© Neal N. Boenzi/The New York TimesJ. Edgar Hoover was F.B.I. director from 1924 to 1972.
The movie
J. Edgar is once again focusing attention on Director J. Edgar Hoover and the imperious way he ran the FBI for almost 48 years. Nothing illustrates that better than the case of John Dillinger.
Of all the gangsters of the era, Dillinger was the most notorious. Beginning in 1933, his gang commanded the attention of the bureau and the media with a crime spree through the Midwest. After a series of 10 bank heists, the murder of a police officer, and a holdup of a police station to obtain guns and ammunition, Dillinger escaped from jail in Crown Point, Ind.
On April 22, 1934, FBI agents received a tip that Dillinger, "Baby Face" Nelson, and other members of Dillinger's gang were at Little Bohemia Lodge, a summer resort 50 miles north of Rhinelander, Wisc. Melvin H. Purvis, the special agent in charge in Chicago, led his agents to the lodge, intending to surround it. But barking dogs gave them away.
Purvis told his men to be ready to fire. Alarmed by the commotion, three local residents who had stopped by the lodge for a cocktail ran outside and tried to drive away. In the dark, the men did not see the agents. Nor, with engines running, could they hear the command to surrender. The agents opened fire on them, killing one innocent man and wounding the other two.
Alerted by the gunfire, Dillinger and his gang escaped through the back windows of the lodge.
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