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- .ND G. BROWN anEY GENERAL > . A ere eee ere + ahs” ( * » WILLIAM ” — fff Chief Deputy / tT AOW Chief Assistar ~ Divisions - HAROLD Deput. Divis. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE Criminal Law on Office of the Attorney General STATE BUILDING. SAN FRANCISCO HENRY A. DIETZ. ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL July 31, 1958 whe acta ertis amenebet ore mR eT a SRNR a ITE CN Honorable J. Edgar Hoover Federal Bureau of Investigation United States Department of Justice Washington 25, D.C. / Dear Mr. Hoover: oT May I thank you for your letter on our 1957 Report on Crime Statistics in California, and the copy of the letter to the Time Magazine on its interpretation of your statistics in the FBI Uniform Crime Report. You may note in The Examiner story on our report ‘that this office is not quoted as giving out the figure of 35 per cent, but that the statement is used unquoted t the end of paragraph 4 without the source being ualified. The heading of The Examiner story was a matter of editorial selection within the newspaper office, and was picked for the "ieaa" from a paragraph on the second page of our release. (Enclosed) In the matter of the 35 per cent mentioned by The Examiner, this might have peen a conservative estimate based on a May 12 statement by Senator Knowland of California before the United Press editors in convention in Ojai. The Los Angeles Times quotes the Senator as saying that FBI statistics show an increase crime rate iof 77 per eent in California from 1950 to 1957. of ‘course, for this increase I am blamed. As a chief law enforcement officer yourself, I believe that such a statement is as unfair as if you were held responsible for the national crime increase. (Copy enclosed) The San Francisco Call-Bulletin also quotes the figure of U Ty per cent, as did most California newspapers, , (Copy [j L, ™“e ¢ ehclosed) _ J AbPs BAT /