Word: hoover
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John Edgar Hoover, who almost singlehanded turned a subsidiary department of the U.S. Department of Justice into that internationally famous unit known as the FBI, has long been an enigma within an enigma. His critics have accused him of being a publicity seeker; yet Hoover as a rule will not even pose for a picture unless he has a prepublication look at the story that is to go with it, and in the 40 years that he has headed the Federal Bureau of Investigation, his open-forum press conferences have been as scarce as hens' teeth...
...last week, all of a sudden, Hoover agreed to talk over coffee cups with a group of Washington newswomen at the request of that professional presidential-press-conference pest, Sarah. McClendon. The session lasted for 2½ hours, and the enigmatic Mr. Hoover managed, if nothing else, to get a lot of things off his chest...
Most Curious. For one thing, he was smarting under the Warren Commission's criticism that the FBI had failed to inform the Secret Service that Lee Harvey Oswald, whom Hoover's boys had under on-and-off surveillance for months, was a possible threat to the life of President Kennedy. The criticism, said Hoover, was "a classic example of Monday-morning quarterbacking." Since the assassination, Hoover said, the FBI has started turning over to the Secret Service "thousands of names of beatniks and kooks and crackpots." But, he added, he didn't see how all this...
Criticism of the FBI for its failures in the Kennedy case, said Hoover, was "unjust and unfair." That was most curious, since Hoover himself ordered disciplinary action against three FBI agents, including James Hosty Jr., the Dallas agent who had been keeping an eye on Oswald for months, who was suspended for 30 days without pay and transferred to Kansas City...
Having proved his point, Hoover concluded by condemning the Negro press generally for "its lack of verse structure and grammar and its insolently offensive and defiant manner." To remedy the situation, he urged immediate passage of a national anti-sedition law. In 1919 people took him seriously, and Congress nearly complied. We have come a long way since then. This January President Johnson can commemorate our progress by "granting" Mr. Hoover a retirement long overdue and fully earned...