WEBVTT

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I want you to close your eyes for a second and

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try to visualize a timeline. Picture the United

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States in 1924. We're talking about the height

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of the Jazz Age. Calvin Coolidge is in the White

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House. Flappers are dancing the Charleston. Prohibition

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is in full swing. So, you know, everyone is drinking

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bootleg gin and teacups. Right. The world is

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black and white. It's grainy. It's grainy. And

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it moves at a different speed. It feels like

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a completely different planet compared to today.

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Oh, absolutely. Now, keep that image in your

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head and just fast forward. Keep going. Past

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the Great Depression, past World War II. A huge

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amount of history. Past the Korean War, through

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the Kennedy assassination, the moon landing,

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the civil rights movement, all the way to 1972.

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Wow. Richard Nixon is in the White House. The

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Vietnam War is raging. Watergate is just starting

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to bubble up. The world is in color now. It's

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loud, it's angry, and it's modern. That is a

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span of 48 years, nearly half a century. And

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for that entire time, every single day of those

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48 years, one man sat at the same desk. Heading

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the same agency, effectively holding the highest

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office of law enforcement in the country. J.

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Edgar Hoover. We are talking, of course, about

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J. Edgar Hoover. The first director of the FBI.

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And honestly, for a long time, he simply was

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the FBI. You can't really separate the man from

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the institution. That's what we're doing today.

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We are doing a deep dive into the life, the massive

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empire, and the really disturbing secrets of

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J. Edgar Hoover. Yeah. And looking at the source

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material we've told, the biographies, the declassified

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memos, the history books, the thing that hits

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me is the sheer impossibility of his survival.

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Right. In modern politics, an FBI director or

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a cabinet member lasts, what, two years? Three?

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If they're lucky. It's a burnout job. But Hoover

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served under eight different presidents. Eight

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of them. Coolidge, Hoover, Roosevelt, Truman,

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Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Democrats,

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Republicans, liberals, conservatives. It didn't

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matter. They all came into office and J. Edgar

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Hoover was already there waiting for them. And

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he usually stayed long after they were gone.

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But here is the tension I want to explore today

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because the sources present us with a massive

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contradiction. On one hand, you have the great

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modernizer, the guy who took law enforcement

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out of the Stone Age, introduced science, fingerprints,

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professional standards. He's the reason we have

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the modern concept of a federal agent. Absolutely.

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But then you have the shadow. The man who built

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a personal secret police force, the man who wiretapped

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a Martin Luther King Jr., who blackmailed politicians,

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who kept secret files on anyone who dared to

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criticize him. It's the ultimate paradox, isn't

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it? The man who represented the rule of law more

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than anyone else in America while simultaneously

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running an operation that violated the law almost

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daily. That's the mission of this deep dive,

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really, to understand how those two things coexisted

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in one person, in one career. And I think to

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do that, we have to look at Hoover. not just

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as a cop, but as an architect. An architect.

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Yeah. He built a machine designed to impose order

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on the country. And for Hoover, order was a very

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specific, very personal thing. Well, let's go

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back to the blueprint then. To understand the

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machine, you have to understand where the architect

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came from. And J. Edgar Hoover was a Washington

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creature in a way that... Very few people are.

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Oh, born and bred. He was born on New Year's

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Day, 1895, right in Washington, D .C., in a house

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on Capitol Hill. His whole life. Lived in D .C.

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his entire life. He never really left. But there

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is this one weird detail in the vital records

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that the sources point out. Oh, the birth certificate

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thing. Yeah. There was no birth certificate filed

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when he was born. Which is odd. I mean, for anyone,

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but especially for him. It is very odd. It wasn't

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filed until 1938. He was 43 years old, the most

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famous lawman in the world, before his birth

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was officially registered on paper. That is deeply

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ironic for a man who's been his entire life obsessed

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with paperwork and verifying identities. It really

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is. And that obsession with the record, with

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documentation, it starts early. You know, we

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often think of Hoover as a tough guy or a prosecutor.

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But his first real job, the one that I think

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shaped his brain, was at the Library of Congress.

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Wait, he was a librarian? Seriously? He was a

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messenger and then a patalogger. He started at

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age 18. And you have to understand this wasn't

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just shelving books. This was the era before

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computers. Right. The Library of Congress was

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trying to organize the sum total of human knowledge

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using index cards. The Dewey Decimal System on

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a massive scale. Exactly. But think about the

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mechanics of that. You have millions of books

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and you need a system where you can find any

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specific piece of information within seconds.

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It requires a rigid. And he loved it. He loved

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it. He excelled at it. He later wrote that this

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job trained him in the value of collating material.

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So while other young men are maybe out learning

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a trade or studying philosophy, Hoover is learning

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how to turn the world into a database. He viewed

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intelligence as data to be cataloged. And if

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you look at the FBI later, the massive indices,

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the cross -referencing files, the way they track

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people, it's all just an aggressive expansion

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of the library card catalog. That makes so much

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sense. He saw people not as human beings with

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rights, but as entries in a system. If an entry

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is in the wrong place or if it doesn't fill the

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category, it's disorder. And you have to fix

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it. He's trying to organize the chaos of human

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behavior. Now, speaking of chaos, he had a personal

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battle with chaos in his own body, didn't he?

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The stutter. Right. As a child, he had a debilitating

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stutter. And for a boy who valued control and

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precision, not being able to speak clearly must

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have been torture. I can't even imagine. But

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the way he fixed it tells you everything about

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his personality. He didn't go to therapy. It

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didn't really exist like that back then. He taught

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himself to speak with what biographers describe

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as ferocious speed. Ferocious speed. What does

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that mean exactly? He would talk so fast that

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the stutter couldn't catch up with him. It was

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a machine gun delivery. Staccato. Rapid fire.

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Wow. Later in his career, stenographers complained

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they couldn't type fast enough to document his

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speeches. He turned a vulnerability into a weapon.

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He literally overwhelmed people with words. So

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you have a guy who talks like a machine gun and

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thinks like a card catalog. He gets his law degree

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from George Washington University. And in 1917,

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he enters the Department of Justice. And the

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timing is crucial. 1917, World War I. Right.

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The government is in a panic about spies, about

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saboteurs, about foreigners. Hoover lands in

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the War Emergency Division. And specifically,

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he heads up the Alien Enemy Bureau, which I have

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to say sounds like something out of a sci -fi

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dystopian novel. It does, doesn't it? But it

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was very real. President Wilson had authorized

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the arrest and jailing of disloyal foreigners

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without trial. And Hoover's what, 22? 22 years

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old, fresh out of law school, and suddenly he

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has the authority to decide who is loyal and

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who isn't. That is a terrifying amount of power

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for a 22 -year -old. It is, and the sources show

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he dove right into it. There's a record of a

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list of 1 ,400 suspicious Germans living in the

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U .S. A list he was managing. Yes, and Hoover

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personally helped coordinate the arrest of 98

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of them and designated over 1 ,000 more as arrestable.

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This was his training ground. This is where he

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learned that the Constitution has... Well, loopholes,

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if you're scared enough. And he rides that wave

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right into 1919 and the Red Scare. Right. The

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war is over, but now the fear is communism. Anarchists.

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They're bombings. A new enemy. A new enemy. And

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Hoover gets promoted to head the Radical Division.

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Again. With the names. Again, look at the name.

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Radical Division. His job wasn't to investigate

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crimes that had happened. It was to monitor people

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for ideas that might lead to crimes. Pre -crime,

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basically. It's pre -crime. He starts building

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his index cards on people like Marcus Garvey,

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the black nationalist leader. He targets Emma

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Goldman, the famous anarchist. And he went after

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Felix Frankfurter. The future Supreme Court justice.

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Yes. Felix Frankfurter, who would later become

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a pillar of American law. Hoover called him the

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most dangerous man in the United States. Why?

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What did Frankfurter do? Because Frankfurter

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was sympathetic to the rights of aliens and radicals,

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he believed in due process. And to Hoover, that

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wasn't just a legal disagreement. It was subversive.

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And all of this culminates in the Palmer raids.

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The Palmer raids were Hoover's first masterpiece

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of logistics. Simultaneous raids in multiple

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cities, thousands of suspected leftists and anarchists

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arrested, many without warrants, thrown into

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overcrowded detention centers, deported. It was

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a massive operation. It was brutal. It was chaotic.

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But to Hoover, it was cleansing the nation. He

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was barely 25 and he was already reshaping the

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demographics of political dissent in America.

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So he's the young prodigy. He's the guy who knows.

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where the bodies are buried because he buried

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some of them. That's a good way to put it. And

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in 1924, the Bureau of Investigation, which was

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the precursor to the FBI, is a mess. It's corrupt.

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It's inefficient. Totally. It was a political

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patronage mill. So President Calvin Coolidge

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needs someone to clean it up. He taps Hoover.

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He was 29 years old. Just imagine a 29 -year

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-old being handed the keys to the Federal Investigative

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Service today. It's unthinkable. And he doesn't

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just polish the furniture. He burns the house

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down and rebuilds it. The cleaning house phase

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of his career is wild to read about. It is. He

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fired people for the most superficial reasons.

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It wasn't just about competence. It was about

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aesthetics. He wanted a specific luck. He fired

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agents who, in his words, looked stupid like

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truck drivers. He really said that. That's a

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direct quote from the sources. He fired people

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he called pinheads. What does a pinhead even

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look like in an FBI context? I have no idea.

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Someone who didn't look like a lawyer or an accountant,

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I guess. He wanted men who wore suits, who had

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short hair, who polished their shoes. He wanted

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interchangeable parts in his machine. And those

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parts had to be men. Exclusively. This is a key

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detail. There were actually female agents in

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the Bureau before Hoover took over. Yes. He fired

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them all. Every single one. And he banned the

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hiring of women for decades. He wanted a fraternity,

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a brotherhood of white, Protestant, conservative

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men who looked and thought exactly like he did.

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So he purges the ranks and then he brings in

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the technology. This is the scientific crime

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fighting era. Yeah. And I think we take this

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for granted today because we watch CSI and Law

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& Order. But can you paint a picture of what

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policing was like before Hoover? It was amateur

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hour, truly. if a crime happened the local cop

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might pick up the murder weapon with his bare

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hands stick it in his pocket and walk it to the

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station no chain of custody No evidence preservation.

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Zero. There was no ballistics analysis. And if

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a criminal crossed state lines, say he robbed

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a bank in Ohio and drove to Kentucky, the Ohio

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cops usually just gave up. They just stopped

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at the border. They had no jurisdiction and there

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was no way to send a photo or fingerprints quickly

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to Kentucky to say, hey, watch out for this guy.

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So Hoover sees this fragmentation as a problem

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of data management. Exactly. He starts with fingerprints.

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Now, fingerprints have been around, but there

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was no central repository, no national database.

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So he created one. He established the identification

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division. He pushed, he cajoled, he pressured

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local police departments all over the country

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to send him their fingerprint cards. And this

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goes back to the librarian thing. It's his ultimate

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library. It is. By the mid -30s, he had millions

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of prints. But think about the logistics. You

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don't have a computer to scan them. You have

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a warehouse full of filing cabinets. You need

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an army of clerks, mostly women, actually, in

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the clerical roles, to visually match these whorls

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and loops. It's an incredible undertaking. He

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built the largest database of human identity

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the world had ever seen at that point. And he

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didn't stop at Prince. He built the lab. The

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FBI laboratory in 1932. This is a game changer.

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The sources say he visited a Canadian scientist

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named Wilfred de Rome, who was doing pioneering

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work in forensics. And Hoover basically said,

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I want that. I'll have one of those, please.

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Pretty much. He brought in microscopes, chemical

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analysis, handwriting experts, ballistics. He

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turned the G -man from a door kicker into a scientist.

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Which is great. That's the modernizer part of

00:12:22.860 --> 00:12:25.360
the legacy. That's the good stuff. That is. But

00:12:25.360 --> 00:12:28.750
then the 1930s explode. The Great Depression

00:12:28.750 --> 00:12:31.929
hits. And suddenly, you have a new kind of criminal.

00:12:32.090 --> 00:12:36.409
The public enemy. The celebrity gangster. John

00:12:36.409 --> 00:12:40.889
Dillinger. Babyface Nelson. Pretty Boy Floyd.

00:12:41.149 --> 00:12:42.870
These guys weren't just criminals. They were

00:12:42.870 --> 00:12:45.769
folk heroes to some people. They were. You have

00:12:45.769 --> 00:12:48.049
to remember, banks were foreclosing on people's

00:12:48.049 --> 00:12:50.110
farms and homes. So when John Dillinger robbed

00:12:50.110 --> 00:12:52.870
a bank, some people cheered. They saw him as

00:12:52.870 --> 00:12:55.629
Robin Hood. Exactly. And these guys had fast

00:12:55.629 --> 00:12:58.169
cars, V8 Fords, and Thompson submachine guns.

00:12:58.250 --> 00:13:00.169
They were outrunning and outgunning the local

00:13:00.169 --> 00:13:02.370
police forces. This was a direct challenge to

00:13:02.370 --> 00:13:05.190
Hoover's order and his ego. Oh, it was embarrassing.

00:13:05.509 --> 00:13:07.970
Hoover is sitting in D .C. with his card catalogs

00:13:07.970 --> 00:13:09.970
and his scientists, and these guys are running

00:13:09.970 --> 00:13:13.549
circles around his agents. He needed a win. But

00:13:13.549 --> 00:13:15.669
his agents weren't ready for gunfights. They

00:13:15.669 --> 00:13:18.070
were lawyers and accountants. That's the problem.

00:13:18.289 --> 00:13:20.970
And that leads to the disaster at Little Bohemia.

00:13:21.149 --> 00:13:23.029
Oh, Little Bohemia. This is a classic story.

00:13:23.230 --> 00:13:26.509
Little Bohemia, 1934. This should have been the

00:13:26.509 --> 00:13:29.330
FBI's shining moment. They tracked the entire

00:13:29.330 --> 00:13:31.809
Dillinger gang to a lodge in Wisconsin called

00:13:31.809 --> 00:13:34.629
Little Bohemia. They surrounded the place. They

00:13:34.629 --> 00:13:36.570
had the numbers. They had the element of surprise.

00:13:36.850 --> 00:13:40.169
So what went wrong? Everything. The agents started

00:13:40.169 --> 00:13:43.230
firing too early. They ended up shooting three

00:13:43.230 --> 00:13:45.230
local residents who were just walking out of

00:13:45.230 --> 00:13:48.110
the lodge after dinner. Civilians. Yes, civilians.

00:13:48.450 --> 00:13:51.730
They killed one and wounded two. The gangsters

00:13:51.730 --> 00:13:53.990
inside heard the shots, slipped out the back

00:13:53.990 --> 00:13:56.570
windows, ran through the woods and escaped. So

00:13:56.570 --> 00:13:59.330
the FBI shoots the civilians and lets the bad

00:13:59.330 --> 00:14:02.370
guys get away. It was a total humiliation. The

00:14:02.370 --> 00:14:04.809
press tore Hoover apart. They called his agents

00:14:04.809 --> 00:14:08.830
Keystone cops. Hoover was furious. He realized

00:14:08.830 --> 00:14:10.970
that science wasn't enough. He needed killers

00:14:10.970 --> 00:14:14.009
and he needed better PR. Well, they eventually

00:14:14.009 --> 00:14:16.350
did get Dillinger. They did. Outside the Biograph

00:14:16.350 --> 00:14:19.370
Theater in Chicago, the Lady in Red tips them

00:14:19.370 --> 00:14:22.840
off and they ambush him. Right. A huge victory

00:14:22.840 --> 00:14:25.279
for the Bureau. But here's a detail that shows

00:14:25.279 --> 00:14:26.820
you everything you need to know about Hoover's

00:14:26.820 --> 00:14:30.539
ego. Go on. The man who ran that operation on

00:14:30.539 --> 00:14:32.740
the ground was Melvin Purvis. He was the special

00:14:32.740 --> 00:14:35.700
agent in charge in Chicago. After Dillinger was

00:14:35.700 --> 00:14:38.120
killed, Purvis became a national hero. Of course.

00:14:38.259 --> 00:14:41.879
The press loved him. He was the man who got Dillinger.

00:14:42.059 --> 00:14:44.779
And Hoover. did not like that hoover destroyed

00:14:44.779 --> 00:14:48.200
him he was insanely jealous he couldn't stand

00:14:48.200 --> 00:14:50.539
sharing the spotlight he started transferring

00:14:50.539 --> 00:14:53.220
purvis to bad assignments auditing his expenses

00:14:53.220 --> 00:14:56.500
nitpicking his reports he made his life a living

00:14:56.500 --> 00:14:59.990
hell just out of pure spite yes He eventually

00:14:59.990 --> 00:15:02.610
drove Purvis out of the FBI completely because

00:15:02.610 --> 00:15:04.669
there could only be one face of the FBI and it

00:15:04.669 --> 00:15:06.870
was going to be J. Edgar Hoover's face. So after

00:15:06.870 --> 00:15:09.090
Dillinger, Hoover went on a branding offensive.

00:15:09.409 --> 00:15:11.909
A massive one. He renamed the Bureau of the Federal

00:15:11.909 --> 00:15:15.450
Bureau of Investigation in 1935. He started consulting

00:15:15.450 --> 00:15:18.389
on Hollywood movies like the FBI story starring

00:15:18.389 --> 00:15:21.080
Jimmy Stewart. He curated the image. Absolutely.

00:15:21.320 --> 00:15:24.039
He became friends with Walter Winchell, the biggest

00:15:24.039 --> 00:15:27.519
gossip columnist in the country. He fed Winchell

00:15:27.519 --> 00:15:30.620
scoops and Winchell wrote columns about how heroic

00:15:30.620 --> 00:15:34.100
J. Edgar Hoover was. He even oversaw the TV show

00:15:34.100 --> 00:15:37.299
The FBI. He cultivated the myth, the G -man is

00:15:37.299 --> 00:15:40.019
incorruptible. The G -man always gets his man.

00:15:40.200 --> 00:15:43.460
And that myth was a shield. As long as the public

00:15:43.460 --> 00:15:45.960
thought the FBI was perfect, nobody looked too

00:15:45.960 --> 00:15:47.419
closely at what was happening in the shadows.

00:15:48.299 --> 00:15:50.440
But there was a massive hole in that myth, a

00:15:50.440 --> 00:15:52.740
blind spot so big you could drive a truck full

00:15:52.740 --> 00:15:56.100
of bootleg whiskey through it. The mafia. This

00:15:56.100 --> 00:15:58.860
is the part that still baffles people. For decades,

00:15:59.120 --> 00:16:01.620
all through the 30s, 40s, and into the early

00:16:01.620 --> 00:16:04.980
50s, Hoover insisted that the mafia didn't exist.

00:16:05.220 --> 00:16:07.279
He denied it publicly. Publicly and privately,

00:16:07.440 --> 00:16:09.679
he called it a bugaboo. He said it was just loose

00:16:09.679 --> 00:16:12.519
associations of local gangs, not a national syndicate.

00:16:12.639 --> 00:16:14.379
I have to stop you there. This defies logic.

00:16:14.759 --> 00:16:16.559
He just talked about how he built the greatest

00:16:16.559 --> 00:16:18.759
intelligence network in history. He knew what

00:16:18.759 --> 00:16:21.059
kind of toothpaste radical professors were buying.

00:16:21.240 --> 00:16:23.899
How on earth does the world's greatest detective

00:16:23.899 --> 00:16:27.299
miss the fact that Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky

00:16:27.299 --> 00:16:30.440
are running a national crime board? That feels

00:16:30.440 --> 00:16:32.940
like incompetence. It does, doesn't it? But the

00:16:32.940 --> 00:16:35.960
sources are pretty clear. It wasn't incompetence.

00:16:35.960 --> 00:16:39.159
It was a choice. OK, so why? What are the theories?

00:16:39.639 --> 00:16:41.559
There are three main theories. The first one

00:16:41.559 --> 00:16:44.279
is about practicality. Statistics. He wanted

00:16:44.279 --> 00:16:47.779
easy wins. Hoover lived and died by his budget

00:16:47.779 --> 00:16:50.539
hearings in Congress. He needed to show high

00:16:50.539 --> 00:16:53.840
conviction rates. Investigating the mob is incredibly

00:16:53.840 --> 00:16:56.279
hard. It's complex. Right. It's not like catching

00:16:56.279 --> 00:16:59.179
a bank robber red handed. Exactly. You have shell

00:16:59.179 --> 00:17:02.039
companies, layers of insulation, witnesses who

00:17:02.039 --> 00:17:05.440
disappear. It takes years to build an ARCO case,

00:17:05.740 --> 00:17:08.539
which didn't even exist as a concept yet. It

00:17:08.539 --> 00:17:11.160
was easier to arrest car thieves and bank robbers

00:17:11.160 --> 00:17:14.019
and show a 98 percent conviction rate to Congress.

00:17:14.220 --> 00:17:16.279
OK, that's the lazy bureaucrat theory. What's

00:17:16.279 --> 00:17:18.819
the second? Fear of corruption. Hoover was obsessed

00:17:18.819 --> 00:17:21.160
with the purity of his agents. He knew they were

00:17:21.160 --> 00:17:23.680
human. They were underpaid. The starting salary

00:17:23.680 --> 00:17:26.400
was around $5 ,500 back then. And the mob had

00:17:26.400 --> 00:17:30.079
unlimited cash. Unlimited cash. Hoover was terrified

00:17:30.079 --> 00:17:32.480
that if he sent his squeaky clean accountants

00:17:32.480 --> 00:17:34.920
into the world of gambling and high -end vice,

00:17:35.160 --> 00:17:37.740
they would be corrupted. And a scandal involving

00:17:37.740 --> 00:17:40.299
bribed agents would destroy the incorruptible

00:17:40.299 --> 00:17:43.500
brand he'd worked so hard to build. So he ignores

00:17:43.500 --> 00:17:45.039
the crime to protect the image of the police.

00:17:45.559 --> 00:17:47.680
I can see the logic, even if it's twisted. It

00:17:47.680 --> 00:17:50.119
is twisted. But then there's the third darker

00:17:50.119 --> 00:17:53.359
theory, the blackmail theory. This is the one

00:17:53.359 --> 00:17:55.779
that won't go away. No, it won't. The rumor,

00:17:55.980 --> 00:17:58.980
and I stress the sources present this as a persistent

00:17:58.980 --> 00:18:01.779
rumor, not a proven fact, is that the syndicate

00:18:01.779 --> 00:18:05.119
had leverage on Hoover. Specifically, mobsters

00:18:05.119 --> 00:18:07.880
like Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello supposedly

00:18:07.880 --> 00:18:11.000
held compromising photos of Hoover. Photos of

00:18:11.000 --> 00:18:13.259
him with his deputy, Clyde Tolson. Right. Photos

00:18:13.259 --> 00:18:15.200
implying a homosexual relationship. Now, we don't

00:18:15.200 --> 00:18:16.920
have the photos. They've never surfaced. But

00:18:16.920 --> 00:18:18.819
the threat was enough. But think about it from

00:18:18.819 --> 00:18:21.579
a leverage perspective. Hoover's entire power

00:18:21.579 --> 00:18:24.660
base rested on his moral authority. He was the

00:18:24.660 --> 00:18:27.900
avenging angel of American morality. If proof

00:18:27.900 --> 00:18:30.319
came out that he was gay in the 1940s or 50s,

00:18:30.319 --> 00:18:31.960
he would have been destroyed in five minutes.

00:18:32.259 --> 00:18:35.400
So the theory is, you leave us alone and these

00:18:35.400 --> 00:18:38.720
photos stay in the safe. It fits the facts. The

00:18:38.720 --> 00:18:41.759
mob operated with near total impunity for 20

00:18:41.759 --> 00:18:44.440
years while Hoover was busy chasing communists.

00:18:45.039 --> 00:18:48.460
It wasn't until 1957 that the bubble burst. the

00:18:48.460 --> 00:18:50.200
Appalachian meeting. You can't make this stuff

00:18:50.200 --> 00:18:53.420
up. Over 60 mob bosses from all over the country,

00:18:53.539 --> 00:18:56.839
from New York, Chicago, Florida, gather at a

00:18:56.839 --> 00:18:59.240
rural estate in Appalachian, New York for a summit.

00:18:59.359 --> 00:19:01.759
And the FBI didn't know about it. The FBI had

00:19:01.759 --> 00:19:04.859
no idea. A local state trooper, not the FBI,

00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:07.380
a local trooper gets suspicious about all the

00:19:07.380 --> 00:19:09.539
limousines with out -of -state plates driving

00:19:09.539 --> 00:19:12.700
up to this one house. He raids the place. And

00:19:12.700 --> 00:19:15.140
it's chaos. It's a complete farce. You have these

00:19:15.140 --> 00:19:17.640
overweight mob bosses in silk suits running through

00:19:17.640 --> 00:19:19.720
the woods, jumping into streams, trying to escape.

00:19:19.920 --> 00:19:22.400
They arrest dozens of them. The newspapers the

00:19:22.400 --> 00:19:25.039
next day have headlines like mob summit raided.

00:19:25.559 --> 00:19:27.400
Hoover could no longer deny it. He looked like

00:19:27.400 --> 00:19:30.339
an absolute fool. So he shamed into action. Reluctantly.

00:19:30.420 --> 00:19:33.319
He created the top hoodlum program. But even

00:19:33.319 --> 00:19:35.279
then, you get the sense his heart wasn't in it.

00:19:35.319 --> 00:19:37.480
He hated the mob, sure, but he didn't fear them

00:19:37.480 --> 00:19:40.160
the way he feared subversives. And that brings

00:19:40.160 --> 00:19:43.160
us to the pivot. The moment where the lawman

00:19:43.160 --> 00:19:47.180
fully transforms into the spy chief. We have

00:19:47.180 --> 00:19:51.420
to talk about the shadow war. Coindelpro. This

00:19:51.420 --> 00:19:53.799
is the darkest chapter in the FBI's history,

00:19:53.900 --> 00:19:57.359
without a doubt. By the mid -50s, Hoover is frustrated.

00:19:57.500 --> 00:19:59.960
He's winning battles, but he feels like he's

00:19:59.960 --> 00:20:03.039
losing the war for America's soul. The Supreme

00:20:03.039 --> 00:20:05.579
Court is starting to rule in favor of defendants'

00:20:05.640 --> 00:20:08.480
rights. He feels handcuffed by the law. So he

00:20:08.480 --> 00:20:10.319
decides to operate outside the law. Completely.

00:20:10.339 --> 00:20:14.059
In 1956, he launches COINTELPRO counterintelligence

00:20:14.059 --> 00:20:16.420
program. And the goal wasn't just to spy, right?

00:20:16.500 --> 00:20:18.039
This wasn't just about gathering information.

00:20:18.460 --> 00:20:21.480
No. The explicit goal was to disrupt, misdirect,

00:20:21.740 --> 00:20:23.920
discredit, and neutralize. Those are his words.

00:20:23.980 --> 00:20:26.019
From the memos. They weren't just watching targets.

00:20:26.099 --> 00:20:27.740
They were actively trying to destroy them from

00:20:27.740 --> 00:20:30.519
the inside. Give us the menu of dirty tricks.

00:20:30.680 --> 00:20:32.859
What are we talking about here? Everything. Illegal

00:20:32.859 --> 00:20:35.180
wiretaps, obviously. But also sending forged

00:20:35.180 --> 00:20:37.819
letters to a target's wife, accusing him of adultery

00:20:37.819 --> 00:20:40.140
to break up their marriage. Forging documents

00:20:40.140 --> 00:20:42.740
to make rival groups think the other was planning

00:20:42.740 --> 00:20:45.480
an attack, hoping to incite violence between

00:20:45.480 --> 00:20:48.799
them. Using the IRS to audit people. Planting

00:20:48.799 --> 00:20:51.500
false stories in the press. And who was the target?

00:20:51.720 --> 00:20:55.079
Officially, the Communist Party USA. But Hoover's

00:20:55.079 --> 00:20:57.940
definition of subversive was incredibly elastic.

00:20:58.359 --> 00:21:00.319
It was anyone he didn't like. Pretty much. It

00:21:00.319 --> 00:21:02.079
stretched to include the anti -war movement,

00:21:02.279 --> 00:21:04.960
the new left, celebrities like Charlie Chaplin

00:21:04.960 --> 00:21:07.900
and John Lennon, and most obsessively, the civil

00:21:07.900 --> 00:21:10.599
rights movement. We have to drill down on Martin

00:21:10.599 --> 00:21:13.920
Luther King Jr. here. Because the level of obsession

00:21:13.920 --> 00:21:17.150
Hoover had with King... It wasn't just professional.

00:21:17.309 --> 00:21:20.250
It felt personal. It felt hateful. It was a deep,

00:21:20.250 --> 00:21:23.470
visceral hatred. Hoover viewed King as a messy,

00:21:23.609 --> 00:21:26.470
disruptive force. He called him the most notorious

00:21:26.470 --> 00:21:29.190
liar in the country. But it went so much deeper

00:21:29.190 --> 00:21:31.970
than name -calling. Oh, bugs. The FBI bugged

00:21:31.970 --> 00:21:33.930
King's hotel rooms. They followed him everywhere.

00:21:34.190 --> 00:21:36.529
They recorded his extramarital affairs. And they

00:21:36.529 --> 00:21:38.869
tried to weaponize that information. Constantly.

00:21:39.599 --> 00:21:41.799
Hoover would invite journalists to his office

00:21:41.799 --> 00:21:44.660
and play the tapes for them off the record, trying

00:21:44.660 --> 00:21:47.200
to get them to write hit pieces. He played the

00:21:47.200 --> 00:21:48.880
tapes for President Kennedy and his brother,

00:21:49.059 --> 00:21:51.660
Attorney General Robert Kennedy, to try and poison

00:21:51.660 --> 00:21:54.079
them against King. But then it culminates in

00:21:54.079 --> 00:21:57.480
the infamous suicide letter. And I think we need

00:21:57.480 --> 00:21:59.500
to actually talk about what was in this because

00:21:59.500 --> 00:22:02.680
people need to understand how unhinged this was.

00:22:03.039 --> 00:22:05.259
It's truly chilling. This was a package sent

00:22:05.259 --> 00:22:07.400
to King's home, right? Not to his office. To

00:22:07.400 --> 00:22:10.250
his home, addressed to him. It contained a compilation

00:22:10.250 --> 00:22:12.950
of the audio recordings, the so -called sex takes,

00:22:13.109 --> 00:22:16.450
and an unsigned anonymous letter written by FBI

00:22:16.450 --> 00:22:18.950
agents. And what does it say? It pretended to

00:22:18.950 --> 00:22:21.549
be from a disillusioned black follower. It calls

00:22:21.549 --> 00:22:24.509
King an evil, abnormal beast and a colossal fraud.

00:22:24.730 --> 00:22:26.849
And then the final paragraph says this. King,

00:22:27.009 --> 00:22:29.430
there's only one thing left for you to do. You

00:22:29.430 --> 00:22:31.910
know what it is. You have just 34 days in which

00:22:31.910 --> 00:22:35.369
to do it before your filthy, abnormal, fraudulent

00:22:35.369 --> 00:22:37.630
self is bared to the nation. There's only one

00:22:37.630 --> 00:22:40.210
thing left for you to do. King and his advisers,

00:22:40.230 --> 00:22:42.990
including Coretta Scott King, interpreted that

00:22:42.990 --> 00:22:45.829
immediately as an instruction to commit suicide.

00:22:46.089 --> 00:22:48.349
Of course. They wanted him to kill himself before

00:22:48.349 --> 00:22:51.210
he went to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize.

00:22:51.509 --> 00:22:53.450
Just pause on that for a second. The Federal

00:22:53.450 --> 00:22:55.730
Law Enforcement Agency of the United States tried

00:22:55.730 --> 00:22:58.250
to psychologically torture a civil rights leader

00:22:58.250 --> 00:23:01.250
into suicide. It's monstrous. And it wasn't an

00:23:01.250 --> 00:23:03.809
isolated incident of this kind of cruelty. Look

00:23:03.809 --> 00:23:06.210
at the case of Viola Luzzo. This story just breaks

00:23:06.210 --> 00:23:07.809
my heart every time I read about it. Tell us

00:23:07.809 --> 00:23:10.289
about her. Viola Luzzo was a white mother of

00:23:10.289 --> 00:23:14.210
five from Detroit, a housewife. She saw the violence

00:23:14.210 --> 00:23:16.750
in Selma on TV during the voting rights march,

00:23:16.910 --> 00:23:19.730
and she felt called to go help. She just drove

00:23:19.730 --> 00:23:21.910
down there on her own. Drove down to Alabama

00:23:21.910 --> 00:23:24.349
to ferry marchers back and forth between Selma

00:23:24.349 --> 00:23:27.730
and Montgomery. In March of 1965, she was driving

00:23:27.730 --> 00:23:30.150
a car with a young black passenger when the KKK

00:23:30.150 --> 00:23:32.730
chased her down and shot her in the head, killing

00:23:32.730 --> 00:23:35.650
her instantly. She was a martyr. She was murdered

00:23:35.650 --> 00:23:38.829
for doing the right thing. A true hero. She was.

00:23:38.990 --> 00:23:42.450
And Hoover's reaction? He didn't honor her. He

00:23:42.450 --> 00:23:44.289
was worried that her death would generate too

00:23:44.289 --> 00:23:46.289
much sympathy for the Civil Rights Act that was

00:23:46.289 --> 00:23:49.190
being debated. So what did he do? The very next

00:23:49.190 --> 00:23:52.230
day he started personally spreading vicious rumors

00:23:52.230 --> 00:23:55.509
to President Johnson and to the press. He told

00:23:55.509 --> 00:23:57.609
them she was a heroin addict. He told them she

00:23:57.609 --> 00:23:59.650
had puncture marks on her arms, which was a lie.

00:23:59.809 --> 00:24:01.769
The marks were from the glass of the shattered

00:24:01.769 --> 00:24:04.130
car window. He told them she was having sexual

00:24:04.130 --> 00:24:06.250
relationships with black men and had abandoned

00:24:06.250 --> 00:24:10.079
her family. My God, why? Why smear a dead woman?

00:24:10.240 --> 00:24:12.940
To protect the narrative and, frankly, to protect

00:24:12.940 --> 00:24:15.460
the Bureau. Because it turned out that one of

00:24:15.460 --> 00:24:17.980
the four Klansmen in the car that shot her was

00:24:17.980 --> 00:24:20.920
an FBI informant. Oh, my God. His name was Gary

00:24:20.920 --> 00:24:24.319
Thomas Rowe. He was on the FBI payroll. Hoover

00:24:24.319 --> 00:24:26.339
was terrified that if the case was investigated

00:24:26.339 --> 00:24:29.200
too closely, it would come out that his informant

00:24:29.200 --> 00:24:31.339
was an accomplice to murder. So he destroyed

00:24:31.339 --> 00:24:33.619
the victim's reputation to hide his own liability.

00:24:33.980 --> 00:24:36.079
That's exactly what he did. It's a pattern. The

00:24:36.079 --> 00:24:38.079
same thing happens with the 16th Street Baptist

00:24:38.079 --> 00:24:41.240
Church bombing in Birmingham. In 1963. Oh. Four

00:24:41.240 --> 00:24:44.240
little girls killed. Same thing. The FBI actually

00:24:44.240 --> 00:24:47.099
identified the four KKK suspects quickly. They

00:24:47.099 --> 00:24:50.039
knew who did it within a couple of years. Hoover

00:24:50.039 --> 00:24:52.339
blocked the prosecution. He blocked it. Why?

00:24:52.539 --> 00:24:54.740
He told his agents not to share their files with

00:24:54.740 --> 00:24:57.519
the local prosecutors. His official reason was

00:24:57.519 --> 00:25:00.160
that he claimed an all -white Alabama jury wouldn't

00:25:00.160 --> 00:25:02.880
convict, so why bother? But what was the real

00:25:02.880 --> 00:25:05.200
reason? The sources suggest he didn't want to

00:25:05.200 --> 00:25:07.819
expose his KKK informants, and he had a personal

00:25:07.819 --> 00:25:10.119
feud with the lawyers at the Department of Justice's

00:25:10.119 --> 00:25:12.019
Civil Rights Division. He didn't want to cooperate

00:25:12.019 --> 00:25:14.640
with them, so he sealed the files. Those men

00:25:14.640 --> 00:25:17.500
walked free for decades. Justice was delayed

00:25:17.500 --> 00:25:20.180
until long after Hoover was dead. It seems like

00:25:20.180 --> 00:25:23.539
for Hoover... The integrity of his files and

00:25:23.539 --> 00:25:26.160
his agency was more important than the lives

00:25:26.160 --> 00:25:28.140
of the people those files were supposed to protect.

00:25:28.380 --> 00:25:30.259
That is the perfect way to put it. The files

00:25:30.259 --> 00:25:33.079
became the end goal in themselves. Which brings

00:25:33.079 --> 00:25:36.259
us to the question of survival. How does a man

00:25:36.259 --> 00:25:38.940
who is doing this, smearing victims, ignoring

00:25:38.940 --> 00:25:41.680
the mob, spying on citizens, keep his job for

00:25:41.680 --> 00:25:44.380
48 years, especially when presidents like Truman

00:25:44.380 --> 00:25:47.119
and JFK actively disliked him? It comes back

00:25:47.119 --> 00:25:50.210
to the files. But not just the criminal files.

00:25:50.430 --> 00:25:54.170
The official and confidential files. The dirt.

00:25:54.369 --> 00:25:57.069
The blackmail material. Hoover collected embarrassing

00:25:57.069 --> 00:25:59.809
information on everyone who mattered in Washington.

00:26:00.589 --> 00:26:03.849
Congressmen, senators, judges, journalists, and

00:26:03.849 --> 00:26:06.529
especially presidents. Give us an example. How

00:26:06.529 --> 00:26:08.809
did he use this against a president? Well, take

00:26:08.809 --> 00:26:12.339
JFK. Hoover knew all about Kennedy's affair with

00:26:12.339 --> 00:26:15.039
a woman named Judith Exner. The problem was Judith

00:26:15.039 --> 00:26:18.000
Exner was also sleeping with Sam Giancana, the

00:26:18.000 --> 00:26:21.140
mob boss of Chicago. That is a national security

00:26:21.140 --> 00:26:23.799
nightmare. The president of the United States

00:26:23.799 --> 00:26:26.920
sharing a mistress with a top mob boss. Exactly.

00:26:27.380 --> 00:26:29.319
Hoover went to the White House for a private

00:26:29.319 --> 00:26:31.299
lunch with Kennedy. He didn't threaten him explicitly.

00:26:31.539 --> 00:26:33.640
The sources say he just laid it out on the table.

00:26:33.880 --> 00:26:35.980
Mr. President, we have information about this

00:26:35.980 --> 00:26:38.759
woman. The subtext was crystal clear. I know

00:26:38.759 --> 00:26:47.200
what you're doing. I know. President Johnson

00:26:47.200 --> 00:26:50.240
understood this perfectly. There's a famous quote,

00:26:50.359 --> 00:26:53.900
and pardon the language, but it's pure LBJ, where

00:26:53.900 --> 00:26:56.640
people asked why he didn't fire Hoover. Johnson

00:26:56.640 --> 00:26:59.039
said, It's better to have him inside the tent

00:26:59.039 --> 00:27:01.240
pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.

00:27:01.359 --> 00:27:03.700
That is colorful and probably very accurate.

00:27:03.920 --> 00:27:05.579
Johnson even waived the mandatory retirement

00:27:05.579 --> 00:27:08.180
age for him. He did. Hoover was supposed to retire

00:27:08.180 --> 00:27:11.180
at 70. Johnson signed an executive order letting

00:27:11.180 --> 00:27:13.680
him stay on indefinitely. He essentially made

00:27:13.680 --> 00:27:15.900
him director for life. Nixon was afraid of him

00:27:15.900 --> 00:27:18.309
too. There are tapes of Nixon saying he couldn't

00:27:18.309 --> 00:27:20.990
fire him. Yes, the Watergate tapes. Nixon says

00:27:20.990 --> 00:27:22.809
he won't fire Hoover because he's afraid Hoover

00:27:22.809 --> 00:27:24.769
would pull down the temple with him, meaning

00:27:24.769 --> 00:27:26.930
release all the dirt he had on Nixon. So Hoover

00:27:26.930 --> 00:27:29.569
also kept things from the presidents. The Venona

00:27:29.569 --> 00:27:32.250
Project is the big one here. This is a massive

00:27:32.250 --> 00:27:35.049
story of institutional arrogance. In the 40s

00:27:35.049 --> 00:27:37.549
and 50s, U .S. and British intelligence cracked

00:27:37.549 --> 00:27:40.130
the Soviet diplomatic codes. They were reading

00:27:40.130 --> 00:27:42.170
Moscow's mail. So they knew who the spies were.

00:27:42.670 --> 00:27:45.589
They identified atomic spies like Klaus Fuchs,

00:27:45.769 --> 00:27:49.109
spies in the State Department. It was the smoking

00:27:49.109 --> 00:27:52.509
gun of the Cold War, proving the extent of Soviet

00:27:52.509 --> 00:27:55.109
infiltration. And Hoover sat on it. He kept the

00:27:55.109 --> 00:27:57.910
intercepts in his personal office safe. He didn't

00:27:57.910 --> 00:27:59.789
tell President Truman. He didn't tell the attorney

00:27:59.789 --> 00:28:02.410
general. He didn't want the military or the newly

00:28:02.410 --> 00:28:04.690
formed CIA getting credit or getting involved.

00:28:05.029 --> 00:28:08.089
He wanted the FBI to have the monopoly on spy

00:28:08.089 --> 00:28:10.450
hunting. So he let the president of the United

00:28:10.450 --> 00:28:13.190
States operate in the dark. What about a massive

00:28:13.190 --> 00:28:15.529
national security threat just to protect his

00:28:15.529 --> 00:28:17.670
turf? That's right. It's an incredible betrayal

00:28:17.670 --> 00:28:19.930
of his duty. And what about this plan for mass

00:28:19.930 --> 00:28:24.210
detention? The master warrant. In 1950, at the

00:28:24.210 --> 00:28:26.809
height of the Korean War scare, he sent a plan

00:28:26.809 --> 00:28:29.349
to the White House proposing that in the event

00:28:29.349 --> 00:28:31.849
of a national emergency, he'd be allowed to suspend

00:28:31.849 --> 00:28:34.710
habeas corpus and immediately detain 12 ,000

00:28:34.710 --> 00:28:37.930
Americans who were on his subversives list. Masked

00:28:37.930 --> 00:28:40.490
jailing without trial. That is literally a police

00:28:40.490 --> 00:28:43.759
state. What did Truman do? Truman, to his credit,

00:28:43.839 --> 00:28:46.480
just ignored it. But the fact that Hoover wrote

00:28:46.480 --> 00:28:49.059
it, planned it, and had the list of names ready

00:28:49.059 --> 00:28:51.599
to go, it shows you that he didn't really believe

00:28:51.599 --> 00:28:54.200
in democracy when things got tough. He believed

00:28:54.200 --> 00:28:56.539
in control. Okay, we've spent a lot of time on

00:28:56.539 --> 00:28:59.119
the public monster. But I want to pivot now to

00:28:59.119 --> 00:29:02.039
the private enigma. Because for a man who knew

00:29:02.039 --> 00:29:04.660
everyone else's secrets, he was a black hole

00:29:04.660 --> 00:29:07.619
when it came to his own. He was. He built a fortress

00:29:07.619 --> 00:29:10.640
around his private life. But there was one person

00:29:10.640 --> 00:29:13.980
inside that fortress. Clyde Tolson. Clyde Tolson,

00:29:14.119 --> 00:29:17.160
the associate director of the FBI. But he was

00:29:17.160 --> 00:29:19.019
so much more than a deputy, wasn't he? He was

00:29:19.019 --> 00:29:22.299
Hoover's shadow, his alter ego, as Hoover called

00:29:22.299 --> 00:29:25.059
him. They were inseparable. They rode to work

00:29:25.059 --> 00:29:27.279
together in the morning in Hoover's armored limousine.

00:29:27.339 --> 00:29:29.900
They ate lunch together at the same table at

00:29:29.900 --> 00:29:32.779
the Mayflower Hotel every single day. Every day.

00:29:32.859 --> 00:29:34.920
They went to nightclubs in New York together.

00:29:35.059 --> 00:29:37.420
They went on vacation to the racetrack in Del

00:29:37.420 --> 00:29:40.220
Mar, California together every summer for weeks.

00:29:40.920 --> 00:29:42.960
And neither of them ever married or was publicly

00:29:42.960 --> 00:29:46.480
linked with a woman? Correct. Two lifelong bachelors

00:29:46.480 --> 00:29:49.700
in what was essentially a Boston marriage. When

00:29:49.700 --> 00:29:52.859
Hoover died, he left his entire estate, his house,

00:29:52.920 --> 00:29:55.900
everything to Tolson. And at the funeral? At

00:29:55.900 --> 00:29:58.720
the funeral, it was Clyde Tolson who was handed

00:29:58.720 --> 00:30:01.460
the folded American flag from Hoover's casket.

00:30:01.740 --> 00:30:03.980
That's the role traditionally reserved for a

00:30:03.980 --> 00:30:06.759
spouse or next of kin. So we have to ask the

00:30:06.759 --> 00:30:09.089
question that everyone asks, were they gay? It's

00:30:09.089 --> 00:30:11.329
the central question about his private life,

00:30:11.470 --> 00:30:15.170
and the answer is complex. If you define gay

00:30:15.170 --> 00:30:18.150
as having a sexual relationship with a man we

00:30:18.150 --> 00:30:19.809
don't know for sure there's no sex tape there's

00:30:19.809 --> 00:30:21.990
no definitive proof right but if you define it

00:30:21.990 --> 00:30:24.190
as sharing your emotional life your intimacy

00:30:24.190 --> 00:30:26.609
and your devotion with a member of the same sex

00:30:26.609 --> 00:30:29.490
then yes absolutely it was the primary relationship

00:30:29.490 --> 00:30:31.710
of both of their lives but this brings up the

00:30:31.710 --> 00:30:34.930
incredible tragic psychology of the closet we

00:30:34.930 --> 00:30:38.089
are talking about the 1940s and 50s exactly being

00:30:38.089 --> 00:30:40.869
gay wasn't just frowned upon it was illegal it

00:30:40.869 --> 00:30:43.569
was classified as a mental illness and hoover

00:30:43.569 --> 00:30:46.170
was the top cop in the country and forced He

00:30:46.170 --> 00:30:49.529
ran the so -called sex deviant programs, purging

00:30:49.529 --> 00:30:52.309
gay people from government jobs. That's the tragedy,

00:30:52.410 --> 00:30:54.269
isn't it? Yeah. The Roy Cohn connection comes

00:30:54.269 --> 00:30:57.349
to mind. Another powerful closeted man. Right.

00:30:57.490 --> 00:30:59.750
Roy Cohn worked with Hoover during the McCarthy

00:30:59.750 --> 00:31:03.490
hearings. They both aggressively hunted deviance

00:31:03.490 --> 00:31:06.049
and security risks, which was often code for

00:31:06.049 --> 00:31:08.750
gay people, while living these secret lives themselves.

00:31:09.029 --> 00:31:11.809
It's a form of internalized self -hatred projected

00:31:11.809 --> 00:31:17.119
outward. one of them what about the cross -dressing

00:31:17.119 --> 00:31:19.700
rumors everyone knows the story about hoover

00:31:19.700 --> 00:31:22.799
wearing a dress and a feather boa ah yes the

00:31:22.799 --> 00:31:25.640
story comes from a single source a woman named

00:31:25.640 --> 00:31:28.339
susan rosenstile who was the ex -wife of a mob

00:31:28.339 --> 00:31:31.359
associate she claimed she saw hoover in drag

00:31:31.359 --> 00:31:35.000
at a party at the plaza hotel in 1958 introduced

00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:38.700
to her as mary is it true Most serious biographers,

00:31:38.799 --> 00:31:40.400
even the ones who are convinced he was gay, say

00:31:40.400 --> 00:31:42.980
probably not. The source was unreliable. She

00:31:42.980 --> 00:31:45.140
had a vendetta against Hoover. And the story

00:31:45.140 --> 00:31:46.920
is just a little too perfect. Right. It's almost

00:31:46.920 --> 00:31:49.339
a caricature. It feels like a piece of gossip

00:31:49.339 --> 00:31:51.299
that's stuck because it's the ultimate irony.

00:31:51.420 --> 00:31:54.819
The macho G -man in a dress. But honestly, the

00:31:54.819 --> 00:31:57.480
reality of his decades -long devoted partnership

00:31:57.480 --> 00:32:00.019
with Tolson is far more interesting and human

00:32:00.019 --> 00:32:03.279
than the cross -dressing myth. He did have other

00:32:03.279 --> 00:32:18.359
soft spots, though. The dogs. Oh, the dogs. It's

00:32:18.359 --> 00:32:27.940
such a strange contrast. And the gambling. The

00:32:27.940 --> 00:32:30.680
great moral crusader loved the ponies. He was

00:32:30.680 --> 00:32:32.980
an inveterate horse player, as the sources put

00:32:32.980 --> 00:32:35.390
it. He didn't just bet a few bucks. obsessed

00:32:35.390 --> 00:32:38.569
he would send his fbi agents to the track to

00:32:38.569 --> 00:32:40.509
place a hundred dollar bets for him a hundred

00:32:40.509 --> 00:32:42.289
dollars back then was a lot of money it took

00:32:42.289 --> 00:32:45.210
a thousand dollars today and he was using government

00:32:45.210 --> 00:32:47.710
employees as his personal bookies wait isn't

00:32:47.710 --> 00:32:51.369
that illegal or at least incredibly sketchy for

00:32:51.369 --> 00:32:54.960
the head of the fbi Totally sketchy. And he would

00:32:54.960 --> 00:32:57.000
go to the track and hang out with wealthy oil

00:32:57.000 --> 00:32:59.099
men and sometimes people with connections to

00:32:59.099 --> 00:33:01.619
organized crime. Again, the rules applied to

00:33:01.619 --> 00:33:04.319
you, not to him. So we arrive at the end, May

00:33:04.319 --> 00:33:08.759
2nd, 1972. Hoover is 77 years old. He's still

00:33:08.759 --> 00:33:10.920
the director. He has outlasted everyone. And

00:33:10.920 --> 00:33:12.859
he dies in his sleep of a heart attack in his

00:33:12.859 --> 00:33:15.339
D .C. home. The reaction must have been complicated.

00:33:15.579 --> 00:33:20.079
A mix of grief and maybe relief. Publicly. It

00:33:20.079 --> 00:33:22.480
was pure mourning. He was the first civil servant

00:33:22.480 --> 00:33:25.079
to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda. That

00:33:25.079 --> 00:33:27.180
honor is usually reserved for presidents and

00:33:27.180 --> 00:33:29.940
generals. Nixon gave a eulogy calling him a giant.

00:33:30.140 --> 00:33:33.180
The public myth was still very much intact. But

00:33:33.180 --> 00:33:35.640
privately, in the halls of power. Privately,

00:33:35.700 --> 00:33:37.619
there was a massive sigh of relief in Washington.

00:33:38.000 --> 00:33:40.279
Nixon immediately appointed L. Patrick Gray,

00:33:40.480 --> 00:33:42.859
a political loyalist with zero FBI experience,

00:33:43.039 --> 00:33:45.380
to replace him. Nixon wanted to get control of

00:33:45.380 --> 00:33:48.740
the files. The blackmail files. Yes. But Hoover's

00:33:48.740 --> 00:33:51.539
loyal secretary, Helen Gandy, outsmarted him.

00:33:51.680 --> 00:33:54.559
She spent weeks after his death shredding his

00:33:54.559 --> 00:33:57.019
official and confidential files. We will never

00:33:57.019 --> 00:33:59.299
know exactly what was in them. She destroyed

00:33:59.299 --> 00:34:01.240
the leverage before Nixon could get his hands

00:34:01.240 --> 00:34:04.640
on it. But then the dam breaks. The Church Committee

00:34:04.640 --> 00:34:08.400
in the mid -1970s. That was the reckoning. After

00:34:08.400 --> 00:34:11.219
Watergate, Congress finally said, we need to

00:34:11.219 --> 00:34:13.019
look under the hood of our intelligence agencies.

00:34:13.760 --> 00:34:16.840
The church committee exposed COINTELPRO. They

00:34:16.840 --> 00:34:19.519
exposed the MLK tapes. They exposed the illegal

00:34:19.519 --> 00:34:21.739
wiretaps and the mail -opening programs. And

00:34:21.739 --> 00:34:24.599
the statue crumbled. Seemingly overnight, Hoover

00:34:24.599 --> 00:34:27.480
went from American hero to American villain in

00:34:27.480 --> 00:34:30.260
the public consciousness. And yet, his name is

00:34:30.260 --> 00:34:32.780
still on the building. The FBI headquarters on

00:34:32.780 --> 00:34:35.039
Pennsylvania Avenue is the J. Edgar Hoover building.

00:34:35.239 --> 00:34:38.440
It's a massive, brutalist, concrete fortress,

00:34:38.539 --> 00:34:41.059
which fits his personality perfectly. But yes,

00:34:41.159 --> 00:34:43.219
it's incredibly controversial. Senator Harry

00:34:43.219 --> 00:34:45.719
Reid once called his name a stain on the building.

00:34:46.019 --> 00:34:48.380
Have there been efforts to change it? Oh, yes.

00:34:48.579 --> 00:34:51.000
There have been bills introduced by both Democrats

00:34:51.000 --> 00:34:53.579
and Republicans over the years to strip his name

00:34:53.579 --> 00:34:55.900
from the building, but they've never succeeded.

00:34:56.179 --> 00:34:59.739
Why not? Inertia. Bureaucracy. And maybe a little

00:34:59.739 --> 00:35:01.940
bit of a sense that, well, it's a reminder. If

00:35:01.940 --> 00:35:04.139
you take his name off, you might forget what

00:35:04.139 --> 00:35:06.400
the agency is capable of, for better and for

00:35:06.400 --> 00:35:08.579
worse. There's one last layer I want to touch

00:35:08.579 --> 00:35:10.940
on before we wrap up. An expert analysis we came

00:35:10.940 --> 00:35:14.019
across about Hoover and Christian nationalism.

00:35:14.340 --> 00:35:17.019
Right, from the book The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover

00:35:17.019 --> 00:35:19.519
by Lerone Martin. What's the argument there?

00:35:19.639 --> 00:35:22.380
It's a brilliant modern take. The argument is

00:35:22.380 --> 00:35:24.820
that Hoover didn't just build a police force.

00:35:25.019 --> 00:35:28.179
He built a kind of religious order. He intentionally

00:35:28.179 --> 00:35:31.639
cultivated an image of the FBI as a moral crusade.

00:35:31.639 --> 00:35:34.500
How so? He favored agents who were religious,

00:35:34.539 --> 00:35:36.960
particularly from conservative Protestant or

00:35:36.960 --> 00:35:39.679
Catholic backgrounds. He framed the battle against

00:35:39.679 --> 00:35:42.199
communism not just as a political fight, but

00:35:42.199 --> 00:35:45.380
as a spiritual war between Christianity and godless

00:35:45.380 --> 00:35:48.869
atheism. So the FBI was a crusade. Exactly. He

00:35:48.869 --> 00:35:51.730
courted evangelicals like Billy Graham. He wrote

00:35:51.730 --> 00:35:54.929
for religious magazines. He normalized the idea

00:35:54.929 --> 00:35:57.550
that to be a good American meant being a white

00:35:57.550 --> 00:36:00.050
conservative Christian. And if you dissented,

00:36:00.090 --> 00:36:02.530
if you were a leftist or a civil rights agitator

00:36:02.530 --> 00:36:05.230
or an anti -war protester, you weren't just politically

00:36:05.230 --> 00:36:08.389
wrong. You were ungodly, a sinner. That fusion

00:36:08.389 --> 00:36:11.289
of faith and national security is a legacy that

00:36:11.289 --> 00:36:13.510
is still very much alive today. Very much so.

00:36:13.650 --> 00:36:17.000
That is a heavy thought. Looking back at the

00:36:17.000 --> 00:36:19.639
whole picture, the librarian, the G -man, the

00:36:19.639 --> 00:36:23.019
shadow, what is the final takeaway? What's the

00:36:23.019 --> 00:36:25.079
legacy? I think the tragedy of J. Edgar Hoover

00:36:25.079 --> 00:36:27.280
is that he mistook the state for the law, and

00:36:27.280 --> 00:36:29.219
then he eventually mistook himself for the state.

00:36:29.400 --> 00:36:32.119
L 'état, c 'est moi, I am the state. Precisely.

00:36:32.119 --> 00:36:34.820
He built a machine to protect America, but eventually

00:36:34.820 --> 00:36:37.000
the machine just existed to protect him and his

00:36:37.000 --> 00:36:39.360
vision of America. And it teaches us a profound

00:36:39.360 --> 00:36:42.260
lesson about the danger of unaccountable power.

00:36:42.500 --> 00:36:44.559
We have term limits for presidents for a reason.

00:36:44.889 --> 00:36:48.750
And after Hoover, Congress passed a law limiting

00:36:48.750 --> 00:36:52.409
the FBI director to a single 10 -year term. It

00:36:52.409 --> 00:36:54.550
was a direct response to his 48 -year reign.

00:36:54.869 --> 00:36:57.650
We learned that you cannot let one person hold

00:36:57.650 --> 00:37:00.030
all the nation's secrets for half a century.

00:37:00.289 --> 00:37:02.329
It's a lesson we seem to have to keep relearning,

00:37:02.389 --> 00:37:04.469
though. Indeed. This has been a massive deep

00:37:04.469 --> 00:37:07.309
dive, but I feel like we only scratched the surface

00:37:07.309 --> 00:37:10.409
of the files. Here's a final thought for you,

00:37:10.469 --> 00:37:12.849
the listener. We live in the age of big data.

00:37:13.519 --> 00:37:16.659
J. Edgar Hoover had index cards and filing cabinets.

00:37:16.780 --> 00:37:19.900
A physical system. Today, the NSA and the FBI

00:37:19.900 --> 00:37:22.159
have servers that can hold the entire Internet.

00:37:22.599 --> 00:37:24.760
The tools of surveillance and data collection

00:37:24.760 --> 00:37:27.199
are infinitely more powerful than anything Hoover

00:37:27.199 --> 00:37:29.800
ever dreamed of. The capability is there, and

00:37:29.800 --> 00:37:31.980
its orders of magnitude greater. So the question

00:37:31.980 --> 00:37:35.000
is, in our quest for safety, for protection from

00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:36.840
terrorists or criminals or foreign influence,

00:37:37.139 --> 00:37:39.679
how much power do we hand over to the people

00:37:39.679 --> 00:37:42.539
in the shadows? And without a single... visible

00:37:42.539 --> 00:37:45.380
Hoover -like figure to focus on, do we even know

00:37:45.380 --> 00:37:47.380
who is holding the keys anymore? That is the

00:37:47.380 --> 00:37:49.099
question that keeps me up at night. Thanks for

00:37:49.099 --> 00:37:51.119
listening. Go check out the show notes for the

00:37:51.119 --> 00:37:53.340
book recommendations and the text of that letter

00:37:53.340 --> 00:37:55.840
to MLK. It's worth seeing with your own eyes.

00:37:56.019 --> 00:37:58.619
We'll see you on the next Deep Dive. Stay curious

00:37:58.619 --> 00:38:01.239
and watch your files. Welcome to the debate.

00:38:01.659 --> 00:38:05.610
Today we are, uh... opening the file on a figure

00:38:05.610 --> 00:38:08.110
who casts a longer shadow over the American century

00:38:08.110 --> 00:38:11.849
than perhaps any president he served. We are

00:38:11.849 --> 00:38:14.349
talking, of course, about J. Edgar Hoover. He

00:38:14.349 --> 00:38:17.409
wasn't just a man. He was an institution. For

00:38:17.409 --> 00:38:20.329
48 years, under eight different presidents, I

00:38:20.329 --> 00:38:22.829
mean, from Coolidge all the way to Nixon, he

00:38:22.829 --> 00:38:25.150
was the immutable face of law enforcement in

00:38:25.150 --> 00:38:27.650
the United States. And that is a tenure that

00:38:27.650 --> 00:38:30.710
is, frankly... terrifying to consider in retrospect.

00:38:30.989 --> 00:38:33.409
I mean, imagine one unelected official holding

00:38:33.409 --> 00:38:36.369
the keys to the kingdom from the Roaring Twenties

00:38:36.369 --> 00:38:39.590
to the Watergate scandal. It's just, it's unprecedented

00:38:39.590 --> 00:38:42.750
in a democracy. And honestly, looking at the

00:38:42.750 --> 00:38:45.110
source material, it's a tenure that curdled.

00:38:45.269 --> 00:38:47.949
We're looking at a man who built a modern machine

00:38:47.949 --> 00:38:51.559
of justice. Yes. but who also turned that machine

00:38:51.559 --> 00:38:54.679
into a weapon of personal paranoia and political

00:38:54.679 --> 00:38:57.719
repression. And that really is the paradox we

00:38:57.719 --> 00:39:00.219
have to wrestle with today. The central question

00:39:00.219 --> 00:39:03.829
is inescapable. Was J. Edgar Hoover the necessary

00:39:03.829 --> 00:39:06.650
visionary, the architect of justice who dragged

00:39:06.650 --> 00:39:09.389
American policing out of the dark ages? Or was

00:39:09.389 --> 00:39:12.230
he, as you suggest, a tyrant of the Bureau who

00:39:12.230 --> 00:39:14.550
used the badge to violate the very liberties

00:39:14.550 --> 00:39:16.769
he swore to protect? I'm taking the position

00:39:16.769 --> 00:39:19.510
that Hoover was a brilliant, if flawed, administrator

00:39:19.510 --> 00:39:22.869
who brought science, discipline and stability

00:39:22.869 --> 00:39:26.389
to a chaotic nation. And I'm looking at the cost

00:39:26.389 --> 00:39:28.960
of that stability. I believe the evidence shows

00:39:28.960 --> 00:39:31.880
that Hoover's legacy is defined by a systemic

00:39:31.880 --> 00:39:34.380
abuse of power. We're talking about blackmail,

00:39:34.460 --> 00:39:36.699
the destruction of reputations, and a war on

00:39:36.699 --> 00:39:39.539
dissent that left a permanent stain on our democracy.

00:39:39.820 --> 00:39:42.760
I understand the gravity of those charges. But

00:39:42.760 --> 00:39:45.579
to be fair to the man, we cannot judge him solely

00:39:45.579 --> 00:39:48.260
through the lens of today. We have to look at

00:39:48.260 --> 00:39:51.840
what he walked into. Let's just rewind to 1924.

00:39:52.119 --> 00:39:55.119
The Bureau of Investigation. It wasn't even called

00:39:55.119 --> 00:39:58.190
the FBI yet. It was a joke. It was a disaster.

00:39:58.489 --> 00:40:01.269
It was corrupt, it was inefficient, and it was

00:40:01.269 --> 00:40:03.690
a dumping ground for political hacks who needed

00:40:03.690 --> 00:40:06.630
a government salary. It was a mess, I'll grant

00:40:06.630 --> 00:40:09.530
you that. The Teapot Dome scandal had just happened.

00:40:09.590 --> 00:40:12.829
The Department of Justice was in shambles. Exactly.

00:40:13.309 --> 00:40:16.469
Mess is putting it lightly. When Hoover took

00:40:16.469 --> 00:40:20.050
over at just 29 years old, which is mind -boggling

00:40:20.050 --> 00:40:23.170
in itself, he didn't just rearrange the furniture,

00:40:23.429 --> 00:40:27.050
he burned the house down. He fired the agents

00:40:27.050 --> 00:40:29.690
he famously described as looking like truck drivers

00:40:29.690 --> 00:40:32.409
and pinheads. He didn't want thugs. He wanted

00:40:32.409 --> 00:40:35.429
professionals. He demanded lawyers and accountants.

00:40:35.469 --> 00:40:37.969
He wanted men who could build a case, not just

00:40:37.969 --> 00:40:41.289
crack a skull. He instituted inspections, dress

00:40:41.289 --> 00:40:45.030
codes, rigid conduct rules. He certainly wanted

00:40:45.030 --> 00:40:47.510
men he could mold. That requirement for lawyers

00:40:47.510 --> 00:40:50.389
and accountants, that wasn't just about professionalism.

00:40:50.409 --> 00:40:53.210
It was about creating a specific type of agent.

00:40:53.429 --> 00:40:57.000
Middle class, white. conservative, and, you know,

00:40:57.019 --> 00:41:00.059
obedient. He was building a clone army. It was

00:41:00.059 --> 00:41:03.199
about quality control and modernization. Look

00:41:03.199 --> 00:41:05.920
at the science. He visited Wilfred de Rome's

00:41:05.920 --> 00:41:10.039
laboratory in Canada in 1929, and again in 1932.

00:41:10.519 --> 00:41:13.380
He saw the future of forensics there, ballistics,

00:41:13.559 --> 00:41:16.400
toxicology. He brought that rigor back to the

00:41:16.400 --> 00:41:20.019
US, establishing the FBI laboratory. He created

00:41:20.019 --> 00:41:22.239
the centralized fingerprint file, which became

00:41:22.239 --> 00:41:25.050
the largest collection in human history. Before

00:41:25.050 --> 00:41:27.590
Hoover, law enforcement was a guessing game.

00:41:27.710 --> 00:41:30.570
He turned it into a science. He turned a group

00:41:30.570 --> 00:41:33.829
of amateur sleuths into the G -men. He made the

00:41:33.829 --> 00:41:36.809
badge mean something. At its height, it was statistically

00:41:36.809 --> 00:41:39.530
harder to become an FBI agent than to get into

00:41:39.530 --> 00:41:42.829
Harvard. That is a compelling narrative for his

00:41:42.829 --> 00:41:46.110
administrative genius. And I don't deny he was

00:41:46.110 --> 00:41:49.110
a bureaucrat par excellence. He knew how to file

00:41:49.110 --> 00:41:51.980
paperwork. But we have to look behind the curtain.

00:41:52.199 --> 00:41:55.119
You call it quality control, but I call it the

00:41:55.119 --> 00:41:58.119
construction of a personal fiefdom. That G -Man

00:41:58.119 --> 00:42:01.320
brand was a shield. While he was firing the truck

00:42:01.320 --> 00:42:03.880
drivers, he was simultaneously establishing the

00:42:03.880 --> 00:42:07.460
FBI index, a massive secret blacklist. He wasn't

00:42:07.460 --> 00:42:09.699
just compiling files on bank robbers. He was

00:42:09.699 --> 00:42:11.900
compiling files on anyone he deemed a threat

00:42:11.900 --> 00:42:15.840
to his specific rigid worldview. But every nation

00:42:15.840 --> 00:42:18.179
needs intelligence to function, especially in

00:42:18.179 --> 00:42:20.300
the turbulent 20th century. You have to know

00:42:20.300 --> 00:42:23.139
who is who. But this wasn't just intelligence.

00:42:23.480 --> 00:42:26.800
It was leverage. It was job security through

00:42:26.800 --> 00:42:30.500
extortion. The source material is explicit on

00:42:30.500 --> 00:42:33.239
this. We have President Richard Nixon, a man

00:42:33.239 --> 00:42:35.880
who knew a thing or two about dirty tricks, caught

00:42:35.880 --> 00:42:39.599
on tape in 1971 saying he couldn't fire Hoover

00:42:39.599 --> 00:42:42.019
because he was afraid of Hoover's reprisals.

00:42:42.260 --> 00:42:45.280
Truman felt it. JFK felt it. They all knew that

00:42:45.280 --> 00:42:48.519
Hoover had the dirt. The political cost was too

00:42:48.519 --> 00:42:51.210
high. Because Hoover knew where the skeletons

00:42:51.210 --> 00:42:54.989
were buried, often literally. He prioritized

00:42:54.989 --> 00:42:58.150
his own power over public accountability. He

00:42:58.150 --> 00:43:00.809
was chasing political ghosts while real dangerous

00:43:00.809 --> 00:43:03.170
threats were ignored because they didn't fit

00:43:03.170 --> 00:43:05.530
his narrative. I think we need to be careful

00:43:05.530 --> 00:43:08.369
about conflating his survival instincts with

00:43:08.369 --> 00:43:11.789
his operational success. You mentioned chasing

00:43:11.789 --> 00:43:15.550
ghosts, but let's look at the 1930s. The threats

00:43:15.550 --> 00:43:17.849
were very corporeal. We were talking about the

00:43:17.849 --> 00:43:20.809
era of the public enemy. This was the time when

00:43:20.809 --> 00:43:23.809
gangs were outgunning local police. You had guys

00:43:23.809 --> 00:43:26.769
like John Dillinger, Babyface Nelson, Machine

00:43:26.769 --> 00:43:30.090
Gun Kelly, crossing state lines, robbing banks,

00:43:30.230 --> 00:43:32.610
and the local sheriffs were powerless to stop

00:43:32.610 --> 00:43:34.809
them because their jurisdiction ended at the

00:43:34.809 --> 00:43:37.789
county line. Hoover saw that the country needed

00:43:37.789 --> 00:43:40.869
a federal response. And he certainly made sure

00:43:40.869 --> 00:43:43.289
everyone knew about that federal response. Because

00:43:43.289 --> 00:43:46.929
he had to. The public was terrified. He built

00:43:46.929 --> 00:43:49.110
the narrative that the federal government could

00:43:49.110 --> 00:43:52.190
win. Under his leadership, the Bureau tracked

00:43:52.190 --> 00:43:55.289
down Dillinger. They caught Kelly. They captured

00:43:55.289 --> 00:43:58.510
Alvin Karpis. He restored faith in the rule of

00:43:58.510 --> 00:44:01.250
law during the Great Depression. That wasn't

00:44:01.250 --> 00:44:03.730
smoke and mirrors. Those were real arrests of

00:44:03.730 --> 00:44:06.650
violent men. I'm sorry, but I just don't buy

00:44:06.650 --> 00:44:09.809
that narrative as fully honest. The G -Man legend

00:44:09.809 --> 00:44:13.150
was heavily manufactured. Hoover was obsessed

00:44:13.150 --> 00:44:15.530
with the media. He didn't just catch criminals.

00:44:15.630 --> 00:44:18.349
He consulted on Warner Brothers movies like The

00:44:18.349 --> 00:44:21.530
FBI Story. He was curating his own mythology

00:44:21.530 --> 00:44:24.929
in real time. But look at the operational reality.

00:44:25.289 --> 00:44:27.570
Take the raid at Little Bohemia in Wisconsin

00:44:27.570 --> 00:44:31.929
in 1934. That was a difficult operation. Conditions

00:44:31.929 --> 00:44:36.329
were poor. It was a fiasco. It was a disaster.

00:44:36.630 --> 00:44:40.090
You had agents firing blindly into the night.

00:44:40.309 --> 00:44:43.840
An agent was killed. A civilian bystander was

00:44:43.840 --> 00:44:47.199
killed and the gangsters, the actual targets,

00:44:47.360 --> 00:44:50.840
escaped out the back window. It showed that these

00:44:50.840 --> 00:44:53.619
lawyers and accountants Hoover hired might have

00:44:53.619 --> 00:44:56.039
been good at filing paperwork, but they were

00:44:56.039 --> 00:44:58.900
woefully unprepared for a gunfight. And Hoover

00:44:58.900 --> 00:45:02.059
stayed in Washington the whole time. Law enforcement

00:45:02.059 --> 00:45:04.639
is dangerous. Early operations often go wrong.

00:45:04.800 --> 00:45:07.179
They learn from it. They improve their tactics.

00:45:07.480 --> 00:45:10.820
But when operations went right. Hoover couldn't

00:45:10.820 --> 00:45:13.179
handle sharing the spotlight. Look at Melvin

00:45:13.179 --> 00:45:17.119
Purvis. Purvis was the actual G -man. He was

00:45:17.119 --> 00:45:19.380
the agent in the field who led the operations

00:45:19.380 --> 00:45:23.119
against Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd. The public

00:45:23.119 --> 00:45:25.820
loved him. He was a hero. The press couldn't

00:45:25.820 --> 00:45:28.539
get enough of him. And what did Hoover do? Did

00:45:28.539 --> 00:45:31.900
he promote him? No. He maneuvered Purvis out

00:45:31.900 --> 00:45:34.179
of the Bureau because he was jealous of the publicity.

00:45:34.440 --> 00:45:37.780
He scrutinized his expense reports. He sidelined

00:45:37.780 --> 00:45:40.900
him. Hoover created a cult of personality where

00:45:40.900 --> 00:45:44.820
he was the only hero allowed on the stage. I

00:45:44.820 --> 00:45:47.360
would frame it differently. Hoover understood

00:45:47.360 --> 00:45:49.900
that for the Bureau to survive and get funding

00:45:49.900 --> 00:45:53.039
from a stingy Congress, it needed a unified face.

00:45:53.300 --> 00:45:56.079
It needed to be seen as a monolithic force of

00:45:56.079 --> 00:45:58.900
order. If you have individual star agents, the

00:45:58.900 --> 00:46:01.980
institution looks weak or fractured. And regarding

00:46:01.980 --> 00:46:04.500
the gangsters, well... The results speak for

00:46:04.500 --> 00:46:07.360
themselves. The wave of bank robberies and kidnappings

00:46:07.360 --> 00:46:09.900
that plagued the Midwest did end. That required

00:46:09.900 --> 00:46:12.539
a centralized, strong federal hand, which Hoover

00:46:12.539 --> 00:46:15.719
provided. If he was so concerned with organized

00:46:15.719 --> 00:46:18.199
crime, then we have to address the elephant in

00:46:18.199 --> 00:46:20.719
the room, or rather the La Cosa Nostra in the

00:46:20.719 --> 00:46:22.920
room. This is one of the most damning aspects

00:46:22.920 --> 00:46:27.219
of his career. For decades, I mean decades, Hoover

00:46:27.219 --> 00:46:30.099
denied the existence of the mafia. He insisted

00:46:30.099 --> 00:46:32.989
there was no national crime syndicate. While

00:46:32.989 --> 00:46:35.650
he was busy chasing communists and reading philosophical

00:46:35.650 --> 00:46:39.010
treatises, the mafia was running drugs, prostitution,

00:46:39.070 --> 00:46:42.309
and unions across the entire country. It is a

00:46:42.309 --> 00:46:45.269
significant gap in the record, I admit. The focus

00:46:45.269 --> 00:46:48.570
was elsewhere. It's more than a gap. It's a blind

00:46:48.570 --> 00:46:51.570
spot the size of the Atlantic Ocean. He flatly

00:46:51.570 --> 00:46:54.010
denied the mafia existed until the Appalachian

00:46:54.010 --> 00:46:57.210
meeting in 1957. And let's be clear, the FBI

00:46:57.210 --> 00:46:59.960
didn't find that meeting. State troopers in upstate

00:46:59.960 --> 00:47:02.280
New York stumbled upon a summit of mob bosses

00:47:02.280 --> 00:47:04.679
because they noticed too many fancy cars in a

00:47:04.679 --> 00:47:07.099
rural town. That made it impossible for Hoover

00:47:07.099 --> 00:47:09.400
to ignore. That is a massive failure of federal

00:47:09.400 --> 00:47:11.559
law enforcement. That is a fair critique, but

00:47:11.559 --> 00:47:14.199
we have to look at the why. Why would a man obsessed

00:47:14.199 --> 00:47:17.440
with order ignore the mob? There are sensational

00:47:17.440 --> 00:47:20.019
theories, of course, that get a lot of airtime.

00:47:20.260 --> 00:47:24.219
They aren't just sensational, they are plausible.

00:47:25.199 --> 00:47:28.460
There are persistent reports that mobsters Meyer

00:47:28.460 --> 00:47:32.519
Lansky and Frank Costello held compromising photos

00:47:32.519 --> 00:47:35.619
of Hoover with his deputy and constant companion,

00:47:35.920 --> 00:47:39.280
Clyde Tolson, or the theory that Costello was

00:47:39.280 --> 00:47:42.179
feeding Hoover horse -facing tips. We know Hoover

00:47:42.179 --> 00:47:44.639
was an inveterate horse player. He loved the

00:47:44.639 --> 00:47:48.179
track. If the top cop is compromised by the criminals,

00:47:48.420 --> 00:47:51.860
it explains the blindness perfectly. I'm not

00:47:51.860 --> 00:47:53.989
convinced by that line of reasoning. because

00:47:53.989 --> 00:47:56.909
most serious biographers dismiss the blackmail

00:47:56.909 --> 00:47:59.670
theory as unlikely. It makes for a good movie,

00:47:59.809 --> 00:48:02.329
but the administrative explanation is much more

00:48:02.329 --> 00:48:04.809
consistent with Hoover's character, and frankly,

00:48:04.949 --> 00:48:07.590
more interesting. Investigating the mafia was

00:48:07.590 --> 00:48:10.710
messy. It required undercover work. It required

00:48:10.710 --> 00:48:14.070
bribing informants. And crucially, Hoover feared

00:48:14.070 --> 00:48:17.469
it would corrupt his agents. You mean the accountants?

00:48:17.690 --> 00:48:20.889
Exactly. In the mid -50s, agents were making

00:48:20.889 --> 00:48:24.630
about $5 ,500 a year. Hoover didn't want his

00:48:24.630 --> 00:48:27.650
clean -cut, suit -wearing agents hanging around

00:48:27.650 --> 00:48:30.489
mobsters who were flashing rolls of cash worth

00:48:30.489 --> 00:48:33.889
triple their salary. He was terrified of a scandal

00:48:33.889 --> 00:48:37.530
where an FBI agent was bought. He wanted to protect

00:48:37.530 --> 00:48:40.090
the Bureau's reputation for incorruptibility,

00:48:40.250 --> 00:48:43.889
so he chose not to engage. It was a risk -averse

00:48:43.889 --> 00:48:46.949
calculation to protect the institution's image,

00:48:47.150 --> 00:48:50.449
not a submission to blackmail. He prioritized

00:48:50.449 --> 00:48:52.550
the purity of the Bureau over the safety of the

00:48:52.550 --> 00:48:55.849
streets. Risk -averse is a very generous way

00:48:55.849 --> 00:48:58.190
to describe allowing a national crime syndicate

00:48:58.190 --> 00:49:01.110
to operate unchecked for 30 years. But let's

00:49:01.110 --> 00:49:03.630
pivot to where he was decidedly not risk -averse.

00:49:03.929 --> 00:49:06.949
Civil rights and political dissent. This is where

00:49:06.949 --> 00:49:09.909
the architect of justice moniker completely falls

00:49:09.909 --> 00:49:12.670
apart for me. I see where you are going, but

00:49:12.670 --> 00:49:15.329
we must contextualize Hoover within the Cold

00:49:15.329 --> 00:49:18.960
War. You can't understand Hoover in the 1960s

00:49:18.960 --> 00:49:21.860
without understanding the fear of the 1950s.

00:49:21.860 --> 00:49:24.860
He wasn't operating in a vacuum. He was tasked

00:49:24.860 --> 00:49:27.820
by presidents, starting with FDR and moving through

00:49:27.820 --> 00:49:30.780
Eisenhower and Kennedy, to investigate subversion.

00:49:31.000 --> 00:49:33.829
Take the Venona Project, for instance. which

00:49:33.829 --> 00:49:36.510
he kept secret even from President Truman. Because

00:49:36.510 --> 00:49:40.250
it was highly sensitive. The no -no was the decryption

00:49:40.250 --> 00:49:43.849
of Soviet cables. It proved definitively that

00:49:43.849 --> 00:49:46.309
there was Soviet espionage happening in the U

00:49:46.309 --> 00:49:49.369
.S. government. They were real saboteurs. We

00:49:49.369 --> 00:49:51.769
had German U -boat landings in Florida and Long

00:49:51.769 --> 00:49:54.510
Island during the war. Hoover viewed his role

00:49:54.510 --> 00:49:57.710
as protecting the American way of life. He genuinely

00:49:57.710 --> 00:50:00.150
believed that the fabric of society was under

00:50:00.150 --> 00:50:03.619
attack by foreign ideologies. And what was that

00:50:03.619 --> 00:50:07.519
American way of life? Recent scholarship suggests

00:50:07.519 --> 00:50:11.079
it was rooted deeply in white Christian nationalism.

00:50:11.320 --> 00:50:15.500
His protection was weaponized against Black Americans.

00:50:15.780 --> 00:50:19.460
The FBI's obsession with Martin Luther King Jr.

00:50:19.760 --> 00:50:23.440
wasn't about Soviet spies. It was about destroying

00:50:23.440 --> 00:50:27.019
a powerful Black leader who challenged the status

00:50:27.019 --> 00:50:30.469
quo. He did fear communist influence within King's

00:50:30.469 --> 00:50:33.889
circle. That was the pretext, not the reality.

00:50:34.289 --> 00:50:38.210
Look at the suicide letter. The FBI sent King

00:50:38.210 --> 00:50:41.030
an anonymous letter shortly before he was set

00:50:41.030 --> 00:50:44.409
to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. It contained

00:50:44.409 --> 00:50:47.090
audio recordings of his extramarital affairs

00:50:47.090 --> 00:50:50.869
obtained via illegal bugs in his hotel rooms

00:50:50.869 --> 00:50:54.309
and suggested there was only one thing left for

00:50:54.309 --> 00:50:58.199
you to do before the details were released. That

00:50:58.199 --> 00:51:00.980
isn't counterintelligence. That is psychological

00:51:00.980 --> 00:51:04.440
warfare against a private citizen. That is the

00:51:04.440 --> 00:51:07.219
federal government trying to drive a man to kill

00:51:07.219 --> 00:51:09.679
himself. The surveillance of King is certainly

00:51:09.679 --> 00:51:12.260
the darkest chapter. I won't defend the methods.

00:51:12.500 --> 00:51:15.000
They were aberrant. However, we have to remember

00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:17.699
that Hoover was convinced, partly due to the

00:51:17.699 --> 00:51:20.059
presence of advisors around King, like Stanley

00:51:20.059 --> 00:51:22.739
Levison, who had actual communist ties, that

00:51:22.739 --> 00:51:24.679
the civil rights movement was being used as a

00:51:24.679 --> 00:51:27.090
Trojan horse for subversion. I'm not saying he

00:51:27.090 --> 00:51:29.130
was right. History shows he was wrong. But his

00:51:29.130 --> 00:51:31.349
motivation was consistent with his mandate to

00:51:31.349 --> 00:51:34.010
stop radicalization. That is a distinction without

00:51:34.010 --> 00:51:36.429
a difference to the victims. Look at the case

00:51:36.429 --> 00:51:39.429
of Viola Luzzo. This story makes my blood boil.

00:51:40.130 --> 00:51:42.829
She was a white civil rights worker, a mother

00:51:42.829 --> 00:51:45.750
from Detroit, murdered by the Klan in Alabama

00:51:45.750 --> 00:51:49.510
in 1965 following the Selma to Montgomery marches.

00:51:49.710 --> 00:51:52.809
She was driving a car, helping people. A tragedy.

00:51:53.030 --> 00:51:55.869
It was more than a tragedy. It was a cover -up.

00:51:56.110 --> 00:51:58.809
One of the Klansmen in the car that shot her

00:51:58.809 --> 00:52:04.170
was an FBI informant, Gary Thomas Rowe. To cover

00:52:04.170 --> 00:52:07.369
up the Bureau's proximity to the crime, to hide

00:52:07.369 --> 00:52:09.449
the fact that they were paying a man who participated

00:52:09.449 --> 00:52:13.110
in a murder, Hoover went on the offensive. He

00:52:13.110 --> 00:52:15.389
personally spread rumors to President Johnson

00:52:15.389 --> 00:52:18.349
that Luzzo was a drug addict and had abandoned

00:52:18.349 --> 00:52:21.969
her children to have sex with Black men. That

00:52:21.969 --> 00:52:24.309
is difficult to reconcile with the image of the

00:52:24.309 --> 00:52:27.880
Law and Order man. It's not difficult. It's vile.

00:52:28.099 --> 00:52:30.739
That isn't stopping subversion. That is a vicious

00:52:30.739 --> 00:52:33.199
smear campaign against a murder victim to protect

00:52:33.199 --> 00:52:36.679
the Bureau's PR. It shows a man who had completely

00:52:36.679 --> 00:52:39.699
lost his moral compass. I acknowledge that the

00:52:39.699 --> 00:52:43.000
Liuzzo incident is indefensible. Hoover had a

00:52:43.000 --> 00:52:45.380
tendency to double down when the Bureau was threatened.

00:52:45.659 --> 00:52:47.940
But we also have to look at the other side of

00:52:47.940 --> 00:52:50.920
the coin in the South. The FBI did identify suspects

00:52:50.920 --> 00:52:53.579
in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. They

00:52:53.579 --> 00:52:56.679
were on the ground. And then Hoover sealed the

00:52:56.679 --> 00:53:00.260
files. He blocked prosecution. He wrote a memo

00:53:00.260 --> 00:53:02.300
saying the chances of conviction were remote

00:53:02.300 --> 00:53:05.119
and told agents not to share results with prosecutors.

00:53:05.260 --> 00:53:08.019
He said on evidence of the murder of four little

00:53:08.019 --> 00:53:10.639
girls to protect his sources. That isn't law

00:53:10.639 --> 00:53:12.900
enforcement. That is obstruction of justice.

00:53:13.320 --> 00:53:15.960
It's complicated, though. There was deep systemic

00:53:15.960 --> 00:53:18.699
mistrust between federal and local investigators

00:53:18.699 --> 00:53:22.500
in Alabama. Hoover often didn't trust local juries

00:53:22.500 --> 00:53:25.090
to convict white supremacists. which, let's be

00:53:25.090 --> 00:53:28.289
honest, was a valid concern in the 1960s South.

00:53:28.469 --> 00:53:31.269
He didn't want the FBI to be embarrassed by an

00:53:31.269 --> 00:53:34.050
acquittal. Again, it's that obsession with the

00:53:34.050 --> 00:53:36.710
Bureau's reputation. But I want to zoom out to

00:53:36.710 --> 00:53:40.309
the broader program you alluded to earlier, COINTELPRO.

00:53:40.889 --> 00:53:43.670
COINTELPRO is the smoking gun. It stands for

00:53:43.670 --> 00:53:47.889
Counterintelligence Program. From 1956 to 1971,

00:53:48.670 --> 00:53:52.190
This was a formalized dirty tricks program. We

00:53:52.190 --> 00:53:54.429
are not talking about surveillance. We are talking

00:53:54.429 --> 00:53:58.190
about active disruption, burglary, black bag

00:53:58.190 --> 00:54:01.329
jobs, they call them, forged documents, inciting

00:54:01.329 --> 00:54:03.949
violence between rival groups, literally trying

00:54:03.949 --> 00:54:06.670
to get the Black Panthers to go to war with other

00:54:06.670 --> 00:54:09.559
nationalist groups. Hoover targeted everyone,

00:54:09.860 --> 00:54:12.639
the Communist Party, the Black Panthers, even

00:54:12.639 --> 00:54:15.840
John Lennon and Charlie Chaplin. It was expansive,

00:54:16.179 --> 00:54:20.860
yes. It was illegal. In 1950, even submitted

00:54:20.860 --> 00:54:24.199
a plan to Truman to suspend habeas corpus and

00:54:24.199 --> 00:54:27.800
detain 12 ,000 Americans in camps if a national

00:54:27.800 --> 00:54:30.340
emergency occurred. Truman ignored it, thank

00:54:30.340 --> 00:54:33.260
God, but the intent was there. He wanted the

00:54:33.260 --> 00:54:36.539
power to lock up anyone he disagreed with. Truman

00:54:36.539 --> 00:54:38.719
ignored that plan, which shows the system of

00:54:38.719 --> 00:54:41.260
checks and balances did exist, even if barely.

00:54:41.659 --> 00:54:44.300
But regarding COINTELPRO, while the methods are

00:54:44.300 --> 00:54:46.579
condemned now, we have to acknowledge that Hoover

00:54:46.579 --> 00:54:48.719
often operated with qualified permission from

00:54:48.719 --> 00:54:51.599
the highest levels. FDR authorized wiretapping

00:54:51.599 --> 00:54:53.980
of suspected subversives way back in the 40s.

00:54:54.079 --> 00:54:56.179
Hoover wasn't a rogue agent. He was the tool

00:54:56.179 --> 00:54:58.679
of the presidency. Presidents liked having Hoover

00:54:58.679 --> 00:55:00.320
do the dirty work so they could keep their hands

00:55:00.320 --> 00:55:03.300
clean. He was a tool who sharpened himself. And

00:55:03.300 --> 00:55:06.860
he was effective. Look at the Communist Party

00:55:06.860 --> 00:55:11.699
USA. By 1957, due to FBI infiltration, it's estimated

00:55:11.699 --> 00:55:15.079
that 1 ,500 of its 10 ,000 members were actually

00:55:15.079 --> 00:55:19.099
FBI informants. He effectively neutralized the

00:55:19.099 --> 00:55:22.000
organization. He believed he was the bulwark

00:55:22.000 --> 00:55:24.480
against revolution, and in his mind, he succeeded.

00:55:24.760 --> 00:55:27.000
There was no communist revolution in the United

00:55:27.000 --> 00:55:30.480
States. He neutralized dissent, not just revolution.

00:55:30.820 --> 00:55:33.940
He equated political disagreement with treason.

00:55:34.400 --> 00:55:36.820
When you have a secret police force that infiltrates

00:55:36.820 --> 00:55:39.460
legal political parties, destroys marriages,

00:55:39.639 --> 00:55:42.199
and tries to drive people to suicide, you don't

00:55:42.199 --> 00:55:44.280
have a democracy anymore. You have a police state.

00:55:44.500 --> 00:55:47.019
The church committee in the 70s, after Hoover

00:55:47.019 --> 00:55:50.980
died, declared these activities illegal and unconstitutional.

00:55:51.179 --> 00:55:54.079
That is the verdict of history. And yet, the

00:55:54.079 --> 00:55:56.360
building is still named after him, the J. Edgar

00:55:56.360 --> 00:55:58.860
Hoover Building on Pennsylvania Avenue. For now.

00:55:59.300 --> 00:56:01.960
Though Senator Harry Reid and others have tried

00:56:01.960 --> 00:56:04.739
to strip his name from it, calling it a stain.

00:56:05.340 --> 00:56:07.860
It's ironic that the headquarters of justice

00:56:07.860 --> 00:56:11.619
is named after a man who so often circumvented

00:56:11.619 --> 00:56:15.360
it. But the fact that the FBI exists as a potent,

00:56:15.539 --> 00:56:18.820
scientific, professional organization is his

00:56:18.820 --> 00:56:22.039
doing. That is the paradox. You cannot have the

00:56:22.039 --> 00:56:25.099
modern FBI without Hoover. He built the structure

00:56:25.099 --> 00:56:28.219
that eventually investigated Watergate. He built

00:56:28.219 --> 00:56:30.659
the academy. He instilled the discipline. He

00:56:30.659 --> 00:56:33.300
took a corrupt backwater agency and turned it

00:56:33.300 --> 00:56:35.559
into the premier law enforcement agency in the

00:56:35.559 --> 00:56:38.579
world. Even his critics used the tools he built.

00:56:38.719 --> 00:56:42.710
But at a cost that we are still paying for. He

00:56:42.710 --> 00:56:46.030
left a legacy that says security justifies any

00:56:46.030 --> 00:56:49.030
violation of liberty. He taught the state how

00:56:49.030 --> 00:56:52.409
to spy on its citizens. Every time we debate

00:56:52.409 --> 00:56:55.769
NSA surveillance or data privacy, we are debating

00:56:55.769 --> 00:56:58.570
in the shadow of J. Edgar Hoover. That brings

00:56:58.570 --> 00:57:02.190
us to our closing thoughts. Hoover is... He's

00:57:02.190 --> 00:57:04.989
a complicated figure who built a necessary institution

00:57:04.989 --> 00:57:08.090
from nothing. He instituted professionalism and

00:57:08.090 --> 00:57:10.469
scientific rigor that defines modern policing.

00:57:11.440 --> 00:57:13.300
While his methods were sometimes authoritarian,

00:57:13.840 --> 00:57:16.139
they were often a product of his time and the

00:57:16.139 --> 00:57:18.280
demands of eight different presidents who relied

00:57:18.280 --> 00:57:21.539
on him. He was a man of his era, an era of world

00:57:21.539 --> 00:57:24.460
wars and cold wars, who believed that order was

00:57:24.460 --> 00:57:27.559
the prerequisite for liberty. But technical competence

00:57:27.559 --> 00:57:31.400
does not excuse moral bankruptcy. Hoover's legacy

00:57:31.400 --> 00:57:34.300
is a warning about the dangers of unchecked power

00:57:34.300 --> 00:57:37.519
within a democracy. He confused the security

00:57:37.519 --> 00:57:40.599
of the nation with the security of his own job

00:57:40.599 --> 00:57:44.000
and his own prejudices. He left a stain on the

00:57:44.000 --> 00:57:47.039
FBI building that bears his name. He showed us

00:57:47.039 --> 00:57:49.519
that when we trade civil liberties for the illusion

00:57:49.519 --> 00:57:57.179
of safety, we often end up with neither. We grapple

00:57:57.179 --> 00:57:59.699
with this every time we talk about digital surveillance

00:57:59.699 --> 00:58:02.940
or national security. And perhaps the most fascinating

00:58:02.940 --> 00:58:06.519
aspect is the personal contradiction. The man

00:58:06.519 --> 00:58:09.320
who hunted deviants and enforced rigid social

00:58:09.320 --> 00:58:13.559
norms lived a life of intense secrecy. He shared

00:58:13.559 --> 00:58:16.239
his life with Clyde Tolson, his associate director.

00:58:16.519 --> 00:58:19.579
They dined together every night, vacationed together,

00:58:19.699 --> 00:58:23.320
and are ultimately buried yards apart. The man

00:58:23.320 --> 00:58:26.260
who policed American morality lived a life that,

00:58:26.320 --> 00:58:28.340
by his own strict standards, would have been

00:58:28.340 --> 00:58:31.679
on a list. Indeed, whether viewed as an architect

00:58:31.679 --> 00:58:35.170
of justice or a tyrant, Jay Edgar Hoover's impact

00:58:35.170 --> 00:58:38.489
on the American century is undeniable. The best

00:58:38.489 --> 00:58:41.050
ideas of security must always be challenged by

00:58:41.050 --> 00:58:43.329
the rigors of civil liberty. And that is a debate

00:58:43.329 --> 00:58:45.829
that will never truly end. Thank you for listening

00:58:45.829 --> 00:58:49.610
to The Debate. Until next time. Welcome to The

00:58:49.610 --> 00:58:52.409
Critique. Today we're looking at a biographical

00:58:52.409 --> 00:58:56.230
article on Jay Edgar Hoover. A big one. A huge

00:58:56.230 --> 00:58:59.969
one. It covers the full 48 years, the forensics,

00:59:00.010 --> 00:59:02.510
the modernization, and of course, the dark side

00:59:02.510 --> 00:59:04.869
with Cointelpro. It's all in there. It is. And

00:59:04.869 --> 00:59:07.030
the draft is packed with information, but the

00:59:07.030 --> 00:59:10.750
narrative arc is just struggling to hold it all

00:59:10.750 --> 00:59:13.170
together. Right. We need to fix the structure

00:59:13.170 --> 00:59:17.150
to make the big themes really land. So let's

00:59:17.150 --> 00:59:18.869
start with what feels like the most glaring issue.

00:59:19.449 --> 00:59:22.289
The placement of the private life section. Yeah,

00:59:22.389 --> 00:59:24.809
that was the first thing I noticed. The author

00:59:24.809 --> 00:59:28.849
has pushed the whole discussion of Hoover's relationship

00:59:28.849 --> 00:59:31.929
with Clyde Tolson and the rumors about his sexuality

00:59:31.929 --> 00:59:34.690
all the way to the very end. Right. It's treated

00:59:34.690 --> 00:59:38.130
like this tabloid addendum, a kind of fun fact

00:59:38.130 --> 00:59:40.670
footer. Well, that is a pretty standard convention

00:59:40.670 --> 00:59:43.409
for biographies, though, isn't it? You do the

00:59:43.409 --> 00:59:46.449
career, then you do the personal life. Why doesn't

00:59:46.449 --> 00:59:48.699
that work here? Because with Hoover, you just

00:59:48.699 --> 00:59:51.159
can't separate the two without completely breaking

00:59:51.159 --> 00:59:54.099
the logic of the history. I mean, if you leave

00:59:54.099 --> 00:59:56.440
the sexuality discussion until the end, the whole

00:59:56.440 --> 00:59:58.940
section on organized crime back in the 30s and

00:59:58.940 --> 01:00:02.679
40s makes no sense. How so? Well, the text says

01:00:02.679 --> 01:00:04.980
Hoover persistently denied the mafia even existed

01:00:04.980 --> 01:00:07.940
for decades, right? He focused on bank robbers

01:00:07.940 --> 01:00:10.760
instead. It gives his official excuse that he

01:00:10.760 --> 01:00:12.719
didn't want to corrupt his agents. But without

01:00:12.719 --> 01:00:14.800
the context of his private life, that just reads

01:00:14.800 --> 01:00:17.329
like incompetence. So the readers left thinking

01:00:17.329 --> 01:00:20.570
he was just bad at his job rather than compromised.

01:00:20.889 --> 01:00:23.449
Exactly. Well, not just compromised, but maybe

01:00:23.449 --> 01:00:25.750
even held hostage. And the submission actually

01:00:25.750 --> 01:00:27.809
has the smoking gun. It's just buried in the

01:00:27.809 --> 01:00:30.690
wrong place. Okay. In the American Mafia section,

01:00:30.969 --> 01:00:33.269
there is a sentence mentioning that Meyer Lansky

01:00:33.269 --> 01:00:35.530
and Frank Costello supposedly had compromising

01:00:35.530 --> 01:00:39.150
photos of Hoover and Tolson. Right. Then... Like

01:00:39.150 --> 01:00:41.809
10 pages later, in the private life section,

01:00:42.010 --> 01:00:44.269
we finally get the Anthony Summers claim that

01:00:44.269 --> 01:00:46.250
blackmail made him reluctant to pursue the mob.

01:00:46.429 --> 01:00:48.969
Okay, yeah, I see the disconnect. You have the

01:00:48.969 --> 01:00:52.190
effect in chapter 3 and the cause in chapter

01:00:52.190 --> 01:00:56.090
10. The fix is to move those bricks. The author

01:00:56.090 --> 01:00:58.730
needs to take that private life material, specifically

01:00:58.730 --> 01:01:01.130
the inseparable nature of his life with Tolson,

01:01:01.269 --> 01:01:04.369
the vacations, the rumors of those photos, and

01:01:04.369 --> 01:01:06.369
weave them directly into the organized crime

01:01:06.369 --> 01:01:08.869
narrative. That really changes the genre of that

01:01:08.869 --> 01:01:11.650
section, though. It does. It turns a bureaucratic

01:01:11.650 --> 01:01:14.329
history into a thriller. I mean, imagine reading

01:01:14.329 --> 01:01:17.210
about his refusal to go after the mob. And then

01:01:17.210 --> 01:01:19.469
in the very next paragraph, you learn that the

01:01:19.469 --> 01:01:21.809
mob boss might have photos of the director engaged

01:01:21.809 --> 01:01:25.059
in what was then a legal activity. Suddenly his

01:01:25.059 --> 01:01:28.179
denial of the mafia isn't a policy error. It's

01:01:28.179 --> 01:01:31.480
a survival tactic. It creates tension. The reader

01:01:31.480 --> 01:01:34.260
understands why he's lying. And this actually

01:01:34.260 --> 01:01:36.619
points to a broader structural problem with the

01:01:36.619 --> 01:01:39.500
draft. Which is? It's too compartmentalized.

01:01:39.699 --> 01:01:42.579
There's a section for politics, one for crime,

01:01:42.780 --> 01:01:45.760
one for legacy. But Hoover's career was driven

01:01:45.760 --> 01:01:48.420
by an ideology that spanned all of those things.

01:01:48.860 --> 01:01:51.420
And you're talking about the white Christian

01:01:51.420 --> 01:01:54.440
nationalism angle that's mentioned? Yes. This

01:01:54.440 --> 01:01:58.159
is the second major critique. The author introduces

01:01:58.159 --> 01:02:01.360
this idea, citing Lerone Martin's book, right

01:02:01.360 --> 01:02:04.940
at the very end in the legacy section. It's presented

01:02:04.940 --> 01:02:08.199
as a retrospective label. You know, looking back,

01:02:08.260 --> 01:02:10.920
scholars now say he was a Christian nationalist.

01:02:11.400 --> 01:02:13.239
And you think that label needs to be applied

01:02:13.239 --> 01:02:15.719
much earlier? It needs to be the engine, not

01:02:15.719 --> 01:02:18.739
the exhaust pipe. If you wait until the end to

01:02:18.739 --> 01:02:21.420
explain his worldview, the civil rights section

01:02:21.420 --> 01:02:24.699
in the 1960s feels completely disjointed. Okay.

01:02:24.860 --> 01:02:27.320
The text list has attacks on Martin Luther King

01:02:27.320 --> 01:02:29.920
Jr., the Black Panthers, the Nation of Islam,

01:02:30.119 --> 01:02:32.199
and it just feels like a series of aggressive

01:02:32.199 --> 01:02:35.320
police actions. We see the what, but we don't

01:02:35.320 --> 01:02:37.840
feel the why. The text does mention he thought

01:02:37.840 --> 01:02:40.260
they were threats to national security. Isn't

01:02:40.260 --> 01:02:42.800
that enough of a why? I really don't think it

01:02:42.800 --> 01:02:46.619
is, no. Not for the level of vitriol he showed.

01:02:46.920 --> 01:02:50.000
The text mentions that infamous letter sent to

01:02:50.000 --> 01:02:52.940
King Fulitz, the one suggesting he commit suicide.

01:02:53.619 --> 01:02:56.800
Horrifying. That is not national security work.

01:02:57.039 --> 01:03:00.840
That's a moral judgment. It's a crusade. And

01:03:00.840 --> 01:03:03.039
the author needs to pull that Christian nationalism

01:03:03.039 --> 01:03:06.239
thread all the way back to the early life section.

01:03:06.519 --> 01:03:09.039
The early life section does mention his membership

01:03:09.039 --> 01:03:12.840
in the Kappa Alpha order. It does. And it notes

01:03:12.840 --> 01:03:15.519
they revered Robert E. Lee as a spiritual founder.

01:03:15.920 --> 01:03:18.619
It also notes his high school debates against

01:03:18.619 --> 01:03:21.800
abolishing the death penalty. Those aren't just

01:03:21.800 --> 01:03:25.079
trivia. They're the seeds of the ideology. Exactly.

01:03:25.099 --> 01:03:28.159
The author needs to explicitly connect those

01:03:28.159 --> 01:03:31.460
early days to the later abuses. When he attacks

01:03:31.460 --> 01:03:33.559
the Black Panthers, the text should reference

01:03:33.559 --> 01:03:37.000
his view of the FBI as a religious order. It

01:03:37.000 --> 01:03:40.139
completely reframes his actions. So how would

01:03:40.139 --> 01:03:42.699
you write that transition specifically? When

01:03:42.699 --> 01:03:45.780
discussing CINTLO pro against black nationalist

01:03:45.780 --> 01:03:48.059
groups, I'd put in a paragraph explaining that

01:03:48.059 --> 01:03:50.579
Hoover didn't just see them as political radicals.

01:03:50.679 --> 01:03:53.360
He saw them as a fundamental threat to the Christian

01:03:53.360 --> 01:03:56.500
order of America. He wasn't just a cop. He was

01:03:56.500 --> 01:03:59.280
a grand inquisitor. That definitely darkens the

01:03:59.280 --> 01:04:02.119
tone, but it feels more honest. It moves from

01:04:02.119 --> 01:04:04.920
a list of bad things he did to a character study

01:04:04.920 --> 01:04:07.599
of a fanatic. And to be a successful fanatic,

01:04:07.719 --> 01:04:10.610
you need a weapon. Which brings us to the third

01:04:10.610 --> 01:04:12.829
opportunity here, which is about his methodology.

01:04:13.250 --> 01:04:15.969
Right. The piece sets up this really fascinating

01:04:15.969 --> 01:04:18.269
origin story about his time at the Library of

01:04:18.269 --> 01:04:21.110
Congress, but then it just drops it. I noticed

01:04:21.110 --> 01:04:24.349
that. It says he started as a messenger and learned

01:04:24.349 --> 01:04:27.670
to collate material. It reads like a humble beginnings

01:04:27.670 --> 01:04:30.590
story, but it's not humble beginnings. It's the

01:04:30.590 --> 01:04:34.070
key to his entire power structure. The text even

01:04:34.070 --> 01:04:36.409
quotes a letter where Hoover himself says that

01:04:36.409 --> 01:04:39.210
Job gave him the foundation for everything. But

01:04:39.210 --> 01:04:41.409
the draft just treats it like a fun fact. So

01:04:41.409 --> 01:04:43.630
the weakness is that the author doesn't connect

01:04:43.630 --> 01:04:46.289
the skill of collating to the weapon of surveillance?

01:04:47.110 --> 01:04:49.550
Precisely. We usually think of his power coming

01:04:49.550 --> 01:04:51.489
from his title or his political connections.

01:04:51.949 --> 01:04:53.750
But you're saying the power came from the filing

01:04:53.750 --> 01:04:56.449
system? Absolutely. Information architecture

01:04:56.449 --> 01:04:59.400
was his superpower. the author needs to thread

01:04:59.400 --> 01:05:01.760
this librarian concept through the whole piece.

01:05:02.039 --> 01:05:04.260
When the text talks about the Palmer Raids in

01:05:04.260 --> 01:05:07.179
1919, that's a list. It's a catalog of people.

01:05:07.380 --> 01:05:09.440
So later, when we get to the investigation of

01:05:09.440 --> 01:05:11.280
subversion section, we should call back to that?

01:05:11.940 --> 01:05:14.440
Explicitly. When the text describes the security

01:05:14.440 --> 01:05:17.800
index, or the rabble -rouser index, the author

01:05:17.800 --> 01:05:20.059
should frame it as the ultimate expression of

01:05:20.059 --> 01:05:22.940
his library science background. He wasn't investigating

01:05:22.940 --> 01:05:26.340
crimes. He was categorizing the population. Safe.

01:05:26.760 --> 01:05:29.500
Dangerous. Subversive. That's a chilling image.

01:05:29.699 --> 01:05:32.099
The whole country is a library and he decides

01:05:32.099 --> 01:05:34.500
which books get burned. And who controls the

01:05:34.500 --> 01:05:37.820
checkout list. Look at the Venona project. The

01:05:37.820 --> 01:05:40.059
text says he kept those intercepts in a personal

01:05:40.059 --> 01:05:42.980
safe. He didn't even tell President Truman. That's

01:05:42.980 --> 01:05:45.280
the behavior of a librarian hoarding the special

01:05:45.280 --> 01:05:48.340
collection. It also explains his longevity. You

01:05:48.340 --> 01:05:50.619
can fire a director, but you can't fire the guy

01:05:50.619 --> 01:05:53.000
who owns the catalog. Exactly. You know, this

01:05:53.000 --> 01:05:55.800
brings us to the issue of tone. Because the draft

01:05:55.800 --> 01:05:58.360
is so honest about the abuses, the blackmail,

01:05:58.440 --> 01:06:01.559
the racism, the wiretaps, it leans very, very

01:06:01.559 --> 01:06:04.119
heavily into a villain arc. Which is factually

01:06:04.119 --> 01:06:07.239
supported, of course. It is. But if he's presented

01:06:07.239 --> 01:06:10.579
as a pure monster from page one, it creates this

01:06:10.579 --> 01:06:13.739
logic gap. The reader is left wondering, if he

01:06:13.739 --> 01:06:16.619
was this bad, why did the American public love

01:06:16.619 --> 01:06:19.579
him for 40 years? That is the critical missing

01:06:19.579 --> 01:06:23.409
piece, the hero arc. The author needs to really

01:06:23.409 --> 01:06:26.050
bolster the public relations aspect of his career

01:06:26.050 --> 01:06:29.190
to explain the seduction. We need to see why

01:06:29.190 --> 01:06:32.070
he was so popular before we see him fall. The

01:06:32.070 --> 01:06:34.989
text has the data for this. It mentions the FBI

01:06:34.989 --> 01:06:38.570
story movie and the TV show. It mentions them,

01:06:38.710 --> 01:06:41.650
but it's just the list. We need to see the active

01:06:41.650 --> 01:06:45.110
manipulation. The text notes he was a consultant

01:06:45.110 --> 01:06:47.849
to Warner Brothers. The author should expand

01:06:47.849 --> 01:06:50.800
on that. Hoover wasn't just the subject of movies.

01:06:50.960 --> 01:06:54.280
He was the director of his own myth. He curated

01:06:54.280 --> 01:06:57.739
his image just like he curated his files. There's

01:06:57.739 --> 01:07:00.039
that section on the Depression -era gangsters,

01:07:00.159 --> 01:07:03.420
Dillinger, Babyface Nelson. It mentions the Little

01:07:03.420 --> 01:07:06.519
Bohemia Raid. Which was a total disaster. An

01:07:06.519 --> 01:07:09.099
agent died, a bystander was shot, the whole gang

01:07:09.099 --> 01:07:12.219
got away. Right. But the text says he pulled

01:07:12.219 --> 01:07:14.860
out all stops afterward. The author should use

01:07:14.860 --> 01:07:17.909
that moment to show his genius for spin. He took

01:07:17.909 --> 01:07:20.530
a failure and turned it into a mandate for more

01:07:20.530 --> 01:07:23.889
guns, more federal power. He used the war on

01:07:23.889 --> 01:07:27.409
crime to build the G -Man brand. The man of science

01:07:27.409 --> 01:07:31.090
versus the chaotic criminal. Exactly. If you

01:07:31.090 --> 01:07:33.130
build up that man of science pedestal in the

01:07:33.130 --> 01:07:37.010
1930s, his fall into paranoia in the 1960s becomes

01:07:37.010 --> 01:07:40.090
a genuine tragedy, not just a crime log. It's

01:07:40.090 --> 01:07:42.789
the corruption of an ideal. And the text has

01:07:42.789 --> 01:07:45.980
that great stat. At one point, it was harder

01:07:45.980 --> 01:07:48.800
to become an FBI agent than to get into an Ivy

01:07:48.800 --> 01:07:52.019
League college. That needs to be in the main

01:07:52.019 --> 01:07:55.860
flow. It explains the shield he had. He was untouchable

01:07:55.860 --> 01:07:58.079
because he'd convinced everyone he was the only

01:07:58.079 --> 01:08:01.079
thing standing between them and chaos. And all

01:08:01.079 --> 01:08:03.420
these themes should converge. I'm thinking of

01:08:03.420 --> 01:08:05.320
the part where the text mentions Nixon wanted

01:08:05.320 --> 01:08:08.449
to fire him but was afraid. Fear of reprisals.

01:08:08.469 --> 01:08:10.889
That's where it all comes together. If the author

01:08:10.889 --> 01:08:12.829
has done the work with the private life section

01:08:12.829 --> 01:08:15.210
earlier, the reader knows exactly what Nixon

01:08:15.210 --> 01:08:18.649
is afraid of. He's afraid of the files. The blackmail.

01:08:18.810 --> 01:08:22.409
Yes. Show that the tactic worked for 40 years.

01:08:22.689 --> 01:08:25.390
It worked on the mob. It worked on Kennedy. It

01:08:25.390 --> 01:08:28.369
worked on Nixon. It's the payoff for the librarian

01:08:28.369 --> 01:08:31.250
theme, too. The collection was finally complete

01:08:31.250 --> 01:08:33.680
and it was pointed right at the president. You

01:08:33.680 --> 01:08:35.600
know, that reminds me of the quote about the

01:08:35.600 --> 01:08:38.880
JFK investigation. The text has Hoover writing

01:08:38.880 --> 01:08:41.920
he wanted to convince the public that Oswald

01:08:41.920 --> 01:08:45.640
is the real assassin. Such a heavy quote. Convince

01:08:45.640 --> 01:08:49.340
the public, not find the truth. Right. That belongs

01:08:49.340 --> 01:08:51.800
in the public relations trade. He was still the

01:08:51.800 --> 01:08:54.220
director of the movie. He needed a clean ending

01:08:54.220 --> 01:08:57.079
for the script. He was a storyteller first and

01:08:57.079 --> 01:09:00.199
a cop second. A storyteller with a badge and

01:09:00.199 --> 01:09:02.880
a gun. Yeah. So let's talk about the ending.

01:09:03.390 --> 01:09:05.630
The current draft ends with the J. Edgar Hoover

01:09:05.630 --> 01:09:08.189
building and the efforts to rename it and the

01:09:08.189 --> 01:09:10.369
fact that it's deteriorating. It's a bit on the

01:09:10.369 --> 01:09:13.130
nose, isn't it? A little. But it works. I think

01:09:13.130 --> 01:09:15.050
the suggestion is just to lean into that metaphor.

01:09:15.350 --> 01:09:18.029
The building is ugly, brutalist, and literally

01:09:18.029 --> 01:09:20.689
crumbling. It's a perfect stand -in for his reputation.

01:09:21.090 --> 01:09:24.590
So just sharpen that imagery. Yeah. Just as a

01:09:24.590 --> 01:09:27.029
concrete is falling off the headquarters, the

01:09:27.029 --> 01:09:29.449
myth of the G -Man has fallen away to reveal

01:09:29.449 --> 01:09:31.890
the coercion underneath. That's a good wrap -up.

01:09:32.109 --> 01:09:35.069
So, looking at this, we're talking about a pretty

01:09:35.069 --> 01:09:38.270
comprehensive rewrite. Not of the facts, the

01:09:38.270 --> 01:09:41.310
submission is incredibly rich, but of the architecture.

01:09:41.810 --> 01:09:44.649
The bricks are all there, but right now, it's

01:09:44.649 --> 01:09:47.689
a pile of bricks. We want a fortress. We want

01:09:47.689 --> 01:09:49.810
the private life to be the foundation of his

01:09:49.810 --> 01:09:52.310
vulnerability. We want Christian nationalism

01:09:52.310 --> 01:09:54.869
to be the framework of his aggression. And the

01:09:54.869 --> 01:09:57.850
librarian methodology as the wiring that runs

01:09:57.850 --> 01:10:00.479
through every single room. And we want the hero

01:10:00.479 --> 01:10:03.000
myth to be the paint on the outside that hides

01:10:03.000 --> 01:10:05.479
all the cracks. I think we have a solid blueprint

01:10:05.479 --> 01:10:08.140
here. The submission is strong, but it could

01:10:08.140 --> 01:10:10.720
be really powerful. It just needs to be brave

01:10:10.720 --> 01:10:14.060
enough to break the chronological silos. Don't

01:10:14.060 --> 01:10:17.100
protect the reader. Makes the sex, the politics,

01:10:17.220 --> 01:10:19.960
the religion all together. Because that's how

01:10:19.960 --> 01:10:23.239
they existed in Hoover's life. So to recap the

01:10:23.239 --> 01:10:26.199
main action items for the rewrite, first, move

01:10:26.199 --> 01:10:28.739
the private life and blackmail details out of

01:10:28.739 --> 01:10:31.300
the footer and into the organized crime timeline

01:10:31.300 --> 01:10:34.800
to really explain his policy paralysis. Second,

01:10:35.100 --> 01:10:37.699
introduce that Christian nationalism framework

01:10:37.699 --> 01:10:41.199
early on. Use it to explain the sheer ferocity

01:10:41.199 --> 01:10:43.699
of his attacks on civil rights leaders. Third,

01:10:43.939 --> 01:10:47.359
use the librarian metaphor, collating and indexing,

01:10:47.399 --> 01:10:49.819
as a recurring theme to explain the true source

01:10:49.819 --> 01:10:52.840
of his power. And finally, balance that dark

01:10:52.840 --> 01:10:54.979
villain arc by showing how he constructed the

01:10:54.979 --> 01:10:57.420
hero myth through media manipulation and the

01:10:57.420 --> 01:11:00.960
man of science brand. Exactly. We invite you

01:11:00.960 --> 01:11:03.859
to tear down the current structure and rebuild

01:11:03.859 --> 01:11:07.159
it using these thematic pillars. It's a lot of

01:11:07.159 --> 01:11:09.979
work, but the story definitely deserves that

01:11:09.979 --> 01:11:12.899
level of integration. Submit the revised draft

01:11:12.899 --> 01:11:15.520
when you're done. We'd love to see how the narrative

01:11:15.520 --> 01:11:18.680
tension changes. Thanks for listening to The

01:11:18.680 --> 01:11:19.239
Critique.