Mark Felt - Early FBI Years

Early FBI Years

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover often moved Bureau agents around so they would have wide experience. Felt observed that Hoover "wanted every agent to get into any Field office at anytime. Since he had never been transferred and did not have a family, he had no idea of the financial and personal hardship involved."

After completing sixteen weeks of training at the FBI Academy at Quantico, Virginia and FBI Headquarters in Washington, DC. Felt was first assigned to Texas, working in the Field Offices in Houston and San Antonio, spending three months in each. He then returned to the "Seat of Government", as Hoover called FBI Headquarters, and was assigned to the Espionage Section of the Domestic Intelligence Division, tracking down spies and saboteurs during World War II, where he worked on the Major Case Desk. His most notable work there was on the "Peasant" case. Helmut Goldschmidt, operating under the codename "Peasant", was a German agent in custody in England. Under Felt's direction, his German masters were informed "Peasant" had made his way to the United States, and were fed disinformation on Allied plans.

The Espionage Section was abolished in May 1945 after V-E Day. After the war, Felt was sent again to a Field Office, first to Seattle, Washington. After two years of general work, he spent two years as a Firearms Instructor and was promoted from Agent to Supervisor. Upon passage of the Atomic Energy Act and the creation of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, the Seattle Office became responsible for completing background checks of workers at the Hanford plutonium plant near Richland, Washington. Felt oversaw these checks. In 1954, Felt returned briefly to Washington as an inspector's aide. Two months later, he was sent to New Orleans, Louisiana, as Assistant Special Agent in charge of the Field Office. When he was transferred to Los Angeles, California fifteen months later, he held the same rank there.