agents, one of the Cowboys—to resolve the case of the Osage
murders and thereby protect Hoover’s job. “I want you,” Hoover
said, to “direct the investigation.”
He ordered White to set out for Oklahoma City and assume
command of the field office there. Later, Hoover pointed out to
White that because of the region’s lawlessness, the field “office is
probably turning out more work than any other office in the
country and, consequently, has to have in charge of it a thoroughly
competent and experienced investigator and one who can handle
men.” White knew that relocating to Oklahoma would be a great
burden to his family. But he understood the stakes of the mission,
and he told Hoover, “I am human enough and ambitious enough
to want it.”
White had no doubt what would happen if he didn’t succeed:
previous agents on the case had been banished to distant outposts
or cast out from the bureau entirely. Hoover had said, “There can
be no excuse offered for...failure.” White was also aware that
several of those who had tried to catch the killers had themselves
been killed. From the moment he walked out of Hoover’s office,
he was a marked man.