William Burns, America's Sherlock Holmes (1934)

This Day in Esoteric Political History

Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia

History

4.6 • 982 Ratings

🗓️ 21 May 2023

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It’s May 21st. This day in 1934, William Burns resigns from the Bureau of Investigations in scandal, replaced by J Edgar Hoover.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss how Burns had gained the reputation as “America’s Sherlock Holmes” as an independent investigator, then eventually was brought in to run the BOI — before eventually getting enveloped in various corruption scandals.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.
0:07.0	My name is J.
0:08.0	J. Avrogant.
0:10.0	This day, May 1934, J. Edgar Hoover takes over as the head of the Bureau of
0:17.3	Investigations, which is a predecessor to the FBI, after William Burns is
0:21.5	forced to resign.
0:22.6	Now you may be thinking to yourself,
0:24.3	ah, here's a nice little angle for this podcast to talk about Hoover,
0:27.1	who of course ruled the FBI for decades and decades,
0:29.8	one of the most influential and interesting characters in American history.
0:34.0	But no, let's actually look at the other guy, the guy that Hoover was replacing, the guy on
0:38.0	the way out the door, William Burns, because Burns was indeed the head of the Bureau of Investigation at that moment and was, before
0:45.7	Hoover came along, the most famous intelligence officer in America.
0:50.1	And he was a huge cultural figure, too, often referred to as America's Sherlock Holmes.
0:55.1	So let's talk about why William Burns was forced to resign and also this is our chance to do
0:59.2	a little profile of a very interesting character who got up to a lot of stuff got his fingers in a lot of
1:04.0	pies I would say so here to do that as always Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly
1:09.0	Carter Jackson of Wellesley hello there hello J Hey there. You want to start at the beginning or at the end?
1:15.3	You want to talk about why he's on his way out or how it's a mystery Jody? We've got to start at the beginning.
1:19.7	Oh really? That's how it works. Don't you show the what do they call the body drop at the beginning?
1:25.2	Let's show the body.
1:26.2	Historians need chronology. He's on his way out in this moment because he's super corrupt there that's my
	...

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