The House on 92nd Street

Vigilant, tireless, implacable.

The most silent service

of the United States in peace or war...

...is the Federal Bureau

of Investigation.

The Bureau went to war with Germany

long before hostilities began.

No word or picture

could then make public...

...the crucial war service of the FBI.

But now it can be told.

In 1939, with thousands

of known and suspected enemy agents...

...invading the Americas...

...the FBI started building up its force

of special agents and employees...

...from 2000 to a war peak of 15,000.

Before being sent into the field,

each new agent had to learn...

...all the modern techniques

of crime detection...

...such as the use of a specially treated

x- ray mirror...

...through which an FBI man

can see without being seen.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation

had to be the world's...

...most efficient intelligence

and counterespionage service.

For war is thought,

and thought is information.

And he who knows most

strikes hardest.

By examining the intercepted mail

of unsuspecting Nazi agents...

...the FBI uncovered many

secret channels of communication.

Between the lines

of an innocent-appearing letter...

...invisibly coded

in an obsolete German shorthand...

...were important instructions

for one group of spies.

The Bureau's infinitely

painstaking system...

...of sifting and recording every scrap

of potential information...

...paid handsome dividends.

The FBI was adding new names

to its long list of Germans...

...known to be dangerous.

And each day, as fresh investigated

reports came in from the field...

...FBI officials saw more clearly...

...the pattern of German espionage

in the United States.

Nucleus of the Nazi network

in America...

...was the German Embassy

in Washington...

...protected, until a declaration of war,

by diplomatic immunity.

Long before December 7th, 1941,

from a vantage point nearby...

...G-men photographed the actions

of hundreds of suspects.

These are the actual films

taken by the FBI.

They gave Director Hoover

and his men a daily record...

...and description

of all embassy visitors.

This continuous

photographic surveillance...

...provided a permanent record

to be studied intensively...

...whenever new developments

took place.

The Bureau soon discovered

that the embassy was being used...

...to disperse money for subversive

activity in the United States.

The Bureau also knew that the embassy

had a short-wave radio...

...and was in direct communication

with Germany.

No one was watched more closely

by the FBI...

...than the arrogant

Baron Ulrich von Gienanth.

Although accredited

as an embassy official...

...he was actually chief

of the German Gestapo in America.

Equally important were pompous

Vice Admiral Witthoeft-Emden...

...and his suave assistant,

Helmut Raeuber...

...experts in obtaining information

about ships and cargoes.

Dr. Hans Thomsen,

the German charg d'affaires...

...tried to win American collaborators.

So did his associate,

General Karl Boetischer.

Parading before hidden FBI cameras

were the embassy secretaries.

These girls spent evenings

in the company of American servicemen.

They were having fun...

...but they were also diligently

accumulating information for Germany.

The FBI watched them discreetly,

knew all about them.

By relentless surveillance

of embassy officials...

...and all those

with whom they associated...

...the FBI learned that Germany

was recruiting American Nazis...

...for its espionage service.

In 1939, Nazi fronts, like Fritz Kuhn...

...and his German-American Bund,

were flourishing.

The Germans said

they were only social gatherings.

But the FBI knew that these societies

were part of a well-laid German plan...

...to build up a fifth column

in the United States.

In 1939, on the campus

of a Midwestern university...

...not far from Columbus, Ohio,

there was a brilliant young student.

Born of German-American parents

who were proud of his college record...

...he was preparing

to become a diesel engineer.

His name was William Dietrich.

Just before graduation...

...Dietrich was approached

by German representatives...

...who offered him a free trip to Germany

and a well-paying job on arrival.

Dietrich reported the incident

to the FBI.

When the meaning of the German

invitation was explained to him...

...Dietrich offered his services

to the Bureau.

With money generously supplied

by the Germans...

...Dietrich bought passage at the German

Tourist Bureau in New York City.

The Germans felt that Dietrich

was an extremely valuable man.

So did the FBI.

Ten days later Dietrich was 3500 miles

from New York...

...in Germany's great port city

of Hamburg.

On the Klopstockstrasse

was a second-rate hotel...

...the Pension Klopstock, which housed

the German High Command's...

...notorious school for spies.

Here were trained hundreds

of recruits for the Abwehr...

...Germany's super-secret espionage

and sabotage service.

Like Dietrich,

many of his classmates...

...had been recruited

in the United States.

And back to the United States

they would go...

...when they were properly equipped.

Synthesis of the FBI's

counterespionage offensive...

...in World War II

is the Christopher case...

...which opened, as great cases

often do, by accident.

A little accident

at Bowling Green in New York City.

Hey, look out!

Christopher, Christopher.

Might as well take it easy, Joe.

He's through.

Somewhere in the

dark web of war was Christopher...

...the dead man's companion...

...the man who had retrieved

his friend's briefcase and vanished.

Who was he?

He's got a Spanish

passport. Francisco Ruiez.

Hey, doc, look at this.

It's all in German.

Stuff about ships, I think.

Yes.

That means, uh...

That means incendiary bullet.

"Weight 148 grains. Load 46 grains.

Dupont 11-27 powder. "

Can you read Spanish too?

Something funny about this.

We better get his fingerprints

and turn them over to the FBl.

Fingerprint him.

To the desk of

FBI Inspector George A. Briggs...

...came the report

on the death of Francisco Ruiez.

In the FBI Identification Division...

...are nearly 100 million sets

of fingerprints...

...so organized that it takes

less than five minutes...

...to identify a set of fingerprints

with those on file.

No fingerprints were listed

under the name of Francisco Ruiez.

But regardless of name,

once his print was classified...

...a search for the individual's identity

was a simple matter.

There's something coming now.

Yeah, it's in cipher.

This stuff is fugitive.

We better get a shot of it

before it dissolves.

Set.

Okay.

- Send a copy to Cryptanalysis.

- Yes, sir.

- Is this what you're looking for?

- I'll see.

It certainly is. Thanks a lot, Quinn.

Here it is, Mr. Briggs.

Oh, thank you.

That translates, "Mr. Christopher

will concentrate on Process 97. "

- What's that?

- Well, Herr Christof...

...Mr. Christopher will concentrate

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