The History Book Club discussion

This is a thread which can be used to discuss the FBI.

This is a thread to discuss books (non fiction and historical fiction) about the FBI. On this thread, any events or people associated with the FBI may be discussed, etc.

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J. Edgar Hoover has always fascinated me. Here is a book that I want to read:

Curt Gentry

Publisher's Weekly:
In a richly textured biography of the former FBI director who died in 1972, Gentry, coauthor of Helter Skelter , takes a decidedly unfriendly look at the man and his career, revealing how Hoover found his niche in life as a "hunter of men," served under 10 presidents over a period of five decades, creating what Eleanor Roosevelt characterized as an American Gestapo. We're shown Hoover scheming to help Thomas Dewey replace Harry Truman in the White House in return for a promise that he would be appointed attorney general; making use of secret information on Senator Joseph McCarthy while at the same time contributing significantly to "McCarthyism"; stalking John F. Kennedy even before he went into politics; covertly helping Richard Nixon become president, then virtually forcing the Nixon administration to embark on the road to Watergate. Hoover believed that America's morality was very much his business and, as Gentry demonstrates, the director equated morality with sexual abstinence. His horrified fascination with homosexuality (mixed with a strong streak of misogyny) are masterfully depicted here, as well as his virulent racism, disclosed in fresh material on Hoover's efforts to destroy Martin Luther King Jr. It is hard to imagine another portrait of Hoover that could surpass this one for detail, depth and sheer vitriol. Gentry makes clearer than previous biographers how J. Edgar Hoover became and, for the greater part of his tenure, remained the most powerful man in Washington. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc

That looks good too.

Oh, and this one:

Kenneth D. Ackerman

Product info:
In 1919, when J. Edgar Hoover was 24 years old, a New York City postal clerk discovered sixteen bombs wrapped in individual packages — America's first instance of homegrown terrorism. Then-Attorney General Palmer vowed a crackdown and enlisted Hoover as his deputy. Amid the hysteria, details of abuses emerged, Palmer fell, and the rise of J. Edgar Hoover began. Hoover's drive to gain immense power, as well as his coolness and calculation, is explored in Young J. Edgar. With the Palmer raid a as a lens through which to view the terror–hysteria of post-9/11 America, Young J. Edgar reaches the heart of our modern debate over personal freedom in a time of war and fear.

Another offering by Tim Weiner, this one on the FBI.
by Tim Weiner
Enemies is the first definitive history of the FBI’s secret intelligence operations, from an author whose work on the Pentagon and the CIA won him the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.

We think of the FBI as America’s police force. But secret intelligence is the Bureau’s first and foremost mission. Enemies is the story of how presidents have used the FBI as the most formidable intelligence force in American history.

Here is the hidden history of America’s hundred-year war on terror. The FBI has fought against terrorists, spies, anyone it deemed subversive—and sometimes American presidents. The FBI’s secret intelligence and surveillance techniques have created a tug-of-war between protecting national security and infringing upon civil liberties. It is a tension that strains the very fabric of a free republic.

I saw this book; it looks good

Those two look also mighty good.

I'm not sure I want to read more books on the FBI, the premise of all of them look a little frightening. But read we must! Another one that looks interesting:

by Alexander Charns
After reviewing thousands of pages of FBI documents, an attorney reveals how the FBI has continued to use illegal means to sway the legislature and the Supreme Court since the reign of J. Edgar Hoover

I had some difficulty finding it in the base, The FBI A Comprehensive Reference Guide, Oryx Press, is like a textbook on the FBI. I found it useful.

David wrote: "I had some difficulty finding it in the base, The FBI A Comprehensive Reference Guide, Oryx Press, is like a textbook on the FBI. I found it useful."

David, is this the book you are referring to?


by Athan G. Theoharis
it came up in a book title search using the 'add book/author' feature.

Yes! Thank you! I was researching books on the FBI and this seemed the most general reputable book on the bureau. I have found it very useful as a reference tool for say....the Palmer Raids.

Ah, very well then, glad I found it and thanks for the recommendation!

When you cite a book, click on the add book/author feature above the comment box and you can search for title and author. Then using the radio buttons select the photos (when available) and links. You'll get the hang of it but let us know if you need a hand. It is a very useful tool and helpful so that others can see what you are specifically referencing it.

Thanks David.

An examination of one of the most controversial leaders of the agency.

by Marc Aronson
A fascinating and timely biography of J. Edgar Hoover from a Sibert Medalist.

"King, there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is. . . . You better take it before your filthy, abnormal, fraudulent self is bared to the nation."
Dr. Martin Luther King received this demand in an anonymous letter in 1964. He believed that the letter was telling him to commit suicide. Who wrote this anonymous letter? The FBI. And the man behind it all was J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI's first director. In this unsparing exploration of one of the most powerful Americans of the twentieth century, accomplished historian Marc Aronson unmasks the man behind the Bureau- his tangled family history and personal relationships; his own need for secrecy, deceit, and control; and the broad trends in American society that shaped his world. Hoover may have given America the security it wanted, but the secrets he knew gave him - and the Bureau - all the power he wanted. Using photographs, cartoons, movie posters, and FBI transcripts, Master of Deceit gives readers the necessary evidence to make their own conclusions. Here is a book about the twentieth century that blazes with questions and insights about our choices in the twenty-first

Great adds, thanks Alisa.

This looks interesting

Subversives: The FBI's War on Student Radicals, and Reagan's Rise to Power

by Seth Rosenfeld

Synopsis
Subversives traces the FBI’s secret involvement with three iconic figures at Berkeley during the 1960s: the ambitious neophyte politician Ronald Reagan, the fierce but fragile radical Mario Savio, and the liberal university president Clark Kerr. Through these converging narratives, the award-winning investigative reporter Seth Rosenfeld tells a dramatic and disturbing story of FBI surveillance, illegal break-ins, infiltration, planted news stories, poison-pen letters, and secret detention lists. He reveals how the FBI’s covert operations—led by Reagan’s friend J. Edgar Hoover—helped ignite an era of protest, undermine the Democrats, and benefit Reagan personally and politically. At the same time, he vividly evokes the life of Berkeley in the early sixties—and shows how the university community, a site of the forward-looking idealism of the period, became a battleground in an epic struggle between the government and free citizens. The FBI spent more than $1 million trying to block the release of the secret files on which Subversives is based, but Rosenfeld compelled the bureau to release more than 250,000 pages, providing an extraordinary view of what the government was up to during a turning point in our nation’s history. Part history, part biography, and part police procedural, Subversives reads like a true-crime mystery as it provides a fresh look at the legacy of the sixties, sheds new light on one of America’s most popular presidents, and tells a cautionary tale about the dangers of secrecy and unchecked power.

Oooh, thanks, great add.

This looks good:

The Threat Matrix:The FBI At WAr in the Age of Global Terror

by Garrett M. Graff

synopsis

The Threat Matrix is a story of a small band of FBI agents who believed that it could confront international terrorism. At the heart of this story lies decades of tensions between the CIA and FBI.

Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34

by Bryan Burrough

Synopsis
In Public Enemies, bestselling author Bryan Burrough strips away the thick layer of myths put out by J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI to tell the full story—for the first time—of the most spectacular crime wave in American history, the two-year battle between the young Hoover and the assortment of criminals who became national icons: John Dillinger, Machine Gun Kelly, Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, and the Barkers. In an epic feat of storytelling and drawing on a remarkable amount of newly available material on all the major figures involved, Burrough reveals a web of interconnections within the vast American underworld and demonstrates how Hoover’s G-men overcame their early fumbles to secure the FBI’s rise to power.

Fantastic book

James Comey confirmed as FBI director
by Rachel Weiner and David Nakamura



The Senate has confirmed James Comey as the new director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation by a 93 to 1 margin.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) had placed a hold on Comey’s nomination over questions about the bureau’s use of drones on U.S. soil and the policies surrounding that use. After receiving a response to his concerns from the FBI detailing the “limited” use of surveillance drones, Paul released his hold.

“The FBI today responded to my questions on domestic use of surveillance drones by saying that they don’t necessarily need a warrant to deploy this technology. I disagree with this interpretation. However, given the fact that they did respond to my concerns over drone use on U.S. soil, I have decided to release my hold on the pending FBI director nominee,” Paul said in a statement explaining his decision.

The Kentucky senator had deemed previous responses to his questions insufficient. He was the only senator to vote against Comey’s confirmation; two senators voted “present.”

“It is a shame that such an important and highly qualified nominee to lead the FBI had to wait an unprecedented 38 days to be confirmed, but I am glad that Senators finally came together to ensure that the FBI has a confirmed leader at the helm,” said Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who presided over Comey’s confirmation hearings.

Comey, 52, a former senior Justice Department official, will replace Robert S. Mueller III, who is leaving the agency after a dozen years.

Comey was at the center of some of the most bruising debates over counterterrorism during the Bush administration and established a reputation as a fierce defender of the law and the integrity of the Justice Department regardless of the political pressures of the moment.

He left the Justice Department in 2005 and served as a senior vice president and general counsel at the defense contractor Lockheed Martin until 2010. In June 2010, Comey joined Bridgewater Associates, a Connecticut-based hedge fund with $75 billion in investments for clients including universities and foreign governments.

Comey left the hedge fund in January and has been teaching national security law at Columbia Law School in New York.
(Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/p...)

Interesting.

I'm not sure what to make of this guy yet. I do like it that he was at the Justice Department for awhile. I wonder if Mueller had input into choosing his successor.

I met him. First of all, he is very tall, lol. He made a great impression, very humble, great sense of humor, and a very nice person; I think they made a good choice here.

I have long been interested in finding an unbiased book about J. Edgar Hoover. Any suggestions?

This is probably a good bet:

by Curt Gentry

Synopsis:

Shocking, grim, frightening, Curt Gentry’s masterful portrait of America’s top policeman is a unique political biography. From more than 300 interviews and over 100,000 pages of previously classified documents, Gentry reveals exactly how a paranoid director created the fraudulent myth of an invincible, incorruptible FBI. For almost fifty years, Hoover held virtually unchecked public power, manipulating every president from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Richard Nixon. He kept extensive blackmail files and used illegal wiretaps and hidden microphones to destroy anyone who opposed him. The book reveals how Hoover helped create McCarthyism, blackmailed the Kennedy brothers, and influenced the Supreme Court; how he retarded the civil rights movement and forged connections with mobsters; and what part he played in the investigations of President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. A New York Times bestseller.

Thanks Jerome, I am adding it to my list.

I found a good 14 part series on Hoover's life at TruTV.

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/ga...

The WP had a good article from Nov. 2009 by Kenneth Ackerman who gave us Young J. Edgar: Hoover, the Red Scare, and the Assault on Civil Liberties

And once those are completed I am considering

Secrecy and Power: The Life of J. Edgar Hoover

The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI

by Betty Medsger (no photo)

Synopsis:

The never-before-told full story of the history-changing break-in at the FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, by a group of unlikely activists—quiet, ordinary, hardworking Americans—that made clear the shocking truth and confirmed what some had long suspected, that J. Edgar Hoover had created and was operating, in violation of the U.S. Constitution, his own shadow Bureau of Investigation.

It begins in 1971 in an America being split apart by the Vietnam War . . . A small group of activists—eight men and women—the Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI, inspired by Daniel Berrigan’s rebellious Catholic peace movement, set out to use a more active, but nonviolent, method of civil disobedience to provide hard evidence once and for all that the government was operating outside the laws of the land.

The would-be burglars—nonpro’s—were ordinary people leading lives of purpose: a professor of religion and former freedom rider; a day-care director; a physicist; a cab driver; an antiwar activist, a lock picker; a graduate student haunted by members of her family lost to the Holocaust and the passivity of German civilians under Nazi rule.

Betty Medsger's extraordinary book re-creates in resonant detail how this group of unknowing thieves, in their meticulous planning of the burglary, scouted out the low-security FBI building in a small town just west of Philadelphia, taking into consideration every possible factor, and how they planned the break-in for the night of the long-anticipated boxing match between Joe Frazier (war supporter and friend to President Nixon) and Muhammad Ali (convicted for refusing to serve in the military), knowing that all would be fixated on their televisions and radios.

Medsger writes that the burglars removed all of the FBI files and, with the utmost deliberation, released them to various journalists and members of Congress, soon upending the public’s perception of the inviolate head of the Bureau and paving the way for the first overhaul of the FBI since Hoover became its director in 1924. And we see how the release of the FBI files to the press set the stage for the sensational release three months later, by Daniel Ellsberg, of the top-secret, seven-thousand-page Pentagon study on U.S. decision-making regarding the Vietnam War, which became known as the Pentagon Papers.

At the heart of the heist—and the book—the contents of the FBI files revealing J. Edgar Hoover’s “secret counterintelligence program” COINTELPRO, set up in 1956 to investigate and disrupt dissident political groups in the United States in order “to enhance the paranoia endemic in these circles,” to make clear to all Americans that an FBI agent was “behind every mailbox,” a plan that would discredit, destabilize, and demoralize groups, many of them legal civil rights organizations and antiwar groups that Hoover found offensive—as well as black power groups, student activists, antidraft protestors, conscientious objectors.

The author, the first reporter to receive the FBI files, began to cover this story during the three years she worked for The Washington Post and continued her investigation long after she'd left the paper, figuring out who the burglars were, and convincing them, after decades of silence, to come forward and tell their extraordinary story.

The Burglary is an important and riveting book, a portrait of the potential power of non­violent resistance and the destructive power of excessive government secrecy and spying.

Hoover's Secret War Against Axis Spies: FBI Counterespionage During World War II

by Raymond J Batvinis (no photo)

Synopsis:

The world was at war, America precariously poised on the sidelines. But already a second secret war was well underway with the United States very much in the thick of it. While he fought on the home front to consolidate the FBI's intelligence gathering power, J. Edgar Hoover was conducting an all-out campaign to make his agency America's first foreign espionage service--a campaign that would lead to an uneasy alliance with British intelligence in a brilliantly successful operation to undermine Germany throughout the Second World War. While pieces of the story have been told before, only now, in this work by FBI historian and former agent Raymond Batvinis, does this crucial chapter in the history of World War II, and of the FBI, received its full due.

Taking up the tale begun in his acclaimed "Origins of FBI Counterintelligence," Batvinis mines a wealth of heretofore untapped resources to expose Hoover's remarkable connivances and accomplishments in concert--and occasionally contention--with the Allies in outsmarting German intelligence. "Hoover's Secret War" opens up a world of spy rings, secret and double agents, surveillance, codes and ciphers, wire taps, microdots, mail drops, invisible ink, radio transmissions, and deception and disinformation as it tracks the warring nations spreading their intelligence tentacles throughout Europe and North and South America. As it documents the rocky evolution of the FBI's relationship with Britain's vaunted M15 and M16, the book brings to light the feud between Hoover and William Stephenson, director of the British Secret Intelligence Service's U. S. operation, BSC.

Batvinis reveals how the agency gained access to ULTRA intelligence, thanks to the British decryption of the ENIGMA code, along with the strenuous efforts to keep the Germans in the dark about it. He uncovers eye-opening details of the FBI's participation in the famed "Double-Cross System, which effectively "turned" German agents against the Fatherland, among them a flamboyant, larger-larger-than-life playboy, a world famous French flyer, and a lecherous Dutchman. Batvinis tells for the first time how the Bureau manipulated these agents, and how it transmitted deceptive information critical to the Normandy landings, the Allied invasion of the Marshall Islands, and the atomic bomb program, among other matters. Rich with secrets and surprises worthy of the finest spy fiction, this true story of espionage and counterintelligence gives us our first clear look at the secret second world war, and a significant moment in history--for the FBI, for America, and for the world.

An upcoming book:
Release date: April 7, 2015

Days of Rage: America's Radical Underground, the FBI, and the First Age of Terror

by Bryan Burrough

Synopsis:

The Weathermen. The Symbionese Liberation Army. The FALN. The Black Liberation Army. The names seem quaint now, when not forgotten altogether. But there was a stretch of time in America, roughly between 1968 and 1975, when there was on average more than one significant terrorist act in this country every week, and the FBI combated these groups and others as nodes in a single revolutionary underground, dedicated to the violent overthrow of the American government.

The FBI’s response to the leftist revolutionary counterculture has not been treated kindly by history, and it is true that in hindsight many of its efforts seem almost comically ineffectual, if not criminal in themselves. But part of the extraordinary accomplishment of Bryan Burrough’s groundbreaking book is to temper those easy judgments with an understanding of just how deranged these times were, how charged with menace. Burrough re-creates an atmosphere that seems almost unbelievable just forty years later, conjuring a time of native-born radicals, most of them “nice middle-class kids,” smuggling bombs into skyscrapers and detonating them inside the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol, at a courthouse in Boston, at a Wall Street restaurant packed with lunchtime diners. Radicals who robbed dozens of banks and assassinated policemen, in New York, San Francisco, Atlanta. The FBI’s fevered response included the formation of a secret task force called Squad 47, dedicated to hunting the groups down and rolling them up. But Squad 47 itself was not overly squeamish about legal niceties, and its efforts ultimately ended in fiasco.

Benefiting from the extraordinary number of people from the underground and the FBI who speak about their experiences for the first time, Days of Rage is filled with important revelations and fresh details about the major revolutionaries and their connections and about the FBI and its desperate efforts to make the bombings stop. The result is mesmerizing and completely new—a book that takes us into the hearts and minds of homegrown terrorists and federal agents alike and weaves their stories into a spellbinding secret history of the 1970s.

Classified Woman

by Sibel D. Edmonds (no photo)

Synopsis :

In this startling new memoir, Sibel Edmonds—the most classified woman in U.S. history—takes us on a surreal journey that begins with the secretive FBI and down the dark halls of a feckless Congress to a stonewalling judiciary and finally, to the national security whistleblowers movement she spearheaded. Having lived under Middle East dictatorships, Edmonds knows firsthand what can happen when government is allowed to operate in secret.

Hers is a sobering perspective that combines painful experience with a rallying cry for the public’s right to know and to hold the lawbreakers accountable. With U.S. citizens increasingly stripped of their rights in a calibrated media blackout, Edmonds’ story is a wake-up call for all Americans who, willingly or unwillingly, traded liberty for illusive security in the wake of 9/11.

The FBI Nobody Knows

by Fred J Cook (no photo)

Synopsis:

There is no description of this book in GR but as I recall hearing, it caused quite a stir when it was published and is not complimentary to the FBI.

Thank you Jill for all of the adds on all of the threads.

An upcoming book:
Release date: April 18, 2017

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

by David Grann

Synopsis:

In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.

Then, one by one, they began to be killed off. One Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, watched as her family was murdered. Her older sister was shot. Her mother was then slowly poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more Osage began to die under mysterious circumstances.

In this last remnant of the Wild West—where oilmen like J. P. Getty made their fortunes and where desperadoes such as Al Spencer, “the Phantom Terror,” roamed – virtually anyone who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered. As the death toll surpassed more than twenty-four Osage, the newly created F.B.I. took up the case, in what became one of the organization’s first major homicide investigations. But the bureau was then notoriously corrupt and initially bungled the case. Eventually the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to try unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including one of the only Native American agents in the bureau. They infiltrated the region, struggling to adopt the latest modern techniques of detection. Together with the Osage they began to expose one of the most sinister conspiracies in American history.

In Killers of the Flower Moon, David Grann revisits a shocking series of crimes in which dozens of people were murdered in cold blood. The book is a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, as each step in the investigation reveals a series of sinister secrets and reversals. But more than that, it is a searing indictment of the callousness and prejudice toward Native Americans that allowed the murderers to operate with impunity for so long. Killers of the Flower Moon is utterly riveting, but also emotionally devastating.

A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership

by James B. Comey (no photo)

Synopsis:

A riveting inside account of life and leadership at the heart of the FBI and high office in the United States of America.

In his forthcoming book, former FBI director James Comey shares his never-before-told experiences from some of the highest-stakes situations of his career in the past two decades of American government, exploring what good, ethical leadership looks like, and how it drives sound decisions. His journey provides an unprecedented entry into the corridors of power, and a remarkable lesson in what makes an effective leader.

Mr. Comey served as director of the FBI from 2013 to 2017, appointed to the post by President Barack Obama. He previously served as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, and the U.S. deputy attorney general in the administration of President George W. Bush. From prosecuting the Mafia and Martha Stewart to helping change the Bush administration's policies on torture and electronic surveillance, overseeing the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation as well as ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, Comey has been involved in some of the most consequential cases and policies of recent history.