Buchalter and John Dillinger being killed or imprisoned by the FBI. Tellingly, a 1936 poll of American school boys saw Hoover voted the second most popular man in the country, behind only Robert Ripley, the creator of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. It was during the Cold War period that the FBI and its methods came into question. Fear of radicalism, and particularly communism, returned to the United States. The FBI compiled millions of files on Americans suspected of dissident activities, and Hoover worked with Senator Joseph McCarthy, the man who drove the communist witch hunt in American politics. In 1956, Hoover instigated the creation of a new counter intelligence program called Cointellpro. The top secret initiative was originally intended to target communist organisations but it soon expanded its remit to include any dangerous groups, including the Civil Rights Movement. Civil Rights leaders, including Martin Luther King, became the subject of harassment and surveillance by the FBI, and questions started to be asked about the amount of power the FBI could wield. By 1969 Hoover had started to receive public criticism for his leadership of the FBI. Congress passed laws limiting the tenure of FBI directors to ten years, and requiring Senate approval for the appointment of any new director. Hoover’s death came shortly before the Watergate Affair started to unravel in the media, with the resulting hearings concluding that the FBI had illegally used its authority to protect President Richard Nixon. Since his death, and the Watergate revelations, Hoover’s reputation has diminished as new information has been revealed about FBI breaches of civil liberties. Hoover, once considered the embodiment of honesty and integrity, has been repainted as corrupt, dangerous and discriminatory. Largely this reevaluation is down to hindsight, and the reassessing of key events in the post-war period that Hoover was involved with. Undoubtedly a controversial figure, it is also important to remember that Hoover played a crucial role in the development of modern crime fighting techniques, laying the blueprint for the modern FBI. ]]>
The Death of J. Edgar Hoover
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