John Edgar Hoover

J. EDGAR HOOVER is dead, and his death is cause for neither sadness nor rejoicing. At 77, after 48 years in his post as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, he seemed indestructible, a fixture of the American psyche which could never die. We saw him as a piece of our history; and he was.

But the history he embodied was a thoroughly disreputable part of the American past. It is the history of the "Red Raids," of the Sacco-Vanzetti trial, of the internment of thousands of Japanese-Americans, of the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, of the Hollywood Ten, of the blacklist, of "twenty years of treason."

For Hoover was a vital part of anti-communist hysteria from the beginning. For nearly half a century he warned Congress and the public about communists hiding under their beds. They shuddered, and he combined their fear with adroit use of influence and blackmail and built his FBI into an empire, an uncontrollable superagency which is already far down the road to being a national political police force.

It is time to face facts: Hoover's vaunted success in combatting crime was largely phony. The reputation of his Bureau is built on juggled statistics and skillful public relations. For only in the area of winning public favor did this extraordinary bureaucrat show any talent or originality. For nearly forty years, he bombarded the voters with FBI books, movies, radio shows, comic strips, and television series--all produced by independent companies but carefully censored by the Bureau. The propaganda took; most Americans accepted Hoover as a crusading savior. Few looked beyond to see him as he was: a clever, reactionary bureaucrat.

But though he is dead, the Bureau remains with us, stronger than ever and made in his image. Its agent force is more than 9000, and it is about to move into palatial new headquarters in Washington. The agency will remain strong and active, and the new director appointed by the present Administration--whoever he may be--will surely be more than willing to continue and expand Hoover's game of political spying and intimidation.

Hoover shaped our history as few individuals have, and his Bureau will continue that shaping. As long as the government seeks to suppress dissent and destroy movements for social change, J. Edgar Hoover's spirit will be with us.