Volume 13 Number 101
J. Edgar Hoover – II
Lead: As director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover guided the Bureau into an organized, accountable, and well- schooled police and detective agency. What he did in secret was another matter entirely.
Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.
Content: Hoover established the FBI academy at Quantico, Virginia, and through its training facility set high standards for performance, intelligence, and physical ability. He began the first systematic collection of fingerprints for the purpose of crime detection.
Yet, he maintained a life-long pursuit of people he considered suspect, Bolsheviks after World War I, Nazis, members of the Communist Party and suspected sympathizers during the 1940s and 1950s. When he encountered resistance to his tactics in the Executive Branch during the Truman Administration, he sought and found allies in Congress, such as members of the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Later he turned his attention to any group considered subversive. Communists, Black Panthers, Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, as well as the Ku Klux Klan, all were put under FBI scrutiny. His tactics took on a darker more aggressive turn with the secret work of COINTELPRO, a Hoover creation which used dirty tricks, surveillance, illegal wiretapping, the planting of false documents, and infiltration, to which some have added murder and incitement to violence. These were used to marginalize so-called un- American groups. After the 1971 discovery of COINTELPRO, Hoover was severely criticized.
As a hobby, Hoover was inclined to snoop, keeping tabs on the private lives of lots of people, the rich and powerful, congressmen and presidents as well as everyday citizens. The acquisition and maintenance of these records was not legal, so they were not kept in “official” FBI files. They were dossiers and memos stored in Hoover’s own private collection. This information contributed to Hoover’s own power. Presidents Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson all considered firing Hoover but decided against it when they weighed the political risk.
It is ironic that after his death in 1972, and as the fear of Hoover dissipated, stories about him began to circulate, particularly about the close relationship between Edgar and his long-time companion and house mate Clyde Tolson. After joining the FBI, Tolson was quickly elevated in rank and served as one of Hoover’s closest associates.
They were quite an item, seen nightclubbing in New York City, vacationing in the homes of the wealthy, and appearing regularly in celebrity gossip columns, like those of Walter Winchell and Ed Sullivan.
Hoover’s reluctance to aggressively pursue organized crime figures has provoked speculation that he may have been the subject of blackmail about alleged homosexuality. He was publicly and vigorously anti-gay. The FBI investigated and rejected potential FBI agents for even the slightest suspicion of being homosexual. He objected to publicly gay actors playing film roles of agents, and he regular used homosexual accusations in dirty trick campaigns, such as that mounted against presidential-hopeful Adlai Stevenson. This may have been the real thing or latent homophobia or a public relations campaign designed to deflect attention from his own dark secrets.
At the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts.
Resources
Gentry, Curt. J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 1991.
Hyena, Hank. “J. Edgar Hoover: Gay marriage role model?” Salon. Jan. 5, 2000.
Powers, Richard. Secrecy and Power: The Life of J. Edgar Hoover. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1987.
Theoharis, Athan and John Cox. The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the Great American Inquisition. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1988. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAhooverE.htm
Copyright by Dan Roberts Enterprises, Inc.