Thomas Hunt

Gangster Hunters How Hoover’s G-Men Vanquished America’s Deadliest Public Enemies by John Oller John Oller’s meticulously researched account of the FBI’s early days is due to be released by Dutton (imprint of Penguin Publishing Group) on November 26, 2024. John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd – these infamous Depression-era criminals have been immortalized as some of the most vicious felons in our history, but they share another commonality: every single one was brought down by the Federal Bureau of Investigation during a chaotic war on crime, which started in 1933 and thrust the FBI into the national spotlight for the first time.  Surprisingly little has been written about field-level agents responsible for hunting down the most dangerous criminals and bringing them to justice... until now. In this new book, Gangster Hunters , critically acclaimed author John Oller (also author of the 2021 release Rogues Galle...

Informer's November 2024 issue, The Treacherous World of Joseph Valachi , has been released and is now widely available in magazine, book and electronic formats. The issue focuses on Mafia informant Valachi, his time and place, and many of the individuals who played roles in his life. A rare primary source into American Mafia history of the Castellammarese War-era, Joseph Valachi also described early gangland of East Harlem and the Bronx, and provided a unique soldier-level view of New York-area organized crime from the days of Prohibition up to Apalachin. An early FBI informant, Valachi became the focus of a best-selling book and a popular movie, as well as televised Senate testimony and a lengthy autobiography. Despite this coverage, a great deal of the true Valachi story has remained untold. Now, 60 years after Valachi put pen to paper in an effort to bring his story to the attention of the public, a team of historians from around the globe is revealing long hidden asp...

Some Kennedy assassination-related documents released through the National Archives last week (October 26, 2017) and earlier this year (July 24, 2017) discussed CIA cooperation with American organized criminals in an effort to assassinate Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. The documents revealed little about CIA-underworld interaction that was not already known to historians through other sources, but the release provides an occasion to reflect upon that interaction and its aftermath. Another release of documents is expected in six months' time. Any additional pages will likely be in general agreement with those we already have. The key features of the government-underworld conspiracy appear to be these: A small group of CIA officials decided to accomplish the assassination of Cuba's Communist President Fidel Castro by working with American Mafiosi, who had been deprived of Havana casino income by Castro's rise to power. No written approvals of the plan by top CIA adminis...

TIME photograph Last night, the U.S. National Archives publicly released 2,891 previously classified documents relating to the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The documents are accessible to the public through the National Archives website . National Archives The release was made in accordance with a law passed in 1992, which required that assassination records be made public after 25 years. Then-President George H.W. Bush signed the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act on Oct. 26, 1992, setting a final release date of Oct. 26, 2017. A batch of 3,810 documents were released July 24, several months before the deadline. A last remaining batch of at least 3,140 files - many thousands of pages - remained secret through the final day, waiting on a release authorization by President Donald Trump. In the evening, President Trump issued a memorandum approving the release of 2,891 of the remaining files but permitting an additional six months of revie...