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J Edgar Hoover — Part 16

111 pages · May 10, 2026 · Document date: Feb 4, 1972 · Broad topic: Politics & Activism · Topic: J Edgar Hoover · 110 pages OCR'd
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Temes wath bes _subordinal +s fvig sf Stay Trim Tic adairess un according To ‘hair stabug.or length of AL Cua MidNecs sin Ta the vage mavonty, he is Heaver” The ten as- Jit directe.s the two as- ala tits to tie alrector, and ham cctor invar- ar “bess.” a habit tub spread to Lae 56 field af- ees where the Special whee hits in tura always call thei’ Speers. Agent-in- Cnat os “Bos: too. “Mis close otc friends ail- wars call me Edgar,” Hoov- er said. “I've rever used the ‘Jain’ and ¥ don’t even like ‘J. Edgar Hoover’ as a sig- nature, It sowids affected, I aaancd tie sizhuture manv Weats ago ber. ¢ of an inci- “deni in a aepactcent store in Wasaingion ' “Dwentup there lo buy a gear the year Washington won the menneo at (1933) and £ pes VE fads, the «cather was cold for the Worid Serics. I told them ta ci.arpe the coat but they said, S Met _ Balj. | ‘Mr. Hoover, vou already owe us $900." “ET told them | did not. T always pay mv bills the first Ga. of every month, It turn- edoutto be anather man with the identical uame. But he usce the “ ‘Ichn,’ so I] decided to drop it,” ‘ Na matter waat he js call- ca, “here is no question who ts “Boss.” At the FBI, it is a fact of bfe that Hoover knows eve “vy detail of the organiza- tion and maxes all the major dec's:ons, Mois astatner for precise re,orts, short sentences, ir- Tepreachable conduct, phys- ica; fitness, devotion to duty ane adherence to the tried- and-truc procedures he has vtuctled at the bureau over the years, There are many myths ex- tart about FBI men, one being that they wear almost a “uni- form” of narrow-brim hat, whie shirt, dark suit and well-shined sheeseThe fact is that this is a “dress uniform" onle Vorking an assignment, whether ibe the surveillance om SDV SuSpeC.~ or searching the swamps of “tississippi for a missing kidnap victim, FBI sapc.ts dress for utility or to blend into tha-background. - eee ee a dag e. There arc tal! agents and short ascents, and it is a little- known fact trat there are Ne- pre agents But as long as J, Edgar Hoover is around, there are going to be very few fat agents. He himseli rarely pets down to the gym for a weekly workout any more, but everyone else does. A man who enjoys good food himself, Hoover has no objection to trenchermen among his agents—out they are required to work it off. Over-indulgence of another sort can bring summary dis- \missal. FBI agents wili have a drink before dinner as does the “Boss” himself, but ha- hitual intemperance makes far a short career in the FBI. So do laziness, ineptitude, untruthfulness or slovenly be- | havior. The FBI is a quasi- military organization in: itary organization which orders are given with dispatch with the expectation they will be carried out with speed. For many vears, Hoover as made it a habit to have’ his light hunch in a down- town Washington hotel din- ing room. His order varies little, and he is accustomed to having the same Cuban waiter, Hoover calls him “Fi- del” to set the special jest- ing pattern between a man and his favorite waiter. Back at the office, Hoov- Ver returns to his busy sched. ule of receiving visitors, read+ ing eports, issuing orders and supervising his far-flung organizaLion, A winds, poorly written re- port is invarlably bounced back to the writer with a pithy comment serawied across the pages. A speech draft is taken home to be worked and reworked into ‘words recognizable anywhere Jas Hoover's. His aides kee o wm hi uale ie oe Tei, ae sulated against the legion crackpots who claim t hav important business to discuss with him. Every day, he gets scores of calls. Setters, telegrams and visits from addled folk who may say they are vir- tims of radar transmission rectly into their filled teeth pr that they have recently , turned from trips to Mars and ‘wish to report direct. Occa- sionally, packages arrive con- ining old clothes or even” arbage. feat m ] a& re rey ( The legitimate mail, «of course, is routed much in the manner it is in any well-run organization. Every letter is nswered, and Hoover may well be the most indefatigable Jetter-signer in Washington. There are hot lines on his desk and at hig home to the White House. There is a shortwave radio in his car. Even on trips, he is never away from his life's work. Travel Cut Down | voover sald he hasn't been able to travel as much now as he once did because the pres- fure of the FBI's mission is , Steadily increasing. When he can get away, he likes to go to Aqueduct or one of the race tracks in the New York area where he comporis himself as a $2 bet- | tor. He likes the joke about the man who said he hoped 1 3f Hoover were a man Riv- en to introspection, he might like to roam in the past a bit, - Tasked him about a few of his adventures. Alvin Karpls, the celebrated gangster and kid-_ naper, for instance. {"Yes, " said Hoover. “He's whill aller de Badtewel woolen Sty Save a £oGSTa: prravil. H recall that I was summoned to The Hill the day word reachec? me that we had him spotteg in New Orleans, Karpis use to call and write to me dur ing the manhunt, asking if f was man enough to come aft- . er him myself, and I was terribly anxious to get down . to New Orleans to mect the: chailenge. | ta break even at the track be- : use he needed the money. A typical day at the FBI ends for Hoover at about 7 - P. M. Few employes leave be- fore “The Boss" does, and it is one of the miracles of | Washington life, not dissim- | ilar to the “jungle telegraph,” ; ‘ how his departure time races } through the building, On an evening when he has jo engagements, Hoover dines at home, more often than not with a guest or two. If he is alone, he may read or watch television until after the 11 o'clock news. “! read four newsoanere a papers & faay,” Hoover said. “The boys send me clippings from other papers of stories about mat- ters of interest to the FBI, ‘The books I like are old friends to me, I love to read the poems of Service and Kip-. ling, [ watch television to re-! lax, so I avoid the heavy, psy- chological dramas. My favor-! ite programs are the comedi- ans, Red Skelton and Jack Benny, or the westerns where you don’t have to worry about { the outcome.” J. Edgar Hoover never watches a detective program on television. He dismisses them as too far-fetched to be worth the time. . “"""™. “But there I was at Capitol Hilt and Senator McKellar (the late senator from Ten- nessee) was harassing me about something over which - his wishes and mine had tan-- gled. He accused me of sit- ting here in Washington and taking credit for all the cap- | tures we were making during that period. “I wanted more than any- thing else in the world to get out of that room and get elewiss mae Oh down to New Orleans: but I (had to be courteous. And I ' couldn't tell him about Karpis. So I just waited until he was ' finished with me. “T hurried to New Orleans and took up watch outside the apartment where Karpis was hiding. We were ready whe he came out and as soon a he gat in the driver's seat o his car, 1 shoved my pisto against his ear, * “Well, I guess you've got me,” he said. Later we found - a couple of rifles in the car. I remember that nobody had handcuffs, so we had to use an agerit's necktie io secure j his hands. I still have that tie ' aS a souvenir.* (Everybody has handcuffs: with him now when the FRE Bes out to make an arres 4 Hoover also recaliad 2 ca B.50 recaied 2 ca at which resulted in another F iron-clad rule, It was the x rest in New York of a notori- ous criminal named Harry Erunette. “After we arrested him,” Hoover recalled, “I asked Brunette why his upper lip i was swollen. He said, ‘Oneof ' your men hit me.’ [told him 1 uessed he deserved it. “When we got him to jail e checked his lip and found had a $100 bill tucked ud there. Now we search them ‘from tip to toe as soon as the arrest is made.” St ero poet eto
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