J. Edgar Hoover, who took the helm of the Bureau of Investigation in 1924, is regularly credited with the birth of the agency. Yet, the Bureau existed since 1908, provided intelligence, and enforced the neutrality laws for the US government through the tumultuous years of the Mexican Revolution and World War I. It is on the backs of the early federal agents of the Justice Department that the modern FBI emerged. This is the story of these pioneer special agents and their leaders, who on a shoestring budget battled political headwinds and local resistance, to try and prevent the civil war in Mexico from spilling into the homeland.

“The authors’ meticulous research fills in longstanding gaps in our understanding of the history of counterintelligence in this critical period. It’s a valuable complement to their earlier works and a must-read for anyone interested in the intelligence war during the Mexican Revolution.”

— Mark E. Benbow,

Marymount University

“Deftly researched and written, The fBI and Mexican Revolutionists, 1908-1914 digs into national and military archives by way of cross-disciplinary approaches and through a web of political conflicts in foreign lands, both distant and near. A major achievement in the study of U.S. international intelligence and national security, told lucidly, with keen insight, and in full command of its manifold sources.”

— Roberto Cantú,

California State University, Los Angeles

“Instant Classic is the only description for The fBI and the Mexican Revolutionists, 1908-1914. Heribert von Feilitzsch and Charles H. Harris III have written this first volume of a multi-book series that provides analysis of the only aspect of the revolution that has never been investigated. In every sense of classic, the authors have done extensive, thorough research that others have found impossible in the FBI archives, and collections, such as military intelligence, in several countries; they have written with clarity and sophistication about the issues of US-revolutionary relations, outlined foreign, e.g. German, intrigue along the border, and given interpretative depth to historical accounts of the revolution. Ray Sadler, before his untimely death, had searched out materials for decades on this topic, so the book is a marvelous salute to him. As for classroom professors and textbook authors of the Mexican revolution this book must be incorporated in their narrative of the world’s first social revolution.”

— William H. Beezley,

University of Arizona