The fBI and American Neutrality, 1914-1917

We are proud to announce the publication of Volume 2 of our series, The federal Bureau of Investigation before Hoover. The second volume is titled The fBI and American Neutrality, 1914-1917. Publication date is set for November 20. We will take pre-orders starting with November 1. And, here is the deal: The pre-order book from this site will be signed! So, keep an eye on our shop. Of course, the books will also be available on Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, and other Internet booksellers. Selected bookstores will offer the book as well.

Here is the first editorial review we received from William Beezley, a highly accomplished scholar, teaching at Heribert von Feilitzsch’s alma mater, the University of Arizona in Tucson:

The federal Bureau of Investigation before Hoover Volume II: The fBI and American Neutrality, 1914-1917

 Excellence describes this book. The manuscript demonstrates exceptional characteristics in three major ways: 1) The research demonstrates superior historical skills, including an acceptance of the sources that exist rather than attempt to determine what sources will work in one methodology or another; 2) It is a fresh interpretation of the significance of the Bureau of Investigation in the years when the US remained officially neutral in World War I, ignoring previous conclusions, reached, as the authors show, through political motives; and 3) A  careful discussion of programs imagined, dismissed  or ignored in previous monographs.

The authors used sources ignored or only sampled by other authors, even official FBI ones. Here the authors have reviewed the official Bureau of Investigation’s files on the Mexican Revolution that include more than 70,000 pages of reports, correspondence, and files and for the Neutrality Period and World War I, 1914 to 1918, an additional 450,000 pages known as the “Old German Files,” all declassified in 1977. This investigation alone makes the book stand out.

Reviewing the massive archive of documents, the authors decided to organize the manuscript topically so that readers do not become confused with overlapping cases and events. The topics divided into fifteen chapters that focus on such themes as attacks on Canada (1914 to 1916), conspiracies involving the Hindu-German and Irish groups (1915-1918), the campaign of firebombing and sabotage (1915-1917), Pancho Villa and his attacks on US interests (1915-1916), and the Carranza and Wilson administrations’ conflicts (1915-1917). This topical organization gives the text a clarity of narrative.

It is this narrative that moves the book beyond the simple explication of international politics or government administrative policies to a sophisticated analysis of the development taken for granted by other authors. For example, the Bureau built and successfully prosecuted many legal cases against German plotters. Still the Bureau missed some major actions such as the unprecedented attack on the United States in July 1916, when the German sabotage cell of Paul Hilken and Friedrich Hinsch caused the explosion at Black Tom Island in the New York Harbor. It was only resolved after World War II.

Moreover the case of the Albert portfolio provides the most striking theme in the book. President Wilson permitted the  British to campaign for US entry into the war on the side of the Allies. The publication of the contents of Heinrich Albert’s briefcase is linked to the president in support of British propaganda efforts. The authors show clearly the Albert briefcase affair, as told in accounts by a dozen or so historians, unfolded in an entirely different manner.

The conclusion is clear: read this book for a clear explanation of what took place during the period when the US remained out of World War I! It is excellent!