John Edgar Hoover: January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972

From OutHistory
Jump to navigationJump to search

Adapted from Wikipedia, accessed


UNDER CONSTRUCTION

John Edgar Hoover (known as "J. Edgar") was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States. In 1924, appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation, predecessor to the FBI, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972.


Hoover is credited with building the FBI into a large crime-fighting agency, and with instituting a number of modern innovations to police technology, such as a centralized fingerprint file and forensic laboratories.


Late in Hoover's life and after his death evidence of his secretive actions became public, fanning controversy about him. His critics have accused him of exceeding the jurisdiction of the FBI, and of secret campaigns against black civil rights leaders, Native American leaders, labor leaders, liberals, leftists, socialists, and communists.[1] He used the FBI to harass political dissenters and civil rights activists, and to amass secret files on political leaders.[2] He collected evidence using illegal methods.[3]


Sexuality

Because of Hoover's long and extremely close relationship with Clyde Tolson, rumors have circulated for years that the two men were engaged in a homosexual relationship. Hoover and Tolson knew of these rumors and collected data about them. It is ironic that during the years of their relationship, Hoover's FBI prohibited homosexuals from employment, collected information on the homosexual activities and rumored activities of numbers of powerful, influential people, and spied on fledgling homosexual rights organizations.Though the full character of Hoover's and Tolson's relation may never be well documented, the rumors about them may certainly be documented and studied as revealing evidence of Americans' panic about that sex judged to be deviant in the early and mid-twentieth century. In retrospect, Hoover's and Tolson's intimacy raises questions about the close relationship between the personal and political in American life, and about possible links between sexual and political repression. Because of the intimate relation between the personal and political in Hoover's life, discussion of his intimacy with Tolson and the rumors about their relationship will be integrated into this biography as an essential part of his life.


Term Limits

Because of Hoover's long and controversial tenure, FBI directors are now limited to one 10-year term, subject to extension by the United States Senate.[4]


Early life and education

J. Edgar Hoover was born on New Year's Day 1895 in Washington, D.C., to Anna Marie (née Schitlin; 1860–1938), who was of Swiss descent, and Dickerson Naylor Hoover, Sr. (1856–1921), of English and German ancestry. <The uncle of Hoover's mother was a Swiss honorary consul general to the United States.>


Hoover grew up near the Eastern Market, in Washington's Capitol Hill neighborhood. He obtained a law degree from George Washington University in 1916, and an LLM<?> in 1917 from the same university. While a law student, Hoover became interested in the career of Anthony Comstock, the New York City US Postal Inspector, who waged prolonged campaigns against fraud and vice, including against pornography and birth control.


FBI career

During World War I, immediately after getting his LLM, Hoover was hired by the United States Department of Justice. He was soon promoted to head of the Enemy Aliens Registration Section. In August 1919, he became head of the new General Intelligence Division of the Bureau of Investigation within the Justice Department[5] (See the Palmer Raids).


From the General Intelligence Division, in 1921, he rose in the Bureau of Investigation to deputy head, and in 1924, the Attorney General made him the acting director.


On May 10, 1924, Hoover was appointed by President Calvin Coolidge to be the sixth director of the Bureau of Investigation, following President Warren Harding's death and in response to allegations that the prior director, William J. Burns, was involved in the Teapot Dome scandal. When Hoover took over the Bureau of Investigation, it had approximately 650 employees, including 441 Special Agents.


Fired and Relocated Agents

Hoover was noted as sometimes being capricious in his leadership; he frequently fired FBI agents, singling out those who he thought "looked stupid like truck drivers" or that he considered to be "pinheads".[6]


He also relocated agents who had displeased him to career-ending assignments and locations. Melvin Purvis was a prime example; he was one of the most effective agents in capturing and breaking up 1930s gangs and received substantial public recognition, but a jealous Hoover maneuvered him out of the FBI.[7]


Hailed local Law Enforcers

Hoover often hailed local law-enforcement officers around the country and built up a national network of supporters and admirers in the process. One that he often commended for particular effectiveness was the conservative sheriff of Caddo Parish, Louisiana, J. Howell Flournoy.[8]


Gangster wars: early 1930s

In the early 1930s, criminal gangs carried out large numbers of bank robberies in the Midwest. They used their superior firepower and fast getaway cars to elude local law enforcement agencies and avoid arrest. Many of these criminals, particularly John Dillinger, who became famous for leaping over bank cages and repeatedly escaping from jails and police traps, frequently made newspaper headlines across the U.S.


That these robbers operated across state lines made their crimes a federal offense and gave Hoover and his men the authority to pursue them.


Dillinger

Initially, the FBI suffered some embarrassing foul-ups, in particular with Dillinger and his conspirators. A raid on a summer lodge named "Little Bohemia Lodge" in Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin, left an FBI agent and a civilian bystander dead, and others wounded. All the gangsters escaped.


Hoover realized that his job was now on the line, and he pulled out all stops to capture the culprits. In late July 1934, Special Agent Melvin Purvis, the Director of Operations in the Chicago office, received a tip on Dillinger's whereabouts which paid off when Dillinger was located, ambushed and killed by FBI agents outside the Biograph Theater.


In the same period, there were numerous Mafia shootings as a result of Prohibition in the United States, while Hoover continued to deny the very existence of organized crime.[9]


Frank Costello<?> helped encourage this view by feeding Hoover, "an inveterate horseplayer" known to send Special Agents to place $100 bets for him, based on tips about sure winners sent by their mutual friend, gossip columnist Walter Winchell. Hoover said the Bureau had "much more important functions" than arresting bookmakers and gamblers.[10]


Due to several highly publicized captures or shootings of outlaws and bank robbers, including Dillinger, Alvin Karpis, and Machine Gun Kelly, the Bureau's powers were broadened and it was given its new name in 1935: the Federal Bureau of Investigation.


Early 1930s

Hoover made changes, such as expanding and combining fingerprint files in the Identification Division to compile the largest collection of fingerprints to date.Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag


German Saboteurs: late-1930s

The FBI investigated rings of German saboteurs and spies starting in the late 1930s, and had primary responsibility for counterespionage. The first arrests of German agents were made in 1938, and continued throughout World War II.[11]


In the Quirin affair during World War II, when German U-boats set two small groups of Nazi agents ashore in Florida and Long Island to cause acts of sabotage within the country, the members of these teams were apprehended after one of the would-be saboteurs contacted the FBI, confessed everything, and then betrayed the other seven men.[12]


The FBI participated in the Venona Project, a pre–World War II joint project with the British to eavesdrop on Soviet spies in the UK and the United States. It was not initially realized that espionage was being committed, but due to multiple wartime Soviet use of one-time pad] ciphers, which are normally unbreakable, redundancies were created, enabling some intercepts to be decoded, which established the espionage.


Hoover kept the intercepts—America's greatest counterintelligence secret—in a locked safe in his office, choosing not to inform President Truman, Attorney General [J. Howard McGrath, or two Secretaries of State (Dean Acheson and General George Marshall) while they held office. He informed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the Venona Project in 1952, years after the war's end.


Potentially Disloyal Americans: 1946

In 1946, US Attorney General Tom C. Clark authorized Hoover to compile a list of potentially disloyal Americans who might be detained during a wartime national emergency.


Proposal to Suspend Habeas Corpus, 1950

In 1950, at the outbreak of the Korean War, Hoover submitted to President Truman a plan to suspend the writ of habeas corpus and detain 12,000 Americans suspected of disloyalty. Truman did not act on the plan.[13]

COINTELPRO years: 1951-1971

In 1956, Hoover was becoming increasingly frustrated by U.S. Supreme Court decisions that limited the Justice Department's ability to prosecute people for their political opinions, most notably, Communists. At this time he formalized a covert "dirty tricks" program under the name COINTELPRO.[14]


This program remained in place until it was revealed to the public in 1971, after the theft of many internal documents stolen from an office in Media, Pennsylvania,<?>< and was the cause of some of the harshest criticism of Hoover and the FBI.


COINTELPRO was first used to disrupt the Communist Party USA, and later organizations such as the Black Panther Party, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)) and others fighting for civil rights. Its methods included infiltration, burglaries, illegal wiretaps, planting forged documents and spreading false rumors about key members of target organizations.[15]


Some authors have charged that COINTELPRO methods also included inciting violence and arranging murders.[16]


In 1975, the activities of COINTELPRO were investigated by the "United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities" called the Church Committee after its chairman, Senator Frank Church (U.S. Democratic Party-Idaho, and these activities were declared illegal and contrary to the Constitution.[17]


Hoover's Files on Powerful People

Hoover amassed significant power by collecting files containing large amounts of compromising and potentially embarrassing information on many powerful people, especially politicians. According to Laurence Silberman, appointed United States Deputy Attorney General in early 1974, FBI Director Clarence M. Kelley thought such files either did not exist or had been destroyed. After The Washington Post broke a story<?> in January 1975, Kelley searched and found them in his outer office. The House Judiciary Committee then demanded that Silberman testify about them.


In 1956, several years before he targeted King, Hoover had a public showdown with T.R.M. Howard, a civil rights leader from Mound Bayou, Mississippi. During a national speaking tour, Howard had criticized the FBI's failure to thoroughly investigate the racially motivated murders of George W. Lee, Lamar Smith, and Emmett Till. Hoover wrote an open letter to the press singling out these statements as "irresponsible."


Response to Mafia and Civil Rights Groups: 1950s

In the 1950s, evidence of Hoover's unwillingness to focus FBI resources on the Mafia became grist for the media and his many detractors.


His moves against people who maintained contacts with those individuals and organizations he considered subversive, some of whom were members of the black civil rights movement, also led to accusations of trying to undermine their reputations. The treatment of Martin Luther King, Jr. and actress Jean Seberg are two examples.


Jacqueline Kennedy recalled that Hoover told President Kennedy that King tried to arrange a sex party while in the capital for the March on Washington and told Robert Kennedy that King made derogatory comments during the president's funeral.[18]


Hoover personally directed the FBI investigation into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In 1964, just days before Hoover testified in the earliest stages of the Warren Commission hearings, President Lyndon B. Johnson waived for Hoover the then-mandatory U.S. government service retirement age of seventy, allowing Hoover to remain the FBI Director "for life."


The House Select Committee on Assassinations issued a report in 1979 critical of the performance of the FBI, the Warren Commission, as well as other agencies. The report also criticized what it characterized as the FBI's reluctance to thoroughly investigate the possibility of a conspiracy to assassinate the president.[19]

<up to here>

Late career and death

Presidents Harry S. Truman, and John F. Kennedy each considered dismissing Hoover as FBI Director, but ultimately concluded that the political cost of doing so would be too great.[20]


Hoover's FBI investigated Hollywood lobbyist Jack Valenti, a special assistant and confidant to President Lyndon Johnson, in 1964. Despite Valenti's two-year marriage to Johnson's personal secretary, the investigation focused on rumors that he was having a gay relationship with a commercial photographer friend.[21]


Hoover maintained strong support in Congress until his death at his Washington, D.C., home on May 2, 1972, from a heart attack attributed to cardio-vascular disease.[22] His body lay in state in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, where Chief Justice Warren Burger eulogized him.[23] President Nixon delivered another eulogy at the funeral service in the National Presbyterian Church. Hoover was buried in the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C., next to the graves of his parents and a sister who died in infancy.[24]


Operational command of the Bureau passed to Associate Director Clyde Tolson. On May 3, President Richard Nixon appointed L. Patrick Gray, a Justice Department official with no FBI experience, as Acting Director, with W. Mark Felt remaining as Associate Director.[25]


Legacy

Hoover was a consultant to Warner Bros. on a 1959 theatrical film about the FBI, The FBI Story, and in 1965 on Warner Bros.' long-running spin-off television series, The F.B.I. Hoover personally made sure that Warner Bros. would portray the FBI more favorably than other crime dramas of the times.


In 1979, there was a large increase in conflict in the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) under Senator Richard Schweiker, which had re-opened the investigation into the assassination of President Kennedy, reported that Hoover's FBI "failed to investigate adequately the possibility of a conspiracy to assassinate the President". The HSCA further reported that Hoover's FBI "was deficient in its sharing of information with other agencies and departments".[26]


The FBI Headquarters in Washington, DC is named after Hoover. Because of the controversial nature of Hoover's legacy, there have been periodic proposals to rename it. In 2001, Senator Harry Reid sponsored an amendment to strip Hoover's name from the building. "J. Edgar Hoover's name on the FBI building is a stain on the building", Reid said.[27] However, the Senate never adopted the amendment.


Personal life

File:Hoover & Tolson.jpg
Clyde Tolson (left) and Hoover relaxing on the beach in Los Angeles, 1939

Since the 1940s, rumors have circulated that Hoover was gay.[28] It has been suggested that Clyde Tolson, an associate director of the FBI who was Hoover's heir, may have been his lover.[29]

Hoover hunted down and threatened anyone who made insinuations about his sexuality.[30]


He also spread unsubstantiated rumors that Adlai Stevenson was gay to damage the liberal governor's 1952 presidential campaign.[30]

His extensive secret files contained surveillance material on Eleanor Roosevelt's alleged lesbian lovers, speculated to be acquired for the purpose of blackmail.[30]


Some authors have dismissed the rumors about Hoover's sexuality and his relationship with Tolson in particular as unlikely,[31] while others have described them as probable or even "confirmed",[32] and still others have reported the rumors without stating an opinion.[33] Hoover described Tolson as his alter ego: The men not only worked closely together during the day but also took meals, went to night clubs and vacationed together.[29] This closeness between the two men is often cited as evidence that they were lovers, though some FBI employees who knew them, such as W. Mark Felt, say that the relationship was merely "brotherly". Those who believed the rumors concerning Hoover's sexual orientation sometimes referred to him as "J. Edna Hoover."

Tolson inherited Hoover's estate and moved into his home, having accepted the American flag that draped Hoover's casket. Tolson is buried a few yards away from Hoover in the Congressional Cemetery.


Amongst those skeptical of claims that Hoover was homosexual is Hoover's biographer Richard Hack. Hack notes that Hoover was romantically linked to actress Dorothy Lamour in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and that after Hoover's death Lamour did not deny rumors that she had had an affair with Hoover in the years between her two marriages.[34] Hack additionally reports that during the 1940s and 1950s, Hoover so often attended social events with Lela Rogers, the divorced mother of dancer and actress Ginger Rogers, that many of their mutual friends assumed the pair would eventually marry.[34]


In his 1993 biography Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover, journalist Anthony Summers quoted "society divorcee" Susan Rosenstiel as claiming to have seen Hoover engaging in cross-dressing in the 1950s. She stated that on two occasions she witnessed Hoover wearing a fluffy pink dress with flounces and lace, stockings, high heels and a black curly wig, at homosexual orgies:[35][36][37]

Template:Bquote

Summers also said that the Mafia had blackmail material on Hoover, which made Hoover reluctant to aggressively pursue organized crime. Although never corroborated, the allegation of cross-dressing has been widely repeated. In the words of author Thomas Doherty, "For American popular culture, the image of the zaftig FBI director as a Christine Jorgensen wanna-be was too delicious not to savor."[38] Skeptics of the cross-dressing story point to Susan Rosenstiel's poor credibility (she served time at Rikers Island jail for perjuring herself in a 1971 case) and say recklessly indiscreet behavior by Hoover would have been totally out of character, whatever his sexuality. Most biographers consider the story of Mafia blackmail to be unlikely in light of the FBI's investigations of the Mafia.[39] Truman Capote, who helped spread salacious rumors about Hoover, once remarked that he was more interested in making Hoover angry than determining whether the rumors were true.[20]

Attorney Roy Cohn, an associate of Hoover during the 1950s investigations of Communists and himself a closeted homosexual, opined that Hoover was too frightened of his own sexuality to have anything approaching a normal sexual or romantic relationship.[20]

The Mitrokhin Archive contains evidence that there was a Soviet campaign to discredit the United States which used allegations of homosexuality to discredit Hoover.

In his 2004 study of the Lavender Scare, historian David K. Johnson attacked the notion of Hoover's homosexuality for relying on "the kind of tactics Hoover and the security program he oversaw perfected — guilt by association, rumor, and unverified gossip." He views Rosenstiel as a liar who was paid for her story, whose "description of Hoover in drag engaging in sex with young blond boys in leather while desecrating the Bible is clearly a homophobic fantasy." He believes only those who have forgotten the virulence of the decades-long campaign against homosexuals in government can believe reports that Hoover would allow himself to be seen in compromising situations.[40]

Freemasonry

Hoover was a devoted Freemason, being raised a Master Mason on 9 November 1920, in Federal Lodge No. 1, Washington, DC, just two months before his 26th birthday. During his 52 years with the Masons, he received many medals, awards and decorations. Eventually in 1955, he was coroneted a Thirty-Third Degree Inspector General Honorary in the Southern Scottish Rite Jurisdiction. He was also awarded the Scottish Rite's highest recognition, the Grand Cross of Honour, in 1965.[41] Today a J. Edgar Hoover room exists within the House of the Temple. The room contains many of Hoover's personal papers and records.

Honors

  • In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson bestowed the State Department's Distinguished Service Award on Hoover for his service as director of the FBI.
  • Congress voted to honor Hoover's memory by publishing a memorial book. J. Edgar Hoover: Memorial Tributes in the Congress of the United States and Various Articles and Editorials Relating to His Life and Work appeared in 1974.

Portrayals

J. Edgar Hoover has been portrayed many times in film and on stage. Some notable portrayals include:

  • Hoover was portrayed by actor Dolph Sweet in the TV miniseries King (1978).
  • Hoover was portrayed by actor Ernest Borgnine in the TV film Blood Feud (1983), as well as in Hoover (2000).
  • Hoover was portrayed by actor Jack Warden in the TV film Hoover vs. The Kennedys (1987).
  • Hoover was portrayed by actor Treat Williams in the TV film J. Edgar Hoover (1987).
  • Hoover was portrayed by actor David Fredericks in two episodes of The X-Files, as well as on its sister show Millennium.
  • Hoover was originally portrayed by Eric Jordan Young in the musical Dillinger, Public Enemy Number One.

See also

Template:Wikisource

Template:Portal box


Notes

  1. "J. Edgar Hoover", Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia. Microsoft Corporation, 2008. http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761576769/J_Edgar_Hoover.html isbn = |archiveurl=http://www.webcitation.org/5kwrg7R6c%7Carchivedate=2009-10-31%7Cdeadurl=yes
  2. "Hoover, J. Edgar", The Columbia Encyclopedia. Columbia University Press, 2007. Edition = Sixth. isbn =
  3. Documented in Cox, John Stuart and Theoharis, Athan G. The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the Great American Inquisition. Temple University Press. 1988. isbn = 0-87722-532-X and elsewhere.
  4. USStatute|94|503|90|2427, USC2|28|432|In note: Confirmation and Compensation of Director; Term of Service. Articles.cnn.com/2011-07-26/politics/obama.mueller.term_1_obama-signs-mueller-s-fbi-fbi-director-robert-mueller?_s=PM:POLITICS|agency=CNN|title=Obama signs 2-year extension to Mueller's FBI tenure|date=26 July 2011|accessdate=10 November 2011.
  5. Robert K. Murray. Red Scare: A Study in National Hysteria, 1919-1920 (Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press, 1955), page 193. isbn = 0816658331
  6. Joseph L Schott, No Left Turns: The FBI in Peace & War (Praeger, 1975), pages ? ? ? isbn = 0-275-33630-1
  7. Alston Purvis and Alex Tresinowski, The Vendetta: FBI Hero Melvin Purvis's War Against Crime and J. Edgar Hoover's War Against Him (Public Affairs, 2005), pages 183+. |isbn = 1-58648-301-3
  8. "Sheriff 26 Years – J. H. Flournoy Dies," Shreveport Journal, December 14, 1966, p. 1
  9. Sifakis, Carl. The Mafia Encyclopedia (New York: Facts on File, 1999), p.127.
  10. Sifakis, p.127
  11. William Breuer, Hitler's Undercover War, New York: St. Matin's Press, 1989, ISBN 0-312-02620-X.
  12. Harvey Ardman, "German Saboteurs Invade America in 1942". HistoryNet.com: World War II magazine. February, 1997. url = http://www.historynet.com/world-war-ii-german-saboteurs-invade-america-in-1942.htm
  13. Tim Weiner, "Hoover Planned Mass Jailing in 1950." New York TImes, December 23, 2007.
  14. Cox, John Stuart and Theoharis, Athan G., The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the Great American Inquisition (Temple University Press, 1988), page 312. isbn 0-87722-532-X
  15. Ronald Kessler, The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI (St. Martin's Paperbacks, 2002), pages 107, 174, 184, 215. isbn = 0-312-98977-6
  16. See for example Joy James, States of Confinement: Policing, Detention, and Prisons (Palgrave Macmillan, 2000), page = 335. isbn = 0-312-21777-3; Kristian Williams, Our Enemies In Blue: Police And Power In America (Soft Skull Press, 2004), page 183. isbn = 1-887128-85-9; Churchill, Ward and Jim Vander Wall, Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement (South End Press, 2001), pages 53+. isbn 0-89608-646-1
  17. Paul Wolfe, "Intelligence Activities And The Rights Of Americans", 1976. http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/churchfinalreportIIa.htm
  18. Rick Klein, "Jacqueline Kennedy on Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.", ABCNews, 2011. url = http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Jacqueline_Kennedy/jacqueline-kennedys-feelings-martin-luther-king-jr-revealed/story?id=14478321.
  19. Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives. The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, 1979 url = http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/.
  20. 20.0 20.1 20.2 Hack, 2007
  21. 'Gay' Probe of LBJ Aide by Washington Associated Press at NY Post newspaper February 20, 2009
  22. Template:Cite news
  23. New York Times: Nan Robertson, "Hoover Lies in State in Capitol," May 4, 1972, accessed February 15, 2011
  24. New York Times: Nan Robertson, "President Lauds Hoover," May 5, 1972, accessed February 15, 0211
  25. New York Times: "Nixon Names Aide as Chief of FBI until Elections," May 4, 1972, accessed February 15, 2011
  26. HCSA Conclusions, 1979.
  27. Template:Cite news Template:Dead link
  28. Template:Cite book
  29. 29.0 29.1 Template:Cite book
  30. 30.0 30.1 30.2 Template:Cite news
  31. For example,
    Template:Cite book,
    Template:Cite book,
    Template:Cite book "The strange likelihood is that Hoover never knew sexual desire at all."
  32. For example, Template:Cite book, Template:Cite book
  33. For example, Template:Cite book, Template:Cite book
  34. 34.0 34.1 Hack, Richard Puppetmaster: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover. (2007). Phoenix Books. ISBN1597775126
  35. Template:Cite book
  36. Template:Cite news
  37. Template:Cite journal
  38. Template:Cite book
  39. See for example Template:Cite book
  40. David K.Johnson, The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government (University of Chicago Press, 2004), 11-13
  41. J. Edgar Hoover, 33, Grand Cross-Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity Cartha DeLoach, Chairman, Hoover Foundation at Scottish Rite Journal of Freemasonry Magazine
  42. Template:Cite web
  43. Template:Cite web
  44. Template:Cite web
  45. New York Times: George VI Honors FBI Chief," December 11, 1947, accessed February 17, 2011. This entitled him to use the letters KBE after his name, but not to the use of the title "Sir," since that title is restricted to citizen of countries belonging to the British Commonwealth.
  46. Template:Cite web
  47. Full cast and crew for Bananas (1971) at IMDb
  48. Audio production for "J. Edgar!" (2001) at Amazon


Writings

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,[1] Hoover received the credit and royalties.