L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City

Jack Webb had grown: Unless otherwise noted, the biographical information that follows comes from Michael Hayde, My Name’s Friday. The chronology of events that led to this job offer is not entirely clear. Owen McClaine, the casting agent for He Walked by Night, claims to have heard Webb’s “private eye plays”—presumably, Pat Novak—and then offered him the job. But Jack Webb did not start playing the lead role in Pat Novak until 1949, when the program went national on ABC—one year after he appeared in He Walked by Night.

“I doubt it, Marty,”: Hayde, My Name’s Friday, 18-19.

Joe Friday (as played: See Raymond Chandler’s essay “The Simple Art of Murder” for more on the noir hero.

The radio program’s success: “Real Thriller,” Time, May 15, 1950.

Soon after the tribute: A July 17, 1958, memo from the FBI’s L.A. SAC to Hoover described Parker as a “Traffic Officer” prior to his appointment to the position of chief of police “with whom office had practically no contact.”

Whether Parker knew about: Hayde, My Name’s Friday, 31-33. See August 2, 1963, FBI memo, Parker FBI file, for the origins of the FBI feud. See December 4, 1951, memo from SAC, Los Angeles, to Director, FBI, for Parker’s praise of Hoover.

The episode aired on: Hayde, My Name’s Friday, 46.

Parker’s initial response to: On July 18, 1959, the FBI’s San Francisco SAC sent a confidential memo to J. Edgar Hoover, reporting on a recent off-the-record confab Parker had held with Bay Area law enforcement officials about community relations that provides rare insight into the chief’s thoughts about the Bloody Christmas affair. According to the SAC, Parker stated that “certain of his men were undoubtedly in the wrong.” Parker further noted that “a number of his young officers were also wrong in ‘clamming up’ when his own inspectors attempted to investigate the beatings, and that had these officers not done this, the entire matter might in all probability have been settled within the department.” Also author interview with Harold Sullivan, July 26, 2007.

Soon after his ill-received: “Parker Hints at Crackdown, Own Cleanup May Forestall Jury Action,” Hollywood Citizen-News, March 27, 1952; “Grand Jury Indicts Eight Officers in Beating Case,” Los Angeles Times, April 23, 1952; “Bloody Christmas—One Year Later,” Los Angeles Mirror editorial, December 6, 1952.

Parker went further: Webb, The Badge, 174-75; “36 L.A. Policemen Face Discipline for Brutality,” Los Angeles Times, June 17, 1952; “Grand Jury Turns Heat on Parker, Report Hits Police Dept. Conditions,” Los Angeles Daily News, April 2, 1952; “An Inadequate Answer,” Los Angeles Examiner editorial, May 2, 1952. A July 29, 1952, memo from the L.A. SAC to Hoover asserted that Parker had not been popular in the department before the FBI’s civil rights investigation commenced but that Parker’s strong defense of the department had “earned him support since.” Nonetheless, the SAC claimed that Parker’s position “is still somewhat precarious” as “it is generally known that the Mayor is hostile to him, as are a number of the Los Angeles Police Commissioners.” The following month Mayor Bowron would categorically deny any intention of removing Parker. “Bowron Denies Parker Ouster,” Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, May 27, 1952.

Dragnet wasn’t the only: A July 18, 1952, “confidential memo” from the FBI’s San Francisco SAC to Director Hoover reports that the L.A. business community had also printed a brochure titled “The Thin Blue Line” to distribute to members of the public. Whether the phrase was first used for the pamphlet or for the TV show is unclear.

The purpose of: April 1, 1952, letter from Parker to the Police Commission, William H. Parker Police Foundation archives.

“Soviet Russia believes that …”: Parker, Parker on Police, 30. See also Charles Reith, The Blind Eye of History, 209-23, for a viewpoint that profoundly influenced Parker.

In this vital role: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 430.

Parker thought the primary: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 429.

One generation earlier, Berkeley: Parker, Parker on Police, 12.

Hoover was determined to: See memorandum to Mr. DeLoach, December 12, 1960, for summary of bureau’s relationship with Parker, Parker FBI files.

Chapter Seventeen: The Trojan Horse

“You should always have…”: Poulson, The Genealogy and Life Story, 91.

“There is nothing about …”: “Chief Parker Expected to Quit in Bowron Row,” Los Angeles Examiner, May 27, 1952; Sitton, Los Angeles Transformed, 171; Parson, Making a Better World, 112, 115.