The closest Hoover ever came to acknowledging a less than perfect childhood was in 1938, a few months after his mother’s death, when he published an unusually personal article speculating about what might happen “If I Had a Son.” In that article, he noted that boys want to worship their fathers “as head of the house, a repository of all knowledge, the universal provider, the righteous Judge.” Such admiration became impossible when parents relied on “half-truths” to lull their children into a false sense of security.
