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

by Beverly Gage

Popular medical writers often suggested that patients simply buck up. “The lesson to be learned from this is as follows,” read one neurologist’s treatise. “Lead an active but varied life.” The advice made sense within the cultural conversation about manhood: living vigorously was both a prescription and a cure.

Throughout his life, Hoover remained blind to the coercive nature of his social relationships, in which he inevitably occupied a position of power. Or perhaps he simply liked it that way. For a man who sought control in many aspects of his life, combining the roles of friend and subordinate may have brought a measure of comfort.

no future director would be able to do what Hoover had done: carry on as a devout conservative and a technocratic state builder at the same time.[23]