Profiles in Murder: J Edgar Hoover

There are still many Americans who believe that J Edgar Hoover (1895-1972) was an exemplar of rectitude and solid American values who dedicated selflessly his life to fighting crime. These poor folks have been duped, conned, and deceived. Hoover was America’s First Criminal.

 

We have reported previously on the legal abuses Hoover used in his early years to wreak terror on his political enemies, so it should come as no surprise to learn that he was a criminal of the first order. One of his biographers – and we apologize for forgetting the name – documented Hoover’s tax evasions which he forced one of his accountants to conceal in false representations on his tax returns.

 

Hoover also regularly directed government employees on personal errands, including maintenance and improvements on his Washington, DC home.

 

If these were all of the violations of the law for which Hoover was guilty, we might overlook them in a drunken stupor. But his criminality runs deeper. Hoover had a very cozy relationship with organized crime which explains why he declared in the 1950s that it was not a major problem and that his agency should instead focus more attention on fighting the Red Menace. Indeed it was only after his death that the agency made any noteworthy attempt to break up organized crime, and even then it was probably only an internecine turf war.

 

Hoover is also well known for his innumerable illegal wire taps and files he maintained on politicians for political blackmail. His voyeurism is quite ironic given his nickname of Mrs Hoover. Perhaps not quite as flamboyant as RuPaul, Hoover had a lifelong love affair with Clyde Tolson, his number 2 man at the FBI – all while he kept a close watch on “sexual deviants.”

 

But Hoover’s crimes did not end with illegal wire taps. He was eyeball deep in the cover-up of the murder of John F Kennedy. He made remarks to lunch guests once, the son of a man named Byars, that he knew far more about the assassination than he could safely reveal, echoing Jack Ruby’s remarks to Dorothy Kilgallen that if Americans knew what he knew, they would recognize the end of democracy and self-government.

 

Hoover had many reasons to cover-up if not support the murder of Kennedy. He was living on borrowed time at his job and knew that Kennedy would not waive mandatory retirement if re-elected. He also hated Kennedy’s foreign policy, and other major aspects of his presidency, not the least of which was his boss, the 35 year old Robert Kennedy.

 

Douglas Horne recounts the story of Gordon Novel who stated that James Angleton, the counter-intelligence chief of the CIA, personally showed him a picture of Hoover and Tolson engaged in homosexual activities – and it wasn’t planning an Easter Parade. Angleton told Novel to use the information to keep Hoover on the reservation – whether by explicit or implicit means.

 

Finally, when one murder isn't enough, there is always another, this time Martin Luther King. As became evident at the 1999 civil trial against Lloyd Jowers by Coretta King, Hoover ordered the murder of King, using the CIA and US Army assassination squads to ensure the death of another "nigger," Hoover's favorite adjective or pronoun for black people.

 

Thus Hoover, who boisterously declared that no one would ever make him retire, became a willing participant in the plot to murder the president and to cover-up the crime with endless bales of lies. Hoover was a menace to America who supported its enemies, and covered for the most egregious murderers in American History. Murder is the Hoover legacy.

Reference
Inside the ARRB, Vol 5, Douglas Horne, 2009

Copyright 2013 Tony Bonn. All rights reserved.