J. Edgar Hoover: Evil G-Man Pt. 1 | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

[Music]. welcome to stuff you should know a. production of iHeart. [Music]. Radio hey and welcome to the podcast I'm. Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here. too and this is stuff you should know G. man. Edition oh yeah g man that's right. that's exactly what I meant gee man what. a crummy person Jer who was uh yeah I.

got I got a couple of things to say at. the beginning if if I may yes about Jay. Edgar Hoover yeah let's hear it uh. firstly if you want to feel. old um just realize that you were alive. when Jay Edgar Hoover was still running. the FBI like I am. okay I was like oh my God 1972 Is that. real yeah that's uh yeah so it makes me. feel old but also a testament to his.

staying power no I think it's more just. you being old. okay uh number two just quickly want to. point out that Jay Edgar is not related. to Herbert. Hoover okay hadn't even crossed my mind. what about the Hoover vacuum Clan I. don't know about that but it across a. lot of people's minds about Herbert. because he was each of them were. constantly having to sort of deflect. that answer or whatever say that answer. is not not correct are you two twins. yeah uh and third just it's like it's.

fascinating to study this guy that I. knew I feel like a little bit about just. from all the various things over the. years but like what a Enigma this guy. was yeah uh I think because he he. operated in such. secrecy uh it's kind of impossible to. know a lot of stuff about him privately. because he held such power and. sway over people as far as like fear of. black Ma and stuff like that yeah that.

it's really interesting to like you know. you read five different historians and. they may have five different takes on. aspects of his of who he was and his. private life and stuff like that right. it's really interesting right and for um. those of us who were born into a world. where Jr Grover wasn't running the. FBI lucky you we came along at a really. different period in how people looked at. him like essentially from his death.

onward he's been looked at as like an. American. villain before that basically all the. way up to his death from essentially the. day he started at the FBI um America. looked at him as basic as a hero. essentially yeah as a competent. nonpartisan above the boards um not in. any way shape or form corrupt head of. the FBI a technocrat who believed in. applying science and detection over. things like like hitting a guy with a.

rubber hose to get answers out of him. yeah uh he was a a sea change and uh. helped America fight off the Red Menace. more than once um and like you said he. was like it was really difficult to kind. of discern like who he was even at the. time when he was in the news all the. time he served eight presidents um four. Democrats four Republicans three green. party and um he was the head of the FBI.

for like 48 straight years I also saw. him described as the most powerful civil. servant America has ever seen oh easily. um I I think by a long shot and the. reason he was able to serve those uh. eight presidents without getting fired. um we'll talk a little bit about the. fact that part of that has to do with a. people were legit sort of afraid of what. this guy had on them as in everybody. including. presidents uh but a lot of it was.

because of that popularity um I mean. I've seen most people say oh it was. because he had dirt on all the. presidents um and that's part of it for. sure but I also saw that a lot of it was. because he was so popular that firing. Jay Edgar Hoover would have been very. bad for you politically because people. loved him so much that was part of it he. also seemed to prove to be too great a. Temptation for presidents to not use and. ultimately get into Cahoots with him. yeah even left leaning uh.

progressives yeah even FDR that's the. guy I was talking about even LBJ yeah. even JFK. yeah so yeah there's a lot to talk about. with this guy and a lot of it like you. said is unsubstantiated because he did. the smart thing and had all of his. personal records destroyed upon his. death he had a very dedicated secretary. and so we'll we'll just never know a lot. of it but there is stuff that's so close.

to being confirmed that it's like you. can essentially say this is true then. there's other stuff it's like what where. are you coming up with that yeah that. seems totally false and then in the. middle there's the stuff where it's like. really is it it's entirely possible it's. true but we just don't know and it it's. it's great for speculation either way. the stuff we do know about turned him. into a reviled figure for sure yeah. absolutely uh and as you'll see during a. of this he the guy was also sort of a.

walking conundrum in a lot of ways by. doing things on one hand that would. seemingly fly in the face of things he's. doing on the other hand uh and that'll. all kind of come out as we go but big. shout out to Livia who did a a bang-up. job on this one yeah AG greated uh and. also to a writer and this Olivia got. some information from this um this great. book a historian named Beverly Gage from. Yale University wrote a book in 2022. called G man colon mhm Jay Edgar Hoover.

and the making of an American. Century yeah pretty great stuff yeah so. um yeah Beverly Gage is essentially like. the definitive source of J G Hoover. information right now yeah I mean. there's a lot of Hoover bios and they. all some of them fly in the face of each. other with what they claim it's it's. pretty interesting for sure so let's. start at the beginning let's start when. he was born back in. 1895 that's right a long time ago and.

one thing to know about Jer Hoover is he. was a DC boy born and bred his entire. life he was born in that City and he. died in that City yeah he was born in. Capitol Hill in Seward Square and comes. from a came from a long line of uh. family that worked for the government um. his dad in particular uh one Dickerson. Naylor Hoover great name uh worked for. something called the United States Coast. and geodetic Survey which was a a. scientific organization mhm.

and uh you know he had siblings he had a. sister that died when he was three uh it. seems like his father suffered from um. some mental illness and depression uh. which would ultimately be the cause of. his death in. 1921 and you know we can get into some. sort of arm chair speculation on. Hoover's uh mental condition maybe at. the end sure I can't wait uh but when he. was a kid he he was uh pretty shy he was. a known as a mama's boy had a very sort. of over for bearing doting mother um he.

had a stutter uh apparently the stutter. was so bad that. he he went about correcting it by just. talking really fast and that kind of ran. through his life I think they were court. stenograph or just stenographers period. that couldn't keep up with him uh on the. job he was so fast yeah no he had that. very quick delivery if you've ever seen. like a news reel or any news footage of. him speaking or reading a speech or. something but yeah he kind of took that. on he joined the debate team he forced.

himself to do public speaking. engagements and he did not like that. kind of stuff but he did it anyway. because as we'll see he was a master of. PR which served him quite well oh yeah. one of the other things about him is. that his mother impressed upon him a. moral. uprightness that actually kind of. converted into a moral. righteousness where there was a there. was a specific Way To Be An American in. Jr Grover's mind and anybody who ran a.

foul of that thought otherwise was an. enemy of America and should be treated. accordingly and unfortunately there's. plenty of people walking around that's. the that's the definition of a fascist. so he was a total fascist if you hadn't. figured that out by now but he um he had. the power to actually make enemies out. of the people he considered unamerican. who were still Americans they just. didn't see America exactly the same way. Jay Edgar Hoover did.

yeah exactly uh his mom's name was Annie. and um Judy DCH played her in the Clint. Eastwood movie that starred Leo DiCaprio. did you see it I never saw it it got. pretty bad reviews so it just didn't. draw me in but um yeah Leo played Hoover. Uh DCH played his mom and um as we'll. see Army Hammer played his uh well let's. just save that one I guess okay even. though it's not no big secret we'll just. save it okay his cooworker let's just.

say that yeah his close associate yeah. so uh yeah so he had this view of of. America that he he carried with him his. whole way in what it meant to be an. upright American um he also was really. really good at organizing so like the. way you think of like a government. bureaucracy today where there's tons of. files and um all sorts of um like people. whose job it is to access those files. and they do it to varying degrees of. success. J G Hoover actually kind of built that.

What's called the administrative State. you can actually thank him for that he. not only Built the FBI he made the. federal government this kind of. administrative power like it is oh yeah. absolutely um he uh learned a lot of. that at one of his first jobs After High. School got a job at the Library of. Congress and that's where he really got. into just sort of um categorizing stuff. collecting information uh he got a uh. master of law degree from G W from. George Washington University right in.

1917 and um the only reason we mention. this is because it sort of plays into. his massive amount of cronyism uh he was. a Ka uh joined the KA fraternity there. which is a very Southern uh you know was. it was like a they celebrate the. Confederacy it was like a a Roberty Lee. thing I remember even at Georgia the. ka's were and I I imagine still are just. very um Confederate yeah that's a great.

word for they just like Confederate. Pride that whole thing those are the. kaas and as we'll see a lot of those Ka. and people that he he knew ended up. getting jobs uh from him directly so uh. lots of kism happening yes for sure um. so also uh he became a clerk in at World. War I which at the doj and that kept him. out of the draft yeah um but also was. his true first step into his government.

service Library of Congress yeah that. was essentially the beginning but this. was the true beginning because very. quickly um he was assigned pretty. substantial duties yeah including. overseeing what was called the general. Intelligence Division this was a part of. the Department of Justice if those three. words the general Intelligence Division. don't run a chill down your spine you're. not listening closely it's like. something out of Brazil.

exactly right so he was the head of this. and this guy at the time he was let's. see 24 years old and he's running the. general Intelligence Division for the. doj and the whole point of the G was to. investigate radicals leftists anarchists. Communists there was a big Red Scare. from uh 1919 to 1920 and his whole Jam. was to apply his everything he'd learned. and developed at the Library of Congress. to everything he wanted to do in law.

enforcement and he created massive files. on immigrants to America um and. basically it was like this is an. immigrant they are loyal or disloyal. they like communism or like capitalism. and just amassed all of these files and. they eventually turned them into what. were known as the Palmer Raids where. they just went into these people's homes. and said J G Hoover and the g thinks. you're disloyal come with us we're. deporting you forget your civil. liberties forget the fact that you're. naturalized American citizen now doesn't.

matter yeah this was a big deal um maybe. we can do something on the Palmer Raids. in full at some point but just kind of. in a nutshell uh the Attorney General uh. A Mitchell Palmer had uh his his house. was bombed uh there was a guy Nam an. anarchist named Carlo uh valdoni who the. bomb went off early so it kind of blew. up the front of his house along with the. bomber himself mhm uh there were other. bombs mail to Mayors and senators and.

Business Leaders so that was a real sort. of anarchist um you know mailbombing. cookbook thing happening yeah cookbook. going on um but the response was the. Palmer Raids which was just a a. nightmare of an operation it was really. kind of an unconstitutional disaster. right uh where like you said a lot of. these high-profile deportations like. straight to Russia um when many of these. people were just like didn't even know. what they were talking about. right I make bigles leave me alone kind.

of thing right yeah I mean I think his. his list was. 450,000 long and like how many how many. real leftist radicals were there you. know exactly right and there were also. tons of cases of mistaken identity like. it was a catastrophe they the Palmer. Raids so ran a foul of civil liberties. they actually created things like the. ACLU and other civil liberties groups to. defend against stuff like that ever. happening again but what's miraculous is.

that the head of all this the guy who. was in charge of actually executing the. Palmer Raids was jger Hoover and he. survived politically and went on to. actually step upward from that point on. um some people were like you need to. keep that guy away from levers of power. yeah because of what he just did and. other people are like I don't like the. cut of that guy's jib yeah I think and. the people who like the cut of his jib. they won out I was about to say that's a. good Cliffhanger but you made it an even. better cliff finger oh thanks with that.

last line so let's come back a and we'll. talk about uh where the FBI comes into. play yeah I can add some more lines if. you want me to make it even better no I. think you I think you made it just. perfect okay. [Music]. [Music].

[Music]. all right so we promised talk at the FBI. um initially and we've said this on. other episodes it was called the bureo. investigations at first it was formed in. 1908 uh basically to say hey us attorney. general you need some teeth uh here's.

your own law enforcement organization uh. became the FBI in. 1935 and early on was kind of a uh. interested in like corporate criminals. uh radicalism and a real kind of from. the beginning a real uh Crackdown and. obsession with sex work yeah the man act. right yeah big deal and um it was also. very corrupt and didn't have the best. reputation until kulage came along in.

1924 and hired a guy named Harland Fisk. Stone uh to reform the. doj and kind of just clean house and get. the FBI in good standing yeah which is. amazing that they're like Hoover why. don't you take over but that's exactly. what they did they made him acting. director of the Bureau of Investigation. starting in I think the same year. Harland Stone came in 1924 right yeah. and they got rid of that g by the way. they did but he it it just went away.

essentially in name not Spirit by any. any measure yeah and again just like at. the G um J G Hoover said about applying. the principles of bureaucracy of. organization um and of science too he. was a a True Believer in science um to. this this nent Bureau of Investigation. and uh one of the the stunning. statistics I ran across that really gets.

gets across his um just how much of a an. impact he had on the FBI when he took it. over over the course of 10 years I think. in up to 1936 they amassed a huge. collection of fingerprints like a. 100,000 fingerprints and they had people. whose entire job it was to go look up. the fingerprints and bring them for. analysis right 10 years later in 1946. they had 100 million sets of finger. fints and there was only 140 million.

people who lived in America at the time. that's crazy man yeah wow uh he also. created like a forensic lab he created. the FBI Academy like he really um not. only kind of brought their reputation. back but he like you said he organized. them in a way that where they operated. like a like a like a humming machine. right and people people respected it. they admired it like it was you know it. really fit in with um FDR's New Deal.

thing of like hey your government is big. and for a reason like we can do all. sorts of amazing competent capable stuff. to make the life of the average person. greater look at all these fingerprints. exactly I I don't know if it necessarily. fit in with the new deal but one of the. other things that um Jay G Hoover did. was he instituted this um these policies. that when you put them all together. basically made required every FBI agent.

to be Ned Flanders. essentially and he did that because he. wanted he wanted his people to seem. above reproach because at the time the. idea of like like law enforcement was. that if they weren't incompetent then. they were crooked or maybe they were. both like there was not like a lot of. public regard for law enforcement so he. wanted to make sure that his particular. agency separated itself from that like. put itself head Head and Shoulders you. know like the way that in any movie the.

FBI agents come in just completely take. control of like the investigation or the. crime scene or whatever oh yeah that was. essentially that came from Hoover like. like he created this image of the FBI. agents is so Uber competent that no one. would would challenge them if they did. walk into a crime scene and take over. yeah and if you remember seeing a lot of. movies that had FBI agents portrayed as. like tall handsome white guys is because. FBI agents were largely almost roundly.

tall handsome white guys um he hired a. lot of his uh again with the cronyism a. lot of his alums from GW a lot of Ka um. he he kept the FBI from bring class of. civil service so he didn't have you know. he could basically flout any rules that. would have forced him to have like a to. look at any kind of diverse applicant so. he wanted white men that were. good-looking. uh again as a PR move uh it was um it.

was a popular thing at the time uh. Ironically in the 40s uh Ebony magazine. did a feature on like uh black employees. of the FBI and and Hoover even helped. them with this because it was a PR thing. but they they were all valet none of. them were agents because there were no. black agents right yeah and the the like. you said the way it got around that was. to accept the FBI from civil service and. I was like how did he do that and how. did he get away with that and there's. something called accepted service and.

it's where you don't you're not that. agency is not subject to the same laws. and requirements as a civil service. agency is but the reason he was doing is. he was saying like some of these laws. are letting people in government who are. just really slack um keep their jobs and. I can't have that in the FBI I have to. have top-notch crack people who I'm able. to fire if they don't meet our standards. I think that's how he was able to get. the FBI out of civil service. classification yeah and you mentioned um. Ned Flanders uh he wanted them to be.

like you said sort of Beyond reproach. and morally upright so he uh he insisted. that they not uh drink alcohol at least. sort of on the job like you know have. the martinis at lunch kind of thing uh. apparently he was a big Martini guy um. but as The Story Goes only after work. only two martinis uh and then later in. life when he was in you know sort of. older and not in the best of health his. said you can't drink martinis anymore.

and he was like well that's not going to. happen and he said all right cut down to. one martini then and he said sure and uh. as as Legend has it he had his staff by. larger martini glasses and then dropped. it down to. one yeah that was something I saw the. there was a Frontline um episode from. years and years ago called the the file. on Jay Edgar Hoover and a lot of it. seems totally off the rails and un. unbelievable for good reason but some of.

the stuff that he had the FBI staff do. for him was so above and beyond what any. agency staff should be doing for the. director um. like they replaced his grass once. because he didn't like the color. green just all just stuff like that so I. totally believe that he had his FB like. FBI staff buy bigger martini glasses for. his home that was totally in line with. what what how he treated the bureau it.

was his own kingdom and little by little. he made it so it's not like he came into. it and somebody handed him the keys and. said good luck go make this agency. that's so powerful it is essentially a. fourth branch of government um he built. it little by little bit by bit dirt by. dirt favor by favor um and and it became. the the it got to the point fairly. quickly where he could do stuff like. that and no one would say anything about. it yeah absolutely um all right so let's.

go to the 1930s This was um as Livia. called it we love our Golden Ages uh and. this this may have been the Golden Age. of the FBI this is when um through PR. and as we'll see through U movies and. television and through um sort of the. him helping to control the news machine. the FBI um were Were Heroes uh they had. fans like people love these G men uh and. we'll get to that well we might as well.

say I think gmen was supposedly coined. uh by Machine Gun Kelly uh the good one. who in. 19 is either one of them good all right. uh in 1933 you don't shoot gmen like. government men um but he he sort of. formed in the 1930s this image uh that. actually like you know there were little. little boys and uh maybe some girls but. definitely little boys running around. the schoolyard like playing gmen they. wanted to be G men uh they were they.

were sort of superstars uh because they. would bust high profile bank robbers and. um he just you know he he jumped in on. the Lindberg baby kidnapping which you. know horrified a nation he apparently. didn't have any legal jurisdiction but. like you said Jay Edgar Hoover walks. onto the scene it's like we're taking. over now uh and no one's going to stand. in his way no not at all but and in. doing those kind of things he just built. the the reputation for the FBI I by. Leaps and Bounds um one of the things.

that he did that was so masterful in. taking on the gangsters was to not try. to dissuade the public from glorifying. them yeah so the gangsters were just. amazing folk Heroes but the FBI was even. greater because they're the ones taking. down these amazing folk here like the. the gangsters are here but man that your. average FBI agent is Head and Shoulders. above them because he's going to get. them sooner or later and probably kill. in a shootout in front of a house or a.

theater or something like that yeah and. so he was able to play off of the. Public's fascination with gangsters and. use that kind of parlay FBI um the FBI's. reputation above it yeah he this is uh. was kind of the called the Public Enemy. era as well um because he would use that. term for people like John Dillinger uh I. mean this guy Dillinger was robbing. banks he was a bank robber but um to. call someone a Public Enemy like it it.

almost elevated them um in his own way. to folk hero status but also like uh. folk villain status I guess is a better. way to say it sure yeah for sure like is. a bank robber really a Public Enemy I. mean it's not a great thing to do well. supposedly in 1933 34 there was a. massive crime wave and there were a lot. of murders going on people were shoot. like gangsters were shooting each other. in the streets over Turf like it was. yeah so yeah there I mean yeah just a.

straight up bank robber probably not but. these guys were doing any and all crime. they were like criminals of all trades. from what I could tell okay Public. Enemies in other words so yeah but at. the same time yes there was a huge. publicity thing too this Public Enemy. Number One you know yeah number one was. Dillinger right but there were other. Public Enemies number one but he was the. first Public Enemy Number One I think oh. so that was never a two he just kept. moving the number one mantle around well. he'd just kill off the number one and.

then whoever was below them would come. up and become number one I guess I guess. that makes sense so um one of the ways. that he shaped public opinion too was. directly by working with journalists by. working with film and TV producers and. writers and he actually created a branch. in the FBI called the crime records. division which sounds very innocuous but. it turns out that they were the ones who. were in charge of generating Pro FBI. propaganda and making sure it got out. there in the media yeah I mean this this.

is where it gets truly sort of nutso he. had at one point sort of Def facto Final. Cut on movies that were being produced. so crazy he had approval or denial of. casting choices like literally he. approved Jimmy Stewart you know as uh I. can't remember what movie it was even um. in in a in a movie as like the lead in. the movie uh after like interviewing him. he interviewed Jimmy Stewart. gave him the job or you know gave him.

the stamp of approval uh it apparently. didn't like that Jimmy Kagney was. portraying gangsters so he said you can. do it as long as you quote get killed in. the end right and make sure that you're. dead because no gangsters were supposed. to live in any of the movies uh or TV. shows uh and he even has three writer. credits and one no um one acting credit. I think the writing credits were. generally stuff based on cases that he. was involved in so they gave him he may.

have insisted on a credit I don't know. but he does have one actor credit uh he. was a narrator on a film called the next. of kin wow so he was he was deep in yeah. oh he was deep into everything and. anything that was going on in American. Life above or below the boards from what. I can tell yeah or the line so the. gangster era kind of went away um in the. mid to late. 30s um I mean there are plenty of. gangsters still. but there was a there was a change over.

it went from like bank robbing cow. murdering Bandits like John Dillinger. Right and started to become organized. crime the Mafia the mob and at that. point as it started to kind of Branch. out and become well as legitim as. legitimized as the mafia can be and. organized uh Jer Hoover stopped paying. attention to the gangsters and instead. turned his attention to um political. surveillance again instead yeah I think.

his whole deal I did a little more. research into the mafia thing uh the. mafia was a problem but he didn't see. the mafia as a threat to the American. way of life as he defined it um. communism for sure. uh Rabel rousing civil rights leaders. for sure uh as we'll see um the gay and. lesbian Community for sure all of that. threatened this sort of idilic. oldfashioned way of American life as he. saw it the mafia didn't necessarily so.

he was never as concerned with him as he. probably should have been he was like. let the cops handle that so okay that. totally makes sense and because it's the. simplest explanation it's probably. correct but there is such a thread of. thought that the that J G Hoover was. either compromised and the mafia had him. in a compromising position and or he was.

friends with if not actual Mobsters. friends of mobsters he was in their. world him personally publicly he was the. head of the FBI and he carried out all. of the crime fighting and leftist. rousting and all that stuff but. privately if these even half of these. stories are to be believed he was a. crook a total crook with a gambling. problem and um who was in the pocket of. the mafia because they had dirt on them.

I saw another explanation that said yes. he actually purposefully ignored the. mafia not because they had like. compromising pictures of him but because. they were in cahoots with a lot of. elected officials and he didn't want to. lose his position going after the mafia. and having them get all of their elected. official friends turning on him cuz he. didn't know if he could survive that. kind of thing that was another. explanation I saw but whatever whatever.

the interpretation is historically. speaking he ignored the mafia and. actually denied for a decade after it. was clear there was such a thing as a. national Syndicate of. mafioso Mo. mafiosi yeah mafos mafosi yeah um he. kept denying it like like actively. denying it and apparently moved to kind. of thwart some of the federal. Congressional investigations into the. existence of the mafia like he.

personally was trying to not at least. not help if not actively disrupt that so. there's something weird going on exactly. what was behind it though we'll we'll. probably never know yeah what's. interesting is that when I was reading. through interviews with different. biographers and you would see two that. were just so diametrically opposed in. what they thought yeah like oh and. they're all very convinced that they're. right uh but it almost seems like some. of these biographies are either written. by literal fans of his still right or or.

then or or people that hated him yeah. like if you start looking into like some. of the more salacious um uh charges. about him and like why the mafia like. was allowed to just operate you mostly. have to take the word of old Mafia guys. right who were like there for sure like. this guy really was the right-hand man. to Myer Lansky but can you believe him. when he sits for an interview talking. about how Myer Lansky had pictures that. he used to show his friends for fun of.

Jer Hoover you know having sex with his. partner you know like it's it's you. really kind of have to stop and say. where's this where's this um Source. coming from and what all what acts do. they have to grind so here's what I say. this is this is going so good and it's. going long so why don't we take another. break come back and do a little more but. let's let's make this a two-parter what. you should should we you just totally. sprung this on me out of the blue let me. think about it okay we'll think about it.

over the break and we'll be right back. [Music]. [Music]. [Music].

okay Chuck I've decided that is a fine. idea so should we chat a little bit I. think you sort of teased and then I got. us off topic about the mafia uh you. teased a little bit about going into. sort of the beginnings of the. surveillance and working tightly with. presidents right uh yeah I think I think. I said something like that that but like. there was at the end of the gangster era.

he kind of swapped over to from like. continuing on with gangsters which would. make total sense for the FBI to do this. to instead turning his attention back to. political stuff yeah to disrupting any. kind of political thought that goes. against the American way as envisioned. by Jay G Hoover yeah and one of the ways. he did this was by um. allying himself closely with different.

presidents you know you said at the. beginning work for eight different. presidents and I think as it's generally. thought that he was uh super tight and. kind of close to two of them uh two of. them didn't like him and and for just. sort of played ball because they felt. like they had to so I can I can guess. Kennedy definitely didn't like him and. that was reciprocal who was the other. one who didn't like him uh I think it. was Kennedy and. Johnson I thought johnsson loved the.

guy well I know Nixon did yeah he was. personally friends with with Nixon and I. know they were actual friends FDR I. don't know how much he liked him but the. fact that they ended up you know working. closely with one another is maybe one of. the bigger surprises of the episode. because they were pretty diametrically. opposed as as humans go yeah but this is. kind of like touching on what I was. saying before that um there were. presidents who saw him and what he could.

do as too useful to resist exactly and. and FDR was like he had this vision for. America too and it was much more. inclusive and it cared much more about. the average person who didn't. necessarily think exactly the same way. as everybody else um but he also didn't. want it disrupted by Communists or at. the time Nazis either yeah so he saw it. as a a useful thing to do like to to. kind of keep tabs on it and I guess from.

from you know this idea of um J gou and. presidents working in cahoots it seems. like FDR is the first one that this. really begins with yeah I think uh in. 1936 in August that year they met. together at the White House and they. they ginned up a plan for uh. surveillance kind of the first big. surveillance launch of um like you said. um people who they thought might be. communist. people who they thought might be. fascists um a few years later Roosevelt.

was like Hey turns out you're pretty. good at this surveillance thing and. keeping secret files so why don't you um. why don't we resurrect that General. intell Intelligence Division uh that was. scuttled and Hoover probably laughed and. was like you know we've still been doing. it this whole time we just didn't have a. formal name oh I don't know if I'll be. able to get the gang back together but. they they secretly reformed at least the. the G and Hoover said all right I.

appreciate that and you know what I'm. going to do for you I'll just not even. at your direction I'll just keep an eye. on your political enemies and just if if. I need to let you know anything I'll let. you know yeah so supposedly that is one. of the ways that he kept power he never. blackmailed anybody but if one of his. agents came across some juicy tidbit he. would he would send them to you know say. the Senator's office and be like Senator. we were investigating this other thing.

and this tidbit about you came up and we. really thought it was the kind of thing. you'd want to know we're keeping a lid. on it don't worry about it but we. thought you'd want to know and now the. Senator's like oh my God this guy knows. these the FBI knows that I have this um. I'm on this committee that funds them I. should probably give them whatever they. want whenever they ask for it that's. apparently how he operated it's very. passive aggressive strong arming right. yeah uh he did have a we should mention. though since we on my FDR he had a uh. very famously had a a file on ellan or.

Roosevelt which A thick one. supposedly had nude pictures of Ellena. Roosevelt that were given to Jay Edgar. Hoover by WC. Fields what that's he had a a tremendous. collection of pornography right uh was. well known for it and to Jay Edgar. Hoover he would say well I've got to I. got to know what's out there in order to. fight this stuff everyone else is like.

okay sure whatever yeah but he. supposedly had a very large con. collection of of nudes of famous people. uh Marilyn Monroe is among them but. apparently elanar Roosevelt was one and. old WC Fields gave it to him wow I don't. know how he got it I don't. either so um okay Chuck do you want to. do you want to put part two here and. come back and pick up at the beginning. of the Cold War because now Jer Hoover's. fighting you know Communists but more.

often Nazis America's entering World War. II and America's really cool with the. idea of the FBI rooting out Nazis but. World War II came to an end believe it. or not the Nazis went away now they. needed a new enemy to investigate that's. right the commies and that that seems. like a great place to stop yes so uh. yeah we'll see you guys in part two and. if you want to send us an email in the. meantime send it off to stuff podcast at. ihart Radio.

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