Allan Pinkerton: The Detective Who Helped Define American Intelligence

In January 1861, a Scottish immigrant named Allan Pinkerton learned of a plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln during his inaugural journey to Washington. Pinkerton had been hired to investigate threats to a Baltimore railroad, but the intelligence he gathered pointed toward something far more dangerous. He rerouted Lincoln’s travel, moved the president-elect through Baltimore in the middle of the night under an assumed name, and delivered him safely to Washington. It was, in miniature, what would become the practice of American intelligence.

Pinkerton had come to the United States from Glasgow in 1842, fleeing Scotland after his involvement in Chartist political activities. He settled in Illinois, became a deputy sheriff, and in 1850 founded the Pinkerton National Detective Agency with the motto “We Never Sleep.” His early cases involved railroad theft, counterfeiting, and the kind of interstate crime that local police forces were structurally unable to handle.

The Newseum opens in Washington

Gannett's splashy new monument to journalism, the Newseum, opened in Washington yesterday. For the most part, I think, the reviews are good. (Check out this interactive guide at USA Today. And here's the review.)

(My old friend from Navy days, Thomas A.K. Kai, was there and sent me a link to the pictures he took, one of which is above. Tom has about 40 good photos of the place both inside and out.)

The place, visually, can't be missed, and its size and location will make it a tourist magnet. I certainly plan to try to get there the next time I am in D.C.

The hope is that people who know little and care little about the profession of journalism will show up and, after the visit, know more and care more. The memorial to journalists who have been killed doing their jobs is particularly appropriate and should not be missed by anyone.

Good journalism disturbs, unsettles and threatens people in authority. It frightens people who hold on to easy assumptions about the world in which we live and the people who inhabit it along with us. Whatever the technological and format changes that await us in the near future, I hope that there will be people who take on this calling in this very dangerous world.

So, good luck to the Newseum and to those who visit the place.

One note: The giant marble slab that contains the words of the First Amendment on the outside of the building comes from just down the road from where I live in Blount County, Tennessee.


Read more about journalism and issues facing the profession at JPROF.com.