Official and Confidential_ The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover - Anthony Summers [122]
After his wife’s death, Shaw took his case to the American Civil Liberties Union. Senior senators raised the issue in Congress, and the former agent became a cause célèbre. The FBI settled the matter with a cash payment and removal of the ‘with prejudice’ slur from his record. Shaw went on to become an Assistant Commissioner in charge of investigations for the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Edgar had written his damning ‘with prejudice’ notation, a virtual sentence to unemployment, in the full knowledge that Shaw’s wife was seriously ill. Shaw and others who complained, he said, were ‘malcontents or crybabies.’ Edgar never accepted that he had been wrong.
The cult of the personality reigned at the FBI in a way unparalleled in American government, outside the presidency. When Edgar and Clyde traveled, men worked feverishly to smooth their way. Gas station toilets were inspected in advance in case the Director should need to use the facilities. A faulty generator in one of Edgar’s limousines triggered a nationwide operation. Agents got help from the management of Cadillac, delayed a commercial flight and rushed about with sirens wailing, to get the part to Cleveland in time. In Edgar’s hotel suite, agents quickly removed bottles of liquor that had been only partially consumed. For fear of being poisoned, Edgar reportedly insisted on drinking from newly opened bottles.
Across the country, agents were taught the wisdom of writing regularly to congratulate their boss on his birthday, the anniversary of his appointment or simply to tell him he was wonderful. ‘He loved to get those letters,’ said William Sullivan. ‘You couldn’t be too lavish in telling him what a great job he was doing for the country. Tolson had a standard phrase that he used all the time: “The Director will go down in history as the greatest man of the century.”’
In 1958, Agent Arthur Murtagh sent Edgar a courteous letter commenting on Bureau personnel policy, and mailed it, according to routine, through Roy Moore, his Agent in Charge. Moore, a mild-mannered man of vast experience, astonished him with his response.
‘Art,’ Moore said, ‘I can’t send that letter … You don’t understand Bureau politics … You must understand that you’re working for a crazy maniac and that our duty is to find out what he wants and to create the world that he believes in, and to show him that’s the way things are …’
These comments would be quoted twenty years later, in sworn testimony to a congressional committee. In the late fifties, although many men thought Edgar had lost his mental balance, few dared to say so out loud.
Four years after Edgar’s death, during a Justice Department inquiry into the misuse of FBI funds, it would emerge that Edgar had been corrupt. It had started with little things. A well-timed gift, his officials learned, could win the master’s favor. It might be a birthday cake, sent from Miami to Washington on an agent’s lap. Or, at headquarters, a regular supply of flowers. ‘He really liked pretty flowers,’ said Cartha DeLoach. ‘That was a good thing to give him. I personally or my group made sure that we gave him azaleas. That was his favorite.’
The higher the official, the more costly the giving. ‘Hoover was always hitting us for gifts,’ said William Sullivan, ‘and we’d have to buy extremely expensive ones. They handled it very cleverly. It would always come out of Tolson’s office to us … For example, I was told he wanted a garbage masher. We Bureau officials paid for it out of our own pockets.’ It was wise to pay up. Edgar reportedly kept a record of those who rendered tribute and those who didn’t. His own gifts to colleagues, on the other hand, were usually purchased at government expense.
Edgar lived virtually free, at taxpayers’ expense. The FBI Exhibits Section, which made displays for official use, had been Edgar’s personal building contractor. His house in Rock