June 4, 2008
Media contact::
Mike Fetters (202/292-6320)
"G-MEN AND JOURNALISTS: TOP NEWS STORIES OF THE FBI'S FIRST CENTURY" OPENS JUNE 20 AT THE NEWSEUM
Exhibit Press Preview Tuesday, June 17
WASHINGTON, D.C., June 4 — The Newseum’s first major changing exhibit features some of the biggest cases — and dramatic evidence — from the FBI’s first 100 years, including the Unabomber’s cabin, John Dillinger’s death mask and the electric chair in which convicted Lindbergh baby kidnapper Bruno Hauptmann was executed.
"G-Men and Journalists: Top News Stories of the FBI’s First Century" opens Friday, June 20. With themes and artifacts drawn from FBI case files and the nation’s front pages, the exhibition explores the role of the media in shaping the bureau’s image and the sometimes cooperative, sometimes combative relationship between the press and the FBI.
The exhibition, on display through June 2009, features approximately 200 artifacts drawn from the FBI evidence vaults and the collections of other museums, reporters, law-enforcement professionals, private collectors and the Newseum. The largest artifact is the 10-by-12-foot cabin where Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski lived — and was arrested — in rural Montana. Among the smallest is a hollow nickel that held a coded message and was linked to the arrest of Soviet spy Rudolf Abel.
"G-Men and Journalists” also features nearly 300 photographs and dozens of historic newspaper front pages and magazines from the Newseum collection.
The exhibit introduction explains how the press was crucial to the creation of the FBI’s carefully crafted image of trained agents using scientific methods to stamp out crime. The FBI needed public support, and the press helped them get it. In turn, the news media used sensational crime stories to stoke sales.
“Before the FBI building tour closed to the public after 9/11, it was one of the most popular attractions in Washington,” said Newseum Executive Director Joe Urschel. “We want to share these amazing artifacts from the FBI evidence vault with the public in an exhibit that looks at the complicated relationship between the FBI and the media.”
One of the FBI’s longest-running programs — the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives — was the result of a newspaper story. In 1949, International News Service reporter James F. Donovan asked the FBI: “Who are the 10 toughest guys you are looking for?” The FBI gave him a list. Donovan’s front-page report in The Washington Daily News displayed photos of four escapees, three con men, two murder suspects and a bank robber. The list was a hit, and some of the fugitives were captured as a result. The next year the FBI started the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives program.
The FBI’s law enforcement responsibilities and the news media’s role as watchdog put them at odds. Both say the other sometimes overstepped its bounds. With the cultural and political shifts of the 1960s — characterized by a mistrust of government — that tension increased. Journalists chronicled stories of FBI abuses that tarnished the bureau’s reputation. In the post-9/11 era, balancing national security and civil liberties has added new complexities.
Hoover and the Media
Visitors first encounter a display on J. Edgar Hoover, FBI director from 1924 to 1972. Hoover cultivated friendly reporters, sending them “Interesting Case” memos with inside details about the FBI’s crime-solving skills, but he also called journalists who wrote negative stories “jackals” and monitored some of them, including muckraking columnist Jack Anderson, Los Angeles Times reporter Jack Nelson, publisher I.F. Stone, Marvin Kalb of CBS and The New York Times’s William Beecher and Hedrick Smith.
Artifacts in this section of the exhibit include the desk, chair and office accessories that Hoover used during his career, a Hoover memo urging wiretapping of the telephone of New York Times reporter William Beecher, and several magazines featuring Hoover on the cover, including a 1935 Time (“His quarry has a gun in his hand, murder in his heart’); a 1947 Newsweek (“How to Fight Communism by J. Edgar Hoover”); a 1971 Life (“Emperor of the FBI”); and a 1975 Time (“The Truth About Hoover”) published three years after Hoover’s death.
The Stories
The exhibition is divided into 14 main sections, each examining a major case or aspect of the FBI’s first century and the related role of the media.
"Crime of the Century" recalls how the world was shocked in 1932 when the 20-month-old son of Charles Lindbergh was kidnapped. A go-between communicated with the kidnapper via newspaper ads, and the Lindberghs paid a $50,000 ransom. Soon after, the child’s body was found, and President Herbert Hoover ordered the Bureau of Investigation into the case. In 1934, carpenter Bruno Richard Hauptmann was arrested. The trial was a media circus, with as many as 500 journalists chronicling the courtroom drama. Unauthorized newsreels appeared, leading most states to ban cameras in court. Artifacts in this display include the electric chair in which Hauptmann was executed in 1936.
"Don’t Shoot, G-Men!" looks at the gangster crime wave of the 1930s and how newspaper tales of the FBI’s pursuit of John “Public Enemy No. 1” Dillinger, George “Machine Gun” Kelly, Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd, George “Baby Face” Nelson and other high-profile gangsters captivated Depression-weary Americans and raised the agency’s profile. Along with Page One coverage of the “war on crime,” this area of the exhibit features a variety of weapons from the gangsters and the straw boater, eyeglasses and La Corona-Belvedere cigar that Dillinger had on him the night the FBI gunned him down outside Chicago’s Biograph movie theater.
"A Mad Bomber and His Manifesto" focuses on the FBI’s 17-year search for the Unabomber, whose homemade bombs killed three people and injured 23 others. Despite an investigation that spanned eight states and involved approximately 500 agents, the FBI was making little progress until, in 1995, the Unabomber mailed a 35,000-word essay to The New York Times and The Washington Post. If it was published, he vowed, he would “desist from terrorism.”
After much debate, the Post printed the manifesto, with the Times sharing the costs. Months later, a tip arrived from the bomber’s brother, eventually leading the FBI to a small cabin in rural Montana where the Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski, was arrested.
One of the central artifacts in "G-Men and Journalists" is the 10-by-12-foot cabin that was Kaczynski’s home for 20 years.
Among other exhibit displays: “America’s Protectors: The FBI Snares Nazis”; “Getting the Godfather: The FBI and Organized Crime”; “Spy Catchers: Fighting Espionage, From the Rosenbergs to Hanssen”; “Mississippi Burning: The FBI and the Civil Rights Movement”; “Kidnapped: Patty Hearst and the SLA”; “Disaster in Waco: Branch Davidian Siege”; “Terrorism in the Heartland: Oklahoma City Bombing”; and “The Terror of a Random Killer: D.C. Sniper.”
“G-Men and Journalists” also includes interactive experiences and a number of brief video documentaries about several of these ripped-from-the-headlines cases, featuring interviews with FBI agents and the reporters who covered the stories.
Throughout the summer, the Newseum will present a series of public programs featuring current and former FBI agents, authors, historians and journalists. Guests already scheduled to participate in the “G-Men and Journalists” public programs series include best-selling author Ron Kessler (June 21); CNN correspondent Kelli Arena and FBI public affairs director John Miller (June 22); ABC News correspondent Pierre Thomas (June 29); FBI historian John Fox (July 26); and ABC News “Nightline” correspondent Vicki Mabrey (Aug. 23).
"G-Men and Journalists: Top News Stories from the FBI's First Century" is located in the Newseum's ABC News Changing Exhibits Gallery on the Concourse Level. This is the first major exhibition in the gallery, which was developed to explore a wide range of media issues with displays on breaking news, media trends, news-event anniversaries and top photography.
About the Newseum
The Newseum — a 250,000-square-foot museum of news — offers visitors an experience that blends five centuries of news history with up-to-the-second technology and hands-on exhibits.
The Newseum features seven levels of galleries, theaters, retail spaces and visitor services. It offers a unique environment that takes museum-goers behind the scenes to experience how and why news is made.
The Newseum is located at the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue and Sixth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C., on America’s Main Street between the White House and the U.S. Capitol and adjacent to the Smithsonian museums on the National Mall. The exterior’s unique architectural features include a 74-foot-high marble engraving of the First Amendment and an immense front wall of glass through which passers-by can watch the museum fulfilling its mission of providing a forum where the media and the public can gain a better understanding of each other.
The Newseum is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily and is closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. Admission is $20 for adults, $18 for seniors (65 and older), $13 for youth (7-12). Press Pass annual memberships are available for $75 for adults, $50 for seniors, and $25 for youth. For additional information, the public may call 888/NEWSEUM (888/639-7386) or visit newseum.org.