G-Man, page 113
The New York Times, The Washington Post, Slate, The Nation, and the Journal of Policy History offered especially useful opportunities to write about Hoover over the years. The New York Times Magazine published the unredacted King “suicide letter” after I came across it in the archives (with Jacob Wasserman’s help). In documentary film, I am especially grateful to directors Sam Pollard (MLK/FBI), Stanley Nelson (The Black Panthers), Alex Gibney (Enemies), Susan Bellows (The Bombing of Wall Street), and Sharon Grimberg (McCarthy) for allowing me to talk about Hoover on camera.
The Yale History Department believed in me when this project was still in early stages. As individuals, many Yale faculty have taken time to offer advice, mentorship, collaboration, and insight along the way, including David Blight, Laura Engelstein, David Engerman, Joanne Freeman, Paul Freedman, Tamar Gendler, John Gaddis, Bryan Garsten, Glenda Gilmore, Emily Greenwood, Valerie Hansen, Elizabeth Hinton, Jonathan Holloway, Matt Jacobson, Paul Kennedy, Jennifer Klein, Naomi Lamoreaux, Katie Lofton, Mary Lui, Joanne Meyerowitz, Alan Mikhail, Sam Moyn, Bill Nordhaus, Steve Pitti, Paul Sabin, Emma Sky, Arne Westad, and Jay Winter. At the Grand Strategy program, Mike Brenes, Dan Kurtz-Phelan, Heather McGhee, Victoria Nuland, Rory Stewart, Jake Sullivan, and Evan Wolfson inspired me with ideas great and small. Caryn Carson, Liza Joyner, Liz Vastakis, and Kaitlyn Wetzel offered critical administrative assistance. Support from the Grand Strategy program and Yale’s Keroden Fund helped to make such a large-scale research and writing project possible.
I am especially grateful to the many scholars, historians, and friends who took time to read and offer their expert views on sections of the manuscript. This book is much better thanks to their generosity, though whatever mistakes remain are all my own. Their ranks include John Fox, Glenda Gilmore, Anthony Gregory, Elizabeth Hinton, David Huyssen, Katie Lofton, Fred Logevall, Lerone Martin, Shari Motro, Donna Murch, Tim Naftali, Phil Shenon, Ellen Schrecker, and Timothy Stewart-Winter. Max Holland gave a thorough vetting to the chapters on the 1960s and 1970s, as did David Garrow, who knows almost everything there is to know about King and the FBI. My writing group—Edward Ball, Claire Potter, and Paul Sabin—patiently read vast swaths of the manuscript out of order and in draft form. We became fast friends along the way (though I was last to deliver a full book manuscript).
I did not subject most of my friends, in New Haven and elsewhere, to forced bouts of manuscript reading. I am nonetheless grateful for the many hours that they spent listening to my triumphs, anxieties, and frustrations (especially Myra Jones-Taylor, Tony Leiserowitz, Jenn Marlon, Matt Taylor, and Molly Worthen). My medical-care providers at Yale, NIH, and elsewhere kept me functional and pain-free enough to make my continued work on the project possible. Dan Perkins believed in this book and witnessed its evolution from idea to research to words on the page, though we did not see it through to the end together.
At Viking, Wendy Wolf embraced the book early on, waited patiently for a draft, and then gave it the enthusiastic but disciplined edit it needed. I appreciate her willingness to say yes more often than no. Andrew Wylie never wavered in his support for the book, or for me. He was the first to read (and like) the whole manuscript, a vote of confidence that came just when I needed it. At the Wylie Agency, Scott Moyers placed the book with Viking before deciding to return to the publishing side of the business. Fred Courtright did impressively efficient work in tracking down textual permissions. The great editorial and production crew at Viking, especially Terezia Cicel and Paloma Ruiz, made sure that all the working parts fit together.
I am fortunate that several of my closest friends also happen to be sensationally good writers and historians—and that they were willing to read this manuscript in full. Emily Bazelon is an extraordinary person—a true and steady walking companion, a great journalist, and one of the most generous souls I know. Kim Phillips-Fein has been my coconspirator in writing history, thinking about politics, and figuring out how to live a decent life since we met in graduate school. I fell in love with John Witt while I was struggling to finish this project. He makes all things seem possible. I am grateful to be sharing my life with him—and with Gus and Teddy, who have already taught me more about baseball, life, and family than they may know.
My son Nick has lived with our friend Edgar as long as I have—longer, if we measure by percentage of years on earth. When he was in third grade, I made a presentation for his class in which I talked a bit about Hoover and then fingerprinted the whole lot of them. I assured them that the book would be done by the time they finished middle school. Nick is now in college. From our bedtime “history facts” to our summers in Washington to our presidential-history road trips, he tolerated having a historian for a mom with good cheer, great curiosity, and the spirit of an enthusiast. This book is dedicated to him.
Notes
Introduction
The FBI Story, directed by Mervyn Leroy (Warner Brothers, 1959); Demaris, Director, 69–71; interview of Cartha DeLoach by Susan Rosenfeld, November 12, 2005, FBI OH; McHugh, “Hoover Was Able,” San Diego Union, May 4, 1972, B159, JEHS; LeRoy, Mervyn LeRoy, 200–1. On “bulldog,” see, for example: Mitchell, “Unknown Side,” Prison Evangel, May–June 1960, B129, JEHS; Talburt, “Nixon, Hoover,” WDN, November 15, 1968, B144, JEHS; Anderson, “Millionaire Picked Up,” WP, December 30, 1970, B150, JEHS.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 1
For a review of the literature on Hoover and the FBI, including major biographies, see the Note on Sources.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 2
For a review of relevant historiography in U.S. political history, see the Note on Sources.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 3
“FBI Director Hoover Backed,” CR, February 17, 1965, B138, JEHS.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 4
For a discussion of this book’s primary research, see the Note on Sources.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 5
Chapter 1: The Oldest Inhabitants (1800–1895)
“Weekly Review,” 1:2, F14, B2, NLEM; Nichols to Allen, August 17, 1953, F1, S-JEHC.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 1
“Suicide by Drowning,” WS, April 10, 1880; Certificate of Death, District of Columbia: 264595, F4, S-JEHC.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 2
Hoover, “If I Had a Son,” Woman’s Day, June 1938, B57, JEHS.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 3
Census (1820); Green, Washington, 1:23.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 4
Census (1860, 1870, 1880); CD (1862–1884); https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/115676412/person/240142486827/facts.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 5
Census (1820); “Border State Representatives,” BS, May 9, 1862. The census entry is for Michl Hoover, almost certainly Hoover’s great-great-grandfather.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 6
Reynolds, “Was J. Edgar Hoover Black?” WP, November 22, 2011; Posner, “Is It True Hoover ‘Passed’ for White?” Globe and Mail, August 14, 2000; Spannaus, “The Mysterious Origins of J. Edgar Hoover,” American Almanac, August 2000; Summers, Official & Confidential, 349–51; Maxwell, F.B. Eyes, 35–42; McGhee, Secrets Uncovered.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 7
Quoted in Green, Washington, 1:172–3; “Oldest Inhabitants,” WP, July 5, 1888; “Discussed Early Days,” WP, April 3, 1902; CD (1853); Coast Survey (1853), 81.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 8
“The Last of Earth,” WP, May 29, 1878; “Local News,” WS, May 27, 1878; Coast Survey (1853), 81; Washington, D.C., U.S., Marriage Records, 1810–1953 (Lehi, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, 2016); “Border State Representatives,” BS, May 9, 1862; Census (1860).
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 9
Green, Washington, 1:168–9; Centennial Celebration of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey; Odgers, Alexander Dallas Bache; Slotten, Patronage, Practice, and the Culture of American Science; Jansen, Alexander Dallas Bache; Kevles, “Not a Hundred Millionaires.”
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 10
Coast Survey (1853), 81; Coast Survey (1854), 88; Coast Survey (1855), 101; Coast Survey (1856), 88; Coast Survey (1857), 117; Coast Survey (1858), 159; Coast Survey (1859), 176, 179; Coast Survey (1860), 102, 184–5; Coast Survey (1861), 75; Coast Survey (1863), 60; “Local News,” WS, May 27, 1878.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 11
Coast Survey (1867), x, 42–3; Coast Survey (1876), 64; Coast Survey (1877), 66; F9, B3, NLEM.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 12
Coast Survey (1876), 64; Coast Survey (1877), 66; “Local News,” WS, May 27, 1878; Coast Survey (1878), 10.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 13
Coast Survey (1878), 10.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 14
“Hitz Family,” F5, B373, HHB; “Copy of the Translation,” F5, B373, HHB; “In Memoriam,” F12, B1, NLEM; Meier, United States and Switzerland, 126–9.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 15
Green, Washington, 1:183; “Hitz Family”; Meier, United States and Switzerland, 126–9.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 16
“Appointment,” BS, May 31, 1864; Meier, United States and Switzerland, 126–9; “The Swiss National Festival,” BS, July 23, 1872; “A Council for the Poor,” WP, January 22, 1878; “Swiss Colony in Tennessee,” BS, September 21, 1869; “Ways That Are Dark,” WP, November 11, 1878; “Copy of the Translation.”
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 17
Photos: “Annie Scheitlin, Dated 1867,” “Portrait of Annie Hoover,” PB1, NLEM; interview, Dorothy Davy, S-JEHC; Summers, Official & Confidential, 16; CD (1863–1880).
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 18
“Is Hitz a Citizen?” WP, December 3, 1882; “Mr. Hits Not a Diplomat,” WP, December 7, 1882; “Suicide by Drowning”; “City Talk and Chatter,” WP, April 12, 1880; Meier, United States and Switzerland, 130.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 19
“Suicide by Drowning.”
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 20
“Change in the Swiss Consulate,” WP, July 19, 1881; “Guilty as Indicted,” WP, May 14, 1886; “Five Years Each,” WP, June 6, 1886; “Messrs. Hitz and Prentiss Released,” WP, December 14, 1886; “A New Trial Denied,” WP, May 30, 1886; “Journal—Private,” NLEM; CD (1883–1895); “The Amateur Authors,” WP, May 23, 1889.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 21
“Journal–Private,” NLEM.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 22
Chapter 2: Little Edgar (1895–1905)
“Journal—Private,” NLEM.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 1
F111, B2, NARA-P.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 2
“White House Reception,” BS, January 2, 1895; Diary, January 1, 1910, F9, B1, NLEM.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 3
Washington, DC: A Guide to the Nation’s Capital, 42; Gilmore, “District of Columbia Population History 1800–2020,” https://matthewbgilmore.files.wordpress.com/2021/04/population2020.jpg; Green, Washington, 2:84.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 4
Asch and Musgrove, Chocolate City, 119–84.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 5
Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace, “Roosevelt Pets,” https://www.nps.gov/thrb/learn/historyculture/the-roosevelt-pets.htm; “The Family of Theodore Roosevelt,” Theodore Roosevelt Association, https://www.theodoreroosevelt.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=991271&module_id=339183. On Roosevelt’s personality, see esp. Goodwin, Bully Pulpit.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 6
“Weekly Review,” 1:2, 1:6, 1:4, 1:5, F14, B2, NLEM.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 7
Photo, F: “Hoover Family Home,” PB1, NLEM; CD (1891, 1892); “To Be Named Seward Place,” WP, December 10, 1902.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 8
Photo, F: “Hoover Family Home”; Powers, Secrecy and Power, 9.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 9
Census (1900).
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 10
Asch and Musgrove, Chocolate City, 185–216; Theoharis and Cox, Boss, 21; “Ebenezer United Methodist Church, AKA ‘Little Ebenezer,’ turns 180,” Streets of Washington, http://www.streetsofwashington.com/2018/05/ebenezer-united-methodist-church-aka.html.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 11
Washington, DC: A Guide, 158–60, 180–1; “Jefferson’s Legacy,” Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/loc/legacy/bldgs.html; Theoharis and Cox, Boss, 25.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 12
Nichols to Allen, August 17, 1953, F1, S-JEHC; Diary, 1909, “Cash Accounts,” F9, B1, NLEM.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 13
Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover, 63; Annie to Hoover, October 6 [ca. 1906], F17, B2, NLEM; Annie to Hoover, September 4, 1912, B19, NLEM; Dickerson to Hoover, undated [ca. 1904], F: “Undated Letter to JEH from father,” B19, NLEM.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 14
Coast Survey (1895), 101; Coast Survey (1897), 90.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 15
“Cadet Officers Appointed,” WP, October 14, 1898; “Won by the Easterns,” WS, November 24, 1897; “Class Day at Eastern,” WP, June 16, 1899; “Class Day at E.H.S.,” WP, June 21, 1899; Coast Survey (1899–1900), 128–9; Talley, “Capital’s Famous Hoover Brothers,” WP, October 7, 1934; CD (1906), 624; Theoharis and Cox, Boss, 26.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 16
Talley, “Capital’s Famous Hoover Brothers”; Trohan, “Chief of the G-Men,” CT, June 21, 1936, B27, JEHS; “High School Days End,” WP, June 3, 1901; “Teachers Go To fair,” WP, June 26, 1904; “Teachers Plan Trips,” WP, July 6, 1904.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 17
Official Guide to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (Saint Louis: Official Guide Co., 1904), 94–8, https://archive.org/details/cu31924015340114; Kramer, Blood of Government, 264–5; Dickerson to Hoover, F: “undated letter to JEH from his father,” B19, NLEM.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 18
Annie to Hoover, October 6 [year undated], F17, B2, NLEM; Dickerson to Hoover, October [illegible], F “undated letter to JEH from father in Boston,” B19, NLEM.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 19
“Journal—Private,” NLEM; Diary, April 10, 1908, F9, B1, NLEM; “Miss Elizabeth Snowden,” WS, May [illegible], 1956, F1, S-JEHC.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 20
Diary, March 21, 26-28, April 9, 1908; February 27, July 28–30, August 16-25, September 2-8, 1909; August 8–22, 1910, F9, B1, NLEM; Green, Washington, 2: 202.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 21
Chapter 3: The Boy Problem (1905–1909)
“Slayer a Suicide,” WP, October 24, 1905; U.S., Naval Enlistment Rendezvous, 1855–1891 (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, 2014); Washington, D.C., U.S., Compiled Marriage Index, 1830–1921 (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, 2014); Virginia, U.S., Select Marriages, 1785–1940 (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, 2014).
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 1
“Slayer a Suicide”; “Dead Man’s Head,” WT, October 24, 1905; “Murder and Suicide,” WS, October 24, 1905; “Found Wife Murdered,” BS, October 24, 1905; “Found Wife and Man Dead,” BG, October 24, 1905.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 2
Report card, fifth grade, F16, B2, NLEM.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 3
For the masculinity crisis, see especially Lears, Rebirth of a Nation; Bederman, Manliness and Civilization; Hilkey, Character Is Capital; Murphy, Political Manhood; Pettegrew, Brutes in Suits; Putney, Muscular Christianity; Rotundo, American Manhood.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 4
Roosevelt, “Strenuous Life.” For more on the “strenuous life” theme, see Dalton, Theodore Roosevelt.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 5
Forbush, Boy Problem, 47; Putney, Muscular Christianity, 100.
