Curt gentry biography of albert

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Texts Video icon An illustration of two cells of a film strip. Ryan Thorpe. Some biographies laud their subjects as otherworldly folks bestowed upon humanity, unswerving in pursuit of their ideals. Biographies of Lincoln and Fred Rogers come to mind. Most raise complex aspects of their subject. The books try to figure out whether the positives make up for the negatives, whether the means used to accrue and dispense power justify the ends.

Here you get a wide range of people from great folks with human failings e. Few biographies yield wholly negative verdicts on their subjects. But this one does. Gentry concludes the trifecta: Hoover should be condemned for how he accumulated power surprisingly common ; how he maintained it less so ; and the ends to which he put it generally reserved for only biographies of those history already considers 'evil people'.

Gentry clearly considers Hoover to be an 'evil person', that is one who did harm without any offsetting benefit in support only of his personal power and preferences. It is magnitude, not direction, that separates Hoover from history's worst characters, in this telling. Is Gentry right? He certainty marshals an impressive array of evidence.

Curt gentry biography of albert: Shocking grim, and at times, darkly

On my reading, he convincingly shows Hoover sought to do anything necessary to establish and maintain his power. From the beginning, he courted powerful people, lied to them, established his power, and then used his power to blackmail those people for almost half a century. One way to judge this behavior, as Robert Caro suggests, is that you must separate what folks do getting power from what they do once they have it.

All of the things folks do to get power are done for a purpose. It is only once they obtain the power they have been after that we know what that purpose was. Though I disagree with this as the proper measure of a life, it is a convenient framework to separate powerful folks on a meaningful dimension. Does Hoover use his power to do something meaningful - something even good?

Here is where Gentry's analysis may fall short. Gentry portrays Hoover acting to punish his enemies, cow his friends, and maintain his position of power through an ever growing internal espionage network. On Gentry's telling, Hoover has no meaningful accomplishments after he captures Dillinger. Hoover thwarts the Communists, who were never a threat in the first place.

Hoover denies the existence of organized crime, which very much was a threat. Hoover wire taps and terrorizes our national heroes King Jr. But why does he do these things? Is it possible that Hoover truly believes he has guided the FBI toward the nation's greatest threats? Gentry has not fully helped us see the world through Hoover's eyes, the way for instance Caro does with Lyndon Johnson.

In a book that bills itself as being about "a man and the secrets" perhaps underlying motivation was the one secret Hoover truly never revealed - or perhaps Hoover had no underlying motivation beyond the mixture of self interest prejudice that Gentry portrays. But I am at least left wondering. Many years in the writing, Curt Gentry's well researched book shows what many have finally come to realize, that there are no heroes.

J Edgar Hoover, a man who was once lifted on a pedestal as the 'nations number one cop' and his un corruptible, indefatigable, holier than thou FBI, was, and always will be a myth, created out of whole cloth. A creature of DC if there ever was one, Hoover was born and raised in the town, and ruled it with an iron fist, albeit in a velvet glove.

Once a low level beauraucrat at the library of congress, he earned a law degree, and curt gentry biography of albert clever manuevering, wormed his way into the Justice department, where he became an indispensable aid de camp to the heads of the department. Finally seeing his chance, he rose to be the anointed head of the new 'Bureau of Investigation', which started his long hold on absolute power.

Ironically, the very men who created it wondered aloud if this new investigation agency would just become a monster that would be accountable to no one, become a secret police force and swallow huge amounts of Federal tax dollars. Sound familiar? It's funny, even though the book was written in the early 's, there are so many parallels to today's FBI, as to be prescient.

Black bag jobs, burglary, illegal wire tapping, planted evidence, made up evidence, nothing was out of bounds for Hoover's secret police. All the while, Hoover using the collected information to blackmail and beholden his enemies, and friends alike. But who was J Edgar Hoover? That's one thing the book really docent have a solid answer to.

You'll find no bombshell about Hoover's sexuality, although it is hinted at or alleged cross dressing Never mentioned, and probably an urban myth but what we do learn, is that Hoover was a small man in so many ways. Obsessed with the sex lives of others, while seemingly having none of his own, creating the 's "Red Scare" because he needed a new boogeyman to keep congressional appropriations going, yet completely blind to nationwide organized crime.

And finally, what he really was, a chiseler, cheat, and completely miserable bastard that had few friends, no one to love, and a messiah complex to boot. Two myths that should be completely disposed of. John Tipper. Hoover was the director of the FBI for 49 years. His views tended to be on the far right. He investigated the anarchist Emma Goldman, getting her sent to prison and then having her deported, largely on bogus evidence.

Hoover was a rabid anti-Communist.

Curt gentry biography of albert: Shocking, grim, frightening, Curt

He had his agents tap phones, carry out black bag jobs break-ins and spread disinformation on countless individuals he suspected of being red or simply soft on Communism. He had FDR's wife, Elinore, harassed by curt gentry biography of albert taps, agents following her and the start of rumors. He claimed she was bisexual, having affairs with both women and men.

But he could never prove these allegations. The hypocrisy was several writers, including Gentry, implied or suggested J. During the Red Scare of the late 40s and throughout most of the 50s, Hoover worked and enabled Joe McCarthy and HUAC to ruin careers of actors, writers, activists and others who leaned to the left. Some were jailed, others lost jobs, some committed suicide.

Martin Luther King Jr. Edgar considered King under the sway of Moscow. Prior to that the FBI had done little against each entity. Hoover died of natural causes inleaving most of his belongings to Tolson. Marc Lichtman. Curt Gentry may be best remembered as co-author of 'Helter Skelter,' but as interesting as it is, he wrote at least two much more important books.

Edgar Hoover was director for life, something not usually found in bourgeois democracies. Gentry deals with all the most important cases, and to me the most important thing is not innocence or guilt, but the methods used to convict them. While Hoover claimed embarrassment over the "Palmer Raids," where he got his start, he really continued in the same vein perhaps not deporting US citizens.

Gentry sticks to the cases, not gossip. He calls Clyde Tolson "Hoover's companion" and leaves it at that. A fascinating book about the US political system. Those interested in the FBI. David Shaffer. Edgar Hoover to be interesting and enlightening. A solid 4 star book. As with many men who aspire to or achieve greatness and Hoover was both, Hoover was a complex enigma of a man.

A converted Presbyterian who considered 2 career path of either a Presbyterian Clergy or Law Enforcement he was a man of early and mid 20th century beliefs and biases. To say Hoover brought a sense of purpose and professionalism to the FBI is without doubt. That his length of tenure was dramatically too long and that he betrayed many of the aspects of professionalism is also beyond doubt.

Hoover allowed his prejudices against minorities to color his priorities, specifically in his persecution of Martin Luther King Jr. His overriding belief in the evils of international communism led to many of his early successes but ultimately led him to pursue this overwhelmingly over other caseseven when the facts warranted other allocation of resources and colored his view if the anti war movement.

His refusal to accept the existence of organized crime and the Mafia was unconscionable. His insecurity allowed him to build few close relationships and led to him trying to find information to blackmail or or influence others to support him. His acceptance of internal corruption and willingness to engage in it himself was unpardonable for the head of the FBI.

A great man who was greatly flawed. A wonderful book to gain insight into J. Edgar Hoover as a person and leader. Rusty Reading. Like a heart rate monitor with erratic motion, it felt like I had too many flat lines during the course of this biography. His was a life that did not lack plots, enough to produce hundreds of movies on different eras.

Starting when he was a young committed lad in the Bureau of Investigations during the Woodrow Wilson administration, until his demise 10 presidents later. This was a hard read, specially in conspicuous chapters of anomaly and cover ups that occurred in the long history that JEH has been Director of the FBI. On the outside, he was seen as a hero who displayed integrity in serving under justice system.

But for those who challenged his position or crossed him personally, intentional or not often the formerhe was a viscous villain who can make or break careers, relationships at some point life. During the Korean War, he served in the Air Force. He graduated from San Francisco State College. He died on July 10, at the age of Bowker Author Biography show less.

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Curt gentry biography of albert: Curt Gentry's J. Edgar

Primo poliziotto d'America 1 copy. The vulnerable Americans 1 copy. Edgar Hoover. De man en zijn geheimen 1 copy. Work Explorer. Edgar Hoover : the man and the secrets by Curt Gentry. That felt inappropriate. Curt Gentryan Edgar winner, was the author of J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets. Curt Gentry. From more than interviews and overpages 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; as well as insight into the Watergate scandal and what part he played in the investigations of President John F.

Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.