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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   32361 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 5, 2022

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J. Edgar Hoover is still remembered for crossdressing to this day and it may not even be true.

J. Edgar Hoover was also an absolute bipartisan titan of American politics and government in a way that I don't think anyone has been since, probably, Colon Powell? Maybe David Petraeus, but Petraeus went down fast when he got got. Nobody in government today will be remembered half as much as Hoover.

Hoover was well known for playing power politics with other government officials, including elected officials, and even hoarding blackmail on celebrities. He played rough, Lyndon Johnson's famous quote about "it's better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in" was about Hoover, and referred to Hoover's propensity towards attack politics against his enemies. The most powerful president in recent American history did not believe he could dislodge Hoover. Hoover's dirty tricks campaigns are legendary:

In 1956, Hoover was becoming increasingly frustrated by U.S. Supreme Court decisions that limited the Justice Department's ability to prosecute people for their political opinions, most notably communists. Some of his aides reported that he purposely exaggerated the threat of communism to "ensure financial and public support for the FBI."[59] At this time he formalized a covert "dirty tricks" program under the name COINTELPRO.[60] COINTELPRO was first used to disrupt the Communist Party USA, where Hoover ordered observation and pursuit of targets that ranged from suspected citizen spies to larger celebrity figures, such as Charlie Chaplin, whom he saw as spreading Communist Party propaganda.[61]

COINTELPRO's methods included infiltration, burglaries, setting up illegal wiretaps, planting forged documents, and spreading false rumors about key members of target organizations.[62] Some authors have charged that COINTELPRO methods also included inciting violence and arranging murders.[63][64]

This program remained in place until it was exposed to the public in 1971, after the burglary by a group of eight activists of many internal documents from an office in Media, Pennsylvania, whereupon COINTELPRO became the cause of some of the harshest criticism of Hoover and the FBI.

Another President, Truman, said:

...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.

Hoover was simply a much bigger deal than anyone in politics today will ever be.

Also, the cross-dressing in particular may or may not be true, but Hoover was absolutely a fag. He never married, and no one has any evidence of his heterosexuality, while even his friends go on the record about his homosexuality.

Some people associated with Hoover have supported the rumors about his homosexuality.[155] According to Anthony Summers, Hoover often frequented New York City's Stork Club. Luisa Stuart, a model who was 18 or 19 at the time, told Summers that she had seen Hoover holding hands with Tolson as they all rode in a limo uptown to the Cotton Club in 1936.[126]

Actress and singer Ethel Merman was a friend of Hoover's since 1938, and familiar with all parties during his alleged romance of Lela Rogers. In a 1978 interview and in response to Annita Bryant's anti-gay campaign, she said: "Some of my best friends are homosexual: Everybody knew about J. Edgar Hoover, but he was the best chief the FBI ever had."

It'd may have been more newsworthy in the past, but Hoover was in the public eye much much more than a deputy secretary of waste management or natural parks, and public distaste for things like that has declined al ot.

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