J. Edgar Hoover, (John Edgar Hoover) Washington D.C. January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972
Head of the FBI – 1924-1972
Did you know J. Edgar Hoover was the most powerful man in The United States for 48 years.. He had more power than the 8 Presidents and 18 Attorney General’s he served under.
Hoover studied Law at night at George Washington University, where he received a Bachelor of Law Degree in 1916. Then a Master of Law Degree the following year. Hoover was a very ambitious and tenacious man. He was extremely close to his mother. He lived with her in the family home until her death in 1938. Hoover was 43 years old.
Being highly competitive, Hoover worked hard to overcome a stuttering problem by learning to talk fast. In 1917 he went to work for the Department of Justice as a file reviewer. Only two years later he became special assistant to Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. In this post he oversaw the mass roundups and deportations of suspected Bolsheviks – Communists.
After World War 1, he was named acting director of the “Bureau of Investigation”. When Hoover took over total control he reorganized and rebuilt it on a professional basis, recruiting Agents on merit and instituting rigorous methods of selecting and training new Agents.
Hoover established a fingerprint file, of which became the world’s largest scientific crime detection laboratory. Hoover had law enforcement officers from all parts of the country sent for special training in fingerprinting.
In the late 1930s President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave him the task of investigating both foreign and domestic espionage, and the activities of communists and fascists alike.
In the late 1940s Hoover’s FBI undertook the intensive surveillance of communists and other left-wing activists in the U.S. This led him to aggressively investigate both the Ku Klux Klan, and Martin Luther King Jr. He found King to be a philanderer and said “MLK is the most dangerous negro in the future of this Nation. He also brought down other black activists such as Malcolm X, and Stokely Carmichael “Kwame Ture”
Hoover was notorious for gathering information on politicians throughout the country. He kept the most scurrilous data and files under his own personal control. Including even sitting Presidents.
The headquarters of The FBI is in Washington D.C. in a building named for J. Edgar Hoover. He served as the bureau’s Head from 1924 – 1972, he died in his sleep May 2, 1972. When Hoover died, his maid had strict instructions to first notify his loyal secretary, so she could destroy all Hoover’s private files he had collected on politicians and presidents alike for 48 years. When President Nixon got word of Hoover’s passing, he sent a team from the DOJ into Hoover’s office to recover all his private files, but they were already gone.
During the 1930s, violent gangsters wreaked havoc on small towns across the midwest. Local police were helpless against the gangs superior firepower and fast getaway cars. Hoover saw a solution and pressed for and received the authority to have his Agents go after these gangs, under federal interstate laws. John Dillinger, George “Machine Gun Kelly” and others were successfully hunted down and arrested or killed. It was “Machine Gun kelly” who gave The Bureau Agents the moniker “G-Men”
During and after World War 11, The FBI became the Nation’s bulwark against – Nazi and communist espionage. Hoover had Agents perform domestic counterintelligence, counter espionage, and counter sabotage investigations in The United States. He also kept tabs on a growing list of people he considered “subversives” which would eventually include such famous figures as: Marilyn Monroe, Muhammad Ali, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackie Robinson, Helen Keller, Walt Disney, Charlie Chaplin, and Lucille Ball. Unfortunately we will never know what kind of information he had on these people.
Then Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the FBI to run foreign intelligence in the Western Hemisphere. The Bureau had their hands full with robberies, kidnappings, and auto theft. Frustrated over any limitation capabilities, Hoover created the Counter Intelligence Program, or COINTELPRO. This group conducted a series of covert, and sometimes illegal investigations to discredit radical political organizations, such as the black panthers, socialist workers party, and the Ku Klux Klan.
Hoover ordered background checks on all government employees to prevent foreign agents from infiltrating the United States Government.
Hoover went after Martin Luther King Jr. He ordered around-the-clock surveillance on King. He believed King to be a major threat to The Country. Using wiretaps and searches, Hoover put together a large file of what he considered damning evidence against King.
Hoover had the goods on everyone. His infamous “private files”. Presidents from Truman to Nixon could never fire Hoover do to his popularity and high political cost to them.
Hoover was an extremely private person. He had just a handful of people he trusted. His mother, his personal secretary, his maid, Ethel Merman, and his second in command – Deputy Clyde Tolson.
In the 1940s, rumors started to circulate that J. Edgar Hoover might be homosexual, (Gay). His closest friend an Deputy Clyde Tolson was a Gay man. Hoover & Tolson made a packed with each other, they would always have meals together, most of all dinner to go over and discuss the business of the day.
Hoover made Tolson his primary heir. Hoover would say, Tolson was his Alter Ego. And yes Hoover had quite an Ego. When Hoover died, Tolson moved into his house. And Tolson accepted The American Flag that draped Hoovers casket. Tolson is buried a few yards away from Hoover in the Congressional Cemetery on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C.
WAS J. Edgar Hoover Gay? Really we will never know. And to me…it is irrelevant. That does not define who he was. J.Edgar Hoover was a very patriotic man who loved his country, and fought for Justice!
I do believe if J. Edgar Hoover were alive today there would be a shit load of FBI Agents out of work! The FBI has become so corrupt and political they should be abolished! No one trust this agency AT ALL anymore! The FBI is the CORRUPT personal police for the demonRAT party! FBI..YOU SHOULD BE VERY ASHAMED!!