In Defense of J. Edgar Hoover

These days, even in a magazine like Commentary, which is dedicated to intellectual surprise, it is surprising to find a kind word for J. Edgar Hoover, who has been enduring his worst press in 41 years as boss of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. But Washington Columnist Joseph Kraft rises to the defense with a thoughtfully reasoned brief. "To critics, Mr. Hoover is the advance guard of the police state," says Kraft in Commentary's February issue. "To boosters, he is the modern knight errant. For better or worse, he is made to cast a shadow larger than life." To Kraft, who sees him in somewhat sharper focus, "Hoover is in the most literal sense the 'G-Man'--the Government man par excellence. He is the supreme example of the successful civil servant--the compleat bureaucrat."

Close to the White House. Born to a family of civil servants, Hoover first went to work for that "mammoth filing cabinet," the Library of Congress. From there he moved to the Justice Department, where he cleaned up its seamy, scandal-ridden investigative division and established "that monument to bureaucratic endeavor--a central fingerprint file." In the course of his career, Hoover has regularly exaggerated the FBI's accomplishments, writes Kraft. But why not? All federal bureaus, from the FCC to the Reclamation Bureau, do the same. While Hoover has a reputation for being his own boss, he is shrewd enough always to cultivate close relations with the man in the White House--Republican or Democratic. "That explains the flowers sent to Walter Jenkins when he first entered the hospital; and it explains why Hoover immediately began going around Attorney General Kennedy and directly to President Johnson after the assassination in Dallas."

Hoover is always gunning for more power, admits Kraft, but he finds Hoover's motive in the memoirs of former Attorney General Francis Biddle: "A career man in the truest sense, he cares for power and more power; but unlike many men, it is power bent to the purpose of his life's work--the success of the FBI."

Power with a Purpose. It is true enough, says Kraft, that Martin Luther King and others have been complaining for years about FBI inactivity in the field of civil rights. This failing is explained, if not excused, on the ground that "zeal in matters of civil rights has not, at least until recently, been a way to win favor either in the White House or in the power fastnesses of Congress." At another time, Kraft is quick to point out, Hoover was "a model of zeal for civil liberties." When liberals from Earl Warren to Walter Lippmann were demanding that California's Nisei be put in concentration camps for the duration of World War II, the FBI chief hotly protested, claiming that the demand for evacuation was "based primarily upon public and political pressure rather than upon factual data."

When it comes to such well-publicized FBI transgressions as occasional, indiscriminate wire tapping, Kraft writes that off, too. In Kraft's view, Hoover is too often held accountable for directives that have come from above, from the President or the Attorney General. Kraft is satisfied that "the compleat bureaucrat" is the man who does effectively what he is told.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.