Word: hoovers
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...what the Senate Judiciary Committee wanted to know was whether Gray, like J. Edgar Hoover before him, would guard against partisan political tampering with the FBI. Last week the committee opened hearings on Gray's nomination. In two wearying days of testimony, Gray, wearing an American flag pin in his lapel, sought to convince the committee that his personal loyalties to his longtime friend, President Nixon, would not interfere with his even-handed guidance of the FBI. Said Gray: "I am not a partisan guy." But the committee's vote was still uncertain, and the hearings were...
These are among the questions that L. Patrick Gray III should be prepared to answer when he goes before the Senate Judiciary Committee, probably this week for hearings on his nomination to succeed J. Edgar Hoover as director of the FBI. Most presidential nominees start out with the odds for congressional approval about 95% in their favor Gray's case is different. A number of Senators are worried at the prospect of giving so much power to so partisan an official...
Enraged. His use of wiretapping is an example. About three years ago, according to four different sources in the Government, the White House was concerned by a series of leaks, so it asked Hoover to tap the phones of suspected reporters and even suspected White House officials. Hoover balked, and demanded authorization from John Mitchell, then the U.S. Attorney General Mitchell sanctioned the surveillance, according to the sources, on the grounds of domestic "security," which sidestepped the necessity of getting a court order for each tap. The operation started with only one tap, but soon expanded to include surveillance...
...wiretapping operation actually helped to keep Hoover on the job until his death last year. According to the same sources, Richard Kleindienst, then Deputy Attorney General, tried to force Hoover to step down, and in 1971 even gave his support to a proposed congressional investigation of the FBI. Enraged Hoover indicated to Kleindienst that it he was called to testify on Capitol Hill he might disclose the wiretaps. (Kleindienst denies this exchange ever took place.) The scuttle-Hoover maneuver was quickly forgotten...
...dangerous foe in West Virginia Conservative Democrat Robert Byrd. "In the nine months that Mr. Gray has held the post of acting director, there has been increasing criticism of that bureau as becoming more and more a political arm of the Administration," Byrd told the Senate. "Under J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI had always been a nonpolitical bureau, and Mr. Hoover meticulously avoided partisanship in campaigns." Confirmation of Gray, the Senator added, "would be damaging to the proficiency and morale of the agency...