J Edgar Hoover

This American criminologist and government official’s career began in 1916 when he began work in the Justice Department in the War Emergency Division. He became the first director of the FBI.

John Edgar was born in 1935 in Washington DC.  He studied law at George Washington University. In 1917 he joined the United States Department of Justice and by 1924 was named head of the Bureau of Investigation of the Justice Department.

When Hoover took on the role of Director of the FBI (as it became known in 1935) he had around 650 employees, 441 of whom were Special Agents. He began by firing those that he felt were unqualified and by abolishing the rule that seniority brought entitlement to promotion. In 1928 he even established a training course for new agents.

His changes were drastic but much needed and succeeded in professionalising the organisation. He used new scientific methods to combat crime and was the mastermind behind the first fingerprint file.

After WWII, Hoover led investigations to curb subversive activities of all kinds and was often accused of abusing his power and exceeding the FBI’s jurisdiction. He was accused of wire tapping and attacking target groups such as the Communists during the Cold War and of black activist groups like those of Martin Luther King Jnr.

In his 48 years as Director of the FBI, J Edgar Hoover was privy to a lot of sensitive information and was at the helm when some of the most significant events and crises of all time occurred. He fought gangsterism during the Prohibition era (1919-1933), fought Communism during the Cold War (1945-mid1960s), was at the FBI head during investigations into the alleged Roswell UFO crash of 1947 and was still heading the organisation when John F Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. He did not live to see the outcome of America’s involvement in the Vietnam War (1964-1973). He remained a bachelor all his life and died in 1972.