This authoritative set provides a one-stop resource for understanding specific FBI controversies as well as for those looking to understand the full history, law enforcement authority, and inner workings of the nation's most famous and important federal law enforcement agency. This authoritative two-volume reference resource uses a combination of encyclopedia entries and primary sources to provide a comprehensive overview of the FBI, detailing its history, most famous leaders and agents, institutional structure and authority, law enforcement responsibilities, reporting relationships to other parts of government, and major events and controversies. Today the FBI sits squarely at the intersection of major controversies surrounding the presidential campaign and administration of Donald Trump, foreign interference in U.S. elections, and politicization of law enforcement. But the FBI has always been in the political spotlight—its history is dotted with episodes that have come under heavy scrutiny, from its surveillance of civil rights leaders during the 1960s to the methods it employs to combat domestic terrorism in the post-9/11 era. And all the while, FBI agents and offices across the country continue to investigate a wide range of lawbreaking, from organized crime (in all its facets) to white-collar crime and corruption by public officials.

The controversial guide to the inner workings of the FBI, now in...

Most people believe the Federal Bureau of Investigation began under J. Edgar Hoover in the 1920s or 1930s. Many also naturally assume it was developed for the express purpose of fighting crime. However, the reality is very different. The reality is it began years earlier, in 1908, under President Theodore Roosevelt. In The Birth of the FBI: Teddy Roosevelt, the Secret Service, and the Fight Over America's Premier Law Enforcement Agency, Willard Oliver details the political fight that led to the birth of America’s premier law enforcement agency. Roosevelt was concerned about conservation and one issue he wanted enforced were the fraudulent land deals being perpetrated by many people, including some members of Congress. When he began using the Secret Service to investigate these crimes, Congress blocked him from doing so. The end result of this political spat was Roosevelt’s creation of the FBI, which heightened the political row between the two branches of government in the final year of Roosevelt’s presidency. The truth of the matter is, the premier law enforcement agency in the United States was actually created because of a political fight between the executive and legislative branches of government. The Birth of the FBI reveals the true story behind the birth of the FBI and provides some useful insight into an important part of our American history.

The names, we sometimes say, have been changed "to protect the innocent". As regards those agents in KGB networks in the U.S. during and following World War II, their presence and their deeds (or misdeeds) were known, but their names were not. The FBI-KGB War is the exciting, true (which often really is stranger than fiction), and authentic story of how those names became known and how the not-so-innocent persons to whom those names belonged were finally called to account. Following World War II, FBI Special Agent Robert J. Lamphere set out to uncover the extensive American networks of the KGB. Lamphere used a large file of secret Russian messages intercepted during the war. The FBI-KGB War is the detailed (but never boring) story of how those messages were finally decoded and made to reveal their secrets, secrets that led to persons with such now-infamous names as Judith Coplon, Klaus Fuchs, Harry Gold, and Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.

In a fascinating account, full of quiet heroics and grisly criminal details, the authors describe the difficult work of the tireless professionals who have devoted their careers to investigating and analyzing the deeds and personalities of the macabre psychopaths who haunt the nation's streets.

Traces the FBI's journey from fledgling startup to one of the most respected names in national security, taking you on a walk through the seven key chapters in Bureau history. It features overviews of more than 40 famous cases and an extensive collection of photographs.