G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century

Hoover had enjoyed a partnership with Vice President Nixon based on their shared anticommunism and disdain for the liberal establishment, and quietly backed his 1960 campaign for the presidency. Nixon proved an awkward campaigner, and his opponent, the youthful and charismatic John F. Kennedy, scored a surprise victory. Hoover had been friendly with Kennedy’s father, Joe, but had dismissed John as an Ivy League playboy. He was relieved, though, by the choice of Lyndon Johnson as vice president, a Southern Democrat who had sponsored a bill providing Hoover with a lifetime salary. Hoover and CIA Director Allen Dulles were the among the few members of an old guard among a cabinet of young “whiz kids,” including the former General Motors CEO Robert McNamara, who became defense secretary, and Kennedy’s younger brother Robert (or “Bobby”), who became attorney general and—at the age of 35—Hoover’s boss.

Hoover’s relationship with Bobby Kennedy soured quickly. Hoover disdained Bobby’s casual style, including casual dress, playing around with coworkers, and showing up unannounced at the FBI’s offices or even Hoover’s office. Where Kennedy saw himself as shaking up old routines, Hoover saw a threat of chaos. Their disagreements also extended into policy, including Kennedy’s proposal for a crime commission that would overlap with the FBI’s efforts against organized crime. Hoover had improved FBI monitoring of organized crime in recent years, but as with projects like Venona, kept his successes secret in order to maintain control over them. Hoover sought to prove that the FBI would lead any effort against the Mafia, and after a tense White House meeting with Hoover, Bobby retracted his proposal. Hoover then learned that CIA agents had been working with the Mafia to overthrow the Fidel Castro regime in Cuba, culminating in the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of April 1961. Hoover immediately sought to investigate the depth of the ties between the two organizations and how much the Kennedys might be involved. Embarrassed, Bobby confessed to Hoover that the CIA had sponsored a plan to assassinate Castro, and he then helped the FBI to secure sweeping new powers to investigate organized crime.

In the spring of 1961, Hoover’s efforts to limit the scope of FBI involvement in civil rights cases met a major test with the Freedom Riders, pairs of Black and white activists traveling on buses through the Jim Crow South with the purpose of compelling the federal government to enforce a new law banning segregation on buses and in bus terminals. Hoover had never quite solved the puzzle of how to reconcile his commitment to upholding the law with his celebration of white Southern manhood, which placed segregation at the heart of the social order. No amount of cultural affinity would allow local police departments to see the FBI as anything other than federal interlopers. At first, Hoover responded to the Freedom Riders with his usual circumspection, gathering information and alerting local authorities regarding any imminent violence without direct intervention. Instead, local police in Birmingham actively collaborated with the Ku Klux Klan (including an FBI informant) to ambush two buses full of Freedom Riders. Hoover wanted to limit himself to investigating such crimes after the fact, while Kennedy proposed federal protection for the riders. The Interstate Commerce Commission stepped in to enforce desegregation of buses and terminals, securing a win for the Freedom Riders, but Hoover saw the entire episode as a waste of resources, as FBI investigations once again failed to produce convictions.

The ascent of the civil rights movement coincided with the rise of the conservative movement. William F. Buckley and his magazine National Review represented an intellectual challenge to the growth of federal power, including the power to enforce desegregation. There were also local grassroots groups that championed rabid anticommunism. Both wings regarded Hoover as a hero and would come to his defense against any public criticism. Many groups of the so-called New Right recruited former FBI agents as spokesmen, and their speeches regularly involved praise of Hoover’s leadership. This proved problematic in the case of the John Birch Society, an anticommunist organization with a penchant for conspiracy theories. Hoover wanted to distance himself from them but could hardly repudiate their overall message. When President Kennedy called out those who fixated on the threat of domestic communism, Hoover shot back with a blistering speech against communism, although he paired it with a warning against extremism of both the Left and Right.

By 1961, Hoover had acquired no information about Martin Luther King Jr., which is surprising, since he had been a prominent figure in the civil rights movement since 1955. Upon learning about King, Hoover fixated on two of his allies who had ties to the American Communist Party. Hoover had long suspected civil rights activists as being communists or dupes, but there was evidence that both men were not merely former members of the party but had been high-ranking and perhaps even had ties to Moscow. Hoover dispatched an FBI agent to inform King of his associates’ suspicious connections. When King refused to condemn them, Bobby Kennedy authorized the FBI to install wiretaps in their homes and offices.

After learning that President Kennedy had an affair with the girlfriend of gangster Sam Giancana, the nearly 70-year-old Hoover, struggling to conceal signs of aging, saw himself as a necessary stopgap against a reckless younger generation. The dispute became personal when Bobby Kennedy rejected Hoover’s petition to have Tolson receive the President’s Award for Distinguished Federal Service, which he received under Eisenhower. Gage rejects as unlikely the now-popular rumor that Hoover dressed as a woman to have sex with male prostitutes, precisely because his concern about his reputation forbade such indiscretions. Kennedy mused that Hoover was gay, and Soviet spies sought to spread rumors to that same effect. Despite their bitter hostility, Kennedy’s affairs and the rumors surrounding Hoover actually brought the two closer together, as they were dependent on one another for political protection.

Hoover’s investigation of potential communists within Martin Luther King Jr.’s organization brought the two into conflict. King accused the FBI of having a cozy relationship with racist local police, which enraged Hoover. King then led a series of demonstrations in Birmingham, where cameras captured the police releasing firehoses and German shepherds on children. Hoover encouraged Kennedy to support civil rights legislation in order to avoid another series of demonstrations in Washington. The FBI intervened in the murder of civil rights activist Medgar Evers, but continued to press King regarding his allegedly communist allies, which King continued to resist. In August of 1963, when King led the March on Washington, where he gave his famous “I Have a Dream Speech,” Hoover decided that King was not merely a dupe but an active threat and ordered the wiretapping of his home and office.

When a bomb exploded in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham on September 15, 1963, killing four young girls, Hoover endured severe criticism that a lack of federal enforcement had emboldened Klan terrorists. While pondering a strategy going forward, he received news that November of President Kennedy’s assassination. Under severe pressure to act, the FBI had little to do, as the assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald was in custody, and despite his communist leanings, Hoover found it unlikely that he was working on behalf of the Soviet or Cuban government. Hoover’s old friend Lyndon Johnson became president, and Hoover updated him on the evidence against Oswald. Some regarded Hoover’s eagerness to wrap up the case as suspicious, especially when a gunman easily bypassed a police guard and shot Oswald below the Dallas city jail. With no trial forthcoming, the FBI destroyed some of the evidence in its possession. Under immense public pressure, Johnson agreed to the formation of a presidential commission to investigate the assassination, but assured Hoover that the results would not impugn the FBI.

Johnson’s appointment for leading the commission was Chief Justice Earl Warren, whom Johnson needed to legitimize the FBI’s investigation. Hoover had long disliked Warren and suspected him of wanting to blame the FBI for the assassination. Hoover insisted that the commission’s task was to establish Oswald’s guilt, not to second-guess government agencies. Hoover also withheld critical information pertaining to the case, prompting Warren to review the FBI’s own report and demand access to his sources. Mistrust of the FBI intensified when reports surfaced that Oswald himself had been an FBI informant, which Hoover adamantly denied (it proved untrue). Hoover dug in, calling on his allies across the government and the press. Hoover retained the support of President Johnson, who would exempt him from the rule requiring federal employees to retire at 70 years of age. Hoover testified before the Warren Commission, which ultimately accepted his basic understanding of Oswald as the lone shooter, although speculation endures to the present day.

In return for his favors, Johnson wanted Hoover’s support on a civil rights bill in advance of the 1964 election. Although Hoover’s ideology put him closer to Johnson’s opponent, the arch-conservative Barry Goldwater, Hoover looked to support Johnson while still monitoring figures like King whom he did not trust. Armed with information on King’s extramarital affairs on top of his ties to suspected communists, the FBI stepped up its surveillance of King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and other civil rights figures, such as the Nation of Islam’s Malcolm X. Teams of FBI agents followed King, planting microphones in the hotel room he would stay in that night, and, in the telling of the agents, they documented sexual escapades and a possible rape by one of King’s fellow ministers. Disapproval of King’s personal life confirmed Hoover’s dedication to obstruct his activism. Hoover looked for subtle ways to discredit King publicly, even as he supported Johnson’s efforts to pass a civil rights bill that hinged on King’s cooperation. In 1964, the Senate passed the Civil Rights Act over the vehement protest of Southern Democrats, and shortly thereafter, the disappearance of three civil rights workers near Philadelphia, Mississippi, prompted an FBI investigation, which went on for weeks without results. At Johnson’s suggestion, Hoover opened an FBI field office in Jackson, Mississippi, with the governor in attendance. During the visit Hoover did not go to the site of the disappearance or invite any Black men or women to attend the ceremony, and he dismissed the brother of slain civil rights activist Medgar Evers for suggesting that he ought to meet with local civil rights workers.