Clarence M. Kelley
Director of the FBI (1911–1997)
Clarence Marion Kelley (October 24, 1911 – August 5, 1997) was an American law enforcement officer. He served as the Chief of the Kansas City Police Department in Kansas City, Missouri, from 1961 to 1973, and as the second director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 1973 to 1978.
Early life and education
Clarence Kelley was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on October 24, 1911. He attended Northeast High School, where he was nicknamed "Chief" and held a 0.300 baseball batting average. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Kansas in 1936, where he was a member of Sigma Nu fraternity. He continued his education to earn an LL.B. from the University of Kansas City, Missouri, in 1940. He was admitted to the Missouri Bar the same year. The Kansas City Police department would eulogize him as having been "destined to enter law enforcement".
Early FBI career
Kelley joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a Special Agent on October 7, 1940. He served in field offices in Huntington, West Virginia; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Des Moines, Iowa; and the FBI Training Center in Quantico, Virginia.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Clarence M. Kelley” is director of the FBI (1911–1997). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Clarence, Kelley and Director, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “director of the FBI (1911–1997)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q447179. VIAF identifies the subject as 94677412. The Library of Congress control number is n80152964. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1911, 1997, 1961 and 1973.
A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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This entry incorporates text from “Clarence M. Kelley” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.