The fierce competition between Eliot Ness and J Edgar Hoover.

This huge warehouse occupies a block of South Wabash Avenue in Chicago. Curtains and barbed wire blocked the window. Iron bars reinforced the double-decker door. The signboard says "old and reliable freight company", but the building smells of beer brewing yeast. At the dawn of April 193 1 10, a truck weighing 10 tons, with a steel bumper, rushed into the double doors. When the alarm went off, prohibition officials rushed into the winery and arrested five brewers. Then, they began to blow up the brewing equipment, erect vats and open wooden barrels. They sent beer worth $654.38 +0.5 million into the sewer.

Eliot Ness is here again. "When you drive a truck to the door of a brewery and smash it in, I think it's very interesting," Ness told reporters. No one had the courage to challenge Capone before, and then there was no agent like Nice in the Prohibition Bureau. In a department known for corruption and incompetence, he is famous for refusing bribes exceeding his annual salary. He is 28 years old and graduated from college. He has blue-gray eyes, smooth black hair and a square chin. He has a way with the media. When he began to call his men "untouchables", because their abuse of Capone's men was reminiscent of India's lowest caste, reporters used this nickname to describe the team's refusal to accept bribes. Soon, newspapers all over the country were celebrating Nice becoming Capone's sworn enemy.

But two years later, raids, arrests and prosecutions in Nice became popular. Capone went to prison, the untouchables were dissolved, and the last days of prohibition passed day by day. Ness was transferred to Cincinnati, where he chased the moonlight at the foot of Appalachia. In order to win the honor again, he applied for a job in the budding investigation department of J. Edgar Hoover of the future FBI. Former American lawyer in Chicago

Write to remend Ness. Hoover accelerated the background check. One of his agents shuttled through the windy city to collect comments on the applicant's courage, wisdom and honesty. The current American lawyer told Special Agent Ness that this was "beyond reproach". 1933 1 1 month,

After spending a weekend in the prohibition office in Chicago, Ness talked with a friend on the phone about his prospects. "The boss is taking advantage of his influence," he said. "Everything looks fine." He said he only accepted agents in charge of the Chicago office. He spoke so loudly that another prohibition agent heard him. Soon, the news reached the secret service in charge of the investigation department in Chicago.

After seeing Ness' recommendation letter, Hoover wrote to him on1October 27, 165438, pointing out that the starting salary of the staff of the investigation department is $2,465 a year, which is far lower than the salary of $3,800 that Ness listed as his senior prohibition agent. Hoover asked, "Please tell this department whether you are willing to accept a normal starting salary if you can use your service.

There is no record of Ness response. Maybe he never got a chance.

The next day, the agent in charge of Chicago began to send a series of memos-41page reports, observations and records to the Washington headquarters. These memos form the core of a confidential document of the FBI 100, which was kept secret for 80 years until it was made public to me according to the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act. In the catalogue of innuendos and assassinations, the document contains a disturbing accusation that untouchable clues are not at all. In addition, it also reveals that Hoover still bears a grudge against Ness in their career, even after Ness' death.

This hatred began a week after the director asked Ness about his salary requirements. 1933 On February 4, the day before the ban ended, Hoover sat at his desk with a document in his hand. In an overheard phone conversation memo, he scribbled: "I don't think we need this applicant."

Elliotness, 23, has a degree in business administration and one year's experience in investigating boring insurance claims. He signed a contract with the Ministry of Finance to become an agent for prohibition. (Collection of the National Law Enforcement Museum, 20 12.39.2) As an agent of the Prohibition Bureau, Nice made headlines for sabotaging brewers and brewers. (OFF/AFP/Getty Images) However, Ness could not file charges against Al-Capone, who in turn violated the tax regulations. As the days of illegal drinking passed, Ness looked for new opportunities in glory and turned to Hoover. (Keystone/Getty Images) After john dillinger was killed, Hoover extended his hand to Melvin Puvis, but his kindness didn't last long. (Betty Mann/Corbis) Harold Burton, Cleveland's "Boy Scout Mayor", named Ness, 33 years old, is a city policeman and fire chief. (Colby) Nice returned to Cleveland and ran for mayor at 1947. After the landslide failed, he told a friend that he blamed Hoover. (AP photo) robert stark plays Nice in the TV series "Unselfish", which makes the audience mistakenly think that he is an FBI agent. Eliot Ness's troubles began with a surprise attack that he didn't launch. 1933 On August 25th, a Polish immigrant named Joe Kulak cooked a batch of moonshine in the basement of a house in the south of Chicago, and three Prohibition agents raided his 200-gallon distiller. Kulak handed them two pieces of paper, one typed and the other written in pencil. "This place was approved by the office of the United States Senator," read the note with the name of the assistant of Illinois Senator Hamilton Lewis. The same information is written on the pencil, but Lewis's office address in Chicago is added: "or see E.Ness"

Before that, E.Ness seemed destined to join hands with Hoover. 1902 was born in the south and his parents were Norwegian immigrants. Baker Peter Ness and his wife Emma instilled a strict sense of integrity in their youngest son. After obtaining a bachelor's degree in business from the University of Chicago, he followed his brother-in-law into the Prohibition Bureau. Later, he returned to university and studied under the guidance of criminologist August Vollmer. Wall acquiesced that beating the police is usually a lack of training, and those who are grateful to political sponsors and prone to corruption should be replaced by people who are isolated from politics. Their professional education is as thorough as that of doctors and lawyers.

The United States needs such legislators, such as the corruption of prohibition gives way to more desperate crimes, bank robberies and kidnappings during the Great Depression. In the summer of 1933, Homer Cummings, the attorney general of the United States, declared a new war against crime and gave Hoover free control, turning the once unknown bureau of investigation into a powerful new department (it will be renamed the FBI in 1935). Hoover hired agents with college education and decent family background. He also punished them for leaving leftovers on the table, or ignoring the typos in the memo, or being one minute late for work. However, as Congress passed a law expanding the list of federal crimes, his department became a place where any ambitious legislator wanted to work.

Melvin Purves is Hoover's agent. He is the son of a bank director and planter in South Carolina. 1927, left the town law firm to join the department. He is lofty and noble, his voice is loud and slow, like Hoover, a little * * *, and he likes to wear a straw hat and a double-breasted suit decorated with plaid pockets. Hoover made him a special supervisor in Chicago before he was 30 years old, and he became the supervisor's favorite SAC. In his letters to Mel or Melvin, Hoover laughed at his influence on women.

Nevertheless, everyone knew that Hoover could be capricious. 1933, Puvis has reason to worry. He managed the Chicago office for less than a year. In September that year, he watched in a pub for two hours, but missed the opportunity to catch the notorious bank robber machine gun Kelly. So when he learned that Ness wanted to find his job, he acted quickly.

Many of the messages he sent to Hoover were bluffing, not recorded, or tailored to cater to the director's sexual orientation. He lamented that Nice had failed to defeat Capone. At that time, I knew that Capone was sentenced to tax, not wine. A disgruntled pariah told him that the team had a reception. (If yes, keep silent; There is no mention of customer-related violations in the personnel records of the Prohibition Bureau. ) Ness' family looks down on his wife, and he prefers their company. Puvis knows that Hoover likes to scrutinize his agent's fiance or spouse, and sometimes he tries to break up relationships that he thinks are disgusting. )

But the most criminal part of the document came directly from a prohibition agent in Nice. His name is W.G. Malsy. He has just been transferred to Chicago as the acting director of the Office of the Prohibition Bureau. He doesn't know Ness, and he doesn't want to give in to his reputation. When Joe Kulak was questioned the day after his body was destroyed, Marcy wanted him to explain his protection notes.

It turned out to be written by his friend Walter Nowitzki, an elevator operator in Senator Lewis's office building. Nowitzki invited Kulak for an interview. The trial record is in the document sent to me.

Nowitzki told Marcy that he met an assistant of Lewis in the elevator and finally paid him 25 to 30 dollars to protect Kulak's body. He said that he had seen his assistant and talked to Nice twice. Nowitzki recalled that once, in front of Ness, Nowitzki asked his assistant to put Kulak's body in a "safe place".

The assistant patted Mr. Ness on the back and asked him to give the children a rest. Then he wrote down the address of the distiller and gave it to Ness, who stuffed it into his underwear bag.

"What did Ness say?" Marcy asked.

"He said it would be all right," Nowitzki replied.

Later, Nowitzki said that he found Nice in the hall of the building and asked him about Kulak's still life. Nowitzki recalled: "He said that if the police disturbed Joe, there would be no case."