In his zeal to protect the “American way of life,” Hoover helped to accelerate a turn against the federal government—indeed, against the very idea of government service—that is still a major feature of the modern right. At the same time, his reactionary politics and the abuses they inspired have made him—and the forms of government power for which he came to stand—anathema among leftists and liberals. The man who once garnered a 98 percent approval rating now has few admirers and almost nobody willing to claim his legacy, even within the FBI.
