John Edgar Hoover
John Edgar HooverEdgar (1895-1972). US lawyer and administrator, who directed the FBI from 1924 until his death. After taking his master’s degree in law (1917), Hoover entered the Department of Justice as an attorney. He became assistant director of the FBI in 1921 and director three years later. In the 1920s and 1930s Hoover fought organized crime by establishing fingerprint files and crime detection laboratories; he also implemented major administrative reforms. Later, the emphasis shifted to the detection of Nazi and then communist spy rings. Although widely regarded as a national hero in his lifetime, Hoover has since been accused of using his immense personal power for political ends. In particular, he is accused of using illegal methods to subvert the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
“As an administrator, he was an erratic unchallengeable czar, banishing agents…on whimsy, terrorizing them with torrents of implausible rules, insisting on conformity of thought as well as dress…A. shrewd bureaucratic genius who cared less about crime than about perpetuating his crime-busting image. Time 22 December 1975”
