The Life and Times of John Hoover

The Life and Times of John Hoover

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Hello all,

I’m quite certain that J. Edgar Hoover is a name almost everyone reading this thread right now will be familiar with in some way or another, whether it be just a name that's vaguely recognizable or whether he's a figure you may know quite well, and that is, in my opinion, no accident at all really. You see, with writing up this thread I want to try and highlight this person who I think was one of the most influential men in all of American history, and has influenced the world of conspiracies as well as the topics discussed on ATS perhaps more than most people past and present..

Few people, as far as I can see anyway, have played such a vital role in soo many different topics, many of which are discussed on ATS as potential conspiracies. For that reason alone I guess I'm actually quite surprised a thread of this kind hasn't already been posted on the board's at one time or another - A thread looking solely at this one figure, looking at the rather massive influence he had on history and looking at the massive impact he seemed to have on the world today, even many years after his own demise both professionally and physically.

In this thread I want to try and highlight some of this. In doing so however I've split this thread into various different sections, all of which are listed below. Each post being my discussion on what I thought were vital aspects and influences he made on various different topics such as the Mafia and crime, COINTELPRO, assassination and murder, the targeting of Innocent people and much more. Each post being something of a thread with-in a thread if you will.

Here's a (hopefully) helpful guide to the main discussion points of this thread, to jump to a post please click on one of the links below:

- Hoover - The Head of the FBI

- Hoover, the Mafia and Organized Crime

- Hoover, Civil Rights and COINTELPRO

- The Hoover Files

- Hoover.. Influencing the world

I've split this thread up into multiple sections as shown above simply because I always feel like It's much easier to read this way and information of interest to you, as a reader, can be found that bit quicker at the same time.

So, thank you to those reading so far, I hope you continue reading and I hope you enjoy this entire thread which is my look into a rather fascinating and important time in American history - one which has shaped what it has become today and how it will be further shaped in the future.

Thank you.

Hoover - The Head of the FBI

J. Edgar Hoover, born on January 1, 1895, in Washington, DC, is perhaps most famous for being the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, most commonly known as the "FBI." He was also, at the time of his death in 1972 the longest serving director of the FBI, a record he will always hold as after his death, due to his rather publicly controversial term, measures were put in place to ensure FBI director's in the future could only ever hold this position for a maximum of 10 years time, with the possibility of an extension via senate vote, to avoid the same circumstances that led to Hoovers 37 year reign as FBI director and around 47 years as director of the BOI as a whole.

As a youngster however, John Hoover, born to Dickerson Naylor Hoover, Sr. and Anna Marie Scheitlin Hoover, became the primary source of income for his family due to the mental instability and eventual death of his father, the young Hoover being forced into work which he subsequently found as a messenger boy in the Library of Congress in the day and by spending the evenings and nights studying for a law degree at George Washington University. In 1917, he achieved this and also went onto obtain an LLM, a Master of Laws degree.

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(A young John Hoover)

It was a short while after this that this young, ambitious individual was hired by the current Justice Department, It’s claimed with the help of his uncle who at the time was a judge. After a few years he rose to become the special assistant to A. Mitchell Palmer, the Attorney General at the time, and was responsible for being the head of a new section of the BOI (Bureau of Investigation - which was the FBI of the day), called the General Intelligence Division (Known as the G.I.D). It was here that he seemingly first embarked on "illegal activities done legally" as I call it, particularly by personally targeting Pan-African leader, Marcus Garvey for example.

In 1919, Hoover targeted Pan-African leader Marcus Garvey, naming him a "notorious negro agitator," and began searching for any evidence that would allow Garvey to be charged with a crime. In December of 1919, afraid of Garvey's growing influence, Hoover hired the first black agent in the Bureau's history: James Wormley Jones. Jones was sent to gather intelligence on Garvey, and the resulting information led Hoover and his group to sabotage Garvey's Black Star Line, a series of ships meant to transport goods between the black communities of North America, the Carribbean and Africa. As a result, Garvey's Black Star service went bankrupt, and the leader began entertaining thoughts of self-harm.

(Source)

Heading this section of the BOI he was responsible for gathering Intelligence and information on what they deemed "Radical Groups" or any individual of particular importance, as well as organizing the arrest and deportation of "alleged seditionists." Perhaps the most famous and well known instance of this practice going on is the famous Palmer Raids, named after Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, which was an attempt to arrest and deport anarchists and radical leftists in the Unites States of America.

- Wikipedia: Palmer Raids

- FBI.gov: A Byte Out of History - The Palmer Raids

- Spartacus.Schoolnet: The Palmer Raids

Worried by the revolution that had taken place in Russia, Palmer became convinced that Communist agents were planning to overthrow the American government. His view was reinforced by the discovery of thirty-eight bombs sent to leading politicians and the Italian anarchist who blew himself up outside Palmer's Washington home. Palmer recruited John Edgar Hoover as his special assistant and together they used the Espionage Act (1917) and the Sedition Act (1918) to launch a campaign against radicals and left-wing organizations.

A. Mitchell Palmer claimed that Communist agents from Russia were planning to overthrow the American government. On 7th November, 1919, the second anniversary of the Russian Revolution, over 10,000 suspected communists and anarchists were arrested. Palmer and Hoover found no evidence of a proposed revolution but large number of these suspects were held without trial for a long time. The vast majority were eventually released but Emma Goldman and 247 other people, were deported to Russia.

On 2nd January, 1920, another 6,000 were arrested and held without trial. These raids took place in several cities and became known as the Palmer Raids. A. Mitchell Palmer and John Edgar Hoover found no evidence of a proposed revolution but large number of these suspects, many of them members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), continued to be held without trial. When Palmer announced that the communist revolution was likely to take place on 1st May, mass panic took place. In New York, five elected Socialists were expelled from the legislature.

(Source)

A few years went by and in 1924 the impressed Attorney General, now Harlan F. Stone, as Palmer had retired from Government service in March of 1921, took the decision to give Hoover the position of Acting Director of the BOI after the allegations that the prior director, William J. Burns, was involved in the famous Teapot Dome scandal - which, before Watergate, was being classified as perhaps the greatest and most shameful scandal in all of American history - before the 10th of May the very same year the current President of the Unites States, Calvin Coolidge, appointed him as the official director of the Bureau of Investigation, the 6th person to hold such a position and a position he held from that day right up until the FBI was established as a separate entity in 1935 where he became their very first Director.

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The BOI and the FBI - A brief History:

In 1886, the Supreme Court, in Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway Company v. Illinois, found that the states had no power to regulate interstate commerce. The resulting Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 created a Federal responsibility for interstate law enforcement. The Justice Department made little effort to relieve its staff shortage until the turn of the century, when Attorney General Charles Joseph Bonaparte reached out to other agencies, including the Secret Service, for investigators. But the Congress forbade this use of Treasury employees by Justice, passing a law to that effect in 1908.

So the Attorney General moved to organize a formal Bureau of Investigation (BOI or BI), complete with its own staff of special agents. The Secret Service provided the Department of Justice 12 Special Agents and these agents became the first Agents in the new BOI. Thus, the first FBI agents were actually Secret Service agents. Its jurisdiction derived from the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887.

The FBI grew out of this force of special agents created on July 26, 1908 during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. The first Chief (the title has since been changed to Director) was Stanley W. Finch. Its first official task was visiting and making surveys of the houses of prostitution in preparation for enforcing the "White Slave Traffic Act," or Mann Act, passed on June 25, 1910. In 1932, it was renamed the United States Bureau of Investigation. The following year it was linked to the Bureau of Prohibition and rechristened the Division of Investigation (DOI) before finally becoming an independent service within the Department of Justice in 1935. In the same year, its name was officially changed from the Division of Investigation to the present-day Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI.

(Source)

With the BOI however, this being before the FBI was officially established as an independent investigation entity, Hoover was responsible for a rather vast leap forward on most aspects of their work particularly on improving the training of agents, their investigative techniques used (such as the emergence of scientific measures), he was the public face of a number of high profile gangster arrests and killings, most famously John Dillinger, and he helped greatly increase the funding from Congress.

When Hoover took over, the Bureau of Investigation had approximately 650 employees, including 441 special agents who worked in field offices in nine cities. By the end of the decade, there were approximately 30 field offices, with divisional headquarters in New York, Baltimore, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Chicago, Kansas City, San Antonio, San Francisco, and Portland. He immediately fired those agents he considered unqualified and proceeded to professionalize the organization. For example, Hoover abolished the seniority rule of promotion and introduced uniform performance appraisals. At the beginning of the decade, the Bureau of Investigation established field offices in nine cities. He also scheduled regular inspections of the operations in all field offices.

Then, in January 1928, Hoover established a formal training course for new agents, including the requirement that new agents had to be in the 25-35 year range to apply. He also returned to the earlier preference for special agents with law or accounting experience.

(Source)

Still, it was all not enough it would seem. He wanted more power to fully achieve his goals. You see, when Hoover took over as Director of the original Bureau of Investigation, commonly referred to as simply the BOI, he was very limited with what could be achieved by him and his already limited staff - Thus why he massively expanded them. Guns were not allowed to be carried by the agents nor could they arrest suspects. These years commonly being referred to as the Lawless years in fact, particularly with the emergence of the Great Depression in the late 20's and the emergence of what became known as the “Depression Era - Criminals.”

In 1935 however that all changed - the FBI was officially established with Hoover as It's director. Agents were given vastly more power and influence, the ability to fight crime and in particular violent crime and they even seemingly went as far as willingly setting out to murder violent criminals. With this new Agency with-in the Justice Department, Hoover also helped to finally establish the very first scientific crime-detention laboratory, a vital asset even today.

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As Director of the FBI Hoover also appointed close friend and ‘protege’ Clyde Tolson as his "second in command," or as the Assistant Director of the FBI as he is officially known despite his lack of real experience. In 1936, Tolson joined Hoover in an attempt to arrest well known bank robber Alvin "Creepy" Karpis in a staged arrest (staged in the sense of gaining Hoover more fame and credibility) who was located by the FBI in New Orleans, and who was one of the last of the "Public enemies" as they became known, something of an early version of what has become known as the Top 10 most wanted list on the official FBI website today.

Tolson ended up getting into a gun fight a short while later while once again assisting Hoover, this time with New York City criminal Harry Brunette, in what was supposed to be a staged arrest to help gain Tolson more fame and credibility with the public. But it went wrong as the FBI raided his apartment an estimated 14 hours ahead of schedule.

Almost from the start, there were problems between the NYPD and the FBI. It was agreed that raid would take place that afternoon at 2:00 pm, when it was believed that Brunette would be asleep. However, federal agents moved ahead with the raid and stormed the apartment building at midnight. Confused police detectives, still on stakeout, watched as the raid began 14 hours ahead of schedule. When police officers at the scene questioned Hoover, according to the New York Times, the director "merely shrugged his shoulders".

Within a few minutes, Brunette was alerted when a federal agent unsuccessfully attempted to shoot the lock off his door and immediately returned fire. Gas grenades were tossed into his room, inadvertently starting a fire, and the New York City Fire Department was called.

(Source)

Tolson was later photographed arresting the surrendering Harry Brunette and despite strong criticisms of the FBI in this operation, which resulted in Merle Vandenbush, crime partner of Brunette, escaping capture, Tolson still gained his fame for the operation.

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(John Hoover and Clyde Tolson)

John Edgar Hoover was never actually fired from his position of Director of the FBI, despite holding the position for around 37 years time (Not counting his years as director before the FBI was established) and even in the face of great scrutiny by many people, in particular American Presidents – Many of which seemingly expressed great interest in ousting him, Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy perhaps the most well known to have wished for such a thing.

None were ever successful and Hoover served as Director of the FBI and BOI under 8 United States presidents, reasons for which are still not fully known although much speculation has arisen to suggest that the real reason was not because of Hoover’s over all support among them, which he never had, instead he didn’t play by the rules – He cheated his way into keeping his job and in particular worked at gathering Intelligence for purposes of blackmailing people including Presidents and their wife’s, among many more including innocent people.

This “secret stash” of his known most commonly today as the famous Hoover Files, something we know for a fact exists, or did exist. Whether he really did as many people claimed.. we don’t know. In this thread I’d like to have the opportunity to at least give my thoughts on the subject. And either way there is one thing we know for sure, J. Edgar Hoover was, and most probably always will be, the longest serving Director of the FBI in American history..

Hoover, the Mafia and Organized Crime

J. Edgar Hoover was not exactly new to Organized crime - Given the era for when he first began his position as Director of the FBI and when he was the director of the BOI it would've been practically impossible for him to not encounter the mafia and organized crime at some point or another. This being so, this time in American history is still a very, very interesting one as far as Organized crime is concerned.

See, we know for a fact it, the mafia, does exist today and the very idea that they do not is practically inconceivable to most reading this thread right now I imagine - But, in that time in American history it was nothing more than a mere Conspiracy Theory, one that was mocked by many, including Hoover, in fact. This alone gives some conspiracy theories today more credibility it would seem as we now know this conspiracy theory turned out to have a great deal of truth to it yet was mocked by some as being too "out there." It's even affecting the world today in fact although not as much as it did in the lawless years around the 1920's and the early 30's and so on..

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Hoover himself was one of those who rather publicly maintained that there is no such thing as organized crime and the reasoning behind this may be more sinister than most people realize but I digress for now and this will be further discussed a little bit later on in this section of this thread, for now though it can't be forgotten that he was one of It's public skeptics, particularly when discussing the mafia as opposed to all-round "Organized crime" (The mafia in the Unites Stated is primarily made up of 5 key families, The Bonanno crime family, The Colombo crime family, The Gambino crime family, The Genovese crime family and the Lucchese crime family). Even so it was something that was being tackled in the early days of the FBI although not as much as some preferred, which once again may have a rather sinister reasoning.

With the emergence of Hoover as director though tackling all crime was still done much more proficiently - As highlighted before, agents increased, they were allowed weapons and more importantly they were allowed to use these weapons to, if neccesary, kill. In the 1930's well known gangsters of the time were targeted, and dealt with making Hoover something of a national hero with the public. The death of notorious Depression-era bank robber John Dillinger (who was known nationally and is pictured below) at the hands of the BOI with orders from Hoover to shoot to kill, which they did after ambushing him at a movie theater and then being involved in a gun battle outside it, most probably gaining Hoover the most publicity and admiration of all.

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(Notorious bank robber John Dillinger)

Many other notorious gangsters and bank robbers suffered at the hands of local law enforcers and now in particular the FBI, most famously John Dillinger mentioned above, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, Kate "Ma" Barker, Alvin "Creepy" Karpis, George "Machine Gun Kelly" Barnes and perhaps the most famous of all in regards to modern times, Bonny Parker and Clyde Barrow, now widely known solely by their first names - They were also most likely murdered by the FBI in the most brutal fashion, some saying being shot as much as 25 to 50 times in an ambush.

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(The Famous Bonny and Clyde)

Many of these deaths to such well known figures of the day is what greatly led to the emergence of the FBI in the first place (as many occurred in 1934, just before it's official emergence as an individual entity) as Hoover wanted more power to achieve the goals he set out and bring an end to as much crime as possible. With the emergence of this new crime organisation they were able to scientifically tie criminals to crime (with the use of the first ever advanced scientific crime laboratory - Also known as the FBI laboratory) with the use of fingerprinting for example, statistics were kept on crime, analysis etc. It began an almost completely new era in crime fighting, Hoover greatly revolutionized the way in which crime was fought in the United States.

A "valuable weapon" against these criminal rings, Agent Sackett thoughtfully stated in his article, was "accurate information"—details on the key players, their interlocking connections, their tactics and capabilities. He talked about how Chicago agents had begun building this base of knowledge, through informants and other contacts and through an extensive index of pictures and background on more than "three hundred of the notorious criminals and members of their gangs."

(Source)

In the 1950's, more was being done to tackle the elusive mob crime - The FBI officially created something called the "Top Hoodlum Program" in fact, a program specifically designed to target and stop mob crime, gather Intelligence on potential mob members, and deport those confirmed mob members who were in America Illegally, particularly the famous Italian and Sicilian Mob Members of which we have the now famous names Al Capone, Frank Costello, Charlie "Lucky" Luciano, Carclos Marcello, Vito Genovese and so on. By the late 50's and early 1960's the mob were still a relative unknown amongst most people though and was still considered by some as a conspiracy theorist in fact.

Not enough was being done to tackle them by Hoover's FBI as well, instead of using his men to tackle an issue that was directly effecting and, it has to be said, controlling and intimidating the common people, he chose to focus on what could potentially benefit himself.

At the same time Hoover virtually ignored organized crime and his investigations into political corruption was mainly used as a means of gaining control over politicians in powerful positions. In 1959 Hoover had 489 agents spying on communists but only 4 investigating the Mafia. As early as 1945 Harry S. Truman complained how Hoover and his agents were "dabbling in sex life scandals and plain blackmail when they should be catching criminals".

(Source)

By 1961, President John F. Kennedy was in office and he had appointed his younger brother, Robert "Bobby" Kennedy as the Attorney General, a decision which became disastrous for organized crime which was what he particularly chose to focus on while in office. In this position he also became something of an enemy of J. Edgar Hoover as well, It's said they always disagreed and argued over the topic of Organized Crime and they eventually grew to despise each other, some saying this being a contributing factor to Bobby's demise years later: The Peculiar Death of Bobby..

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Bobby Kennedy was also relentless in taking on Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa, doing all he could to find evidence of his corrupt activities with the mafia and finally place him in jail - Something he eventually achieved and potentially was a contributing factor in the eventual disappearance of Hoffa which, through my own research, seems to have very strong Mafia connections as discussed in another thread of mine here: The Mysterious Disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa

Thanks to the work of Bobby Kennedy mobsters suffered a great deal while he was Attorney General and they were quite literally being thrown in jail left, right and center - some even being deported. The most famous of which was perhaps New Orleans mobster Carlos Marcello who was deported to Guatemala in 1961 eventually sneaking back into America and some saying being involved in the JFK Assassination as well.

Interesting links on Carlos:

- Spartacus.Schoolnet - Biography: Carlos Marcello

- Wikipedia: Carlos Marcello

- Carlos Marcello: Big Daddy In The Big Easy

It's said convictions of Mobsters under Bobby Kennedy even rose to around 800 percent, which seemed to make relations with Hoover only worse oddly enough. By 1963, prior to the murder of JFK, a breakthrough in regards to Organized crime was finally made, this incredibly secretive organisation was in doubt as the first ever mafia member to publicly ackknowledge the existence of the mafia had come out in the form of Joseph Valachi finally confessing to the FBI what the mafia was, what they did, how they worked exactly and so on.



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(Joseph Valachi)

He put himself in great danger but is said to have cut a deal with the FBI to give over what information he had and in return he would avoid the death penalty for a murder he had committed a year before.

In October 1963, Valachi had testified before Arkansas Senator John L. McClellan's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the U.S. Senate Committee on Government Operations that the Mafia did exist.

Although Valachi's disclosures never led directly to the prosecution of many Mafia leaders, he was able to provide many details of its history, operations and rituals, aiding in the solution of several uncleared murders, as well as naming many members and the major crime families. His testimony, which was broadcast on radio and television and published in newspapers, was devastating for the mob, still reeling from the November 14, 1957 Apalachin Meeting, where state police had accidentally discovered several Mafia bosses from all over the United States meeting at the Apalachin home of mobster Joseph Barbara. Following Valachi's testimony, the mob was no longer invisible to the public.

(Source)

Interesting links on the Apalachin Meeting mentioned in the above material:

- Wkipedia: Apalachin Meeting

- EconomyPoint.com - Apalachin Meeting

- Mafia - The War Years - Apalachin

The Mafia were not happy about the actions of Valachi at all and they allegedly placed a price of approximately $100,000 on his head by the Genovese family, even though he was said to have already bought protection from the FBI. He eventually died in 1971 after a heart attack. It's said while in jail he also murdered a man he suspected was a hit-man there to kill him and he also attempted to take his own life in 1966 although of course proving un-successful at the time.

The mafia from this point on were now well known and were no longer a mere conspiracy theory and it was here that they finally had to be taken seriously from the Director of the FBI, J Edgar Hoover, who repeatedly and publicly stated his skepticism over their existence and refused to adequately investigate them. For this more power was demanded from the already extremely powerful Hoover.

As the threat became clearer, Congress began giving us more tools to combat it—including jurisdiction over more mobster related crimes like gambling and, in 1968, the ability to use court-authorized electronic surveillance in cases involving organized crime.

As a result of these intelligence efforts and new tools, our campaign against the mob turned a corner. The next key piece of the puzzle would come in the early ‘70s, with the passage of the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations or “RICO” statute that would enable us to take down entire mob families.

(Source)

The reasoning behind why Hoover repeatedly stated his skepticism over the mob is still not quite known, he did after all know it existed as it was being tackled, albeit it very minimally. According to some though, particularly Mobsters themselves, the reason for this was simple - Hoover, who was a man practically famous and widely known to gather Intelligence on everyone, including American Presidents and their wife's, himself was was victim of blackmail, this time from the mob after they acquired information about his homosexuality and affair with Clyde Tolson, his "second in command" at the FBI.

Mafia boss, Joseph Bonanno, articulated the principles of the game. It was a strict underworld rule, he said, never to use violent means against a law enforcement officer. "Ways could be found," he said in his memoirs, "so that he would not interfere with us and we wouldn't interfere with him." The way the Mafia found to deal with Edgar [Hoover], according to several mob sources, involved his homosexuality.

The mob bosses had been well placed to find out about Edgar's compromising secret, and at a significant time and place. It was on New Year's Eve 1936, after dinner at the Stork Club, that Edgar was seen by two of Walter Winchell's guests holding hands with his lover, Clyde [Tolson]. At the Stork, where he was a regular, Edgar was immensely vulnerable to observation by mobsters. The heavyweight champion Jim Braddock, who also dined with Edgar and Clyde that evening, was controlled by Costello's associate Owney Madden. Winchell, as compulsive a gossip in private as he was in his column, constantly cultivated Costello. Sherman Billingsley, the former bootlegger who ran the Stork, reportedly installed two-way mirrors in the toilets and hidden microphones at tables used by celebrities. Billingsley was a pawn of Costello's, and Costello was said to be the club's real owner. He would have had no compunction about persecuting Edgar, and he loathed homosexuals.

(Source)

According to some sources, the mafia, who were now known publicly, targetted Hoover and instead of Hoover doing the blackmailing like he was known to do.. they instead blackmailed him.

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They later claimed that they used his sexual orientation to blackmail him and this was the real reasoning behind why he failed to investigate them and instead focus on other issues such as communism. The Mafia at the time were well known to exist by Hoover and he would've been more than aware of the influence and power they had, and they undoubtedly deserved more attention from the FBI than they really received.

They, the mafia, also claimed that they didn't just know about his relationship with Tolson.. but they had proof.

Fratianno knew numerous other top mobsters, including Jack and Louis Dragna of Los Angeles and Johnny Roselli, the West Coast representative of the Chicago mob. All spoke of "proof" that Edgar was homosexual. Roselli spoke specifically of the occasion in the late twenties when Edgar had been arrested on charges of homosexuality in New Orleans. Edgar could hardly have chosen a worse city in which to be compromised. New Orleans police and city officials were notoriously corrupt, puppets of an organized crime network run by Mafia boss Carlos Marcello and heavily influenced by Meyer Lansky. If the homosexual arrest occurred, it is likely the local mobsters quickly learned of it.

Other information suggests Meyer Lansky obtained hard proof of Edgar's homosexuality and used it to neutralize the FBI as a threat to his own operations. The first hint came from Irving "Ash" Resnick, the Nevada representative of the Patriarcha family for New England, and an original owner-builder of Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. As a high-level mob courier, he traveled extensively. In Miami Beach, his Christmas destination in the fifties, he stayed at the Gulfstream, in a bungalow next to the one used by Edgar and Clyde. "I'd sit with him on the beach every day," Resnick remembered. "We were family."

In 1971, Resnick and an associate talked with the writer Pete Hamill in the Galeria Bar at Caesars Palace. They spoke of Meyer Lansky as a genius, the man who "put everything together,"--and as the man who "nailed J. Edgar Hoover." "When I asked what they meant," Hamill recalled, "they told me Lansky had some pictures--pictures of Hoover in some kind of gay situation with Clyde Tolson. Lansky was the guy who controlled the pictures, and he had made his deal with Hoover--to lay off. That was the reason, they said, that for a long time they had nothing to fear from the FBI."

(Source)

If Edgar's eyes met Lansky's, though, there was surely an involuntary flicker of fear. "The homosexual thing," said Pollock, "was Hoover's Achilles' heel. Meyer found it, and it was like he pulled strings with Hoover. He never bothered any of Meyer's people. . . . Let me go way back. The time Nevada opened up, Bugsy Siegel opened the Flamingo. I understand Hoover helped get the okay for him to do it. Meyer Lansky was one of the partners. Hoover knew who the guys were that whacked Bugsy Siegel, but nothing was done." (Siegel was killed, reportedly on Lansky's orders, in 1947.)

According to Pollock, Lansky and Edgar cooperated in the mid-fifties, when Las Vegas casino operator Wilbur Clark moved to Cuba. "Meyer brought Clark down to Havana," Pollock said. "I was against him coming. But I understand Hoover asked Meyer to bring Clark down. He owed Clark something. I don't know what. . . . There was no serious pressure on Meyer until the Kennedys came in. And even then Hoover never hurt Meyer's people, not for a long time."

That was the reason why he maintained publicly that they did not exist - He knew they existed, he was just afraid of what they would do to him. Ousting him like this would've embarrassed Hoover and the Mob knew this and used it to their advantage. If the Mob were left well alone, It could potentially be argued that we wouldn't know much about any of this even today.

Although at the same time, the people in possession of this information about Hoover almost certainly wouldn't have kept it to themselves, especially as it was spreading to more and more people already.

There was no serious federal effort to indict Lansky until 1970, just two years before Edgar died. Then, it was the IRS rather than the FBI that spearheaded the investigation. Even the tax evasion charges collapsed, and Lansky lived on at liberty until his own death in 1983.

New information indicates that Lansky was not the only person in possession of compromising photographs of Edgar. John Weitz, a former officer in the OSS, the predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency, recalled a curious episode at a dinner party in the fifties. "After a conversation about Hoover," he said, "our host went to another room and came back with a photograph. It was not a good picture and was clearly taken from some distance away, but it showed two men apparently engaged in homosexual activity. The host said the men were Hoover and Tolson. . . ."

Weitz would not say who his host was on the evening he saw the picture. He implied, however, that the host also had intelligence connections. A source who has been linked to the CIA, electronics expert Gordon Novel, claimed he was shown similar pictures by another OSS veteran, CIA Counter-Intelligence chief James Angleton. [Note: In 1994, after publication of Anthony Summers' book, Official and Confidential, Weitz confirmed to Summers that his host was James Angleton.]

"What I saw was a picture of him giving Clyde Tolson a blowjob," said Novel. "There was more than one shot, but the startling one was a close shot of Hoover's head. He was totally recognizable. You could not see the face of the man he was with, but Angleton said it was Tolson. I asked him if they were fakes, but he said they were real, that they'd been taken with a fish-eye lens. They looked authentic to me. . . ."

According to Novel, the CIA Counter-Intelligence chief showed him the pictures in 1967, when Novel was involved in the furor swirling around the probe into the investigation of the assassination of President Kennedy by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison. "I was pursuing a lawsuit against Garrison, which Hoover wanted me to drop but which my contacts in the Johnson administration and at CIA wanted me to pursue. I'd been told I would incur Hoover's wrath if I went ahead, but Angleton was demonstrating that Hoover was not invulnerable, that the Agency had enough power to make him come to heel. I had the impression that this was not the first time the sex pictures had been used. Angleton told me to go see Hoover and tell him I'd seen the sex photographs. Later, I went to the Mayflower Hotel and spoke to Hoover. He was with Tolson, sitting in the Rib Room. When I mentioned that I had seen the sex photographs, and that Angleton had sent me, Tolson nearly choked on his food. Hoover told me something like, 'Get the hell out of here!' And I did. . . ."

With Angleton dead, there is no way to follow up this bizarre allegation. While Novel is a controversial figure, his account of seeing compromising pictures must be considered in light of other such references--not least that of former OSS officer John Weitz. For Novel added one other significant detail, that "Angleton told me the photographs had been taken around 1946, at the time they were fighting over foreign intelligence, which Hoover wanted but never got."

(Source)

J. Edgar Hoover, the man who was supposed to be in charge of tackling crime, was wholly in the pocket of the mafia at the time it seems like. Because of that they never truly feared him and the FBI and that's why they continued to prosper in secrecy and for a great deal of time they was willingly allowed to continue their criminal ways and achieve exactly what they wanted to achieve. They was, for a great time of time, above the law..

Hoover, Civil Rights and COINTELPRO

COINTELPRO, short for Counter Intelligence Program, was a program set up by Hoover's FBI in 1956 to, it claims, tackle communism in America, and the Communist Party U.S.A. (CPUSA) in particular, however in reality It was a program which primarily set about tackling the civil rights movements which began around year earlier and continued well into the 60's and beyond. It was initially created because J. Edgar Hoover wanted yet more power to tackle groups he saw as disrupting the social and political order and he thought not enough was allowed to be done to adequately tackle it. In his own words:

The forces which are most anxious to weaken our internal security are not always easy to identify. Communists have been trained in deceit and secretly work toward the day when they hope to replace our American way of life with a Communist dictatorship. They utilize cleverly camouflaged movements, such as peace groups and civil rights groups to achieve their sinister purposes. While they as individuals are difficult to identify, the Communist party line is clear. Its first concern is the advancement of Soviet Russia and the godless Communist cause. It is important to learn to know the enemies of the American way of life.

(Source)

In my opinion It's quite clear this is a clever way of demonizing and then justifying the use of force against, in particular, peaceful protesters and the like. The Civil Rights movement, which Hoover pretty much despised, were constantly being attacked in brutal fashion across America and all because a few important thing's was missing from the “free, democratic America” in the eyes of those protesting.. And that’s freedom and equality, something which is not too much to ask for from a supposedly democratic nation such as the United States.

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The FBI created this program and used extremely questionable, and quite often Illegal, actions, some of which were against the constitution, which ranged from spying on individuals and groups, infiltrating groups with agents (which in some instances clearly caused death), discrediting people with lies and forged documents, willingly causing death, burglary, planting stories about people to the media and in some cases rival civil rights groups which also caused death, harassment, wrongful imprisonment and much more. It was a particularly nasty time in America especially for those who dreamed of freedom and equality.

J. Edgar Hoover personally saw fit to create this extremely secretive organisation which set out to Illegally tackle those doing no real wrong in the first place and to even willingly arrest those involved in the Civil Rights movement and throwing them in jail knowing full well they had committed no crimes and all under the guise of "protecting national security, preventing violence, and maintaining the existing social and political order."

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According to a Senate Church Committee's conclusion years later after investigating the highly controversial practices of Cointelpro:

Too many people have been spied upon by too many Government agencies and too much information has been collected. The Government has often undertaken the secret surveillance of citizens on the basis of their political beliefs, even when those beliefs posed no threat of violence or illegal acts on behalf of a hostile foreign power. The Government, operating primarily through secret informants, but also using other intrusive techniques such as wiretaps, microphone "bugs", surreptitious mail opening, and break-ins, has swept in vast amounts of information about the personal lives, views, and associations of American citizens. Investigations of groups deemed potentially dangerous -- and even of groups suspected of associating with potentially dangerous organizations -- have continued for decades, despite the fact that those groups did not engage in unlawful activity.

Groups and individuals have been harassed and disrupted because of their political views and their lifestyles. Investigations have been based upon vague standards whose breadth made excessive collection inevitable. Unsavory and vicious tactics have been employed -- including anonymous attempts to break up marriages, disrupt meetings, ostracize persons from their professions, and provoke target groups into rivalries that might result in deaths. Intelligence agencies have served the political and personal objectives of presidents and other high officials. While the agencies often committed excesses in response to pressure from high officials in the Executive branch and Congress, they also occasionally initiated improper activities and then concealed them from officials whom they had a duty to inform.

Governmental officials -- including those whose principal duty is to enforce the law --have violated or ignored the law over long periods of time and have advocated and defended their right to break the law.

The Constitutional system of checks and balances has not adequately controlled intelligence activities. Until recently the Executive branch has neither delineated the scope of permissible activities nor established procedures for supervising intelligence agencies. Congress has failed to exercise sufficient oversight, seldom questioning the use to which its appropriations were being put. Most domestic intelligence issues have not reached the courts, and in those cases when they have reached the courts, the judiciary has been reluctant to grapple with them.

(Source) [PDF]

This rather sickening project, designed specifically to ruin lives, did so many, many times. The case of Fred Hampton perhaps being one of It's most famous and obvious victims, murdered in the most brutal fashion.

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Fred Hampton was a young African American activist who participated in the famous civil rights movement through the 50's and 60's, becoming the deputy chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party (BPP). He was a smart, young individual, a law student in fact. From watching him speak myself It's more than clear to see he was a smart man already. At the time of his prime he was an extremely popular individual also, and someone capable of expressing tremendous leadership quickly gaining a reputation for being a key leader in the fight for equality.

He helped in founding the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther party in 1968 and was responsible for organizing weekly rallies, he taught police education classes in the early hours, even educating the police on the streets when he saw them doing wrong, and he launched a project for community supervision of the police. At the time of his death, or just before it, Cointelpro had seemingly erased many other key figures of importance, such as Malcolm X and Martin Luther King for example, and many more yet. Hampton was seen as a key leader despite being incredibly young still, and he was still growing tremendously in popularity.

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In 1969 Hampton was even finally in line to be appointed to the Party's Central Committee's Chief of Staff, a position he would've achieved if he wouldn't have been the next potential victim of this secretive organisation. Hampton was shot dead by FBI agents and local law enforcers on the 4th of December, 1969, after a raid on his apartment with information given by an informant who had infiltrated the BPP under Cointelpro. It’s said Hampton was alive after the raid, merely being shot in the shoulder, but was later shot in the head twice at point blank range.

Many people found Hampton to be an extremely inspiring figure and leader. According to J. Edgar Hoover's FBI however he was seen as little more than a terrorist. In the 60's tabs were kept on Hampton, any individual who showed any leadership or sway in the movement, and any group affiliated with the movement also. It was seen as a threat to the social order and something that preferably should be trampled, and Hoover set about doing just that. He greatly feared a revolution in America was about to take place and set about doing all he could to trample any such thing, including the possible use of murder it seems.

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In regards to Hampton alone - The FBI opened a file on him in 1967 as he was growing in size and popularity with each day and with each speech he made, gaining followers everywhere he went. As a speaker he was a truly inspiring figure in my opinion. Eventually even his own mother’s home was being bugged by the FBI in a desperate effort to gain information on him.

In 1969, the year of Hamptons death, he achieved something Hoover never could - He persuaded the Chicago street gangs to stop fighting in what was known as the 'Rainbow Coalition.'

The Rainbow Coalition was a coalition active in the late 1960s and early 1970s, founded in Chicago, Illinois by Fred Hampton of the activist Black Panther Party, along with William "Preacherman" Fesperman, Jack (Junebug) Boykin, Bobby Joe Mcginnis and Hy Thurman of the Young Patriots Organization and Jose (Cha-Cha) Jimenez, the Puerto Rican founder of the Young Lords. It later expanded to include various radical socialist groups. It was associated with the rising Black Power movement, which mobilized some African-American discontent and activism by other ethnic minority groups after the passage of the mid-1960s civil rights legislation under Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson.

The coalition also included members of various local ethnic gangs, among whom Hampton, Rising Up Angry, the Young Patriots, and the Young Lords had brokered treaties to end violence between them. The leaders worked to reduce conflict by the treaties, as they believed that poor youths' fighting each other in gang wars achieved little benefit for them. Hampton and his colleagues believed that the Daley Machine in Chicago and the American ruling class used gang wars to consolidate their own political positions by gaining funding for law enforcement and dramatizing crime rather than underlying social issues.

(Source)

This same year it was revealed by an FBI agent that the Black Panther Party were primarily feeding breakfast to children and doing overall good in the community, a far cry from what was being reported about them in the media. Hoover quite famously is said to have quickly fired back a memo to the FBI Agent which stated that his career ambitions were directly related to his supplying of evidence to support Hoover's view that the BPP was "a violence-prone organization seeking to overthrow the Government by revolutionary means" - In other words forcing him to supply evidence they were a terroristic organisation even if no such evidence existed. This was seemingly common practice of Cointelpro from what I can find and have read over time.

A short while after this Hampton was arrested with stealing $71 worth of sweets which he's said to have given to local children - The FBI at the time were following certain people they deemed a threat, including Hampton, and it was common practice for Cointelpro to look for any reason to arrest people, or even arresting them knowing full well no crime had been committed by them. The Chicago branch of the Black Panther Party in particular became a real threat in the eyes of Hoover, the threat in particular being the popularity of Hampton. He described them as "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country" and forced an assault to take place on their organisation as soon as possible.

The FBI "determined to prevent any enhancement of the effectiveness of BPP leadership" decided to raid Hampton’s apartment while he slept, despite it housing his 8-month pregnant girlfriend at the time. Hampton’s body guard was an FBI informant at the time working under cover, his name was William O'Neal. He provided the police and the FBI with detailed information on the apartment location, the location of the beds and furniture and anything else of interest. On the night of Hampton’s murder he even met Hampton and other members of the BPP after Hampton had just taught a political education course at a local church.

He had prepared them all a late dinner that night, around midnight. He had also slipped the powerful barbiturate sleep agent, secobarbitol, into Hampton's drink to ensure he didn't wake during the pending raid that was about to take place a few hours later it's claimed.

Although Hampton was not known to take drugs, Cook County chemist Eleanor Berman would report that she ran two separate tests which each showed a powerful barbiturate had been introduced into Hampton's blood. An FBI chemist would later fail to find similar traces, but Berman stood by her findings.

In the early hours the apartment of Hampton was raided by FBI agents and local law enforcers, this ended up resulting in a shoot-out. During the shoot-out, where it was later learned after an investigation that only one shot was fired from the apartment, this most probably being a surprised shot at the very beginning of the raid and not by Hampton who was asleep. He was still killed in the raid along with others. It was later shown in around 1976 I believe that O’ Neal was, without doubt the informant for the FBI and testing shown that the vast majority of the bullets fired into the apartment were aimed at Hamptons bedroom, the details of which provided by O'Neal.

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Deborah Johnson, Hamptons 8 month girlfriend, and I believe other surviving BPP members currently staying at the home of Hampton, were arrested and charged with attempting to murder the police.

Hampton was undoubtedly murdered in my opinion and he certainly was not the only victim of Cointelpro, a project which set out to disband this powerful group looking for nothing but fairness in Modern America. Malcolm X is another potential high profile victim of this still secretive program after he was assassinated on February 21, 1965, shortly after beginning a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan, New York City.

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Much like we know for a fact Hampton’s bodyguard was working for the FBI undercover and ended up handing over important information which led to Hampton’s death, we know FBI informants were also placed on Malcolm as well which, once again, seemed to lead to his own unfortunate demise.

A man by the name of John Ali, who became the National Secretary of the Nation of Islam, an African-American religious movement in the United States, particularly Detroit, in 1963, particularly handling the finances of the group after Elijah Muhammad's health began to decline - Elijah being the leader of the Nation of Islam. While being affiliated with this group he, John Ali, was also working closely with the FBI still, particularly handing over information on Malcolm X as well as, according to Malcolm when he was alive, starting rifts between himself and leader Elijah Muhammad.

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Just prior to the assassination of Malcolm on the 21st of February, 1965, John Ali is even said to have met with one of the assassins, Talmadge Hayer.

According to two sworn affidavits from Hayer himself:

The Hayer affidavits are two sworn affidavits made by Talmadge Hayer—also known by the name Thomas Hagan—one of the convicted assassins of Malcolm X. The statements give Hayer's account of his involvement in the planning and execution of the murder.

Three men were convicted of the 1965 assassination of Malcolm X: Talmadge Hayer, Norman 3X Butler, and Thomas 15X Johnson.

At first, Hayer denied any involvement, but during the trial, he confessed to having fired shots at Malcolm X. He testified that Butler and Johnson were not present and were not involved in the shooting, but he declined to name the men who had joined him in the attack. Nonetheless, all three men were convicted.

In 1977 and 1978, Hayer submitted two sworn affidavits re-asserting his claim that Butler and Johnson were not involved in the assassination. In his affidavits Hayer named four men, all members of the Nation of Islam's Newark, New Jersey, Temple Number 25, as having participated with him in the crime. Hayer asserted that a man he knew as "Wilbur" or "Kinly", later identified as Wilbur McKinley, shouted and threw a smoke bomb to create a diversion. Hayer said that a man named "Willie", later identified as William Bradley, had a shotgun and was the first to fire on Malcolm X after the diversion. Hayer asserted that he and a man named "Lee" or "Leon", later identified as Leon Davis, both armed with pistols, fired on Malcolm X immediately after the shotgun blast. Hayer also said that a man named "Ben", later identified as Benjamin Thomas, was involved in the conspiracy. Hayer's statements failed to convince authorities to reopen their investigation of the murder.

(Source)

To summarise 3 men were convicted. Talmadge Hayer, Norman 3X Butler, and Thomas 15X Johnson. According to Hayer, who’s admitted his participation Butler and Johnson are innocent, something they’ve both constantly maintained ever since. The men who were involved however was Hayer himself, Wilbur McKinley, William Bradley, Leon Davis and finally Benjamin Thomas.

An ATS thread on the subject: The Assassination Of Malcolm X

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Martin Luther King was also a clear target of Cointelpro – Taking into consideration who he was, what power and influence he held, he was always going to be. According to records it was found out that his home was broken into and bugged by the FBI, as well as the homes of those in contact with King. Motel rooms he attended were also bugged by the FBI in an effort to acquire information, according to Hoover, in an attempt to find out King's true colors which were supposedly leaning towards communism.

According to this article here, he was even followed everywhere he went: FBI tracked King's every move

Hoping to prove the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was under the influence of Communists, the FBI kept the civil rights leader under constant surveillance.

The agency's hidden tape recorders turned up almost nothing about communism.

But they did reveal embarrassing details about King's sex life -- details the FBI was able to use against him.

The almost fanatical zeal with which the FBI pursued King is disclosed in tens of thousands of FBI memos from the 1960s.

The FBI paper trail spells out in detail the government agency's concerted efforts to derail King's efforts on behalf of the civil rights movement.

The FBI's interest in King intensified after the March on Washington in August 1963, when King delivered his "I have a dream speech," which many historians consider the most important speech of the 20th century. After the speech, an FBI memo called King the "most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country." The bureau convened a meeting of department heads to "explore how best to carry on our investigation [of King] to produce the desired results without embarrassment to the Bureau," which included "a complete analysis of the avenues of approach aimed at neutralizing King as an effective Negro leader."

(Source)

It got to the point of harassment. In a desperate effort to stop, or at the very least slow down King, the FBI rather kindly even wrote a letter to him telling him to just give up, and even urging him to kill himself which he received just prior to receiving his Nobel Peace prize award in 1964 - Source on the FBI letter.

In 1968, particularly on the 4th of April in the early hours Martin Luther King was murdered by a single gunshot wound which struck him in the head smashing his jaw to pieces and ricocheting to strike him in the neck and spine while he was standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was there in the first place to lead a peace march. With-in an hour after being shot he was officially pronounced dead.

Whether the FBI, using Cointelpro in particular, were involved or not, much like the Malcolm X case and the others like it, few will know for sure. But they certainly got what they would've wanted to see still - the demise of these key figures. In the case of King the potential for conspiracy is certainly more than clear.

Around a month after the shooting a man by the name of James Earl Ray was arrested in London and was extradited to the United States to face criminal charges. After the initial shooting It's said that he fired from across the street, rushed downstairs, jumped into his mustang parked in an alleyway and then sped off - All the while leading a ton of incriminating evidence to be found, such as a Remington 30.06 rifle with his fingerprints on it, a spent shell in the chamber, binoculars, and a receipt for the ammunition for example. According to this really god thread on ATS here: The Assassination Of Dr. MLK Jr.:

Ray later claimed that somebody planted that there to frame him, and a witness named Guy Canipe said the package was actually dropped in the doorway to his store around 10 minutes before the shot was fired. Another witness, Olivia Catling, saw a guy in a checkered shirt run out of the alley beside a building across from the Lorraine soon after the killing, and speed away in a green '65 Chevy. Ray was said to be seen fleeing the scene in a white Mustang.

There was also no apparent motive - Nothing substantial anyway. He was arrested in London, England and brought back to America, while here, he was charged with the murder of King, despite some rather sketchy evidence and witness testimonies. On the recommendation of his attorney, Percy Foreman, he pled guilty specifically to avoid the death penalty - A few days later however he recanted his confession and for the rest of his life maintained he was innocent.

Many years later he even got the opportunity to meet Martin Luther King's son and when he was asked "Did you kill my father?" Ray still replied with "No I didn't" and continued to protest his innocence. Ray died in jail a year later in 1998. The king family supposedly supported his efforts to obtain a retrial and publicly stated they believe Ray did not kill King.

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Was Cointelpro involved here? Quite possible. They did after all want King dead (or at the very least it would be preferable to their cause), they knew where he would be at all times, and they certainly had the power, the motive and the capability to pull off something like this and ensure they got away with it - After all, they were in charge of the investigation itself. And we know for a fact that assassination would at least be considered. The reader will decide for themselves but I think It's certainly possible and likely, as it's possible and likely with the many, many others, even those not mentioned in this thread. According to a Judge Joe Brown on the King assassination:

"You want to say that a three-time loser, an escaped convict with no obvious financial resources and no technical knowledge, is going to not only miraculously learn how to become a good marksman:This one individual is able to acquire the resources to get identities of deceased individuals, come up with very good forgeries for passports and fake identification, and somehow acquire funds for a very expensive itinerary and travel schedule? Now be real!...What you've got in this case was a stooge whose task was to throw everybody off the trail"

(Source)

The re-posting of a must read ATS thread on the subject: The Assassination Of Dr. MLK Jr.

Cointelpro, according to official records, was officially terminated in April of 1971, but despite this the FBI have been continually accused over the years of continuing it with secrecy.. much like it was kept completely secret until the 70’s the first time around in fact where documents on it were stolen.

Whether it’s being used today I’m sure many reading this thread have very little doubt of. The perfect example perhaps being in the relatively recent Occupy movement – And if some form of Cointelpro program does indeed exist today then there’s very little doubt it would’ve been infiltrated in the same way as the Civil rights movement was as well..

The Hoover Files

J. Edgar Hoover, as head of the FBI and BOI, had acquired a vast amount of Intelligence through his own illegal means such as the use of spying, burglarizing and then bugging people's homes, in many cases innocent people who had done no wrong. Overtime he's gathered what has now become most commonly known as the "Hoover Files," an incredibly large collection of files on people, groups and organisations etc. holding with-in personal details, and in most cases incriminating information for the potential use of blackmail, this despite some claims otherwise.

This information he had seemingly gathered over the decades didn't stop at innocent civilian and every day people though, they seemed to include politicians, activists (namely civil rights activists through Cointelpro), even Presidents and their wife's and so on. Hoover also served as FBI director to an incredible 8 American presidents in total - This certainly was no accident at all. It's said he had tremendous sway and was more than happy to bring up an embarrassing personal detail to avoid ever being ousted from his position and he made sure his "target" knew this.

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As Lyndon B. Johnson once famously said: “I would rather have him [Hoover] inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.” Johnson being someone who's received help from Hoover over the years, namely in regards to the famous Bobby Baker scandal for example:

Rumours began circulating that Baker was involved in corrupt activities. Although officially his only income was that of Secretary to the Majority in the Senate, he was clearly a very rich man. Baker was investigated by Attorney General Robert Kennedy. He discovered Baker had links to Clint Murchison and several Mafia bosses. Evidence also emerged that Lyndon B. Johnson was also involved in political corruption. This included the award of a $7 billion contract for a fighter plane, the F-111, to General Dynamics, a company based in Texas. On 7th October, 1963, Baker was forced to resign his post. Soon afterwards, Fred Korth, the Navy Secretary, was also forced to resign because of the F-111 contract.

As soon as Lyndon B. Johnson became president he contacted B. Everett Jordan to see if there was any chance of stopping this information being published. Jordan replied that he would do what he could but warned Johnson that some members of the committee wanted Reynold's testimony to be released to the public. On 6th December, 1963, Jordan spoke to Johnson on the telephone and said he was doing what he could to suppress the story because " it might spread (to) a place where we don't want it spread."

Abe Fortas, a lawyer who represented both Lyndon B. Johnson and Bobby Baker, worked behind the scenes in an effort to keep this information from the public. Johnson also arranged for a smear campaign to be organized against Don B. Reynolds. To help him do this J. Edgar Hoover passed to Johnson the FBI file on Reynolds.

(Source)

He, Hoover, seemed more than happy to use the files and what information he had gained over the years in order to maintain his position as head of the director, or to stop any potential opponents and even people he simply disliked, thus continuing his role of being in a position of extreme power and influence, particularly over politicians and American presidents.

Of course today, the Hoover legend is not just about crime fighting. It has as much to do with playing fast and loose with civil liberties, with collecting vast secret files on innocent people — a powerful man with secrets of his own, including rumors of bizarre sexual behavior. Finding the real J. Edgar Hoover has been the passion of author Richard Hack for nearly two decades, leading him to write the book, “Puppet Master: The Secret life of J. Edgar Hoover."

Richard Hack: “He certainly knew how to keep a secret, which was really the key to his success. Not only did he know the secrets, but nobody knew which secrets he knew.”

John Hockenberry: “So his towering profile in Washington was based in part on nobody calling his bluff?”

Hack: “Oh definitely.”

Hoover played his signature high stakes poker with an astounding eight presidents from 1924 until his death in 1972. No FBI head will ever again have the power Hoover had. For his book, Hack interviewed dozens of Hoover's acquaintances and poured over thousands of Hoover's documents. The portrait that emerges is of Hoover the good, Hoover the bad, and Hoover a man with a taste for the ugly side of power. It was the good Hoover whose experience as a clerk at the Department of Justice helped him turn a disorganized federal agency into a true crime fighting organization.

“The moment [Hoover] would get something on a senator,” said William Sullivan, who became the number three official in the bureau under Hoover, “he’d send one of the errand boys up and advise the senator that ‘we’re in the course of an investigation, and we by chance happened to come up with this data on your daughter. But we wanted you to know this. We realize you’d want to know it.’ Well, Jesus, what does that tell the senator? From that time on, the senator’s right in his pocket.”

Lawrence J. Heim, who was in the Crime Records Division, confirmed to me that the bureau sent agents to tell members of Congress that Hoover had picked up derogatory information on them.

“He [Hoover] would send someone over on a very confidential basis,” Heim said. As an example, if the Metropolitan Police in Washington had picked up evidence of homosexuality, “he [Hoover] would have him say, ‘This activity is known by the Metropolitan Police Department and some of our informants, and it is in your best interests to know this.’ But nobody has ever claimed to have been blackmailed. You can deduce what you want from that.”

Hoover does have those to jump to defense however, even after his death where his influence was no longer capable. They claim that his files were never used for blackmail purposes or anything of the like, especially when it came to American Presidents and members of Congress, and the "secrets" which they supposedly possessed were actually no more secret than any other public file around.

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It was also claimed that he would keep the files with particularly sensitive information with-in his suite so that younger file clerks wouldn't be tempted to look at them and spread gossip or worse yet sell it to anyone willing to buy. This being so, extremely sensitive files, on something such as espionage for example, was still kept in the centralized files.

Reading the Official and Confidential files that survived makes it clear they could have been gathered for no other purpose than blackmail. For example, on June 13, 1958, the head of the Washington field office informed Hoover that, prior to marrying a member of Congress, the member’s wife had been “having an affair with a Negro [and] also at one time carried on an affair with a House Post Office employee.” More recently, the report said, the congressman’s wife “endeavored to have an affair with [an] Indonesian, who declined.”

In response to this tidbit, Hoover wrote back on June 25 that it was “certainly thoughtful of you to advise me of matters of current interest, and I am glad to have the benefit of this information.”

“This was a way of putting congressmen on notice that we had something on them and therefore they would be more disposed to meeting the bureau’s needs and keeping Hoover in power,” says John J. McDermott, who headed the Washington field office and eventually became deputy associate FBI director.

On the 2nd of May however, 1972, J. Edgar Hoover was no more. He was found dead that morning by Annie Fields, his housekeeper. After examination it was later found out by District of Columbia medical examiner, Dr. James L. Luke, that Hoover had died of a “hypertensive cardiovascular disease.”

Immediately after the news of Hoover's demise broke, Clyde Tolson immediately set about the destruction of the famous Hoover Files and all their secretive material with-in - Or so the story goes anyway. It's claimed that there was certain protocol in place if such an eventuality shall occur (the death of Hoover) referred to as the "D-List", a list of documents, files, audio tapes etc. that were to automatically be destroyed. What information they possessed, I don't know.

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Richard Nixon, who was President at the time of the death of J. Edgar Hoover, decided not to appoint Clyde Tolson as the new head of the FBI and instead, in a shock move, appointed L. Patrick Gray, a submarine commander and Nixon's military adviser to the role despite the fact he had absolutely no experience in law enforcement. Clyde Tolson on the other hand was extremely experienced, but of course.. he was reminiscent of the previous regime, something no President ever wanted to see again. He was briefly the acting director of course but this lasted around a day. I believe he then willingly left the FBI and was later replaced by Mark Felt.

When Gray met Helen Gandy, the secretary to Hoover, he is said to have noticed that she was destroying information of Hoovers which he seemingly misunderstood and allowed her to continue with, not quite realizing she was removing some of the most secretive files of his. Gray later informed Nixon that he had secured Hoover's office and all of it's contents but in reality had only done so for Hoover's inner office and the truly confidential files were instead kept in the outer office with Gandy in a room filled with filing cabinets. Many of the files were also labelled incorrectly on purpose, such as the file on Nixon being labeled as "Obscene Matters".

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Helen Gandy, Hoover's secretary who had access to his secret files

The next day on May 4, Miss Gandy handed over some twelve boxes to Mark Felt, Deputy Associate Director, to keep in his office. Over the coming week, another thirty-two file drawers were transferred by Miss Gandy into cardboard boxes which were taken to Hoover's home.

All in all, there were 167 folders. Three of them concerned Bureau officials and disappeared. The remaining 164 files represented some 17, 750 pages of material, spanning fifty years. Just over half of these folders had derogatory material, much of which was of a sexual, moral or ethical nature.

Curt Gentry in J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and His Secrets describes the nature of the files: " ... their contents included blackmail material on the patriarch of an American political dynasty, his sons, their wives, and other women; allegations of two homosexual arrests which Hoover leaked to help defeat a witty, urbane Democratic presidential candidate; the surveillance reports on one of America's best-known first ladies and her alleged lovers, both male and female, white and black; the child molestation documentation the director used to control and manipulate one of the Red-baiting proteges; a list of the Bureau's spies in the White House during the eight administrations when Hoover was FBI director; the forbidden fruit of hundreds of illegal wiretaps and bugs, containing, for example, evidence that an attorney general (and later Supreme Court justice) had received payoffs from the Chicago syndicate; as well as celebrity files, with all the unsavory gossip Hoover could amass on some of the biggest names in show business."

(Source)

After the death of Hoover it stated in his will that close friend, and potential Lover, Clyde Tolson, was to receive his entire estate, the equalivalent of approximately £3 million today. Helen Gandy received around $5,000. Annie Fields received around $3,000 and James Crawford around $2,000, It's said at the request of Tolson. In death one of his adversaries, Richard Nixon current President at the time, referred to Hoover as "One of the giants… a national symbol of courage, patriotism and granite-like honesty and integrity." Hoover was buried in the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C., next to the graves of his parents and a sister.

Hoover.. Influencing the world

There's no doubting at all that J. Edgar Hoover, the man we remember today as the head of the FBI, had a tremendous amount of influence and sway in America, perhaps more influence and sway than any other man in history. Certainly more than any single American president seems to have ever achieved, in my opinion anyway. He was a powerful man, gaining his power first by learning in difficult circumstances and then growing, eventually succoming to the temptations that came with power to become the man we know him as today - A notorious blackmailer and someone with absolutely no regards to any single citizens privacy.

He wasn't a nice human being at all, and to say the least. We know he personally sought to gain information on people, even perfectly innocent people, using quite often illegal means - Take Cointelpro for example. That program was used to spy on many citizens and, this being a project from supposed crime fighters, broke many, many crimes itself. Pehaps even responsible for the deaths of some of the most recognizable and inspiring men in all of American history.

Cointelpro dramatically changed America. As soon as the program was even thought up America changed for ever and today has seemingly progressed to become even more dangerous. Whether Cointelpro really did end, like it's said to have done in 1971 according to official records, is unclear. Many say no and with good reason too.

COINTELPRO was discovered in March, 1971, when secret files were removed from an FBI office and released to news media. Freedom of Information requests, lawsuits, and former agents' public confessions deepened the exposure until a major scandal loomed. To control the damage and re-establish government legitimacy in the wake of Vietnam and Watergate, Congress and the courts compelled the FBI to reveal part of what it had done and to promise it would not do it again. Much of what has been learned, and copies of some of the actual documents, can be found in the readings listed at the back of this pamphlet.

(Source)

Personally I don't think it ever truly ended. After all, why would it end? It was working after all and It greatly benefited those in power, namely high ranking officials such as Hoover.

He, Hoover, died in 1972, but even so his power and influence in America is something he'll always be remembered for. He greatly revolutionized the way in which crime was fought in the first place. He created the most powerful crime fighting organisation in the world, which is of course still going strong today, he's potentially responsible for the demise of men who was changing America and would've continued to change it, perhaps turn it into a truly free country and of course there's much more he's done.

It's even more than possible that he willingly helped in letting terrorist attacks happen on American soil to achieve a war which was supposed to benefit America: Pearl Harbor advance-knowledge conspiracy theory.

John Hoover, in my opinion one of the most influential men America has ever seen - A man that shaped the way America has become today, even in death. That being so, I am now coming to the end of this thread. Thank you to all of those who actually took the time to read this entire thread, It's greatly appreciated. I'd love to hear your thoughts now on some of the issues I brought up in this thread as well as anything else I couldn't quite fit in here.

This is indeed a sobering thread, one with layers of implications that run deep indeed. If the old adage power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely holds, then its not hard to see how all what is stated about the man and MORE is true.

Imagine the political sway he would have held over judges and politicians with the dirty secrets he had on them and not to mention falsified or fabricated evidence to support any story he wished to plant against his victims.

As for cointelpro, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this is going on even the google and facebook data trawling is a form of information gathering that may be held against you in a court of law. I think the reason so many doubt the governments could do this to their own citizens is because they dont know that they have ALREADY DONE IT in the past. the naivety of the innocent to believe everything that is told to them on the 6 o clock news and 'Entertainment Tonight' is worrying to say the least.

Congrats on a well researched and fully formed thread. People need to know that their 'Beloved' government isnt as benevolent as the fairy tales would have them believe.

I truly feel sad for the people who are still to wake into the shock of the real world. That harsh cold and unforgiving reality. Where puppy dogs and unicorns are ground down to make way for happy meals and jello pudding.

Needless to say S&F

Awesome thread as usual Rising! I've read a fair amount about Hoover, but you managed to get some stuff in there I don't remember seeing previously.

I think Hoover set the precedent, and its been followed ever since. S&F sir.

BTW. Any thoughts on the "relationship" between John Lennon and Hoover?

Originally posted by Klassified
Awesome thread as usual Rising! I've read a fair amount about Hoover, but you managed to get some stuff in there I don't remember seeing previously.

I think Hoover set the precedent, and its been followed ever since. S&F sir.

BTW. Any thoughts on the "relationship" between John Lennon and Hoover?

edit on 2/23/2012 by Klassified because: ETA

Thats a very intriguing question. Given that Hoover seemed hell bent on control and manipulation it would not have bode well for him to have any celebrities with almost divine following such as Lennon spouting communistic ideas such as sharing wealth and living a less materialistic lifestyle.

I'm sure he wasn't 'torn up' about Lennon's death at all.

reply to post by TiM3LoRd

I'm sure he wasn't 'torn up' about Lennon's death at all.

It was probably the other way around. I'm sure Lennon was not torn up about Hoover's death at all.
Lennon died 1980. Hoover died 1972. The two didn't hold one another in high esteem to say the least.

Originally posted by Klassified
reply to post by TiM3LoRd

 

I'm sure he wasn't 'torn up' about Lennon's death at all.

It was probably the other way around. I'm sure Lennon was not torn up about Hoover's death at all.
Lennon died 1980. Hoover died 1972. The two didn't hold one another in high esteem to say the least.

Ahh well that would make sense then I wasnt sure about about years of death for Lennon and for some reason surmised that he dies before Hoover. I was far too young to remember either of them. Lesson learned and not forgotten in a hurry.

Do you supposed Hoovers modus operandi could have been in operation after his death to the point of taking our Lennon? I certainly wouldn't put it past them.

I'm glad to see you finally got around to posting this without getting interrupted this time.

You were done, weren't you ? lol

I've recently watched the movie J Edgar, which was rather interesting as well. You did not - by chance - watch it as well and got inspired by it in regards to your thread ? He's an interesting figure and besides knowing about him and the FBI and the Dam they named after him I know next to nothing, so that'll make an educating read. Cheers.

Hmm, I'm not sure about the relationship between John Lennon and John Hoover to be completely honest - that's something for me to look into in the future though - But I will say this.. I do think another certain famous person may have been a victim of Cointelpro. I think, from what I've found before I even thought to write up this thread in fact, that Robert Kennedy may have been that victim. When writing this John Hoover thread something just clicked, almost as if the pieces which didn't make sense for me before suddenly made sense when I started to learn about the Cointelpro program.

See, it's very possible that there was a Polka dot dress women present at that time and in my opinion it's very possible her name was Kathy Ainsworth. The man she was with however was, again IMO, going by the name of Thomas A. Tarrants. Two civil rights haters who were known for some rather famous and nasty bombings in the USA. All of this is also discussed in this thread of mine here: The Peculiar Death Of Bobby... It's just a "Out there theory" at this stage but I think it's possible they could've been recruited much like John Ali and William O’ Neal was recruited, these being the two men responsible for the deaths of Fred Hampton and Malcolm X.

It should also be mentioned that these 2 people, Anisworth and Tarrants, who were undoubtedly involved in the RFK murder case, ended up being ambushed by the FBI a mere few weeks after his unfortunate murder. Coincidence? ...

The FBI found two Klansmen, brothers Alton Roberts and Raymond Roberts, who were willing to cooperate. Alton Roberts was out on appeal from the conviction of murdering the three famed civil rights activists in Philadelphia, Mississippi in 1964. On June 19 the Roberts brothers approached Danny Joe Hawkins - who helped Tarrants in the bombing of the Meridian synagogue on May 26 - and convinced him the next target should be ADL head Meyer Davidson. Davidson led a drive to raise $75,000 for information on the bombing of the synagogue. Hawkins decided not to participate suspecting he was under surveillance. Kathy Ainsworth at the last minute agreed to help Tarrants with the next bombing.

On June 30, 1968, Kathy Ainsworth and Thomas Tarrants drove to the home of Meyer Davidson planning to place the bomb on his front porch. The FBI had moved the Davidson family out of their home earlier and occupied the house across the street as a command post with 8 to 10 agents. That night 12 members of "Joyner's Guerillas" wearing black polo shirts were hiding in the bushes across from the Davidson home. Reporter Jack Nelson was later told by police their objective was to kill Klan bomber Thomas Tarrants, "We had in mind killing him, I don't mind telling you."

Ainsworth remained in the car as Tarrants approached the ranch-style yellow brick home on 29th Avenue. He carried a box containing 28 sticks of dynamite wired to a clock set for 2 a.m. The police opened fire with a hail of gunfire reminiscent of a scene from the 1967 film, Bonnie and Clyde. Ainsworth died, shot through the neck as she leaned over to open the door for Tarrants. Tarrants was hit 19 times but survived.

(Source)

Is it just me here, or is it possible Cointelpro took a victim by the name of Kennedy? Personally I think it's very possible indeed and maybe even likely. Anyway, apologies for not being able to mention this theory in the opening post but I'm glad I was able to mention that theory now. It's one I really think it plausible.

reply to post by TiM3LoRd

Do you supposed Hoovers modus operandi could have been in operation after his death to the point of taking our Lennon? I certainly wouldn't put it past them.

I've pondered this myself. I've always been a bit suspicious of Lennon's demise.

reply to post by Rising Against
S&F ..Yes thank you very much for re posting this epic piece of history ...What you have brought out is a small piece of the corruption underlying the nation of USA ..think about all the files destroyed that contain info to questions not answered ..The files that were released are probably the less damming of the whole ...I am glad you posted it here to refer people to to get a small but bigger picture of the state of human corruption ...peace

Originally posted by Rising Against
See, it's very possible that there was a Polka dot dress women present at that time and in my opinion it's very possible her name was Kathy Ainsworth. The man she was with however was, again IMO, going by the name of Thomas A. Tarrants. Two civil rights haters who were known for some rather famous and nasty bombings in the USA. All of this is also discussed in this thread of mine here: The Peculiar Death Of Bobby... It's just a "Out there theory" at this stage but I think it's possible they could've been recruited much like John Ali and William O’ Neal was recruited, these being the two men responsible for the deaths of Fred Hampton and Malcolm X.

Thats it!!! I don't know if you remember a conversation we had on this topic when your Bobby Kennedy thread was posted. But I was trying to formulate a theory which we discussed at some length. This is exactly what I was trying to put together. You are correct, I can totally see Ainsworth and Tarrants being agents of COINTELPRO recruited at the time for the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. Whew, now I can stop working it over in my head.

Back with some more musings on your OP. Sorry if this is seen as off topic.
~MMIMO

reply to post by MyMindIsMyOwn


lol That's probably why something just clicked in my head when I was writing up the section on Cointelpro.. it was you all along!



I do think it's all very possible though. I mean It just makes soo much sense to me now. We all know Sirhan couldn't have been solely responsible, that's been proven already.

reply to post by H1ght3chHippie

I'm glad to see you finally got around to posting this without getting interrupted this time.

Yeah, it is nice to post this thread and immediately have some great posters taking part and contributing to it, that's greatly appreciated to be honest.

I've recently watched the movie J Edgar, which was rather interesting as well. You did not - by chance - watch it as well and got inspired by it in regards to your thread ? He's an interesting figure and besides knowing about him and the FBI and the Dam they named after him I know next to nothing, so that'll make an educating read. Cheers.

Funny you should mention the film because no I've actually not seen it but it is exactly where I got the idea for this thread from (as I saw an advert for it). I thought why not do something like a biography on Hoover, as I'd come across him quite a lot before this thread, and then post it on ATS to highlight his influences etc. I thought it would make quite a good read and since It's one of the older cases, it could maybe be a bit educational at the same time.

Multiple stars & a flag for this! It isn't so much a thread as it is a homework assignment. Many things here to research and ponder.

The thing that always fascinates me about Hoover is, people in power did have compromising information on him, yet he seemed to always one up them. In some cases knowledge & proof of his homosexuality was used to get him to "back off" and in other cases it seems like it was utterly useless. It really makes me wonder what he had in his files that kept him in power for so long. I guess after so many years the mass of intelligence he gathered on high powered officials outweighed the risk of them going public with his sexuality.

Regarding cointelpro. Yes, I think it is still going on. Probably has been in some form or another. The amount of information that can be data mined an any ordinary citizen it just mind boggling! Besides online activity (Google, Facebook) think about credit card purchases too. Recently an article come out in the New York Times exposing a large American retailer's data mining activity on it's customers and how scary accurate it is. Essentially this retailer came up with a way to predict when it's female customers were pregnant just by their shopping patterns and what they were purchasing. It a retailer can do that kind of intelligence gathering and analysis from credit card purchases (limited to one retailer), imagine what the government can do.

Thanks again for the thread RA! I still have many things I want to read up on and the new info you've linked regarding Bobby Kennedy is one of those!

OiO

reply to post by Rising Against




Have you (in your line of research about this thread) ever come across any information that might tie Hoover to the Big banks? The reason I ask this is I'm sure the Rockefeller elite at the time would have loved to get their hands on the kind of info Hoover was privy to.

Also since the FBI was supposed to have been put together to fight organized crime which was stealing from the banks it would seem to make sense that the banks would create a police force called the FED's which would have unrestricted powers across state lines.Buying enough politicians to make sure the bills passed would have been a walk in the park. Just food for thought.