J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets (37 page)

Attending law school at night, Hoover spent his days working in the world’s largest filing cabinet, the Library of Congress; then, in July 1917, three months after America entered World War I, he obtained a draft-exempt position in the Justice Department, in the Alien Registration Section. At age twenty-two Hoover had found his niche in life: he became a hunter of men.

And women. One of Hoover’s first big cases was the deportation of the notorious anarchist Emma Goldman.
Library of Congress USZ62-20178.

A. Mitchell Palmer, attorney general and presidential hopeful. Hoover worked behind the scenes orchestrating Palmer’s infamous Red raids; but when the many illegalities of the arrests came under attack, he tried to minimize his participation.
Wide World Photos.

Gaston Bullock Means, hanging out the dirty laundry of the Harding administration before the Wheeler committee. Behind the cherubic face was a con man extraordinaire. He swindled a gullible socialite out of a $100,000 “ransom” for the Lindbergh baby, nearly snatched the Hope diamond, and died knowing he’d even managed to con J. Edgar Hoover.
Library of Congress 12362.

Hoover’s mentor Harlan Fiske Stone, shown here on a fishing trip just after being named attorney general. In choosing the twenty-nine year old Hoover as “acting” director of the Bureau of Investigation, Stone had no idea he was making a lifelong appointment.
UPI/Bettmann Newsphotos.

J. Edgar Hoover shortly after his 1924 appointment. The new director picked up on Attorney General Stone’s ideas and transformed the corrupt bureau into one of the most powerful law enforcement agencies in the world.
National Archives 65-H-369-1.

A rare informal photograph of the FBI director and some of his chief assistants.
Left to right:
Clyde Tolson, the Bureau’s second in command and the director’s inseparable companion; Frank Baughman, Hoover’s oldest friend and FBI firearms instructor; Hoover; R. E. “Bob” Newby, a headquarters supervisor; John M. Keith, one of the “hired guns”; W. R. Glavin, of the Administrative Division; and C. E. Weeks, one of the special agents in charge. The occasion was a baseball game between the FBI and the Baltimore Police Department, in July 1935.
National Archives 65-H-5-1.

The Department of Justice Building at Ninth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. From his fifth floor balcony,
center,
the FBI director watched presidents come and go, in inaugural parades and funeral processions.
Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Wanted poster for John Dillinger. After escaping from the jail in Crown Point, Indiana, Dillinger drove a stolen car across the Illinois state line, giving the Bureau jurisdiction in the case. It was four months, however, before Hoover’s men, acting on a brothel madam’s tip, encountered the outlaw outside Chicago’s Biograph Theatre.
Wide World Photos.

John Dillinger in the Crown Point jail, prior to his escape with what he later claimed was a wooden gun.
From left:
Sheriff Lillian Holley, whose car Dillinger stole; Prosecutor Robert Estill; and, with his arm draped casually over the prosecutor’s shoulder, Dillinger. The publication of this photograph—Hoover said no picture ever made him so mad—ended Estill’s political career.
UPI/Bettmann Newsphotos.

John Dillinger on a slab in the Cook County morgue following the shooting at the Biograph. This photo also made history, of sorts. The position of Dillinger’s hands, and rigor mortis, led to the myth that the outlaw had a foot-long penis. The Smithsonian still receives about a hundred inquiries a year, asking if it is on display.
UPI/Bettmann Newsphotos.