John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was an Americanlaw enforcement administrator who served as the fifth and final director of theBureau of Investigation (BOI) and the firstdirector of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). PresidentCalvin Coolidge first appointed Hoover as director of the BOI, the predecessor to theFBI, in 1924. After 11 years in the post, Hoover became instrumental in founding the FBI in June 1935, where he remained as director for an additional 37 years until his death in May 1972 – serving a total of 48 years leading both the BOI and the FBI under eight presidents.
Hoover expanded the FBI into a larger crime-fighting agency and instituted a number of modernizations to policing technology, such as a centralizedfingerprint file andforensic laboratories. Hoover also established and expanded a nationalblacklist, referred to as theFBI Index or Index List.
Later in life and after his death, Hoover became a controversial figure as evidence of his secretiveabuses of power began to surface. He was found to have routinely violated both the FBI's own policies and the very laws which the FBI was charged with enforcing, to have used the FBI to harass and sabotage political dissidents, and to have extensively collected information on officials and private citizens using illegal surveillance, wiretapping, and burglaries.[2][3][4][5] Hoover consequently amassed a great deal of power and was able to intimidate and threaten high-ranking political figures.[6][7]
Hoover was born on New Year's Day 1895 in Washington, D.C., toGerman American Anna Marie (née Scheitlin; 1860–1938) and Dickerson Naylor Hoover (1856–1921), chief of the printing division of theUnited States Coast and Geodetic Survey, formerly a plate maker for the same organization.[8] Dickerson Hoover was of English and German ancestry. Hoover's maternal great-uncle, John Hitz, was aSwiss honoraryconsul general to the United States.[9] Among his family, he was the closest to his mother, who despite being "inclined to instruction", showed great affection towards her son.[10]
Hoover was born in a house on the present site of Capitol Hill United Methodist Church, located onSeward Square nearEastern Market in Washington'sCapitol Hill neighborhood.[11] A stained glass window in the church is dedicated to him. Hoover did not have a birth certificate filed upon his birth, although it was required in 1895 in Washington. Two of his siblings did have certificates, but Hoover's was not filed until 1938 when he was 43.[12]
Hoover lived his entire life in Washington, D.C. He attendedCentral High School, where he sang in the school choir, participated in theReserve Officers' Training Corps program, and competed on the debate team.[2] During debates, he argued against women getting the right to vote and against the abolition of the death penalty.[13] The school newspaper applauded his "cool, relentless logic".[14] Hooverstuttered as a boy, which he later learned to manage by teaching himself to talk quickly—a style that he carried through his adult career. He eventually spoke with such ferocious speed that stenographers had a hard time following him.[15]
Hoover was 18 years old when he accepted his first job, an entry-level position as messenger in the orders department at theLibrary of Congress. The library was a half mile from his house. The experience shaped both Hoover and the creation of the FBI profiles; as Hoover observed in a 1951 letter, "This job ... trained me in the value of collating material. It gave me an excellent foundation for my work in the FBI where it has been necessary to collate information and evidence."[16]
In 1916, Hoover obtained aBachelor of Laws from theGeorge Washington University Law School,[17] where he was a member of the Alpha Nu Chapter of theKappa Alpha Order, aSouthern fraternity. While Kappa Alpha Order later deemed Confederate General Robert E. Lee as their spiritual founder, this happened after Hoover’s time as an active member. Some prominent Kappa Alpha alumni, who had an influence on Hoover's future beliefs, included authorThomas Dixon andJohn Temple Graves. Hoover graduated with anLL.M. in 1917 from the same university.[18][19] While a law student, Hoover became interested in the career ofAnthony Comstock, the New York CityU.S. Postal Inspector, who waged prolonged campaigns against fraud,vice, pornography, andbirth control.[14]
Immediately after getting hisLL.M. degree, Hoover was hired by theJustice Department to work in the War Emergency Division.[20] He accepted the clerkship on July 27, 1917, aged 22. The job paid $990 a year ($24,300 in 2024 dollars) and was exempt from the draft.[20] Hoover soon became the head of the Division's Alien Enemy Bureau, authorized by PresidentWoodrow Wilson at the beginning ofWorld War I to arrest and jail allegedly disloyal foreigners without trial.[14] He received additional authority from the1917 Espionage Act. Out of a list of 1,400 suspicious Germans living in the U.S., the Bureau arrested 98 and designated 1,172 as arrestable.[21]
In August 1919, the 24-year-old Hoover became head of the Bureau of Investigation's new General Intelligence Division, also known as the Radical Division because its goal was to monitor and disrupt the work of domestic radicals.[21] America'sFirst Red Scare was beginning, and one of Hoover's first assignments was to carry out thePalmer Raids.[22] Hoover and his chosen assistant, George Ruch,[23] monitored a variety of U.S. radicals. Targets during this period includedMarcus Garvey;[24]Rose Pastor Stokes andCyril Briggs;[25]Emma Goldman andAlexander Berkman;[26] and future Supreme Court justiceFelix Frankfurter, who, Hoover maintained, was "the most dangerous man in the United States".[27] In 1920, at D.C.'s Federal Lodge No. 1 in Washington, D.C., the 25-year-old Hoover was initiated as aFreemason.[28][29][30] He went on to join theScottish Rite in which he was made a 33rd Degree Inspector General Honorary in 1955.[31]
In 1921, Hoover rose in theBureau of Investigation to deputy head, and in 1924 the Attorney General made him the acting director. On May 10, 1924, President Calvin Coolidge appointed Hoover as the fifth Director of the Bureau of Investigation, partly in response to allegations that the prior director,William J. Burns, was involved in theTeapot Dome scandal.[32][33] When Hoover took over the Bureau of Investigation, it had approximately 650 employees, including 441 Special Agents.[34] Hoover fired all female agents and banned the future hiring of them.[35]
Hoover in 1940
Hoover was sometimes unpredictable in his leadership. He frequently fired Bureau agents, singling out those he thought "looked stupid like truck drivers," or whom he considered "pinheads".[36] He also relocated agents who had displeased him to career-ending assignments and locations.Melvin Purvis was a prime example: Purvis was one of the most effective agents in capturing and breaking up 1930s gangs, and it is alleged that Hoover maneuvered him out of the Bureau because he was envious of the substantial public recognition Purvis received.[37]
In December 1929, Hoover oversaw the protection detail for the Japanese Naval Delegation who were visiting Washington, D.C., on their way to attend negotiations for the1930 London Naval Treaty (officially called Treaty for the Limitation and Reduction of Naval Armament). The Japanese delegation was greeted atWashington Union (train) Station by U.S. Secretary of StateHenry L. Stimson and the Japanese AmbassadorKatsuji Debuchi. The Japanese delegation then visited the White House to meet with PresidentHerbert Hoover.[38]
In the early 1930s, criminal gangs carried out large numbers of bank robberies in theMidwest. They used their superior firepower and fast getaway cars to elude local law enforcement agencies and avoid arrest. Many of these criminals frequently made newspaper headlines across the United States, particularlyJohn Dillinger, who became famous for leaping over bank cages, and repeatedly escaping fromjails and police traps.[39]
The robbers operated across state lines, and Hoover pressed to have their crimes recognized as federal offenses so that he and his men would have the authority to pursue them and get the credit for capturing them. Initially, the Bureau suffered some embarrassing foul-ups, in particular with Dillinger and his conspirators. A raid on a summer lodge inManitowish Waters, Wisconsin, called "Little Bohemia", left a Bureau agent and a civilian bystander dead and others wounded; all the gangsters escaped.[40]
Hoover realized that his job was then on the line, and he pulled out all stops to capture the culprits. In late July 1934, Special Agent Melvin Purvis, the Director of Operations in the Chicago office, received a tip on Dillinger's whereabouts that paid off when Dillinger was located, ambushed, and killed by Bureau agents outside theBiograph Theater.[41] Hoover was credited for overseeing several highly publicized captures or shootings of outlaws andbank robbers. These included those ofMachine Gun Kelly in 1933,[42] of Dillinger in 1934,[41] and ofAlvin Karpis in 1936,[43] which led to the Bureau's powers being broadened.
In 1935, the Bureau of Investigation was renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). It was not simply a name change. A great deal of restructuring was done. In fact, Hoover visited the lab of Canadian forensic scientistWilfrid Derome twice – in 1929 and 1932 – to plan the foundation of his own FBI laboratory in the United States.[44]
In 1939, the FBI became pre-eminent in domestic intelligence, thanks in large part to changes made by Hoover, such as expanding and combining fingerprint files in the Identification Division, to compiling the largest collection of fingerprints to date,[45][46] and Hoover's help to expand the FBI's recruitment and create theFBI Laboratory, a division established in 1932 to examine and analyzeevidence found by the FBI.[47]
During the 1930s, Hoover persistently denied the existence oforganized crime, despite numerous organized crime shootings asMafia groups struggled for control of the lucrative profits deriving from illegal alcohol sales duringProhibition, and later for control of prostitution,illegal drugs and other criminal enterprises.[48] Hoover was reluctant to pursue the Mafia as he knew that organized crime investigations typically required excessive man hours while resulting in a relatively small number of arrests. He also feared that placing underpaid FBI agents—who had a starting annual salary $5,500 in the mid 1950s—in close contact with wealthy mobsters could undermine the FBI's reputation of incorruptibility.[49]
Many writers believe Hoover's denial of the Mafia's existence and his failure to use the full force of the FBI to investigate it were due to Mafia gangstersMeyer Lansky andFrank Costello's possession of embarrassing photographs of Hoover in the company of hisprotégé, FBI Deputy DirectorClyde Tolson.[50][page needed] Other writers believe Costello corrupted Hoover by providing him with horseracing tips, passed through a mutual friend, gossip columnistWalter Winchell.[51] Hoover had a reputation as "an inveterate horseplayer" and was known to send Special Agents to place $100 bets for him.[52] Hoover once said the Bureau had "much more important functions" than arresting bookmakers and gamblers.[52]
Although Hoover built the reputation of the FBI arresting bank robbers in the 1930s, his main interest had always beenCommunist subversion, and during theCold War he was able to focus the FBI's attention on these investigations. From the mid-1940s through the mid-1950s, he paid little attention to criminalvice rackets such as illegal drugs, prostitution,extortion, and flatly denied the existence of the Mafia in the United States. In the 1950s, evidence of the FBI's unwillingness to investigate the Mafia became a topic of public criticism. After theApalachin meeting of crime bosses in 1957, Hoover could no longer deny the existence of a nationwide crime syndicate. In fact,Cosa Nostra's control of the Syndicate's many branches operating criminal activities throughout North America prevailed and was heavily reported in popular newspapers and magazines.[53] Hoover created the "Top Hoodlum Program" and went after the syndicate's top bosses throughout the country.[54][55]
Hoover was concerned about what he claimed wassubversion, and under his leadership the FBI investigated tens of thousands of suspected subversives and radicals. According to critics, Hoover tended to exaggerate the dangers of these allegedsubversives and many times overstepped his bounds in his pursuit of eliminating that perceived threat.[2]William G. Hundley, a Justice Department prosecutor, joked that Hoover's investigations had actually helped the American communist movement survive, as Hoover's "informants were nearly the only ones that paid the party dues."[56] Due to the FBI's aggressive targeting, by 1957 the membership of theCommunist Party USA (CPUSA) had dwindled to less than 10,000, of whom some 1,500 were informants for the FBI.[57]
The FBI investigated rings of German saboteurs and spies starting in the late 1930s and had primary responsibility for counterespionage. The first arrests of German agents were made in 1938 and continued throughout World War II.[58] In theQuirin affair during World War II, GermanU-boats set two small groups of Nazi agents ashore in Florida and onLong Island to cause acts ofsabotage within the country. The two teams were apprehended after one of the agents contacted the FBI and told them everything – he was also charged and convicted.[59]
During this time period, PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt, out of concern over Nazi agents in the United States, gave "qualified permission" towiretap persons "suspected ... [of] subversive activities". He went on to add in 1941 that theU.S. Attorney General had to be informed of its use in each case.[60] Attorney GeneralRobert H. Jackson left it to Hoover to decide how and when to use wiretaps, as he found the "whole business" distasteful. Jackson's successor at the post of Attorney General,Francis Biddle, did turn down Hoover's requests on occasion.[61] An example of J. Edgar Hoover approving wiretaps is theNixon wiretaps.
In the late 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave Hoover the task to investigate both foreign espionage in the United States and the activities of domestic communists and fascists. When theCold War began in the late 1940s, the FBI under Hoover undertook the intensive surveillance of communists and other left-wing activists in the United States.[6] The FBI also participated in theVenona project, a pre-World War II joint project with the British to eavesdrop on Soviet spies in the UK and the United States. They did not initially realize that espionage was being committed, but the Soviets' multiple use ofone-time pad ciphers (which with single use are unbreakable) created redundancies that allowed some intercepts to be decoded. These established that espionage was being carried out. Hoover kept the intercepts – America's greatestcounterintelligence secret – in a locked safe in his office. He chose not to inform PresidentHarry S. Truman, Attorney GeneralJ. Howard McGrath, or Secretaries of StateDean Acheson and GeneralGeorge Marshall while they held office. He informed theCentral Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the Venona Project in 1952.[62][63]
Plans for expanding the FBI to do global intelligence
After World War II, Hoover advanced plans to create a "World-Wide Intelligence Service". These plans were shot down by the Truman administration. Truman objected to the plan, emerging bureaucratic competitors opposed the centralization of power inherent in the plans, and there was a considerable aversion to creating an American version of the "Gestapo".[64]
In 1946, Attorney GeneralTom C. Clark authorized Hoover to compile a list of potentially disloyal Americans who might be detained during a wartime national emergency. In 1950, at the outbreak of theKorean War, Hoover submitted a plan to President Truman to suspend the writ ofhabeas corpus and detain 12,000 Americans suspected of disloyalty. Truman did not act on the plan.[65]
In 1956, Hoover was becoming increasingly frustrated byU.S. Supreme Court decisions that limited the Justice Department's ability to prosecute people for their political opinions, most notably communists. Some of his aides reported that he purposely exaggerated the threat of communism to "ensure financial and public support for the FBI."[66] At this time he formalized a covert "dirty tricks" program under the name COINTELPRO.[67] COINTELPRO was first used to disrupt the CPUSA, where Hoover ordered observation and pursuit of targets that ranged from suspected citizen spies to larger celebrity figures, such asCharlie Chaplin, whom he saw as spreadingCommunist propaganda.[68]
COINTELPRO's methods included infiltration, burglaries, setting up illegal wiretaps, planting forged documents, and spreading false rumors about key members of target organizations.[69] Some authors have charged that COINTELPRO methods also included inciting violence and arranging murders.[70][71] This program remained in place until it was exposed to the public in 1971, after the burglary by a group ofeight activists of many internal documents from an office inMedia, Pennsylvania, whereupon COINTELPRO became the cause of some of the harshest criticism of Hoover and the FBI. COINTELPRO's activities were investigated in 1975 by the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, called the "Church Committee" after its chairman, SenatorFrank Church (D-Idaho); the committee declared COINTELPRO's activities were illegal and contrary to the Constitution.[72]
Hoover amassed significant power by collecting files containing large amounts of compromising and potentially embarrassing information on many powerful people, especially politicians. According toLaurence Silberman, appointedDeputy Attorney General in early 1974, FBI DirectorClarence M. Kelley thought such files either did not exist or had been destroyed. AfterThe Washington Post broke a story in January 1975, Kelley searched and found them in his outer office. TheHouse Judiciary Committee then demanded that Silberman testify about them.
The treatment of Martin Luther King Jr. and actressJean Seberg are two examples:Jacqueline Kennedy recalled that Hoover told PresidentJohn F. Kennedy that King had tried to arrange a sex party while in the capital for theMarch on Washington and that Hoover toldRobert F. Kennedy that King had made derogatory comments during the President's funeral.[76] Under Hoover's leadership, the FBI sent ananonymous blackmail letter to King shortly before he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, indicating "There is only one thing left for you to do", which King interpreted as an exhortation for him to commit suicide;[77] however, King's interpretation of the letter has not been proven, with more portions of the letter being made public in 2014 which revealed that it also praised "older leaders" in the civil right movement such asRoy Wilkins and urged King to step aside and let other men lead the movement.[77]
TheChurch Committee, a U.S. Senate subcommittee led by U.S. SenatorFrank Church which investigated numerous controversial FBI activities, found in 1976 that the FBI's intent was to push King out of SCLC leadership.[78][77] King's aideAndrew Young claimed in a 2013 interview with theAcademy of Achievement that the main source of tension between the SCLC and FBI was the government agency's lack of black agents, and that both parties were willing to co-operate with each other by the time theSelma to Montgomery marches had taken place.[79]
In one 1965 incident, white civil rights workerViola Liuzzo was murdered byKu Klux Klansmen, who had given chase and fired shots into her car after noticing that her passenger was a young black man; one of the Klansmen wasGary Thomas Rowe, an acknowledged FBI informant.[80][81] The FBI spread rumors that Liuzzo was a member of the CPUSA and had abandoned her children to have sexual relationships with African Americans involved in the civil rights movement.[82][83] FBI records show that Hoover personally communicated these insinuations to President Lyndon B. Johnson.[84][85] Nevertheless, three Klansmen would be convicted in a federal trial for Liuzzo's murder in December 1965.[86]
Hoover also personally ordered to cease the Federal inquiry into the 196316th Street Baptist Church bombing by members of the Ku Klux Klan that killed four girls. By May 1965, local investigators and the FBI had identified suspects in the bombing and witnesses,[87] and this information was relayed to Hoover.[88] No prosecutions of the four suspects ensued even though the evidence was reportedly "so strong that even a white Alabama jury would convict".[89] There had been a history of mistrust between local and federal investigators.[90]
Hoover wrote in a memo that the chances of a conviction were remote and told his agents not to share their results with federal or state prosecutors. In 1968, the FBI formally closed their investigation into the bombing without filing charges against any of their named suspects. The files weresealed by order of Hoover.[91][92] Hoover in 1970 personally authorized"black-bag" jobs against theWeather Underground per testimony fromWilliam C. Sullivan.[93]
One of his biographers, Kenneth Ackerman, wrote that the allegation that Hoover's secret files kept presidents from firing him "is a myth".[94] PresidentRichard Nixon was recorded in 1971 as stating that one of the reasons he would not fire Hoover was that he was afraid of Hoover's reprisals against him.[95] Similarly, Presidents Harry S. Truman and John F. Kennedy considered dismissing Hoover as FBI Director, but ultimately concluded that the political cost of doing so would be too great.[96] In 1964, Hoover's FBI investigatedJack Valenti, a special assistant and confidant of President Lyndon Johnson, married to Johnson's personal secretary, but who allegedly maintained a gay relationship with a commercial photographer friend.[97]
Hoover personally directed the FBI investigation of theassassination of President John F. Kennedy. In 1964, just days before Hoover testified in the earliest stages of theWarren Commission hearings, President Lyndon B. Johnson waived the then mandatory U.S. Government Service Retirement Age of 70, allowing Hoover to remain the FBI Director "for an indefinite period of time".[98] Hoover had been among those to suggest the setting up of the commission, faced with a suspicious public, Hoover wrote to White House aideWalter Jenkins that "the thing I am concerned about is having something issued so that we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin".[99] TheHouse Select Committee on Assassinations issued a report in 1979 critical of the performance by the FBI, the Warren Commission, and other agencies. The report criticized the FBI's (Hoover's) reluctance to investigate thoroughly the possibility of a conspiracy to assassinate the President.[100][101]
When Nixon took office in January 1969, Hoover had just turned 74. There was a growing sentiment in Washington, D.C., that the aging FBI chief should retire, but Hoover's power and friends in Congress remained too strong for him to be forced to do so.[102] Hoover remained director of the FBI until he died of a heart attack in his Washington home, on May 2, 1972,[103] whereupon operational command of the Bureau was passed onto Associate DirectorClyde Tolson. On May 3, 1972, Nixon appointedL. Patrick Gray – a Justice Department official with no FBI experience – as acting director of the FBI, withW. Mark Felt becoming associate director.[104]
Hoover's bodylay in state in theU.S. Capitol rotunda,[105] where Chief JusticeWarren Burger eulogized him.[106] Up to that time, Hoover was the only civil servant to have lain in state according toThe New York Daily News.[107] At the time,The New York Times observed that this was "an honor accorded to only 21 persons before, of whom eight were Presidents or former Presidents."[108] President Nixon delivered another eulogy at the funeral service in TheNational Presbyterian Church, and called Hoover "one of the Giants, [whose] long life brimmed over with magnificent achievement and dedicated service to this country which he loved so well".[109] Hoover is buried in theCongressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C., next to the graves of his parents and a sister who had died in infancy.[110]
Biographer Kenneth D. Ackerman summarizes Hoover's legacy thus:
For better or worse, he built the FBI into a modern, national organization stressing professionalism and scientific crime-fighting. For most of his life, Americans considered him a hero. He made the G-Man brand so popular that, at its height, it was harder to become an FBI agent than to be accepted into anIvy League college.[94]
Hoover worked to groom the image of the FBI in American media; he was a consultant toWarner Brothers for a theatrical film about the FBI,The FBI Story (1959), and in 1965 on Warner's long-running spin-off television series,The F.B.I.[111] President Harry S. Truman said that Hoover transformed the FBI into his privatesecret police force:
... we want noGestapo or secret police. The FBI is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in sex-life scandals and plain blackmail. J. Edgar Hoover would give his right eye to take over, and all congressmen and senators are afraid of him.[112]
Because Hoover's actions came to be seen asabuses of power, FBI directors are now limited to one 10-year term,[113] subject to extension by theU.S. Senate.[114] Jacob Heilbrunn, journalist and senior editor atTheNational Interest, gives a mixed assessment of Hoover's legacy:[115]
There's no question that Hoover's record is a mixed one, but I don't think he was a demon. He's constantly being decried as being virulently anti-communist as if this was just a symptom of his paranoia. But if anything, he wasn't vigilant enough in ferreting out communist infiltration in the Roosevelt administration – we now know from KGB archives that there were dozens if not hundreds of KGB informants working inside the government. He's also regularly accused of broaching people's civil liberties - but in fact, Hoover resisted the wire-tapping activities that President Nixon wanted to perpetuate.
The FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. is named theJ. Edgar Hoover Building, after Hoover. Because of the controversial nature of Hoover's legacy, both Republicans and Democrats have periodically introduced legislation in the House and Senate to rename it. The first such proposal came just two months after the building's inauguration. On December 12, 1979,Gilbert Gude – a Republican congressman from Maryland – introduced H.R. 11137, which would have changed the name of the edifice from the "J. Edgar Hoover F.B.I. Building" to simply the "F.B.I. Building";[116][117] however, that bill never made it out of committee, nor did two subsequent attempts by Gude.[116] Another notable attempt came in 1993 when Democratic SenatorHoward Metzenbaum pushed for a name change following a new report about Hoover's ordered "loyalty investigation" of future SenatorQuentin Burdick.[118]
In 1998, Democratic SenatorHarry Reid sponsored an amendment to strip Hoover's name from the building, stating that "J. Edgar Hoover's name on the FBI building is a stain on the building."[119] The Senate did not adopt the amendment.[119] The building is "aging" and "deteriorating",[120] and its naming might eventually be made moot by the FBI moving its headquarters to a new suburban site. Hoover's practice of violating civil liberties for the stated sake of national security has been questioned in reference to recent national surveillance programs. An example is a lecture titledCivil Liberties and National Security: Did Hoover Get it Right?, given atThe Institute of World Politics on April 21, 2015.[121]
Some qualified praise for Hoover came from the Soviet double agentKim Philby, who spent time in Washington. Philby respected the way Hoover had built the FBI as a serious intelligence agency from virtually nothing, butJoseph McCarthy was a fake; and Hoover knew that McCarthy was a fake, but found it useful to manipulate McCarthy.[122]
Through his 2023 bookThe Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover, Lerone Martin argues that an understated but long-lasting influence of Hoover has been to normalize "white Christian nationalism" in the country, Hoover framing his work with the FBI as a crusade modelled afterCatholic orders such as theJesuits, despite himself being Protestant, favoring religiosity among FBI members (including "spiritual retreats") as well weaponizing traditional Christian rhetoric against what he perceived to be the atheist and Communist menace to the United States, for him founded on Christian principles. Martin also says that such social conservatism was not only religious but also racial in nature, as Hoover aimed to maintain the ethnic dynamics of his days, including the legal superiority of theWhite Americans over the minorities.[123][124][125]
Hoover received his first dog from his parents when he was a child, after which he was never without one. He owned many throughout his lifetime and became an aficionado. He was especially knowledgeable in breeding of pedigrees, particularlyCairn Terriers andBeagles. He gave many dogs to notable people, such as Presidents Herbert Hoover (not closely related) and Lyndon B. Johnson, and buried seven canine pets, including a Cairn Terrier named Spee De Bozo, at Aspen Hill Memorial Park, inSilver Spring, Maryland.[126]
In the 1940s, rumors began circulating that Hoover washomosexual.[127] Hoover reportedly hunted down and threatened anyone who insinuated that he was homosexual.[128] On May 2, 1969,Screw published the first reference in print to Hoover's sexuality, titled "Is J. Edgar Hoover aFag?"[129][130][better source needed]
Hoover describedClyde Tolson as hisalter ego. Both single, the two men worked closely; also, they often went to night clubs together, dined together, and vacationed together.[131] This closeness between the two men is often cited as evidence that they were lovers. Some FBI employees who knew them, such asMark Felt, say the relationship was "brotherly"; however, former FBI executive assistant director Mike Mason suggested that some of Hoover's colleagues denied that he had a sexual relationship with Tolson in an effort to protect Hoover's image.[132] Hooverbequeathed his estate to Tolson, who moved into Hoover's house after Hoover died. Tolson accepted theAmerican flag that draped Hoover's casket. Tolson is buried a few yards away from Hoover in the Congressional Cemetery.[133]
Some associates and scholars dismiss rumors about Hoover's alleged homosexuality,[a] and rumors about an alleged sexual relationship with Tolson in particular, as unlikely,[134][135][136] while others have described them as probable or even "confirmed".[137][50][138][b] Still, other scholars have reported the rumors without expressing an opinion.[140][141] Historians John Stuart Cox and Athan G. Theoharis concluded that "the strange likelihood is that Hoovernever knew sexual desire at all".[131]Anthony Summers, who wroteOfficial and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover (1993), stated that there was no ambiguity about the FBI director's sexual proclivities and described him as "bisexual with failedheterosexuality".[139][c]
Hoover and his assistant Clyde Tolson c. 1939
In his 2004 study, historian David K. Johnson attacked the speculations about Hoover's homosexuality as relying on "the kind of tactics Hoover and the security program he oversaw perfected: guilt by association, rumor, and unverified gossip".[147]
Hoover kept a large collection of pornographic films, photographs, and written materials, with particular emphasis on nude photos of celebrities. He reportedly used these for his own titillation and held them forblackmail purposes.[148]
Summers quoted Susan Rosenstiel as claiming to have seen Hoover engaging incross-dressing in the 1950s at all-male parties at thePlaza Hotel with attorneyRoy Cohn and young male prostitutes.[149][150] Another Hoover biographer,Burton Hersh, later corroborated this story.[151][d] Others have expressed skepticism about accounts of Hoover's tranvestism.[e]
Since the release of the 2011 filmJ. Edgar, Hoover's genealogy has become a topic of interest. A theory that Hoover had African-American heritage has not been substantiated.[160] There are also family stories and genealogies recorded by writer Millie McGhee in her 2000 bookSecrets Uncovered: J. Edgar Hoover — Passing for White?,[161] where she and Hoover are said to have a common ancestor. The claim has not been proven.[160]
Hoover was the nominal author of a number of books and articles, for which he received the credit and royalties, although it is widely believed that all of these were ghostwritten by FBI employees.[162][163][164]
1973: The newly built FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., was named the J. Edgar Hoover Building.[171]
1974: Congress voted to honor Hoover's memory by publishing a memorial book,J. Edgar Hoover: Memorial Tributes in the Congress of the United States and Various Articles and Editorials Relating to His Life and Work.[citation needed]
1974: InSchaumburg, Illinois, a grade school was named after J. Edgar Hoover. However, in 1994, after information about Hoover's illegal activities was released, the school's name was changed to commemorate President Herbert Hoover instead.[172]
Hoover has been portrayed by numerous actors in films and stage productions featuring him as FBI Director. The first known portrayal was byKent Rogers in the 1941Looney Tunes short "Hollywood Steps Out". Some notable portrayals (listed chronologically) include:
Hoover portrayed himself (filmed from behind) in a cameo, addressing FBI agents in the 1959 filmThe FBI Story.
Madoka Yonezawa voices a gender-swapped Hoover in the gameFate/Grand Order, in which she is an Assassin-class servant summoned alongside Alter Ego-class servant SuperBunyan (2022).
^One of Hoover's biographers,Richard Hack, does not believe the director was gay. Hack notes that Hoover was romantically linked to actressDorothy Lamour in the late 1930s and early 1940s and that after Hoover's death, Lamour did not deny rumors that she had had an affair with him.[96][page needed] Hack further reported that during the 1940s and 1950s Hoover attended social events withLela Rogers, the divorced mother of dancer and actressGinger Rogers, so often that many of their mutual friends assumed the pair would eventually marry.[96][page needed] According to Hack, Roy Cohn's opinion was that Hoover was too frightened of his own sexuality to have anything approaching a normal sexual or romantic relationship.[96][page needed]
^According to Anthony Summers, Hoover often frequented New York City'sStork Club. Luisa Stuart, a model who was 18 or 19 at the time, told Summers that she had seen Hoover holding hands with Tolson as they all rode in a limo uptown to theCotton Club in 1936.[139] Actress and singerEthel Merman was a friend of Hoover's since 1938, and familiar with all parties during his alleged romance ofLela Rogers. In a 1978 interview and in response toAnita Bryant's anti-gay campaign, she said: "Some of my best friends are homosexual: Everybody knew about J. Edgar Hoover, but he was the best chief the FBI ever had."[139]
^Summers added that mob leaderMeyer Lansky "controlled" compromising pictures of a sexual nature featuring Hoover with Tolson.[142][143][page needed] Summers stated that this blackmail material on Hoover made Hoover reluctant to pursue organized crime.[144] Recklessly indiscreet behavior by Hoover would have been totally out of character, whatever his sexuality. Most biographers consider the story of Mafia blackmail unlikely in light of the FBI's investigations of the Mafia.[145][146]
^JournalistLiz Smith wrote that Cohn told her about Hoover's rumored transvestism "long before it became common gossip."[152] Some of Roy Cohn's former clients, includingBill Bonanno, son of crime bossJoseph Bonanno, also cite photographs of Hoover in drag allegedly possessed by Cohn.[153][151][154] Fashion expertTim Gunn recalled that as a child, he toured the FBI offices with his father, who asked him and his sister if they would like to meetVivian Vance. The children had a pleasant meeting with a woman in Hoover's office. Years later, a search of the FBI visitor logs did not show Vance had visited Hoover's office that day. Gunn's conclusion was that Hoover had impersonated Vance on the day of his visit.[155]
^Biographer Kenneth Ackerman stated that Summers' account of Hoover's alleged transvestism has been "widely debunked by historians".[156] The cross-dressing story is said to be a myth by Swedish authorsÅke Persson and Thomas Oldrup in their book "101 historiska myter" (101 Historical Myths).[157] Skeptics of the cross-dressing allegations point to Susan Rosenstiel's lack of credibility (she pleaded guilty to attempted perjury in a 1971 case and later served time in a New York City jail).[158][159]
^Summers, Anthony (January 1, 2012)."The Secret Life of J Edgar Hoover".The Guardian. RetrievedApril 21, 2018.Hoover never joined a political party and claimed he was 'not political'. In fact, he admitted privately, he was a staunch, lifelong supporter of the Republican Party.
^Modern American Lives: Individuals and Issues in American History since 1945, Blaine T. Browne and Robert C. Cottrell, M. E. Sharpe (New York and London), 2008, p. 44
^Ruch was one of two people to name their own sons J. Edgar, and complained of the idea that radicals should "be allowed to speak and write as they like." (Summers, 2011)
^Ellis, Mark (April 1994). "J. Edgar Hoover and the 'Red Summer' of 1919".Journal of American Studies.28 (1):39–59.doi:10.1017/S0021875800026554.JSTOR27555783.S2CID145343194.Hoover asked Anthony Caminetti, the Commissioner of the Bureau of Immigration, to consider deporting Garvey, forwarding an anonymous letter from New York about Garvey's alleged crookedness. Meanwhile, George Ruch placed Garvey at the top of a new central list of deportable radicals. ... Hoover ordered a new investigation of Garvey's "aggressive activities" and the preparation of a deportation case. ... eventually, in 1923, when Hoover was Assistant Director and Chief of theBI, he nailed Garvey for mail fraud. Garvey was imprisoned in February 1925 and deported to Jamaica in November 1927.
^Hoover, J. Edgar (August 23, 1919)."Memorandum for Mr. Creighton".Berkeley Digital Library: War Resistance, Anti-Militarism, and Deportation, 1917–1919. Washington, D.C.: Department of Justice. RetrievedAugust 15, 2012.Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman are, beyond doubt, two of the most dangerous anarchists in this country and if permitted to return to the community will result in undue harm.
^Beaudoin F (2011). "Wilfrid Derome,terreur de la classe criminelle [Wilfrid Derome, terror of the criminal class]".Journal de la Criminalistique.1 (3):98–100.
^Churchill, Ward; Wall, Jim Vander (2001).Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement. South End Press. pp. 53+.ISBN978-0-89608-646-3.
^Joanne Giannino."Viola Liuzzo".Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography. Archived fromthe original on December 27, 2008. RetrievedSeptember 29, 2008.
^abOlmsted, Kathryn S. (1996).Challenging the Secret Government: The Post-Watergate Investigations of the CIA and FBI.Chapel Hill:The University of North Carolina Press. p. 101.ISBN978-0807845622.Many Americans were so disgusted by the revelations about the bureau and its late director that they demanded a new name for the J. Edgar Hoover FBI headquarters... A week later, Gilbert Gude, a Republican congressman from Maryland, introduced a bill to change the building's name. The Post editorial board, op-ed columnists, and other citizens urged Congress to pass the bill... Although Gude's bill attracted twenty-five cosponsors, it died in the Public Works and Transportation Committee. The bill was reintroduced in two subsequent sessions but never made it out of committee.
^abKing, Colbert I. (May 5, 2001)."No Thanks to Hoover".The Washington Post. RetrievedDecember 20, 2018.Three years ago, the Senate was given the chance to delete Hoover's name from the FBI building. Hoover was denounced on the floor for his longstanding secret investigation of one of the Senate's own, Quentin Burdick from North Dakota. Hoover was slammed for his secret files, his trampling upon civil liberties and his disrespect for civil rights. "J. Edgar Hoover's name on the FBI building is a stain on the building," said Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), sponsor of the amendment to strip Hoover's name. When the roll was called on February 4, 1998, the vote to keep Hoover's name aloft was 62 to 36.
^Boggs-Roberts, Rebecca; Schmidt, Sandra K. (2012).Historic Congressional Cemetery. Mount Pleasant, South Carolina:Arcadia Publishing. p. 123.ISBN978-0-738-59224-4.
^Johnson, David K. (2004).The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government. University of Chicago Press. pp. 11–13.
^Bonanno, Bill (1999).Bound by Honor: A Mafioso's Story. St. Martin's Press. pp. 166–167.They were all pictures of Hoover in women's clothing. His face was daubed with lipstick and makeup and he wore a wig of ringlets. In several of the photos, he posed alone, smiling, even mugging for the camera. In a few other photos, he was sitting on the lap of an unidentified male, stroking his cheek in one, hugging him in another, holding a morsel of food before his mouth in yet another. 'Louie [meaning Lewis Rosentiel] took most of these,' Cohn said, 'at a party on a houseboat in the Keys, 1948–1949... Hoover knows about these, believe me; he's always been aware of what would happen if they ever got out.'
^Carlo, Philip (2009).Gaspipe: Confessions of a Mafia Boss. William Morrow Paperbacks. p. 336.
^This entitled him to use the letters KBE after his name, but not to the use of the title "Sir," since that title is restricted to a citizen of countries belonging to theBritish Commonwealth."George VI Honors FBI Chief".The New York Times. December 11, 1947. RetrievedFebruary 17, 2011.
Charles, Douglas (2007).J. Edgar Hoover and the Anti-interventionists: FBI Political Surveillance and the Rise of the Domestic Security State, 1939–1945.Ohio State University Press.ISBN978-0-8142-1061-1.
Porter, Darwin (2012).J. Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson: Investigating the Sexual Secrets of America's Most Famous Men and Women. Blood Moon Productions.ISBN978-1-936003-25-9.
Gid Powers, Richard (1986).Secrecy and Power: The Life of J. Edgar Hoover. Free Press.ISBN978-0-02-925060-0.
