POSITION LOST

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23101, 28 July 1938, Page 10

POSITION LOST

SPY INVESTIGATOR CASE OF LEON TURROU DISMISSAL WITH PREJUDICE [from our own correspondent] NEW YORK, July 2 The special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mr. Leon G. Turrou, who resigned on June 20 to write a series of newspaper articles on the reeent spy round-up with which ho was connected, has been dismissed from, the bureau with prejudice, it was learned from the Department of Justice, says the Washington correspondent of the New York Times. It was said at the Justice Department that the agent's resignation, which was submitted at 4,' V) p.m. on June 20, to take effect at •"> p.m., was not accepted but instead Mr. Turrou was dismissed. This means that, lie will be deprived of pay for .accumulative leave which would have continued his salary to about September' 21, and he loses his retirement benefits. The reason for the dismissal, according to the department's spokesman, was breach of the G-man oath which binds all agents of the bureau not to disclose service information either during or after their service. Not the First G-man Dismissed The dismissal with prejudice was, in ; effect, the price the agent had to pay for the articles he wrote for newspaper J publication which became the subject of | litigation, it was indicated. Mr. Turrou joined the bureau on \ April 1, 1929. and received a salary at ' the time of his resignation of 4600 , dollars annually, the highest salary for special agents than those fn charge of field offices. It was said that this was not the first case of a G-man being dismissed I with prejudice. Brought Himself into Trouble As chief investigator of German espionage, Mr. Turrou was adding to a high reputation, but his unprecedented act of resigning to sell his experiences before seeing the case completed brought him into opprobrium not only among his colleagues in the bureau, but in the eyes of President Roosevelt himself. The news that Mr. Turrou had been dismissed was a surprise, for it had been reported in the bureau that the resignation had been accepted immediately after it had been submitted. Mr. Turrou unwittingly brought him--1 self into his present situation last February, before the case began. At a hearing on a temporary injunction obtained by United States Attorney Mr. Lamar Hardy to prevent the New York Post from publishing the agent's stories, his attorney. Mr. Simon H. Jiifkind, said that Mr. Turrou had j suggested and his chief, Mr. J. Edjrar Hoover, had accepted, a rule making resignations effective immediately re--1 gardless of accumulated leaves.