Editing J. Edgar Hoover (section)

{{Short description|American law enforcement administrator (1895–1972)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=August 2024}}
{{About|the person|the headquarters building for the FBI|J. Edgar Hoover Building}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name                = J. Edgar Hoover
| image               = Hoover-JEdgar-LOC.jpg
| caption             = Official portrait, 1961
| office              = 1st [[Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation]]
| president           = {{plainlist|
* [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]]
* [[Harry S. Truman]]
* [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] 
* [[John F. Kennedy]]
* [[Lyndon B. Johnson]]
* [[Richard Nixon]]}}
| deputy              = [[Clyde Tolson]]
| term_start          = June 30, 1935
| term_end            = May 2, 1972
| predecessor         = Position established
| successor           = Clyde Tolson (acting)
| office1             = 5th [[Director of the Bureau of Investigation]]
| president1          = {{plainlist|
* [[Calvin Coolidge]]
* [[Herbert Hoover]]
* Franklin D. Roosevelt
}}
| deputy1             = Clyde Tolson
| term_start1         = May 10, 1924
| term_end1           = June 30, 1935
| predecessor1        = [[William J. Burns]]
| successor1          = Position dissolved
| office2             = [[Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation|Assistant Director of the Bureau of Investigation]]
| president2          = {{plainlist|
* [[Warren G. Harding]]
* Calvin Coolidge
}}
| term_start2         = August 22, 1921
| term_end2           = May 9, 1924
| predecessor2        = 
| successor2          = Clyde Tolson
| birth_name          = John Edgar Hoover
| birth_date          = {{birth date|1895|1|1|}}
| birth_place         = Washington, D.C., U.S.
| death_date          = {{death date and age|1972|5|2|1895|1|1}}
| death_place         = Washington, D.C., U.S.
| resting_place       = [[Congressional Cemetery]]
| party               = [[Independent politician|Independent]]<ref>{{cite news|last=Summers |first=Anthony |title=The Secret Life of J Edgar Hoover |url= https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/jan/01/j-edgar-hoover-secret-fbi |access-date=April 21, 2018 |newspaper=[[The Guardian]] |date= January 1, 2012 |quote= Hoover never joined a political party and claimed he was 'not political'. In fact, he admitted privately, he was a staunch, lifelong supporter of the Republican Party.}}</ref>
| education           = [[George Washington University]] ([[Bachelor of Laws|LLB]], [[Master of Laws|LLM]])
| signature           = J Edgar Hoover Signature.svg
}}
<!-- Note: Please don't add the postnominal letters "KBE" to Hoover's name. Doing so is against the guideline discussed at [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style (biographies)#Postnominal initials]] -->

'''John Edgar Hoover''' (January 1, 1895&nbsp;– May 2, 1972) was an American attorney and [[law enforcement]] administrator who served as the fifth and final [[director of the Bureau of Investigation]] (BOI) and the first [[director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation]] (FBI). President [[Calvin Coolidge]] first appointed Hoover as director of the BOI, the predecessor to the [[FBI]], in 1924. After 11 years in the post, Hoover became instrumental in founding the FBI in June 1935, where he remained as director for an additional 37 years until his death in May 1972 – serving a total of 48 years leading both the BOI and the FBI under eight Presidents.

Hoover expanded the FBI into a larger crime-fighting agency and instituted a number of modernizations to policing technology, such as a centralized [[fingerprint]] file and [[forensic]] laboratories. Hoover also established and expanded a national [[blacklist]], referred to as the [[FBI Index]] or Index List.

Later in life and after his death, Hoover became a controversial figure as evidence of his secretive [[abuse of power|abuses of power]] began to surface. He was also found to have routinely violated both the FBI's own policies and the very laws which the FBI was charged with enforcing, to have used the FBI to harass and sabotage political dissidents, and to have extensively collected information on officials and private citizens using illegal surveillance, wiretapping, and burglaries.<ref name="CoxTheo">
{{cite book
|author1= Cox, John Stuart
|author2= Theoharis, Athan G.
|year= 1988
|title= The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the Great American Inquisition
|publisher= Temple University Press
|isbn= 978-0-87722-532-4
|url= https://archive.org/details/bossjedgarhoover00theo
}}
</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Gruberg |first=Martin |title=J. Edgar Hoover |url=https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1271/j-edgar-hoover |access-date=February 20, 2023 |website=www.mtsu.edu |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=The FBI's War on King {{!}} King's Last March {{!}} APM Reports |url=https://features.apmreports.org/arw/king/d1.html#:~:text=Beginning%20in%201962,%20the%20FBI,and%20those%20of%20his%20associates. |access-date=July 21, 2024 |website=features.apmreports.org}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=A Huey P. Newton Story - Actions - COINTELPRO {{!}} PBS |url=https://www.pbs.org/hueypnewton/actions/actions_cointelpro.html#:~:text=The%20Black%20Panther%20Party%20was,brunt%20of%20the%20most%20damage.&text=According%20to%20FBI%20documents,%20one,activities%20of%20the%20Black%20nationalists%22. |access-date=July 21, 2024 |website=www.pbs.org}}</ref> Hoover consequently amassed a great deal of power and was able to intimidate and threaten high-ranking political figures.<ref name=":2">
{{cite encyclopedia
|encyclopedia= Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
|title= J. Edgar Hoover
|date= April 28, 2023
|url= https://www.britannica.com/biography/J-Edgar-Hoover}}
</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=HOOVER'S ABUSE OF POWER |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1991-09-08-9103070622-story.html |access-date=February 20, 2023 |website=Chicago Tribune|date=September 8, 1991 }}</ref>