Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34 (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "It was a morning as bleak as the times..." (more)
Key Phrases: massacre case, stolen bonds, cat roads, Van Meter, Kansas City, Little Bohemia (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Burrough, an award-winning financial journalist and Vanity Fair special correspondent, best known for Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco, switches gears to produce the definitive account of the 1930s crime wave that brought notorious criminals like John Dillinger and Bonnie and Clyde to America's front pages. Burrough's fascination with his subject matter stems from a family connection—his paternal grandfather manned a roadblock in Arkansas during the hunt for Bonnie and Clyde—and he successfully translates years of dogged research, which included thorough review of recently disclosed FBI files, into a graceful narrative. This true crime history appropriately balances violent shootouts and schemes for daring prison breaks with a detailed account of how the slew of robberies and headlines helped an ambitious federal bureaucrat named J. Edgar Hoover transform a small agency into the FBI we know today. While some of the details (e.g., that Dillinger got a traffic ticket) are trivial, this book compellingly brings back to life people and times distorted in the popular imagination by hagiographic bureau memoirs and Hollywood. Burrough's recent New York Times op-ed piece drawing parallels between the bureau's "reinvention" in the 1930s and today's reform efforts to combat the war on terror will help attract readers looking for lessons from history.
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From The Washington Post

This fascinating book tells, in detail, the events of the War on Crime waged in the years 1933 and '34. A rich and colorful cast of characters parades through the pages. On the bad guy side, we find Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd and Alvin Karpis and the Barker family. On the side of law and order, there was J. Edgar Hoover and his FBI along with local police and other officials. The battle unfolded amid an amazing epidemic of bank robberies, part of what some people saw as a great crime wave. More than anything else, it was probably the Kansas City Massacre -- a bloody incident in June 1933, which left a pile of dead detectives and law enforcement officers -- that touched off the war. This massacre shocked the country -- and the FBI -- into action.

Crime had gone interstate, which was a new problem for the forces of law and order. The automobile gave mobility and speed to gangs of bank robbers; the machine gun gave them firepower. During the Great Depression, poverty and social disorganization were eating away at the country's social fabric. Corruption corroded the heart of local law enforcement. The FBI, a relatively new organization, was weak, untrained and uncertain. Its men were, in many ways, staggeringly incompetent. But the FBI, over the course of two tumultuous years, gradually learned how to become a sleeker, more efficient instrument. Despite its bumbling and a host of false starts, by the end of the period the FBI had won the war and the "public enemies" had lost. Bonnie and Clyde died in a hail of bullets. Dillinger was cut down outside the Biograph theater in Chicago. Kelly and Nelson were also dead. So were the Barkers. Alvin Karpis was on his way to Alcatraz.

But the good guys endured a comedy of errors before all that happened. Burrough's account is peppered with tales of missed opportunities, bad detective work, poor record-keeping and all-around sloppiness. Desperate to catch John Dillinger, in March 1934 the FBI "stormed the Chicago apartment of a woman named Anne Baker," who was supposed to have harbored Dillinger following his escape from an Indiana jail earlier that month. The raid was a "debacle." In fact, the FBI had "raided the wrong address." Even worse was the raid on "Little Bohemia," where Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson were supposed to be holed up. That raid was a fiasco. All of the criminals escaped, and the FBI ended up shooting a completely innocent man.

The public enemies were hardly geniuses, either. They, too, had their share of ludicrous errors. For example, the Karpis-Barker gang seized a hand truck, "stacked with bulging sacks" and heavily guarded, outside the Federal Reserve Building in Chicago. The gang got away -- only to discover they had stolen not money but bags of mail. In contrast, knocking off a bank appeared to be child's play. The "public enemies" raced about the country, stealing wads of cash from banks, renting apartments, buying cars, picking up women and having a good time between jobs. They were protected by a network of supporters and hangers-on (and sometimes corrupt officials). Their insatiable greed -- and their inability to stop robbing and killing -- led to their destruction,

It is a wild and amazing story, and Burrough tells it with great gusto. Truth is often not only stranger than fiction but also a lot more interesting. Burrough's research is careful and extraordinarily thorough. He debunks many of the tall tales that have accrued around these almost mythical figures. The famous woman in a red dress who betrayed John Dillinger was actually wearing an orange skirt. Machine Gun Kelly was "inept" and "never a menacing figure." Bonnie and Clyde were totally unlike the characters in the famous movie; they were "lazy drifters who murdered nearly a dozen innocent men." Most striking, perhaps, was the case of Ma Barker, grandmother and head of a family of violent crooks. That was the image. In reality, Ma Barker was a rather stupid old woman who liked to work jigsaw puzzles and had never been mastermind of anything, including crime. When she ended up with a bullet through her head, the FBI had some explaining to do. Hoover then concocted the tale of Ma Barker the master criminal, the "brains" of the gang, an evil genius who died with a machine gun in her hands, "spidery, crafty Ma Barker," whose "withered fingers" controlled the fate of her family of "desperadoes." Not a word of this was true.

In a narrow sense, the War on Crime was a great success. Hoover got what he wanted; the public enemies were put out of business. And in the process he created the modern FBI. He also advocated a bigger role for the federal government in the battle against criminal elements and established a strong federal agency to carry on that war.

Still, Hoover's legacy was a dubious one. His agency improved its skill while gaining a great deal of power that it often abused. Those abuses took various forms, such as "vigorous physical interviews" that we might call gross brutality. As the power of the FBI and its director became "absolute," the agency, according to Burrough, was itself "corrupted absolutely." The Bureau still "wrestles with" its mixed record to this day. As for the public enemies, they were really only bit-players in the drama of high crime. As Burrough points out, law enforcement launched no "broader drives on the Chicago Syndicate or Italian Mafias, no war on counterfeiting or other crimes." Nor was there any attack on the rot and corruption of the cities, on the crooked sheriffs and police lieutenants and the vast interconnections between the agencies of organized crime. Dillinger, the Barkers and the others were, in fact, disorganized crime. They robbed and they killed, but they did not, in the main, threaten the fabric of society, the texture of local and state government or the integrity of law enforcement.

Public Enemies is a significant book, and a very readable one. It is easy to toss around terms like "definitive," but this book deserves it. It is hard to imagine a more careful, complete and entrancing book on this subject, and on this era. Readers will not be disappointed.

Copyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 624 pages
• Publisher: The Penguin Press; First Edition edition (July 15, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594200211
• ISBN-13: 978-1594200212
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.2 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (85 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #314,088 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Triumph of research and story telling, September 29, 2004

By	Richard E. Hourula (Berkeley, CA. United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Reading "Public Enemies" is to be transported to the United States of the 1930's. The country seemed peopled with colorful, if ultimately dangerous, criminals like John Dillinger, Bonnie & Clyde and Pretty Boy Floyd and their more anonymous counterparts in law enforcement.
Author Bryan Burroughs re-creates the times, the language, the attitudes, the mores as he tells the story of the rise and fall of celebrity criminals. This is one of those works of non-fiction that is awe inspiring for the breadth and depth of its research alone. That the author is a good storyteller adds to the books magic.
One of the more striking realizations from reading "Public Enemies" was how much the movies of the time and immediately after actually captured the talk and manner and actions of these famous criminals and the fates that awaited them.
Also noteworthy is the transformation of the FBI and others in law enforcement from a bumbling bunch of Keystone Cops to an efficient crime fighting force. The first half of the book is replete with bungled arrests, leads not followed and daring escapes under the very noses of the law.
Some may feel that Burroughs goes into excessive detail in following the daily paths of the criminals. But this reader was fascinated and enjoyed the ride. Prior to "Public Enemies" I knew little about the charismatic Dillinger and didn't know my Pretty Boy Floyd, from my Baby Face Nelson from my Machine Gun Kelly. Now I'm well acquainted with these characters and those who pursued them.
If one can temporarily ignore the cost in lives and resources inflicted by these criminals their stories is as the best of fiction, with daring deeds, colorful characters, shootouts and ultimate justice.
Burroughs places the people and events in context of the times and reveals how the successful killing and capture of these very public enemies led to the rise of the FBI and its director J. Edgar Hoover. This is not a particularly flattering portrait of Hoover (frankly, I don't think he deserves one). Seen in a far better light are the anonymous agents and police who put in considerable time and their lives on the line in pursuit of the public enemies.
This is an awesome book with an appeal to those already well versed in the times and events and those seeking an introduction to them.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Dillinger Canon Gets A New Tome, August 2, 2004

By	Ellen Poulsen "Author" (New York City) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

When I first opened this credible, well-researched book, I was delighted to see photos of the FBI agents I have admired in my own Dillinger research. For the first time, a face to the men who put their lives on the line to hunt the public enemies of the 1930s! Also, as a person who has researched the Dillinger women for almost two decades, my delight with the book was established at the respect Burrough paid to the molls. Doris Lockerman's eyewitness account of the night Melvin Purvis helped Frechette, by letting her sleep during the endless interrogation - that is not an anti-FBI story but a pro-FBI story.

The term "plagiarism," in one review, confuses me completely. The use of quotes originally published under copyright by Melvin Purvis, is "fair use," not "plagiarism." Fair use is defined by publishing law, and there is no evidence of such encroachment here. In defense of quoting Melvin Purvis - the man was hounded and silenced by Hoover. It is important that readers, who may not have purchased Purvis's book, get the vantage point of his own opinions.

I agree with Rick Mattix that downloadable FBI documents are the tip of the iceberg. The FBI Reading Room holds the true history in the 38,000 pages on file in the stacks. Burrough has widely, and accurately, cited those documents.

And where is it written that historians can no longer examine the role of Melvin Purvis? Mr. Purvis, one of my heroes in the Dillinger saga, has inspired controversy since his original role in the FBI ended. Mr. Burrough went to great length to feature the faces of the FBI agents in a never-before published photo gallery. He honored their role by doing so.

For readers who hunger for more information on the peripheral gang members, there is a lot of new material. The true address of the St. Andrews Hotel in New York City, for instance, where John Paul Chase lammed with Sally Bachman, is one important detail I've never seen. Also, Burrough confirmed my suspicions that Lester Gillis never trusted Bachman. This book offers many levels upon which the reader can discern with intelligence and objectivity.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating story, well-told., August 1, 2004

By	Arrowleaf - See all my reviews

"Public Enemies" is a an excellent book, loaded with detail and extremely readable. Burrough's unique approach to the subject matter (showing how the careers of the criminals and their pursuers intertwined over a remarkably short period of time) allows us to see ALL sides of the people and the events involved. As a result, it is neither pro-criminal nor pro-FBI -- rather it is a fascinating documentary of a remarkable time period in American history.