"TO DEKE—WHO MADE IT POSSIBLE—AND KEPT IT HONEST": PRESENTATION/ASSOCIATION FIRST EDITION OF CONSIDINE'S THE MEN WHO ROBBED BRINK'S, INSCRIBED BY HIM IN THE YEAR OF PUBLICATION TO CARTHA "DEKE" DELOACH, THE FBI'S NO. 3 MAN UNDER HOOVER

(DELOACH, Cartha) CONSIDINE, Bob. The Men Who Robbed Brink's. The Inside Story of One of the Most Famous Holdups in the History of Crime… In Co-Operation with the FBI. New York: Random House, (1961). Octavo, original gray cloth, original dust jacket. $950.

First edition of the "first authoritative and approved account of the Brink's robbery," still viewed as nearly the perfect crime, a memorable presentation/association copy inscribed within weeks of publication by award-winning journalist Considine to Cartha "Deke" DeLoach, Hoover's No. 3 man at the FBI, "To Deke—who made it possible—and kept it honest. Best—Bob Considine 4/11/61"

The January 17, 1950 armed robbery of Brink's was quickly "proclaimed by the media as 'the near-perfect crime' and by the FBI as 'the crime of the century'… Even after decades, The Great Brink's Robbery remains one of the largest thefts in the U.S. history. Given the lack of evidence left behind and the difficulty of the investigation, it almost was the perfect crime" (Chermak & Bailey, eds., Crimes of the Centuries, 322-23). The robbery, in fact, might never have been solved had not the thieves turned on each other. Finally one of the ringleaders, "Specs" O'Keefe, came forward. After "agreeing to plead guilty for his role in the robbery, O'Keefe met with FBI agents on January 6, 1956, and asked, 'All right. What do you want to know?' So began one of the most elaborate confessions ever taken by FBI agents, an admission so thorough that it formed the basis of journalist Considine's' 1961 book The Men Who Robbed Brink's" (Ethier, True Crime, 49).

This stands as "the first authoritative and approved account of the Brink's robbery," and features important "documentary material, as well as considerable personal recollections of O'Keefe. It is replete with reports from the files of the FBI, with newspaper accounts and with long verbatim excerpts from the trial testimony" (New York Times). "First Printing" stated on copyright page. This presentation/association copy is inscribed by Considine to Cartha "Deke" DeLoach, who "spent more than 25 years in the FBI, rising to deputy associate director, the No. 3 position, behind only Hoover and the associate director, Clyde Tolson." At the time of the inscription, DeLoach headed the FBI's Criminal Records Division, and soon became Hoover's chief liaison to President Johnson. Tim Weiner, author of Enemies: A History of the FBI, describes DeLoach as a "a trusted deputy to Hoover…. crucial to intelligence investigations" in the Johnson years. After serving as the FBI's spokesperson following the murders of civil rights workers Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner, DeLoach "supervised the investigation of the murder of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. But he had also been part of the bureau's scrutiny of the civil rights movement and was aware of the bureau's secret surveillance of Dr. King." At DeLoach's death in 2013, then-FBI director Robert Mueller praised his lifelong "commitment to the F.B.I. and to the American people" (New York Times). With DeLoach bookplate.

Book fine; light edge-wear mainly to spine ends of bright about-fine dust jacket.