Official and Confidential_ The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover - Anthony Summers [56]
Staged though it was, the arrest worked wonders for Edgar’s image. He was front-page news, in personal command as Karpis was flown in shackles to face trial in Minnesota. A week later Edgar was off in another chartered aircraft, flying with Clyde to arrest one of the kidnapper’s accomplices. He had silenced congressional critics and shown the nation he was a tough guy after all.
Edgar had been working for some time to bring all law enforcement propaganda under his personal control, to institutionalize public relations in a way that would have been unthinkable in any other government agency. First he engineered the removal of Henry Suydam, the publicist hired by Attorney General Cummings. Then, while Courtney Ryley Cooper poured out flattering books and articles, Edgar picked the man who was to shape the Bureau’s public image for more than two decades.
This was Louis ‘Nick the Greek’ Nichols, a college football star from the Midwest who had made the Bureau grade the classic way, with a law degree from George Washington University and membership in the Masons. Nichols’ personal files, preserved in filing cabinets with combination locks, reveal that he was both workaholic and sycophant, a man single-mindedly devoted to pleasing his master – both at work and with a stream of expensive presents.
It was Nichols who masterminded the formation of the FBI’s Division 8, euphemistically known as Crime Records and described by Edgar as ‘the blood plasma of the Bureau.’ So it was – though not as a mere record system. The documents in Nichols’ file cabinets and in FBI files, from potted biographies of crooks and lawmen to movie scripts and lecture drafts, reflect a herculean effort to manipulate the American mind to the greater glory of J. Edgar Hoover.
There was no attempt to be evenhanded. Feature articles in major league newspapers were ‘facilitated’ only if Edgar approved of the publication concerned. His favorites were those of the Hearst, Copley and Gannett chains, the San Francisco Examiner, the Washington Star and, at one stage, the Chicago Tribune.
By contrast, as explained earlier, Edgar had a lifelong loathing for The Washington Post. ‘If I ever find myself in agreement with that paper,’ he once told a colleague, ‘I’ll reexamine my position.’ In the sixties, at Clyde’s suggestion, he formally ruled that no background information on himself should henceforth be provided to The New York Times, Time or Newsweek, thus discriminating against three major press institutions at a stroke.
The handling of individual reporters – the wooing of some and the persecution of others – became a constant preoccupation. Favored contacts were carefully cultivated, even showered with gifts, such as luggage and golf clubs. Some accepted gratefully, and obliged with the sort of coverage Edgar wanted.
‘Dear Chief,’ wrote NBC newsman Raymond Henle, thanking Edgar for sending along Masters of Deceit, one of several books on Communism churned out by Crime Records in the Director’s name. ‘Many thanks for the handsomely autographed copy … Once again you have gone into the forefront in defense of our nation against the Commie rats. Three-Star Extra will be right there plugging for this fine volume on March 10 …’
FBI files would refer to an approved reporter as ‘a very reliable contact’ or ‘a close friend of the Bureau.’ One such friend, in later years, would be Jeremiah O’Leary, who then worked for the Washington Star. When O’Leary wrote a ‘hard-hitting review’ of a book by an author Edgar regarded as an enemy, the FBI distributed thousands of copies around the country. For his part, according to the file, O’Leary once even helped the FBI when it was trying to identify another reporter’s sources. He also submitted an article for review and, according to the file, ‘any changes we desired.’
Contrary