J Edagr Hoover, Rise in Power
... the history of the United States. One factor that helped J. Edgar Hoover gain more power, was that he had many connections with many important people (Summers 29). Another factor that aided J. Edgar Hoover in his rise to power was the knowledge he had about people (Kessler 449-450). This meant that he could control people, or in other words, blackmail them (Summers 38-39). The third reason why J. Edgar Hoover became such a powerful individual is that he was very intelligent and shrewd (Summers 25). These three factors all contributed to forming one of the most powerful men the world has ever known. J. Edgar Hoover knew many important people that held many important positions. Hoover received his first government job thanks to a close family friend by the name of Bill Hitz (Summers 29). Hitz was a judge and considered the President and Supreme Court Justice Brandeis among his close friends (Summers 29). Another individual who helped Edgar along the way was his boss at the Department of Justice, George Michaelson (Summers 29). Bruce Bielaski, a senior official, recalled how - on the trolley to work one day in 1917 - he found himself talking shop with his neighbor, mail room chief George Michaelson (Summers 29). Michaelson dropped the name of a young lawyer he had sorting mail, “one of the brightest boys around” (Summers 29). “You don’t need anybody with brains doing that,” said Bielaski (Summers 29). “If you want him,” Michaelson replied, “you can have him” (Summers 28-29). That conversation on the trolley was a fatal one for America (Summers 29). Bruce Bielaski was Director of the Bureau of Investigation, direct forerunner of what we know now as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (Summers 29). Bielaski would now join the growing list of people that would help Hoover on his quest to power. Bielaski did not forget the young man that his neighbor had recommended - though he did not bring Edgar into the Bureau (Summers 29). Instead he told John Lord O’Brian, head of the War Emergency Division, about Edgar (Summers 29). Many people helped Hoover to become what he was. Many of the people who helped him, made drastic changes in Hoover’s life. Because of the way Hoover turned out, a great majority of the people who helped him, regret ever knowing the man. J. Edgar Hoover knew a lot of private information about a lot of different people. Edgar used the Bureau to spy on lawyers who represented those arrested or worked to expose the abuse of civil rights (Summers 38-39). Edgar also discovered it was possible to spy on people and hunt them down - not because of crimes but because of their political beliefs (Summers 39). He also learned that a way had to be found to keep the investigator’s greatest treasure, his secret files, out of the public eye (Summers 39). Later, as FBI Director, Edgar would perfect a file system that, except on rare occasions, proved inaccessible to outsiders (Summers 39). Documents would be released on occasion, but only when it served Edgar’s purpose. Meanwhile, Edgar had made the Bureau unique. Edgar’s dream was “Universal Fingerprinting,” the notion that the prints of every citizen - the innocent as well as the guilty - should be recorded (Summers 49). Edgar developed a massive crime laboratory, room after room in which rows of experts peered over ballistics evidence and analyzed poisons, hairs, and fibers. The FBI Crime Laboratory quickly became the most advanced in the world - and the key to the expansion of Edgar’s empire. The fingerprint and laboratory operations alone changed the Bureau from a small agency with limited jurisdiction to a vital facility upon which all other law enforcement depended (Summers 50). Soon the Bureau had a virtual monopoly on the supply of crime information, not only to the police but to the country at large. Accurate or not its version became gospel (Summers 50). All of these different types of information made J. Edgar Hoover that much more powerful. J. Edgar Hoover was an extremely intelligent and shrewd individual. George Washington...