page_title: John Bugas
section_title: Federal Bureau of Investigation
hierarchical_section_title: John Bugas / Federal Bureau of Investigation
caption_attribution_description: English: John Bugas, J. Edgar Hoover, and Frank Murphy
context_page_description: John Stephen Bugas, known as Jack Bugas, was the second in command at Ford Motor Company during the presidency and chairmanship reign of Henry Ford II. He is best known for wresting control of the company from Harry Bennett—including drawing pistols on each other—following the death of Edsel Ford.
  As the Detroit Free Press wrote of Bugas:
  When the historians write it down a century from now, they will be dealing with Louis Chevrolet, Walter Chrysler, the Dodge brothers, the Durants, Maxwells and others who put their names on the cars Americans drove or the companies that built them. But they will also have a tale to tell about John Bugas, who in his time had as dramatic a moment as any of them. [Bugas was] a giant of the auto industry and at a time when the industry itself strode around the world in seven-league boots.
context_section_description: "Adept at the art of fisticuffs while wearing a suit," Bugas rose quickly through the ranks of the FBI. By 1938 J. Edgar Hoover appointed him head of the FBI's Detroit office, a strategically very important position as at the time Michigan counted "heavily in the national defense plans." According to the FBI, Bugas "oversaw the shift in focus from violent crime to national security. As war loomed in Europe, concern about possible espionage and sabotage attacks on vital American industries like Detroit's automobile manufacturing plants moved to the forefront. Guarding the secrets of American technology and manufacturing were crucial to the war, and the Detroit Division played an important role in protecting these critical assets."
  Bugas established a reputation as a "man with unlimited patience and efficiency" in his work on "notorious kidnapping, espionage, bank robbery and other major cases." At the FBI he most notably led the quashing of two Nazi spy rings (including German Countess Grace Buchanan-Dineen, whom Bugas "turned" to a double agent) and personally captured Public Enemy Number One Tom Robinson at gunpoint. Most of all, Bugas made a notable record when he "kept sabotage in war plants at 0."
  Bugas was known in the bureau as "an 'agent's agent-in-charge,' a man all like to work for" ("the highest compliment in the service"), always leading his men personally on important cases.
  Bugas and Hoover would remain close friends until Hoover's death in 1972.
caption: Bugas, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Frank Murphy
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