Valuable Publicity.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation's "Most Wanted" program began in March 1950, after a news story distributed by the International News Service on the "toughest" criminals currently at large appeared in 1949. The success of that story convinced the bureau that publicity might be a valuable tool in the capture of wanted fugitives. The more known a fugitive's face was through news reports and widely circulated wanted posters, the greater the chance he would be recognized and apprehended.

The "Top Tenners."

Most of the "top tenners" were career criminals who had committed the federal offense of crossing state lines to flee prosecution or imprisonment. Some critics of the list contended that these "small-time" criminals were less worthy of the FBI's attention than racketeers or drug traffickers. In the cases of criminals whose cases had already been highly publicized, the bureau argued, the...