How J Edgar Hoover secretly ruled America

The long-serving director of the FBI sat at the centre of a web of surveillance and information gathering for nearly five decades. But how did he come to wield so much power? And why were his agents so feared?

- JONNY WILKES

The Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, Prohibition, World War II, the Cold War, sixties counterculture, Kennedy's assassination, the civil rights movement, Vietnam - as the United States of the 20th century moved from monumental event to monumental event, one man was there; an ever-present man wielding immense power and a master of secrets. He was at the centre and at the fringes, both a household name and an enigma in the shadows.

 

John Edgar Hoover served as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for almost 48 years and under eight presidents; an illustrious, if controversial, career that began in 1924. Only 29 years old when appointed, his mission was to transform a weak and small Bureau of Investigation (it became the FBI in 1935) in disarray into an expert crime-solving outfit. It was an inspired appointment.

A SHORT RISE TO INFAMY