At age eight, recovering from a near-fatal appendectomy in an Omaha hospital, Warren Buffett had a dream. His wonderful Aunt Edie had brought him a professional fingerprinting set, and young Warren promptly fingerprinted all his attending nuns. His theory, 'totally nutty, of course', was that someday a nun would go bad and the FBI would discover they had neglected to fingerprint nuns. He envisioned FBI Director J Edgar Hoover himself coming to Omaha to inspect his invaluable collection, and together they would identify and apprehend the wayward nun. National fame seemed certain.
'Obviously, my fantasy never materialised', Buffett wrote in his inaugural Thanksgiving letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders released on Monday. 'But, ironically, some years later it became clear that I should have fingerprinted J Edgar himself as he became disgraced for misusing his post'.
