Let me paraphrase Shakespeare: Friends, Americans, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to praise J. Edgar Hoover, not to bury his name. The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones. So DON'T let it be with J. Edgar Hoover.
According to a recent article in the Los Angeles Times, for the third straight year, Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana has introduced a bill in Congress to remove J. Edgar Hoover's name from the FBI headdquarters building. U.S. Circuit Judge Laurence H. Silberman supports this measure, stating that "this country - and the bureau - would be well-served if his name were removed from the bureau's building. It is as if the Defense Department were named for Aaron Burr." In 1998, Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada attempeted to have Hoover's name removed from the building, stating that "J. Edgar Hoover stands for what is bad about this country. This small man violated the rights of hundreds, if not thousands, of people, famous and not so famous."
Judge Silberman's Defense Department analogy is ridiculous. Burr was a traitor, Hoover a patriot. As for Sen. Reid, Hoover was a great man, not a small one. Compared to Hoover, the senator is the one who is a small man. Those who want to erase Hoover's name from the public mind, are doing so because he attempted to falsely discredit Martin Luther King, Jr. and other activists during the height of the civil rights movement. They also accuse Hoover of blackmailing government officials and members of Congress by accumulating information about any embarrassing misbehavior, thus intimidating them to the extent that they would not interfere with his operation of the FBI.
Hoover was clearly wrong in his efforts to discredit Martin Luther King, Jr. Planting stories about King's alleged womanizing was an act of evil. Imposing King's photo on a picture of the participants at a communist party camp meeting was an act of evil. There is no excuse for what Hoover did, even though he truly believed that King and other civil rights activists constituted a threat to law and order in this country.
What about collecting embarrassing information on government officials and prominent politicians? Hoover was not the only one to do this. Bill Parker, one of the greatest police chiefs ever, did so while he headed the Los Angeles Police Department. And so did a lot of other police chiefs throughout the country. In doing so, they prevented the petty political interference with law enforcement so prevalent in many police agencies.
While today's FBI is still one of our best law enforcement agencies, it is not as good as it was under Hoover. Today's agents have so much more modern technology at their disposal. In Hoover's time agents did a lot of "gumshooing", while now they spent much of their time seated behind their computers. When Hoover ran the FBI, he demanded the utmost integrity from his agents. (Of course that ran counter to his efforts at discrediting civil rights activists.) There were no scandals during his stewartship. Agents toed the line, both on duty and off duty. Since his death, the FBI has experienced scandals from the very top to the bottom. Even within the FBI's touted laboratory, there have been fabrications and other questionable practices.
Hoover has often been falsely and maliciously accused by his detractors. While there is little doubt that Hoover was a homosexual, one of the allegations was that he partied in Washington as a cross-dresser. That charge is absolutely absurd. He was uglier than sin, often being compared in looks to his pet bulldog. So who in the world would want to look at him dressed like a woman? Besides, he would have been easily recognized in public, no matter how he was dressed or what wig he may have been wearing. While Hoover was alive, no one ever alleged that he was a cross-dresser.
Hoover was truly a great man, serving his country to ensure its security and public safety. The above described acts of evil should not define the man. His good acts and his numerous contributions to law enforcement should not be interred with his bones. Hoover should continue to be honored with his name on the headquarters building of the agency he created and led so successfully for so many years.
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