Leo Crowley | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Head of the Foreign Economic Administration | |
| In office September, 1943–December 31, 1945 | |
| Preceded by | Edward Stettinius Jr. (As Administrator of the Office of Lend-Lease Administration) |
| Succeeded by | Office abolished* |
| Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation | |
| In office February 1, 1934 - October 15, 1945 | |
| Preceded by | Walter J. Cummings |
| Succeeded by | Preston Delano |
| Personal details | |
| Born | August 15, 1889 Milton, Wisconsin |
| Died | April 15, 1972 (aged 82) Madison, Wisconsin |
| Education | University of Wisconsin |
Leo Thomas Crowley (August 15, 1889 – April 15, 1972) was a senior administrator for President Franklin D. Roosevelt as the head of the Foreign Economic Administration. Previously he had served as Alien Property Custodian and as chief of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Late in the 1930s, senior Washington officials discovered that Crowley had embezzled from his banks in Wisconsin in the 1920s and early 1930s. This information was suppressed twice because of Crowley's political and administrative usefulness. Biographer Stuart Weiss wrote that Crowley's story is:
- the darker story of the businessman as speculator and embezzler, whose fraud was covered up in Wisconsin and Washington....[in part it is] the morally complex and compelling story of Crowley as a bureaucrat and politician in Washington, administering multiple major agencies, often simultaneously;...but also deeply involved in conflicts of interest a later generation would find unacceptable and even incomprehensible.[1]
- ^ Weiss p. xii.