J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets

by Curt Gentry

  This time he decided to have a little fun at the agents’ expense. Directly across Sixth Avenue from the Edison was the Piccadilly Hotel. After again losing his tails, Bridges rented a room that overlooked his own and that of the agents, then invited a number of acquaintances over for FBI-watching parties.

  Knowing the FBI put great faith in “trash covers,” Bridges would tear up innocuous envelopes and stationery and drop them in the waste basket of his room at the Edison, then cross the street and with his friends watch the agents patiently reassemble them. For variety, he sometimes left paper dolls. Or, knowing the FBI “just loves carbon paper,” he asked a stenographer at a second-hand clothing store for her most-used carbons. These, he was sure, were rushed to the FBI Lab in Washington, where technicians with smudged fingers probably spent hours trying to break their secret codes.

  The Early Years

  John Edgar Hoover was born on New Year’s Day 1895 at 413 Seward Square, a row house located on the edge of Capitol Hill. In the century to come, the native Washingtonian, and third-generation civil servant, would manipulate Congress in ways no president ever could. National Archives 65-H-340.

  “Edgar,” or “J.E.,” with his parents. His father, Dickerson Naylor Hoover, worked for the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey; his mental illness was a closely held family secret. His mother, Annie Scheitlin Hoover, was something of a martinet; she held to the old-fashioned virtues and made sure her offspring did likewise. National Archives 65-H-297-7A.

  Hoover at age four. The youngest of four children and a late bloomer, he was, according to those who knew him best, “very much a mother’s boy.” National Archives 65-H-111-2.

  Central High Cadet Captain John Edgar Hoover, probably taken about the same time he marched in President Woodrow Wilson’s 1913 inaugural parade. He would pattern the FBI after Company A, right down to its division into squads. Federal Bureau of Investigation.

  After graduating from high school, where he was elected class valedictorian, Hoover attended George Washington University. “Mother Hoover” was the unofficial house mother of her son’s college fraternity, Kappa Alpha. Hoover, who never married, lived with her until her death in 1938, at which time he was forty-three. National Archives H-65-297-6.

  Attending law school at night, Hoover spent his days working in the world’s largest filing cabinet, the Library of Congress; then, in July 1917, three months after America entered World War I, he obtained a draft-exempt position in the Justice Department, in the Alien Registration Section. At age twenty-two Hoover had found his niche in life: he became a hunter of men.

  And women. One of Hoover’s first big cases was the deportation of the notorious anarchist Emma Goldman. Library of Congress USZ62-20178.

  A. Mitchell Palmer, attorney general and presidential hopeful. Hoover worked behind the scenes orchestrating Palmer’s infamous Red raids; but when the many illegalities of the arrests came under attack, he tried to minimize his participation. Wide World Photos.

  Gaston Bullock Means, hanging out the dirty laundry of the Harding administration before the Wheeler committee. Behind the cherubic face was a con man extraordinaire. He swindled a gullible socialite out of a $100,000 “ransom” for the Lindbergh baby, nearly snatched the Hope diamond, and died knowing he’d even managed to con J. Edgar Hoover. Library of Congress 12362.

  Hoover’s mentor Harlan Fiske Stone, shown here on a fishing trip just after being named attorney general. In choosing the twenty-nine year old Hoover as “acting” director of the Bureau of Investigation, Stone had no idea he was making a lifelong appointment. UPI/Bettmann Newsphotos.

  J. Edgar Hoover shortly after his 1924 appointment. The new director picked up on Attorney General Stone’s ideas and transformed the corrupt bureau into one of the most powerful law enforcement agencies in the world. National Archives 65-H-369-1.

  A rare informal photograph of the FBI director and some of his chief assistants. Left to right: Clyde Tolson, the Bureau’s second in command and the director’s inseparable companion; Frank Baughman, Hoover’s oldest friend and FBI firearms instructor; Hoover; R. E. “Bob” Newby, a headquarters supervisor; John M. Keith, one of the “hired guns”; W. R. Glavin, of the Administrative Division; and C. E. Weeks, one of the special agents in charge. The occasion was a baseball game between the FBI and the Baltimore Police Department, in July 1935. National Archives 65-H-5-1.

  The Department of Justice Building at Ninth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. From his fifth floor balcony, center, the FBI director watched presidents come and go, in inaugural parades and funeral processions. Federal Bureau of Investigation.

  The Gangster Era

  Wanted poster for John Dillinger. After escaping from the jail in Crown Point, Indiana, Dillinger drove a stolen car across the Illinois state line, giving the Bureau jurisdiction in the case. It was four months, however, before Hoover’s men, acting on a brothel madam’s tip, encountered the outlaw outside Chicago’s Biograph Theatre. Wide World Photos.

  John Dillinger in the Crown Point jail, prior to his escape with what he later claimed was a wooden gun. From left: Sheriff Lillian Holley, whose car Dillinger stole; Prosecutor Robert Estill; and, with his arm draped casually over the prosecutor’s shoulder, Dillinger. The publication of this photograph—Hoover said no picture ever made him so mad—ended Estill’s political career. UPI/Bettmann Newsphotos.

  John Dillinger on a slab in the Cook County morgue following the shooting at the Biograph. This photo also made history, of sorts. The position of Dillinger’s hands, and rigor mortis, led to the myth that the outlaw had a foot-long penis. The Smithsonian still receives about a hundred inquiries a year, asking if it is on display. UPI/Bettmann Newsphotos.

  The shooting of Dillinger made Chicago’s Special Agent in Charge Melvin “Little Mel” Purvis public hero number one, an honor the FBI director was loath to share. Hoover, shown here with Purvis, left, and Acting Attorney General William Stanley, center, drove his once favorite agent out of the Bureau. Purvis later committed suicide, using a gun his fellow agents had given him at his retirement party. AP/Wide World Photos.

  Kate Barker and her son Freddie, minutes after the shootout at Lake Weir, Florida. When the agents broke into the cabin, Ma Barker had a Model 21 Thompson submachine gun, with a 100-shot drum, cradled in her arms. SA Tom McDade, who had the only camera, took these previously unpublished photographs. With the earlier capture of Arthur “Dock” Barker and the killing of Russell Gibson, only the gang member Alvin “Creepy” Karpis remained at large. Photos Copyright 1991 by Thomas McDade.

  Dillinger’s death mask. Hoover kept his prize scalp on display in his outer office.

  His manhood impugned by the charge that he had never made an arrest, the FBI director personally “captured” Alvin Karpis in New Orleans, on May 1, 1936.

  Hoover is shown here leading Karpis into the Federal Building in St. Paul, Minnesota, after the flight from New Orleans. According to ex-agents, and Karpis himself, one of Hoover’s “hired guns,” Clarence Hurt, actually made the arrest. Hurt appears, far right, carrying a submachine gun under his coat. National Archives 65-H-130-6.

  Clyde Tolson was given his moment in the spotlight with the capture of Harry Brunette, a former librarian turned kidnapper. The use of excessive force—hundreds of bullets were fired into the apartment where Brunette was holed up, missing the fugitive but wounding his wife and setting the building on fire—resulted in the nickname Killer Tolson and a public war between the New York Police Department and the FBI. National Archives 65-H-52-1.

  The career of the new public enemy number one, Alvin “Creepy” Karpis, as depicted in an exhibit on the popular FBI tour.

  Karpis pleaded guilty to one count of kidnapping, believing he would be sentenced to ten years; instead he got life. Preferring an imprisoned symbol to a freed felon, Hoover personally opposed his parole requests and Karpis served thirty-three years, twenty-three of them on Alcatraz, the longest any man has ever been incarcerated on the “
Rock,” and the remainder at McNeil Island, where he taught a convicted car thief named Charlie Manson how to play the steel guitar. Wide World Newsphotos.

  Kidnappers, Saboteurs, and Spies

  Bruno Richard Hauptmann, shown here with a New Jersey state trooper, after being sentenced to death in the electric chair for the kidnap-murder of the Lindbergh baby. In a long-suppressed Bureau memorandum, Hoover admitted, “I am skeptical as to some of the evidence.” Wide World Photos.

  “FBI Captures 8 German Agents Landed by Subs,” read the headlines. Hoover hid the real story—that George John Dasch, above, had surrendered, then turned in the others—from even the president. Wide World Photos.

  The spy in the Justice Department. Judith Coplon shortly after her arraignment for passing classified documents to the UN employee, and Soviet agent, Valentin Gubitchev. Although Coplon was convicted of stealing government documents and giving them to a foreign power, the convictions were set aside on appeal after disclosures that the FBI had committed various illegal acts. Wide World Photos.

  FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, testifying before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee on the Harry Dexter White case in 1953. Clyde Tolson is to the left of the director, Louis Nichols to the right. By now Hoover’s power and ego were so immense that he could call former President Harry S Truman a liar and get away with it. UPI/Bettmann Newsphotos.

  Alger Hiss, secretary-general of the organizing conference of the United Nations, is shown shaking hands with President Truman, in San Francisco, 1945. (To the right is Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius, Jr.; in the background is Truman’s military aide General Harry Vaughan.) In less than five years Hiss was in prison, convicted of perjury, in denying he passed secret documents to the Communist party member Whittaker Chambers. With Hoover’s help, the Hiss case launched the career of a young California congressman named Richard Milhous Nixon. Wide World Photos.

  The convicted atom spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, in a patrol van after their sentencing. Although there was no credible evidence implicating Ethel, Hoover insisted she be brought to trial to “serve as a lever” to get her husband to confess. The plan failed, however, and on June 19, 1953, both were executed, at Sing Sing prison. Recently released documents reveal that the judge, Irving S. Kaufman, engaged in ex parte conversations with the prosecution before, during, and after the trial. UPI/Bettmann Newsphotos.

  Celebrity Hunter and Publicity Hound

  “Are you married?” the child actress asked. “No,” the FBI director replied, “I live with my mother.” “Then I’ll kiss you,” she responded.

  Shirley Temple Black recalled, in her autobiography, Child Star, “Hoover’s lap was outstanding as laps go. Thighs just fleshy enough, knees held closely together, and no bouncing or wiggling.” Wide World Photos.

  J. Edgar Hoover, center, in a publicity shot with “Amos” (Freeman Gosden), left, and “Andy” (Charles Correll), right. The pair played stereotypical blacks on one of radio’s most popular shows. When the FBI director was accused of prejudice by the NAACP, he countered that he numbered Amos and Andy among his closest friends. National Archives 65-H-104-1.

  Hoover with Dorothy Lamour (Mrs. William Howard III) at the running of the Preakness, at Pimlico, in Baltimore, Maryland, 1946. An inveterate handicapper, with more than a dozen horses named after him, Hoover spent most Saturdays at the track. National Archives H-65-791.

  Hoover with Marilyn Monroe and Milton Berle. The FBI director kept one of her famous nude calendars in his basement recreation room, and a thick file on her personal life in his outer office. National Archives 65-H-1250

  The famous boxer/bulldog photo. Crime Records, the FBI’s huge publicity mill, arranged the shot in an attempt to show that the director had a lighter side. Personally Hoover liked neither breed, favoring cairn terriers; over the years he had six, three of whom he named G-Boy. Wide World and National Archives. 65-H-1187-1.

  Hoover “shooting” Tolson in a scene for the movie You Can’t Get Away With It. On the far right are the moviemakers Bill Miller and Charles Ford. The FBI director endorsed dozens of motion pictures and radio and television shows. At one point he even suggested the FBI film its own pictures and pocket the proceeds, but calmer heads prevailed. National Archives 65-H-240-1.

  Jimmy Stewart played a generic special agent in the movie version of the book The FBI Story and was responsible for solving all of the Bureau’s biggest cases. (Melvin Purvis, who actually lit the cigar signaling that Dillinger was leaving the Biograph Theatre, was excised from all FBI-authorized accounts). From left: Selene Walters as Dillinger’s girlfriend Polly; Scott Leters as Dillinger; Jean Willes as Anna Sage, the “Lady in Red”; and Stewart. Everyone who worked on the picture had to be cleared by the FBI. AP/Wide World Photos.

  Life imitating art. Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., star of the TV series “The FBI,” with the director. Hoover told his agents that they should emulate the actor. Hoover donated the payments from the TV series, and the royalties from his books and articles, which were written by Bureau employees on government time, to a mysterious fund known as the FBI Recreational Association. National Archives 65-2098-1.

  Hoover believed that the morality of America was his business. In addition to ghost-written articles warning the public about the dangers of motels and drive-in “passion pits,” the FBI distributed the above child molester’s coloring leaflet. “We had not anticipated at the time it would be so favorably received,” Hoover told Congress, “but it was immediately taken up by hundreds of law-enforcement agencies, newspapers, and civic groups throughout the country to promote child safety through coloring contests.”

  Finally tiring of his “fun with the FBI,” Bridges invited some reporters up to watch the show. He also let them examine the microphone he’d removed from his telephone box, as well as the notarized statement of a young woman the agents had invited up to listen to the tap.*

  Looking across the street and suddenly realizing from the smiling faces that they were under surveillance, the two agents fled the room so hastily they left behind a report with an FBI letterhead.21

  On learning of the incident, Clyde Tolson severely censored both agents;† Lou Nichols tried, unsuccessfully, to have the story killed (P.M. ran it on its front page, while McKelway’s piece, which became a much anthologized classic, appeared in the New Yorker several months later in 1941—earning both the newspaper and the magazine a place on the Bureau’s “not to be contacted” list); and a mortified J. Edgar Hoover was forced to confess the embarrassing incident to the attorney general.

  “I could not resist suggesting to Hoover that he tell the story of the unfortunate tap directly to the President,” Biddle recalled. “We went over to the White House together. FDR was delighted; and with one of his great grins, intent on every word, slapped Hoover on the back when he finished. ‘By God, Edgar, that’s the first time you’ve been caught with your pants down!’ ”22

  Hoover obviously did not think it that funny. When Biddle included the story in his autobiography, In Brief Authority, which was published in 1967, Hoover called the former attorney general a liar and denied the White House incident had ever taken place. By then, of course, Roosevelt was long dead and no longer able to contradict him.

  Aware that “the two men liked and understood each other,” Attorney General Biddle never complained when Roosevelt and Hoover met privately, without him. Nor did he see such meetings as circumventing his authority. Rather, knowing that “the President cared little for administrative niceties,” he presumed that it was always Roosevelt, and never Hoover, who had requested the meetings. He believed this because Hoover had told him it was so. “Not infrequently [Roosevelt] would call Edgar Hoover about something he wanted done quietly, usually in a hurry; and Hoover would promptly report it to me, knowing the President’s habit of sometimes saying afterward, ‘By the way, Francis, not wishing to disturb you, I called Edgar Hoover the other day about…’ ”23

  Francis Biddle was the first a
ttorney general who made a serious attempt to study J. Edgar Hoover. He was neither the first, nor the last, attorney general J. Edgar Hoover “analyzed”—and, as usual, all too accurately.

  With direct access to the president, an attorney general who went along with almost everything he requested, and the FBI’s authority recently expanded to include not only domestic intelligence but all foreign intelligence in the Western Hemisphere,* Hoover should have been content. But he wasn’t. He wanted more, much more.