J. Edgar Hoover's FBI - The Bobby Sox Bandit Queen | 3

American History Tellers

Wondery

Society & Culture, Kids & Family, History, Education For Kids

4.7 • 18.3K Ratings

🗓️ 24 April 2019

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

During the mid-1930s, the FBI’s public relations department had effectively changed the image of its agents from accountants into action heroes; and its director, from a bureaucrat into an American icon. They pushed stories about heroic G-men facing off against violent foes, gunning them down in self-defense. And the press ate it up. But in April 1939, an FBI agent shot and killed a small town bank robber — in the back. The real story didn’t fit the FBI’s new heroic narrative. So Hoover changed it. Using his public relations machine, Hoover would twist the average story of a small-time midwestern criminal into one final, heroic, spellbinding triumph of the FBI.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, prime members, you can listen to American History Tellers add free on Amazon Music,
0:05.6	download the app today.
0:09.6	Imagine it's April 6, 1939, about seven in the evening midtown St. Louis.
0:23.9	You're finishing up a cup of coffee with a woman you just met.
0:27.5	Her name's Naomi Richards.
0:29.4	She's fidgeting nervously, tearing a paper napkin to shreds.
0:33.0	But you relax, you make me nervous.
0:35.8	How can I relax?
0:37.6	Everybody is after you, Ben.
0:39.3	Look, your brother is the only person in St. Louis who would even recognize me.
0:44.0	And he's in prison, besides he would never give me up.
0:47.9	Naomi's brother, Whitey Kyle, was your cellmate in the Missouri State Penitentiary during
0:52.5	the two years you served there for bank robbery.
0:55.4	That was before the two banks in South Dakota, though.
0:58.3	The four things started to get out of hand.
1:00.5	You're right, he wouldn't.
1:02.4	Can we just get this over with?
1:03.9	You reach under the table and carefully pass Naomi $200 cash in a dirty envelope.
1:09.0	Are we finished?
1:10.7	Just make sure you get that money to your brother.
1:12.8	He needs it in there.
1:13.8	I will, I promise.
	...

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