Departments

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J. Edgar Hoover

  • SOURCE: The New Republic
    12/9/2022

    Michael Kazin on J. Edgar Hoover, and Beverly Gage's Acclaimed Biography

    by Michael Kazin

    The signal contribution of Gage's book is not to examine Hoover's ideology or the details of his personal life, but to show how the FBI director built power and broad support, among even liberal Americans, for intrusive surveillance and repression of activists. 

  • SOURCE: The New Yorker
    11/14/2022

    Beverly Gage on J. Edgar Hoover—Enemy of Democracy

    Beverly Gage's book explains the FBI director's longevity not to dark arts of blackmail and secret-keeping, but to a more straightforward and disturbing explanation: many Americans shared Hoover's reactionary views and liked how he cracked down on dissenters. 

  • SOURCE: Washington Post
    11/9/2022

    Ernie Lazar, Who Amassed Archive of FBI Documents, Dies at 77

    "Through sheer perseverance and patience, Mr. Lazar became a kind of Zen master of the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, a provision enacted in 1967 that allowed the public a centralized way to request unclassified government material."

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    8/18/2022

    Trump is Attacking the Most Conservative Agency of the Government

    by Garrett M. Graff

    The embedded conservatism of the FBI is so severe that Democratic presidents have never felt politically entitled to name a fellow Democrat to lead the Bureau. Trump's attacks on the FBI as part of a liberal "deep state" are ludicrous.

  • SOURCE: Slate
    6-7-13

    Beverly Gage: Somewhere, J. Edgar Hoover Is Smiling

    Beverly Gage, a Yale history professor, is the author of The Day Wall Street Exploded....There can be no question that COINTELPRO was more intrusive—if also more targeted—than today’s apparent efforts at mass technological surveillance by the National Security Agency. But there is at least one important distinction that makes today’s scandal far more disturbing. When the FBI launched COINTELPRO, it was acting alone, outside of the boundaries of established law. Today, what the NSA is doing appears to be legal—and nearly every branch of the government is complicit. Unlike Hoover’s activities, the NSA’s programs come to us with the seal of congressional and judicial approval. It didn’t take J. Edgar Hoover to engineer this scandal. We did it to ourselves....

  • SOURCE: NYT
    3-16-13

    Cartha D. DeLoach, No. 3 in the F.B.I., Is Dead at 92

    Cartha D. DeLoach, who as a top aide and confidant to J. Edgar Hoover was the F.B.I.’s liaison to the White House and a powerful intermediary between Hoover and President Lyndon B. Johnson during an especially tense political era, died on Wednesday on Hilton Head Island, S.C. He was 92.The death was confirmed by his son Tom.Mr. DeLoach, who was known as Deke, spent more than 25 years in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, rising to deputy associate director, the No. 3 position, behind only Mr. Hoover and the associate director, Clyde Tolson.