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Title: Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover by Anthony Summers ISBN: 0-399-13800-5 Publisher: Putnam Pub Group Pub. Date: March, 1993 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.1 (10 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A Stellar Research Effort
Comment: Britisher Anthony Summers is a crack researcher who was seasoned in the finest documentary atmosphere available, that of the legendary BBC. This book is every bit as fascinating as Summers's work on Richard Nixon. While the Nixon book was entitled "The Arrogance of Power," this work on the life and times of controversial FBI director J. Edgar Hoover could well be titled "The Abuse of Power."
Summers reveals how Hoover was a man in between who was trapped by the same method he used to compromise and place in fear presidents and members of Congress. A tenacious investigator, he turned his agent-bloodhounds loose on men in power, gaining enough information to compromise them. The moment an influential House or Senate member would complain about FBI abuse, he would receive a call from Hoover informing of information he held. At the same time, Hoover was in turn compromised by what the Mafia held on him. Hoover, an outwardly homophobic director who stated bluntly that he did not anyone of that persuasion working in his Bureau, had a homosexual life he attempted to keep secret. Frank Costello and other Mafia chieftains let him know that if he threatened their domain they had important information they would use against him.
Another fascinating element of Summers's book is his detailed revelations about Hoover's influence with U.S. presidents. He was said to have influenced John F. Kennedy's choice of Lyndon Johnson for his running mate in 1960 because Hoover held potentially damaging evidence on Kennedy's womanizing, which would have destroyed efforts to paint the Massachusetts senator as a loyal family man in the hard-fought 1960 campaign against Richard Nixon. Nixon was a politician who also had reason to fear Hoover. He was never willing to replace him for that reason, despite an expressed preference to do so.
This is a book that takes the readers to the highest portals of power and uncovers many secrets. Hoover had a profound influence on American politics from the thirties until his death in 1972.
Rating: 5
Summary: Devastating.
Comment: The chief of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, who normally should have been the moral conscience of the country, was a paedophile and a drag queen. Into the bargain, he was neutralized by the Mafia. He fiercely opposed Kennedy's anti-racial laws, although he himself had black blood in his veins.
He blackmailed all members of Congress and all the presidents he could, by letting them know that he possessed compromising documents about them. It must be said that some people were easy targets.
Anthony Summers did a formidable job. His book is based on a wealth of references.
It is a must read, because it describes a perfect example of how one single person through his organization could exercise nearly unlimited power in a democratic country.
Rating: 4
Summary: Why we should be scared by the Patriot Act
Comment: This book is important to read in the post-9/11 era. At a time when every cable-news pundit is crying out for Congress to take the shackles off the FBI, it is good to remember why Congress slapped those shackles on in the first place.
The author makes a pretty strong case that J. Edgar Hoover was a thoroughly corrupt, racist, mentally unbalanced megolomaniac who egregiously abused his powers for financial and political gain. I'm skeptical of some of the author's wilder allegations -- for example, a suggestion that Richard Nixon may have had Hoover killed by poisoning his toothpaste. However, many of the abuses of Hoover's FBI were well-documented in Congressional investigations in the 1970's: the secret files; the unfettered use of wiretaps, bugs, infiltration, warrantless searches and seizures (i.e., burglaries), and other methods of surveillance, all done without any judicial oversight and often without any legitimate law enforcement purpose; harassing Vietnam War protestors, people in the Civil Rights movement, suspected "Communists," and other political "enemies."
One of the book's main points is that Hoover kept himself in power for so many years -- despite evident corruption and manifest incompetence -- by blackmailing successive presidents with the dirt he had gathered on their private lives. Although largely speculative, the possibility does seem to be frighteningly plausible. Other allegations that appear to be supported by fairly good circumstantial evidence include Hoover's ties to the Mafia and his sexual hypocrisy.
I'm giving the book only 4 stars because the author's breathless, tabloid style makes it difficult to really sort out established facts from mere rumor, innuendo and hearsay. Still, it is a very entertaining and thought-provoking read.
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Title: J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets by Curt Gentry ISBN: 0393321282 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: February, 2001 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon by Anthony Summers, Robbyn Swan ISBN: 0140260781 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 31 July, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Conspiracy by Anthony Summers ISBN: 0070623929 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Pub. Date: June, 1980 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: J. Edgar Hoover, Sex, and Crime: An Historical Antidote by Athan G. Theoharis ISBN: 1566630711 Publisher: Ivan R Dee, Inc. Pub. Date: March, 1995 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: From the Secret Files of J. Edgar Hoover by Athan Theoharis ISBN: 0929587677 Publisher: Ivan R Dee, Inc. Pub. Date: 01 January, 1990 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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