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The Secrets of J. Edgar Hoover

The LRB Podcast

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The So-Called Lavender Scare

The FBI began investigating people they thought might be gay in the so-called lavender scare. Hoover never wrote a memoir or wrote a letter that we can read in the National Archives where he wrote about being gay. He had a long and close professional relationship with his deputy, Clyde Tolson. There was definitely gossip at the time that they were gay by people who were sophisticated.

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