The Secrets of J. Edgar Hoover
The LRB Podcast
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The Rise and Fall of Hoover
Hoover is so good at adapting to new presidents, to new leaders. So he turns on a dime. There are all these scandals in the Harding administration. Hoover shuts up about anarchists and radicals. This is when he does the quiet work of creating a database for fingerprints. Because of the war, there was a man shortage. If you're a white man with a law degree, you can rise fast. And Hoover rises incredibly quickly. He becomes director of the FBI before he's 30. And he dies in post. Now we just have decades in which Hoover is important all the time.
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