J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets

by Curt Gentry

  Acknowledgments

  My special thanks to my friends Charles Flowers, who provided help when it was most needed, and Marijane Pierson, who never asked, “When are you going to finish it?”

  I owe a debt of gratitude to the columnist Jack Anderson and his associates, in particular Joseph Spear, Les Whitten, Opal Ginn, Jack Clarity, and James Grady, for allowing me access to the Drew Pearson/Jack Anderson files on J. Edgar Hoover; to innumerable uncensored FBI documents; and to a complete set of back issues of the “Washington Merry-Go-Round”—their only stipulation being that I not disclose confidential sources, a condition which I have honored. I’m also indebted to the Center for National Security Studies—which served as an informal clearing house for documents released as a result of the Freedom of Information Act and in various court cases—and to its staff, Morton Halperin, Florence Oliver, and Monica Andress, for boxes upon boxes of FBI, CIA, NSA, and related documents, plus invaluable research leads. The assistance of the American Civil Liberties Union, and in particular Roger Baldwin, John Shattuck, Walter Slocombe, Jack Novik, Leonard Friedman, Aryeh Neier, and numerous assistants whose names I never learned but who were unfailingly helpful more than compensated for the discovery that one of my longtime heroes, Morris L. Ernst, had feet of clay. Yet I am indebted to him also, for the frankness of his recollections.

  I owe special thanks to Jason Berger, for his research in the various presidential libraries. To cite all the librarians (and booksellers) who assisted me would add significantly to the length of this already long volume, but they know who they are and what they contributed, and they have my appreciation. In particular I would like to acknowledge the help provided by William R. Emerson of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library at Hyde Park, New York; David Farmer and Ellen S. Dunlap of the University of Texas Humanities Research Center at Austin, Texas; and the staffs of the Library of Congress, the National Archives, and the FBI Library.

  To Robert Fink, who led me through the underground mazes of bureaucratic Washington, pointing out the secret passages, this would be a lesser book without your help.

  I’m especially indebted to Ovid Demaris for his pioneering work The Director: An Oral Biography of J. Edgar Hoover and for other courtesies that went well beyond those usually extended to fellow writers.

  To Jack Levitt, who in 1977 lent me his extensive library of books, pamphlets, and other memorabilia about the FBI and never once called and asked when he’d get them back (they were finally returned in 1991), I can only express my wonderment.

  I also wish to thank the former FBI director Clarence M. Kelley, George William “Bill” Gunn, and Homer A. Boynton, Jr., who provided me with a desk in the new FBI Building (to better watch me, I suspected at the time, though perhaps I was being unduly suspicious) and with access to various public source materials. My thanks also to the Research Unit of the Bureau’s Office of Public Affairs (formerly Crime Records) and to Susan Rosenfeld Falb, the FBI’s first official historian, whose arrival was long overdue.

  Others who assisted me, either in the research or the preparation of the manuscript, include Janice Wood, Abby Wasserman, Mary Pieratt, Carolyn Miller, Stephanie Martinez, Michelle Case, and Gail Stevens.

  My greatest debt, however, is to the entire staff of W. W. Norton & Company, my publishers, who believed in this book, encouraged me through its research and writing, and patiently waited fifteen years for its completion.

  Interviews and Other Sources

  A number of persons who figured prominently in the life of J. Edgar Hoover declined to be interviewed. These included Helen Gandy, Annie Fields, John Mohr, Nicholas P. Callahan, John Dunphy, and Dorothy Skillman. Fortunately, each was deposed at length in various legal proceedings, in particular in regard to Hillory Tolson’s suit contesting the disputed codicils of the will of Clyde A. Tolson, and I was able to draw on these depositions, as well as on other sources. Miss Gandy also testified at length, if not altogether candidly, in the House subcommittee inquiry into the destruction of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s files; others testifying included John Mohr, W. Mark Felt, and Richard Kleindienst. Similarly, although former President Richard Nixon and the former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and Alexander Haig declined to be interviewed, all were questioned, again at some length, in little-publicized depositions in the case of Morton H. Halperin et al. v. Henry Kissinger et al.

  Although the Nixon impeachment hearings, the Church and Pike committee hearings, and the House investigation of the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., contain a wealth of material on Hoover and the FBI, one rich source of Nixon-Hoover materials remains unreleased. Because of various protracted legal stratagems, the White House tapes still have, for the most part, never been made public. Unless they are released in their entirety—an unlikely possibility—we will probably never know exactly what transpired during the two 1971 meetings at which President Nixon tried, and failed, to fire FBI Director Hoover.

  Although J. Edgar Hoover has been dead for nearly twenty years, his ghost casts a long shadow. There are many who still fear some retribution—perhaps because no one is quite sure which of his files still exist—were they to speak openly on the record. For these and other reasons, a number of persons, fewer than two dozen in number, consented to be interviewed only on the condition that they not be identified. Although there is a thin line between my utilizing such sources and the FBI’s use of “faceless informants”—and perhaps no line at all—I have respected their wishes, though I have tried, and am still trying, to get them to change their minds. But I do wish to acknowledge their assistance.

  I especially appreciate those who were willing to be interviewed openly, and surprisingly often on tape. Alan H. Belmont consented to an interview, although he was obviously dying. Federal Appellate Court Justice Edward A. Tamm, long the Bureau’s number three man and described by many as its “rudder,” talked with me for over three hours before mentioning, casually, that he had undergone major surgery the previous day. Charles A. Appel, Jr., the little-credited founder of the FBI Laboratory, was just as pleased to see me when I turned up on his doorstep the fifth time as the first, on each occasion fitting me into his busy schedule. I even found myself liking, immensely—although I knew he’d penned the despicable Martin Luther King, Jr., “suicide letter” and was a guiding force behind the FBI’s infamous COINTELPROs—William C. Sullivan, even though the subterfuges employed before we ever met infected me with his own, perhaps well-founded paranoia (I still wonder whether his death was “a hunting accident”).

  Although I met the Nation editor Victor Navasky only once, in 1976, and then briefly, I found myself often remembering a remark he once made about the author of a book on the Hiss case: “He makes the mistake of assuming that FBI memorandums provide answers rather than clues.” My very special thanks, then, to those listed below who helped me interpret and follow those clues, which led me from the Oval Office in the White House to the frightening “printshop” in the basement of the Department of Justice Building:

  George Allen,* Jack Anderson, James Jesus Angleton, Charles A. Appel, Jr., Roger Baldwin, Enrico Banducci, Alan H. Belmont, Thomas Hale Boggs, Jr., Leonard Boudin, Kay Boyle, Thomas V. Brady, William F. Buckley, Jr., Tim Butz, C. G. “Jerry” Campbell, John Cassidy, Emanuel Celler,* Ramsey Clark, Tom Campbell Clark,* Ken Clawson,* William Corson, Sylvia Crane, James E. Crawford,* John Crewdson, Ernest Cuneo, Ovid Demaris, Frank Donner, Don Edwards, Philip Elman, Morris L. Ernst, Courtney Evans, W. Mark Felt, David B. Fechheimer, Jerome M. Garchik, Hank Greenspun, Richard Gump, George William “Bill” Gunn, George Gutekunst, Edwin Guthman, Barry Hagen,* Morton Halperin, Robert C. Hendon, C. David Heymann, Warren Hinckle, Alger Hiss, Paul Hoch, Lawrence J. Hogan,* William S. “Pete” Holley,* Timothy H. Ingram, Paul Jacobs, Donald Jacobson, Tom Jenkins, Clarence M. Kelley, Ronald Kessler, Edward Kosner, David Kraslow, Ronald F. Kriss, Rolland Lamensdorf, Donald S. Lamm, Corliss Lamont, Joseph Lash, Henri Lenoir, Stephen Lesher, Hal Li
pset, Joseph Logue, Christopher Lydon, Wesley McCune, Thomas McDade, Robert Maheu, John Francis Malone, John D. Marks, Thomas A. Mead,* Charles Morgan, Ted Morgan, Patrick V. Murphy, Jack Nelson, Huey P. Newton, Louis B. “Lou” Nichols, Luther Nichols, Jeremiah O’Leary, Bonaro Overstreet, Kathy Perkus, Douglas Porter, Earl Purvis, Harry Reid, Vincent Schiano, Walter Sheridan, Howard Simons, Liz Smith, Joseph Spear, Syd Stapleton, Fortney H. “Pete” Stark, I. F. Stone, William C. Sullivan, Eric P. Swenson, Edward Allen Tamm, Robert C. Tayor, Jr., Dick Tuck, William W. Turner, Sanford Ungar, Frank C. Waldrop, Robert Wick, Les Whitten.

  * * *

  * An asterisk indicates an interview which was conducted by someone other than the author.

  Bibliography

  Acheson, Dean. Among Friends: Personal Letters of Dean Acheson. Edited by David S. McLellan and David C. Acheson. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1980.

  Ahern, James F. Police in Trouble. New York: Hawthorn Books, 1972.

  Alinsky, Saul D. John L. Lewis. New York: Putnam’s, 1949.

  Allen, Frederick Lewis. The Big Change: America Transforms Itself. New York: Harper, 1952.

  ———. Since Yesterday: The Nineteen Thirties in America. New York: Harper, 1940.

  Alsop, Stewart, and Thomas Braden. Sub Rosa: The OSS and American Espionage. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1948.

  American Business Consultants. Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television. New York: American Business Consultants, 1950.

  Anderson, Jack, with George Clifford. The Anderson Papers. New York: Random House, 1973.

  Anderson, Jack, with James Boyd. Confessions of a Muckraker: The Inside Story of Life in Washington during the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson Years. New York: Random House, 1979.

  Anderson, Jack, and Ronald W. May. McCarthy, the Man, the Senator, the “Ism.” Boston: Beacon Press, 1952.

  Andrews, Bert. Washington Witch Hunt. New York: Random House, 1948.

  Anson, Robert Sam. They’ve Killed the President! The Search for the Murderers of John F. Kennedy. New York: Bantam Books, 1975.

  Ashman, Charles. The CIA-Mafia Link. New York: Manor Books, 1975.

  The Association of the Bar of the City of New York. The Federal Loyalty-Security Program. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1956.

  Ayer, Frederick, Jr. Yankee G-Man. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1957.

  Bakal, Carl. The Right to Bear Arms. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966.

  Baker, Bobby, and Larry L. King. Wheeling and Dealing: Confessions of a Capitol Hill Operator. New York: W. W. Norton, 1978.

  Bales, James D., J. Edgar Hoover Speaks concerning Communism. Nutley, N.J.: Craig Press, 1970.

  Bamford, James. The Puzzle Palace: A Report on America’s Most Secret Agency. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1982.

  Barlett, Donald L., and James B. Steele. Empire: The Life, Legend, and Madness of Howard Hughes. New York: W. W. Norton, 1979.

  Barron, John. KGB: The Secret Work of Soviet Secret Agents. New York: Reader’s Digest Press, 1974.

  Bartlett, Bruce R. Cover-up: The Politics of Pearl Harbor, 1941-1946. New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1978.

  Behn, Noel. The Brink’s Job. New York: Warner Books, 1978.

  Belknap, Michal R. Cold War Political Justice. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1977.

  Bentley, Elizabeth. Out of Bondage: The Story of Elizabeth Bentley. New York: Devin-Adair, 1951.

  Bentley, Eric, ed. Thirty Years of Treason: Excerpts from Hearings before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, 1938-1968. New York: Viking Press, 1972.

  Berkman, Alexander. Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist. New York: Mother Earth, 1912.

  Berle, Adolf Augustus. Navigating the Rapids, 1918-1971: From the Papers of Adolf A. Berle. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973.

  Berman, Jerry J., and Morton H. Halperin, eds. The Abuses of the Intelligence Agencies. Washington, D.C.: Center for National Security Studies, 1975.

  Berman, Susan. Easy Street. New York: Dial Press, 1981.

  Bernstein, Carl, and Bob Woodward. All the President’s Men. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1974.

  ———. The Final Days. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1976.

  Beschloss, Michael. Kennedy and Roosevelt: The Uneasy Alliance. New York: W. W. Norton, 1980.

  Bessie, Alvah. The Un-Americans. New York: Cameron, 1957.

  Biddle, Francis. In Brief Authority. New York: Doubleday, 1967.

  Bird, Caroline. The Invisible Scar. New York: Pocket Books, 1967.

  Blackstock, Nelson. Cointelpro: The FBI’s Secret War on Political Freedom New York: Vintage Books, 1976.

  Blackstock, Paul W. The Secret Road to World War II. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1969.

  Blair, Joan, and Clay Blair, Jr. The Search for J.F.K. New York: Berkley Medallion Books, 1977.

  Blakey, G. Robert, and Richard N. Billings. The Plot to Kill the President. New York: Times Books, 1981.

  Blum, Howard. Wanted! The Search for Nazis in America. New York: Quadrangle/New York Times Books, 1976.

  Blumenthal, Sid, and Harvey Yazijian, eds. Government by Gunplay: Assassination Conspiracy Theories from Dallas to Today. New York: New American Library, 1976.

  Bohlen, Charles E. Witness to History, 1929-1969. New York: W. W. Norton, 1973.

  Borosage, Robert L., and John Marks, eds. The CIA File. New York: Grossman, 1976.

  Bosworth, Allan R. America’s Concentration Camps. New York: W. W. Norton, 1967.

  Bowart, Walter. Operation Mind Control. New York: Dell, 1978.

  Boyd, James R. Above the Law. New York: New American Library, 1968.

  Boyer, Richard O., and Herbert M. Morais. Labor’s Untold Story. New York: Cameron, 1955.

  Boyle, Andrew. The Fourth Man: The Definitive Account of Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, and Donald Maclean and Who Recruited Them to Spy for Russia. New York: Dial Press/James Wade, 1979.

  Braden, Ann. The Wall Between. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1958.

  Bradlee, Benjamin C. Conversations with Kennedy. New York: W. W. Norton, 1975.

  Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988.

  Brashler, William. The Don: The Life and Death of Sam Giancana. New York: Harper & Row, 1977.

  Breitman, George, Herman Porter, and Baxter Smith, eds. The Assassination of Malcolm X. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1976.

  Brill, Steven. The Teamsters. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1978.

  Brown, John Mason. Through These Men: Some Aspects of Our Passing History. New York: Harper, 1956.

  Brown, Ralph S. Loyalty and Security. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1958.

  Buckley, William F., Jr., and L. Bozell Brent. McCarthy and His Enemies: The Record and Its Meaning. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1954.

  Budenz, Louis Francis. Men without Faces: The Communist Conspiracy in the U.S.A. New York: Harper, 1950.

  Burlingame, Roger. The Sixth Column. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1962.

  Burns, James MacGregor. Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970.

  Buschel, Robbins, and Vitka Buschel. The Watergate File. New York: Flash Books, 1973.

  Calomaris, Angela. Red Masquerade: Undercover for the F.B.I. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1950.

  Capaldi, Nicholas. Clear and Present Danger. New York: Pegasus Books, 1970.

  Carlson, John Roy. The Plotters. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1946.

  ———. Under Cover: My Four Years in the Nazi Underworld of America. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1943.

  Caro, Robert A. The Path to Power. Vol. 1 of The Years of Lyndon Johnson. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982.

  Carpozi, George, Jr., and Pierre J. Huss. Red Spies in the U.N. New York: Coward-McCann, 1965.

  Cash, Kevin. Who the Hell Is William Loeb? New Hampshire: Amoskeag Press, 1976.

  Cater, Douglass. Power in Washington: A Critical Look at Today’s Struggle to Govern in the Nation’s Capital. New York: Random House, 1964.

  Caughey,
John. In Clear and Present Danger: The Crucial State of Our Freedom. New York: Octagon Books, 1980.

  Caute, David. The Great Fear: The Anti-Communist Purge under Truman and Eisenhower. New York: Simon & Schuster/Touchstone Books, 1979.

  Cave Brown, Anthony. Bodyguard of Lies. New York: Harper & Row, 1975.

  ———. The Last Hero: Wild Bill Donovan. New York: Times Books, 1982.

  ———. The Secret War Report of the OSS. New York: Berkley Medallion Books, 1976.

  Cave Brown, Anthony, and C.B. MacDonald. The Secret History of the Atomic Bomb. New York: Dell, 1977.

  Ceplair, Larry, and Steven Englund. The Inquisition in Hollywood: Politics in the Film Community, 1930-1960. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1980.

  Chafee, Zechariah, Jr. Free Speech in the United States. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1954.