J. Edgar Hoover: Achievements, Education, Early Life, History, Interesting Facts (2002)

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John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States, appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924. About the book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0029250617/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp;=1789&creative;=9325&creativeASIN;=0029250617&linkCode;=as2&tag;=tra0c7-20&linkId;=852963d16488abdc33359a3ae936922f He was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972 at the age of 77. Hoover is credited with building the FBI into a larger crime-fighting agency, and with instituting a number of modernizations to police technology, such as a centralized fingerprint file and forensic laboratories. Late in life and after his death, Hoover became a controversial figure as evidence of his secretive abuses of power began to surface. He was found to have exceeded the jurisdiction of the FBI[1] and to have used the FBI to harass political dissenters and activists, to amass secret files on political leaders,[2] and to collect evidence using illegal methods.[3] Hoover consequently amassed a great deal of power and was in a position to intimidate and threaten sitting presidents.[4] According to biographer Kenneth Ackerman, the notion that Hoover's secret files kept presidents from firing him is a myth.[5] However, Richard Nixon was recorded as stating in 1971 that one of the reasons he did not fire Hoover was that he was afraid of reprisals against him from Hoover.[6] According to President Harry S. Truman, Hoover transformed the FBI into his private secret police force. Truman stated that "we want no Gestapo or secret police. The FBI is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in sex-life scandals and plain blackmail. J. Edgar Hoover would give his right eye to take over, and all congressmen and senators are afraid of him". J. Edgar Hoover was born on New Year's Day 1895 in Washington, D.C., to Anna Marie (née Scheitlin; 1860–1938), who was of German Swiss descent, and Dickerson Naylor Hoover, Sr. (1856–1921), of English and German ancestry. The uncle of Hoover's mother was a Swiss honorary consul general to the United States. Hoover did not have a birth certificate filed, although it was required in 1895 Washington. Two siblings had certificates. Hoover's was not filed until 1938, when he was 43.[8] Hoover grew up near the Eastern Market in Washington's Capitol Hill neighborhood. He attended Central High where he sang in the school choir, participated in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps program, and competed on the debate team,[9] where he argued against women getting the right to vote and against the abolition of the death penalty.[10] The school newspaper applauded his "cool, relentless logic".[11] Hoover was a stutterer as a boy, which he overcame by teaching himself to talk fast—a style that he carried through his adult career. He eventually spoke with such ferocious speed that stenographers had a hard time following him.[12] He obtained a Bachelor of Laws[13] from The George Washington University Law School in 1916, where he was a member of the Alpha Nu Chapter of the Kappa Alpha Order and an LL.M., a Master of Laws degree, in 1917 from the same university.[14][15] While a law student, Hoover became interested in the career of Anthony Comstock, the New York City United States Postal Inspector, who waged prolonged campaigns against fraud and vice, and also against pornography and birth control. Hoover lived in Washington, D.C. for his entire life.[11] Hoover was 18 years old when he accepted his first job, an entry-level position as messenger in the orders department at the Library of Congress. The library was a half mile from his house. The experience shaped both Hoover and the creation of the FBI profiles; as Hoover noted in a 1951 letter, "This job …trained me in the value of collating material. It gave me an excellent foundation for my work in the FBI where it has been necessary to collate information and evidence." Immediately after getting his LL.M degree, Hoover was hired by the Justice Department to work in the War Emergency Division. He soon became the head of the Division's Alien Enemy Bureau, authorized by President Wilson at the beginning of World War I to arrest and jail disloyal foreigners without trial.[11] He received additional authority from the 1917 Espionage Act. Out of a list of 1,400 suspicious Germans living in the U.S., the Bureau arrested 98 and designated 1,172 as arrestable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover