Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover

by Anthony Summers

1994

Status

Available

Publication

Pocket (1994), 624 pages

Description

Biography & Autobiography. History. Nonfiction. HTML:A New York Timesā??bestselling author's revealing, "important" biography of the longtime FBI director (The Philadelphia Inquirer). No one exemplified paranoia and secrecy at the heart of American power better than J. Edgar Hoover, the original director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. For this consummate biography, renowned investigative journalist Anthony Summers interviewed more than eight hundred witnesses and pored through thousands of documents to get at the truth about the man who headed the FBI for fifty years, persecuted political enemies, blackmailed politicians, and lived his own surprising secret life. Ultimately, Summers paints a portrait of a fatally flawed individual who should never have held such power, and for so lo… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member Schmerguls
This 1993 book, publsihed more than 20 years after J. Edgar hoover's death in 1972, is full of information and gossip, but the picture it draws of Hoover's behavior and evil is persuasive. Summers quotes a psychiatry professor who siad "Hoover would have made a perfect high-level Nazi." Reading the
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book lends reliability to that assessment--and it is very disturbing that Hoover was able to induce Presidents to allow him to continue in office into his dotage. One need not accept all that the book sets out as Gospel but I was appalled that so much of it might well be true.
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LibraryThing member Whiskey3pa
Well written and researched. Disturbing from cover to cover. The willingness of FDR to use the Hoover dirty tricks and surveillance for his own advancement is the beginning of real power for Hoover and he wielded it until his death. The book brings to mind the sausage making story, you don't want
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to know how your government works. Quite frankly, no one comes out looking good in this one. Given the story in the news today (23 May 2013, just in case post dating vanishes) is about the IRS using it's power to persecute groups of citizens I guess we can say that some things just never change.
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LibraryThing member Mitchell_Bergeson_Jr
This was a solid read and well researched. Mr. Summers goes after Hoover like a pitbull in many areas of the text. Really, he doesn't have anything good to say about him. I don't think this could stand as a true comprehensive biography for that fact, but it does make for fun reading.

Mr. Summers
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does introduce some tired and sad conspiracy theories to spice up the text and sales, so I would recommend checking major incidents independently of the text. All in all, a well researched and presented trek through the life of Mr. Hoover that deals with many of his sordid plots and schemes to stay in power.
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Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

1993

ISBN

067188087X / 9780671880873

Barcode

1603295
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