J. Edgar Hoover and the Mob

Please no "crossdressing" crap. That was a rumor started in 1993.....

But I have heard from more reputable sources that a big part of the reason that Hoover didn't go after LCN until he was forced to was because he was a very big, big time fan of the ponies and high up guys would give him the fix for the horses....Does anyone know if this is true?

Hoover knew about the Mob,but he didn't go after them because he didn't want his agents to be corrupted by the huge amounts of money that the Families could spread around. He was more concerned with public relations,and so he went after famous bank robbers,kidnappers,auto thefts ,and of course Communists.

He was reputed to have told Frank Costello at the Stork Club,"just stay out of my bailiwick". Gambling busts were not Hoover's priority,and as a result he failed to understand that after Prohibition ended,gambling became a huge contributor to the Mafia's power and influence.

When the Apalachin bust occurred,Hoover had to cover his ass,so to get around having denied the existence of the Mafia for so many years he created a new term. That term was La Cosa Nostra.
Now Hoover could say "Oh no, these weren't Mafia guys that got arrested,these were members of the Cosa Nostra,and of course we've been investigating them for quite a while.

As far as the horse racing,Hoover would get tips on fixed races from Walter Winchell,who got them from Frank Costello,who got them from bookmaker Frank Erickson. Hoover would let himself be seen at the $2.00 window,while one of his agents placed the real bets at the $100.00 window.
Hoover would claim that as a student of horse breeding, he only went to the track when one of his friends was racing a horse that he owned, and he would make small token wagers so as not to embarrass his hosts.

It's true that Hoover played the ponies, but that's not why he didn't go after the Mafia to any large extent. He didn't go after the Mafia because he thought the Mafia was limited to local jurisdictions and were not interconnected, and therefore were not federal crimes. In the 1940s the FBI did start an investigation into the death of Bugsy Siegel and the Chicago Outfit, but it was ordered shut down by the Attorney General. There were investigations of individual mobsters, but these were mostly newspaper article clipping operations. All that changed after the 1957 Apalachin meeting. That made him rethink his position and realize he was mistaken. No one forced Hoover to investigate then except for Hoover. That's when they started installing bugs and developing informants.

Yeah ive read also that Hoover was a racing track junkie and Costello provided the info.What do you think,is it true that Lansky and mob used to have a picture from Hoover in some strange position with another man or dressed as a woman?Do you think that the story is true?

I know Willie Cicci may not want to hear it, but I was always under the distinct impression that Hoover didn't go after the Mafia because they knew he was a closet homosexual. Hoover didn't want to be blackmailed.

according to the legend the Mafia had pictures or even a movie in which Hoover had sex with his deputy Clyde Tolson and he disguised himself as a woman.

Read Ronald Kessler's books on the FBI. He shows that the "photos", if they existed, were frauds. Bill Bonanno claimed he saw some photos, and if he did they were phony. Jimmy Alo was interviewed late in his life and said if he and Lansky knew about the photos they would have blackmailed Hoover into putting a stop into the investigations on Lansky. That's evidence itself that there were no real photos: Lansky was one of the most investigated people the FBI went after.

As for Hoover's alleged homosexuality, who knows? No evidence either way, except he did date a famous actress in the 1940s. People who knew him said he was married to his job. The fact is, not everyone is interested in sex.

Thanks Faithful1, Good information. So the Homosexual label or even the possibility Hoover had engaged in homosexual activity was strictly a rumor that got bigger and bigger?
Very interesting.
Kinda like the rumor that Joe Ferriola was the Top Boss in the Outfit in 1986 because Roemer said it. LOL

j edgar tried to get the black panthers and the black p stones to fight

in other words he thought they were dumb enough to fight because of him

he thought wrong

From everything I've read and researched over the years,it's pretty much a given that Hoover's supposed fetish for cross dressing is really an urban legend.As far as his sexual preference,the Clyde Tolson rumor is somewhat feasible,however some who knew Hoover have stated that he seemed more of an asexual person.
He appears to be a guy who lived for his work,and it would not surprise me if he died a virgin.Hoover was an extremely weird guy,and according to some sources,he actually used Astroturf on his lawn so it was always neat and perfect.
Hoover was more comfortable around his own gender,was obsessed with neatness and routine,and IMHO,pretty much borderline nuts.

He also thought he could them fighting Mafia. He was an overrated crime fighter. I don't blame him for not knowing how large Mafia was, up to Appalachia arrests no one knew for certain. Even after Valachi, many top crime experts said it did not exist. Hoover also saw communism and socialism as bigger thereat, and he may have been right. There were many spies in America, and many communist supporters. The Rosenbergs stole nuclear secrets and gave them to an enemy, which was at time way larger threat to America than Mafia or any other crime groups.

Good point....

I doubt that's legend as J. Edgar was a not so secret drag queen and gay man that was terrified of being outed because of who he was and what he did for a job; but he had a lot of internalised homophobia and the fact that being anything other than completely heterosexual was illegal for most of his life did not help.

Clyde was his partner/boyfriend, and no J. Edgar did not die a virgin.

Hoover was a politician who was interested in his bottom line and increasing the budget ceiling. I don't think he really had much of an interest in actually combating crime. At least that is always the impression I had of the man. I've often wondered if Hoover received bonus pay based on his agents' success rates, which would account for his steadfast refusal to acknowledge the Mafia and instead concentrate on easier busts, like bank robbers, etc.

I don't know why you guys are fixating on his sexuality, honestly.

Hoover was informed in the 1930's(after Capone was jailed)about the existance of a criminal commision and facts were given also but....he did nothing.I think that Hoover had pressure from some one not to do shit or he was corrupted and the deal was off after Apalachin...

Wasn't that rumor(cross-dressing) about the Genovese associate Ed "the skull" Murphy getting a photo of hoover cross dressing from a male prostitute by the name of John Paul ranier? The other rumor was that he was at the Plaza Hotel for a party when a women witnessed hoover go into a bedroom with young blond boys where he had sex while one of the boys read passages from the Bible. She also said that her husband lewis rosenstiel had sex with the boys while lawyer roy cohen watched. Pretty sick shit there!

Finally getting around to reading some OC books from way way back.

Since the story was put out there, what's the consensus on Hoover being blackmailed by organized crime figures who found out and allegedly had photographs of him engaging in sexual acts with men?


It's been reported that Hoover and the feds had information/photos of the "vices" that elected officials,judges,power brokers were involved in and that he this info as leverage in dealing with them.

How likely was it that the men who controlled all vice* industries would learn about Hoover's sexual orientation and get him to ignore the existence of the American mafia?





If this has been discussed at length here, forgive me and just point me to the conversation.....but if not.....what do most of you think?

If they really had those photos do you think guys as powerful as Genovese or Giancana would have been locked up? Never mind that RFK was behind the renewed push against OC that got them there; it was still a way to stick it to the feds even if Hoover's influence had waned and they abstained, which leads me to believe that they never had them.

Hoover held onto power for ~50 years in large part by maintaining files on the vices of politicians, public officials and celebrities. That experience taught him to be discrete about his own vices--and to let out just enough about them to keep the blackmailers at bay, the better for him to blackmail others. The idea that he'd let himself be photographed in drag is absurd.

Hoover didn't go after the Mob for two reasons. First, he was obsessed with the Communist Party USA, and he knew that he could always get Congress to appropriate more money to fight the "Red Menace," even though it practically disappeared after WWII. What Senator or Representative would go on record as opposing more money for the FBI to fight the "Red Menace"?

Second, Hoover often said that if local and state law enforcement did their jobs, the rackets associated with organized crime would disappear in weeks. He wasn't wrong. The other side of that statement was that he knew how Mob money could corrupt any and all law enforcement. His reputation, and the Bureau's, rested on the myth of FBI "incorruptibility." The last thing he wanted was to expose his agents to the Mob and its limitless ability to bribe law enforcement.

^THIS^

I read the book J. Edgar Hoover; The Man and The Secrets by Curt Gentry. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in Hoover. Hoover had his men spy on powerful people in government, and also in business and even the church. In the book by Gentry, on p531 it says Angelo Bruno and another guy in his family were talking about the gay rumors around Hoover.

He was too busy with the communists to after the mob. After Appalachian tho... He was pressured into doing something then

Interesting thing; In the book SuperMob, they say Sidney Korshak did this to Keafauver, as he was a known pussy hound, and that this blackmail neutralized him, prevented him from calling Korshak as a witness.
I think this is where the Senator Geary scene in GF2 came from....

ok...good replies


Once the Kefauver hearings took place in '51, like Cabrini made reference to, what kept Hoover and the FBI from doing any kind of investigation on the mafia?

Not a chest beating public campaign, but just investigation or fact gathering? Not even after a public hearing that captured the imagination of the American press and people?




shown for free in movie theaters across the country before most people had tvs

Yes, Commies were a better Bogeyman that Feds could trot out to get funding...but that still doesn't explain why the Feds wouldn't gather info or "low key" go after known major crime syndicate that was just exposed in nationally covered hearings.

I disagree with, and the facts seem to dispute, Hoover's claim that local and state law enforcement simply enforcing the laws on the books would eliminate the rackets.
State LE enforcing existing laws would have netted street arrests of the guys at the bottom of the hierarchy. The guys pulling strings would remain on top and the street guys would be replaced by other hungry street guys.(Just like what happened decades later with the WAR on drugs)

and the report was the

Kefauver Committee
U.S. Senate Special Committee
to Investigate Organized Crime
in Interstate Commerce

keyword being interstate..which in modern times is a red flag meaning feds....not state law enforcement.


In fact, it wasn't until 10 years AFTER Rico laws were passed that any major dent was put into LCN....with substantial players being convicted.
Hoover's lack of action allowed the LCN to expand into more rackets and become ingrained literally into certain industries.

Incompetence? or blackmail?

At the outset of the Kefauver hearings, Attorney General Howard McGrath, Hoover's boss, declared that the Justice Dept. had "no substantive evidence that a "national syndicate of organized crime exists." That enabled Hoover to keep his resources for the CPUSA.