◆ SpookStack

ee em ee semorandun to izr. Tolson from Ll. 2. iichols 3/18/54 PE: ATTORNEY GENERAL SDLUND G. BAO STATE OF OALIFOANTA (2) Zo sever relations with California Police with respect to crime reporting would do much to disrupt the compilation of statistics on a nationwide basis. Our estimates would largely be ineffective and vulnerable to any attacn by professional statisticians such as the Americen Statistical Association. If we withheld the printing of ‘the California statistics, the contribution of reports by tne local authorities there, being meaningless, would unquestionably soon drop off to nothing and the withdraual of such a large and important ‘segment of the crime reporting program would be extremely detrimental to the over-all program. The “crime clock" for example, which presents the number of crimes per hour, per day, et cetera, has been used very effectively and has been received very well by the public, would be so defective as to raise serious question as to whether we could jcontinue its compilation. (3) As you know, the current Chief of Police of Los Angeles, William Parker, is somewhat unfriendly towards the FSI. He would un- doubtedly seize any opportunity to “blow up" anything severing our relations between the FEI and California State authorities from a crime reporting standpoint. farker would capitalize on such publicity by making it entirely unfavorable to the FBI. I do not feel he should be given this opportunity. (4) The Bureau's long-established policy in withholding the , publication of any figures in the Uniform Crime Reports bulletin has | been that the withholding be on the basis of incompleteness definitely llestablished and only after the reporting agencies were warned substan- tially in advance and given a reasonable time for improvement. The IACE's Committee on Uniform Crime Records generally understands this. It may be that to do otherwise at this point would be unfair and bring about adverse criticism. (5) It is respectfully pointed out that if we withheld printing of California's crime figures, we would have to redo all the tabula- tions which have just been completed and are included in the material for the current issue of the Uniform Crime Reports bulletin presently being reviewed for approval. The bulletin is almost ready to go to the Government Printing Office and such a withholding of printing of the Crlifornia figures. would not only seriously detract from the quality of the published data but also substantially delay the printiz of the bulletin. Ste pot BW Aeon (Ve wae ft ; I do feel that Brown's statement should not go unchallenged. Suoject to the Director's approval there is attached a letter instruc’ ing SAC #helan of San Francisco to call upon Attorney General Eroun -2-