How well known to the general public was J. Edgar Hoover during his reign of the FBI?
Where to begin. Hoover ran the bureau with an iron fist for decades. And he liked nothing better than personally displaying souvenirs of federal busts, things like weapons, disquises and such for the movie house newsreels. In later years he became something more serious and did public safty type short films from behind his big desk at the bureau. He was the soul of proper rightwing polical presentation, with his crop hair, bulldog mouth and slightly apopletic eyes. Unfortunately, Hoover remained little more than a “reds under the beds” commie chaser after the great bank robber era of the thirties. He was much better at union busting and spying on citizens (kept files on literally thousands of public and private Americans). This tactic kept him in office for years. No one had the guts to fire the guy. One big problem, he never could bring himself to admit that organized crime existed, specifically the Mafia. That turned into a major embarassment for the feds in 1957 when local and state
