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| j edgar hoover: J. Edgar Hoover Goes to the Movies John Sbardellati, 2012-05-15 Between 1942 and 1958, J. Edgar Hoover’s Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted a sweeping and sustained investigation of the motion picture industry to expose Hollywood’s alleged subversion of the American Way through its depiction of social problems, class differences, and alternative political ideologies. FBI informants (their names still redacted today) reported to Hoover’s G-men on screenplays and screenings of such films as Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), noting that this picture deliberately maligned the upper class attempting to show that people who had money were mean and despicable characters. The FBI’s anxiety over this film was not unique; it extended to a wide range of popular and critical successes, including The Grapes of Wrath (1940), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), Crossfire (1947) and On the Waterfront (1954). In J. Edgar Hoover Goes to the Movies, John Sbardellati provides a new consideration of Hollywood’s history and the post–World War II Red Scare. In addition to governmental intrusion into the creative process, he details the efforts of left-wing filmmakers to use the medium to bring social problems to light and the campaigns of their colleagues on the political right, through such organizations as the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, to prevent dissemination of un-American ideas and beliefs. Sbardellati argues that the attack on Hollywood drew its motivation from a sincerely held fear that film content endangered national security by fostering a culture that would be at best apathetic to the Cold War struggle, or, at its worst, conducive to communism at home. Those who took part in Hollywood’s Cold War struggle, whether on the left or right, shared one common trait: a belief that the movies could serve as engines for social change. This strongly held assumption explains why the stakes were so high and, ultimately, why Hollywood became one of the most important ideological battlegrounds of the Cold War. |
| j edgar hoover: Young J. Edgar Kenneth D. Ackerman, 2008-04-01 On June 2, 1919, bombs exploded simultaneously in nine American cities, and the nation suddenly found itself facing a new threat-radical terrorism. Then-Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer vowed a crackdown to be led by his youngest assistant, J. Edgar Hoover. Under Palmer's wing, Hoover helped execute a series of brutal nationwide raids-bursting into homes without warrants, arresting over ten thousand Americans-and assembled secret files on thousands of political enemies. Despite public backlash against the abuses, these were the first steps in Hoover's remarkable rise to power. Young J. Edgar is the “compelling” (PUBLISHERS WEEKLY) and “fast-paced” (KIRKUS REVIEWS) story of Hoover's early career-one that reaches to the heart of our modern debate over personal freedom in a time of war and fear. |
| j edgar hoover: J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets Curt Gentry, 2001-02-17 The cumulative effect is overwhelming. Eleanor Roosevelt was right: Hoover’s FBI was an American gestapo. —Newsweek Shocking, grim, frightening, Curt Gentry’s masterful portrait of America’s top policeman is a unique political biography. From more than 300 interviews and over 100,000 pages of previously classified documents, Gentry reveals exactly how a paranoid director created the fraudulent myth of an invincible, incorruptible FBI. For almost fifty years, Hoover held virtually unchecked public power, manipulating every president from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Richard Nixon. He kept extensive blackmail files and used illegal wiretaps and hidden microphones to destroy anyone who opposed him. The book reveals how Hoover helped create McCarthyism, blackmailed the Kennedy brothers, and influenced the Supreme Court; how he retarded the civil rights movement and forged connections with mobsters; as well as insight into the Watergate scandal and what part he played in the investigations of President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. |
| j edgar hoover: Gossip Men Christopher M. Elias, 2022-09-30 The legacies of Joseph McCarthy, J. Edgar Hoover, Roy Cohn seem like they might be with us forever. Yet Christopher Elias finds in them startling new connections between gender, sexuality, and national security in 20th-century US politics--a paradigm he christens 'security state masculinity.' Elias integrates biographies of the trio with a history of gossip magazines and their tactics--such as insinuation, guilt by association, hyperbole, and alarmism, not to mention cynicism, slang, and photographic manipulation--which all three used to consolidate their power. The story of security state masculinity reached its climax in the Army-McCarthy hearings, which were rife with insinuations and coded threats. Using gossip as a lens, Elias shifts our understanding of the development of American political culture -- ǂc Provided by publisher. |
| j edgar hoover: The Director Paul Letersky, 2022-07-12 In 1965, at the beginning of the chaos, twenty-two-year old Paul Letersky was assigned to assist the legendary FBI director J. Edgar Hoover who'd just turned seventy and had, by then, led the Bureau for an incredible forty-one years. Hoover was a rare and complex man who walked confidently among the most powerful. His personal privacy was more tightly guarded than the secret files he carefully collected--and that were so feared by politicians and celebrities. Through Letersky's close working relationship with Hoover, and the trust and confidence he gained from Hoover's most loyal senior assistant, Helen Gandy, Paul became one of the few able to enter the Director's secretive--and sometimes perilous--world. Since Hoover's death half a century ago, millions of words have been written about the man and hundreds of hours of TV dramas and A-list Hollywood films produced. But until now, there has been virtually no account from someone who, for a period of years, spent hours with the Director on a daily basis.--Amazon. |
| j edgar hoover: Official and Confidential Anthony Summers, 2012-01-17 A New York Times–bestselling author’s revealing, “important” biography of the longtime FBI director (The Philadelphia Inquirer). No one exemplified paranoia and secrecy at the heart of American power better than J. Edgar Hoover, the original director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. For this consummate biography, renowned investigative journalist Anthony Summers interviewed more than eight hundred witnesses and pored through thousands of documents to get at the truth about the man who headed the FBI for fifty years, persecuted political enemies, blackmailed politicians, and lived his own surprising secret life. Ultimately, Summers paints a portrait of a fatally flawed individual who should never have held such power, and for so long. |
| j edgar hoover: Master of Deceit Marc Aronson, 2012-04-10 This book examines the story of America during J. Edgar Hoover's reign as head of the FBI. |
| j edgar hoover: The Burglary Betty Medsger, 2014-01-07 INVESTIGATIVE REPORTERS & EDITORS (IRE) BOOK AWARD WINNER • The story of the history-changing break-in at the FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, by a group of unlikely activists—quiet, ordinary, hardworking Americans—that made clear the shocking truth that J. Edgar Hoover had created and was operating, in violation of the U.S. Constitution, his own shadow Bureau of Investigation. “Impeccably researched, elegantly presented, engaging.”—David Oshinsky, New York Times Book Review • “Riveting and extremely readable. Relevant to today's debates over national security, privacy, and the leaking of government secrets to journalists.”—The Huffington Post It begins in 1971 in an America being split apart by the Vietnam War . . . A small group of activists set out to use a more active, but nonviolent, method of civil disobedience to provide hard evidence once and for all that the government was operating outside the laws of the land. The would-be burglars—nonpro’s—were ordinary people leading lives of purpose: a professor of religion and former freedom rider; a day-care director; a physicist; a cab driver; an antiwar activist, a lock picker; a graduate student haunted by members of her family lost to the Holocaust and the passivity of German civilians under Nazi rule. Betty Medsger's extraordinary book re-creates in resonant detail how this group scouted out the low-security FBI building in a small town just west of Philadelphia, taking into consideration every possible factor, and how they planned the break-in for the night of the long-anticipated boxing match between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali, knowing that all would be fixated on their televisions and radios. Medsger writes that the burglars removed all of the FBI files and released them to various journalists and members of Congress, soon upending the public’s perception of the inviolate head of the Bureau and paving the way for the first overhaul of the FBI since Hoover became its director in 1924. And we see how the release of the FBI files to the press set the stage for the sensational release three months later, by Daniel Ellsberg, of the top-secret, seven-thousand-page Pentagon study on U.S. decision-making regarding the Vietnam War, which became known as the Pentagon Papers. The Burglary is an important and gripping book, a portrait of the potential power of nonviolent resistance and the destructive power of excessive government secrecy and spying. |
| j edgar hoover: Secrets Uncovered Millie McGhee, 2000-06-01 |
| j edgar hoover: Act of Treason Mark North, 2011-07 Examination of how J. Edgar Hoover knew President Kennedy would be assassinated and the coverup that followed the assassination. |
| j edgar hoover: The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover Kinky Friedman, 1996 A story set in New York, Chicago and Washington, and featuring the foul-mouthed Kinky Friedman, ace private eye. He goes to the aid of an old friend, McGovern, who believes he's seeing little green men, and finds a connection between Al Capone and McGovern - a mysterious man named Leaning Jesus. |
| j edgar hoover: J. Edgar Hoover Ralph de Toledano, 1973 The first objective biography about the man whose name is synonymous with the FBI. Generally sympathetic but not uncritical, veteran newsman Ralph de Toledano unveils Hoover's life from birth to death, showing how he took a corrupt political instrument and made it into the greatest investigative organization in the world -- and, in his last years, allowed some rigidity to creep in. |
| j edgar hoover: G-Man (Pulitzer Prize Winner) Beverly Gage, 2022-11-22 Winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Biography Winner of the 2022 National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography, the 2023 Bancroft Prize in American History and Diplomacy, and the 43rd LA Times Book Prize in Biography | Finalist for the 2023 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography Named a Best Book of 2022 by The Atlantic, The Washington Post and Smithsonian Magazine and a New York Times Top 100 Notable Books of 2022 “Masterful…This book is an enduring, formidable accomplishment, a monument to the power of biography [that] now becomes the definitive work”—The Washington Post “A nuanced portrait in a league with the best of Ron Chernow and David McCullough.”—The Wall Street Journal A major new biography of J Edgar Hoover that draws from never-before-seen sources to create a groundbreaking portrait of a colossus who dominated half a century of American history and planted the seeds for much of today's conservative political landscape. We remember him as a bulldog--squat frame, bulging wide-set eyes, fearsome jowls--but in 1924, when he became director of the FBI, he had been the trim, dazzling wunderkind of the administrative state, buzzing with energy and big ideas for reform. He transformed a failing law-enforcement backwater, riddled with scandal, into a modern machine. He believed in the power of the federal government to do great things for the nation and its citizens. He also believed that certain people--many of them communists or racial minorities or both-- did not deserve to be included in that American project. Hoover rose to power and then stayed there, decade after decade, using the tools of state to create a personal fiefdom unrivaled in U.S. history. Beverly Gage’s monumental work explores the full sweep of Hoover’s life and career, from his birth in 1895 to a modest Washington civil-service family through his death in 1972. In her nuanced and definitive portrait, Gage shows how Hoover was more than a one-dimensional tyrant and schemer who strong-armed the rest of the country into submission. As FBI director from 1924 through his death in 1972, he was a confidant, counselor, and adversary to eight U.S. presidents, four Republicans and four Democrats. Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson did the most to empower him, yet his closest friend among the eight was fellow anticommunist warrior Richard Nixon. Hoover was not above blackmail and intimidation, but he also embodied conservative values ranging from anticommunism to white supremacy to a crusading and politicized interpretation of Christianity. This garnered him the admiration of millions of Americans. He stayed in office for so long because many people, from the highest reaches of government down to the grassroots, wanted him there and supported what he was doing, thus creating the template that the political right has followed to transform its party. G-Man places Hoover back where he once stood in American political history--not at the fringes, but at the center--and uses his story to explain the trajectories of governance, policing, race, ideology, political culture, and federal power as they evolved over the course of the 20th century. |
| j edgar hoover: Official and Confidential Anthony Summers, 1993 An exposé of the public and the private side of former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. |
| j edgar hoover: Secrecy and Power Richard Gid Powers, 2020-02-08 A well-researched biography about the public and private life of J. Edgar Hoover—former FBI director and America’s most controversial law enforcer—that draws on previously unknown personal documents, a study of FBI files, and the presidential papers of nine administrations. Secrecy and Power is a full biography of former FBI director, covering all aspects of Hoover’s controversial career from the Red Scare following World War I to the 1960s and his personal vendettas against Martin Luther King and the civil rights and antiwar movements. |
| j edgar hoover: Masters Of Deceit: The Story Of Communism In America And How To Fight It J. Edgar Hoover, 2015-11-06 The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation explains the startling facts about the major menace of our time, communism: what it is, how it works, what its aims are, the real dangers it poses, and what loyal American citizens must know to protect their freedom. MASTERS OF DECEIT is a powerful and informative book—a firsthand account of American communism from its beginnings to the present, written by a man more intimately familiar with the complete story than any other American. Mr. Hoover shows the day-to-day operations of the Communist Party, USA: who the communists are, what they claim, why people be-come communists and why some break away. He describes life within the Party, communist strategy and tactics, methods of mass agitation and underground infiltration, espionage, sabotage, and its treatment of minorities. The picture of what life in this country would be under communism (toward which thou-sands of misguided Americans actually are working now!) is vivid and shocking. The forceful, driving message of this book is clarified with many incidents and anecdotes, definitions of communist terms, key dates, and a list of international communist organizations and publications which illustrate the communist Trojan horse in action. And it concretely outlines just what you can do now to combat the evils of the “false religion” of communism, so that you can stay free. MASTERS OF DECEIT is one of the most important books of our time—a warning of the clear and present danger to our way of life. |
| j edgar hoover: The True Story of J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI Barry Denenberg, 1993 A look at J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI discusses the Red Scare in the early 1920s, the anti-war and black power movements of the 1960s, and other issues. |
| j edgar hoover: J. Edgar Hoover, Sex, and Crime Athan Theoharis, 1995 Describes the life of the late director of the FBI with answers to the accusations of sexual misconduct and homosexuality and being soft on organized crime and the Mafia in particular. |
| j edgar hoover: Masters of Deceit John Edgar Hoover, 2011-05 Masters of Deceit is the product of J. Edgar Hoover's almost obsessive fear of Communism.Although Communism may seem to be almost an anachronism from a time gone by, it was a powerful force in the 1930s and the 1940s. By the mid-1950s, when this book was written, membership of Communist Party USA had slipped from its 1944 peak of around 80,000. However, Hoover continued to devote substantial FBI governmental resources to investigating the Communist Party USA, while ignoring the more serious problems of the Mafia and Organized Crime. |
| j edgar hoover: J. Edgar Hoover and the Anti-interventionists Douglas M. Charles, 2007 In this manuscript, Douglas M. Charles reveals how FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover catered to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's political interests. Between 1939 and 1945, the Federal Bureau of Investigation monitored the political activities of President Roosevelt's anti-interventionist foreign policy critics. Hoover, whose position as FBI director was tenuous within the left-of-center Roosevelt administration, catered to the president's political and policy interests in order to preserve his position and to expand FBI authority. In his pragmatic effort to service administration political goals, Hoover employed illegal wiretaps and informers, collected derogatory information, conducted investigations that had the potential to discredit the anti-interventionists, forwarded political intelligence to administration officials, and coordinated some activity with British intelligence. This all occurred within a crisis atmosphere created with the onset of the Second World War, and it was this political dynamic that permitted Hoover to successfully cultivate his relationship with President Roosevelt. In the process, the administration's otherwise legitimate foreign policy opposition - regarded by some as subversive - had their civil liberties violated through intensive FBI scrutiny of their political dissent. Moreover, the FBI's surveillance marks the origins of the FBI's role in the later national security state. Among the targets examined in this book are Charles Lindbergh, the America First Committee, notable anti-interventionist senators and congressmen, the anti-interventionist press, and other prominent individuals who advocated American isolation from foreign war.--BOOK JACKET. |
| j edgar hoover: The Einstein File Fred Jerome, 2003-06-17 From the moment of Einstein's arrival in the U.S. in l933 until his death in l955, J. Edgar Hoover's FBI, with help from several other federal agencies, busied itself collecting derogatory information in an effort to undermine Einstein's influence and destroy his prestige. For the first time Fred Jerome tells the story of that anti-Einstein campaign, as well as the story behind it--why and how the campaign originated, and thereby provides the first detailed picture of Einstein's little known political activism. Unlike the popular image of Einstein as an absent-minded, head-in-the-clouds genius, the man was in fact intensely politically active and felt it was his duty to use his world-wide fame shrewdly in the cause of social justice. A passionate pacifist, socialist, internationalist and outspoken critic of racism (Einstein considered racism America's worst disease), and personal friend of Paul Robeson and W.E.B. DuBois, Einstein used his immense prestige to denounce McCarthy at the height of his power, publicly urging witnesses to refuse to testify before HUAC. The story that emerges not only reveals a little known aspect of Einstein's character, but underscores the dangers that can arise, to threaten the American Republic and the rule of law, in times of obsession with national security. |
| j edgar hoover: Persons in Hiding J. Edgar Hoover, 1938 |
| j edgar hoover: Puppetmaster Richard Hack, 2007 While many of J. Edgar Hoover's achievements and insecurities are well-documented, the author of Hughes and Clash of the Titans reveals for the first time the most hidden secrets of Hoover's private life and exposes previously undisclosed conduct that threatened to compromise the security of the entire nation. of photos. |
| j edgar hoover: Bobby and J. Edgar Revised Edition Burton Hersh, 2008-06-03 NOW WITH A NEW PREFACE In this riveting account of the explosive relationship between Robert F. Kennedy and J. Edgar Hoover, renowned journalist and author Burton Hersh sets their highly publicized clashes in the context of Joe Kennedy’s ongoing manipulation of Congress and his children’s careers, and his lifelong connections to organized crime. Theirs was a unique triumvirate, marked by conflict and betrayal, and culminating in a near-Shakespearean tragedy. Based on compelling new research, and told in gripping anecdotal style, Hersh chronicles the complex relationship between the two antagonists, from their early brushes during the McCarthy years to their controversial deaths. |
| j edgar hoover: F.B. Eyes William J. Maxwell, 2016-12-06 How FBI surveillance influenced African American writing Few institutions seem more opposed than African American literature and J. Edgar Hoover's white-bread Federal Bureau of Investigation. But behind the scenes the FBI's hostility to black protest was energized by fear of and respect for black writing. Drawing on nearly 14,000 pages of newly released FBI files, F.B. Eyes exposes the Bureau’s intimate policing of five decades of African American poems, plays, essays, and novels. Starting in 1919, year one of Harlem’s renaissance and Hoover’s career at the Bureau, secretive FBI ghostreaders monitored the latest developments in African American letters. By the time of Hoover’s death in 1972, these ghostreaders knew enough to simulate a sinister black literature of their own. The official aim behind the Bureau’s close reading was to anticipate political unrest. Yet, as William J. Maxwell reveals, FBI surveillance came to influence the creation and public reception of African American literature in the heart of the twentieth century. Taking his title from Richard Wright’s poem The FB Eye Blues, Maxwell details how the FBI threatened the international travels of African American writers and prepared to jail dozens of them in times of national emergency. All the same, he shows that the Bureau’s paranoid style could prompt insightful criticism from Hoover’s ghostreaders and creative replies from their literary targets. For authors such as Claude McKay, James Baldwin, and Sonia Sanchez, the suspicion that government spy-critics tracked their every word inspired rewarding stylistic experiments as well as disabling self-censorship. Illuminating both the serious harms of state surveillance and the ways in which imaginative writing can withstand and exploit it, F.B. Eyes is a groundbreaking account of a long-hidden dimension of African American literature. |
| j edgar hoover: The Manufacture of Consent Stephen M. Underhill, 2020-02-01 The second Red Scare was a charade orchestrated by a tyrant with the express goal of undermining the New Deal—so argues Stephen M. Underhill in this hard-hitting analysis of J. Edgar Hoover’s rhetorical agency. Drawing on Classification 94, a vast trove of recently declassified records that documents the longtime FBI director’s domestic propaganda campaigns in the mid-twentieth century, Underhill shows that Hoover used the growing power of his office to subvert the presidencies of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman and redirect the trajectory of U.S. culture away from social democracy toward a toxic brand of neoliberalism. He did so with help from Republicans who opposed organized labor and Southern Democrats who supported Jim Crow in what is arguably the most culturally significant documented political conspiracy in U.S. history, a wholesale domestic propaganda program that brainwashed Americans and remade their politics. Hoover also forged ties with the powerful fascist leaders of the period to promote his own political ambitions. All the while, as a love letter to Clyde Tolson still preserved in Hoover’s papers attests, he strove to pass for straight while promoting a culture that demonized same-sex love. The erosion of democratic traditions Hoover fostered continues to haunt Americans today. |
| j edgar hoover: J. Edgar Hoover R. Andrew Kiel, 2000 |
| j edgar hoover: The Director Ovid Demaris, 1975 An oral biography of J. Edgar Hoover. |
| j edgar hoover: From the Secret Files of J. Edgar Hoover Athan G. Theoharis, 1991 During his forty-eight years as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, J. Edgar Hoover scrupulously maintained secret office files and arranged for special filing procedures to safeguard sensitive information. |
| j edgar hoover: Puppetmaster Richard Hack, 2004-01-01 J. Edgar Hoover—the most powerful lawman in America for more than fifty years—was also the country's most controversial and feared public servant. His career as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation spanned nine different presidential administrations. During that time, Hoover completely reshaped domestic law enforcement, transforming his G-men into an elite national crime fighting division. Despite his contributions to the criminal justice system, Hoover fell from favor soon after his death, the victim of rampant rumors and innuendo. In Puppetmaster, Richard Hack separates truth from fiction to reveal the most hidden secrets of Hoover's private life and exposes previously undisclosed conduct that threatened to compromise the security of the entire nation. Based on files, documents, and over 100,000 pages of FBI memos and State Department papers, Hack rips the lid off Hoover's façade of propriety to detail a life replete with sexual indiscretions, criminal behavior, and a long-standing alliance with the Mafia. |
| j edgar hoover: J. Edgar Dustin Lance Black, 2012-02-07 As the face of law enforcement in America for almost fifty years, J Edgar Hoover was feared and admired, reviled, and revered. But behind closed doors, he held secrets that would have destroyed his image, his career, and his life. This title tells his story. |
| j edgar hoover: Stalking the Sociological Imagination Mike Keen, 1999-05-30 An account of the FBI's investigation of prominent American sociologists, based on documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. It suggests that the FBI marginalized critical sociologists and suppressed the development of a Marxist tradition in American sociology. |
| j edgar hoover: J. Edgar Hoover Kevin Cunningham, 2005-07 A biography of the man who transformed the Federal Bureau of Investigation into and outstanding law enforcement agency. |
| j edgar hoover: Secrecy and Power Richard Gid Powers, 1987 Explores the life and turbulent times of the lawman who served as Director of the F.B.I. from 1924 to 1972. |
| j edgar hoover: Hoover's War on Gays Douglas M. Charles, 2015-09-18 At the FBI, the “Sex Deviates” program covered a lot of ground, literally; at its peak, J. Edgar Hoover’s notorious “Sex Deviates” file encompassed nearly 99 cubic feet or more than 330,000 pages of information. In 1977–1978 these files were destroyed—and it would seem that four decades of the FBI’s dirty secrets went up in smoke. But in a remarkable feat of investigative research, synthesis, and scholarly detective work, Douglas M. Charles manages to fill in the yawning blanks in the bureau’s history of systematic (some would say obsessive) interest in the lives of gay and lesbian Americans in the twentieth century. His book, Hoover’s War on Gays, is the first to fully expose the extraordinary invasion of US citizens’ privacy perpetrated on a historic scale by an institution tasked with protecting American life. For much of the twentieth century, when exposure might mean nothing short of ruin, gay American men and women had much to fear from law enforcement of every kind—but none so much as the FBI, with its inexhaustible federal resources, connections, and its carefully crafted reputation for ethical, by-the-book operations. What Hoover’s War on Gays reveals, rather, is the FBI’s distinctly unethical, off-the-books long-term targeting of gay men and women and their organizations under cover of “official” rationale—such as suspicion of criminal activity or vulnerability to blackmail and influence. The book offers a wide-scale view of this policy and practice, from a notorious child kidnapping and murder of the 1930s (ostensibly by a sexual predator with homosexual tendencies), educating the public about the threat of “deviates,” through WWII’s security concerns about homosexuals who might be compromised by the enemy, to the Cold War’s “Lavender Scare” when any and all gays working for the US government shared the fate of suspected Communist sympathizers. Charles’s work also details paradoxical ways in which these incursions conjured counterefforts—like the Mattachine Society; ONE, Inc.; and the Daughters of Bilitis—aimed at protecting and serving the interests of postwar gay culture. With its painstaking recovery of a dark chapter in American history and its new insights into seemingly familiar episodes of that story—involving noted journalists, politicians, and celebrities—this thorough and deeply engaging book reveals the perils of authority run amok and stands as a reminder of damage done in the name of decency. |
| j edgar hoover: The Director Paul Letersky, 2021-07-13 The first book ever written about FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover by a member of his personal staff—his former assistant, Paul Letersky—offers unprecedented, “clear-eyed and compelling” (Mark Olshaker, coauthor of Mindhunter) insight into an American legend. The 1960s and 1970s were arguably among America’s most turbulent post-Civil War decades. While the Vietnam War continued seemingly without end, protests and riots ravaged most cities, the Kennedys and MLK were assassinated, and corruption found its way to the highest levels of politics, culminating in Watergate. In 1965, at the beginning of the chaos, twenty-two-year-old Paul Letersky was assigned to assist the legendary FBI director J. Edgar Hoover who’d just turned seventy and had, by then, led the Bureau for an incredible forty-one years. Hoover was a rare and complex man who walked confidently among the most powerful. His personal privacy was more tightly guarded than the secret “files” he carefully collected—and that were so feared by politicians and celebrities. Through Letersky’s close working relationship with Hoover, and the trust and confidence he gained from Hoover’s most loyal senior assistant, Helen Gandy, Paul became one of the few able to enter the Director’s secretive—and sometimes perilous—world. Since Hoover’s death half a century ago, millions of words have been written about the man and hundreds of hours of TV dramas and A-list Hollywood films produced. But until now, there has been virtually no account from someone who, for a period of years, spent hours with the Director on a daily basis. Balanced, honest, and keenly observed, this “vivid, foibles-and-all portrait of the fabled scourge of gangsters, Klansmen, and communists” (The Wall Street Journal) sheds new light on one of the most powerful law enforcement figures in American history. |
| j edgar hoover: A Spy in Canaan Marc Perrusquia, 2018-03-27 Only Ernest Withers, a key figure in the civil rights movement, could have delivered such iconic photographs—and the kind of information the FBI wanted . . . Renowned photographer Ernest Withers captured some of the most stunning moments of the civil rights era—from the age-defining snapshot of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., riding one of the first integrated buses in Montegomery, to the haunting photo of Emmett Till’s great-uncle pointing an accusing finger at his nephew’s killers. He was trusted and beloved by King’s inner circle, and had a front row seat to history . . . but few people know that Withers was also an informant for the FBI. Memphis journalist Marc Perrusquia broke the story of Withers’s secret life after a long investigation culminating in a landmark lawsuit against the government to release hundreds of once-classified FBI documents. Those files confirmed that, from 1958 to 1976, Withers helped the Bureau monitor pillars of the movement including Dr. Martin Luther King and others, as well as dozens of civil rights foot soldiers. Now, on the fiftieth anniversary of King’s assasination, A Spy in Canaan explores the life, complex motivations, and legacy of this fascinating figure Ernest Withers, as well as the dark shadow that era’s culture of surveillance has cast on our own time. Includes an 8-page, black-and-white photo insert. |
| j edgar hoover: The Secrets of the FBI Ronald Kessler, 2012-08-07 New York Times bestselling author reveals the FBI’s most closely guarded secrets, with an insider look at the bureau’s inner workings and intelligence investigations. Based on inside access and hundreds of interviews with federal agents, the book presents an unprecedented, authoritative window on the FBI's unique role in American history. From White House scandals to celebrity deaths, from cult catastrophes to the investigations of terrorists, stalkers, Mafia figures, and spies, the FBI becomes involved in almost every aspect of American life. Kessler shares how the FBI caught spy Robert Hanssen in its midst as well as how the bureau breaks into homes, offices, and embassies to plant bugging devices without getting caught. With revelations about the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound, the recent Russian spy swap, Marilyn Monroe's death, Vince Foster’s suicide, and even J. Edgar Hoover, The Secrets of the FBI presents headline-making disclosures about the most important figures and events of our time. |
| j edgar hoover: The Real J. Edgar Hoover Ray Wannall, 2000 Former special agent and assistant director of the FBI, Ray Wannall, writes a comprehensive, insider's commentary regarding one of the most powerful, but enigmatic personalities of our time. Highly revealing and provocative, FOR THE RECORD sheds light on efforts to undermine Hoover's legacy and startling details as to events involving Martin Luther King, the Kennedy family, the Nixon administration, and much much more! |
J. Edgar Hoover - Wikipedia
The FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. is named the J. Edgar Hoover Building, after Hoover. Because of the controversial nature of Hoover's legacy, both Republicans and Democrats have …
J. Edgar Hoover | Biography, FBI, & Facts | Britannica
Apr 28, 2025 · J. Edgar Hoover was a United States government official who served as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 1924 until his death in 1972. He built the agency …
J. Edgar Hoover, May 10, 1924 - May 2, 1972 — FBI
On May 10, 1924, Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone appointed the 29-year-old Hoover acting director of the Bureau, and by the end of the year Mr. Hoover was named Director.
J. Edgar Hoover - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
J. Edgar Hoover was born on New Year's Day in Washington, DC. His parents were Dickerson Naylor Hoover (1856-1921) and Anna "Annie" (née Scheitlin) Hoover. Dickerson Hoover's …
J. Edgar Hoover - Biography, Timeline & Death - HISTORY
Jun 18, 2010 · J. Edgar Hoover (1885-1972) was director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for 48 years, reshaping that organization into a highly effective investigative agency.
How J. Edgar Hoover Went From Hero to Villain - The Atlantic
Nov 22, 2022 · The ghost of J. Edgar Hoover likely smiles at the irony that his beloved bureau has become too independent and too open to be trusted in hyper-partisan America.
J Edgar Hoover - Encyclopedia.com
Jun 11, 2018 · J. Edgar Hoover (1895-1972) was appointed assistant director of the Bureau of Investigation in 1921, and director in 1924; he was the popular (and then controversial) director …
Biography of John Edgar Hoover | The J. Edgar Hoover Foundation
J. Edgar Hoover was an American hero, especially to his contemporaries; an American Legend whose career will likely never be equaled. He served 16 Attorneys General and 10 Presidents. …
J. Edgar Hoover: The library clerk who became America’s ‘most ...
On May 2, 1972, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover died of heart disease at a Washington hospital, ending his 48-year total control over the federal agency he managed and created. Hoover, a …
J. Edgar Hoover - New World Encyclopedia
J. Edgar Hoover was the nominal author of a number of books and articles. Although it is widely believed that all of these were ghostwritten by FBI employees, Hoover received the credit and …
J. Edgar Hoover - Wikipedia
The FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. is named the J. Edgar Hoover Building, after Hoover. Because of the controversial nature of Hoover's legacy, both Republicans and Democrats have …
J. Edgar Hoover | Biography, FBI, & Facts | Britannica
Apr 28, 2025 · J. Edgar Hoover was a United States government official who served as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 1924 until his death in 1972. He built the agency …
J. Edgar Hoover, May 10, 1924 - May 2, 1972 — FBI
On May 10, 1924, Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone appointed the 29-year-old Hoover acting director of the Bureau, and by the end of the year Mr. Hoover was named Director.
J. Edgar Hoover - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
J. Edgar Hoover was born on New Year's Day in Washington, DC. His parents were Dickerson Naylor Hoover (1856-1921) and Anna "Annie" (née Scheitlin) Hoover. Dickerson Hoover's …
J. Edgar Hoover - Biography, Timeline & Death - HISTORY
Jun 18, 2010 · J. Edgar Hoover (1885-1972) was director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for 48 years, reshaping that organization into a highly effective investigative agency.
How J. Edgar Hoover Went From Hero to Villain - The Atlantic
Nov 22, 2022 · The ghost of J. Edgar Hoover likely smiles at the irony that his beloved bureau has become too independent and too open to be trusted in hyper-partisan America.
J Edgar Hoover - Encyclopedia.com
Jun 11, 2018 · J. Edgar Hoover (1895-1972) was appointed assistant director of the Bureau of Investigation in 1921, and director in 1924; he was the popular (and then controversial) director …
Biography of John Edgar Hoover | The J. Edgar Hoover Foundation
J. Edgar Hoover was an American hero, especially to his contemporaries; an American Legend whose career will likely never be equaled. He served 16 Attorneys General and 10 Presidents. …
J. Edgar Hoover: The library clerk who became America’s ‘most ...
On May 2, 1972, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover died of heart disease at a Washington hospital, ending his 48-year total control over the federal agency he managed and created. Hoover, a …
J. Edgar Hoover - New World Encyclopedia
J. Edgar Hoover was the nominal author of a number of books and articles. Although it is widely believed that all of these were ghostwritten by FBI employees, Hoover received the credit and …
