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No other American law enforcement official in the twentieth century wielded as much power as did Hoover. His influence on eight presidents and the US congress was enormous. His name became synonymous with the FBI, which he headed for five decades. Hoover established the best forensic laboratory in the world and the identification systems he established within the FBI have become the benchmark for other investigative services world-wide.
However, Hoover abused the power he gained, often putting himself above the law, ignoring the civil rights of citizens it was his legal duty to protect. He was determined to maintain his power base and would tolerate no criticism of the FBI or of himself. He assembled illegal files on individuals he then subtly blackmailed. The OC or Official and Confidential, files were kept in his private office and these contained potentially embarrassing sexual, financial and political information about Government officials and various public figures who he may at some time need to 'persuade' in order to ensure his own position. Sometimes when his agents found a particularly sensitive snippet of information, Hoover would pass it on to the Whitehouse for the amusement of the President and members of the Cabinet. However the OC files were also said to contain information about the extra-marital affairs of Franklin D Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor, as well as numerous indiscretions from the lives of among many others, Richard M. Nixon and both John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert.
Hoover had become the head of the Bureau of Investigation on May 10th 1934 and developed a fearsome reputation as a gang-buster, however with the start of 1940 the FBI was required to become a counter-espionage service. Hoover
began to work closely with the SIS (MI6) which had its BSC or British Security Co-ordination headquarters in Rockefeller Plaza in New York, run by William Stephenson. At first, the FBI chief, under the watchful eye of Roosevelt and Churchill extended enormous help to the BSC which grew to a force of some 2,000 officers. Hoovers insistence on ultimate control began to dominate his relationship with the British who believed that Hoover, well intentioned or not, could not set aside the police mentality or his heavy-handed methods which constantly proved more of a hindrance than a help.
The British, for instance, provided information to Hoover through one of their double agents, Dusko Popov. From his German connections, Popov had learned that the Japanese intended to attack Pearl Harbour. Hoover thought little of the information, chiefly because he regarded Popov as a playboy. He dismissed Popov's warnings because of the spy's supposed sexual prowess. According to Hoover Popov "had a liking for bedding two girls at a time." Hoover's obsession with the sexual activities of others would, throughout his long career, prejudice his evaluations of usable information.
Hoover deeply resented and indeed opposed the creation of OSS and, in particular, its energetic director 'Wild Bill' Donovan and he was forever objecting to the existence of OSS agents operating in any area outside of its headquarters. However, Hoover's counterintelligence operations or Cointelpro, during World War II were generally effective. It was the FBI laboratory, which had discovered the Abwehr's development of the Microdot, known as the Mipu or Mikropunkt . A Professor Zapp at the Dresden Institute had developed a process of reducing a sheet of paper to the size of a postage stamp. Then by photographing the reduced image through a reversed microscope, reducing the document once more to the minuscule size of a dot on a typewriter's "i."
Throughout the cold war the FBI's counter-intelligence activities were successful in eventually breaking many Soviet Spy-networks in the United States, but had failed to either notice or prevent their activities in some cases for many years before doing so. The FBI Cointelpro programs were expanded in 1961 to include those citizens demonstrating against the Vietnam War. Hoover considered such anti-war demonstrators as a threat to national security as he did any vocal black leader and this became one of his most obvious personal vendettas. The FBI began tapping King's phone in 1957, eventually in 1964 Hoover got his 'proof' that King had been indulging in extra-marital activities. Hoover made the information available to President Johnson, the congress, members of the press and even the Pope just prior to a visit paid by Dr King in August 1964. When King was about to collect his Nobel Peace Prize, Hoover launched a vicious assault on his character
branding him "the most notorious liar in the country". The FBI Director also sent a copy of the now infamous 'hotel tapes' which apparently proved King's infidelity, to King's wife along with an unsigned note which further revealed Hoovers personal feelings by calling King "filthy, abnormal and fraudulent".
Cointelpro was to come under severe criticism throughout the 1960's with critics claiming that Hoover was violating constitutional and civil rights by spying on US citizens. With political pressure mounting Hoover was finally forced to disband Cointelpro in 1971. By that time, Hoover had also been exposed as a neurotic who felt that Moscow was behind every protest in America. A racial and sexual bigot who refused to accept minorities and women into the FBI and a scheming conspirator who kept secret files with intentions of using their contents to blackmail those who opposed him. On the night of May 1st 1972. Hoover had dined at the home of Clyde Tolson, his lifelong friend and Associate Director of the FBI before returning home. The next morning his housekeeper found Hoover on the floor of his bedroom, the v ictim of a heart attack. The most powerful and devious man in America for almost fifty years was given a state funeral. However, the man the United States buried had used the instruments of power to abuse the State and the civil rights of countless people and to hide his own bigoted closet homosexuality. A final and fitting epitaph for the nations most powerful law officer came in an interview given not long before he died when Director of the FBI, J.Edgar Hoover commented that "law and order is first, justice is incidental". |
