FBI Reform in the United States
Federal Bureau of Investigation: History Scandal and Reform After Hoover
Introduction to FBI Reform
Hoover died in 1972, almost 48 years after he first became director of the FBI. (A 1968 law limited the terms of future FBI directors to 10 years.) The Senate’s Watergate investigations of 1973 and 1974 revealed President Richard Nixon’s misuse of the FBI for his own political purposes. For example, Nixon had had the FBI wiretap prominent news reporters, White House aides, and other government officials, and he asked the agency to collect damaging information on his critics. In addition, Nixon’s chosen successor for Hoover, acting FBI director L. Patrick Gray, admitted in 1973 that he destroyed Watergate-related evidence and that he regularly showed White House counsel John Dean FBI files on the Watergate investigation; Gray subsequently resigned. The then deputy director of the FBI, W. Mark Felt, was subsequently implicated in another scandal. He was indicted and convicted of authorizing illegal break-ins related to investigations of the Weathermen terrorist group, although President Ronald Reagan later pardoned him. Ironically, Felt had been one of the key sources of Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who had been instrumental in bringing public attention to the Watergate burglary and investigation.
Other revelations of FBI misconduct surfaced in the 1970s, including COINTELPRO, Hoover’s vendetta against Martin Luther King, Jr., and the fact that Hoover had maintained a secret office file containing damaging personal information on presidents, cabinet officials, members of Congress, and other prominent Americans. The disclosures of abuses hurt the FBI’s image as a highly professional agency. Whereas 84 percent of the public had a “highly favorable” opinion of the FBI in 1966, by 1975 this figure had fallen to only 37 percent.
In response to the reports of misconduct, the U.S. Senate and House in 1975 each established special committees to investigate abuses in the FBI, CIA, and other American intelligence agencies. The committees detailed the FBI’s abuses of power and illegal investigative techniques, criticized its lack of oversight, and recommended reforms, many of which were carried out. Among other reforms, the FBI implemented guidelines that limited the agency to investigating criminal conduct rather than divergent political beliefs. Acknowledging that some of the bureau’s activities had been “clearly wrong and quite indefensible,” Clarence M. Kelley, who became FBI director in 1973, said that the FBI should never again occupy the “unique position that permitted improper activity without accountability.” Thereafter, Congress supervised the agency more closely; both the Senate and House established permanent intelligence committees to monitor the FBI’s activity.
William H. Webster, a former federal judge and prosecutor, became FBI director in 1978. Under Webster the agency conducted complex investigations of espionage, organized crime, and white-collar crime. For example, in the late 1970s, in an undercover operation code-named ABSCAM, FBI agents uncovered political corruption of members of Congress, resulting in the convictions of six U.S. representatives, one U.S. senator, and many local officials. Webster complied with many of the reforms that were instituted following the congressional probes, but he was criticized for authorizing the investigation of a left-wing group, the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), that raised money in the United States for humanitarian aid to El Salvador. Although the FBI’s investigation of the group was not illegal, it improperly delved into political activities that fell outside of the jurisdiction of the FBI.
Congress expanded the responsibilities of the FBI throughout the 1980s. After President Ronald Reagan made a “war on drugs” a policy priority, Congress granted the FBI concurrent jurisdiction with the Drug Enforcement Administration to investigate narcotics violations in the United States. After a number of terrorist acts killed Americans traveling or working abroad, Congress expanded the FBI’s jurisdiction in 1986 to include terrorist acts against American citizens conducted outside of United States territory. During the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s, the FBI investigated hundreds of bank failures and uncovered evidence of widespread fraud.” (1)
Resources
Notes and References
- Information about FBI Reform in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia
Guide to FBI Reform
In this Section
Federal Bureau of Investigation, Federal Bureau of Investigation Structure, FBI Jurisdiction and Investigative Responsibilities, FBI Agents, Law Enforcement Services, FBI Law Enforcement Services (including FBI Fingerprint Identification, FBI Laboratory, FBI Criminal Profiling, FBI Police Training, National Crime Information Center and Crime Statistics), FBI History (including FBI Early Years, Hoover Reforms, FBI in the World War II and Postwar Era, FBI Antiradical Activities, FBI Reform, Ruby Ridge, FBI Under Freeh and September 11 Attacks), FBI and the Patriot Act and National Lawyers Guild.