J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets (22 page)

According to a possibly apocryphal tale, which nevertheless was widely circulated among various police departments, Hoover, in visiting the crime site and spying a pigeon in the eaves, had excitedly declared that perhaps it was a homing pigeon with a message from the kidnapper. None of the amused cops, or so the story went, saw fit to ask the director when and how and by whom the bird had been taught to alight on the Lindbergh roof.

Hoover instructed his agents to investigate every lead, no matter how improbable. As a result, they spent hundreds of hours trying to track down the tips of cranks, psychics, and anonymous callers with obscure grudges. Leon Turrou, a member of the Lindbergh squad, was present when BI agents “found” the child, in the home of an Italian couple. Before alerting Hoover, who was waiting to inform the press, Turrou thought to lift the baby’s underclothing, to discover that he was holding a girl. According to Turrou, “The Lindbergh squad took special pains to keep these blunderings out of the reach of reporters and their carnivorous epithets. The [Bureau] was struggling for recognition and respect, and it couldn’t afford the public’s horselaughs.”
¹²

On the morning of April 2, the Lindbergh squad learned that the ransom was to be paid that night. Although it would have been easy to stake out the site—St. Raymond’s Cemetery in the Bronx—Hoover instructed the agents that under no circumstances should they intervene until after the child was safely recovered. When told this, Turrou later recalled, he felt “like a straightjacketed starving man tantalized by a sumptuous feast.”
¹³

At exactly midnight, Dr. John F. Condon, a querulous, publicity-hungry retired schoolteacher who had volunteered his services as go-between, handed the $50,000 ransom package to a tall man with a German accent. Although Condon saw the man, Colonel Lindbergh, who was standing nearby, only heard his voice. In exchange for the money, Condon was given a piece of paper
bearing the name and location of a ship where the child was supposedly being held.

There was no such ship, and on May 12 the body of the boy, who had apparently died the night of the kidnapping, was found in a shallow grave less than five miles from the Lindbergh home.

From the start of the case, Hoover had—through the attorney general, Richey, and others—tried to persuade the president to order the Bureau to take charge of the investigation. Not until the day after the baby’s body was found did Herbert Hoover finally act, and then he went far beyond the BI director’s request. He directed that
all
federal law enforcement agencies assist in apprehending the criminal(s) responsible for the kidnap-murder. These included—in addition to the Justice Department’s Bureau of Investigation—the Secret Service division of the U.S. Treasury, the espionage and police arms of the Coast Guard, the Bureau of Narcotics, the intelligence unit of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the Bureau of Prohibition, the Postal Inspection Service, and the Bureau of Customs.

Not only did each for the most part go its own way; the New Jersey police refused to share their findings and leads with any of them.

Hoover continued to lobby for the case. The attorney general wrote the governor of New Jersey suggesting “a coordinator of tested ability was available in the person of J. Edgar Hoover.”
¹⁴
The governor ignored the suggestion.

Frustrated in his attempt to achieve command, Hoover did the next-best thing. In his press releases the BI chief
assumed
the mantle of responsibility, and after a time at least the public believed the Bureau of Investigation was in charge of the federal aspects of the case.

On June 22 Congress passed what became known as the Lindbergh Law, which made kidnapping a federal offense, and gave the Bureau of Investigation jurisdiction—but only if the kidnap victim was transported across a state line. Two years later, in May and June of 1934, the law was amended to add the death penalty and to create the
presumption
of interstate transportation if the victim had not been returned after seven days.

Important as these laws would be to the future of the Bureau, they did not apply to the Lindbergh kidnapping itself, and by the time the amendments were passed, Hoover was probably sorry he’d ever brought the Bureau into the case. Not only had there been no arrests; Hoover’s publicity gambit had worked too well. By now even the press was criticizing the BI chief for having failed to “solve” the Lindbergh case. Not until two years, six months, and fourteen days after the kidnapping was an arrest made.

The Bureau had caught Gaston Means, however. Three days after the Lindbergh kidnapping, Means had convinced Evalyn Walsh McLean, the wealthy estranged wife of the publisher of the
Washington Post,
that he was in contact with a gang of underworld criminals who had abducted the child and that, for $100,000, he could arrange his safe release. The well-meaning, but extremely gullible, socialite gave Means the money. Plus $4,000 “for expenses” a few
days later. Only then did her attorney, learning of the payments, contact J. Edgar Hoover.

Charles Appel was hidden on the porch of Mrs. McLean’s home, his ear to a primitive listening device he’d fashioned, when one of Means’s associates tried to con her out of still another $35,000. Unbelieving, Appel heard Mrs. McLean ask the man if he would like to see the Hope diamond, which she owned and carried around in her purse. Means was arrested on May 5, 1932, and charged with “larceny after trust,” that is, embezzlement.

Hoover made time to sit in on the trial of the former Justice Department agent, listening as Means told one fanciful story after another (he even—possibly for the benefit of Hoover—blamed the kidnapping on the Communists). On leaving the stand, Means sat down next to the BI director and asked, “Well, Hoover, what do you think of that?”

“Gaston, every bit of it was a pack of lies,” Hoover responded.

“Well,” Means smiled, “you’ve got to admit that it made a whale of a good story!”
¹⁵

Even after being convicted and sentenced to fifteen years in prison, Means did not give up. Whenever a notable crime occurred, he’d contact Hoover and offer to solve it. In return for his release, of course. When Hoover ungraciously disdained his expertise, Means tried a new tack. Hoover had once told the press that even though Means had been convicted, he would not consider the case closed until the still-missing $100,000 had been recovered. Feigning remorse, Means notified Hoover that he was finally ready to pinpoint the location. Hoover suspected Means was lying. Still, he was most anxious to close the case and add that $100,000 to his recovery statistics. Only after agents in diving suits spent days sifting through the silt and refuse on the bottom of the Potomac did Hoover admit he’d been conned. This time he personally visited Means in his prison cell, demanding the convict tell him where the money was. “And dammit, Gaston,” the director told him, “you stop lying about it.”

According to Hoover (as he later recounted the story to the writer James Phelan) at this point Means clutched his heart, looked at him piteously, and replied, “This is the last straw, Edgar. You’ve lost
faith
in me!”
¹⁶

Gaston Means had pulled his last scam. He died in prison a few years later—nine years short of serving his fifteen-year sentence—with the knowledge that he had, in the end, managed to con even J. Edgar Hoover. The $100,000 was never recovered.

The “honeymoon” of the new president did not survive the stock market crash of October 1929. As America plunged into the Depression, criticism of Herbert Hoover mounted. In one of his many roles, Lawrence Richey kept a “black list” of the president’s enemies. More than a few so listed were kept under surveillance, among them William J. Donovan, whose activities were “duly reported to the President.”
¹⁷

Whether Richey borrowed BI agents to conduct such surveillance is not known. It is probable that he did not. A former Secret Service operative, with
his own very extensive intelligence connections, Richey probably found assistance elsewhere.

In June 1930 Richey arranged to have the Democratic party headquarters in New York City burglarized. According to the Rutgers history professor Jeffrey M. Dorwart, who revealed the break-in for the first time in his 1983 book
Conflict of Duty: The U.S. Navy’s Intelligence Dilemma,
“His presidency paralyzed by the worst economic depression in American history and reeling from vicious political attacks, Herbert Hoover had become overly excitable and sensitive to any opposition or criticism. Thus, when he received a confidential report alleging that the Democrats had accumulated a file of data so damaging that if made public it would destroy both his reputation and his entire administration, Hoover determined to gain access to the material.”
¹⁸

To conduct the break-in, Richey selected Glenn Howell, a Washingtonbased naval intelligence officer (whose secret logbooks provided part of the documentation for Dorwart’s account). As in the Watergate burglary forty-two years later, when Howell and his civilian assistant, Robert J. Peterkin, broke into the Democratic headquarters, they were unable to find any such file.

That the president’s secretary did not use the BI director and his agents to conduct the burglary could mean that Richey felt that Hoover would have found even the suggestion of such an act morally repugnant. However, it could also mean that Richey, having known Hoover for many years, and having shared many a secret with him, did not wish to have this potentially explosive information in the Bureau’s files.

In either case, it was a wise decision. In less than four years, J. Edgar Hoover was investigating his “good friend” Lawrence Richey.

As far as J. Edgar Hoover was concerned, the only bright spot in the Democratic landslide of November 8, 1932, was the crushing defeat of William J. Donovan, the Republican candidate for governor of New York. With the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt as president the BI chief lost his entrée to the White House. Worse, suddenly his job was in jeopardy.

Within days after the election it was rumored that the president-elect intended to name Senator Thomas Walsh of Montana attorney general. This was followed by an even more disturbing rumor. Walsh had apparently confided to friends that his first act on taking office would be to fire J. Edgar Hoover.

The first rumor became fact on February 28, 1933, with Roosevelt’s announcement of Walsh’s appointment. The second gained considerable substance that same day when Walsh, located by the
New York Times
in Daytona Beach, Florida, confirmed that he had accepted the appointment and stated that “he would reorganize the Department of Justice when he assumed office, probably with an almost completely new personnel.”
¹⁹

WALSH FOUND DEAD
BY BRIDE OF 5 DAYS
ON WAY TO CAPITAL

Senator Chosen for
Attorney General Is
Victim of Heart
Attack on Train

Roosevelt and Hoover Shocked—
Congress Adjourns
Amidst Inaugural
Preparations

—
New York Times,
March 3, 1933

T
he previous weekend—to the surprise of even his longtime friend and senatorial colleague Burt Wheeler—Tom Walsh, a confirmed bachelor since the death of his first wife in 1917, had remarried, taking as his bride a member of one of Cuba’s most prominent families. After the wedding, which took place in Havana, the pair had flown to Florida. Feeling ill, Walsh had consulted a doctor in Daytona Beach, who treated him for indigestion. The pair had then boarded the train for Washington and the inauguration. Shortly after 7:00
A.M.
on March 3, as the train was nearing Rocky Mount, North Carolina, Mrs. Walsh had awakened to find the senator lying face down on the floor next to his berth. By the time a doctor could be found, Walsh was
dead. The certificate, prepared by a physician in Rocky Mount, listed the cause of death as “unknown, possibly coronary thrombosis.”
¹

Although an aura of mystery would always surround Walsh’s death—one author even suggesting that Hoover was somehow implicated in Walsh’s demise, citing as evidence the mysterious presence of a BI agent on the train—apparently the seventy-two-year-old attorney-general-designate had died following a too strenuous honeymoon with a much younger bride.
^*

According to Bureau-authorized accounts, as the president and the presidentelect were riding down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol for the swearingin, Hoover urged Roosevelt to retain J. Edgar Hoover as his BI chief, and FDR, though noncommittal, “promised to give thought to Hoover’s advice.”
²

However, according to most historians, the pair barely spoke during the entire ride. They rode “in uncomfortable silence,” Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., noted, Roosevelt’s one attempt at a friendly remark producing “only an unintelligible murmur in reply.”
³

That Herbert Hoover, who took his defeat badly, would choose as a topic of conversation the retention of one of his many bureau chiefs—one who didn’t even rate a place on the reviewing stand—was as unlikely as that Roosevelt, having been snubbed the previous day by the president during his official courtesy call at the White House, would be inclined to seriously consider Herbert Hoover’s advice.

“Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

J. Edgar Hoover, together with several of his aides, listened to a radio broadcast of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s inaugural address from Bureau headquarters at Vermont and K. Although already in the planning, the new Department of Justice Building, to be constructed on the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Ninth Street, was still two years from completion. There was, however, no assurance that J. Edgar Hoover would be one of its occupants, Walsh’s death having provided, at best, a temporary reprieve.

Even before Walsh’s funeral, Roosevelt chose as his new attorney general Homer S. Cummings, a very able Connecticut lawyer who was as experienced in politics as in the law.

Using his by now tried-and-true methods, Hoover quickly made himself indispensable. Most attorneys general had trouble finding their way through the maze of Washington’s federal bureaucracy. J. Edgar Hoover knew the shortcuts. And all, even though they might know Washington, were struck with the immensity of their responsibilities. Hoover’s barrage of informative memos, indicating that he was on top of each and every case, assured them that
with all their other concerns they needn’t worry about the Bureau of Investigation.

It didn’t take Homer Cummings long to discover how well established the BI director was. Deciding to work one Sunday, he arrived at the Department of Justice without his credentials, only to be told by a guard, “I couldn’t let you in without a pass even if you were J. Edgar Hoover.”
⁴

What impressed Cummings even more was the discovery that Hoover was, like himself, a man of principles. Even though his job was at stake, Hoover did not hesitate to oppose him,
and
the president, on issues which affected the Bureau. Three years earlier, the corrupt, scandal-ridden Prohibition Bureau had been transferred from the Treasury Department to the Department of Justice. Three months after taking office, President Roosevelt signed an executive order consolidating the Prohibition Bureau and the Bureau of Investigation, the merged units to be known as the Division of Investigation. For nine years, Hoover had worked hard to rebuild the Bureau of Investigation—and its reputation. With a single stroke of the pen it all seemed for naught. Both in person and by memo, Hoover forcefully argued his case with Cummings. Together they worked out what seemed to be a compromise but was, in reality, a victory for Hoover: the two bureaus would be placed under a single division, but their investigative work, offices, personnel, and files would be kept entirely separate.

In another, far more important battle—for the “noble experiment” had by now proven an ignoble failure, and the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment and the dismantling of the Prohibition Bureau were only months away—the president signed still another executive order, extending civil service to most of the departments of the federal government. Hoover, supported by Cummings, fought to keep the Bureau of Investigation exempt. Promotions should be based on ability, Hoover argued, not seniority. Also, he stated quite bluntly that he would resign before being forced to accept Communists and other undesirables. Although the battle raged over many years, hearings, and court decisions, Hoover eventually succeeded in keeping the Bureau civil service exempt.

This meant that he could hire or fire, promote or demote, anyone he chose, without having to justify his actions or have them subject to review. Few others, no matter how high in government, had such unlimited power. J. Edgar Hoover would retain
and use
it until the day he died.

By statute, the attorney general, not the president, decided who the director of the Bureau of Investigation would be. But Hoover knew where the power lay.

Not simply content with trying to win over his new boss, Hoover enlisted even his agents in the field. Calling in the SACs, he instructed them to bring whatever influence they had to bear on prominent people in their jurisdictions—bankers, police chiefs, Democratic politicians—asking them to write the president and Congress, urging his retention as BI chief.

There was a suspicious similarity to many of the letters Roosevelt received.
Most noted that Mr. J. Edgar Hoover was in no way related to the former president, while nearly all stated that gangsters, racketeers, and other lawbreakers would hail with joy the BI director’s replacement, because, quoting one, “they have felt the keen edge of J. Edgar Hoover’s efficiency.”
^*
5

So serious did Hoover consider the threat that he even courted his enemies. To his amazement, Senator Burton K. Wheeler, still grief stricken over the death of his longtime friend Tom Walsh, received a visit from the BI director. Wheeler later wrote that some Democrats had suggested that if he “objected to J. Edgar Hoover he would be replaced as director of the Bureau of Investigation.” Wheeler added, “Hoover got wind of this talk and came to see me. He insisted he played no part in the reprisals against me. I had no desire to ask for Hoover’s head on a platter—and I’m glad I didn’t.”
^†
7

Even Felix Frankfurter was used. Hearing rumors that Hoover might be replaced, and well aware that his friend had the new president’s ear, on April 14, 1933, Supreme Court Justice Harlan Fiske Stone wrote a very strong letter to Frankfurter listing Hoover’s remarkable accomplishments.
^‡

On April 22 FDR memoed Frankfurter, “I think I can assure our friend [Justice Stone], whose letters I am returning, that it is all right about Edgar Hoover. Homer Cummings agrees with me.” On the twenty-sixth Frankfurter wrote the president, “Many thanks for your chit regarding Edgar Hoover. I have taken the liberty of passing the comforting message on to our friend.”
¹⁰

If J. Edgar Hoover was appreciative of Felix Frankfurter’s intercession on his behalf, he didn’t show it; for the rest of his life, Frankfurter remained near the top of Hoover’s enemies list.

Frankfurter, however, was not the only one who had the president’s ear. When it came to politics, the person closest to the chief executive was Louis Howe. Besides being the brilliant strategist of most of FDR’s political victories, Howe was also—Hoover pronounced the term with utter contempt—an “armchair criminologist.”

There was, according to Raymond Moley, a member of Roosevelt’s brain trust and one of Hoover’s strongest backers, “tremendous pressure on Roosevelt
by various city politicians to replace Hoover with this or that police chief whom they believed would be more amenable to them for patronage…Louis Howe threw his weight behind the demands of the bosses.”

There were also “lurking around,” Moley recalled, several disgruntled ex-BI agents “who were anxious to see Hoover removed and thus open the way for their reinstatement. One of these was brought to me, and he complained about the iron discipline which Hoover maintained over his subordinates. This sort of argument to me was the best commendation Hoover could have had. For a police agency must, if effective, be strictly disciplined.”

Despite his letter to Frankfurter, there remained in Roosevelt’s mind, Moley knew, “a doubt about the desirability of continuing J. Edgar Hoover in office—a doubt placed there by Louis.” Arguing Hoover’s case, Moley finally won out over Howe: “At least I secured a stay of execution, and the decision was passed over to Cummings. It was not long before Cummings realized that Hoover was indispensable, and Hoover was retained.”
¹¹

On July 30, 1933, Attorney General Cummings announced that he had appointed J. Edgar Hoover director of a “new Division of Investigation,” which would include the Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Identification, and the Prohibition Bureau, and which would “conduct the nation-wide warfare against racketeers, kidnappers and other criminals.”
^*
12

Although Hoover had won this battle, he was well aware that it might be only the first skirmish in a prolonged conflict. Unwilling to keep such a powerful enemy, Hoover set out to win Howe over. He did it very simply. Aware of Howe’s fondness for detective stories, he began sending him memorandums with the “inside story” of the Bureau’s most famous cases. Amazingly, it seems to have worked. At least, Louis Howe never opposed Hoover again.

Even though Howe had capitulated, the campaign he’d set in motion had built up its own momentum.
Newsweek
noted that in light of his activities as Palmer’s assistant during the Red raids, “some experienced Washington observers expressed astonishment” at Hoover’s appointment, while the new division chiefs manner was described as less that of a cop than that “of a Y.M.C.A. secretary.”
¹³

Far stronger was the response of
Collier’s
magazine. In its August 19, 1933, issue, Ray Tucker, its Washington bureau chief, ridiculed Hoover and his immature gumshoes and gave advice on how easy it was to shake their “tails.”

“Despite all this burlesque and bombast,” Tucker continued, “there is a serious and sinister side to this secret federal police system. It had always been up to its neck in personal intrigue and partisan politics.” Under Hoover,
Tucker charged, this miniature American Cheka was run in a Prussian style as Hoover’s “personal and political machine. More inaccessible than presidents, he kept his agents in fear and awe by firing and shifting them at whim; no other government agency had such a turnover of personnel.”

Nor was any other as publicity hungry, the magazine’s bureau chief claimed. “The director’s appetite for publicity is the talk of the Capital, although admittedly a peculiar enterprise for a bureau which, by the nature of its work, is supposed to operate in secrecy. Although Mr. Hoover issued strict orders against publicity on the part of his agents, he was never bound by them.”

The
Collier’s
article also mentioned, albeit obliquely, for the first time in print, Hoover’s rumored sexual orientation: “In appearance Mr. Hoover looks utterly unlike the story-book sleuth…He dresses fastidiously, with Eleanor blue as the favored color for the matched shades of tie, handkerchief and socks. …He is short, fat, businesslike, and walks with mincing step.”
¹⁴

Nothing more. But the implication was there. In Washington, then as now a self-contained world where rumor and gossip have their own value as currency, the observation that J. Edgar Hoover was thirty-eight years old, unmarried, and still living with his mother and had never, to anyone’s recollection, been seen in the company of a woman, was more than adequate cause for speculation.

The implication that he was less than manly so stung the director that he apparently took immediate steps to remedy that impression. Less than two weeks after the
Collier’s
article appeared, a Washington gossip columnist inquired if anyone had noticed that since the Tucker charge “the Hoover stride has grown noticeably longer and more vigorous.”
¹⁵
To further counteract both the “fat” and the “mincing step” talk, an article was planted in another national magazine,
Liberty,
which stated that Hoover’s “compact body, with the shoulders of a light heavyweight boxer, carries no ounce of extra weight—just 170 pounds of live, virile masculinity.”
^*
16

Hoover still had the job. Nor did it take him long to readjust his loyalties: they went to whoever currently resided at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Within weeks after his appointment as director of the new division, Hoover was reporting to AG Cummings on the activities of the man who helped get him his job in the first place—the former presidential aide Lawrence Richey.