
              Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 6  Num. 47
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                    ("Quid coniuratio est?")
 
 
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    "'Conspiracy' was a word that was *verboten*. It was not 
    to be heard on anybody's lips. The idea that Oswald had 
    a confederate or was part of a group or a conspiracy was 
    definitely enough to place a man's career in jeopardy."
 
       -- Anthony Summers, writing in the afterword (for 
          paperback edition) of his book, *The Secret Life 
          of J. Edgar Hoover*
 
 +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +
 
*The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover* by Anthony Summers
=======================================================
 
Author Summers, writing in the afterword of the paperback edition 
of his book, laments the fact that "Although this book is about 
issues far wider and more serious than Hoover's sexual 
preferences, it was the sex that preoccupied the media."
 
This is the book known for revealing that long-time FBI director 
Hoover and his sidekick and second-in-command at the FBI, Clyde 
Tolson, were gay. Yet this book is much deeper than the stuff of 
mere daytime TV talk shows. True, it tells about such things as
 
  [Roy] Cohn ushered them into a suite to find Edgar, again 
  attired in female finery. His clothing this time was even 
  more outlandish. "He had a red dress on," Susan recalled, 
  "and a black feather boa around his neck. He was dressed 
  like an old flapper, like you see on old tintypes."
 
  "After about half an hour some boys came, like before. This 
  time they're dressed in leather. And Hoover had a Bible. He 
  wanted one of the boys to read from the Bible. And he read, 
  I forget which passage, and the other boy played with him, 
  wearing the rubber gloves. And then Hoover grabbed the 
  Bible, threw it down and told the second boy to join in the 
  sex."
 
Or how about this one:
 
  Edgar could not stand to see his friend [Tolson] show his 
  weaknesses in public. When Clyde stumbled and fell at the 
  [racetrack] in California, Edgar ordered an accompanying 
  agent not to help him. "Leave him alone," he snapped. "Let 
  the dumb asshole get up by himself."
 
Hoover, who author Summers, a veteran BBC journalist, insists on 
referring to as "Edgar" throughout the book, had a habit of 
gambling on horse races with friend and lover Tolson. The two 
were often seen together at the Pimlico racetrack in Maryland. 
Apparently, Hoover received "payoffs" from the Mafia in the form 
of hot racing tips: he would win big at the track and in return 
would act dumb and say things like "Mafia? What Mafia? I don't 
see any Mafia."
 
But there's more to it than that. It is alleged that Hoover's 
homosexuality was known by mobsters who, in fact, had solid 
proof. It appears that the mob used this information as potential 
blackmail so as to keep Hoover from going after them. To anyone 
who remembers wondering, during the 1960s, how it could be that 
Hoover kept saying the Mafia didn't exist -- here is the answer: 
he was being blackmailed and bribed by them.
 
As noted, however, this book is much more than mere gossip about 
the Heinrich Himmler of the national police. Like Upton 
Sinclair's *The Jungle* which was about a lot more than 
unsanitary conditions in Chicago meat-packing plants, *The Secret 
Life of J. Edgar Hoover* is a profound study of American history 
and politics. It also works as a caricature of bureaucratic non- 
accountability and power run amok.
 
The historical element of the book is achieved via its focus on 
how Hoover, FBI director for 47 years, interacted with famous 
individuals of his time. Hoover had so much real power that U.S. 
presidents routinely bypassed their attorneys general and went 
directly to J. Edgar. "According to Nixon, Edgar told him 'every 
president since Roosevelt' had given him bugging assignments... 
By ignoring ethics, and on occasion the law, and by using the FBI 
to do it, they all made themselves beholden to Edgar."
 
And that brings in the political angle of this book: Secret Life 
is a fundamental textbook of political science, a "Politics 101". 
Forget about the crap they've taught you in school, your 
"education", paid for not coincidentally by the federal 
leviathan. This book gives you the real dirt on what actually 
goes on. Do you want something done? Then get detectives to dig 
through garbage cans, seduce old girlfriends and get them to 
squawk about what they know, pay off the right people, with a 
wink and a nod. "Somebody somewhere owes a favor, that's how 
things really get done." You don't believe it? Then read the book.
 
Summers seems to miss the deeper levels within his own book. He 
casually mentions that Hoover was a Thirty-third Degree Mason. 
Later, in discussing Hoover's rise to power, the author writes of 
the new FDR administration's proposed attorney general, Thomas 
Walsh, and his plans to reorganize the Justice Department. 
Hoover's career seemed threatened, but then "fate" intervened: 
Walsh died of a "heart attack" on the train bearing him to 
Washington, D.C.
 
Homer Cummings became FDR's attorney general and he, too, seemed 
to be about to fire Hoover. "Then fate intervened again -- this 
time with the death of Wallace Foster, a former Justice 
Department official Cummings was considering for Edgar's job."
 
Were these two deaths "fate", as Summers seems to believe, or was 
Hoover, the Thirty-third Degree Mason, already pre-determined by 
forces other than "fate" to remain installed as the absolute Czar 
of the national police -- no matter what the cost?
 
So too, the author misses a deeper insight into Hoover's death. 
According to Summers, Egil Krogh, "Nixon intimate and chief 
Plumber", declared that "We didn't knock off Hoover. He knocked 
himself off." Summers interprets Krogh's statement as alleging 
that Hoover committed suicide, but I don't read it that way. 
Previously in his book, Summers had laboriously documented how 
Nixon and friends (as well as others before them) had desperately 
wanted the aging Hoover to step down from his post at the FBI. 
Yet Hoover could not be budged, due to the voluminous files he 
maintained on others -- he had so much dirt on everyone that he 
was politically untouchable. Hoover knocked himself off, I think, 
because he would not allow himself to be retired; he left his 
opponents no other option.
 
Summers even goes into allegations that "aspirin roulette" may 
have been toyed with as a means of eliminating the FBI director:
 
  Edgar had been the target of two operations, according to 
  these sources. A first break-in attempt, in "late winter of 
  1972," was designed to "retrieve documents that were thought 
  to be used as potential blackmail against the White House." 
  It failed, but was followed by a second, successful break- 
  in. "This time," Frazier reported, "whether through 
  misunderstanding or design, a poison of the thiophosphate 
  genre was placed on Hoover's personal toilet articles."
 
  Thiophosphate is a compound used in insecticides, highly 
  toxic to human beings if taken orally, inhaled or absorbed 
  through the pores of the skin. Ingestion can result in a 
  fatal heart seizure and can be detected only if an autopsy 
  is performed within hours of death.
 
Hoover's body was found in pajama trousers and lying beside the 
bed. It is assumed that Hoover had risen during the night to go 
to the bathroom and had had his "heart attack" then. But it is 
equally likely, in my opinion, that Hoover could have died on his 
way *from* the bathroom, perhaps just prior to first going to 
bed. If that were the case, could it not be that Hoover took the 
wrong "aspirin" and collapsed on the floor, poisoned, on his way 
*to* the bed?
 
Quoting Hoover's physician, Dr. Robert Choisser, Summers shows 
that Hoover's sudden death was in no way expected: "I was rather 
surprised by his sudden death, because he was in good health. I 
do not recall prescribing him medication for blood pressure or 
heart disease. There was nothing to lead anyone to expect him to 
die at that time, except for his age."
 
Summer's never says it but, reading between the lines, one can 
infer that Hoover was *murdered*.
 
This book has a lot. Was the FBI the precipitator of the 1970 
killings at Kent State? What about the FBI files *still* too 
explosive to be released? Did Hoover's being blackmailed and 
bribed allow the Mafia a needed foothold at a time when they 
could still have been nipped in the bud? Is Hoover's ultimate 
legacy that organized crime has now grown so powerful that it has 
merged with the government? Did the FBI have information that 
could have helped the U.S. be prepared for the Japanese raid on 
Pearl Harbor? Was the FBI the actual force behind the so-called 
"McCarthy hearings"?
 
And finally, my own question to come out of this book: Is the 
FBI, behind its public relations mask, in fact just a foul pus 
growing upon the united States?
 
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Aperi os tuum muto, et causis omnium filiorum qui pertranseunt.
Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et 
  pauperem.                    -- Liber Proverbiorum  XXXI: 8-9 

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O what fine thought we had because we thought    | bigred@shout.net
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