J. Edgar Hoover is a name that needs no introduction, since he served as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI, for its acronym in English) for 48 years for a total of 8 presidents of the United States.
your life turns out fascinating y dark because perhaps, and without wishing to exaggerate, is the individual who carries the most weight in the history of the construction of the culture of order and legality in the US, at least in modern history.
was a man shy, methodical, authoritarian, homosexual and responsible for setting up one of the most complex police investigation structures in the world.
He first served as head of the Bureau of Investigation and later as the first director of the FBI.
J.Edgar Hoover. Source: NPR
Hoover devised step by step and with a forensic method, the techniques and legal skills necessary to face the wave of violence and illegality that plagued the United States in the 1920s and 1930s.
That was a time when the tools that the authorities had to do justice were infinitely more precarious than the current ones, so J. Edgar Hoover set out to change that at any cost.
It provided the state with investigative methods and powers that allowed it to confront and prosecute criminals. With obsession and determination, he launched the first central registry of fingerprints and professionalized field and laboratory work in police investigation tasks.
But like any important key in history, this one had another face, that of an insecure, authoritarian man dependent on the advice and approval of his mother until the day she died (he was 43 years old).
Along with formal institutions, Hoover set up a secret information network that he used to spy on political enemies and rise to the top of the FBI for nearly four decades., which sounds simple but it was a real feat because nobody retains power for that long.
He spied on first ladies, one of them was Eleanor Roosevelt; to attorneys general (Bobby Kennedy) and even to Presidents: Richard Nixon, which no one else would have dared to do.
If you are interested in knowing more about this controversial, but really character, we recommend that you watch the following two films, each of which reveals various aspects of his personality:
J. Edgar (2011)
Film directed by Clint Eastwood that tells the story of the founder and first director general of the FBI, when he was only 29 years old.
From the beginning, Hoover was obsessed with hunting down gangsters, criminals, anarchists or sympathizers of communism who could pose a danger to the United States.
This story shows how he possessed numerous secrets and confidential papers from important personalities and presidents of the country, which made him one of the most feared and respected men of his time.
The FBI Story (1959)
The story directed by Mervyn LeRoy presents Jim Hardesty, a young lawyer who works for the FBI, in a department that does not have a great future.
For this reason, his girlfriend Luzy asks him to leave that position and he promises that he will resign as soon as the new director, John Edgar Hoover, takes office. But when he asks Jim to collaborate with him, he has no reason to leave his job.