Hoover, (John) Edgar

Hoover, (John) Edgar (1895–1972),director from 1924 of the US Bureau of Investigation—later called the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI (see USA, 6)—a post he retained until he died.

Having accumulated responsibility for western hemisphere intelligence matters, Hoover was authorized by Roosevelt in 1940 to form his Special Intelligence Service which operated agents in Latin America to monitor Nazi activities.

Though officially exonerated, the FBI was part of the general failure of US intelligence preceding the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. It was a débâcle for which Hoover was quick to blame others. The moral rectitude with which he had earlier viewed the British double agent Dusko Popov has been assessed as part of this failure, but Hoover did pass to naval intelligence the Pearl Harbor questionnaire that the Germans had given Popov; and there is no reason why Hoover should have thought it anything but an indication of yet another potential sabotage operation.

After 1941 he concentrated on keeping the US free of spies and saboteurs, and in ensuring no other intelligence organization encroached upon his territory. He was eminently successful in achieving the former, but suffered a serious bureaucratic defeat when the Office of Strategic Services was formed in 1942, and he conducted a running feud with its head, Colonel Donovan, for the remainder of the war.

Bibliography

Powers, R. , Secrecy and Power: The Life of J. Edgar Hoover (New York, 1987).