Foreign spies and the theft of military and industrial secrets were real threats during the 1930s as the United States faced an impending war. The nation’s lack of security on those fronts was also a problem. Enter J. Edgar Hoover and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Raymond J. Batvinis, former FBI special agent and adjunct professor at The Institute of World Politics, has written an authoritative account of the Bureau’s early years, and will present some of this history’s most interesting points in a lecture at the Library of Congress on Thursday, November 8, at 12:00 noon.
Professor Batvinis will also be available to sign copies of his new book, "The Origins of FBI Counterintelligence." The lecture and book-signing will be held in the Mary Pickford Theater on the third floor of the Library of Congress’s James Madison Building, 101 Independence Ave., S.E., Washington, D.C. The event is free and open to the public; no tickets are required.
The program is co-sponsored by the Library’s Manuscript Division, which Batvinis consulted extensively in his research about the FBI’s response to the world crises of the 1930s and 1940s. Batvinis also draws on newly declassified documents and interviews with former FBI agents in his reconstruction and analysis of how the FBI, before World War II, grew from a small law enforcement unit into America’s first organized counterespionage and counterintelligence service.
Batvinis was a special agent of the FBI from 1972 to 1997 and also served in the FBI Intelligence Division Training Unit. His course, “History of FBI Counterintelligence,” is being offered for the first time in the upcoming Spring 2008 semester at The Institute of World Politics.