J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets (86 page)

Hoover’s secret garden. Female nudes, including the famous calendar photograph of Marilyn Monroe, adorned the walls of the basement; nude statues of young men inhabited the garden.
National Archives 65-H-300-2.

J. Edgar Hoover’s enemies list, accumulated during his five decades in power, was far more extensive, and secret, than President Nixon’s well-publicized roster, although there was some duplication. Hoover’s chief nemesis was William J. “Wild Bill” Donovan, war hero, assistant attorney general, and founder of the OSS. Hoover kept Donovan from realizing his greatest dream, being appointed director of the CIA, and even slandered him after his death.
Wide World Photos.

Hoover despised First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who accused him of creating an American gestapo. Once her husband was safely dead, the FBI director leaked scandalous stories about her alleged love affairs with various men, and women.

Hoover strongly opposed the United Nations, which he considered nothing more than a nest of spies. Shown here at the 1951 Paris General Assembly are three of the director’s enemies.
From left,
John Foster Dulles, whom Hoover suspected of “Communist leanings”; Adlai Stevenson, whom he branded a homosexual in the 1952 and 1956 presidential campaigns; and Mrs. Roosevelt, whom Hoover called the Bureau’s “most dangerous enemy.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.

The presidential confidant and U.S. Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter helped J. Edgar Hoover keep his job. In return, the FBI director kept Frankfurter under nearly constant surveillance.
Wide World Photos.

Hoover branded the civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., a “notorious liar” and “a ‘tom cat’ with obsessive degenerate sexual urges,” and set out to “neutralize” him. A worried-looking King is shown here leaving the director’s office after their famous 1964 confrontation. When King’s assassination was announced, some FBI agents cheered.
UPI/Bettmann Newsphotos.

The anonymous letter the FBI sent King, in hopes it would encourage him to commit suicide. The excised portions referred to King’s sexual activities. The letter, which was opened by the civil rights leader’s wife, Coretta, was accompanied by tape recordings of King’s hotel room trysts.

The first Judas, Louis Nichols, headed the Bureau’s mammoth publicity division, Crime Records, and was responsible for creating and maintaining the public image of the FBI and its legendary director. But when Nichols left the Bureau to work for the ex-bootlegger Lewis Rosenstiel, and took his contact list with him, Hoover accused him of betrayal.
UPI/Bettmann Newsphotos.

The second Judas, Cartha “Deke” DeLoach. Rightly suspecting that DeLoach, another Crime Records head, was conspiring to get his job, the FBI director was not displeased when he was forced into retirement.
UPI/Bettmann Newsphotos.

William Cornelius Sullivan, the whistle-blower. During their last meeting, Hoover accused the agent he’d treated like a son of being the third Judas. “I’m not a Judas, Mr. Hoover,” the feisty New England Yankee retorted. “And you certainly aren’t Jesus Christ.”
Wide World Photos.

J. Edgar Hoover actually served under ten presidents—for more than a quarter of the nation’s history—although he didn’t count the first, Woodrow Wilson, perhaps hoping the public would forget the key role he played, while a young Justice Department staffer, in Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer’s infamous Red raids. It was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, shown here signing the 1934 crime bills which gave the Bureau the authority to carry guns and make arrests, who later gave Hoover his almost unlimited powers.
From left:
Attorney General Homer Cummings; President Roosevelt; Hoover; Senator Henry F. Ashurst, of Arizona; and Assistant Attorney General Joseph B. Kennan.
National Archives 65-H-206-2.