Freeh bids emotional farewell to employees

Freeh announced his retirement in May; his successor has not been named

By Jack Date
CNN Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- FBI Director Louis Freeh bid farewell to employees Wednesday during what a bureau spokesman called a "very emotional" lunchtime speech. The 10-minute speech was closed to press coverage.

Freeh thanked the employees for their service and acknowledged the bureau is going through a difficult time. Saying the agency was not broken, he likened its recent troubles to Reagan National Airport -- where planes routinely land without incident, but a bumpy landing grabs the headlines.

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Leading the FBI for eight years, Freeh announced May 1 he would retire in June. No specific date has been set for his departure and no successor has been named.

Freeh's retirement ends 27 years of public service. He started as an FBI agent then became a federal prosecutor. The first President Bush appointed Freeh to the federal bench in 1991. President Clinton appointed Freeh to head the FBI in 1993.

Freeh's wife and five of his six children attended his speech. Two of Freeh's children were on the stage with him as he delivered his remarks, a spokesman said.

The FBI has come under increased scrutiny in recent months after its failure to disclose thousands of pages of documents to Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh's defense, and the case of the fired FBI agent Robert Hanssen, accused of selling U.S. secrets to Moscow.