L.A.-Area FBI Chief Is Named

Ronald L. Iden, a 23-year veteran of the FBI, has been appointed to head its Los Angeles office, overseeing the bureau’s second-largest field office and a seven-county region of more than 18 million people.

As assistant director in charge of the Los Angeles office, Iden will supervise nearly 1,100 employees, about 650 of them special agents. His selection by FBI Director Robert Mueller means the 54-year-old native of Chicago will be one of only three assistant FBI directors stationed outside bureau headquarters in Washington, D.C.

“I am certainly proud and humbled by the appointment,” Iden said Thursday at the FBI’s Los Angeles office, second only to the New York office in size.

“The joy, of course, is tempered by the events of the day,” Iden said, referring to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the East Coast. “But we will continue to investigate those attacks and do everything we can not only to solve them but to prevent future attacks.”

FBI Deputy Director Thomas J. Pickard said Iden has distinguished himself in a variety of assignments.

“As an investigator, supervisor [and] program manager and as a special agent in charge, Ron has demonstrated success at every level,” Pickard said. “He is extremely well-suited to lead one of the most important divisions in the FBI.”

In his new post, Iden said, anti-terrorism activities will “clearly be the primary mission . . . for the foreseeable future.”

At the same time, Iden said, the Los Angeles office will continue to pursue various other criminal investigations, including those involving white collar crime and bank robberies. The vast region accounts for about 20% of all the bank robberies in the United States.

Before his appointment, Iden served as one of three special agents in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, supervising investigations into financial crimes, terrorism, foreign counterintelligence and civil rights. From 1992 to 1996, Iden was assistant head of the office, overseeing all of its investigations into violent crimes in an area covering more than 40,000 square miles.

Iden joined the FBI in 1978 after 10 years with the Elk Grove, Ill., Police Department.

In 1979, he investigated the assassination of a federal judge and the attempted slaying of a federal prosecutor in San Antonio. The case was successfully prosecuted by the U.S. attorney’s office.

In 1984, assigned to the FBI’s office in San Juan, Iden supervised an investigation into a Puerto Rican group’s $7-million armored car robbery in Connecticut. The probe led to the indictment of 17 people.

In 1990, working at the FBI’s headquarters, he supervised its investigations of other assassination cases. Those also led to the convictions of suspects involved in the bombing deaths of a federal judge in Birmingham, Ala., and a civil rights attorney in Savannah, Ga.

At FBI headquarters, Iden also served as chief of the bureau’s public corruption unit in 1991 and 1992, and of the information resources division, where he was responsible for the bureau’s worldwide automation.