J. EDGAR HOOVER

J. Edgar Hoover

Abstract

In this research we try to discover the life of “J. Edgar Hoover” in a holistic context. The key focal point of the study is on “J. Edgar Hoover” and his “life”. The research also explores various characteristics of “J. Edgar Hoover” and tries to gauge its impact.

Table of Contents

Introduction1

Discussion and Analysis1

Conclusion6

J. Edgar Hoover

Introduction

J. Edgar Hoover served as the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for 48 years, from 1924 to 1972. Hoover was born in Washington, D.C., in 1895. He earned two law degrees through evening courses at George Washington University while working during the day at the Library of Congress. After finishing his advanced law degree in 1918, he went to work for the U.S. Department of Justice and quickly became the assistant to the attorney general. In 1924, Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone appointed Hoover as the director of the Justice Department's Bureau of Investigation, the agency that later came to be known as the Federal Bureau of Investigation or FBI. Hoover served as the director of the FBI until his death in 1972.

Discussion and Analysis

Hoover is credited with introducing training and procedures that applied scientific methods to the investigation of crimes. Under Hoover, the FBI created and maintained a centralized file of fingerprints that law enforcement agencies throughout the country relied upon in seeking to identify lawbreakers. The FBI also opened a crime laboratory that used scientific techniques to analyze evidence. He ended previous hiring practices that had enabled unqualified political appointees to become federal agents. Instead, he required FBI agents to have educational backgrounds in law or accounting. In addition, agents had to undergo background checks, interviews, and physical fitness tests. Hoover opened the National Police Academy in 1935, which later became known as the FBI Academy, to provide training programs for FBI agents as well as law enforcement officers from state and local agencies around the nation. Hoover's emphasis on training, qualifications, and scientific methods professionalized the FBI. The FBI became a role model for other law enforcement agencies that had traditionally been guided by political appointees and partisan politics (Hersh, 2007).

Hoover rose rapidly in the ranks and became special assistant to Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. Despite his later denials, Hoover played a vital role in the Palmer Raids inspired by the postwar Red Scare. He planned and executed mass raids against aliens, built up a card file on 450,000 radicals and organized his first informer network, a technique Hoover developed to the level of a science, far better than any other American law official.

By 1924 the Bureau of Investigation was mired in scandal, much like the late Harding administration. Hoover was named to head the agency and cleanse it. To his credit, he did so with ruthless efficiency, forcing out scores of incompetents and cheats and establishing professional standards for agents, such as the requirement that new recruits have training as either lawyers or accountants. During the 1930s Hoover toughened the FBI into a ...