FBI Turns 103

Charles Bonaparte

FBI Turns 103

On July 26, 1908, Attorney General Charles Bonaparte ordered Department of Justice attorneys to refer most investigative matters to the chief examiner, Stanley W. Finch, who would lead a small corps of special agents. The organization had neither a name nor an officially designated leader. Yet, the former detectives and Secret Service men were the forerunners of the FBI.

Both Attorney General Bonaparte and President Theodore Roosevelt, who completed their terms in March 1909, recommended that the force of 34 agents become a permanent part of the Department of Justice. Attorney General George Wickersham, Bonaparte's successor, named the force the Bureau of Investigation on March 16, 1909. At that time, the title of chief examiner was changed to chief of the Bureau of Investigation. 

The Bureau of Investigation was renamed the United States Bureau of Investigation on July 1, 1932. Then, beginning July 1, 1933, the Department of Justice experimented for almost two years with a Division of Investigation that included the Bureau of Prohibition. Public confusion between Bureau of Investigation special agents and Prohibition agents led to a permanent name change in 1935 for the agency composed of Department of Justice's investigators: the Federal Bureau of Investigation was thus born.

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