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

by Beverly Gage

Hoover spent the Christmas season familiarizing himself with some of the more extravagant texts of the American left. Many foretold the coming destruction of capitalism, though they differed widely on the question of violence. “No lives need be lost, not one drop of blood need be shed, if the working class will rally to the I.W.W. with its program of peaceful evolvement,” promised The Red Dawn, one of the books on Hoover’s reading list. Hoover sought to persuade his superiors that communists actually embraced violence, however cagey their writings might be. By virtue of joining one of the two parties, he argued, members committed themselves to the armed overthrow of the government and the capitalist system.