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Re: The Question of J Edgar Hoover
[Re: MafiaStudent]
#1054621
03/24/23 04:54 PM
03/24/23 04:54 PM
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Joined: Mar 2020
Posts: 448 Paris
Malavita
Capo
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Capo
Joined: Mar 2020
Posts: 448
Paris
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From a strictly law enforcement point of view, he is popular because he wanted his agents to be on the field and work cases. While he was himself a bureaucrat and not a field agent, he fought against the bureaucratic culture of the administration by implementing the famous "Hoover Rule" which states that an FBI agent must spend 90% of his day on the field and only 10% in the office.
He also focused on bank robbers and political activists which got a lot of good attention from the public.
He didn't focus on the Mob but it didn't impact him negatively at the time because people didn't know the actual power of the mob and the Mafia wouldn't affect them too much.
Interestingly, all the main FBI agents who actually worked undercover in the Mob (Pistone, Garcia, Ruskin) are all praising Hoover because he understood the importance on being on the field .
Last edited by Malavita; 03/24/23 05:51 PM.
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Re: The Question of J Edgar Hoover
[Re: MafiaStudent]
#1054632
03/24/23 05:25 PM
03/24/23 05:25 PM
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Joined: Mar 2020
Posts: 448 Paris
Malavita
Capo
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Capo
Joined: Mar 2020
Posts: 448
Paris
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Are you saying his past transgressions should be ignored? Because going after political activists ala the Cointelpro program was illegal, in addition to everything else he did. He's certainly not someone I would prop up as a hero. I was not talking from a personal point of view. I was simply answering your question by sharing my thoughts on why he has been so popular.
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Re: The Question of J Edgar Hoover
[Re: Fleming_Ave]
#1054651
03/24/23 07:53 PM
03/24/23 07:53 PM
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Joined: Feb 2013
Posts: 5,822 Where ever needed.
DuesPaid
Banned
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Banned
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Joined: Feb 2013
Posts: 5,822
Where ever needed.
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Maybe they are protecting his reputation to protect their own? BINGO… your statement is right on F A
Be Loyal, Be Loving, Be Quiet.
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Re: The Question of J Edgar Hoover
[Re: jace]
#1054674
03/24/23 11:38 PM
03/24/23 11:38 PM
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Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 19,523 AZ
Turnbull
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Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 19,523
AZ
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Short answer: there's no political capital to be made from renaming the Hoover FBI Building.
Hoover was a nationally acclaimed figure in his era. But, he's been dead for almost 50 years. Unlike our Presidents, whose names and bios appear in textbooks in every school in America, Hoover's name and bio don't. Most people today don't know who he was, and those wo do, remember him as the nation's top cop, the bulldog-visaged G-Man, the scourge of commies and bank robbers--not the bureaucrat who harassed Martin Luther King, deliberately undermined antiwar, women's lib and civil right movements, placed illegal wiretaps, and kept voluminous files on the peccadilos of politicians and public figures. So, while some local Board of Ed officials score political points with some constituents by renaming schools because George Washington and Thomas Jefferson held slaves, or because Lincoln was a bigot, or because Woodrow Wilson re-segregated the Civil Service, nobody sees any political points from renaming the Hoover Building. And, it'd further demoralize the FBI. It's a political sleeping dog--let it lie.
For the record: Hoover did a lot of his dirty work at the behest of Presidents, who used the dirt he dug up against their political foes. He also turned a corrupt federal agency into a first-class investigative and law enforement body, and created a world reknowned crime lab and fingerprint and criminal records archive system that are widely used by state and local police agencies.
Ntra la porta tua lu sangu � sparsu, E nun me mporta si ce muoru accisu... E s'iddu muoru e vaju mparadisu Si nun ce truovo a ttia, mancu ce trasu.
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Re: The Question of J Edgar Hoover
[Re: DuesPaid]
#1054678
03/24/23 11:44 PM
03/24/23 11:44 PM
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Joined: Sep 2019
Posts: 9,434
NYMafia
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Joined: Sep 2019
Posts: 9,434
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Maybe they are protecting his reputation to protect their own? BINGO… your statement is right on F A Thats a bullseye!
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Re: The Question of J Edgar Hoover
[Re: Turnbull]
#1054771
03/25/23 11:00 PM
03/25/23 11:00 PM
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Joined: Mar 2021
Posts: 645
MafiaStudent
OP
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OP
Underboss
Joined: Mar 2021
Posts: 645
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Short answer: there's no political capital to be made from renaming the Hoover FBI Building.
Hoover was a nationally acclaimed figure in his era. But, he's been dead for almost 50 years. Unlike our Presidents, whose names and bios appear in textbooks in every school in America, Hoover's name and bio don't. Most people today don't know who he was, and those wo do, remember him as the nation's top cop, the bulldog-visaged G-Man, the scourge of commies and bank robbers--not the bureaucrat who harassed Martin Luther King, deliberately undermined antiwar, women's lib and civil right movements, placed illegal wiretaps, and kept voluminous files on the peccadilos of politicians and public figures. So, while some local Board of Ed officials score political points with some constituents by renaming schools because George Washington and Thomas Jefferson held slaves, or because Lincoln was a bigot, or because Woodrow Wilson re-segregated the Civil Service, nobody sees any political points from renaming the Hoover Building. And, it'd further demoralize the FBI. It's a political sleeping dog--let it lie.
For the record: Hoover did a lot of his dirty work at the behest of Presidents, who used the dirt he dug up against their political foes. He also turned a corrupt federal agency into a first-class investigative and law enforement body, and created a world reknowned crime lab and fingerprint and criminal records archive system that are widely used by state and local police agencies. Makes total sense. Never thought about the "political points" aspect. It just seems that the FBI is flippant about some things they shouldn't be flippant about. Like they're "untouchable"....lol. One recent example is the new Netflix "Waco" series. I watched it and the agents interviewed seemed to be having too much fun telling their side of the story. I realize that a lot of these things have some "scriptedness" (not a word, I know) to them, but it just seemed a little over the top to me. Nonetheless, as I mentioned, I have an interesting FBI story (I think, anyway) coming out soon. On another note, have you (or anyone) read that new Hoover book that came out last November by Beverly Gage?
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Re: The Question of J Edgar Hoover
[Re: MafiaStudent]
#1055043
03/29/23 12:27 PM
03/29/23 12:27 PM
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Joined: Jun 2012
Posts: 807
Friend_of_Henry
Underboss
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Underboss
Joined: Jun 2012
Posts: 807
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In the "Closet" no doubt ;-)
"Never walk in a room that you don't know how to get out of"- Henry Zottola
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Re: The Question of J Edgar Hoover
[Re: NYMafia]
#1055120
03/29/23 11:20 PM
03/29/23 11:20 PM
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Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 19,523 AZ
Turnbull
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Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 19,523
AZ
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I posted this about Hoover and the Mob back in '09:
Myth: The FBI for decades ignored the Mafia for two reasons: First, J. Edgar Hoover was a degenerate gambler who got tips on fixed horse races from senior Mafia people. Second, Hoover was gay, and the Mob had a photo of him in full drag that they used to coerce him.
Reality: Neither is true. Hoover was an avid horseplayer who regularly visited racetracks and had himself photographed there. But he was strictly a two-dollar bettor. He did get tips on fixed races from agents who wanted to suck up to the boss. He knew that the agents got the tips from underworld informants. Probably some of them were Mobbed-up, but there was (and is) nothing irregular or unusual about law enforcement using (and paying) informants for information—even info on fixed races.
Hoover was a mama’s boy and lifelong bachelor. He shared a home and vacationed with Clyde Tolson, assistant FBI director, whose only qualification seemed to have been his friendship with Hoover. Several competent biographers have investigated Hoover’s alleged homosexuality since his death in 1972, and have been unable to confirm it. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t gay—it means there’s no hard evidence that he was. He did what he did behind closed doors and shuttered windows, not in public--or in drag.
As a man who owed his 50-plus years’ tenure as FBI director to his ability to collect juicy data on other powerful men’s vices, Hoover knew better than anyone that his own personal life could be prime territory for blackmailers and political opponents. Probably the reason he had himself photographed at racetracks and on vacation with Tolson was to make those peccadilloes just public enough to pre-empt potential foes. The last things Hoover would have done would be to meet Frank Costello on park benches to get horse tips, or to attend gay orgies in drag.
So, why did Hoover ignore the Mafia for so long? His personal popularity and his secret files on politicians enabled Hoover to run the FBI as a personal fiefdom. He was obsessed with the Communist Party USA, and directed a huge share of FBI resources to “the enemy within” (a contemporary joke was that the only thing keeping CPUSA afloat was the dues paid by undercover FBI agents and informants). He also favored high profile, short-turnaround investigations such as bank robbery and kidnappings. He gave Mob-controlled gambling and narcotics a wide berth because he knew that the profits they generated enabled organized crime to corrupt law enforcement almost at will.
So, he preferred to consider gambling and drugs as “local issues.” When the Kefauver subcommittee’s televised hearings on gambling and organized crime (1950-51) raised questions about why the FBI wasn’t stopping them, Hoover replied: “If the laws against gambling presently on the state and local statute books were earnestly and vigorously enforced, organized gambling could be eliminated within 48 hours in any community in this land….The basic answer, is an aroused public opinion which will act on a local level through local enforcement to wipe out the problem.”
Ntra la porta tua lu sangu � sparsu, E nun me mporta si ce muoru accisu... E s'iddu muoru e vaju mparadisu Si nun ce truovo a ttia, mancu ce trasu.
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Re: The Question of J Edgar Hoover
[Re: Turnbull]
#1055129
03/30/23 06:07 AM
03/30/23 06:07 AM
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Joined: Sep 2019
Posts: 9,434
NYMafia
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![](/ubb/5stars.gif)
Joined: Sep 2019
Posts: 9,434
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I posted this about Hoover and the Mob back in '09:
Myth: The FBI for decades ignored the Mafia for two reasons: First, J. Edgar Hoover was a degenerate gambler who got tips on fixed horse races from senior Mafia people. Second, Hoover was gay, and the Mob had a photo of him in full drag that they used to coerce him.
Reality: Neither is true. Hoover was an avid horseplayer who regularly visited racetracks and had himself photographed there. But he was strictly a two-dollar bettor. He did get tips on fixed races from agents who wanted to suck up to the boss. He knew that the agents got the tips from underworld informants. Probably some of them were Mobbed-up, but there was (and is) nothing irregular or unusual about law enforcement using (and paying) informants for information—even info on fixed races.
Hoover was a mama’s boy and lifelong bachelor. He shared a home and vacationed with Clyde Tolson, assistant FBI director, whose only qualification seemed to have been his friendship with Hoover. Several competent biographers have investigated Hoover’s alleged homosexuality since his death in 1972, and have been unable to confirm it. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t gay—it means there’s no hard evidence that he was. He did what he did behind closed doors and shuttered windows, not in public--or in drag.
As a man who owed his 50-plus years’ tenure as FBI director to his ability to collect juicy data on other powerful men’s vices, Hoover knew better than anyone that his own personal life could be prime territory for blackmailers and political opponents. Probably the reason he had himself photographed at racetracks and on vacation with Tolson was to make those peccadilloes just public enough to pre-empt potential foes. The last things Hoover would have done would be to meet Frank Costello on park benches to get horse tips, or to attend gay orgies in drag.
So, why did Hoover ignore the Mafia for so long? His personal popularity and his secret files on politicians enabled Hoover to run the FBI as a personal fiefdom. He was obsessed with the Communist Party USA, and directed a huge share of FBI resources to “the enemy within” (a contemporary joke was that the only thing keeping CPUSA afloat was the dues paid by undercover FBI agents and informants). He also favored high profile, short-turnaround investigations such as bank robbery and kidnappings. He gave Mob-controlled gambling and narcotics a wide berth because he knew that the profits they generated enabled organized crime to corrupt law enforcement almost at will.
So, he preferred to consider gambling and drugs as “local issues.” When the Kefauver subcommittee’s televised hearings on gambling and organized crime (1950-51) raised questions about why the FBI wasn’t stopping them, Hoover replied: “If the laws against gambling presently on the state and local statute books were earnestly and vigorously enforced, organized gambling could be eliminated within 48 hours in any community in this land….The basic answer, is an aroused public opinion which will act on a local level through local enforcement to wipe out the problem.” - I agree with you on a lot of this. And the explanations provided seem to jibe with common sense. But I also believe that some of this "counter data" that was written in defense of Hoover was orchestrated and put public by the Federal Bureau of Investigation itself in an attempt to counteract the negative barrage of publicity that hit the fearless leader, besmirching his reputation, and by extension, the entire bureau itself. After all, we know that nobody is better than muddying up the truth and creating a smokescreen than the G when they want to.
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