Read J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets Online
Authors: Curt Gentry
Tags: #General, #Biography & Autobiography, #United States, #Political Science, #Law Enforcement, #History, #Fiction, #Historical, #20th Century, #American Government
J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets (144 page)
Although the Nixon impeachment hearings, the Church and Pike committee hearings, and the House investigation of the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., contain a wealth of material on Hoover and the FBI, one rich source of Nixon-Hoover materials remains unreleased. Because of various protracted legal stratagems, the White House tapes still have, for the most part, never been made public. Unless they are released in their entirety—an unlikely possibility—we will probably never know exactly what transpired during the two 1971 meetings at which President Nixon tried, and failed, to fire FBI Director Hoover.
Although J. Edgar Hoover has been dead for nearly twenty years, his ghost casts a long shadow. There are many who still fear some retribution—perhaps because no one is quite sure which of his files still exist—were they to speak openly on the record. For these and other reasons, a number of persons, fewer than two dozen in number, consented to be interviewed only on the condition that they not be identified. Although there is a thin line between my utilizing such sources and the FBI’s use of “faceless informants”—and perhaps no line at all—I have respected their wishes, though I have tried, and am still trying, to get them to change their minds. But I do wish to acknowledge their assistance.
I especially appreciate those who were willing to be interviewed openly, and surprisingly often on tape. Alan H. Belmont consented to an interview, although he was
obviously dying. Federal Appellate Court Justice Edward A. Tamm, long the Bureau’s number three man and described by many as its “rudder,” talked with me for over three hours before mentioning, casually, that he had undergone major surgery the previous day. Charles A. Appel, Jr., the little-credited founder of the FBI Laboratory, was just as pleased to see me when I turned up on his doorstep the fifth time as the first, on each occasion fitting me into his busy schedule. I even found myself liking, immensely—although I knew he’d penned the despicable Martin Luther King, Jr., “suicide letter” and was a guiding force behind the FBI’s infamous COINTELPROs—William C. Sullivan, even though the subterfuges employed before we ever met infected me with his own, perhaps well-founded paranoia (I still wonder whether his death was “a hunting accident”).
Although I met the
Nation
editor Victor Navasky only once, in 1976, and then briefly, I found myself often remembering a remark he once made about the author of a book on the Hiss case: “He makes the mistake of assuming that FBI memorandums provide answers rather than clues.” My very special thanks, then, to those listed below who helped me interpret and follow those clues, which led me from the Oval Office in the White House to the frightening “printshop” in the basement of the Department of Justice Building:
George Allen,
*
Jack Anderson, James Jesus Angleton, Charles A. Appel, Jr., Roger Baldwin, Enrico Banducci, Alan H. Belmont, Thomas Hale Boggs, Jr., Leonard Boudin, Kay Boyle, Thomas V. Brady, William F. Buckley, Jr., Tim Butz, C. G. “Jerry” Campbell, John Cassidy, Emanuel Celler,
*
Ramsey Clark, Tom Campbell Clark,
*
Ken Clawson,
*
William Corson, Sylvia Crane, James E. Crawford,
*
John Crewdson, Ernest Cuneo, Ovid Demaris, Frank Donner, Don Edwards, Philip Elman, Morris L. Ernst, Courtney Evans, W. Mark Felt, David B. Fechheimer, Jerome M. Garchik, Hank Greenspun, Richard Gump, George William “Bill” Gunn, George Gutekunst, Edwin Guthman, Barry Hagen,
*
Morton Halperin, Robert C. Hendon, C. David Heymann, Warren Hinckle, Alger Hiss, Paul Hoch, Lawrence J. Hogan,
*
William S. “Pete” Holley,
*
Timothy H. Ingram, Paul Jacobs, Donald Jacobson, Tom Jenkins, Clarence M. Kelley, Ronald Kessler, Edward Kosner, David Kraslow, Ronald F. Kriss, Rolland Lamensdorf, Donald S. Lamm, Corliss Lamont, Joseph Lash, Henri Lenoir, Stephen Lesher, Hal Lipset, Joseph Logue, Christopher Lydon, Wesley McCune, Thomas McDade, Robert Maheu, John Francis Malone, John D. Marks, Thomas A. Mead,
*
Charles Morgan, Ted Morgan, Patrick V. Murphy, Jack Nelson, Huey P. Newton, Louis B. “Lou” Nichols, Luther Nichols, Jeremiah O’Leary, Bonaro Overstreet, Kathy Perkus, Douglas Porter, Earl Purvis, Harry Reid, Vincent Schiano, Walter Sheridan, Howard Simons, Liz Smith, Joseph Spear, Syd Stapleton, Fortney H. “Pete” Stark, I. F. Stone, William C. Sullivan, Eric P. Swenson, Edward Allen Tamm, Robert C. Tayor, Jr., Dick Tuck, William W. Turner, Sanford Ungar, Frank C. Waldrop, Robert Wick, Les Whitten.
*
An asterisk indicates an interview which was conducted by someone other than the author.
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