Mr.
Schiff: Hi, welcome to "FBI 100, A Closer
Look." I'm Neal Schiff of the Bureau's Office
of Public Affairs along with FBI Historian Dr.
John Fox. John, last week we talked about World
War II and the FBI's role in protecting the United
States. How did things change for the FBI when
the war started?
Dr.
Fox: "Well Neal, as soon as the Bureau learned
of the attack on Pearl Harbor it went on a 24-hour
a day schedule, and it began ramping up its operations
even more. We'd added hundreds of personnel over
the previous years in our Records Division; in
our Identification services; but with the onset
of the war, those divisions were increased even
more. We went from a few thousand employees to
more than 13,000 by 1944. So in the short space
of three years we'd increased by almost 10,000
employees, if not more."
Mr. Schiff: Was there an increase in the number
of Special Agents?
Dr. Fox: "Not only Professional Support
personnel but Special Agents as well were increased
greatly. The biggest increase, of course, came
in the Support personnel because we needed file
clerks; we needed Identification clerks; we needed
people to start doing intelligence analysis and
a wide range of other functions that were needed
but we also needed more investigators and so we
hired thousands more Special Agents, too."
Mr.
Schiff: What
about the search for spies in the U.S.?
Dr.
Fox: "That had been our responsibility since
World War I. In the mid 1930s when the Army and
the Navy began noticing a lot more military espionage
going on, the FBI began ramping up its Counterespionage
operations. And we kept them up throughout the
war. Our Special Intelligence Service in South
and Central America was especially helpful because
a lot of the Nazi spy plots were coming out of
our southern neighbors and targeting the U.S.,
and so by intercepting those agents and taking
over their radio networks, for instance, we were
able to really control German intelligence in
the United States."
Mr.
Schiff:
From the FBI's Public Affairs office, along with
Bureau Historian Dr. John Fox, I'm Neal Schiff
with "FBI 100, A Closer Look."
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