J. Edgar Hoover
J. Edgar Hoover (1895-1972) was a famous American cross-dresser[1] and extortionist who headed the FBI and had a large building in Washington, D.C. named after him[2]. He ran the Bureau for thirty-seven years, and was known for both his improper and illegal conduct, both at the behest and independent of the Presidents he served under,[3] and organizing surveillance against both officials in presidential administrations, and famous activists like Martin Luther King, Jr.[4]
Leonardo DiCaprio, in 2011, under the direction of Clint Eastwood, recently presented a more dignified portrait of the man than ever existed in reality, in J. Edgar.
Contents |
[edit] Red-baiting
While J. Edgar Hoover certainly didn't start the trend of McCarthy-ish political delusions of seeing communism everywhere, he certainly exacerbated it. This culminated in his being convinced that the aforementioned Dr. King was a communist and declaring the (broadly radical and revolutionary, not communist) Black Panther Party as the greatest political threat to the United States. Even the United States Department of Justice thought he was taking his rhetoric too far[5].
Of course J. Edgar Hoover was more than eager to turn a blind eye to actual American terrorists within the borders. Maybe if he didn't coddle the Ku Klux Klan and White Citizens' Council so much he wouldn't have had to contend with the black power backlash... you know, the thing the so-called commie MLK explicitly warned him about [6].
[edit] Quotes
- "Why is J. Edgar Hoover on your phone?"
- "I don't know. He's on everybody else's phone, why shouldn't he be on mine?"
[edit] See also
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ Summers, Anthony (1993). Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J Edgar Hoover. Pocket Books. ISBN 0-671-88087-X
- ↑ Nothing to do with the Hoover Dam, that's someone else.
- ↑ http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,879504,00.html
- ↑ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4638275/
- ↑ [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesontheprize/about/pt_206.html "I think, frankly, that he overstated the concern, the real concern, that the Black Panthers were to the country." -- Jerris Leonard, first Administrator of the Law Enforcement Assistant Administration
- ↑ "Although King was hesitant to criticize Black Power openly, he told his staff on 14 November 1966 that Black Power ‘‘was born from the wombs of despair and disappointment. Black Power is a cry of pain. It is in fact a reaction to the failure of White Power to deliver the promises and to do it in a hurry.… The cry of Black Power is really a cry of hurt’’ (King, 14 November 1966). "