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Typed letter from the Director of the Division of Investigation to the Special Agent in Charge at Dallas, dated September 8, 1933.
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Letter from J. Edgar Hoover to SAC Dallas, 8 September 1933: no Division recommendation to the War Department on armory thefts

Director Hoover answers the Dallas letter of 29 August, restating its suggestion that, since the Barrow brothers were armed with Browning automatic rifles stolen from National Guard units, the War Department be asked to protect armories, and says it would be inappropriate for the Division itself to make that recommendation.

Date
1933-09-08
Kind
case-file
Source
FBI Records: The Vault
Retrieved
2026-10-12
Rights
A record of the Federal Bureau of Investigation released under FOIA in the FBI Vault. A work of the United States government, public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105. The stored image is a grayscale render of the Vault viewer's page scan.

Part 02 of the FBI Vault’s Bonnie and Clyde file, page 83 of the viewer, with the received stamp 26-4114-95, Dallas Office, 11 September 1933. Hoover restates the Dallas suggestion: that “inasmuch as the Barrow brothers were armed with Browning automatic rifles stolen from National Guard units,” representations be made to the War Department to protect armories from criminals who thereby become “armed with Government weapons.” The description of the rifles is the Dallas letter’s premise as the Director summarizes it, not a separate finding of his. He writes that it would be inappropriate for the Division itself to make a recommendation to the War Department, and that the matter had been referred to the appropriate Department of Justice official.

The letter answers the Dallas letter of 29 August 1933, filed separately.

Object: Typed letter, one page
Maker: J. Edgar Hoover, Director
Date: 8 September 1933
Provenance: Bureau file 26-4114, released in the FBI Vault
Appears in: FBI Vault, Bonnie and Clyde, Part 02, page 83

itemLetter from SAC F. J. Blake, Dallas, to the Director, 29 August 1933: Browning automatic rifles recovered from the Barrow gangDallas Special Agent in Charge F. J. Blake reports that four Browning automatic rifles recovered from members of the Barrow gang had in part been traced to Government armories, and suggests the Division ask the War Department to protect armories.itemBureau of Investigation report, 1 September 1933: Ordnance Division traces Colt .45 pistols and Browning automatic rifles taken from the Barrow gangForm No. 1 report by Dwight Brantley, Washington, D.C., listing by serial number the Colt .45 pistols and Browning automatic rifles the War Department says were stolen from Illinois and Oklahoma National Guard units.