Hoover's FBI

by Cartha Deloach

Book Overview

The FBI is the world's most famous law enforcement agency and also one of the world's most mysterious organizations. Only the few who were part of J. Edgar Hoover's inner circle know the truths of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 089526479X
• ISBN13: 9780895264794
• Release Date: January 1995
• Publisher: Regnery Publishing
• Length: 440 Pages
• Weight: 1.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Most Accurate Account of the Hoover Years

This book is by far the most accurate account of the Hoover years at the FBI. Mr. DeLoach not only gives the most accurate information on some of the most famous cases, but also gives the reader an inside account of the thinking behind some of Hoover's most important decisions of the time - Mississippi Burning, Monroe, LBJ, Nixon, etc. If you actually want to know the truth and not some plagerous expose with 1/2 truths, take a look at this book.

Fairly obvious

The story being told by the author is fairly obvious (especially to those of us who were adults during much of that time and realized the truth), but it's one that must be told. It's hard to believe that this book was published over 10 years ago, and still the media and the entertainment industry insist on portraying Hoover as a cross-dresser and one who spied capriciously on "law-abiding US citizens." The violence inherent in the policies of the protestors of the 60s and 70s warranted keeping an eye on them ("burn down the cities; kill members of the establishment, etc." As I said, we who remember those things being advocated saw no reason why such violence-prone organizations should have went unwatched.) And the fact that the Attornet General has to approve of wiretaps is something that Hoover's detractors always overlook. Especially since the Attorney General that approved the wire tap on Martin Luther King's phone was none other than Bobby Kennedy. Nor is DeLoach afraid to show Hoover's warts along with his dedication. He points out his egocentric nature, his petty grudges and his biases. Sometimes the truth hurts, and the many truths contained in this book, though painful to some cultural icons, needed to see the light of day.

Skilled, unsensational exposé of widespread myths

Cartha DeLoach isn't an iconoclast or a sycophant; he simply writes through a spirit of determination to give credit when credit's due. As WASHINGTON POST columnist Jack Anderson has admitted, no-one alive today has DeLoach's knowledge of the FBI's workings during the Hoover era. After reading DeLoach it becomes increasingly hard to believe (a) that Hoover was a practising homosexual, (b) that he indulged in transvestitism (that particular allegation derives from the unsupported testimony of a convicted perjuror), (c) that Martin Luther King was the spotless saint in which America has increasingly come to believe, (d) that the CPUSA consisted of fey intellectuals concerned primarily with the Bill of Rights. In a way, the very unpretentiousness of DeLoach's account is its strength. You come away from it, not liking Hoover, but respecting him.