Official and Confidential by Anthony Summers

nationality.’
    J. Edgar Hoover, 1943
    T hose who knew him at close quarters discovered there was something obsessive about Edgar. The little boy from Seward Square, the offspring of a disturbed father and an ambitious mother, was insistent that everything should run precisely as he directed, that everything should fit his concept of perfection.
    This showed itself in the little things, like Edgar’s fixation on tidiness. At home, servants would report, there was hell to pay if a bedspread was even slightly askew, a cushion out of place, an undisciplined leaf neglected on the front path. Edgar’s first act on reaching the office each morning, his secretary recalled, was to give his shoes a flick with a duster – in case they had lost their sheen during the ride in the car to work.
    At headquarters, which Edgar had everyone call the Seat of Government, an official once found himself in hot water because his office window shade was – in Edgar’s opinion – pulled down too far. He said it gave the building ‘a messy look from the outside.’
    Like Howard Hughes, the eccentric billionaire, Edgar worried constantly about germs. He waged war against them by insisting his office be kept cold, and later by installing an ultraviolet light reputed to eliminate viruses. A servant, armed with a swatter, was assigned to deal with flies. The Directorshrank from physical contact with strangers, especially those with moist palms.
    Edgar defended his fragile self like a nuclear bunker. This was a man, his associates learned the hard way, who never – ever – admitted he was wrong; he could not even admit the possibility. Once, when a Special Agent in Charge felt obliged to point out Edgar was quoting incorrect figures, he sat in silence, red as a beet, until the agent slipped quietly out of the room. Later, Edgar crucified the man who had supplied the statistics.
    Edgar’s officials became expert at dealing with this problem – on issues that mattered and many that did not. When Edgar refused to accept solid research showing the Civil Rights movement was not, as he insisted, Communistinspired, an Assistant Director simply admitted humbly that his report had been ‘wrong.’ When Edgar dismissed as ‘baloney’ research confirming the existence of the Mafia, its authors did not argue. When Edgar announced his grief at the killing of an agent who had only been wounded, the man’s colleagues jokingly drew straws for who would finish him off. The Director was never wrong.
    Edgar could be manic about control. One veteran agent inadvertently ruined a cordial meeting by reminding his boss of the good old days when the Bureau had been smaller, when ‘you could personally keep track of everything that was going on.’ Edgar exploded. ‘I still know personally everything that goes on!’ he roared. ‘I still personally run this Bureau!’ As he ranted on, he reached for the agent’s file to score out favorable comments he had made moments before.
    The corridor to Edgar’s inner sanctum was known as the Bridge of Sighs, and few knew how to handle him better than Sam Noisette, the black receptionist who ushered visitors along it. ‘If it’s snowing and blowing outside,’ he said, ‘and the Director comes in and says “It’s a beautiful sunny day,” it’s a beautiful sunny day. That’s all there is to it.’
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    At first glance Edgar’s corps of agents, the linchpin of his reputation, seemed a representative group. It came to include former farmers, airmen, journalists, a baker, professional football players, cowboys, railway workers and miners. Some had military experience, and Edgar was especially keen on former Marines. He had no interest, however, in hiring blacks, Hispanics or women – and he discriminated against Jews.
    Three women were serving as agents when Edgar became Director in 1924. Two he fired