Edward Allen Tamm

Edward Allen Tamm (typically "E.A. Tamm" in FBI files, sometimes "Edward Tamm") (April 21, 1906 – September 22, 1985) worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), reaching the third-highest position as Assistant to the Director (J. Edgar Hoover) before accepting an appointment as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and then United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Early life and education

Edward Allen Tamm was born on April 21, 1906, in Saint Paul, Minnesota. His parents were Edward Allen Tamm and Lucille Catherine Buckley. In 1925, Tamm studied at St. Charles College of Helena, Montana. In 1930, he received an LLB from Georgetown University Law School. In 1945, Tamm served as FBI "special adviser" in the US delegation to the United Nations Conference on International Organization.

In his 2009 book The FBI and the Catholic Church, 1935-1962, author Steve Rosswurm devoted a chapter to Tamm. Rosswurm credits Tamm, "the FBI's highest-ranking Catholic, in forging the alliance" between the FBI and the Catholic Church during the 1930s and 1940s.

(On May 5, 1949, Hoover appointed D.M. Ladd to Tamm's Number 3 position of Assistant to the Director. Ladd took over "supervision of all the FBI's investigative activities in both criminal and subversive fields." )

Federal judicial service On June 22, 1948, Tamm received a recess appointment from US President Harry S. Truman to a seat on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia vacated by Judge James McPherson Proctor. 1980: Honorary Doctor of Laws, New York Law School

In its obituary, the Washington Post noted: During his years on the appeals bench, the U.S. Circuit Court here became a leading force in the protection of defendants' rights. And if the former FBI agent did not always concur with the court's liberal wing, he often was seemingly guided by a common-sense approach to the case at hand.