9-6-02, Voice in the Crowd
Take Hoover's Name
Down
By Pete Chaney
IPS Features
The son of Martin Luther King Jr. wants to take the name
J. Edgar Hoover off the Federal Bureau of Investigation Building in Washington.
That’s not a bad idea.
His father was victimized by the Gestapo tactics of the
late bureau chief. Hoover was
prejudiced against blacks or anyone who disagreed with what he perceived to be
government policy. Maybe the Civil
Rights leader had a romantic urge in his travels, but that was no reason to wire
tap his every movement. Hoover saw
a Communist under every hotel carpet. He
did his best to tie M.L. King to the Communist Party and it didn’t work.
During that period no blacks or women worked for the
bureau.
An Attorney General named Charles Bonaparte saw the
beginning of the organization initially called the Bureau of Investigation.
This was 1908 and they had 27 employees.
Congress worried it might become a secret police agency to spy on their
own people as those in Russia at the time.
President Teddy Roosevelt went over their objections and ordered the
bureau to set up a squad for investigating antitrust and violations of other
federal laws. The Mann Act created
in 1910 to stop interstate prostitution sent the agents outside Washington for
the first time. As a sideline they
began to focus on so-called troublemakers like the boxer Jack Johnson, who had a
white woman with him.
With the Russian Revolution in 1919 spreading suspicion
across America, a young Justice Department lawyer named J. Edgar Hoover joined
the organization to head the General Intelligence Division.
He found his niche and within two years had accumulated 450,000 cross
referenced intelligence files. These
covered individuals, organizations and publications.
Five years later following the scandals of the Harding Administration,
President Calvin Coolidge saw the 29-year-old Hoover become head of the bureau
with the intent of making it incorruptible.
Although he said he was not political, Hoover knew how
to play politics with whoever was in power.
President Franklin Roosevelt wanted the bureau involved in high profile
cases. The Lindberg baby kidnapping
brought national headlines with federal investigation involvement.
But as late as 1934 agents were not permitted to carry guns and had no
power to arrest. There were only 400 of them nationwide. It officially became the FBI in 1935.
The bureau had no funds to investigate saboteurs when
World War II started, but Hoover convinced the state department to cover the
expenses. He was told to keep
surveillance on foreign agents. This
was quickly expanded to spy on domestic groups that aroused a trace of
suspicion.
In the Communist witch hunts after the war, Hoover went
after anyone who was suspect. If he
thought the Justice Department was too slow, he leaked information to Congress
and to Tailgunner Joe McCarthy. Lives
were ruined. Actress Jean Seaberg
supposedly committee suicide from government harassment.
Through the bureau’s Responsibilities Program, many were investigated
and lost their jobs from innuendo. Files
were kept on Charlie Chaplin, Ernest Hemingway, Pete Seegar and even Leonard
Bernstein.
Martin Luther King Jr. caught the FBI’s attention in
1958. Hoover didn’t like him
because he was black, he thought King had Communist connections and he had dared
criticize the FBI. Tapes from
illegal wiretaps were distributed in attempts to discredit the leader. At one point in 1964, Hoover held a press conference where he
called King one of America’s “lowest characters.”
Times were changing and the public didn’t see a Commie
behind every tree as he did. The
FBI had crossed the line and was trying to fight political opinion.
A breakin of the Media, Pa., FBI office revealed the organization’s
tactics and Hoover started to ease up.
Since the beginning, the bureau has aggressively crossed
the line to investigate individuals and then retreated to respect the rights of
individuals. Hoover grew up with
the organization, and to many Americans he was the bureau.
On his death, many of his abuses of power became public.
Even his cross dressing and strange sexual appetites were publicized.
To his credit, Hoover established the National Police
Academy and he did forge a powerful force from a weak organization.
Perhaps he is another example of the adage that absolute power corrupts
absolutely. He had it.
And he deserves credit for the good things.
But the mud he spattered on the American system of
justice denies him the right to have an organization as important as the FBI
operate from a building named after him. Take
the name down.
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