Five Myths About J. Edgar Hoover

The Washington Post:

Dead almost 40 years, J. Edgar Hoover returns to the spotlight as the Clint Eastwood biopic "J. Edgar" opens in theaters this week. Hoover served as director of the FBI for 48 years, holding the job under eight presidents from Calvin Coolidge to Richard M. Nixon. But ask most people about J. Edgar Hoover, and the subject turns to sex. Let's separate fact from fiction in Hoover's legacy.

Read the whole story: The Washington Post

Comments

[AllPeople]

04:11 PM on 12/27/2011

Let's use reason here:

Even IF J. Edgar Hoover actually did have some
Black racial lineage, that would NOT have
made him into an actual racially-Black person.

There's NO SUCH THING AS A “LIGHT-SKINNED
BLACK” person (the term is a racist oxymoron
created by Racial Supremacists to deny
Mixed-Race people with any amount
of Black blood, the right to publicly
acknowledge & accept their full lineage).

So, IF J. Edgar Hoover did have some
Black blood — it would just mean that
he was a WHITE person who just
happened to also be of a lineage
that (like most of the White people
in the U.S.) was MULTIRACIAL.

Think about it:

If he had a tiny ‘drop or two’ of “Asian blood”
from an ancient-ancestor, no one would
ever call him a “Light-Skinned Asian” man.

The ONLY way that ANYONE could EVER
think of J. Edgar Hoover as being a Black man
is IF they were adhering to and embracing the
‘black-lineage degrading’, racist ‘One-Drop Rule’
(which falsely claims that any amount of Black
blood, found in a Mixed-Race persons lineage
is so ‘tainted’, ‘filth’ and ‘contaminated’ that
it literally ‘destroyed’ all their other
bloodlines and makes racially-Black).

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Generation-Mixed/message/4162
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Generation-Mixed/message/4187
http://www.facebook.com/allpeople.gifts/posts/300777016632181.
– AllPeople (“AP”) Gifts ©
[e-mail]

[harriettubman]

05:45 PM on 11/27/2011

I don't know who continues to keep his name on the FBI bldg in DC but he represented absolutely nothing but Jim Crow era poison.

[DidHeReallySayThat]

06:05 PM on 03/25/2012

So that modern and irrelevant conjecture is not a lasting impression to any reader, I wanted to set the record straight because J. Edgar Hoover loved America more than any one person, one race, one politics, or one world. While your myopic vision can never fully realize or appreciate the likes of this man in the time he was born into, J. Edgar Hoover was the FBI and should always deserve a state of respect and reverence. He began the FBI, he took law enforcement to new scientific levels and ways of thinking.

J. Edgar Hoover, whatever flaws he may have possessed, was and forever will be a great American with great ideals.

[Omega Payton]

02:25 PM on 05/28/2012

Indeed, harriettubman. This piece of trash's name should be removed from that building. Total garbage whose name should be treated as such.

[harriettubman]

05:40 PM on 11/27/2011

I've read bio's where some celebrities, who traveled in the same social circles as Hoover, knew he was gay and that Tolson was his partner. A rumor like that just doesn't fall out of the sky.

Where's the other rumor about his passing as white? He was actually biracial but had plenty of black relatives. No wonder he was so r/a/c/i/s/t against MLK and other Civil Rights leaders. He wanted to deny that part of himself.

http://american_almanac.tripod.com/hoover.htm

[harriettubman]

05:52 PM on 11/27/2011

Plus had census records changed too. There were lots of Census erasures found when one of his black cousin's and a historian tried to retrace his heritage. He made sure that wouldn't be found out!!!!

[mszksg]

09:54 PM on 11/24/2011

Myth #6: He was a Caucasian.

[AndyPhx]

12:25 PM on 11/14/2011

"Hoover and Tolson worked together more than 40 years. They traveled on vacation and official business, rode to work together, shared lunch nearly every day at Washington’s Mayflower hotel and sometimes even wore matching suits. Hoover, at his death, left Tolson most of his estate."

Sounds like a marriage to me.

[harriettubman]

05:43 PM on 11/27/2011

And I've read accounts where some celebrities he socialized with knew about this lifestyle too.

[dnrichard]

10:37 AM on 11/14/2011

It was well known in the Gay Community that the FBI, under Hoover, would not bother them.

[Welshish]

10:44 AM on 11/14/2011

Really? He got rid of any FBI agent who seemed too openly 'gay'.

[harriettubman]

05:45 PM on 11/27/2011

He seem to angrily denounce anything or anybody who represented who he was: part black and gay. He was a head of his time dressing up as a woman though (only in private).

[Omega Payton]

02:27 PM on 05/28/2012

He was Sarah.

[amorosotom]

10:06 AM on 11/14/2011

J.Edgar. He was the face of the police state. All the harm he did in destroying liberals and attacking blacks who fought for equality can't be swept under the rug by a right leaning newspaper. How about a list of facts and were not myths about J.Edgar. 1) He hated blacks and blackmailed Martin Luther King. 2) No evidence of him being gay but no evidence of him being hetero. He lived with a man for 40 years. 3) He was untouchable. Ben Bradlee said he was the one person the Washington Post would not attack. 4) He intimidated presidents. 5) He was corrupt and spent lavishly using the FBI budget for home improvements and free,expensive vacations. 6) He was a very cruel tyrant,incapable of accepting diversity in thought or opinions.

[ExiledMan]

10:32 AM on 11/14/2011

And as a lifelong Beatles fan, I was particularly upset when he had John Lennon phone tapped and watched 24/7 for his activities against The Vietnam War.

[Bonesd772]

06:51 AM on 11/24/2011

u think the Post is right-leaning? what have u been smoking?

[ExiledMan]

10:00 AM on 11/14/2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLWXsLykCuY

This ain't no myth. Hoover was a disease on American values.

[Djay0252]

09:59 AM on 11/14/2011

This article really does not say anything new about Hoover. As far as I am concerned he was gay, he kept it in the closet where all sexual relations should be kept whether gay or straight. He also was and felt very entitled.

[evilchihuahua]

09:50 AM on 11/14/2011

Is it true that he danced around the office late at night singing,
I'm so pretty
Oh so pretty
I feel pretty and witty and bright?

[Welshish]

09:51 AM on 11/14/2011

I think that was only after the assassinations.

[evilchihuahua]

11:09 AM on 11/14/2011

I'm sure those got him hot too.

[SIMPLICIMUSS]

10:31 AM on 11/14/2011

Remember reading somewhere that he liked pretty pink silky thingeys

[SouthernGirl2]

09:48 AM on 11/14/2011

...Notning gives me more pleasure than thinking J Edgar is burning in he!! throughout eternity.

[amorosotom]

10:07 AM on 11/14/2011

me too.

[Omega Payton]

02:50 PM on 05/28/2012

I'd like to add some gasoline to his fire!

[Donatella]

09:43 AM on 11/14/2011

No government official should stay in office for 37 years and in this case the power he had corrupted him. He turned a blind eye to the Mafia and used the FBI to carry out personal vendettas. He was a little man whose personal shortcomings transformed him into a thug.

[harriettubman]

05:48 PM on 11/27/2011

Hoover was about to mandatorily retire at 65 but Pres. Johnson signed into law that he could remain in the position.

[Omega Payton]

02:45 PM on 05/28/2012

Which is exactly why we need to send Joe Arpiao's sorry butt packing in Arizona.

[BigLeftbowski]

09:38 AM on 11/14/2011

This article is nothing more than a public relations exercise. J. Edgar Hoover had no female relations and lived with a man for most of his life -a man who he made an assistant FBI director after only 4 months on the job, and who he sent flowers to on a regular basis. Lyndon Johnson had contemplated firing him at one point, but concluded "I'd rather have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.". Did I mention that he used African-American FBI agents as servants in his house?

[Stalling]

09:52 AM on 11/14/2011

Exactly. Puff piece.

[amorosotom]

10:08 AM on 11/14/2011

Richard Nixon had it right when hearing of his death said, "The old c**ksucker is dead."

[ExiledMan]

09:37 AM on 11/14/2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JKgA5zVj8M&feature=related


Not a lot of people know this but J.E.Hoover doubled for Aunt Bea on The Andy Griffiths show on occasion.

[bmwracer]

09:44 AM on 11/14/2011

LOL.

I hear he made one heck of a good apple pie. ;)

[evilchihuahua]

09:45 AM on 11/14/2011

The kind used in "American Pie"?

[amorosotom]

10:09 AM on 11/14/2011

Oh.Andy!

[No Longer Amused 25]

09:31 AM on 11/14/2011

Hoover planted the seed of the tree that is now our Police State.

[amorosotom]

10:09 AM on 11/14/2011

Got that right and it produces a bitter fruit.

[Omega Payton]

02:40 PM on 05/28/2012

There is still plenty of time to take back the rights, people. If we drop the racism junk anf begin to reclaim the police departments one by one. First thing you do is take all power from the PBAand let them know that they have noauthority whatsoever. Each police department needs to go under strict civilian control, and if there are those cops that don't like it...goodbye....leave your unifrom, badge and gun at the door. Hiring and firing should be at will, no ifs ands or buts....if you don't like it..get gone. No police chiefs from other states. The game being played is one bad cop gets fired in one city and then runs to another city and F%^#s that up too. Just look at Sanford...then they go and bring in a guy with just as bad a record from Colorado Springs for an enormous salary. it should be in-house and local all the way. This would stop the circulation of bad apples. Indeed, when a bad apple goes, he/she should stay gone...no more cop jobs! PBA union don't like it? Too bad! If you don't begin to take some of these measure, these people are just a few steps from the Gestapo, and I talkling about within three or four years.