of it. ARCHIVE SYNC: "How many more years would you like to work?" As long as my health would sustain me - I passed a 100% physical examination last summer, at the clinic in Lahoya, California. RICHARD BAKER IN VIS: His whole life was the FBI. I think had he left the FBI before he died, while he was still in reasonably decent health, he would have been really distraught because he would have nothing really to do. He had no relatives that he was close with, he had no other life, no hobbies of any great moment, and I think the man would have been lost without the Bureau, that was his anchor. ARCHIVE SYNC: PRESIDENT JOHNSON: Edgar, the law says you must retire next January, when you reach your 70th birthday, and knowing you as I do Edgar, I know you won 't break the law, but the nation cannot afford to lose you and therefore by virtue of and pursuant to the authority vested in the President of the United States I have just now signed an executive order exempting you from compulsory retirement for an indefinite period of time. And again Edgar, congratulations, and accept the gratitude of a grateful nation. ART NEHRBASS IN VIS: The Director was a very disciplined man, a very decisive man, very hard-nosed and it was what the Bureau needed in the 30's and 40's OOV: to bring it out of the disrepute that it was in the 20's. There came a time when that autocratic style needed to change - and he didn 't change. IN VIS: One of the things I recall when Iwas at Headquarters - round about 1970 - two years before he died. A bank in Chicago had refused to give us some stolen or counterfeit bonds, and Hoover took this as an attack on the FBI, and he wrote in the margin of the memo I got back "if this is their attitude we won't work their Bank Robberies anymore" - well you couldn't do that, OOV: so that memo just kinda got put away and nobody ever enforced it. I'm sure that many of the people who were very close to him were concerned that if they attacked his management style or said he was getting out of touch that he might kill the messenger. COMMENTARY: Special agents spend 16 weeks training at the FBI Academy. They are taught much about the techniques of law enforcement - but little about the man who created the FBI. This is a strange anomaly for an organisation that's honoured Hoover by having its headquarters named after him. DENNIS BRADY OOV: Hoover is never mentioned directly in the academy. IN VIS: You're never taught about anything other than just the numbers - the dates, that J Edgar Hoover became the Director, how many agents were in the FBI at that time, and then there's a little talk about the numbers in the Bureau now. OOV: History - perhaps it's relevant , but how does my knowing about J. Edgar Hoover take me to somebody's house, help me arrest that somebody - I don't see how it has any direct correlation to how professionally I do my job. COMMENTARY: For all their skill and technical prowess, the FBI is making its agents work in a vacuum. With little explanation of the Hoover era, they cannot benefit from past experience - or learn from past mistakes. COMMENTARY: The Bureau still does not seem to have come to terms with the controversies that surround its most famous Director. When Hoover died in 1972, many Americans felt they had lost a great patriot - a defender of liberty. NEIL WELCH OOV: It was a state funeral ...proper IN VIS: perhaps the only civil servant that I'm aware of ever laid out in state in the Capitol Rotunda. After the first initial shock I think there was a feeling of overwhelming relief - a desire to put that chapter behind us. COMMENTARY: The full, disturbing facts of Hoover's later years - the vendetta he waged against political dissent and his cavalier use of the FBI' s power - only became clear several years after his death. OOV: I take humble pride in HOOVER IN VIS: emphatically stating here tonight that as long as I am Director of the FBI I will continue to maintain OOV: it's high and impartial standards and will stay within the bounds of its authorised jurisdiction, despite the hostile opinions of its detractors.