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PART
TWO: Part one here The first episode may have made Hoover wish he hadn't given his approval. The FBI debuted with a story about a killer who strangled women with their hair. Jack Gould, TV critic for The New York Times, opined that the episode showed "a lack of taste." Hoover would later complain that the initial episode "frankly fell short of the hope we had held for the series." Gould wasn't a fan of the series. He bluntly suggested that the FBI "should stay out of show business." He also wrote: "No one could question Mr. Hoover's determination to do what he feels is best for the bureau, but a sustained commercial television series extolling his men and his policies week after week will look strange to millions for whom the civil rights battle in the United States and the Warren Commission's criticisms of the F.B.I. are vividly in mind. For the F.B.I. at this moment to advance its cause through the instrumentality of a program predominantly designed to sell cars and other merchandise is to be faulted on grounds of taste, if nothing else. It is not the way for a subsidiary of the United States government to explain itself."
Zimbalist became so fixed in the minds of the public with the image of the FBI that Hoover would sometimes get letters that closed with people asking him to give their regards to Inspector Erskine - Zimbalist's character. Zimbalist met with Hoover once a year before beginning filming on the new season. But Hoover never directly offered any criticism of the program. "In fact, he never talked to me about any details of the show at all," Zimbalist said. "He would just say in general terms that he liked it very much." STORY CONTINUES - AFTER THIS AD FOR VIDEO DOWNLOADS:
Zimbalist found the FBI's control of the show challenging because of the bureau's restrictions. "From my point of view as an actor, it was interesting because we were denied virtually all of the liberty that most actors are granted. We couldn't have anything to do with women. We couldn't smoke. We couldn't drink. We couldn't put our feet up on the desk. We couldn't take our coat off. We were little good boys. And the fascinating challenge to me was to work within those structures, very defined limitations, and still not be a bore. I found that a fascinating challenge." Zimbalist said the writers chafed under the restrictions put in place by the FBI. "The problem was the jurisdiction of the bureau itself. They don't have jurisdiction over many crimes that writers would like to write about in crime detection series, the FBI just doesn't have that. It has jurisdiction only, with the exception of bank robbery, only with interstate theft but no other kind of theft. So jewel robberies and all those kind of things don't come under the purveyance of the FBI. What they did was they put their files at our disposal and they said, 'Just pick anything you want. All our cases are there. Just use whatever you want to use.''' That wasn't always the case, however. Television writer David W. Rintels once told of how he was offered a job writing for The FBI. Asked which case he should adapt for the show, Rintels was told to make something up. Back for a second episode, Rintels suggested an episode based on four black children killed in the bombing of a Birmingham, Alabama, church. Rintels wrote in The New York Times: "The producer checked with the sponsor, the Ford Motor Company, and with the FBI - every proposed show is cleared sequentially through the producing company, QM; the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the network, ABC; and the sponsor, Ford, and any of the four can veto any show for any reason, which it need not disclose - and reported back that they would be delighted to have me write about a church bombing subject only to these stipulations: The church must be in the North, there could be Negroes involved, and the bombing could have nothing at all to do with civil rights." Martin steered clear of one topical tale. "I avoided the hot story like the three civil rights workers who were killed in Mississippi in 1964 because I didn't feel in a weekly series I could do it correctly." Story Continues After This Message!
The FBI ignored other hot-button topics as well. The Italian-American Civil Rights League pressured Ford to keep references to the Mafia off the show, although some still crept in. And a threatened boycott of Ford cars by Japanese-Americans kept an episode about a Japanese war criminal from airing. The FBI lasted was finally canceled by ABC to make room for a short-lived variety show that starred a Cher-less Sonny Bono. But during its nine years on the air, The FBI accomplished what Hoover had hoped it would do. "It popularized the bureau in the public's mind," Zimbalist said. "The popularity of the show was the popularity of the bureau.' "My associates and I are very proud of the large following which The FBI has earned among Sunday night television viewers," Hoover wrote in his TV Guide article. Zimbalist traveled to Washington every May, to meet with Hoover and to film opening segments around the city for the coming season - in the latest Ford, of course. Ford was a major sponsor of The FBI. "This all centered around the Ford Motor Co.," Zimbalist said. "Ford cars, like all other cars, came out in October. But they would throw together a prototype for me to drive around Washington, for the credits, the end credits and so forth, the views of the various monuments in Washington, my little car making its way around. This was an annual thing that we did in May. They would slap this car together with Scotch tape and spirit gum. It was just the pastiest job you've ever seen in your life. "They would van it down to Washington and keep it there under wraps. The car companies were terribly secretive about their new models, so no one saw it until I got into it. "They would hastily get it off the van. I'd jump in and do these shots and then back in the van it went. The car itself was so flimsy that if you slammed the door hard it would fall off. There was no interior to the car at all. There was no dashboard. There were no beautiful seats. It was just a shell. You drove it gingerly because if you didn't, the thing would collapse on the road." The FBI no doubt helped the general public learn more about the bureau, but not everyone go the message. A poll conducted in 1972 by a group called Friends of the F.B.I., which eventually welcomed Zimbalist as its honorary chairman, found that 30 percent of the 14- to 25-year-olds surveyed didn't know the function of the FBI. And only 21.5 percent said they'd want to be an FBI agent.
"That, to me, is the most tremendous reward that I could ever have for having done it," he said. "It means the world to me that we had a positive influence on some young person's life."
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L. Wayne Hicks is a Denver-based writer and student of popular culture. He is completing his first book, the story of the TV show Romper Room.
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Martin
dismissed Gould's criticism: "I think Jack Gould takes a hostile
attitude toward television, and a pseudo-intellectual approach to build
straw men he can try to knock down for the purpose of making controversy."
Except for the posthumous comments, Hoover was largely silent on his opinion
of The FBI. But he was pleased with how well Zimbalist came across
as an FBI agent. "Mr. Zimbalist has captured the espirit de corps
of the FBI and what it is like to be an FBI agent. ...the image he projects
is important because it is closely intertwined with the confidence and
trust American people have in the FBI," Hoover told TV Guide.
But
Zimbalist said he regularly hears from people who say watching 'The FBI'
made them want to join the bureau. 
