J. Edgar: The Most Powerful Man in the World Page #7

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I need you, Clyde.

Do you understand? I need you.

On one condition.

Good day or bad,

whether we agree or disagree...

we never miss a lunch

or a dinner together.

Well, I would have it no other way.

Hey, pull over.

- Only a half a mile to Mount Rose.

- Can't wait.

Orville!

In the end, the child's body

was found just within sight...

of Mr. Lindbergh's home.

The body was blackened...

the left leg missing

from the knee down.

There was a visible fracture on the skull.

He'd suffered a violent blow to the head.

I told them months ago.

He must've fallen on the way down,

with the baby in his arms.

We are the sinners, Edgar.

We tolerated lawlessness in the land

until it grew to diabolical proportions.

The baby's blood is on all our hands,

Edgar.

On your hands, Edgar.

Yes, Mother.

Six weeks after the kidnapping...

Congress passed the Lindbergh Law...

making kidnapping a federal offense.

The right to make arrests followed

and the right to bear arms.

So I continued collecting the finest

scientific minds in the country.

He claims to be the world expert

on wood analysis.

Lt's easy to be the expert if you're the

only person in the world with any interest.

He does claim he can tell

as much from a cut of wood...

- ...as a doctor can from an autopsy.

- Ah.

He has, um, social difficulties.

He is mentally ill, isn't he?

He's only as mad as you are. Sir.

This was supposed to be temporary,

Mr. Hoover.

If you want your Sherlock Holmes

playing time...

Where do you suggest we go, sir, where?

I suggest you take your case

to Congress.

Fine, sir. Have it your way.

I'll tell people we could not solve the case

because we could not afford laboratories...

and the Attorney General

wouldn't allow us to use his lounge.

Fine. Now get your science fair project

out of here.

Yes, sir. Right away, sir.

Gentlemen, keep working.

Mr. Tolson,

let's get the president on the phone.

The depravations of vicious outlaws, roving

from state to state like packs of wolves...

amounts to an actual

armed invasion of America.

We must outsmart and outwit the criminal,

foreign and domestic.

They have chemists building bombs.

We need chemists tracing their efforts.

We must have the most advanced

force in the world...

if we are to have the safest nation

on earth.

And, please, gentlemen, let us not

for a moment lose sight of our goals:

To protect the honest citizen...

to teach the criminal that

regardless of his subterfuges...

his twisting, his squirming

and slimy wriggling...

he cannot escape the one

inexorable rule of law enforcement...

that you can't get away with it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hoover.

But your agency is already one of the most

well-funded in Washington, is it not?

Yes, that is true, sir...

but our car and bank robbery recoveries

totaled 6.5 million last year...

and our budget is only,

well, two million.

Unlike other departments in Washington,

we actually run a profit.

We cannot quantify

the value of our successes...

with the hoodlums Pretty Boy Floyd,

Baby Face Nelson, Machine Gun Kelly...

and other hoodlums of that nature.

Mr. Hoover, is it true that you spend

the Bureau's money on advertising?

We are not permitted to engage

in advertising of any kind, sir. No.

But you take part, for instance, in the

making of radio shows and comic books.

I've listened to several

of these G-Men programs.

Your picture seems to be shown

in conjunction with them quite frequently.

We declined emphatically to lend

any form of endorsement...

had nothing to do with their production,

furnished no advice, technical or otherwise.

Well, the very advertisement says

that broadcasts were...

"true reflections,

as contained in the official records...

based on actual cases from the files

of the Federal Bureau of Investigation...

Saturday night at 8:00."

Mr. Hoover,

what are your exact qualifications...

for your position of leadership

in this Bureau?

My qualifications, sir?

Nineteen years with the

Department of Justice. Nineteen.

Twelve as director.

In all that time,

you ever make an arrest yourself?

I have made investigations.

I administer several cases at once.

Well, that's not what I asked.

The comic books show you with a machine

gun, making arrests. ls that just fiction?

I am responsible for

thousands of arrests, sir.

So you admit it is pure fiction.

In fact, it wasn't you who hunted down

and captured John Dillinger at all.

Lt was Agent Purvis. ls that correct?

I was in charge of all of those

investigations...

but, no, sir, I have not personally

made an arrest.

Any other questions, gentlemen?

Let's bring it to a vote.

Put those away.

Well, that didn't go well.

We spend our lives working

and we get a political attack?

What does he expect, crimes to go

unsolved? Why is he fighting me?

I want you to start a file

on Senator McKellar.

I want four agents on him at all times.

I want to know what's in his trash,

photograph him at dinner.

Don't get in the car. You can walk back.

We have lunch.

We don't miss lunch, no matter what.

You pulled away from me in there.

You perjured yourself, Edgar,

and the lie was an easily provable one.

There's no telling

how much worse it could've been.

Find Agent Purvis. He is to be

demoted immediately or, better yet, fired.

Firing the man who killed John Dillinger

would be a PR disaster.

Then he is to spend the rest of his career

behind a desk.

And if he'd like to keep that job,

he'd best stay out of the papers. Go.

I don't know who I can trust anymore.

Only you.

Only you, Mother.

You're all I have to keep me safe,

you understand that?

Please, Mother,

let me take you to a doctor.

A simple examination isn't unholy, is it?

Mother.

Mother, please.

Faith, Edgar.

Faith.

Don't wilt like a little flower.

Be strong.

Yes, Mother.

I will.

If what Congress valued more

than wits and brains was muscle...

if what they hungered for

was an armed American hero...

then I was willing to risk my very life

and give them both.

Move.

Go.

Hold it, government agents!

The arrest is mine to make!

Move.

Mr. Karpis, you are under arrest.

Mr. Hoover himself.

I'm gonna be famous.

Put the handcuffs on him.

Don't move, Mr. Mahan.

Blow it down.

Move.

Mr. Brunette, you are under arrest.

Alvin Karpis said he couldn't be taken alive,

but we took him without firing a shot.

And let me tell you, he shook all over.

His voice, his hands, and his knees.

You arrested Harry Campbell in Toledo

and Brunette in Manhattan?

And William Mahan in California.

But let me clarify

without a shadow of a doubt...

this was a "we" job, not an "I" job.

Edgar, look at this.

We made the Post Toasties box.

"Melvin Purvis,

the FBI agent that caught Dillinger."

Write the cereal-maker.

Let them know...

Oh. "Junior G-Man." Hmm.

Tell them they ought to print any further

boxes to read "former agent of the FBI."

Sit down, Clyde.

I'm gonna read something.

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