G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century

by Beverly Gage

A major new biography of J. Edgar Hoover that draws from never-before-seen sources to create a groundbreaking portrait of a colossus who dominated half a century of American history and planted the seeds for much of today's conservative political landscape.

We remember him as a bulldog - squat frame, bulging wide-set eyes, fearsome jowls - but in 1924, when he became director of the FBI, he had been the trim, dazzling wunderkind of the administrative state, buzzing with energy and big ideas for reform. He transformed a failing law-enforcement backwater, riddled with scandal, into a modern machine. He believed in the power of the federal government to do great things for the nation and its citizens. He also believed that certain people--many of them communists or racial minorities or both-- did not deserve to be included in that American project. Hoover rose to power and then stayed there, decade after decade, using the tools of state to create a personal fiefdom unrivaled in U.S. history.

Beverly Gage's monumental work explores the full sweep of Hoover's life and career, from his birth in 1895 to a modest Washington civil-service family through his death in 1972. In her nuanced and definitive portrait, Gage shows how Hoover was more than a one-dimensional tyrant and schemer who strong-armed the rest of the country into submission. As FBI director from 1924 through his death in 1972, he was a confidant, counselor, and adversary to eight U.S. presidents, four Republicans and four Democrats. Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson did the most to empower him, yet his closest friend among the eight was fellow anticommunist warrior Richard Nixon. Hoover was not above blackmail and intimidation, but he also embodied conservative values ranging from anticommunism to white supremacy to a crusading and politicized interpretation of Christianity. This garnered him the admiration of millions of Americans. He stayed in office for so long because many people, from the highest reaches of government down to the grassroots, wanted him there and supported what he was doing, thus creating the template that the political right has followed to transform its party.

G-Man places Hoover back where he once stood in American political history--not at the fringes, but at the center--and uses his story to explain the trajectories of governance, policing, race, ideology, political culture, and federal power as they evolved over the course of the 20th century.

Genres: Biography, History, Nonfiction, Politics, American History, Audiobook, Biography Memoir

837 pages, Hardcover

First published November 22, 2022

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

“During his lifetime, [J. Edgar] Hoover did as much as any individual in government to contain and cripple movements seeking racial and social justice, and thus to limit the forms of democracy and governance that might have been possible. His actions damaged the lives of thousands of people – liberals and journalists, civil rights workers and congressmen, Black Panthers and communists. It is only fitting that his targets should have their say, and that their experiences should help to define his legacy. And yet there is a certain loss in this image of Hoover as a one-dimensional villain, the embodiment of all that is worst in the American political tradition. For one thing, it makes him a too-easy scapegoat; his guilt restores everyone else’s innocence. It also obscures what once seemed to be an ennobling vision of government service as a realm where professionalism, self-sacrifice, expertise, and efficiency would reach their highest form. One tragedy of Hoover’s life is that he became what he swore he would never be, and thus undermined the very ideals that he had found so captivating as a young man…”
- Beverly Gage, G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century


J. Edgar Hoover occupies an exceedingly strange place in American history. He was extraordinarily powerful, and exercised vast authority, yet he never sought public office, much less received any votes. He ran the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the premiere federal law enforcement agency in the country, yet his employees routinely broke the law. He made strict public pronouncements about morality, yet maintained a private life that seems – both now and then – to have been at odds with his professed beliefs. In his time, Hoover was lauded by both progressives and conservatives alike. Today, he is despised by both. Conservatives dislike him as an avatar of big government, and a deeply-embedded member of the “deep state.” Progressives hate him as a fierce opponent of civil rights.

All in all, a complex figure to disentangle.

To present such a life as this, in all its glaring contradictions, requires a historian who is not only able to marshal the necessary information, but to hold strongly opposing ideas in their head. In G-Man, Beverly Gage does this beautifully.

***

G-Man begins with an introduction that sets forth the broad outlines of Hoover’s life, and the myriad issues it raised. It closes with an epilogue, in which Gage evaluates his forever-tarnished legacy. In between, things proceed in standard biographical fashion from Hoover’s birth in Washington, D.C., to his death in Washington, D.C.

While the book is chronological, certain events are discussed together in thematic chapters, which allows for a more focused discussion. This brings the potential for confusion – as well as repetition – but Gage does a nice job keeping the reader oriented. She is assisted in this by date-stamped chapters, which tells you the year or years being covered. This is such a small thing, but is so helpful, especially in a really, really long book, comprising well over 700 pages of text. I got four kids who are always interrupting me, and I occasionally drink too, which means that I sometimes need a little assist with my whereabouts on the timeline.

Massive though it is, G-Man is consistently a pleasure to read. Skillfully structured, crisply written, and always interesting.

***

Gage covers Hoover’s life thoroughly, from start to finish. Instead of gliding over his childhood, she explores how it shaped her subject’s singular personality. After graduating high school at the top of his class, he went to George Washington, where he jointed Kappa Alpha, a fraternity shot through with a virulent strain of white supremacy. Throughout the rest of his life, Hoover placed frat brothers into positions of prominence. Hoover also had an intense relationship with his mom, whom he took care of for many years. This helpfully provided him some cover for his pronounced bachelorhood.

Upon completion of law school, Hoover took advantage of governmental expansion during World War I, getting a job with the Justice Department tracking down enemy aliens. This started him on one of his favorite professional activities: the making of lists full of names and personal information. His willingness to arrest perceived “enemies” and afront the Constitution led to promotion to the head of the Radicals Division at the Bureau of Investigation. President Calvin appointed him director in 1921. Hoover kept his directorship when the Bureau of Investigation became the FBI in 1935.

In total, Hoover held the title of Director for 48 years, working under six different presidents. He died on the job at the age of 77, in 1972.

***

As Gage explains, Hoover built the FBI to his own specifications. For years, it was a white, male, Christian force, and agents had to closely follow rules that sprang from his own whims. He created the FBI Laboratory, and advocated for professionalism, but on his own terms.

At the beginning, both the BOI and FBI had limited jurisdiction, as most crimes were deemed state matters. Agents did not even carry guns. Things changed with advancing technologies. Cars, for example, allowed bank robbers to cross state lines. Hoover pushed for more expansive laws and carried out a clever public relations campaign hyping a “War on Crime.” Though many of his agents ended up dead during the Dillinger Era, he had enough successes to make him seem irreplaceable.

***

From the outset, Gage lets you know that she does not like Hoover one bit. Despite this admission, she is incredibly evenhanded in her presentation, and gives him his due when appropriate. Of course, Hoover often had to have his arm twisted to do the right thing.

This is most evident during the civil rights movement, when agents were sent down south to investigate numerous hate crimes making international news. Left to his own devices, it is uncertain whether Hoover would’ve lifted a finger to help. When ordered to do so, however, he assigned large numbers of agents to the task. These men were often able to solve the crimes. Unfortunately, that meant little, as all-white juries seldom convicted.

The portrait of Hoover that emerges from this period is gray. Always, it seemed, he was in conflict with himself, his innate racial supremacy at odds with his distaste for those in the south disrupting order and breaking laws.

***

None of the good washes away the bad, and there is a lot of bad here. Hoover was a snoop, and kept track of numerous American citizens without any probable cause that they’d committed a crime. Before the Supreme Court ruled on wiretaps, the bugging of phones was a nebulous area of jurisprudence. Still, Hoover okayed so-called “black bag operations,” in which FBI agents trespassed onto private property to plant the taps. This sort of behavior has been contrary to the law since the founding of the Republic.

More distasteful than the surveillance is what Hoover did with the fruits this labor. Specifically, we’re talking about COINTELPRO, an infamous counterintelligence operation used to discredit political organizations that Hoover deemed subversive. Gage does note that Hoover used COINTELPRO to disrupt the Ku Klux Klan. For the most part, though, Hoover went after Communists, a hunt that led him to peaceful civil rights groups protesting for racial equality.

The most infamous example, which is covered in detail, is Hoover’s attempt to thwart Martin Luther King, Jr. He did this by bugging King’s hotel rooms, and then using the subsequent tapes in an attempt – it seems – to get him to commit suicide. On its own, this is simply gross. That the mission was undertaken using tax-payer funded dollars to violate the constitutional rights of an innocent American makes Hoover hard to stomach.

***

With such a full professional life, there isn’t a lot of space for Hoover’s personal life. For the most part, though, Hoover’s non-FBI time coalesces around a single question: Was John Edgar Hoover gay? The question is not simply a gotcha moment, exposing his rank hypocrisy. It is, rather, an insight into his character, his psychological makeup.

Never married – and never known to carry on a serious heterosexual relationship – Hoover spent almost all of his time – both on duty and off – in the company of his deputy, Clyde Tolson. The pair went everywhere together. The most fascinating thing about this – at a time when homosexual activity was illegal in many places – was how everyone just accepted them as a pair. When Hoover got an invitation, it usually went to both men. When Hoover declined, he declined on behalf of himself and Clyde.

The evidence regarding Hoover’s sexuality is entirely circumstantial, though it compellingly supports a romantic association between him and Clyde. Nevertheless, Gage makes no claims, and handles the issue with restraint and sensitivity. That Hoover may have spent nearly eighty years repressing his true self is almost enough to garner him sympathy. However, that is entirely squandered by his actions as FBI Director.

***

No one will ever again serve as long a directorship as Hoover. Federal law now prevents it. Even if it didn’t, today’s hyper-partisanship assures turnover every few years. Thus, there won’t be another J. Edgar Hoover in the foreseeable future, amassing his secrets, accumulating his power, dictating the contours of democracy.

That is undoubtedly for the best.

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Revised and cross-published on The Avocado

Few figures loom larger in America’s liberal demonology than J. Edgar Hoover. In his forty-eight years as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Hoover transformed a minor arm of the Justice Department into the nation’s most powerful law enforcement agency. Hoover streamlined the Bureau into an effective crime fighting body, capable of using scientific methods and expanded jurisdiction to battle crooks across state lines, while also combating spies and terrorists. But, needless to say, it came at a cost. Even as the FBI became the face of American crime fighting, it also came to embody all the excesses of the Cold War surveillance state: warrantless wiretaps, “black-bag” burglaries, COINTELPRO campaigns against “subversive” organizations, from left wing activists to Civil Rights groups and queer Americans. Even worse, the Director used his power to harass, intimidate and blackmail personal enemies. Absorbed into public consciousness are even more lurid claims: that Hoover engineered the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, that he attended orgies and cross-dressed while targeting LGBTQ bureaucrats. Any author writing in 2022 faces an uphill battle trying to humanize Hoover, and one wonders if it’s worth the effort.

Beverly Gage’s G-Man answers with a strong “yes, but.” Gage claims to be no admirer of Hoover, and her narrative consistently demonstrates his shortcomings, most already aired in earlier books by Curt Gentry (The Man and the Secrets), Tim Weiner (Enemies) and others. (More specialist works by the likes of Douglas M. Charles, who’s written extensively about Hoover’s campaigns against pornography and “sexual deviance,” are unlikely to have reached the general reader.) But Gage also portrays Hoover as a complex figure, a man capable of greatness along with malevolence, almost to the point of being a tragic figure. Arguably, there are cases where history vindicated Hoover; surely, there are moments where Hoover had sincere, if flawed motivations in pursuing misguided policies. Even so, whether Gage’s attempts at sympathy are effective or themselves misguided is an exercise for the reader.

Like writers before her, Gage spends a decent amount of time on Hoover’s troubled background, with a domineering mother, a mentally ill father and a soupcon of family tragedy, including an aunt brutally murdered and a grandfather who committed suicide. New to her portrait, though, is an emphasis on Hoover’s involvement in Kappa Alpha, a Southern fraternity he attended while at George Washington University. Kappa Alpha was a southern invention, whose alumni included Thomas Dixon, author of The Clansman (an acquaintance of Hoover in his early years) and indeed valorized the Klan, the Confederate Lost Cause and white supremacy. Gage treats the Order almost as Hoover’s Rosebud, explaining his deep-seated racism, his militant conservatism and his obsession with clean-living and manly virtue. More prosaically, Hoover used his Kappa Alpha connections to advance his career, while many of his FBI proteges came from the order.

Unable to serve in the First World War due to family obligations (namely, his father’s deteriorating condition), Hoover joined the Justice Department when its chief goal was hunting “subversives.” This cast a broad net: German spies, would-be revolutionaries like Emma Goldman, radical labor organizers like the Wobblies or draft-dodging “slackers.” Hoover played an ignominious role both in the wartime round-up of these figures and, in particular, the postwar Palmer Raids targeting communists, anarchists and other, largely foreign-born radicals. As Gage stresses, the leftist threat during these years wasn’t completely imaginary, with anarchists engaging not only in strikes but bombings and assassination attempts (one would-be killer blew himself up on Attorney General Palmer’s doorstep). But neither were the wholesale abuses of civil liberties, and the government’s inflammation of Red-baiting into a national hysteria, justified by the modest threat posed by these groups.

In the ’20s and ’30s, Hoover labored in semi-obscurity, as the Bureau of Investigation reverted to small-time crime solving. The Bureau was in bad odor due to the peripheral involvement in the scandals of the Harding Administration; their powers were severely restricted, relying on local police to make arrests and not even carrying firearms. But Hoover spent these years productively, reshaping the Bureau into his own image, with strict physical criteria that ranged from sensible (high standards of physical fitness) to bizarre (phrenological fretting over “pear-shaped heads”). Agents were expected to be prompt, well-educated, impeccably groomed and above all loyal. And Hoover’s involvement in high profile murder cases, from Charles Lindbergh’s son to the Osage Indian murders in Oklahoma, slowly but surely redeemed the Bureau’s profile.

Hoover’s big break, of course, came in the ’30s: the slaughter of four lawmen in the Kansas City Massacre, along with a rash of kidnappings and bank robberies, convinced Federal officials to expand the Bureau’s powers considerably. Despite worries about Hoover creating an “American Gestapo,” and chiding from liberal critics over its tactics, the Bureau jumped on the opportunity, chasing down criminals like John Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd while working with Hollywood and the press to shape their image. Hoover went from unknown bureaucrat to the face of American law enforcement, befriended by journalists like Walter Winchell and engaging in a whirlwind social life at the Stork Club and other establishments. Even as he espoused clean living and public decency, Hoover indulged in the perks of celebrity, attending horse races and boxing matches while hobnobbing with celebrities (he was briefly engaged with actress Dorothy Lamour). And more than a few associates wondered at his relationship with Clyde Tolson, the Associate Director who became Hoover’s inseparable companion.

Hoover’s sexuality is handled more bluntly than Gentry’s book, which treads delicately around it, or Weiner, who unconvincingly claims Hoover was asexual and had no time even for Tolson. While Gage swats away Anthony Summers’ accounts of a debauched, cross-dressing Hoover attending public sex parties, she treats his same-sex attraction matter-of-factly, less as a controversy than fact. Certainly Hoover’s sexuality was an open secret in Washington at the time, although few dared repeat the rumors publicly. And in Hoover’s flirtatious correspondence with Melvin Purvis, the lawyer-turned-Special Agent responsible for Dillinger and Floyd’s deaths (whom he later discredited, then banished from the Bureau), it’s hard to come away with any impression but that of an unrequited crush. What speaks most powerfully are the photo inserts of Hoover and Tolson, intimately photographed on vacation and in Hoover’s home, revealing more than paragraphs of text ever could.

Publicly Hoover leveraged his success not only into celebrity but increased power. Franklin Roosevelt viewed Hoover’s “War on Crime” as an extension of the New Deal, giving the Bureau authorization to spy on subversives. Hoover grudgingly investigated fascist groups like the Christian Front and the German-American Bund, while devoting much time to the Communist Party, which experienced a resurgence in the “Popular Front” era of the ’30s. Hoover’s actions ranged from admirable (his vocal opposition to Japanese internment, the greatest blot on Roosevelt’s Administration) to authoritarian (using the Smith Act as a justification to attack socialist and communist groups). Still, Hoover’s record during the Second World War was positive, foiling Nazi saboteurs in the US and disrupting Axis spy networks in Latin America. Hoover might have viewed the war as an unalloyed triumph if not for William Donovan’s OSS, which captured the public imagination through its daring exploits in Europe and later became the basis for the Central Intelligence Agency, Hoover’s intractable rival.

The Director, and Gage’s narrative, enter more contentious grounds with the postwar Red Scare. Hoover’s concerns about Soviet spies in government were somewhat vindicated by release of the NSA’s Venona program. Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White and Julius Rosenberg (if not necessarily his wife Ethel) were indeed spies; the Soviet Union took advantage of the Popular Front alliance with liberals to infiltrate the Manhattan Project, government institutions, labor unions and the entertainment industry. Certainly, many liberals then and later embarrassed themselves defending Hiss, the Rosenbergs and others when even circumstantial evidence strongly suggested their guilt.

But conservatives have used the Venona revelations to claim Hoover and his demagogic allies, whether Joe McCarthy in the Senate or Richard Nixon and others in the House, were “right” in their persecution of workaday leftists, bureaucrats and gay and lesbian Americans. In reality, as in the previous Red Scare of 1919-1920, a real threat was inflated beyond proportion to justify full-scale repression, which affected more than government bureaucrats and Hollywood screenwriters as popularly imagined. As before, Hoover showed little willingness to restrain his agents or discourage ideologues, taking full advantage of the fear over communists real or imagined.

Gage rightly identifies Hoover as the primary driving force behind the Red Scare, much more than McCarthy or others, with his alarmist reports on espionage, public announcements of Communist perfidy and feeding information to HUAC, McCarthy and others. Yet here, she begins to soften her confrontation with Hoover’s dark side. She claims Hoover considered McCarthy as a distasteful rogue, which can be fairly attributed to Eisenhower and other mainstream Republicans but less to Hoover, who socialized with the Wisconsin Senator and his deputy, Roy Cohn. One wonders if this distinction matters: as Gage notes, Hoover also cultivated a friendship with Pat McCarran, the right-wing Nevada Democrat who pushed repressive anti-communist and anti-immigration legislation through Congress without McCarthy’s headline grabbing recklessness. And Hoover’s longtime support for Nixon, from feeding him files about Alger Hiss to giving his 1960 campaign disparaging information about John F. Kennedy. Were these “responsible” Red-hunters really so different from their uglier counterparts? The record is doubtful.

Similarly, as Hoover confronts the Civil Rights Movement Gage seems compelled to balance criticisms with defenses. The Director did support anti-lynching legislation in the ’40s, viewing lynch mobs as a threat to law and order, though since it amounted to little one wonders how much this should be stressed. Similarly, treating COINTELPRO-White Hate (his ’60s campaign against the Ku Klux Klan and its allies) as an unmitigated success feels overstated. It’s true to a degree: Hoover’s crackdown on the Klan did ultimately cripple the organization, which helped undermine resistance to integration in the South. But it’s worth remembering that Hoover had to be prodded into action by Lyndon Johnson, in conjunction with the president’s Civil Rights initiatives. And trying to present the presence (and possible involvement) of Bureau informant Gary Thomas Rowe at the murder of Viola Liuzzo as a *triumph* for the Bureau strikes this reviewer as egregious special pleading.

But it’s impossible to spin Hoover’s campaign against Martin Luther King Jr. as anything but pathological obsession, and Gage doesn’t try. She notes that Stanley Levison’s ties to the Communist Party might have given Hoover legitimate grounds for investigation, but this was an entry point rather than a primary motivation. King disparaged Hoover and the FBI publicly for their inaction against white supremacists, ignored warnings to distance himself from Levison and Bayard Rustin (whose communist connections and homosexuality made him doubly suspect) and, most of all, upset Hoover’s view of how Black Americans are supposed to behave, both in his politics and his sexual escapades. There’s no generous interpretation possible; no fretting over communist ties could ever justify the infamous King suicide letter, or sending King’s wife recordings of his extramarital affairs, any more than it justified Hoover’s role in the murder of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton or driving actress Jean Seberg to suicide.

Even-handedness becomes a trend in later chapters. Gage makes a persuasive case that Hoover’s obliviousness towards organized crime is exaggerated, but overstates her argument by claiming an aggressive anti-Mafia campaign for which there’s minimal evidence before the Kennedy years. His distaste for far-right groups like the John Birch Society is highlighted, but undercut by Hoover’s unwillingness to investigate such organizations, which took part in the anti-Civil Rights activities he was nominally fighting. Hoover’s role in shaping the conclusions of the Warren Commission is discussed, but in a way that exculpates Hoover for covering up evidence damaging to the Bureau, namely destroying James Hosty’s records on Lee Harvey Oswald’s activities in Dallas. And, back again to Martin Luther King, Gage stresses the FBI’s immense manhunt for assassin James Earl Ray without mentioning how several Bureau officials celebrated King’s death, and downplaying Hoover’s reluctance to inform his nemesis of death threats, which fueled conspiracy theories about Hoover’s complicity in the assassination.

Gage stands on firmer ground arguing that Hoover’s abuses were less the responsibility of one man than a government and society that condoned them. While Hoover became an avatar for conservative America in later years, many of his worst abuses were enabled by liberal Democrats: FDR’s authorizing Hoover to hunt for “fascists and communists” in the ’30s, Harry Truman (despite his personal loathing for Hoover) instituting loyalty oaths for civil servants, the Kennedys authorizing wiretaps against Civil Rights leaders, Lyndon Johnson using the Bureau for nakedly political purposes like spying on the Mississippi Freedom delegation to the 1964 Democratic National Convention. Certainly, Presidents weren’t above using Hoover’s power to their own ends; Johnson also employed the Bureau to cover up the scandal involving Walter Jenkins, Johnson’s aide who was arrested for public homosexuality soon before the election.

Similarly, Gage downplays the claim, argued by Gentry and others, that Hoover maintained power through blackmailing powerful men; while Hoover’s “Official and Confidential” file contained damaging information against politicians and other public figures, Gage shows that he scarcely needed it. He cultivated friendships with Eisenhower, Johnson and Nixon, and remained broadly popular with the public, enough to the point where dismissing him seemed unthinkable. He repeatedly butted heads with the Kennedys, but there’s no evidence that Jack or Bobby ever seriously considered replacing him. His reputation endured until the late 1960s, when he came to symbolize everything wrong with the United States government, and Hoover’s judgment questioned by his most loyal subordinates.

Gage’s account of Hoover’s last years show the Director, simultaneously, at his most powerful and pitiable. Tolson’s failing health reduced him to a shell of a man, while subordinates William Sullivan, Mark Felt and others jockeyed for position as Hoover’s death approached. But Hoover’s COINTELPRO operations continued to target Civil Rights, Black Power and student antiwar groups until 1971, when a burglary by freelance activists exposed the program. Hoover’s longtime friend Richard Nixon repaid him by forcing an ill-conceived intelligence program upon the FBI, then creating his Plumbers to circumvent Hoover’s influence. Still, even Nixon couldn’t budge Hoover from his post; the Director stubbornly remained in office until May 1972, just a month before the Watergate break-in doomed his protege’s presidency.

Is Gage’s book “definitive,” as many of its glowing reviews assert? Certainly as the first full biography of Hoover since the early ’90s, it makes a strong case. It’s more responsible than Summers, more balanced than Gentry, more accessible than Douglas Charles and Athan Theoharis’s scholarly work and more critical than Richard Gid Powers’ old Secrecy and Power, still cited as the definitive bio by many historians. But however forceful Gage’s insights and analyses, G-Man contains significant lacunae that undercut its persuasiveness. At the very least, it’s probably the closest we can come to a truly “balanced” biography of J. Edgar Hoover, and that’s an achievement in its own right.

[Bonnie G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

**So pleased to see this win the 2023 Pulitzer for Biography!**

The damage one man can do is astounding. It comes as no surprise to me that J. Edgar Hoover was a terrible man. I am fully aware that he was given unchecked power for half a century by presidents Republican and Democrat, and that he used that power to orchestrate the ruin and murder of people who were unacceptable to him, mostly Black and Jewish Americans. I am reasonably well schooled in 20th-century US history, and no one, no one, is more central to 20th century US history than Hoover. But there were many things about Hoover I did not know, things that surprised me (and not in a good way) and that filled in the gaps in my knowledge. Gage writes like a prosecutor, a really good one, laying out her case and in the end it turns out most everything that is wrong with America today is connected to the beliefs and actions of J. Edgar Hoover. I don't mean to be hyperbolic, Hoover is by no means solely responsible for the devaluation of the lives of Black people, for the hubris of January 6th and Charlottesville idiots, for the back door dealing, for the villainization of anyone who seeks to be an honest broker, for wage compression, for absurd Congressional hearings about trumped up scare scenarios (HUAC, violent lyrics in rap/imagery in video games, the dangers of social media and tech in general) that absolutely do not matter but keep lazy people distracted while bad people fiddle about. But all these things and more have some connecting thread to Hoover. He nearly single handedly devised and maintained the Cold War. He literally ordered agents to not intervene to stop lynchings, and refused to participate meaningfully in investigating murders by judges and sheriffs and other powerful men, allowing them to police themselves to avoid federal overreach(this is still the way many in Congress and on talk radio think things should be.) If fact, he chose to not tell the Dallas police about credible assassination threats made against John Kennedy because he did not want to "interfere" is local law enforcement. He created the Red Scare and the Lavender Scare (this very very Gay man routed out and destroyed the careers and lives many many civil servants because they were Gay - unless they were his friends, in which case he covered for them), dividing people and creating identity politics. There is so much more. He was depraved.

It is easy to fall back on the excuse that as a Gay man the pressure to live a lie twisted him, but that is too simple. For one, he did not really live a lie. For 44 years he openly lived with his partner Clyde Tolson. They were invited everywhere as a couple including to the White House wedding of one of LBJ's daughters. There are letters between him and presidents (Johnson and Nixon) that speak of them as a couple. When Hoover died, the soldiers folded the flag placed over his coffin and handed it to Tolson. I mean I assume they did not hold hands or anything, but they were not in the shadows either. Under his rule he was in fact the only Gay man (well, also a few friends) who got to live comfortably with his partner. The truth is that he was a martinet and a despot. He was a man whose belief in White supremacy was the most foundational most central belief he possessed. Hoover belonged to a fraternity that had a pledge of a belief in White supremacy in its charter, required frat houses to hang a Confederate battle flag over their doors and held annual blackface parties. It is from this fraternity that Hoover hired for the FBI almost exclusively, and the fraternity was a primary source for his social and business relationships all through his life. Hoover was a bad man. Yes, I imagine he had some feelings of self-loathing stemming from his homosexuality and the social condemnation of LTBTQ+ people in the time he lived, but that does not erase the fact that he was a dimensional bad man, that there were a lot of reasons for his villainy, and yet none of them justify a bit of it.

There is more, to learn, and you should. One of the most illuminating bios I have ever read.

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Power Behind the Throne.

Sometimes you can either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become a villain. This J. Edgar Hoover’s life summed up in one sentence. Hoover, was of course the infamous and enigmatic director of the FBI for 48 years from 1924 until his death in 1972. Beverly Gage looks at this man who wielded huge power over American politics for nearly half a century and asks how someone could go from a 98% approval rating to being widely unpopular and having almost no one (not even in the FBI) stand for his legacy today. In this book, Gage moves beyond the simplistic caricatures of Hoover as either a national hero or a sinister autocrat, instead presenting a nuanced and richly detailed portrait of a man who shaped American law enforcement and politics for much of the 20th Century.

One of the book’s greatest strengths is its balance. Gage does not shy away from Hoover’s authoritarian tendencies, his obsession with communism, and his use of surveillance and intimidation to maintain power. At the same time, she acknowledges his bureaucratic brilliance, his role in modernising federal law enforcement, and his ability to navigate shifting political landscapes across multiple presidencies. Her analysis is particularly insightful in showing how Hoover was not just a reactionary force but also a product of—and sometimes an active participant in—progressive movements, particularly in the early years of his career. It is perhaps Gage’s analysis that this was the shame of Hoover’s legacy as he was completely against these ungentlemanly and questionable tactics in the beginning. But as time march on, he changed and so did the world and the FBI.

Gage’s prose is clear and engaging, making this lengthy biography both accessible and compelling. Her use of newly declassified documents and private correspondence adds fresh insight into Hoover’s personal life, including his complex relationships and the enduring speculation about his sexuality. However, rather than indulging in sensationalism, Gage carefully situates Hoover within the broader context of 20th Century America, illustrating how his methods and beliefs both reflected and shaped the nation’s political culture. What she does clear up is the conspiracy theories around Martin Luther King’s and FDR’s assassinations. Gage puts to bed any notion he was involved or even ordered them. He of course harassed King and didn’t really get on with Kennedy and hated his brother RFK, but he didn’t cause their deaths.

Ultimately, ‘G-Man’ (which comes from the term Government Man’ from the FBIs early years) is a definitive biography that challenges readers to reconsider Hoover’s legacy in all its contradictions. The book is heavy and can be slow in places, but at other times ultimately fascinating. To be honest it isn’t my favourite book, but it is essential reading for anyone interested in American history, government power, and the fine line between security and authoritarianism, especially during this mid 20th Century period.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t think I was alone in thinking only vile things about J. Edgar Hoover before reading Gage’s thorough Pulitzer Prize winning biography. He was a power monger, unethical, a racist, egotistical, thinned skin, hypocritical - or so I believed. All these things could describe the later years of his 48 year leadership as the director of the F.B.I. In 1971, Hale Boggs, a Democrat and former admirer of
Hoover said from the House floor, ”It is tragic when a great man who has given his life to his country comes to the twilight of his life and fails to understand it is time to leave the service and enjoy retirement.” This was spoken after Boggs blasted Hoover on the House floor for his “failures, weaknesses, and abuses of power”. If only there had been a time limit to his leadership, he might be remembered today for his dedicated work in transforming the F.B.I. from a failing law-enforcement agency into a well-run and highly modernized bureau. Gage makes it clear that some of Hoover’s illegal spying activities were known and sometimes encouraged by a few presidents, a secretary of state, and more than one congressman.

I thoroughly enjoyed this 732 page walk through history. From the Rosenberg spy case, the Red Scare and Joe McCarthy, the assassinations of John and Bobby Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and the struggle for racial equality, much was learned about this historic time period and how it shaped the country and politics today. I appreciated Gage’s balanced account and her honesty.

“Whether or not every detail of what he was doing was known, millions of people, from presidents down to the smallest of small-town editors, had always aided and supported him - not despite but because of his willingness to target those who challenged the status quo.”

“After almost twenty years of being immersed in Southern racial conflicts, he had come to view civil rights activists and Klansmen as part of the same debilitating turn toward lawbreaking and disorder. Both groups upset the status quo and promoted conflict and instability causing problems for the F.B.I. It was of no importance to him that one group uses torture, intimidation, and murder and the other practiced nonviolence.”

[Paul Bryant · Rating 5 out of 5]

An immense book in which stretches of yawnful dullness alternate with pageturning intensity.

The biography of J Edgar Hoover is the biography of the FBI. And I thought the FBI was all about fighting crime. Yes, they did that, but it seems that after the rough tough gangster stuff of the 20s and early 30s, featuring the big names like Baby Face Nelson and John Dillinger, it was all about the damn communists and their stooges : political surveillance. The fight against crime gets hardly a mention for most of this long long story. That was not what I expected.

TAKING STALIN AT HIS WORD

Hoover and many other rightwingers sincerely believed that the communists wanted to overthrow the US government (hey, I’m sure they did!) but further, that unless they were stopped they would do just that. Maybe this is hindsight, but those commies were never going to be able to overthrow the USA. Not in a billion years. They wouldn’t have been able to overthrow Omaha Nebraska if you gave them a month to do it. But there was a tremendous paranoia about them in the USA, and Hoover was the guy who believed every revolutionary fantasy he ever read.

HOOVERING UP THE SUBVERSIVES

He dedicated his life to subverting the subversives and like a lot of guys he thought that anyone who disagreed with his conventionally conservative point of view was just wrong. He believed in the American Way of Life ™ like a turtle believes in water. There was just no other way to be! Anyone who wasn’t living a God-fearing married with 2.4 children and a steady job life was a person of interest and he would probably bug you or write you down on a list which he would reread many times at the very least.

In World War 1, Hoover was rounding up communists and undesirable aliens. During World War 2 he was rounding up different foreigners. Immediately after that came the bugeyed hunt for communists which morphed into the many battles with those aggravating troublemakers demanding civil rights for black citizens, they were obviously all dupes of communism, then it all got worse with the Vietnam War and all those long haired protestors and anarchists, and when he was an old guy who should have retired, along came the Black Panthers – what a total nightmare.

HOOVER STYLE

Hoover himself tried hard to stay in his office pushing papers around his vast desk and barking orders into a phone. He would have been happy to run a department which gradually turned police work into a pure science – he built the first fingerprint database, he was all about forensics. He wanted an elite force of good looking six foot tall impeccably dressed agents who would talk politely and would not be like those nasty rough cops you saw on the street.

He went out of his way to separate himself from ordinary policemen, whom he depicted as a cabal of corrupt, undereducated, easy-to-deceive thugs

THE FBI STARTED OUT PRETTY SMALL AND INSIGNIFICANT

The situation in 1930 :

Outside certain limited areas of jurisdiction – auto theft, white slavery, crime on Indian reservations, antitrust work – the federal government was among the least important players in the criminal justice system.

White slavery?

Hoover’s agents were finally armed and allowed to make arrests in 1934. It was deemed necessary what with all those gangsters running around.

Even after months of firearms training, they were woefully unprepared for this sort of work, a group of lawyers and accountants who suddenly found themselves involved in street battles and machinegun fire.

MATCHING WHITE SUMMER SUITS

There was a contradiction at the heart of all this, there usually is. He was gay so he himself was not living the All American Way of Life ™. Here comes the interesting part – although he had a lot to hide, and if his big secret had been revealed he would have been finished, times were maybe more compassionate back then than we usually give them credit for.

He lived with his life partner Clyde Tolson out in the open and no one raised an eyebrow. Maybe there was a little bit of gossip here and there but really nothing. Edgar and Clyde were just two bachelors who happened to do everything together.

When Hoover celebrated his twentieth anniversary at the Justice Department, Tolson posed with him for photos : two men shaking hands in matching white summer suits, surrounded by a sea of flowers. They made little effort to hide from the press, and joked openly about their adventures together.

Richard and Pat Nixon regularly invited Edgar and Clyde for lunch or dinner. Well, everyone did. They were a couple. It was accepted.

But this was the guy who conducted a hunt for dangerous homosexuals in the 50s, it was called the Lavender Scare, it ran parallel to the Red Scare. Hundreds of government employees were fired in this period, for being gay.

McCarthy often referred to them as a single entity: “communists and queers” lurking side by side in the government

The idea was that gay men could so easily get blackmailed by those awful communists and then they would be turned into spies and become Moscow’s puppets and before you knew it Omaha Nebraska would be part of the Soviet Union.

JURISDICTION

Even as Hoover was empire-building the FBI into a – well, an empire – he preferred to write lists and put them in a big file and he didn’t want to be dragged into something shambolic if he could get out of it. On 22 November 1963 there was an event.

As Hoover would explain many times over the next twenty-four hours, the murder of the president was just that: an act of murder, falling under the jurisdiction of the local authorities.

Yes, amazingly, he faffed about jurisdiction on 22 November 1963.

MASSIVE RESISTANCE

Mostly Hoover and his FBI were at war with the left, no surprise. But the racist right was all too unignorable. It is very clear that although Hoover loved a long list of commies and anarchists to ponder, the thought of tangling with the KKK brought on an instant migraine. He didn’t wanna have to do it. He didn’t want any part of the whole parade of lynching horrors that happened in the 20th century. Wikipedia tells me that the lynching of Emmett Till, aged 14, in Drew, Mississippi, was the last lynching, and that 4,733 people were lynched in the USA between 1882 (when stats began to be collected) and 1955. And there were murders of many black people and civil rights workers after 1955, as we know.

Hoover had a huge ghastly problem with this situation. He hated the law of the land being ignored. But he couldn’t do anything about it. There was this thing called “massive resistance”. This meant that Washington could pass all the laws they wanted to, but it wouldn’t make no never mind in the South. The FBI could investigate a lynching (not because the victim had been murdered, but because his civil rights had been infringed – careful with your jurisdiction, Edgar); the FBI agents with their usual efficiency could usually find the murderers, but then they would have to turn them over to the locals, who would then footdraggingly finally put them on trial, and the juries would find them not guilty. Every time. Why didn’t Congress make a federal anti-lynching law? They tried, many times, and each time it was filibustered to death by a Southern senator.

GUESS WHO?

Over the course of nine hours, they discussed how to use wiretaps, bugs, press leaks, photographs, gossip-spreading, physical surveillance, tax inquiries, anonymous letters and other counterintelligence techniques against

Did you guess Martin Luther King? Man alive, the last quarter of this book shows in painful detail how TOTALLY OBSESSED Hoover was with King, how he was convinced that King was a commie and was about to fuse together all the forces of evil in the USA and destroy all the goodlyhearted people. As I ploughed through this part I was looking forward to the arrival of the Panthers, who were even more frightening for poor old Hoov.

AND IN THE END

People got sick to death of him. After piling every last possible award onto him, after making adulatory speeches and hagiographical movies, after eight different presidents came to eat out of his hand, after they made a special exemption for him so he could carry on working for the government after the official retirement age, after 48 years as total dictator of the FBI, people finally got sick of him. The Man Who Stayed Too Long.

On page 731 author Beverly Gage writes her conclusion :

During his lifetime, Hoover did as much as any individual in government to contain and cripple movements seeking racial and social justice, and thus to limit the forms of democracy and governance that might have been possible. His actions damaged the lives of thousands of people

And his legacy was

the idea that the government could not be trusted to protect the rights of Americans

So no, she didn’t get to like J Edgar Hoover.

*

Yes, this book is WAY too long (just like this review), but it’s totally recommended!

[Darya Silman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Due to the book's thoroughness, reading J. EDGAR HOOVER AND THE MAKING OF THE AMERICAN CENTURY feels like mountaineering: as you crawl higher, you stop seeing the foot of the mountain and also don't see what lies ahead. Beverly Gage ensured that her research encompassed all the significant milestones in the FBI director's life, from his lonely childhood to his lonely death.

I had never heard of the controversial legacy J. Edgar Hoover left behind, so I approached the book with no preconceived viewpoint about his politics. Several eye-rolling moments in his life will stick with me. As Beverly Gage repeats again and again that the views J. Edgar Hoover acquired at the beginning of his career dominated his thinking until the very end. Racism and anti-communism, along with Christian values (though his homosexuality was an open secret), shaped his politics. He was a bureaucrat who never fired a gun yet transformed intelligent white-collars workers into muscular FBI agents we know today. He hesitated to take on tasks that could potentially damage the FBI's image as an omnipotent organization, for example, lynchings in the South or Ku Klux Klan activities - or JFK's murder. He masterfully navigated the system, served under Democratic and Republican presidents, and acquired more and more power, so that in the end, a president couldn't force him to retire for fear J. Edgar Hoover might have disclosed too many dirty secrets.

I probably wouldn't have finished the biography if it hadn't been an audiobook, so massive it is. So my advice would be to choose an audiobook if it is possible.

Anthony formulated many of my thoughts in his succinct review

[Christopher Febles · Rating 4 out of 5]

While FBI Director is not a Cabinet post, J. Edgar Hoover made it almost as important. Born in somewhat humble circumstances, raised in the seat of government, he seemed destined to serve the country in a more bureaucratic manner. Slowly, he applied his force of will to make investigation a primary function of government. Even if that meant pushing civil rights aside and ignoring basic racism and sexism.



We encounter here a supremely exhaustive look at the life of Hoover, with no detail left out (except one; see below). Gage makes no apologies for his thoughts and actions toward minorities or women, but rather gives them context. She makes the point regularly that the FBI might not have become what it is without his views, conservative even in his day. There’s quite a bit here on how he was raised: the “boy problem,” or new views on masculinity in the early 20th; and a lot on Kappa Alpha, the Southern fraternity he joined with links to Jim Crow and segregation. He was no saint, and while Gage doesn’t crucify him, she doesn’t excuse him either. I thought her link with investigation and his upbringing was sharp and insightful.

I gathered from this that Hoover’s main passion was anti-communism. He sunk resources and energy into it throughout all his 50 years in office. He didn’t jive with McCarthy all the way, but he could suspect anyone with even slightly left-of-center views. Gage seemed to show how he hung onto these views well after the initial Red Scare.

Was it true that the FBI felt it had no jurisdiction to help with lynching, Jim Crow, and crimes committed by southern racists? Or was the avoidance just a part of Hoover’s views? It’s disappointing to think nothing could be done short of a new Reconstruction, but Gage forces us to see that it played out according to the government players at the time. That said, she gives him some credit for stamping out the Klan. In fact, she points out that Hoover smashed anyone who might disrupt the federal government progress, from either side of the aisle (but usually on the left). For him, subversive is subversive.

And for those who experienced the drama of the Leo DiCaprio film “J. Edgar,” you’ll be somewhat disappointed. There aren’t any juicy details of Hoover’s sexuality. Perhaps they don’t exist? Either way, she does paint his relationship with Clyde Tolson as a platonic long-term friendship. Just short of marriage, but with plenty of the attributes you’d see from a committed couple.

One last comment: good Lord, that’s some small print! Like reading page after page of fine print, or Tylenol instructions. Yeah, it might’ve been 1200 pages if it were any bigger than 8 point font, but come on. Some of us are old.

Brilliant and detailed. Worth the time and eye strain.

[Danny Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I want to start the review with the acknowledgment that all authors and readers bring a certain bias and set of preconceived notions to the table. Beverly Gage enlightens the reader about her opinions on Hoover. The issue with this book is that the potential for a concise brilliant biography is present. Gage has conducted her research thoroughly and has done a tremendous job in sections. What separates this from something truly special and noteworthy is the judgments calls made and opinions given so often throughout the book they stop being innuendo and begin to take on the life of pseudo facts.

Gage spends more time speculating about Hoover's sexuality than she does speaking about his tackling of high profile crimes in the 30's. More time is spent arguing that his affiliations with Kappa Alpha fraternity makes him racist than the years spent fighting racism. Even if the prejudices exist; they are removed as to make Hoover irredeemable.

Hoover is a creature of his time and his evolution in the 20th Century makes him a brilliant character study. There are sections of this book that truly shine; and I would NEVER discount an author for perceived political and social bias. But with a page count over 800; the fluff of Hoover's relationship with Clyde Tolson became tedious.

Finally, I find it a bit jeering that Hoover's power grew expansively under Democratic Presidents (Roosevelt, Kennedy, and Johnson) but Gage chooses to gloss over this in favor of associating him with "Best Friend" Nixon. The bias and contempt is pretty apparent in my opinion; especially with the glossed over fight against Japanese Internment. This was barely a footnote in two sections of the novel.

Overall the book has the potential to be something special but falls short. I attribute this to the tumultuous character of Hoover and the emotions his name invokes over Gage's ability to write.

Definitely 3 Stars and something I would recommend to biography and history fans in need of 20th Century character studies. But falls desperately short when compared to biographies made by writers and historians on the same topic. That being said, I will happily by Gage's next work as her ability to research is beyond admirable and something I hope will improve!

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://wp.me/p4dW55-1fX

J. Edgar Hoover (1895-1972) is an intriguing biographical subject; he spent 48 years as Director of the FBI and was arguably the most powerful un-elected public official in the country at the time. But any survey of his career also provides unique insight into the lives of the public figures who operated within his sphere. And during his nearly half-century at the FBI he worked with every president from Calvin Coolidge to Richard Nixon.

One might assume that Hoover’s life has been fully dissected by previous biographers. But a steady stream of new information has become available since the last major Hoover biography was published almost thirty years ago. And in her deeply-researched book Gage relies on recently declassified items and information uncovered through countless FOIA requests to add important texture and nuance to Hoover’s complicated portrait.

Many readers will find this biography’s 732-page narrative dense and detailed – and quite possibly intimidating. Gage embeds significant political and social context into the book, providing a deep sense of the world Hoover operated in and responded to. But it may leave some readers feeling as though too much effort is required to make headway at times.

Perseverance is well-rewarded, however, as readers are able to witness many of America’s most notable domestic moments as observed by Hoover. These include the Joseph McCarthy / Red Scare era, the assassinations of JFK, Malcolm X, MLK and Bobby Kennedy, the Rosenberg spy case and Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama.

Gage covers Hoover in a surprisingly balanced manner, consistently exposing his flaws and shortcomings while attempting to offset the worst of his tendencies by identifying commendable underlying traits or, occasionally, providing contextual justifications. But while she does not consider herself an admirer of Hoover, in the end she seems to view him more as a well-intentioned fallen angel than as a thin-skinned, racist, power-hungry rapscallion.

One of the best aspects of this biography is the insight it provides into Hoover’s personality. This is often accomplished by exposing the give-and-take of his relationships with his friends – such as Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson – as well as his foes, including Harry Truman, JFK and Bobby Kennedy.

But the most valuable feature of this book may be the perspective it provides into the accumulation and use of power by one of America’s most consequential civil servants over the course of an unprecedented half-century-long career. As such, this is essentially the book that Robert Caro might have written had he decided to tackle J. Edgar Hoover rather than Lyndon Johnson or Robert Moses.

But as interesting as Hoover’s life proves to be, this biography will be a heavy lift for readers seeking the high points and “lessons-learned” without the weighty and occasionally tedious detail. And for all the book’s serious intensity and judicious assessments, the narrative lacks the colorful, effortless eloquence of the most mellifluous biographies.

Overall, though, Beverly Gage’s “G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century” is a deep, thoughtful and often persuasive exploration of Hoover’s life and penchant for power. While unsuitable for readers seeking an airy, effortless adventure, this biography offers a thorough and balanced look at the complex life of one of America’s most infamous power brokers.

Overall rating: 4½ stars

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't believe I can review this doorstopper Pulitzer-Prize winning, exhaustive biography of nearly 800 pages (not including notes!) - and contribute any meaningful new insight into Hoover's life and motivations. As I was glancing at prior reviews to help revive detailed descriptions of a book I finished four months ago, I was further convinced that enough GR readers had wonderfully summed up the reasons why this book is a must-read for lessons in how one individual navigated the intricacies of bureaucratic structures to maintain, dominate, and abuse all Washington power structures. The very fact that he managed to remain FBI director for 48 years (1924-1972), advising and shaping the government policy of eight different presidents, from Coolidge to Nixon, while remaining a mostly revered - or at least, respected official - says it all. It seems that only death was able to remove him from the top post of the institution shaped for nearly half a decade in his image.

I may add more to this later, but for now, I'll just add some interesting recollections:

J. Edgar Hoover, according to social surveys conducted throughout his lifetime, was often not only the most popular Washington individual, but the only one seen consistently as a "positive" figure in the establishment. At times, the magnitude of his reach on all levels of law, combined with the ultra-secrecy of his private life, turned him into a kind of "rockstar celebrity", thanks to the alluring aura of power and mystery to many citizens, famous and non-famous, powerful and ordinary alike.

Even though the author makes it clear that J. Edgar Hoover clearly outstayed his welcome in the post, and did so by doing a ton of shady shit, she never comes across as biased or spiteful. She gives Hoover credit where credit is due, and exposes him for somewhat controversial to downright evil acts he committed while serving in the FBI's official capacity (the most egregious likely being the blackmail of Martin Luther King, Jr., convinced he was a "Communist", Hoover threatened to release illegally recorded tapes of King's extramarital affairs unless King committed suicide. Yeah. Dark times). Oh, and he also pursued Communists to a completely obsessive, bordering on unhinged, extent. Once Julius and Ethel Rosenburg were finally captured, he had no qualms about executing the couple by electric chair (of course, this was the president's decision, but Hoover had made the execution possible).

Did Julius and Ethel work for the USSR as Communist spies? Evidence we have today certainly seems to say that yes, without a doubt. Back at their time of capture, however, the evidence wasn't nearly as conclusive. Also, being a spy doesn't always necessitate capital punishment - that's entirely subjective of course, but I believe so long as it doesn't lead to any real harm of the country's citizens, resources, economy, etc. - then "a bit extreme" is a gross understatement.

It would seem that how Hoover was raised, mostly by his mother, since his father was constantly losing his job due to depression (and depression was not recognized as a mental illness back in the early 20th century, but instead, a weakness, a moral failing, especially by men) - shaped him into the young man and man he became and remained his entire life. Determined to be nothing like his father, Hoover documented the most trivial of things, was an obsessive organizer, excessively tidy, always prompt, punctual, never putting a foot wrong. Unfortunately, this rigidity caused his work and personal relationships to be nearly non-existent, as agents in the bureau struggled to keep up with his nearly impossible standards of dress, hygiene, work ethic, health.

The one exception to this rule was his lifelong companion and rumored lover, Clyde Tolson. While no definitive proof ever surfaced that Clyde and Hoover were homosexual lovers, the author heavily implies that they were. While I believe it was likely, given their genuine affection toward one another, and because Hoover was not a man to show genuine affection to anyone really, Hoover was such an anomaly with his personality quirks and uneasiness at social events that who really knows for sure? To Hoover, it may have been perfectly normal to have a male companion with him at all times, so long as said companion was interesting and could keep him engaged in conversations. Remember that at the time, homosexuality wasn't exactly illegal, but "outed" homosexuals (many of whom were outed by Hoover himself) weren't allowed to remain in their government posts. So while not completely illegal, heavily persecuted and discriminated against.

I do believe that Gage devoted a little too much of the book to the relationship between Hoover and Tolson, and relied too much on an unproved assumption (that they were, in fact, an intimate couple).

I may or may not write more about this later, but I'm afraid if I don't post it now, my computer will freeze, or because it's not letting me copy/paste due to touchscreen settings right now, I'll attempt to post it and an error will delete it. Fingers crossed this doesn't happen. Since it's not often I come back to reviews, I'll state that it's definitely a worthwhile read on one of America's most beloved, most powerful, most controversial figures throughout the majority of the 20th Century. It's rather engaging, too, given all of the insanity Hoover involved himself in over the decades. Not dry or boring like a lot of people might expect of a book this length. He's impacted history so much that it's definitely worth reading about him, as long as one doesn't allow the length to intimidate them too much.

Five very worthy stars.

[Cherisa B · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an odious man. Great research and writing to create this comprehensive and compelling bio.

[Alex O'Connor · Rating 5 out of 5]

A searing portrait of a complex, flawed man - I thought that Gage did a fantastic job in her reconstruction of the views of people before, during, and after Hoover, and the book is impeccably researched. I really enjoyed reading it, and learned so much. Hoover is an incredibly complicated person, and watching Gage deal with those complexities was fascinating.

[Teri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Drawing on newly released FBI files, diaries, scrapbook collections, and a wealth of archival resources, Historian Beverly Gage covers the entire life of J. Edgar Hoover, founder and head G-Man of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). Born on January 1, 1895, Hoover ingrained himself into the Washington, D. C. political scene soon after his graduation from George Washington Law School in 1916. In college, Hoover was a key member of the Kappa Alpha fraternity, a social organization known as Confederate and Southern nationalist sympathizers. This organization likely shaped much of Hoover's ideology on race relations and politics. Upon his graduation from law school, Hoover worked in the War Emergency Division and the Bureau of Investigations, the precursors to the FBI, which he headed as director in 1924. During his long career, Hoover shaped and molded the FBI through the course of 6 presidents, three of which were Republican and three Democrats. His services ended upon his death in 1972 at age 77, working beyond the typical retirement age for government workers.

Hoover was equally liked and hated in and out of Washington. He campaigned against communism (the Red Scare), the KKK, organized crime, and alleged militant Civil Rights activists. He was tasked with investigating homosexuals in government (the Lavender Scare) but mostly swept it under the rug to avoid outing himself. Gage uncovers a host of personal tragedies and secrets involving his family and his long-time relationship with fellow G-Man, Clyde Tolson. Hoover uncovered and policed the criminal and political issues that were relevant and important to him and those close to him while brushing over the issues that could negatively affect him and his career.

He had a tumultuous relationship with Presidents Truman and Kennedy but was in the back pockets of Johnson and Nixon. It is worth pondering, after reading this thoroughly researched book, how Watergate might have turned out if Hoover had still been alive and working within the Bureau. The Bureau and Hoover were synonymous entities for good and bad, and Gage uncovers it all. This is an engrossing biography of the G-Man himself and is worthy of its 2023 Pulitzer Prize.

[Porter Broyles · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a big book but so far it is a fairly easy read and enjoyable.

I am learning a lot about a major influence in American history---a character whom I do not know much about---but was everywhere.

This book won a Pulitzer Prize and it is easy to understand why.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Had J. Edgar Hoover’s life had a Citizen Kane-esque ending, his Rosebud would have been his George Washington University (GWU) Kappa Alpha fraternity pin. When he was given a lifetime achievement award in 1966 by Kappa Alpha’s national chapter, “according to the fraternity’s in-house magazine, Hoover spoke ‘movingly’ of how ‘the principles of our Order have remained with him and have been a profound influence in his life.’” For a man at the apex of an unprecedented 50-year career in American government—serving under ten administrations—who had been integral, as the subtitle this book states, in “the Making of the American Century,” it may have been the most revealing statement of a man who rarely—if ever—made public pronouncements about his personal life or views.

Kappa Alpha was more than a college fraternal organization. It was (and still is) a way of thinking, validating a worldview forging racist, misogynistic, and ahistorical myths into contrived realities with which America and the world have had to reckon. As a native son of Washington, DC attending college just a few miles from the place of his birth and still living at home with his mother, being accepted into GWU’s Kappa Alpha was Hoover’s first authentic rite of passage into a “respectable society,” one only very few could join, one that was archaically antebellum Southern. And Washington, DC was, contrary to myth and especially through Hoover’s early adulthood, a distinctly Southern city.

Kappa Alpha became Hoover’s chief source of sustenance and friendship. It also solidified the conservative racial outlook he would preserve, with minor variations, for the rest of his life…These men shaped how Hoover though about the essential questions of the day—racial segregation first among them.

Established just months after the end of the Civil War, Kappa Alpha dedicated itself to carrying on the legacy of the “incomparable flower of Southern knighthood” known as Robert E. Lee. According to fraternity legend, its early members also helped to create the first Ku Klux Klan, found around the same time…When Hoover joined half a century later, at least one Kappa Alpha leader was still insisting “we started the Ku Klux Klan and should claim our part in its work.” The fraternity’s official journal never confirmed nor denied the claim.

Members included John Temple Graves, “a Southern newspaper editor…who rose to fame as passionate defender of both segregation and lynching,” and Thomas Dixon, whose “admiring novels about the Reconstruction-era Ku Klux Klan” including The Clansman, inspiration for D.W. Griffith’s notorious, ahistorical film The Birth of a Nation, for which he also was an advisor. For Hoover, Kappa Alpha would be much more than a young man’s college dalliance, it “would become a way of life, a touchstone for the FBI’s internal values, and a shorthand way to measure the character, loyalty, and political sympathies of the men he hired to work for him.” Until the explosive growth of the FBI during and after World War II, when the sheer scope of duties imposed by a growing nation purpose and size of staff made it impossible to keep small, being a GWU Kappa Alpha man was often the top requirement needed to become a member of the FBI.

While at GWU, Hoover had a job at the Library of Congress, where he learned the skill of cataloging and maintaining files, perhaps the most everlasting lesson of his life. It was just a few blocks from his parents’ home, and he would never live or work outside of a four-mile radius for the rest of life—he was a true “mama’s boy,” familial and provincial. He graduated from law school just after the President Wilson entered the nation into World War I. While many of his Kappa Alpha brothers eagerly enlisted in the military, Hoover, whose Kappa Alpha-idolatry exalted good wars and violence, was at heart a bullying coward. Instead, he got a job at the small, fairly insignificant Department of Justice, making him exempt from the draft. His first of many Attorneys General bosses was Thomas Gregory, a Texas Democrat raised in “Mississippi, the son of a Confederate doctor” who “had come of age in the turmoil of Reconstruction.” He was a Kappa Alpha man in spirit, one to whom Hoover could relate. Gregory put Hoover in charge of a newly formed War Emergency Division, which had constant contact with another obscure division, the Bureau of Investigation. Until the end of the war, he gained experience in monitoring German and other immigrants who were either not suitable for the draft or identified as potential threats, starting a pattern to be repeated over and over again in various incarnations, during times of war and peace. By 1919 he was targeting labor unions like the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) for its “’anarchistic’ activities’…’Alien negro agitators’ earned their own files.” More disturbingly, his “division also gathered information about U.S. citizens in hopes of future prosecution under yet-to-be-created federal law [emphasis added].” His Library of Congress-learned skills evolved into a lifelong obsessive compulsion to keep files on potential enemies and threats as he, not the law, defined them. His legal and personal paranoia became his bureaucratic superpower, one that buttressed a singular career in American history.

He exuded the confidence of a man who usually got his way. “I felt that he lived by a code of his own,” the journalist Mark Sullivan wrote years later. “If this code did not happen to be identical with the world’s conventions, so much the worse for the world’s conventions.”

Perhaps Hoover’s most lasting socio-political legacy was to deeply internalize, validate, convert and demonize anything that had a scent of progressivism, liberalism, or equality of any sort, manufacturing them into bombastic caricatures threatening to his Kappa Alpha world view.

From deporting Emma Goldman and other “socialists,”, rather than address widespread lynching; from targeted prosecution of communism, unions, and other civil rights and ignoring the rise of fascism; from leading the effort to enforce Hollywood codes to make films more “decent” and “wholesome” as well as contriving and enforcing Blacklists of writers, actors, directors, producers, and technicians; from persecution of nonviolent civil rights activists in favor of dubious, violent, and unlawful “law and order” policies and actions, Hoover’s malignant views literally shaped and indelibly stained the American fabric throughout “the American century.” He prioritized and protected the power, prestige, and independence of his Bureau over national interests, civility, and basic decency. His ability to decipher, defer, and pander to his superiors served his ambition as he ensconced himself from a staffer at a Bureau to become its very young director as it became a Federal Bureau of Investigation with powers that grew with each of the ten administrations he would eventually serve. Over time, “his efforts to preserve the Bureau’s established culture…soon ran up against an incontrovertible fact: there were simply not enough fine-looking, well-mannered, twenty-five-to-thirty-five-year-old, white, fraternity-bred lawyers to go around…only a few of the old standards remained inviolate: there would be no women and few Black men as special agents,” the women and Blacks he was forced to hire for appearances sake still had menial jobs with little-to-no hope of reaching positions of responsibility or influence. His career-long practice of maintaining secret files on public figures, even in the arts and entertainment and most importantly, politicians and elected officials, to use whatever extortionist means he needed gave him unmatched ways to exercise his power. Even one of the greatest national tragedies in American history could not derail his incredulous fixations:

On December 23, (1963) a month and a day after Kennedy’s assassination, Sullivan convened a meeting about King…Five men from Hoover’s seat of government attended the meeting, along with two agents brought in from Atlanta. Over the course of nine hours, they discussed how to use wiretaps, bugs, press leaks, photographs, gossip-spreading, physical surveillance, tax inquiries, anonymous letters, and other counterintelligence techniques against King—all the while avoiding “embarrassment to the Bureau.”

Although he died in 1974, his legacy lives on, corroding every part of American public life, inspiring the very worst of American politics and policy. Late in his career, he became outspoken about the role of religion in public life and characteristically translated ideas and ideals of faith and morality into a politically expedient commodity.

As Hoover framed it, one of the chief benefits of religious faith was its prescriptive nature: the Bible could tell Americans how to live…In his own writings, he stressed the idea of “Christian Citizenship,” in which all Americans would be guided first and foremost by the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule.

This view is the fundamental tenet of the so-called religious Right that now poisons American public discourse and has most recently been ensconced in the seat of the House Speaker. “In the 1960s, he came to view ‘law and order’ not as a directive that might protect Black Southerners and civil rights organizers, but as something that had to be imposed upon them.” See any of the thousands of examples of police violence against Blacks and others. George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter are not isolated episodes; they are very much Hoover’s bequest. As Gage concludes, “Hoover did as much as any individual in government to contain and cripple movements seeking racial and social justice, and thus to limit the forms of democracy and governance that might have been possible.”

And the man she describes so elegantly turned out, for all his impact and endurance, to be a remarkably uncomplicated man. Hoover was the consummate Washingtonian. He lived, studied, and worked his entire life within a stretch of about eight miles as the crow flies. Yes, he often traveled New York City’s posh nightclubs and exclusive resorts in California for vacations, but DC was his home and where he held court. He was molded by its 19th century legacy and likely did more than anyone to shape its 20th century identity. Even the utter inauthenticity, bitterness, and irrationality that dominate politics, business, and society of the city today would seem comforting to him—as long as he could keep his personal secrets secret and his Bureau unsullied by reformers. Hoover was a closeted homosexual whose secret was well known among his patrons, allies, and enemies who feared him most. It was never made public until after he died. He was a petty man whose mendacity knew few bounds. Among the rare times his was on the right (writ small) side of history was in his opposition to the Japanese internment policies of World War II. And he begrudgingly gave approval for his agents to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan and its allies in during the height of the Civil Rights Movement—while at the same time demonizing their opposition as much as possible.

This was both a captivating and frustrating book. Captivating because, with two opinionated exceptions, Beverly Gage writes a tome that flows and is never stodgy. Frustrating because of the subject. Hoover was the very worst this country could produce; it is maddening to know he had such power and influence in “the Making of the American Century.” It is more maddening to see how people in power treated and deferred to him, giants like Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson in particular. Seemingly only Harry Truman saw him for what he was, but even as president he didn’t have the power to sufficiently reign Hoover in or lessen his influence and power. As I read, I couldn’t help but compare him to Reinhard Heydrich, the bureaucratic architect of the SS, the Final Solution, and many more of the atrocities committed with “legal authority” in the Third Reich. Had they been born in each other’s place it would be easy to conclude that Heydrich would have been as effective as head of the FBI as Hoover would in diligently serving the Third Reich. Both were stunningly uncomplicated when seen with the perspective of time and judgment of history.

The two items I missed could perhaps be seen as trivial, but they still nag and prevented me from giving this book five stars. First was that lack of any substantive discussions or details of the extensive files Hoover kept on those he deemed “subversive” or potentially so. He saw threats and enemies in the weirdest places and led to irretrievably damaged reputations, lost futures, and even deaths. Gossip about his files on the Kennedys and other politicians was an open secret. But files on artists, writers, musicians, actors, and others not engaged in governmental affairs? Aaron Copland? Harry Belafonte? Blacklisted screenwriters like Sam Wannamaker who were forced to emigrate? Again, Gage’s narrative is long and thorough, but it seems to me that no comprehensive discussion on the lives he destroyed or impacted is a glaring hole and is as much a part of “the Making of the American Century” as the other parts of Hoover’s life she details.

Finally, the name Clyde Tolson comes up repeatedly, but it is never attached to anything substantive. He’s just there. At Hoover’s side on social occasions. Where everyone but the public knows the relationship is not professional, but deeply personal. And they keep it to themselves as they exchange letters acknowledging pleasantries of having seen Hoover with Tolson or regretting that they missed Tolson at some other private function. For more than forty years Tolson had no visible impact on the work of the FBI, despite holding the title of Assistant Director for much of that time. While writing this and thinking I might be a bit unfair, I checked the index under Tolson and the entry “post Red Scare and, 393.” But I’ll be damned, after reading page 393 at least 10 times, if Tolson’s name is to be found anywhere on the page. Perhaps, to be charitable, that’s the publisher's, not Gage’s fault, but it underscores my point. Compare that to 2008, when Congressman Tim Mahoney from Florida resigned because he had a paid mistress on his campaign staff. This from a man who campaigned on “a world that is safer, more moral” as he sought to replace Mark Foley, who resigned after it was revealed that he had sent lewd messages to male Congressional pages. Or to the fate of Congressman Wilber Mills, who was considered to wield comparable power in Washington to Hoover as chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, and was caught before and after his reelection in 1974 in an alcoholic stupor with a burlesque stripper?

Hoover's right-wing apologists, the keepers of his personal mythology, claim his sexuality is an out-of-bounds, nonessential, distracting issue. That is ridiculous. Omissions and the failure to connect the dots in this case, something Gage does skillfully throughout this biography on just about every issue, prevents me from categorizing this excellent biography as definitive. Tolson was an essential part of Hoover’s story, but not as a professional colleague, as it is wrongly imagined in the public record. More precisely, Tolson was nothing more than Hoover’s male concubine with a title, civil service protection, a salary in the upper echelons of the federal pay scale, with generous benefits and a secure pension. Their relationship, the way it was hidden from the public, and the complicity of those with immense power to hide it only underscore and emphasize Hoover’s hypocrisy, failings, and the inordinate measures—often unethical and illegal—he took to maintain the fictions of his life and role in “the Making of the American Century.”

[Trevor Abbott · Rating 4 out of 5]

“One of the Giants”

I literally had zero idea who this was before I read this. It is an excellent (and exhaustive!) exploration of the 20th century and how one man with unlimited and unprecedented power shaped the United States. Through 47 years of service, 8 different presidential administrations, the Palmer Raids, WW1, the Red Scare, Prohibition, Gangster/Mafia Crime, the Depression, WW2, espionage, the Cold War, The Lavender Scare, McCarthyism, Civil Rights Movement, the Kennedys and King assassinations, The Vietnam War, and the New Left, Hoover used illegal break ins, wiretaps (literally who didn’t he wiretap?), bugging, smear campaigns, fake news, and an ungodly amount of informants to guide history how he saw fit. Regardless of good or bad, he was an impressive man.

[Josh Avery · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Pulitzer Prize winning profile of J. Edgar Hoover.

There is very little argument that J. Edgar Hoover is one of, if not the most important political figures of the 20th century. This book is thoroughly researched and does not seem to be missing anything about his life. This book, all 864 pages of it, is broken into three parts. The first two are about his birth and home life up until he becomes the FBI Director. These two parts, although necessary, are a bit redundant and tiresome. He served as director under 8 presidents, using his wiretapping and secret recordings to keep himself in power until he was 78, well past the mandatory retirement age of government employees. He was close friends with Nixon and LBJ and used these friendships to bully and leverage what was best for him, whether or not it was best for the Bureau or not.

Part 3 really picks the book up as it starts with his hatred and paranoia of primarily 4 people. Fred Hampton, Martin Luther King and 2 Irish Catholic brothers from Massachusetts named Jack and Bobby Kennedy. He kept incriminating footage of all of these guys, pointing the majority of his hatred at Dr. King, who he viewed as a hypocrite and a threat to society. There is, allegedly, some recorded tape of MLK having sex orgies outside of his marriage, it is rumored that he slept with over 50 women and Hoover allegedly recorded all of these. These recordings are scheduled to be released in 2027 and it is interesting if they actually see the light of day. It was rumored that he kept these files to avoid being outed as gay, but it was one of the worst kept secrets in DC, everyone knew that he was. He was a white supremacist, viewing anyone who wasn't white and highly educated as lesser citizens. He was also anti-segregation aiming a lot of artillery at George Wallace and the KKK primarily to avoid looking bad in the public eye. I can go on for days about how despicable his reign as director was, but, this book does a great job of being fair to both sides letting you formulate your own opinions of him.

The book itself is a B, well researched, well written and extremely well detailed. The subject of the book, is a D- The damage that one person did, while given unchecked power for 50 years by both Republicans and Democrats has trickled down to a lot of the paranoia and mistrust of the government that are more prevalent today than they ever have been.

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I experienced J. Edgar Hoover at the end of his career, what folks like me saw as the end of his reign of terror. Because of how I saw him at that time, I always thought Hoover did not understand that those on the extreme right posed dangers to the nation that he, supporting those groups, ignored.

I'm glad to know, now, that their support for him irritated him because he did view them as a danger. Sadly, though, not as much of a danger as Communists on the extreme left so, other than disapproving of them and warning Nixon not to get support from them, he did virtually nothing else.

I did enjoy learning more about Mr. Hoover and his development of the FBI and his goals and accomplishments. Nonetheless, the level to which he, throughout his career, either dismissed or ignored constitutional rights of American citizens left me with the assessment that he was, indeed, leading a reign of terror.

[Maria Almaguer · Rating 5 out of 5]

More than a biography of a legendary and controversial public figure, this is an immense history of the twentieth century, through eight presidents, Communist party and anarchy fighting, civil rights, crime fighting, states' rights, government intelligence, and of course, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Hoover's roost. The author is a history professor and this doorstop of a book was over ten years in the making. The resources and notes are impressive and her writing style engrossing and accessible. Before I read this, I knew nothing about J. Edgar Hoover; Gage brings the man to life in all his faults and frailties. Highly, highly recommended for all history lovers.

[Kazen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Is there anything more tortuous than being assigned a 700+ page biography about a figure you don't have an interest in? Gage does a great job making Hoover's life readable, but even she cannot overcome my initial ambivalence. As I talk about in my Booktube Prize vlog it's a great biography if you love biographies, but oh wow not a book for me.

[Melissa Wood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beverly pulled no punches here. Whether you view J Edgar’s life through todays lenses or call him a man of his time, you can’t deny that he was a significant part of American history. After 48 years in office and through 8 presidents, he transformed the FBI and how we think of crime (and privacy) in America. Through it all I couldn’t help but wonder what would J Edgar think of life in 2023.

[Ben Van Apple · Rating 3 out of 5]

V long. He did many bad things. Maybe I will visit him in the cemetery someday.

[Todd Voter · Rating 5 out of 5]

The definitive Hoover bio based on new exhaustive research presents the entire picture of the most influential law enforcement official in American history.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

A richly detailed look that still doesn't adequately explain one of the 20th century's most polarizing political figures.

Stop me if you've heard this -- America's head law enforcement officer embraces technocratic authoritarianism to spy on and undermine his political opponents all while wrapping himself in the trappings of "protecting our democracy." I feel like I've been here before.

Gage's 2022 biography of J. Edgar Hoover is a really impressive work that nevertheless feels incomplete. It is a generally fair but critical look at Hoover's life and work but frequently focuses more on the operations of the FBI rather than Hoover the man. It's an understandable trade-off as it's hard to say Hoover had much of a life beyond the FBI. Though even here, Gage does a fine job going into great detail about Hoover's relationship with his aide/confidant Clyde Tolson. Gage gets points for not definitively asserting that Hoover was gay where there isn't clear evidence -- but there's more than enough evidence of Hoover writing flirtatious letters to another male FBI agent and that he and Tolson essentially living as a domestic partnership for decades that the reader is able to draw their own conclusion (Gage also discounts the "Hoover wore lady's clothes" rumor in detail).

That low-level salaciousness aside, the rest of the book struggles with explaining how/why Hoover came to be the technocratic authoritarian that would simultaneously battle communists, oppose Japanese internment, combat the Klan, and try to blackmail Martin Luther King to commit suicide while claiming to be both a defender of Constitutional rights/liberties while routinely spying on political opponents. The details of what Hoover had his FBI *do* are extensive and very interesting -- but the reader is left somewhat unsure *why* Hoover took the positions he took, as contradictory as they seemed to be.

His crusade against MLK, in particular, is an example of this. It's clear Hoover despised MLK, but it's not clear why. Was it because of MLK's hypocrisy as a man of God while he was having orgies in hotel rooms that the FBI listened in on (the audio of which is set to be declassified/released in 2027)? Was it Hoover's patrician view of white supremacy that was a product of his upbringing in Washington DC and membership in all-white fraternal organizations like Kappa Alpha? Was it King's (somewhat mild) criticism of the FBI and Hoover's knee-jerk reaction to defend *his* Bureau at all costs? Maybe a little bit of all three. But unfortunately, Gage poses these questions without ever giving the reader quite enough to come to a satisfying conclusion. This is unfortunate as when it comes to Hoover's sexuality/personal life, Gage does a fine job of laying out all available evidence.

Maybe that was the point, Hoover seems eminently unknowable. A true creature of the "swamp" who, like other swamp creatures, often possess significant power but the absence of animating principles or even identifiable principles, really can't be trusted to use that power without significant checks. And for 50+ years, Hoover had little to check him.

So while Gage does an outstanding job of chronicling the work of Hoover's FBI and Hoover's heavy hand in it, "G-Man" fails to adequately explain the complicated motivations or rationales behind so many of Hoover's seemingly contradictory decisions.

[Scott Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-researched book about a long incredible career of the first head of the FBI J Edgar Hoover.

Hoover helped create the FBI in 1935 and led the organization until his death in 1972. He served 8 presidents from Coolidge to Nixon. I can't imagine we will ever see another person allowed to run a government agency for almost 37 years. He spent most of his time walking the line of appearing to be apolitical which is what it takes to survive the different political parties being in power.

Unfortunately, for Hoovers legacy that neutral veil started to melt away the last 12 years of his reign at the FBI when his political leanings started to surface which may have contributed to many in congress and the media to start to turn against him. One of his flaws in my opinion was that he spied on MLK among others and targeted MLK as communist. He threatened to expose Kings extramarital affairs which was dirty politics and showed the worst side of Hoover. What makes this so strange is that Hoover needed to keep his own sex life a secret as it appears he was a closeted gay man.

Many people have heard the allegation that Hoover was a cross dresser. Gage doesn't seem to believe it and neither do I. This was man who served at a time when government employees could be fired for being gay and Hoover more than most understood the need to keep secrets. I think he was gay and in a long term relationship with his right hand man in the FBI Clyde Tolson but I think the drag accusation is just a baseless slur.

The book covers an incredible amount of big events in US history that are all related because they involved the FBI under Hoover. The book covers from John Dillinger, Red Scare during WW2, Alger Hiss/Whitaker Chambers Spy Case, Rosenburgs, Civil Rights and the assassinations of JFK, RFK and MLK.

A great book that covers 6 decades of American history.

I really appreciated the authors fairness in telling the story. I think many biographers make their subject a perfect hero or awful villain and of course most people are more complicated, and Hoover is certainly no exception. Beverly Gage presents a lot of good things Hoover did for the country but didn't shy away from his flaws.

I have two big take aways from the book.

Hoover was a mostly good man who served his country admirably for decades but he definitely had significant flaws especially related to MLK and the civil rights movement.

The second take away is the complicated relationship between an FBI and politics. In a perfect world we need an FBI not tainted by politics but that seems impossible and recent events seem to prove that. The FBI has to answer to somebody so they don't abuse their power but if they answer to the President than that could be abused as well. I don't have the answers but it is a concern.

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my first J. Edgar Hoover biography. At more than 700 pages, you'd think the tome would be dry and tedious, but Beverly Gage knows her subject well and tells the story effectively.

Gage uses primary documentation, but also leans heavily on her own interpretation of historical events. She doesn't take sides exactly, but she is very interested in putting Hoover into the context of his time. She talks about how Hoover saw the FBI through his decades running it, both in where he saw its strengths and its weaknesses. It's tempting to see Hoover as someone who was unflinching, but he was a savvy operator, who knew when to pick his battles. He knew how to find allies and how to reduce scrutiny.

One of her big takeaways is that Hoover could not have accomplished what he did without support from, as she phrased it, "above and below." He knew how to build public support, and used Hollywood to manipulate the public's perception of his newly founded agency. (I am a little curious to check out 'G' Men, the Hollywood film blessed by Hoover to serve as FBI propaganda to the public.)

One big part of this book is Hoover's relationship with Clyde Tolson, his deputy, companion, and — likely — romantic partner. Hoover was not out. We cannot say that he was a gay man. He preferred to be called a "bachelor." But in retrospect things look pretty clear. He lived with his mother until she died. Then he lived alone. He never dated women, as far as we can tell. He and Tolson vacationed together, went to dinner together, and, based on personal letters, cared deeply for one another. They also hung out with Broadway stars and creative types. It's ... quite obvious what was happening there.

Finally, Hoover's views on race are integral to this account. Yes, Hoover was affiliated with racist organizations. He also leaned heavily into "law and order," which disproportionately affected Black people. He deferred to local police on many touchy race issues when possible. He used the FBI to investigate civil rights leaders, and viewed even nonviolent protest as an affront to his perception of law and order. Importantly, the department of investigation had been hiring Black people before Hoover took over, and that stopped once he stepped in as director. Still, all of this is not without nuance, as Gage explains in her book. She does not make excuses, but she does put it all in much better context. His views on race may have been as much shaped by his instinct to preserve the bureau and its mission as much as his own personal views on the subject.

If you are at all curious about Hoover as a historical figure, I recommend this book. It's long but goes down fairly easy. I cannot say how it stacks up against other Hoover biographies, but it does feel like a modern take on the man.

[Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stunning book!!! I loved every page. This book took me nearly a year to finish, partly bc it was so long and partly because I restarted it from the beginning more than once when my library loan renewed bc it was just that good. I’m already ready to start it again. I highly recommend!! Eager for someone to discuss this with!!! 👀👀

[Vince · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let me start by saying that I am very critical of authors who dictate their own agenda to formulate the readers thoughts or decisions: I would have given this book a rating of 4 had the author written a factual summation of Hoover's life as she did with the last 100 pages, but I was distracted by her agenda to defame Hoover. The first 600 pages were inuendoes, assumptions, and little credit for his accomplishments. When the author claims Hoover joined a fraternity (all men), it was an indication of his sexual preference. We all know his life with Tolson, but to continue it all through the book? Just provide the facts and let me decern the interpretations. She included a statement from a person convicted of perjury (so why include the inuendo?). The fact that Hoover did not enlist in the WW1: was he unpatriotic while 80% of fraternity enlisted? He was sole support of his parents_ reason for deferment. Yes, the FBI eventually used guns to capture criminals; but she claims it turned them into "Killers". Again, she started presenting basic facts in the last 100 pages covering the assassinations of JFK and Martin Luther King. I can decide what to believe or accept in those pages. Hoover was a creation of times or events. Yes, Hoover was a power that held secrets, and he used those secrets. WW1, WW2, communism did threaten America. Give him some credit!

[Mindaugas Mozūras · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is something addictive about secrets.

For context: I'm not from the US, so I knew only a little about J. Edgar Hoover. What I mainly knew came from various portrayals and references in other books and movies. I was also aware he was not well-liked by the liberal side of the political spectrum in the US.

J. Edgar Hoover spent 48 years as the FBI Director and maybe the most powerful bureaucrat in the country. His story is fascinating. He built a powerful institution and was confidant to eight presidents. And while I understand that some people describe him as an evil man, that's not my takeaway from this book.

The author explores Hoover's life from start to finish in a measured and balanced way. I came away seeing Hoover as... human. A flawed human, like all of us, are. Even if some of his values are not my values, I understood how and why he came to value the things he valued.

In many ways, Hoover's story is also the story of the US. He and his FBI were involved in some of the century's most significant events. It was interesting to see those events from this specific perspective.

Great biographies provide portrayals that feel true. I found that to be the case here. I enjoyed G-Man from start to finish, and I do think it's an excellent biography.