John
Edgar Hoover was born in Washington
on 1st January, 1895. His father, Dickerson Hoover, was a printmaker,
but he had a mental breakdown he spent his last eight years in Laurel
Asylum. This dramatically reduced the family income and Hoover had
to leave school and seek employment. Hoover found work as a messenger
boy in the Library of Congress, but highly ambitious, spent his evenings
studying for a law degree at George Washington University.
After graduating in 1917, Hoover's uncle, a judge, helped him find
work in the Justice Department. After only two years in the organisation,
Alexander M. Palmer, the attorney general,
made Hoover his special assistant. Hoover was given responsibility
of heading a new section that had been formed to gather evidence on
"revolutionary and ultra-revolutionary groups". Over the
next couple of years Hoover had the task of organizing the arrest
and deportation of suspected communists in America.
Hoover, influenced by his work at the Library of Congress, decided
to create a massive card index of people with left-wing political
views. Over the next few years 450,000 names were indexed and detailed
biographical notes were written up on the 60,000 that Hoover considered
the most dangerous. Hoover then advised Palmer to have these people
rounded up and deported.
On 7th November, 1919, the second anniversary of the Russian Revolution,
over 10,000 suspected communists and anarchists were arrested in twenty-three
different cities. However, the vast majority of these people were
American citizens and had to be eventually released. However, Hoover
now had the names of hundreds of lawyers who were willing to represent
radicals in court. These were now added to his growing list of names
in his indexed database.
Hoover decided he needed a high profile case to help his campaign
against subversives. He selected Emma Goldman,
as he had been particularly upset by her views on birth control, free
love and religion. Goldman had also been imprisoned for two years
for opposing America's involvement in the First
World War. This was a subject that Hoover felt very strongly about,
even though it was never willing to discuss how he had managed to
avoid being drafted.
Hoover knew it would be
a difficult task having Goldman deported. She had been living in the
United States for thirty-four years and both her father and husband
were both citizens of the United States. In court Hoover argued that
Goldman's speeches had inspired Leon Czolgosz
to assassinate President William McKinley.
Hoover won his case and Goldman, along with 247 other people, were
deported to Russia.
Hoover's persecution of people with left-wing views had the desired
effect and membership of the Communist
Party, estimated to have been 80,000 before the raids, fell to
less that 6,000. In 1921 Hoover was rewarded by being promoted to
the post of assistant director of the Bureau
of Investigation. The function of the FBI at that time was the
investigation of violations of federal law and assisting the police
and other criminal investigation agencies in the United States.
Hoover was appointed director of the Bureau of
Investigation in 1924. The three years that he had spent in the
organization had convinced Hoover that the organization needed to
improve the quality of its staff. Great care was spent in recruiting
and training agents. In 1926 Hoover established a fingerprint file
that eventually became the largest in the world.
The power of the bureau was limited. Law enforcement was a stare activity,
not a federal one. Hoover's agents were not allowed to carry guns,
nor did they have the right to arrest suspects. Hoover complained
about this situation and in 1935 Congress agreed to establish the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Agents
were now armed and could act against crimes of violence throughout
the United States.
Hoover now set about establishing
a world-class crime fighting organization. Innovations introduced
by Hoover included the formation of a scientific crime-detention laboratory
and the highly regarded FBI National Academy. Hoover appointed Clyde
Tolson as Assistant Director of the FBI.
In
his book, The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover
(1993), Anthony Summers claims that Hoover and Tolson became lovers.
For the next forty years the two men were constant companions. In
the FBI the couple were known as "J. Edna and Mother Tolson".
Mafia boss, Meyer Lansky, obtained photographic
evidence of Hoover's homosexuality and was able to use this to stop
the FBI from looking too closely into his own criminal activities.
During
the Spanish Civil
War Hoover arranged
for FBI agents to report on those Americans that fought for the Abraham
Lincoln Battalion and
George Washington Battalion. Hoover
later wrote: "When a civil war broke out in that country in 1936,
the Communists acted in line with the theory that the Soviet Union
should be used as the base for the extension of Communist control
over other countries. Soviet intervention in the Spanish civil war
was twofold in nature. First, in response to directions from the Comintern,
the international Communist movement organized International Brigades
to fight in Spain. A typical unit was the Abraham Lincoln Brigade,
organized in the United States... Many Communists throughout the world
who answered the Comintern's call to fight in Spain were repaid subsequently
by Soviet assistance in their attempts to seize power in their respective
countries."
When the journalist, Ray Tucker, hinted at Hoover's homosexuality
in an article for Collier's Magazine,
he was investigated by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation. Information about Tucker's private life was leaked
to the media and when this became known, other journalists were frightened
off from writing about this aspect of Hoover's life.
Hoover persuaded Franklin D. Roosevelt
to give the FBI the task of investigating both foreign espionage in
the United States. This included the collection of information on
those with radical political beliefs. After Elizabeth
Bentley, a former member of the American
Communist Party, provided the FBI with information about a Soviet
spy ring in 1945, Hoover became convinced that that their was a communist
conspiracy to overthrow the United States government.
When checked, much of the information provided by Bentley was found
to be untrue. However, by intimidating the people that Bentley had
named, the FBI were able to obtain the information needed to convict
Harry Gold, David
Greenglass, Ethel Rosenberg and
Julius Rosenberg of spying.
Hoover believed that several
senior officials in the government were secret members of the Communist
Party. Unhappy with the way Harry S. Truman,
responded to this news, Hoover began leaking information about officials
such as Alger Hiss to those politicians
that shared his anti-communist views. This included Joseph
McCarthy, John S. Wood, John
Parnell Thomas, John Rankin and Richard
Nixon. Hoover was a great supporter of the House
of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), an organisation that
relieved heavily on information provided by the FBI.
Hoover was particularly concerned with the political influence that
television and the cinema was having on the people of the United States.
He encouraged the House of Un-American Activities
Committee investigation into the entertainment industry and the
decision by the major media networks to blacklist artists who were
known to hold left of centre political views.
In June, 1950, three former FBI agents published
Red Channels, a pamphlet listing
the names of 151 writers, directors and performers who they claimed
had been members of subversive organizations before the Second
World War but had not so far been blacklisted. The names had been
compiled from FBI files and a detailed analysis
of the Daily Worker, a newspaper
published by the American Communist Party.
A free copy of Red Channels
was sent to those involved in employing people in the entertainment
industry. All those people named in the pamphlet were blacklisted
until they appeared in front of the House of
Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and convinced its members
they had completely renounced their radical past. By the late 1950s
it was estimated that over 320 artists had been blacklisted and were
unable to find work in television and the cinema.
Hoover and the FBI carried out detailed investigations into any prominent
person who he thought held dangerous political views. This included
leaders of the civil rights movement and those opposed to the Vietnam
War. At the same time Hoover virtual ignored organized crime and
his investigations into political corruption was mainly used as a
means of gaining control over politicians in powerful positions. In
1959 Hoover had 489 agents spying on communists but only 4 investigating
the Mafia. As early as 1945 Harry S. Truman
complained how Hoover and his agents were "dabbling in sex life
scandals and plain blackmail when they should be catching criminals".
In 1961 William
Sullivan was appointed assistant director of the FBI's Intelligence
Division. Sullivan gradually moved up the hierarchy and eventually
became the FBI's third-ranking official behind J.
Edgar Hoover,
the director, and Clyde A. Tolson. Sullivan
was placed in charge of FBI's Division Five. This involved smearing
leaders of left-wing organizations.
Sullivan was a strong opponent
of the leadership of Martin Luther King.
In January, 1964, Sullivan sent a memo to Hoover: "It should
be clear to all of us that King must, at some propitious point in
the future, be revealed to the people of this country and to his Negro
followers as being what he actually is - a fraud, demagogue and scoundrel.
When the true facts concerning his activities are presented, such
should be enough, if handled properly, to take him off his pedestal
and to reduce him completely in influence." Sullivan's
suggested replacement for King was Samuel Pierce, a conservative lawyer
who was later to serve as Secretary of Housing under President Ronald
Reagan.
William
Sullivan disagreed with J.
Edgar Hoover about
the threat to national security posed by the American
Communist Party and felt that the FBI was wasting too much money
investigating this group. On 28th August, 1971, Sullivan sent Hoover
a long letter pointing out their differences. Sullivan also suggested
that Hoover should consider retirement. Hoover refused and it was
Sullivan who had to leave the organization.
The
FBI under Hoover collected information on
all America's leading politicians. Known as Hoover's secret files,
this material was used to influence their actions. It was later claimed
that Hoover used this incriminating material to make sure that the
eight presidents that he served under, would be too frightened to
sack him as director of the FBI. This strategy worked and Hoover was
still in office when he died, aged seventy-seven, on 2nd May, 1972.
Clyde Tolson arranged for the destruction
of all Hoover's private files. A senate report in 1976 was highly
critical of Hoover and accused him of using the organization to harass
political dissidents in the United States.
J. Edgar Hoover, Royal Miller, Clyde
Tolson
and Joseph
McCarthy
on holiday in California.
(1)
J. Edgar Hoover,
wrote about the Abraham
Lincoln Battalion in his book A
Study of Communism (1962)
One of the first opportunities to exploit political and social upheaval
abroad arose in Spain. When a civil war broke out in that country
in 1936, the Communists acted in line with the theory that the Soviet
Union should be used as the base for the extension of Communist control
over other countries. Soviet intervention in the Spanish civil war
was twofold in nature. First, in response to directions from the Comintern,
the international Communist movement organized International Brigades
to fight in Spain. A typical unit was the Abraham Lincoln Brigade,
organized in the United States. It succeeded in recruiting about 3,000
men. In all, the Communist parties of 53 countries were represented
in the International Brigades with a total fighting strength of approximately
18,000, the first of whom arrived in Spain during the latter part
of 1936. Second, the Soviet Union furnished direct military assistance
in the form of tanks, artillery, and aircraft flown by Soviet pilots.
For two years, Moscow pursued its objectives in the Spanish struggle.
However, Soviet intervention ended in the fall of 1938, when the national
interest of the Soviet Union forced it to turn its attention elsewhere.
In Europe, Hitler's strength was steadily increasing. In addition,
Japan's armed invasion of Manchuria posed a direct threat to Soviet
territory in the
Far East. At the end of 1938, the International Brigades withdrew
from Spain. Many Communists throughout the world who answered the
Comintern's call to fight in Spain were repaid subsequently by Soviet
assistance in their attempts to seize power in their respective countries.
Among those identified with Communist efforts in connection with the
Spanish civil war who subsequently gained prominence in the Communist
movement were Tito (Yugoslavia), Palmiro Togliatti (Italy), Jacques
Duclos (France), Klement Gottwald (Czechoslovakia), Erno Gero and
Laszlo Rajk (Hungary), and Walter Ulbricht (East Germany).
(2) J. Edgar Hoover, testimony
before the House
of Un-American Activities Committee
(26th March, 1947)
The Communist movement in the
United States began to manifest itself in 1919. Since then it has
changed its name and its party line whenever expedient and tactical.
But always it comes back to fundamentals and bills itself as the party
of Marxism-Lenninism. As such, it stands for the destruction of our
American form of government; it stands for the destruction of American
democracy; it stands for the destruction of free enterprise; and it
stands for the creation of a "Soviet of the United States"
and ultimate world revolution.
The
preamble of the latest constitution of the Communist Party of the
United States, filled with Marxian "double talk," proclaims
that the party "educates the working class, in the course of
its day-to-day struggles, for its historic mission, the establishment
of socialism." The phrase "historic mission" has a
sinister meaning. To the uninformed person it bespeaks tradition,
but to the Communist, using his own words, it is "achieving the
dictatorship of the proletariat"; "to throw off the yoke
of imperialism and establish the proletarian dictatorship"; "to
raise these revolutionary forces to the surface and hurl them like
a devastating avalanche upon the united forces of bourgeois reaction,
frenzied at the presentment of their rapidly approaching doom."
In
recent years, the Communists have been very cautious about using such
phrases as "force and violence"; nevertheless, it is the
subject of much discussion in their schools and in party caucus where
they readily admit that the only way in which they can defeat the
present ruling class is by world revolution.
The
Communist, once he is fully trained and indoctrinated, realizes that
he can create his order in the United States only by "bloody
revolution." Their chief textbook, The History of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union, is used as a basis for planning their
revolution. Their tactics require that to be successful they must
have: (1) The will and sympathy of the people. (2) Military aid and
assistance. (3) Plenty of guns and ammunition. (4) A program for extermination
of the
police as they are the most important enemy and are termed "trained
Fascists." (5) Seizure of all communications, buses, railroads,
radio stations, and other forms of communications and transportation.
They
evade the question of force and violence publicly. They hold that
when Marxists speak of force and violence they will not be responsible
- that force and violence will be the responsibility of their enemies.
They adopt the novel premise that they do not advocate force and violence
publicly but that when their class resists to defend themselves then
they are thus accused of using force and violence. A lot of double
talk.
In
establishing the party's illegal character in 1942, the then Attorney
General Biddle based his findings on the contents of the same Communist
publications which today are being sold and circulated in party circles
in the United States. The American Communist, like the leopard, cannot
change his spots. The Communist Party line changes from day to day.
The one cardinal rule that can always be applied to what the party
line is or will be is found in the fundamental principle of Communist
teachings that the support of Soviet Russia is the duty of Communists
of all countries.
One
thing is certain. The American progress which all good citizens seek,
such as old-age security, houses for veterans, child assistance, and
a host of others, is being adopted as window dressing by the Communists
to conceal their true aims and entrap gullible followers.
The
Communist propaganda technique is designed to promote emotional response
with the hope that the victim will be attracted by what he is told
the Communist way of life holds in store for him. The objective, of
course, is to develop discontent and hasten the day when the Communists
can gather sufficient support and following to overthrow the American
way of life.
Communist
propaganda is always slanted in the hope that the Communist may be
aligned with liberal progressive causes. The honest liberal and progressive
should be alert to this, and I believe the Communists' most effective
foes can be the real liberals and progressives who understand their
devious machinations.
Communists
and their followers are prolific letter writers, and some of the more
energetic ones follow the practice of directing numerous letters of
protest to editors but signing a different name to each. Members of
Congress are well aware of Communists starting their pressure campaigns
by an avalanche of mail which follows the party line.
The
party has departed from depending upon the printed word as its medium
of propaganda and has taken to the air. Its members and sympathizers
have not only infiltrated the airways but they are now persistently
seeking radio channels. The American Communists launched a furtive
attack on Hollywood in 1935 by the issuance of a directive calling
for a concentration in Hollywood. The orders called for action on
two fronts: (1) an effort to infiltrate the labor unions; (2) infiltrate
the so-called intellectual and creative fields.
In
movie circles, Communists developed an effective defense a few years
ago in meeting criticism. They would counter with the question, "After
all, what is the matter with communism?" It was effective because
many persons did not possess adequate knowledge of the subject to
give an intelligent answer.
Some
producers and studio heads realized the possibility that the entire
industry faces serious embarrassment because it could become a springboard
for Communist activities. Communist activity in Hollywood is effective
and is furthered by Communists and sympathizers using the prestige
of prominent persons to serve, often unwittingly, the Communist cause.
The party is content and highly pleased if it is possible to have
inserted in a picture a line, a scene,
a sequence conveying the Communist lesson and, more particularly,
if they can keep out anti-Communist lessons.
The
Communist tactic of infiltrating labor unions stems from the earliest
teachings of Marx, which have been reiterated by party spokesmen down
through the years. They resort to all means to gain their point and
often succeed in penetrating and literally taking over labor unions
before the rank and file of members are aware of what has occurred.
I
am convinced that the great masses of union men and women are patriotic
American citizens interested chiefly in security for their families
and themselves. They have no use for the American Communists, but
in those instances where Communists have taken control of unions,
it has been because too many union men and women have been outwitted,
outmaneuvered, and outwaited by Communists.
The numerical strength of the party's enrolled membership its insignificant.
The Daily Worker boasts of 74,000 members on the rolls. But
it is well known that there are many actual members who because of
their position are not carried on party rolls. What is important is
the claim of the Communists themselves that for every party member
there are 10 others ready, willing, and able to do the party's work.
Herein lies the greatest menace of communism. For these are the people
who infiltrate and corrupt various spheres of American life. So rather
than the size of the Communist Party, the way to weigh its true importance
is by testing its influence, its ability to infiltrate.
The size of the party is relatively unimportant because of the enthusiasm
and iron-clad discipline under which they operate. In this connection,
it might be of interest to observe that in 1917 when the Communists
overthrew the Russian Government there was one Communist for every
2,277 persons in Russia. In the United States today there is is one
Communist for every 1,814 persons in the country.
(3) Arthur Murtagh, former
FBI agent, interviewed in 1990.
I certainly do not want to
indicate that Hoover did not have some unusual ability in structuring
an organization designed to perpetuate a sort of dictatorial control
of both the FBI and, so far as he could manage it, the minds of the
American citizens: but so did Adolf Hitler.
(4) Ray Tucker, Collier's
Magazine (19th August, 1933)
Mr. Hoover is short, fat,
businesslike, and walks with a mincing step. He dresses fastidiously,
with Eleanor blue as the favourite colour for the matched shades of
tie, handkerchief and socks. A little pompous, he rides in a limousine
even if only to a nearby self-service cafeteria.
(5)
Peter
Wright, Spycatcher (1987)
Hoover's room was the
last of four interconnecting offices. Belmont knocked, and entered
the room. Hoover stood behind his desk, dressed in a piercing blue
suit. He was taller and slimmer than he appeared in photographs, with
wrinkled flesh which hung off his face in small drapes. He greeted
me with a firm and joyless handshake.
Belmont began to describe
the reason for my visit, but Hoover cut him off sharply.
"I've read the report,
Al. I want to hear Mr. Wright tell me about it."
Hoover fixed me with coal-black
eyes, and I began to outline the discovery of RAFTER. Almost at once,
he interrupted me.
"I gather your Service
is now satisfied about the intelligence provided by our Czech source?"
I began to answer, but
he swept me aside.
"Your security organizations
enjoy many facilities here in Washington, Mr. Wright."
There was more than a
hint of a threat in his voice.
"I have to advise
the President of the United States when those facilities raise questions
about our national security. I have to take a close personal interest
in a case like this, particularly in view of the recent problems the
United Kingdom has suffered in this area. I need to know I am on firm
ground. Do I make myself clear?"
"Of course, sir,
I understand perfectly ..."
Harry Stone busily studied
his shoelaces. Al Belmont and Bill Sullivan sat to one side of Hoover's
desk, half hidden in shadow. I was on my own.
"I think you will
find in my report ..."
"My staff have digested
your report, Mr. Wright. I am interested in the lessons you have learned."
Before I could answer,
Hoover launched into a passionate diatribe about Western inadequacy
in the face of the Communist onslaught. I agreed with many of the
sentiments; it was just the manner of the telling that was objectionable.
Inevitably the subject of Burgess and Maclean came up, Hoover sounding
each syllable of their names with almost prurient venom.
"Now in the Bureau
here, Mr. Wright, that sort of thing could not happen. My officers
are thoroughly screened. There are lessons to be learned. Do I make
myself clear?"
(6) Anthony Summers, The
Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover (1993)
A further allegation came
from Jimmy G. C. Corcoran, who had become Edgar's trusted associate
while working as an FBI Inspector in the twenties.
"After he left the
Bureau," said Shimon, "Jimmy became very powerful politically.
During World War II he was a lobbyist, and he was retained by a business
group to get congressional help for them to open up a factory- for
a $75,000 fee. That was illegal during the war, and we got a tip-off
from the Attorney General's office that the FBI were going to set
Jimmy up when he went to pick up his $75,000 at the Mayflower Hotel.
"Jimmy was really
mad. He went to Harvey's Restaurant and sent word to Hoover that Jimmy
Corcoran wanted him to come out right now or he was going to create
a scene.
"Hoover came out
in the end, and said, 'What's the matter, Jimmy?' and Jimmy called
him a lot of dirty words and said, 'What d'you mean trying to set
me up?' Hoover said, 'Gee, Jimmy, I didn't know it was you.' And Jimmy
said, 'For Chrissake, how many J. G. C. Corcorans do you know? . .
. This is what I get for doing you a favor, you dirty S.O.B. . . .'
And the outcome was that Jimmy went and collected his $75,000. And
he wasn't arrested."
After the incident Corcoran
confided to Joseph Shimon, and to Washington lobbyist Henry Grunewald,
what the "favor" had been. While he was at the Bureau, Corcoran
said, Edgar used him to deal with a "problem." He said Edgar
had been arrested in the late twenties in New Orleans, on sex charges
involving a young man. Corcoran, who
had by then left the FBI and had powerful contacts in Louisiana, said
he had intervened to prevent a prosecution.
Corcoran was to die in
a mysterious plane crash in 1956 near Spanish Cay, a Caribbean island
owned by a close associate of Edgar's, oil millionaire Clint Murchison.
Most of the documents in his FBI file have since been destroyed. While
Corcoran's account may never be proven, it does not stand alone. Joe
Pasternak, the veteran film producer remembered for his relaunch of
Marlene Dietrich in the late thirties, told of another close call.
He knew Edgar, and claimed personal knowledge of a sordid episode
that occurred in California. "He was a homosexual," Pasternak
said. "Every year he used to come down to the Del Mar racetrack
with a different boy. He was caught in a bathroom by a newspaperman.
They made sure he didn't speak. . . . Nobody dared say anything because
he was so powerful."
(7)
Harry
S. Truman,
memo on J. Edgar Hoover (12th May, 1945)
We
want to Gestapo or Secret Police. FBI is tending in that direction.
They are dabbling in sex life scandals and plain blackmail when they
should be catching criminals. They also have a habit of sneering at
local law enforcement officers. This must stop. Cooperation is what
we must have.
(8)
Telephone
conversation between Lyndon
B. Johnson
and J.
Edgar Hoover
(23rd
November, 1963)
J.
Edgar Hoover: I just want to let you know of a development which I
think is very important in connection with this case. This man in
Dallas (Lee Harvey Oswald). We, of course, charged him with the murder
of the President. The evidence that they have at the present time
is not very strong.... We have the gun and we have the bullet. There
was only one and that was found on the stretcher that the President
was on...
Lyndon
B. Johnson: Have you established any more about the visit to the Soviet
Embassy in Mexico in September?
J.
Edgar Hoover: No, that's one angle that is very confusing. We have
up here the tape and this photograph of the man who was at this Soviet
Embassy, using Oswald's name. That picture and the tape do not correspond
to this man's voice, nor to his appearance. In other words, it appears
that there is a second person who was at the Soviet Embassy down there.
(9)
Telephone
conversation between J.
Edgar Hoover
and
White House aide Walter Jenkins (24th November, 1963)
The
thing I am concerned about, and so is Katzenbach (Deputy Attorney
General), is having something issued so we can convince the public
that Oswald is the real assassin.
(10)
Telephone
conversation between Lyndon
B. Johnson
and J.
Edgar Hoover
(29th
November, 1963)
Lyndon
B. Johnson: Are you familiar with this proposed group that they're
trying to put together on this study of your report...
J.
Edgar Hoover: I think it would be very very bad to have a rash of
investigations on this thing.
Lyndon
B. Johnson: Well, the only way we can stop them is probably to appoint
a high-level one to evaluate your report and put somebody that's pretty
good on it... that I can select... and tell the House of Representatives
and the Senate not to go ahead with their investigations...
J. Edgar Hoover:
This fellow Rubenstein (Jack Ruby) is a very shady character, has
a bad record - street brawler, fighter, and that sort of thing - and
in the place in Dallas, if a fellow came in there and couldn't pay
his bill completely, Rubenstein would beat the very devil out of him
and throw him out of the place... He didn't drink, didn't smoke, boasted
about that. He is what I would put in a category of one of these "egomaniacs."
Likes to be in the limelight. He knew all the police in that white-light
district.... and he also let them come in, see the show, get food,
liquor, and so forth. That's how, I think, he got into police headquarters.
Because they accepted him as kind of a police character, hanging around
police headquarters... They never made any moves, as the pictures
show, even when they saw him approaching this fellow and got up right
to him and pressed his pistol against Oswald's stomach. Neither of
the police officers on either side made any move to
push him away or grab him. It wasn't until after the gun was fired
that they then moved... The Chief of Police admits that he moved him
in the morning as a convenience and at the request of motion-picture
people, who wanted to have daylight. He should have moved him at night...
But so far as tying Rubenstein and Oswald together we haven't as yet
done. So there have been a number of stories come in, we've tied Oswald
into the Civil Liberties Union in New York, membership into that and,
of course, this Cuban Fair Play Committee, which is pro-Castro, and
dominated by Communism and financed, to some extent, by the Castro
government.
Lyndon Johnson:
How many shots were fired? Three?
J. Edgar Hoover:
Three.
Lyndon Johnson:
Any of them fired at me?
J. Edgar Hoover:
No.
Lyndon Johnson:
All three at the President?
J. Edgar Hoover:
All three at the President and we have them. Two of the shots fired
at the President were splintered but they had characteristics on them
so that our ballistics expert was able to prove that they were fired
by this gun... The President - he was hit by the first and third.
The second shot hit the Governor. The third shot is a complete bullet
and that rolled out of the President's head. It tore a large part
of the President's head off and, in trying to massage his heart at
the
hospital on the way to the hospital, they apparently loosened that
and it fell off onto the stretcher. And we recovered that... And we
have the gun here also.
Lyndon Johnson:
Were they aiming at the President?
J. Edgar Hoover:
They were aiming directly at the President. There is no question about
that. This telescopic lens, which I've looked through - it brings
a person as close to you as if they were sitting right beside you.
(11)
The
Schweiker-Hart Congressional Report
(1976)
On December 3, 1963, the
UPI wire carried a story ... under the following lead: "An exhaustive
FBI report now nearly ready for the White House will indicate that
Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone and unaided assassin of President Kennedy,
Government sources said today." When he was informed of these
news articles. Director Hoover wrote, "I thought no one knew
this outside the FBI." According to (Assistant FBI Director)
William Sullivan, Hoover himself ordered the report "leaked"
to the press, in an attempt to "blunt the drive for an independent
investigation of the assassination."
(12)
Letter published
in the New York Times (1970)
If there had been a Mr. Hoover in the first half of the first century,
A.D., can you imagine what he would have put into his files about
a certain trouble-maker from Nazareth, his moral attitudes and the
people he consorted with.
(13) Dr. Benjamin Spock on
hearing of Edgar Hoover's death on 2nd May, 1972.
It was a relief to have this man silenced who had no understanding
of the underlying philosophy of our government or of our Bill of Rights,
a man who had such enormous power, and used it to harass individuals
with whom he disagreed politically and who had done so much as anyone
to intimidate millions of Americans out of their right to hear and
judge for themselves all political opinions.
(14)
Attorney General Laurence Silberman, after discovering Edgar Hoover's
secret files in 1974.
J.
Edgar Hoover was like a sewer that collected dirt. I now believe he
was the worst public servant in our history.
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