Leon G. Turrou

Leon George Turrou (September 14, 1895 – December 10, 1986) was an FBI Special Agent from 1929 to 1938. He was involved in several high-profile investigations including the USS Akron Airship disaster (1933) , Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping (1932-34) , and enforcement of the Mann Act (White Slave Traffic) (1936-37). In February 1938 Turrou was assigned by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to head a foreign espionage investigation, the Rumrich Nazi Spy Case. Turrou’s surprise decision to resign from the FBI on June 20, 1938 and go public with details of the investigation in a series of newspaper articles made him the target of a 27-year vendetta by Hoover. However, Turrou’s collaboration with the New York Post and Warner Brothers Pictures has been credited with alerting Americans to the Nazi threat, shifting public opinion against neutrality, and increasing the funding of counter espionage agencies prior to World War II. Attempts by the Department of Justice to prevent publication of his articles raised constitutional issues regarding prior restraint, secrecy of grand jury proceedings, whistle-blower rights, employee retribution, and the validity of non-disclosure agreements that anticipated “the landmark ruling in favor of the New York Times in the Pentagon Papers case of 1971.”