About book Official And Confidential: The Secret Life Of J. Edgar Hoover (1994)
We are fed so much by media as intrigue, both as fictional television serials and as breaking news reports that we fail to recognize how much is really just gossip. The fascinating thing about reading this expose of J Edgar Hoover so many years after its first publication, is that these processes of manipulation and mayhem still go in so many peoples’ lives.Much of the territory of storytelling about other people rests in the interpretations so many others give to what they hear. It is not so much about truth as it is about the possibility that something may be said. Once something is said about someone else, the potential for it to damage is cast in the minds of those who do not yet know a person. Doubt gets in the way of all subsequent versions of a person’s presence. Stereotypes work more effectively than individual stories. Repetitions are more effective than reputations.For all that we know of such processes, we still seem to fall victim to the methods by which they are cast before us as decoys and defence mechanisms by those who have most to gain from confusion and deceit. These are the methods of power. In a democracy they are the responsibility of every citizen to become aware of.Yet we continue to allow ourselves to be duped. We continue to pay for the very agencies and perpetrators of the very methods that keep us in the dark about our own potential for power, and corruption.What a difference it would make if we were able to learn of such methods without becoming enthralled by them. Imagine learning in school that this is what politics is really about – rather than dates and names of leaders of one party or another, one government or movement or cause. Imagine realising that the responsibility lies within each and every one of us to understand our own potential to fear difference, then face and overcome it. At the very heart of the story of J Edgar Hoover seems to lie this very process – fear of his own potential ostracism for his own personal preferences and behaviours. His means of facing such fear was to divert it onto others who had the very same preferences and behaviours. That he got away with it so successfully and so long, seems to rest in his ability to live with the duality of an inward life and an outward image. That such a way of living is so acceptable to so many people underlines the duplicity we share with those such as Hoover who we both admire and condemn.Our only differences are the degree to which we practice such behaviours, and the resources we put into such deceptions on a regular basis. As well as Official and Confidential files, J Edgar Hoover kept Personal and Confidential files. We may surprise ourselves with our own versions of such things now that we maintain social media sites on a regular basis. Whereas we once kept private diaries and scrap books, we now share our stories of our hopes and dreams more publicly. What we may not remember about ourselves someone else may well remind us of at some future point with varying degrees of embarrassment and false self-disclosure. But others’ interpretations of such information is already linked with attitudes based in voting off unwanted house guests in other forms of Big Brother intrusionism that we are expecting ourselves to be part of producing now.Are we any better for playing such “games” than when such behaviour was considered national security? Or are we merely breeding further deceit and conceit? Perhaps our understanding of the suicide rate, and our understanding of the ease with which it can be reported for the purposes of others, will only shift significantly if we take the time to read a book such as this with all the names changed. When we see the patterns outside of time and place, we might better see the human condition and our place within it.Perhaps we should also consider whether it is paranoia to pick up on the fears of others as threats to ourselves, even if we cannot specify the details through which either of us is likely to act out such fear. But it takes a mature person to be able to make such progress with their own primitive reflexes as well as their higher capacities. Few of us seem yet developed to such a degree. This may not be the book to help develop such awareness either.I can only suggest you journal your reactions for yourself as you read, to give yourself some chance for such self-assessment. Good luck.I read this book while spending a week with an elderly friend in denial of her own Alzhemier’s Disease. A Guardian has been appointed to transition her into care, but in her own mind the motive persists that others are out to get her “out of her home” rather than “into a home” of safety and comfort. It has been a revealing time about my own complicity with such agents of deception on both sides of the situation. It has also opened my perceptions about who is a friend and who an enemy with so many situations I have faced throughout my life where I have not been able to clearly see what steps would produce which outcomes, whether desired or not.The question of trust is forever present in a shifting mindscape, and our own internal change is the hardest wave of all to ride.
Another great read from investigative journalist Anthony Summers. Having recently enjoyed his 'The 11th Day' dig into the forces behind the 9/11 attack, I didn't hesitate to pick this one off the shelf. 'Official and Confidential:The Secret Life of J.Edgar Hoover', originally released in 1993, has been published in this second edition in 2011.For those readers old enough to have lived during the times of Hoover's tenure as Director of the F.B.I., or who can remember the t.v. series with Efrem Zimbalist Jr, then be prepared to have many rose tinted conceptions shattered.The sleeve quotes a review by Hilary Mantel of the Spectator with adequate summation, "Summers' book is not just a history of a single hero-sized hypocrite, it is a history of a vast national delusion."The authors rapid fire revelations, covering over five hundred pages, through the offices of more than half a dozen presidents, shows 'the land of the free' to be a gestapo controlled dictatorship. The pursuit of an 'American dream' to be a nightmare. The nation that still proclaims itself to be the democratic leader of the free world remains entangled in corruption, dark secrets and political lies. The myth that was Hoover is comprehensively demolished by a mountain of factual data. A vile freak that psychologists and psychiatrists diagnose as a combination of narcissism and paranoia which produces what is known as an Authoritarian Personality. Hoover would have made a perfect high-level Nazi.The truth of these times may yet be 'out there'. Evidence to satisfy the jurist has been long since shredded. Yet, epic events of American twentieth century history remain cloaked in darkness and deception. The huge 'Official & Confidential' files of J.Edgar Hoover no doubt contained such damaging evidence of political crime, organised crime and F.B.I. crime that we are still denied the truth today.
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In reading this, I was reminded of the Warren Commission Report. Of course, this takes the approach of J. Edgar helping cover up a Trafficante-Marcello mob hit on JFK with possible CIA/ex-CIA collusion. The book also fuels Hoover-backed conspiracies into the deaths of Robert Kennedy, MLK, and more. Even if it was Wallace in the sniper nest and was all LBJ, Hoover preferred LBJ to any Kennedy and the whole truth may never be widely and convincingly known due to Hoover's sabotage of the Warren Commission...It is amazing how successfully for how long Hoover forcefully and maliciously ran the FBI as the Gestapo to his Himmler. His ability to hold damaging secrets over public officials (from Presidents down) and private citizens while he himself had so much to hide is pretty amazing. While Hoover’s closet homosexual and transvestite activities is interesting, any more that being the big secret of an ultra-conservative overtly declaiming any sexual expression has happened so often, it is almost (just almost) yawn-inducing. What is really interesting to me is the Mafia connection and how Hoover also crippled the FBI during WW II. Hoover’s inaction probably gave us Pearl Harbor and La Cosa Nostra. Probably most shocking, and also the least backed up, is the theory that J. Edgar Hoover himself was the target of a Watergate-era burglary attempt and perhaps even a murder plot with introduced chemicals, like the never tried plots against Castro, etc.
—Tom Schulte
"J. Edgar Hoover was like a sewer that collected dirt. I now believe he was the worst public servant in our history." - Former Acting Attorney General Laurence Silberman, the first person to peruse Hoover's secret files after his death.After seeing the movie "J. Edgar" I decided I wanted to know more about Hoover. This book had been sitting on my book shelf since 1993 and I thought it was time I finally read it.Hoover was a force to be reckoned with, a man who shaped history during his almost 50-year tenure at the FBI. The author does an amazing job detailing the life of this powerful man. From Hoover's earliest years, Summers weaves a tale of hypocrisy, increasing paranoia and megalomania. It is a look into the world of dirty politics and flawed leaders. As I read the book, I felt that the author had portrayed facts as fairly as he could considering the circumstances. I found myself lost in the world of the Hoover and that is thanks to the author's writing style. It flowed and kept my interest throughout.
—Jeanne
J. Edgar Hoover was a CROOK! The more I read this book the more disgusted I became with Hoover. By the end you can't believe that he got away with all that he did. His abuse of power is enough to turn your stomach. Hoover was director of the FBI for 50 years, a span that went through every major event you can imagine from the end of WWI to the threshold of Watergate and he had his dirty hand in just about all of it. Presidents were scared of him, he terrorized the Kennedy's and MLK, refused to admit the existence of the mafia, publically accused people of being gay when they themselves were not but he in fact was and all that is just scratching the surface of his menance, his thoroughly obscene abuse of office. This was a compelling read for anyone who is curious about the underbelly of the Federal government.
—Adam
