Mr.
Schiff: Hi, welcome to "FBI 100, A Closer
Look." I'm Neal Schiff of the Bureau's Office
of Public Affairs along with FBI Historian Dr.
John Fox. John, for years FBI Special Agents have
been called G-men? When did that start?
Dr.
Fox: "Well Neal it started somewhere in the
early 1930s. G-men had been this term that was
used kind of as criminal slang for a government
agent. But with the arrest, as legend has it,
with the arrest of Machine Gun Kelly on December
26th, 1933, that term started to be used exclusively
for FBI agents."
Mr. Schiff: Tell us about Machine Gun Kelly?
Dr. Fox: "Kelly was a former bootlegger
and he was turning to other crimes as prohibition
was obviously coming to an end. One of them was
kidnapping. He and a colleague named Albert Bates
kidnapped a wealthy Oklahoman named Charles Urschel.
He was in the oil business and Machine Gun Kelly,
and especially his wife who is sometimes credited
with being the brains of the operation, really
felt that they could make a quick buck. They kidnapped
Urschel; they hid him; eventually collected a
ransom and let him go. Thanks to Urschel's memory
though, the FBI was able to piece together the
path that the kidnappers took to where they hid
Urschel and the Bureau was able to begin to track
Machine Gun Kelly down."
Mr.
Schiff:
What about the hunt for Kelly and how he was caught?
Dr.
Fox: "With the help of a lot of other police,
we tracked Kelly across several states. Eventually
working with Tennessee police, we found him in
Memphis. He was hiding out in a rooming house
and when we entered, as legend has it, he threw
up his hands and shouted, 'Don't shoot G-men,
don't shoot.' Now, that seems to have been some
press license in a story. Whether or not Kelly
actually said something like that, chances are
he probably didn't, but it was a legend that caught
on. And as the FBI became more famous through
the hunt for John Dillinger and the rest of the
notorious gangsters of the day,
the term G-men came to stick with FBI agents.
And since then we've been known as the G-men."
Mr.
Schiff: On
July 26th this year, the FBI celebrates its 100th
anniversary. Much more on the Internet at www.fbi.gov.
From the FBI's Public Affairs office, along with
Bureau Historian Dr. John Fox, I'm Neal Schiff
with "FBI 100, A Closer Look."
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