J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets

by Curt Gentry

  On September 5 Hoover instructed his field offices to obtain “from all possible sources”* information concerning subversive activities being conducted in the United States by Communists and Fascists and “representatives or advocates of other organizations or groups advocating the overthrow or replacement of the Government of the United States by illegal methods.”12 This expansion into purely domestic intelligence went beyond even Hoover’s memos concerning the president’s instructions.

  Not until five days later, on Cummings’s return to Washington, did the FBI director inform his superior that the secretary of state, at the president’s suggestion, had requested him to have an investigation made of “the subversive activities in this country, including communism and fascism.” Whether there was a foreign nexus was no longer significant. By this time Hoover clearly presumed that he had the authority to investigate any groups or individuals whom he suspected of engaging in subversive activities.

  If the attorney general expressed concern that the FBI director had made an end run to the president, there is no indication of it—perhaps because the only record of their meeting is, again, Hoover’s own. In his memorandum of the conversation, Hoover wrote, “The Attorney General verbally directed me to proceed with this investigation.”13 Hoover apparently didn’t find it necessary to inform his boss that he had already done so. Once again, the Bureau was in the business of investigating “subversive activities”—a term which Hoover was not eager to limit by definition.

  Actually Hoover had never lost interest in the subject. After Attorney General Stone’s 1924 edict, no new investigations were launched. But the SACs continued to send the director reports on such organizations as the CPUSA and the ACLU, as well as hundreds of individuals suspected of engaging in “radical activities.” There is no indication that Hoover ever ordered them to stop. The special agents in charge knew what interested the director, and they supplied it.

  Also, the Bureau continued to maintain a close, albeit secret, relationship with Army intelligence. Following the Palmer raids, Hoover had struck a deal with military intelligence. The GID would share its reports with MID; it would also conduct investigations when requested. In return, the military agreed to provide Hoover with intelligence it had received from foreign sources—information which Hoover greatly coveted but which had been denied him by the State Department.

  Although Stone’s prohibition had supposedly ended Hoover’s part of the bargain, he’d quickly found a way around it. In 1925 he informed Colonel James H. Reeves that although the Bureau had discontinued “general investigations” into radical activities, he would continue to communicate any information received from specific investigations of federal violations “which may appear to be of interest” to the military.14

  Moreover, from 1929 on, Hoover maintained his reciprocal arrangement with the retired major general Ralph H. Van Deman and his private intelligence network, each making available to the other his confidential reports.

  During Hoover’s meeting with Roosevelt and Hull, the president had ordered him to coordinate the FBI investigation with the Army’s Military Intelligence Division and the Office of Naval Intelligence. Roosevelt’s request simply formalized what was already an ongoing relationship. Moreover, since MID and ONI lacked trained investigators, they relied on the FBI “to conduct investigative activity in strictly civilian matters of a domestic character.”15

  This gave Hoover the whole field of domestic intelligence. Once he had it, he fought hard to retain it.

  One of his biggest threats was, ironically, publicity. It was imperative, the director urged in a memo to the president, that the FBI, MID, and ONI proceed with “the utmost degree of secrecy in order to avoid criticism or objections which might be raised to such an expansion.” For this reason, Hoover opposed any new legislation to pay for the Bureau’s expanded intelligence program, since this might “draw attention to the fact that it was proposed to develop a special counter-espionage drive of any great magnitude.”16 Thus the FBI’s return to domestic intelligence was to be kept secret from both Congress and the public.

  Nor was this the only threat. As the situation in Europe worsened, half a dozen other federal agencies—including the Secret Service, the Post Office Department, and even the State Department itself—decided they wanted their own slices of the intelligence pie.

  At Hoover’s request, the Justice Department asked them to instruct their personnel that all information “relating to sabotage and subversive activities” be promptly forwarded to the FBI.17 To Hoover’s intense displeasure, the agencies mostly ignored the request, causing the director to complain to the attorney general that they were attempting to “literally chisel into this type of work.”18 In a note to his assistant Ed Tamm, Hoover put it even more succinctly: “We don’t want to let it slip away from us.”19

  As a compromise, an interdepartmental committee was set up. Any relevant information would be forwarded to the State Department, which would then assign it to whichever agency it felt should conduct the investigation.

  For a bureaucrat, Hoover was most unusual in that he was rarely willing to settle for compromises. And he, especially, had no intention of agreeing to this one. He wanted all civilian intelligence vested in the FBI. Arguing that it would result in “duplication” and “continual bickering,” he urged the new attorney general, Frank Murphy, to write the president asking that the committee system be abolished. Murphy obliged, maintaining—in a letter the Bureau helped prepare—that only the FBI and military intelligence were equipped to handle such an immense task. In addition to having already gathered “a tremendous reservoir of information concerning foreign agencies operating in the United States,” the FBI had a “highly-skilled” investigative force, an “exceedingly-efficient” technical laboratory, and an identification division which had already compiled data on “more than ten million persons, including a very large number of individuals of foreign extraction.”20

  Roosevelt did not need to be sold on the FBI, nor apparently did his new AG. On June 26, 1939, Roosevelt sent a confidential presidential directive—drafted by FBI and Justice Department officials—to the heads of the relevant departments, stating, “It is my desire that the investigation of all espionage, counterespionage, and sabotage matters be controlled and handled” by the FBI, MID, and ONI, and that no investigations in these areas be conducted “except by the three agencies mentioned above.”*21

  On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. As the world watched Europe erupt in war, Hoover was busy fighting off still another threat to his authority, this one much closer to home. From his agents in New York, the FBI director learned that Police Commissioner Lewis Valentine—a Hoover enemy since the Brunette incident—had set up a sabotage squad; fifty detectives had already been assigned, with another hundred to be added later.

  Deciding that continued secrecy was now potentially more harmful than helpful, Hoover on September 6 sent the attorney general a memo urging that the president issue a public statement “to all police officials in the United States” instructing them to turn over to the FBI “any information obtained pertaining to espionage, counterespionage, sabotage and neutrality regulations.”22

  Within hours after receiving the director’s memo, Murphy drafted a proposed statement and sent it to the White House by special messenger. At 6:20 that same evening the attorney general called Ed Tamm and read him the presidential statement. An indication of how the director dominated this AG comes across in Tamm’s memorandum of the conversation:

  “Mr. Murphy stated that when he was preparing this he tried to make it as strong as possible. He requested that I relay this to Mr. Hoover as soon as possible and he stated he knew the Director would be very glad to hear this. Mr. Murphy stated he prepared this on the basis of the memorandum which the Director forwarded to him.”23

  Roosevelt’s statement, which the FBI later referred to as an executive order or a presidential directive but which was in reality a press release, f
or the first time mentions “subversive activities”—as well as espionage, counterespionage, sabotage, and violations of the neutrality laws—but it does so in a general way, without definition, simply requesting that law enforcement agencies promptly report all such information to the FBI.*

  In releasing the statement, Attorney General Murphy told the press, “Twenty years ago inhuman and cruel things were done in the name of justice; sometimes vigilantes and others took over the work. We do not want such things done today, for the work has now been localized in the FBI.”25

  J. Edgar Hoover had managed to stage his own coup d’état—by memorandum.

  * * *

  *Speaking before a civic group in Philadelphia, Butler had described II Duce as “a mad dog” and warned that he and his Fascist cohorts were “about to break loose in Europe.” His comments resulted in worldwide headlines, a formal protest from the Italian ambassador, and an order from President Herbert Hoover to either withdraw his remarks or face court-martial. Butler refused to apologize, was retired from active service, and almost overnight became a national hero and possible presidential candidate. Still outspoken, the ex-Marine told reporters that although he didn’t think much of either Herbert Clark Hoover or Franklin Delano Roosevelt, he was not interested in running for office.

  *Murphy, in addition to heading his own brokerage firm, held directorates in Anaconda Cooper Mining, Goodyear Tire, Bethlehem Steel, and several Morgan banks.

  *Fritz Kuhn, a German-born employee of the Ford Motor Company, set himself up as the American führer, with the help of Henry Ford, among others. A typical Bund rally, such as the one which drew twenty thousand wildly cheering adherents to Madison Square Garden on February 10, 1939, sought to combine Americanism with Nazism. There was a huge portrait of George Washington, framed by even bigger black swastikas; a band played “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles”; and fifteen hundred brown-shirted storm troopers pledged allegiance to the United States with Hitler salutes.

  By means of paid informants, including several of Kuhn’s chief lieutenants, and the theft of membership lists, the FBI succeeded in identifying virtually every member of the organization.

  *On February 15, 1933, in Miami, Florida, Giuseppe Zangara, an unemployed bricklayer, shot at president-elect Roosevelt, instead killing Mayor Anton Cermak of Chicago and wounding four others. Zangara later said he had intended to go to Washington and kill President Hoover, but it was cold there and when Roosevelt stopped in Miami, at the end of a brief vacation, he decided to shoot him instead.

  Some have speculated that Cermak, currently out of favor with the Chicago syndicate, was the intended target.

  †Although the president apparently promised to place a handwritten memorandum in his safe, containing a summary of his instructions to the FBI chief, no such document has been found in the National Archives or among the Roosevelt papers at Hyde Park. It is likely, in this instance, that because of the questionable legality of his orders, Roosevelt decided against committing them to writing.

  *“All possible sources” in this instance meant informants, physical and technical surveillances, mail openings, and “black bag jobs” or burglaries.

  *Roosevelt’s directive, which Hoover later cited as the FBI’s formal charter for its intelligence gathering, did not mention “subversive activities” and gave no indication that the FBI would be investigating anything other than violations of federal statutes.

  *The president’s statement read:

  “The Attorney General has been requested by me to instruct the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the Department of Justice to take charge of investigative work in matters relating to espionage, sabotage, and violations of the neutrality regulations.

  “This task must be conducted in a comprehensive and effective manner on a national basis, and all information must be carefully sifted out and correlated in order to avoid confusion and irresponsibility.

  “To this end I request all police officers, sheriffs, and other law enforcement officers in the United States promptly to turn over to the nearest representative of the Federal Bureau of Investigation any information obtained by them relating to espionage, counterespionage, sabotage, subversive activities and violations of the neutrality laws.”

  Contrary to subsequent claims by Hoover, this presidential statement did not give the FBI authority to investigate “subversive activities.” The first paragraph, which instructs the FBI to take charge of the investigation of these matters, does not mention “subversive activities;” the term appears only in the third paragraph, which simply requests that all such matters be reported to the FBI.24

  17

  Smear

  Hoover later claimed, “No one outside the FBI and the Department of Justice ever knew how close they came to wrecking us.”1

  But it was Hoover himself who triggered the “near-fatal” attack on the FBI, with his appearance before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on November 30, 1939.

  First he presented a fait accompli. Citing as his authority “the President’s proclamation” of September 6, the FBI director informed the committee that he had already hired 150 new special agents, opened ten new field offices, and placed the Seat of Government on a twenty-four-hour standby basis. For this he needed an emergency supplemental appropriation of $1.5 million.

  This was a huge increase—bringing the number of SAs to 947 and the Bureau’s annual budget to nearly $9 million—and the congressmen wanted assurances that once the present emergency had ended the FBI would return to its former size. After procrastinating a bit, the director finally assured them it would.*2

  Hoover then dropped his real bombshell. Two months earlier, he announced, “we found it necessary to organize a General Intelligence Division in Washington…This division has now compiled extensive indices of individuals, groups, and organizations engaged in subversive activities, in espionage activities, or any activities that are possibly detrimental to the internal security of the United States.

  “The indexes have been arranged not only alphabetically but also geographically, so that at any rate, should we enter into the conflict abroad, we would be able to go into any of these communities and identify individuals or groups who might be a source of grave danger to the security of this country. These indexes will be extremely important and valuable in a grave emergency.”4

  With an arrogant disregard for the criticisms of the past, J. Edgar Hoover had resurrected the despised GID, complete with indices and lists of alleged subversives. He hadn’t even changed the name.

  Nor was this all he had done. Though he kept its existence secret from Congress, and the public, Hoover had also—on his own initiative and without any statutory authority—set up a Custodial Detention list, of persons to be rounded up and imprisoned in concentration camps, should the need arise. The list included—in addition to “both aliens and citizens of the United States [of] German, Italian and Communist sympathies”—radical labor leaders, journalists critical of the administration, writers critical of the FBI, and certain members of Congress.*5

  Representative Vito Marcantonio of New York was among the first to react to Hoover’s announcement that he had reestablished the General Intelligence Division, which Attorney General Stone had abolished in 1924. In a speech before the House, Marcantonio charged that Hoover’s “system of terror by index cards” smacked of the Gestapo and was nothing less than preparation for “a general raid against civil rights…very similar to the activities of the Palmer days.”6

  That Marcantonio was “left wing,” and often supported causes also espoused by the Communists, could be used to blunt his criticism. Dealing with Senator George Norris, however, wasn’t that easy. Complaining first to the attorney general and then to the Senate, the seventy-nine-year-old Nebraska Progressive stated that he was “worried” that the FBI was “overstepping and overreaching the legitimate object for which it was created.” As for Hoover, Norris called him “the greatest h
ound for publicity on the North American continent.” He had a friend, Norris said, the editor-publisher of a daily midwestern newspaper, who told him that “he received an average of one letter a week from Mr. Hoover.” All he needed to do was mention the FBI in what might be construed as a favorable light, and he would receive “a letter from Mr. Hoover.” The FBI, Norris charged, was more interested in trying its cases in newspapers than in courts.

  In saying this, Norris admitted, he was well aware that certain papers, and various public persons, would “spring to the defense of Mr. Hoover” and charge him with trying to “smear…one of the greatest men who ever lived and who now held the future life of our country in the palm of his mighty hand.” But so be it. What he’d said was the truth, and it needed saying.7

  Other attacks followed, from both the left and the right, their number and their intensity magnified by two well-publicized FBI raids.

  Late Sunday, January 14, 1940—in time to make Monday-morning headlines—newspapermen were summoned to the New York field office, where Hoover announced that the FBI had just completed a roundup of seventeen men who were engaged in a “vast plot” to overthrow the government and establish a Fascist dictatorship. This time the conspirators weren’t General Smedley Butler’s corporation heads but members of Father Coughlin’s Christian Front. The group, according to Hoover, had been stockpiling ammunition and explosive devices, and the FBI had acted only on learning that it intended to blow up a public building. When a reporter commented that seventeen men hardly constituted a “vast plot,” Hoover responded with one of his favorite lines: “It took only twenty-three men to overthrow Russia.”8