J. Edgar Hoover

John Edgar Hoover was the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 1924 until 1972. The FBI's current headquarters is named in honor of him.

Sourced

• [Whoever did this] must be exterminated, and they must be exterminated by us.
  • On the perpetrators of the Kansas City Massacre of 1933, as quoted in Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34 by Bryan Burrough (2004: Penguin), p. 51

• Banks are an almost irresistible attraction for that element of our society which seeks unearned money.
  • News summaries (7 April 1955)

• Just the minute the FBI begins making recommendations on what should be done with its information, it becomes a Gestapo.
  • Look magazine (14 June 1956)

• We are a fact-gathering organization only. We don’t clear anybody. We don’t condemn anybody.
  • Look magazine (14 June 1956)

• The individual is handicapped by coming face-to-face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists. The American mind simply has not come to a realization of the evil which has been introduced into our midst. It rejects even the assumption that human creatures could espouse a philosophy which must ultimately destroy all that is good and decent.
  • The Elks Magazine (August 1956)

• Above all, I would teach him to tell the truth. Truth-telling, I have found, is the key to responsible citizenship. The thousands of criminals I have seen in 40 years of law enforcement have had one thing in common: Every single one was a liar.
  • "What I Would Tell a Son," Family Weekly (14 July 1963)

Unsourced

• Justice is incidental to law and order.

• What we need in America today is a vigorous return to the God of our fathers and a most vigorous defense against the minion of Communism and Atheism.

Quotes about Hoover

• It’s probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.
  • Lyndon Johnson, as quoted in The New York Times (31 October 1971)