Welcome back to the re-education. Today's show examines the legacy of J. Edgar Hoover. For most

Americans today, Hoover is a cartoon villain, a cross-dressing eavesdropper, a jowly reactionary

whose agents urged Martin Luther King to kill himself. My guest is Yale historian Beverly Gage,

and her new comprehensive biography of

J. Edgar Hoover is brilliant. It's a human portrait that is both scathing and fair. You could say

she complicates the legacy of a dangerous man without apologizing for or excusing his many sins.

So in this episode, we tackle the original G-man in all of his

glorious and sinister contradictions. In 1924, during the Coolidge administration, Hoover took over

the then-scandal-ridden bureau.

Thus began a service that spanned eight presidencies in almost half a century.

The eight presidents under whom he worked, both Democratic and Republican, gave Hoover virtually a free hand to run an FBI.

He had cleared of political factionalism and made into an investigative organization envied around the world for its efficiency and high standards.

Yet for the later years of his life, Hoover came under increasing criticism from liberals who saw his operations as a big brother-type threat to civil liberties.

He was accused of using the FBI his own public relations instrument and his

preoccupation with the threat of communism seemed dated. Yet Hoover himself saw communism as a real

threat to the security of America. That was Walter Krongoyt, summing up how Jayager Hoover was viewed

by the American public on the day of his expiration. In a sense, you could say that

the G-man's death was well-timed. In his final year, his position was politically and culturally,

more powerless than probably any time in his near half century atop the FBI. Progressives,

who always distrusted Hoover, now despised him. Liberal Democrats in Congress,

who only a few years earlier would have never deigned to attack him in public, delivered floor

speeches urging the 77-year-old to retire. Inside the Bureau, some of his most important

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