J. Edgar Hoover - America’s Top Cop or Chief Inquisitor?
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Is "Top Cop of Chief Inquisitor" a typo that slipped through? o_O
@@TransRoofKorean maybe "or" or "and"
@@SEAZNDragon Yeah, I figured it must've been one of those two. That or I'm just too dumb to understand.
Please for the love of God do Spinoza
@@royalbroman9467 that's a good call
Col. Mustard: "Why is J. Edgar Hoover on your phone?" Wadsworth: "He's on everybody else's phone, why shouldn't he be on mine?"
funny how he had a "Morality" clause for agents yet he himself was acting unmoral by his own standards
Do as I say, not as I do.
Most people who spend their lives trying to tell people how they should live often do
Typical example of government corruption
Standard conservative doctrine is projection.
@@ckaiborbor except im not conservative but nice try deflecting
0:45 - Chapter 1 - Meet speed 4:45 - Chapter 2 - The FBI is born 9:45 - Mid roll ads 11:15 - Chapter 3 - Red scares 13:35 - Chapter 4 - Washtub ! 15:55 - Chapter 5 - The trolling bureau 22:35 - Chapter 6 - Aftermath
You are the real mvp
If he were born in the internet age, he would have a field day with so much information on people. He would have been even bigger.
He wouldn’t have existed as he was dirty and he was a homosexual homophobe. His orientation would have been exposed more easily.
That's a scary thought 😅😂
And he'd either get lynched after pissing _everyone_ off, or he'd start a civil war through his asininery.
True but that works both ways. Today we know of so many more scandals of people in power.
Today, J. Edgar Freako would never have made it to the Director's chair. Had he done so, he would have been run out of the job by the news media. He was far too open a freak to keep a lid on his personal and professional antics today.
There is a story that when Nixon was elected president he summoned Hoover to the Oval Office intending to fire him. After their meeting was over, Hoover had a new contract with a raise. Don't know if it's true or not but it makes for a good story.
Hoover had homosexual blackmail on Nixon he obtained through his "associate" Roy Cohn
@@curtisthomas2670 wouldn't be surprised.
Sounds about right
Hoover had such an interesting bio, it's easy to see why he's controversial as well. Takes over an hour to read his Wikipedia page. He was involved in just so much, there's reason to the argument, Hoover had as much power as the president. Man, I wish this was a two or three part series, Hoover's just a fascinatingly complex individual with a huge amount of secrets he brought to the grave
Herbert Hoover sounds and looks extremely similar.
He was a racist. End of…
He can rot in that grave.
More power than the president! That last of Simon’s sentences said it best, the fact he worked for 48 yrs meant he got an awful lot done… I wonder what happened to his personal papers when he died, like if he wrote what he knew down, or if he kept everything in his mind like a steel trap.
@@gioluvs1893 Agreed. He was essentially America's grand inquisitor who had a lot to prove. And failed. Well, at least the Mafia did one decent thing. They had him by the balls.
Hoover appointed himself judge, jury and prosecutor for America, and our horrific and cowardly leaders let him get away with it.
It wasnt just the leaders fault. The public bought into the simple minded narrative of incorruptible law enforcement and protestors of all kinds as evil. Its the same simplemindedness that pervades American thinking these days: pure good guys and pure bad guys.
@@arthurswanson3285 In America a sucker is born every second.
Barely anything has changed..
Sucks how it still has to happen.
Has there ever been a blackmailer so compromised themselves? The accusation of homosexuality & cross dressing is not just salacious rumour, but with his gambling may account for him going easy on organised crime.
He was a Russian "asset" his entire FBI career
@@curtisthomas2670 Are you on drugs?
@@shakiMiki Rumor has it that Hoover was "compromised" early in his career by a US communist group which accidentally discovered he was homosexual whilst trying to dig up dirt on another official he was sexually involved with. That information along with incriminating photo evidence eventually found its way to Russian intelligence, which mounted an operation that gathered video and other evidence on Hoover and then they got their hooks into him. The Russians then blackmailed him and owned him for the rest of his career, using him to infiltrate intelligence, military and law enforcement agencies and to reel in other homosexual figures like Sen. McCarthy, Roy Cohn and Nixon. They used "assets" like these to sow chaos in US society, politics, intelligence and law enforcement through such programs as the "Red" and "Lavender" scares, Hollywood Blacklists and the search for the intelligence "Mole", serving up some sacrificial "victories" whilst diverting attention away from much of their other activities. He was "The Mole", allegedly......
Yeah the Mafia had pictures of him having sex with men. That’s why Archie bunker wasn’t believed when he claimed he saw the mafia. According to J Edgar Hoover . Who protects them because he knew he was a fag.
The mob had proof that he was queer. It was thoroughly inconsistent for a guy who saw Communists & Sexual Degenerates where he wanted to see them to flat-out deny that the Mafia existed despite them operating in every major & minor port city in the country & the evidence of their activities available in every single police department, especially considering how the NYPD was in cahoots with both the FBI & the CIA.
J.Edgar was also obsessed with Robert F. Kennedy. The film Blood Feud depicts that obsession in great detail.
Allegedly, RFK had videos of Hoover and men in "compromising positions"
Learning American history from a British man living in Czech. Awesome 🎉
Back in the mid-‘80s, I had a college class about Hoover’s FBI taught by an expert on the man and his agency (I’ve since seen the professor in tv documentaries on the subject). For our group project, we were all given actual (redacted) FBI documents as primary source material. My group was assigned the student left movement of the 1960s, and my part was on the FBI’s use of fake propaganda that they created to interfere in the student organizations and to make them look bad. Fascinating stuff, especially working with official government files. My favorite one was a report that I couldn’t work into my paper because it didn’t apply to my subject matter. It was written by a young rookie agent temporarily reassigned from NY to Chicago for the ‘68 Democratic convention to pose as a student and blend in with the protestors. He says he was walking down Michigan Avenue at 3:00 one morning when he was approached by [REDACTED FOR SEVERAL PARAGRAPHS]. The final line of the report was the only one left unblocked-it said, “Regardless of what happened to me, I do not think that the CPD used excessive force.” IOW, he got the crap beat out of him by the city’s cops. FYI, our group paper got top marks!
What a great story. The experience of getting to have such a knowledgeable instructor had to make the class a lot of interesting fun! Good job on group's results.😂 I bet the agent did have the CPD beat the crap out of him. Poor thing.😊
Those "student organizations" looked bad enough without the FBI's help
Think about the govt 'overreach' they were reacting to. Ethnicity was a legitimate reason to discriminate against people in the era.
The man had dirt on a lot of people, No wonder he was able to stay in power so long
Dont forget he covered up the JFK assassination
@@deadhumansallofthem2457 what cover up?
@@multiyapples there's a rumour that the mafia tried killing Jfk. And the fbi helped them or something
I've read the books on Hoover, it's Stomach churning. He was a bitter Old queen. He had teenage boys Supplied to him. They would meet In his limo on tracks in the forest. Head Gangsters used to pay for him & Clyde his lover to go and bet on The horses.
He had dirt, I mean "insurance" on those who could have removed him.
There are surprisingly few videos on KZhead about J Edgar Hoover. Your timely contribution helped me leap over nagging writer's block.
He is and was my favorite "Cross.Dresser"!! That girl had style!!
Thank you for making this channel. I grew up in a house where A&E was on nearly all the time and its a wonderful hit of nostalgia how similar this feels to their Biography series.
Awesome! I’d been waiting for this one. I knew you’d have to cover him at some point. Thanks! It’d be pretty cool to have a Decoding the Unknown video on him as well about all the crazier conspiracy theories (some of which might be true).
I think Hoover in the beginning genuinely wanted to do good, but as the old saying goes power corrupts and Hoover wasn't immune to its seductive allure.
Also, his idea of "good" was often...skewed. Very skewed.
Somehow, I doubt that. That he ever wanted, or even understood what 'good' is. Even by the precedent set at the time.
Somehow I doubt that he was that good, but at the same time I estimate that he was still "better" than the people who rule us now. Albeit it within the USA or beyond
@@cdeschrevel5341 People like him ARE who rule us now.
@@oceanberserker The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Colonel Mustard, "Why is J. Edgar Hoover on your phone? Wadsworth, "I don't know. He's on everyone else's, why shouldn't he be on mine?"
Hoover didn't want to admit there was large scale organized crime, because it would be an admission that he failed to defeat it. So, since there was no organized crime in his view, the FBI didn't go after it, allowing it to flourish.
They absolutely dropped the ball on domestic terrorism that's a massive American problem these days.
i have never heard RFK called "Bob". He was "Bobby"
The FBI still has the stench that j Edgar Hoover left behind. It's going to take a long time to get rid of the stench.
The 500 anarchists Hoover and Palmer deported( who were not even US citizens btw) were responsible for the wall street bombing which killed 38 and injured hundreds among dozens of bombings and attempted bombings against judges, mayors, and other public servants aside from Palmer's home. Hoover did nothing wrong, clown.
@@doorhinge2039 simmer down there partner, I'm aware the reason people disliked him because of draconian measures needed to fight folks like the anarchists that you mentioned. But it still leaves a stain of distrust among other folks because of this.
You’re the best Simon! Thanks for uploading, he was beyond prolific and one of the defining men of the 20th Century America.
One of the few cases where the rugged was yanked out from under the FBI'S feet was the apprehension of Bonnie and Clyde. LOL. Hoover didn't get to close that one!
As a gay man, seeing J. Edgar's early photos, my gaydar went off the charts!
As a straight man, seeing this comment, my gaydar went off the charts!
Wow, enough with the homophobia
J. Edgar Hoover was an actual Homosexual
That's called projecting
And he's hes always with hes buddy Clyde....
Calling MLK "the biggest liar in america" is somewhat ironic considering how self-interested some of the operations and directives he mandated were.
A very timely biographic... thank you.
Long awaited this channel covering such an impactful (note: not positive) figure in American history. Thanks!
It has been said that power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely 💯. Edgar Hoover was the perfect living example of this. No wonder so many people were relieved when he died in 1972. I don't think that God will ever have a very high opinion of Edgar Hoover. With eternal consequences 😕
Basically Edgar Hoover show those in power that he was willing to be as bad as a criminal as the people that they were looking for. He was perfect for the job.
He was definitely the problem.
For the left, sure.
@@eq1373 he was a problem generally
Simon, can you do a video about Mustafa Kemal Atatürk please?
a baaaaaaad bad man, the world would have been better off without him.
The Simon clone making the videos for biographics always does a good job.
I didn’t think I would want to hear about Hoover on King day but here I am..
Long Live The King
Melvin Purvis would be a fascinating Bio as well.
My first top 3 bios not yet on this channel were Woodrow Wilson, Haile Selassie, and J Edgar. My new list: Tecumseh, Benazir Bhutto, and Gamal Abdel Nasser
Another great video from you. Surprised to see you haven’t done Julia Child yet. I hereby recommend it.
Mustafa Ataturk would be an interesting bio.
They had to be willing to commit murder. And, immediately create a heroic story. Hoover created a Bureau that reflects him. Feared not respected.
Simon I love this channel. Could I possibly request one of the greatest Science Fiction authors? Robert A Heinlein. Thank you.
Good book touching on this and the broader geopolitical landscape is “the Quiet Americans” by Scott Anderson
Uploading this on MLK Day. Nice. I also recommend you look at Bayard Rustin.
Being amazingly proficient at filing, sorting and organizing information is something useful? I do that. Extremely well.
Interesting video 😮
Excellent video again.
I think you meant to say “Or” Chief Inquisitor
No he didn't stop putting words In people's mouth mfer
Decisions were made now he's both
It's in the title AND thumbnail *cringe*
No, I think it should be “and”
Chief Blackmailer and Chief of Corruption you mean.
Hey I'd love it if you could do a video on the Barker-Karpis gang!
Simon typo in the thumb nail my guy you legend you
I am a huge fan. I would like to see a bio about Lewis "Chesty" Puller. Thank you, for your combined work.
Another great video from Mr FactBoi ❤️ cheers from Illinois How come Biographics isn’t on Spotify anymore?
His Channels are on Spotify!?!??why tf am I just finding this out
Don't care
@@balabanasireti didn’t ask kiddo
Is their a Biographics video on the Rosenbergs? That seems like it might make an interesting topic. Like most Americans, all I know about their lives is the part at the end. I'm sure there is more to that story.
One of the most fascinating figures of recent american history! Great job as always simon!
You should do an episode on William J. Burns. It was he who founded the fingerprint index.
The anarchist movements did pose a danger. However, when it comes to the Cold War, that was an undeclared official war in all but name. One that was fought on nearly every front except “direct.” He should rightly be criticized and some things should not be repeated now that the Cold War is over and won. But for his overall actions, he was either a hero or at the very least arguably necessary, not to mention effective.
Please do a video on David Attenborough and then a video on Richard Attenborough the next week. Thank you for your time and effort to read this comment.
I would love a video on Charles Hamilton Houston in the near future please
Hey Simon. I wanna see the biography for Sir David Attenborough
uh… how’d he use a bow & arrow w/ one arm?
Please do a biography of Jack Lalane
14:30 okay, the guy who hunts bears with a bow and arrow despite having only one arm *_(prior_* to the bear interaction) really does sound like quite an impressive individual, I'll be honest. (I'm thinking of that one chick who fires a bow and arrow with her feet...)
“The individual comes face-to-face so monstrous he cannot believe it exists. The American mind has not come to the realization of the evil which has been introduced into our midst. It rejects even the assumption that human creatures could expose a philosophy which must ultimately destroy all that is good and descent “ J. Edgar Hoover
I hope u do one with his scandals and extra B's. He also was sleeping with one of his make aides
Nothing about him passing? That's what makes him most interesting. Heck, you got one of his most telling photos appear more than once.
That Alaska thing is hilaaaaarious
You should do rube waddell. American baseball player with an interesting life.
Love the channel. Think the selection for today could have been someone different given the Holiday.
They already did Dr King
Selecting a guy that vilified MLK on his holiday I think is in poor taste.
Hoover was a sad little man.
Please do episodes on Jerome Caminada - Jelly Bryce.
The secret closeted gay
I am old enough to remember him. Nobody I knew liked him at all. Of course, I was in San Francisco, and in the early 70s it was a hotbed of various liberation armies, etc. Hoover died when I was 22.
He's certainly important for building up the FBI. There's no real disqualification there for worth celebrating. It's all the actions that make him a petty vindictive bitch that make him disqualifid. After the 1930, if they were particularly determined to do so, Hoover was extremely replaceable. He seems like more a liability than not.
Do a video on paul gray please 🙏
Do one on earth wind and fire
"J edgar hoover always insists. Organised crime just doesnt exist."
Compare to the FBI today J. Edgar Hoover is a saint.
is there a video on bumpy johnson?
please do one on maximus thrax
When are you going to do Lincoln?
Here me out.....a netflix or hbo series based on a character inspired by j edgar Hoover. small time kid who loved organizing and timid slowly joining the world wars to help back home and slowly grow in to a manipulative and cunning man over time who learns from the people around him and his shattering life around leading up to his rise in the FBI. we get to see both the growth of a man and the FBI🤩
Gotta suggest Andrew Jackson for a future biographics again.
A Controversial President even in his time.
Normally, i have a low opinion about conspiracy theories, but considering the stuff we _know_ about JEH, I won't put any involving him quite so low. I still think JFK was killed by the lone gunman, even if JEH cheered after.
Bet you believe the magic bullet theory too
@@chick_nuggs9318 *eye roll*
No one gunman couldn't have pulled that off get a clue
He definitely had few if any morals.
hey Simon. Lev Tahor... hopefully in the next couple weeks.
Great video. Could you do a video on Sam Houston, the 1st and 3rd President of Texas?
Do Enver Hoxha of Albania
It's really surprising that you have not made a video on Francis Bacon
I busted out laughing within 30 seconds when Simon said “most efficient”, that’s a joke right?
J Edgar Hoover, pure evil at his finest
Who are you , God?
I was convinced that all americans are paranoid, but this guy is gold standard.
"The OSI had realized that Alaska is only a few miles from Siberia." Truly groundbreaking investigations
I recommend people to read Joe Steele.
got to love turtledove
"There is no doubt that America is now the prime target of international communism." -- J. Edgar Hoover
I like to think G. Gordon Liddy spiked his medicine bottle. And, said to himself, “ this is for Melvin Purvis and Elliot Ness! You f’ing librarian!
Fun fact: In the early days, Hoover did most of his recruiting in bathhouses and highway rest stops.
How did you know that? All FBI agents had to be a certain height and length. The Director personally performed that inspection.
Now do one of René Favaloro please 🥺
One of the things not mentioned here has to do with Hoover's personal transportation. One evening Hoover's chauffeur driven car was involved in an accident while making a left hand turn. The transportation division of the FBI received orders the next day that stated that in the future all of Hoover's trips were to be planned in such a way that they would not include any left hand turns. In some cases they had to go miles out their way to make this happen but if they didn't heads would roll and they knew it. That is just a tiny bit nuts don't you agree?
Do rudolf Hess!
How do you guys release a hoover video on Martin Luther King day 😂
Because they already did one on King and everyone knows him
@@balabanasireti i didnt say release a king video i made a joke about hoover who was kings biggest threat
Exactly. Hoover assassinated MLK. Poor taste or ignorance there is still no excuse
“Hoover.. he was a body remover” - wake up