Word: hooverness
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Correcting the Record. Further, the Administration was irritated by Hoover's attempts to withhold information from the Internal Security Division of the Justice Department. There was also concern that several times his testimony before congressional committees was wrong-although FBI agents were generally allowed to correct the mistakes before they were entered in the record. Mitchell was especially angered by the way in which Hoover endangered the Justice Department's case against the Rev. Philip Berrigan and others charged with conspiring to kidnap Henry Kissinger, Nixon's foreign-affairs adviser. Hoover insisted on telling a Senate subcommittee...
Last summer, as the Administration's dissatisfaction with Hoover increased, the Justice Department took unprecedented steps to curb the director, who for decades had worked with virtual autonomy. The department's public relations men began editing Hoover-drafted FBI crime reports and news releases. Then Mitchell intervened directly in FBI internal affairs, urging new courses of action and, in some areas, bluntly telling Hoover to change his way of doing things. Hoover accepted the orders, but later fulminated that someone within the FBI was giving the Administration a false picture of his operations. In late July, Hoover dropped...
Blue Gem. A few days later, Hoover ordered Sullivan to take two weeks' leave. Sullivan wrote back that a one-week vacation was all he needed. The memo came back inscribed with what is known in the FBI as a "blue gem"-a handwritten note from the director. (Hoover is the only person in the FBI who uses blue ink, so that his messages are instantly recognizable. Other FBI officials use pencil, in part because if they approve a memo moving up the chain of command and then Hoover inks in his disapproval, they can erase their judgment...
Sullivan left Washington on Sept. 13, and Hoover moved immediately to choose his successor. He settled on Alex Rosen, chief of the FBI's General Investigative Division. By the time Sullivan returned to Washington, Rosen was occupying his office. On Oct. 1 Sullivan put himself on "sick leave." That same day, the locks were changed in his office and his name plate removed from the door. On Oct. 2, the FBI announced that Sullivan had retired voluntarily...
...Sullivan had believed that Hoover would be eased out by January, there was now speculation that he would be around for another year or more. It was evident that Hoover, long a master of federal bureaucracy, had managed to swing the Administration back to his side. The Justice Department did one thing for Sullivan. Asked about the FBI announcement that he had retired voluntarily, a department official replied: "That was a Hooverian lie." It was little comfort to Sullivan, who reluctantly gave up his long fight on Oct. 6 and resigned...