WEBVTT 00:01.550 --> 00:04.510 >> From the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. 00:04.510 --> 00:25.050 [ Silence ] 00:25.050 --> 00:28.950 >> Well good afternoon and welcome to the Library of Congress. 00:28.950 --> 00:30.220 I'm John Cole. 00:30.220 --> 00:33.690 I'm the Director of the Library Center for the Book. 00:33.690 --> 00:37.430 The Center for the Book was created many years ago, 00:37.430 --> 00:42.680 1977 by Daniel Boorstin when was Librarian of Congress. 00:42.680 --> 00:49.380 His notion was to have the Library of Congress use its knowledge 00:49.380 --> 00:53.730 and knowledgeable experts and its resources and its prestige 00:53.730 --> 00:57.870 to promote books in reading and to reach out and in particular 00:57.870 --> 01:04.050 to help promote the writing of books as well as the use of books. 01:04.050 --> 01:06.650 Today the small Center for the Book 01:06.650 --> 01:10.770 which is a private-public partnership has 5 employees. 01:10.770 --> 01:13.270 We operate around the country largely 01:13.270 --> 01:16.670 through affiliated state Centers for the Book 01:16.670 --> 01:21.660 which you can imagine promote writers of that particular state. 01:21.660 --> 01:27.120 And secondly, a network of nonprofit organizations interested 01:27.120 --> 01:28.560 in books and reading. 01:28.560 --> 01:31.630 And here at the Library of Congress, 01:31.630 --> 01:35.870 one of the major ways we promote books in reading are through talks 01:35.870 --> 01:39.690 such as the Books & Beyond series where we feature authors 01:39.690 --> 01:44.730 who have written books of special interest to the Library of Congress. 01:44.730 --> 01:47.080 And that's where we certainly are today 01:47.080 --> 01:50.360 with this particular speaker Ken Ackerman. 01:50.360 --> 01:53.410 All of the talks here are-- 01:53.410 --> 01:58.030 in this series are videotaped for later presentation 01:58.030 --> 02:00.580 on the Library of Congress' web site. 02:00.580 --> 02:02.620 And for that reason I ask you 02:02.620 --> 02:05.860 to please turn off all things electronic. 02:05.860 --> 02:11.540 The plan is to have not only Ken's presentation but a period 02:11.540 --> 02:15.780 for discussion after about 30 or 40 minutes 02:15.780 --> 02:18.300 and we invite your questions. 02:18.300 --> 02:24.090 I will say that by questioning Ken and being part of the program, 02:24.090 --> 02:28.080 you are also giving us your permission to perhaps be part 02:28.080 --> 02:34.410 of our web site eventually and I will thank you in advance for that. 02:34.410 --> 02:38.730 We'll have a book signing and Ken will explain the connection 02:38.730 --> 02:42.680 with the book but I will as well. 02:42.680 --> 02:47.790 Ken wrote a book on Young J. Edgar as many of you probably know 02:47.790 --> 02:53.820 that was published several years ago and this book 2007. 02:53.820 --> 02:56.930 And I'm also, in addition to being the Director of the Center 02:56.930 --> 02:59.310 for the Book, someone very interested in the history 02:59.310 --> 03:02.770 of the Library of Congress and I had remembered 03:02.770 --> 03:05.940 that J. Edgar Hoover had worked at the Library of Congress 03:05.940 --> 03:08.470 and I wasn't exactly sure of the dates. 03:08.470 --> 03:12.200 But I went back to Ken's book and surely-- 03:12.200 --> 03:15.180 sure enough there was a description of this. 03:15.180 --> 03:20.220 And knowing of course that the film J. Edgar was about to come out 03:20.220 --> 03:23.010 and knowing as an employee of the Library of Congress, 03:23.010 --> 03:25.370 I walked in the main reading room one day 03:25.370 --> 03:27.470 and here was the card catalog, 03:27.470 --> 03:31.460 which really doesn't exist anymore, set up for the film. 03:31.460 --> 03:36.420 And those of you who've seen the film realize that was in the middle 03:36.420 --> 03:40.030 of the main reading room which it never was that used to be really 03:40.030 --> 03:44.870 in built in cabinets in the very beginning and then it was eliminated 03:44.870 --> 03:48.080 for a while and of course there's no such card catalog. 03:48.080 --> 03:51.680 We still have the original card catalog but it's 03:51.680 --> 03:54.460 down in the basement, it's the official catalog. 03:54.460 --> 03:58.530 And so nothing like what happened in the film with regard 03:58.530 --> 04:03.650 to that card catalog really resembled physical situation at all. 04:03.650 --> 04:08.240 Let alone, the action part of it which I'm going to let Ken address 04:08.240 --> 04:11.820 and then take questions and answers about this. 04:11.820 --> 04:16.140 But I think it was-- so the light bulb went off and I happen 04:16.140 --> 04:20.470 to see Ken at another event here at the Library of Congress and the two 04:20.470 --> 04:23.190 of us said, "Hey this is the opportunity 04:23.190 --> 04:28.910 to shed some enlightenment on that film," and I haven't seen it by then 04:28.910 --> 04:32.250 and now we have something to talk about in particular 04:32.250 --> 04:34.400 through Ken and his work. 04:34.400 --> 04:38.820 Kenneth Ackerman is a writer and an attorney in Washington 04:38.820 --> 04:43.020 and Ken is a veteran of senior positions in Congress being 04:43.020 --> 04:49.010 in the executive branch and he also is, as I've said, a lawyer but he-- 04:49.010 --> 04:52.590 I know him through his special interest really in biography 04:52.590 --> 04:56.540 and this is either his 4th or 5th biography. 04:56.540 --> 04:59.470 And we had Ken as a speaker here of-- 04:59.470 --> 05:04.230 in 2004 for a biography of James Garfield 05:04.230 --> 05:07.660 about whom there have been some other recent books. 05:07.660 --> 05:11.510 This is called Dark Horse, The Surprise Election 05:11.510 --> 05:15.750 and Political murder of James A. Garfield. 05:15.750 --> 05:18.800 And finally, I will add that one of the features of these talks, 05:18.800 --> 05:22.610 in addition to the give and take in the discussion and the filming 05:22.610 --> 05:26.910 on the web site and the book signing, is that he-this talk is now 05:26.910 --> 05:29.590 on the Center for the Book's Facebook page 05:29.590 --> 05:33.800 where discussions can continue and where your comments would be welcome 05:33.800 --> 05:37.540 and where you can learn about some of the other talks in the series. 05:37.540 --> 05:41.390 We also have a schedule of future talks that's on the table. 05:41.390 --> 05:46.470 It is my pleasure now to present to you Ken Ackerman 05:46.470 --> 05:51.040 who will be talking actually a bit about both J. Edgar Hoover 05:51.040 --> 05:54.730 and the Library of Congress and the larger context of what we saw 05:54.730 --> 05:58.400 in the film as is presented in his book, 05:58.400 --> 06:02.080 Young J. Edgar Hoover and the Red Scare. 06:02.080 --> 06:03.960 Please help me welcome Kenneth Ackerman. 06:03.960 --> 06:04.360 [ Applause ] 06:04.360 --> 06:08.460 >> Thank you John for that introduction and thank all of you 06:08.460 --> 06:12.540 for coming out on a Tuesday, or excuse me, on a Wednesday afternoon. 06:12.540 --> 06:15.570 I'm Ken Ackerman. 06:15.570 --> 06:20.120 This talk grew out as John mentioned a conversation that John and I had 06:20.120 --> 06:24.550 when I was here last summer for a talk very much like this. 06:24.550 --> 06:28.870 It was around that time, just a few days earlier, that the film approve 06:28.870 --> 06:32.410 for the movie J. Edgar had been here at the Library of Congress 06:32.410 --> 06:36.520 and everyone was all abuzz about the celebrity seeing Clint Eastwood 06:36.520 --> 06:39.180 and Leonardo DiCaprio and seeing the way 06:39.180 --> 06:41.220 that the main reading room was set up 06:41.220 --> 06:43.230 and all the gossip about the filming. 06:43.230 --> 06:46.540 And we thought it would be a good thing to talk about the book 06:46.540 --> 06:49.120 but also just give you some of the basic facts of that 06:49.120 --> 06:51.440 when you see the movie or if you've seen the movie 06:51.440 --> 06:54.660 so you have a sense what's real and what's not. 06:54.660 --> 06:58.970 We could talk more in the question period about this and there's a lot 06:58.970 --> 07:01.700 of interesting things in that movie that are right, 07:01.700 --> 07:07.680 some things that are more borderline, more hypothetical, 07:07.680 --> 07:10.670 but on this part they did pretty well. 07:10.670 --> 07:14.720 In the spirit of not burying the lead, let me just start 07:14.720 --> 07:19.270 with the basic facts about J. Edgar Hoover and the Library of Congress. 07:19.270 --> 07:22.220 J. Edgar Hoover worked here for about 4 years. 07:22.220 --> 07:26.380 He started in 1913 at the time he was 18 years old. 07:26.380 --> 07:29.510 He had just graduated from Central High School which at 07:29.510 --> 07:33.340 that time was the magnet school here in Washington, the best high school 07:33.340 --> 07:34.590 where the smartest kids went. 07:34.590 --> 07:37.400 After high school, he had gotten 07:37.400 --> 07:42.180 into George Washington University Law School where he decided to go 07:42.180 --> 07:43.690 as a night school student. 07:43.690 --> 07:46.850 He had also gotten into the University of Virginia Law School 07:46.850 --> 07:48.160 but he wanted to stay here-- 07:48.160 --> 07:50.870 he wanted to stay local to live with his parents. 07:50.870 --> 07:52.860 At that time, you didn't have 07:52.860 --> 07:56.170 to go college first before going to law school. 07:56.170 --> 07:57.660 You could go straight from high school 07:57.660 --> 07:59.530 to law school and that's what he did. 07:59.530 --> 08:03.060 So while he was going to law school at night, George Washington was on, 08:03.060 --> 08:06.320 at that time, their law school was on New York Avenue 08:06.320 --> 08:10.740 in 13th street Northwest, so not on Foggy Bottom 08:10.740 --> 08:12.530 where the school is today. 08:12.530 --> 08:15.220 Hoover grew up in this neighborhood. 08:15.220 --> 08:20.720 He lived on Seward Square which is that little park on 4th Street 08:20.720 --> 08:24.260 in Pennsylvania Avenue where the Hawk & Dove Restaurant used to be 08:24.260 --> 08:26.990 and that still sounds strange, the Hawk & Dove used to be. 08:26.990 --> 08:30.580 But that's where he grew up so for him this was very convenient. 08:30.580 --> 08:35.120 He could walk over here and work the day and then go to law school. 08:35.120 --> 08:38.990 He started as a 30-dollar a month clerk. 08:38.990 --> 08:45.690 Do the math, given inflation, 30 dollars in modern money you multiply 08:45.690 --> 08:50.460 by around 30 so that's about 900 dollars a month. 08:50.460 --> 08:53.550 His job was as a cataloging clerk. 08:53.550 --> 08:55.680 So he would-- as books or manuscripts 08:55.680 --> 09:00.140 or magazines would come in, he would put together the cards for them 09:00.140 --> 09:02.810 and at that time that the card system at the Library 09:02.810 --> 09:04.660 of Congress was very innovative thing. 09:04.660 --> 09:08.560 It was developed around the same time as the Dewey Decimal System 09:08.560 --> 09:12.240 but the Library of Congress had its own separate version of it. 09:12.240 --> 09:16.000 And while it's true, he did a very good job here. 09:16.000 --> 09:18.220 He was promoted several times. 09:18.220 --> 09:20.840 The people who worked here with him had very glowing things 09:20.840 --> 09:21.650 to say about it. 09:21.650 --> 09:25.170 By the time he left, he was making double his original salary. 09:25.170 --> 09:29.110 He did not actually invent it like they suggest in the movie 09:29.110 --> 09:30.730 but he learnt it very well. 09:30.730 --> 09:36.940 It is true that this is where young Hoover came up with his epiphany 09:36.940 --> 09:42.090 that you could use this card system to track things other than books. 09:42.090 --> 09:45.510 And a few years later I'll talk about when I talk in a few minutes, 09:45.510 --> 09:48.830 when he started at the justice department and he had his big break 09:48.830 --> 09:51.620 in 1919 to head the radical division. 09:51.620 --> 09:53.380 One of the first things he did was to set 09:53.380 --> 09:56.640 up a card catalog system for the files. 09:56.640 --> 10:01.310 Every name of every subversive or radical or radical organization 10:01.310 --> 10:05.060 or radical journal that came across his desk, he put together a card 10:05.060 --> 10:08.510 and through that he revitalized the FBI files. 10:08.510 --> 10:13.000 Within a few months, he had 60,000 cards. 10:13.000 --> 10:18.700 By 1921, he had 450,000 cards. 10:18.700 --> 10:22.520 You could go and look at these cards here in the National Archives. 10:22.520 --> 10:25.710 They're quite something to see and what's striking about them is 10:25.710 --> 10:30.210 that Hoover's cards looked a lot like the cards you could see here 10:30.210 --> 10:31.380 at the Library of Congress. 10:31.380 --> 10:33.940 They had a code number in the top corner, 10:33.940 --> 10:37.830 then they have the various references to how to find the files. 10:37.830 --> 10:40.390 Some of them are very complicated, they had codes 10:40.390 --> 10:41.740 that some things are hidden. 10:41.740 --> 10:45.790 For instance, to find Felix Frankfurter's file, 10:45.790 --> 10:49.830 there is no Felix Frankfurter file, however the paper work 10:49.830 --> 10:54.200 on him is hidden in another organization's files Hoover happen 10:54.200 --> 10:55.980 to know which one to look for. 10:55.980 --> 10:59.250 So you could use it to hide things as well as to find things 10:59.250 --> 11:02.660 and he did it with both, but yes the epiphany came here 11:02.660 --> 11:04.930 at the Library of Congress. 11:04.930 --> 11:09.240 So with that, the book I wrote was called Young J. Edgar. 11:09.240 --> 11:13.640 I wrote this and as John mentioned, it came out in 2007. 11:13.640 --> 11:16.330 I wrote it in the shadow of the aftermath 11:16.330 --> 11:18.670 to the 9/11 attacks on our country. 11:18.670 --> 11:21.870 And I was trying to deal with two things, one a question 11:21.870 --> 11:24.930 of how America treats civil liberties in time of stress 11:24.930 --> 11:27.670 like that and second, some things that struck me 11:27.670 --> 11:29.920 about J. Edgar Hoover himself. 11:29.920 --> 11:31.750 And since celebrities always come first 11:31.750 --> 11:33.990 with America, let me start with that. 11:33.990 --> 11:40.330 Hoover was one of those people whose image and legend was so big and was 11:40.330 --> 11:44.770 so deliberately built, both by friends and enemies, 11:44.770 --> 11:48.340 that it's very hard to cut away fact from reality. 11:48.340 --> 11:51.110 If you ask most people today particularly before the movie 11:51.110 --> 11:53.950 about J. Edgar Hoover and particularly younger people, 11:53.950 --> 11:57.200 you mostly get a snide remark about some fat, no neck, 11:57.200 --> 11:59.250 corrupt old man wearing a dress and a boa. 11:59.250 --> 11:59.910 [ Laughter ] 11:59.910 --> 12:06.580 That unfortunately is the one thing about him that is probably not true. 12:06.580 --> 12:11.840 During most of his life, J. Edgar Hoover was a national hero. 12:11.840 --> 12:15.360 J. Edgar Hoover was the director of the Bureau of Investigations 12:15.360 --> 12:17.130 that changed names now and then, 12:17.130 --> 12:19.310 that was the FBI for most of that time. 12:19.310 --> 12:25.850 For 48 years which is a remarkable feat of sheer longevity. 12:25.850 --> 12:29.430 He served from 1924 to 1972. 12:29.430 --> 12:32.240 He had held that position under 9 different presidents 12:32.240 --> 12:36.820 from Calvin Coolidge to Richard Nixon and 16 attorney general 12:36.820 --> 12:39.560 from Harlan Fiske Stone to John Mitchell. 12:39.560 --> 12:43.410 He made his name publicly in the 1930's when he and his men brought 12:43.410 --> 12:47.790 in a generation of gangsters back when gangsters had cool names 12:47.790 --> 12:52.000 like Pretty Boy Floyd and Machine Gun Kelly and Baby Face Nelson. 12:52.000 --> 12:56.020 He brought scientific law enforcement to the Bureau. 12:56.020 --> 13:00.820 He created an FBI Academy, an FBI Crime Lab, Uniform Crime reports, 13:00.820 --> 13:03.000 fingerprints, all of the above. 13:03.000 --> 13:05.290 He created the image of the G-Man 13:05.290 --> 13:08.750 as a clean cut effective law enforcement professional, 13:08.750 --> 13:10.840 people who always get their man. 13:10.840 --> 13:16.770 He did this very consciously and deliberately through action toys, 13:16.770 --> 13:21.670 bubble gum cards, radio shows, comic books and Hollywood movies with some 13:21.670 --> 13:25.550 of the best stars of the era, James Cagney, Jimmy Stewart and later 13:25.550 --> 13:27.960 on T.V. after [inaudible] Junior. 13:27.960 --> 13:32.700 It was so successful that by the 1950's or 1960's it was as hard 13:32.700 --> 13:35.550 to become an agent at the FBI as it was to get 13:35.550 --> 13:37.270 into an Ivy League College. 13:37.270 --> 13:40.120 They accepted about 7 out of 100 applicants. 13:40.120 --> 13:45.440 Unfortunately the full truth about J. Edgar Hoover finally came 13:45.440 --> 13:46.880 out after he died when a number 13:46.880 --> 13:49.700 of investigations were finally conducted. 13:49.700 --> 13:52.250 And it turned out that much of his image was a veneer 13:52.250 --> 13:56.350 that Mr. Hoover had a very pronounced dark side. 13:56.350 --> 14:00.380 There you see, I mean as an older man. 14:00.380 --> 14:06.310 It came out that the FBI kept hundreds of thousands of files. 14:06.310 --> 14:11.090 Sex files, secret files on movie stars, presidents, 14:11.090 --> 14:14.000 senators that were used for blackmail and sometimes 14:14.000 --> 14:15.700 for their personal amusement. 14:15.700 --> 14:19.180 According to the Church Committee, one of these investigator groups, 14:19.180 --> 14:27.360 as of 1960 the FBI had 432,000 files simply for the category subversive. 14:27.360 --> 14:31.970 Starting in the 1950's, a program called COINTELPRO, 14:31.970 --> 14:35.440 he instigated the use of black bag jobs, secret wire taps, 14:35.440 --> 14:37.510 dirty tricks, sabotage aimed 14:37.510 --> 14:41.190 at pretty much anyone he considered subversive and in the 1960's 14:41.190 --> 14:44.260 that became primarily civil rights groups. 14:44.260 --> 14:48.220 Martin Luther King was fairly the head liner as well 14:48.220 --> 14:51.260 as anti-war protesters from the Vietnam Era. 14:51.260 --> 14:55.370 He seemed to be obsessed with two things, communism 14:55.370 --> 14:57.340 and his remaining in office. 14:57.340 --> 15:01.480 By the time I started doing research on him, he came across to me as one 15:01.480 --> 15:03.630 of the most hated people in American history. 15:03.630 --> 15:06.220 It was extremely hard to find anyone 15:06.220 --> 15:08.480 who would support him in a conversation. 15:08.480 --> 15:13.190 He came across as a possibly gay man who harassed gay people, 15:13.190 --> 15:16.840 a man with probably an African American ancestor 15:16.840 --> 15:20.860 who harassed African Americans and a law enforcement person 15:20.860 --> 15:23.020 who placed himself above the law. 15:23.020 --> 15:24.400 So the question that this raised 15:24.400 --> 15:29.190 for me was how does somebody get to be like that? 15:29.190 --> 15:33.030 And in most people I don't just pop out of the womb and decide 15:33.030 --> 15:35.190 to be an autocratic bully. 15:35.190 --> 15:39.010 Now, yes he did have those 4 years at the Library of Congress and-- 15:39.010 --> 15:43.130 [ Laughter ] 15:43.130 --> 15:47.010 But what's striking about him as a youngster is 15:47.010 --> 15:50.090 that his upbringing was shockingly normal. 15:50.090 --> 15:53.160 Here you see him playing with his bike like any young person would do. 15:53.160 --> 15:56.200 He's about 10 years old in this picture. 15:56.200 --> 15:58.220 And he grew up here in Washington. 15:58.220 --> 15:59.830 He was the youngest of 4 children. 15:59.830 --> 16:02.840 He was-- he had a lot of friends. 16:02.840 --> 16:06.130 He was his parent's favorite when he was at Central High School. 16:06.130 --> 16:09.680 His classmates elected him valedictorian even though his grades 16:09.680 --> 16:11.240 made him only 4th. 16:11.240 --> 16:16.410 He was elected to be the captain of the cadet corp. So he had friends. 16:16.410 --> 16:19.980 He was a very normal young kid, very bright, very energetic. 16:19.980 --> 16:23.530 There is that old slogan, absolute power corrupts absolutely, 16:23.530 --> 16:26.640 and that there's certainly an element of that here. 16:26.640 --> 16:31.800 But to me looking at it, what was very striking, I'm of the belief, 16:31.800 --> 16:36.260 I graduated high school, I went to college and started college in 1969 16:36.260 --> 16:40.380 at the height of the Vietnam Era, the anti-war protest 16:40.380 --> 16:44.190 and I strongly believe that anyone who came of age 16:44.190 --> 16:48.080 in that Era was shaped by it in some fundamental way. 16:48.080 --> 16:51.410 And when you look at the era in which Hoover came of age, 16:51.410 --> 16:54.470 something very similar was going on. 16:54.470 --> 16:59.130 Hoover finished college or finished law school in 1917, 16:59.130 --> 17:02.680 that was the year America entered World War I. 17:02.680 --> 17:05.530 Most of his friends were immediately drafted or shipped off 17:05.530 --> 17:08.420 or volunteered to go over there and fight the war. 17:08.420 --> 17:11.560 Hoover should have been a top choice for the military. 17:11.560 --> 17:14.740 As I mentioned, he was captain of his cadet corp in high school. 17:14.740 --> 17:15.550 He enjoyed it. 17:15.550 --> 17:16.980 He enjoyed the camaraderie. 17:16.980 --> 17:18.600 He enjoyed the marching. 17:18.600 --> 17:19.570 He was in good shape. 17:19.570 --> 17:23.260 He was a star on track team and on the cadet team. 17:23.260 --> 17:27.480 But he could not go because the year 1917 17:27.480 --> 17:30.360 when he graduated, his father lost his job. 17:30.360 --> 17:33.320 His father had been a 40-year clerk, 17:33.320 --> 17:35.770 that was when clerk was a good position to have 17:35.770 --> 17:40.200 at the geodetic society that was the precursor of Noah. 17:40.200 --> 17:41.750 He was map printer. 17:41.750 --> 17:45.310 He suffered from mental illness, melancholia. 17:45.310 --> 17:48.060 And he lost his job with no pension. 17:48.060 --> 17:51.330 Young Hoover became the bread winner for the family. 17:51.330 --> 17:54.060 His first job, which he got through a family connection, 17:54.060 --> 17:56.890 was a draft exempt job at the Justice Department. 17:56.890 --> 18:00.400 It was in something called the War Emergency Bureau which was the part 18:00.400 --> 18:03.250 of the Justice Department that handled issues raised 18:03.250 --> 18:05.820 by our participation in World War I. 18:05.820 --> 18:09.990 That included at the time the jailing of dissidents 18:09.990 --> 18:15.020 under the Espionage Act, the requiring of German-Americans 18:15.020 --> 18:19.310 to register with the government, the crack down on slackers, 18:19.310 --> 18:22.990 the tracking of saboteurs, a period of wartime 18:22.990 --> 18:27.950 where wartime security always trump any issue of personal liberty. 18:27.950 --> 18:33.040 And his first big assignment came in 1919 where fate would put him 18:33.040 --> 18:36.510 at the very center of the Red Scare. 18:36.510 --> 18:43.180 Now 1919 was a very strange period in America it was very similar 18:43.180 --> 18:48.260 to the period in this country after the 9/11 attacks, a period of fear, 18:48.260 --> 18:53.820 of paranoia, of crackdown, of vigilance. 18:53.820 --> 18:59.020 It sounds almost silly to say today, 90 years later but there was period 18:59.020 --> 19:04.990 of about 9 months from mid 1919 to around mid early 1920 19:04.990 --> 19:09.410 when it was the mainstream view in this country among rational, 19:09.410 --> 19:13.610 well informed, well intentioned people that we stood on the verge 19:13.610 --> 19:17.360 of a Russian style worker lead Bolshevik Revolution right here 19:17.360 --> 19:20.570 in the U.S.A. Now there were reasons for it. 19:20.570 --> 19:22.540 We all know how things turned out, 19:22.540 --> 19:25.690 but back then there were reasons to think this way. 19:25.690 --> 19:28.760 It was immediately after World War I. 19:28.760 --> 19:31.810 Now, we don't talk much about World War I today. 19:31.810 --> 19:35.270 We talked a lot more about World War II. 19:35.270 --> 19:37.850 World War II was the good war, 19:37.850 --> 19:40.560 the war in which America defeated fascism. 19:40.560 --> 19:43.580 We were on the right side and we were victorious. 19:43.580 --> 19:46.850 World War I by contrast was a real stinker. 19:46.850 --> 19:50.940 Some 16 million people were killed in World War I, 19:50.940 --> 19:53.110 a carnage beyond comprehension 19:53.110 --> 19:56.890 at that time including 7 million civilians. 19:56.890 --> 20:01.980 116,000 American soldiers died in World War I, that's twice the number 20:01.980 --> 20:07.070 as Vietnam and that's even though we got in only at the very tail end. 20:07.070 --> 20:11.050 Most Americans up till the point we entered the war considered it a 20:11.050 --> 20:15.970 pointless blood bath led by incompetent generals on both sides, 20:15.970 --> 20:20.390 a battle between European monarchies in which we had little to do. 20:20.390 --> 20:25.440 Woodrow Wilson was re-elected in 1916 because he kept us out. 20:25.440 --> 20:28.620 Once we got in though, we went in whole heart. 20:28.620 --> 20:32.240 After the war was over rather than peace, 20:32.240 --> 20:34.110 the world immediately entered a new round 20:34.110 --> 20:38.500 of turmoil mostly headlined by Bolshevism. 20:38.500 --> 20:43.230 We mistakenly looked back at the Russian Revolution of 1917 20:43.230 --> 20:45.620 as something that happened in Russia. 20:45.620 --> 20:49.100 The Russian Revolution however was a global event. 20:49.100 --> 20:53.140 After it happened and as soon as the war ended, there was a series 20:53.140 --> 20:58.790 of socialist uprisings in Germany, Hungary, Italy, Argentina, 20:58.790 --> 21:01.030 countries all around the world. 21:01.030 --> 21:04.660 And for a while, no one knew how this was going to turn out. 21:04.660 --> 21:08.760 The entirety of Eastern Europe was engulfed in the Russian Civil War. 21:08.760 --> 21:12.690 We the United States had 8,000 soldiers who were part 21:12.690 --> 21:17.010 of an expeditionary force in Russia that had intervened 21:17.010 --> 21:19.080 in the Russian Civil War. 21:19.080 --> 21:23.780 So we were fighting the Red Army all through 1918 and 1919. 21:23.780 --> 21:29.740 Within America itself, there was a rising tide of upheaval, race riots, 21:29.740 --> 21:34.440 lynching, shootings, political clashes, the economy was in turmoil, 21:34.440 --> 21:38.870 3 million people went on strike that year for better wages, 21:38.870 --> 21:43.030 and most of the leaderships had opened ties to socialism. 21:43.030 --> 21:47.090 Just as scary at that time with the faces of who the militants were 21:47.090 --> 21:50.880 and who the union members were, most of them were recent arrivals 21:50.880 --> 21:52.360 from what we're seeing as the poorest, 21:52.360 --> 21:54.820 most backward countries on earth. 21:54.820 --> 21:59.670 Russians, Poles, Jews, Italians, Eastern Europeans, 21:59.670 --> 22:03.650 people with what were considered unpronounceable last names 22:03.650 --> 22:08.070 who spoke these odd languages, who congregated in city slums 22:08.070 --> 22:11.060 and joined societies of just themselves. 22:11.060 --> 22:13.110 They were considered highly suspect. 22:13.110 --> 22:19.590 It peaked in 1919 in June with a series of bombs across the country 22:19.590 --> 22:22.260 and this was portrayed in the movie. 22:22.260 --> 22:26.210 On June 2nd, 9 bombs went off in different cities all 22:26.210 --> 22:30.410 at about 11 o'clock at night and that killed 2 people. 22:30.410 --> 22:33.080 One of those bombs went off in the house of the Attorney General 22:33.080 --> 22:35.390 of the United States, Mitchell Palmer. 22:35.390 --> 22:37.710 Palmer was in his bedroom at that time. 22:37.710 --> 22:40.730 He and his wife had just gone upstairs to bed, 22:40.730 --> 22:43.060 their teenage daughter was down the hall. 22:43.060 --> 22:45.430 If the bomb had come a few minutes earlier, 22:45.430 --> 22:48.800 they all would have been killed. 22:48.800 --> 22:53.150 When they investigated the bombing, what they found outside 22:53.150 --> 22:58.040 on the street were a set of hand bills on pink paper written 22:58.040 --> 23:02.120 by a group called the Anarchist Fighters demanding warfare 23:02.120 --> 23:03.900 and revolution. 23:03.900 --> 23:05.510 So who was this Mitchell Palmer? 23:05.510 --> 23:07.360 Here you see him as a young congressman 23:07.360 --> 23:09.310 with his friend, Woodrow Wilson. 23:09.310 --> 23:11.300 Palmer was from Pennsylvania. 23:11.300 --> 23:13.780 He represented the Poconos in that area. 23:13.780 --> 23:17.500 Woodrow Wilson was the Governor of New Jersey in this photograph 23:17.500 --> 23:19.490 and the two of them were very friendly. 23:19.490 --> 23:22.710 Up until 1919, the moment of the bombing, 23:22.710 --> 23:25.010 Palmer was about the last person you would expect 23:25.010 --> 23:28.540 to lead a crackdown of the type that he did. 23:28.540 --> 23:30.450 He was a progressive democrat. 23:30.450 --> 23:34.580 He was a Quaker socialist, or excuse me, a Quaker pacifist. 23:34.580 --> 23:39.510 He had introduced legislation for women suffrage, to end child labor, 23:39.510 --> 23:41.960 to recognize labor unions. 23:41.960 --> 23:45.260 He had been offered-- Woodrow Wilson offered him the job of Secretary 23:45.260 --> 23:49.080 of War in 1914 and he turned it down, 23:49.080 --> 23:53.230 because he said I'm a pacifist, it goes against my religious beliefs. 23:53.230 --> 23:57.310 Woodrow Wilson appointed him Attorney General after the war 23:57.310 --> 24:01.750 as a sign of moderation of post war reconciliation with the idea 24:01.750 --> 24:05.550 that Palmer would end the repressive measures of war time. 24:05.550 --> 24:09.880 And in fact in his first few months, Palmer freed about 50 people 24:09.880 --> 24:12.320 who had been jailed under the Espionage Act 24:12.320 --> 24:15.960 and another 2,000 Germans who had been rounded 24:15.960 --> 24:18.610 up as alien enemies during the war. 24:18.610 --> 24:21.550 But, you know, there's something about a bomb going off in your house 24:21.550 --> 24:25.560 and almost killing your family that focuses the mind. 24:25.560 --> 24:30.780 And immediately and literally the next morning, Palmer announced 24:30.780 --> 24:33.800 that he was not going to let this happen again. 24:33.800 --> 24:37.150 He felt as Attorney General, he had a responsibility to crack 24:37.150 --> 24:41.350 down on this lawlessness and to act before the Anarchist, 24:41.350 --> 24:43.950 before the bad guys could strike again. 24:43.950 --> 24:47.560 Not knowing who the bad guys were, 24:47.560 --> 24:50.930 he decided on a massive preemptive strike. 24:50.930 --> 24:54.120 He would round up as many anarchists, 24:54.120 --> 24:57.640 radicals as he could find 24:57.640 --> 25:01.500 and get them off the streets using whatever tools that he have. 25:01.500 --> 25:04.620 And the best tool that he had at that time was the immigration laws. 25:04.620 --> 25:08.560 During war time, that allowed you to deport an immigrant 25:08.560 --> 25:11.250 if they had any connection to anarchism. 25:11.250 --> 25:14.680 President Woodrow Wilson was often [inaudible] negotiating the Peace 25:14.680 --> 25:17.620 Treaty at that time, but there was every indication 25:17.620 --> 25:21.440 that Wilson knew what was going on had been briefed and was supportive. 25:21.440 --> 25:24.720 Certainly most of Wilson's Cabinet was supportive. 25:24.720 --> 25:28.030 To run this operation, Mitchell Palmer looked 25:28.030 --> 25:30.980 for the brightest young man he could find in his office 25:30.980 --> 25:33.760 and that was our friend Young J. Edgar Hoover. 25:33.760 --> 25:37.260 So who was J. Edgar Hoover at this point? 25:37.260 --> 25:42.380 J. Edgar Hoover was 24 years old, 2 years out of school, 25:42.380 --> 25:45.790 a guy living at home with his parents who had gotten his job 25:45.790 --> 25:47.380 at the Justice Department from-- 25:47.380 --> 25:51.180 through a political connection through one of his relatives. 25:51.180 --> 25:54.480 However, during his time there, those 2 years, 25:54.480 --> 25:56.690 he had made a real impression. 25:56.690 --> 25:59.830 He had impressed all of his superiors as an extremely bright 25:59.830 --> 26:02.880 and effective young person on the rise. 26:02.880 --> 26:08.110 He had been given several promotions, several pay raises 26:08.110 --> 26:11.910 and had-- and after the war had gotten a job as a junior attorney 26:11.910 --> 26:14.020 in Mitchell Palmer's office just down the hall 26:14.020 --> 26:16.130 from the attorney general's office. 26:16.130 --> 26:18.700 At work, he dressed well. 26:18.700 --> 26:20.190 He was extremely smart. 26:20.190 --> 26:23.100 He had a good eye for detail, a clean desk. 26:23.100 --> 26:24.930 He was well organized. 26:24.930 --> 26:27.840 He volunteered for assignments, did them well. 26:27.840 --> 26:29.850 He worked nights and weekends. 26:29.850 --> 26:33.600 He studied issues, collected data, always had answers 26:33.600 --> 26:36.200 to questions and was a workaholic. 26:36.200 --> 26:40.460 You all probably know people like that, look out for them. 26:40.460 --> 26:43.590 [ Laughter ] 26:43.590 --> 26:45.520 So what happened? 26:45.520 --> 26:48.490 With Palmer's leadership and Hoover's management, 26:48.490 --> 26:52.700 off they went on the famous Palmer Raids. 26:52.700 --> 26:55.480 Oh, here you see him in high school as a cadet. 26:55.480 --> 26:58.630 Here you see him with some of his friends palling 26:58.630 --> 27:01.850 around before going off to a party, I just like that picture. 27:01.850 --> 27:07.710 This cartoon gives you the basic strategy of the Palmer Raids. 27:07.710 --> 27:13.560 Send them back where they belong, the quicker and harder the better. 27:13.560 --> 27:19.890 Between November 1919 and January 1920, a period of about 3 months 27:19.890 --> 27:23.530 under Hoover's management through a group called the Radical Division 27:23.530 --> 27:26.840 that he was assigned to lead working with local police 27:26.840 --> 27:31.200 and various vigilante groups, the Federal government launched a series 27:31.200 --> 27:36.040 of raids in 30 cities and dozens of smaller towns. 27:36.040 --> 27:38.380 The biggest raids were done on January 2nd, 27:38.380 --> 27:43.840 this was New Year's Eve weekend when people were out having parties. 27:43.840 --> 27:48.780 And during these raids, they rounded up between 5 and 10,000 people, 27:48.780 --> 27:52.790 nobody has the exact number, the raids were extremely violent. 27:52.790 --> 27:56.270 There were beatings, they broke into peoples houses, 27:56.270 --> 27:58.210 dances, community centers. 27:58.210 --> 28:01.790 When they would round-- when they would do a raid at a dance, 28:01.790 --> 28:05.110 they would arrest the dancers, the musicians, the chef's, the waiters, 28:05.110 --> 28:08.250 the people parking the cars, everyone they could find. 28:08.250 --> 28:12.160 The idea was they thought they would sort out later who the bad guys were 28:12.160 --> 28:15.110 but meanwhile they would bring in everyone. 28:15.110 --> 28:17.330 They had no criminal warrants. 28:17.330 --> 28:19.570 This was all done through immigration warrants 28:19.570 --> 28:22.480 of which they had only a handful. 28:22.480 --> 28:26.230 Interrogations were done in secret, no lawyers were permitted, 28:26.230 --> 28:28.540 bail was set at exorbitant levels at a time 28:28.540 --> 28:32.850 when most working people had no bank accounts and no credit cards. 28:32.850 --> 28:35.280 Most of these people were held for months 28:35.280 --> 28:39.950 in makeshift cramped 6prisons, denied access to family or lawyers 28:39.950 --> 28:44.010 and then ultimately they were released not charged with a crime. 28:44.010 --> 28:47.690 What happened in the meantime was that not only did the word 28:47.690 --> 28:51.100 about the abusive arrest leak out but once all 28:51.100 --> 28:53.560 of these people arrested have their opportunity 28:53.560 --> 28:57.840 for a deportation hearing, the fact came 28:57.840 --> 29:01.980 out that the cases were extremely flimsy, extremely thin. 29:01.980 --> 29:06.260 It was a large exercising guilt by association. 29:06.260 --> 29:10.630 I guess the best example I could give you is there was an Italian man 29:10.630 --> 29:15.690 in Chicago who was on one of these communist party membership list. 29:15.690 --> 29:18.460 When he got to his hearing, the judge asked him, 29:18.460 --> 29:20.310 "So why did you become a communist?" 29:20.310 --> 29:21.710 And he said, "Well, it's because I wanted 29:21.710 --> 29:23.850 to learn how to play the violin." 29:23.850 --> 29:28.940 And at first, everyone laughed at him until finally his lawyer, 29:28.940 --> 29:31.510 he had a pro bono lawyer insisted 29:31.510 --> 29:34.130 that somebody translate the actual minutes 29:34.130 --> 29:36.590 of the meeting where he signed up. 29:36.590 --> 29:40.760 And it turned out that the communist party recruiter told them, 29:40.760 --> 29:45.720 "Well we have dinners and we have concerts and this is a chance 29:45.720 --> 29:48.860 to socialize with many of your friends from Russia 29:48.860 --> 29:51.710 and we have a very good orchestra and if you join the communist party, 29:51.710 --> 29:53.940 we'll teach you how to play the violin." 29:53.940 --> 29:57.820 And most of the people who joined, it turned out had little idea 29:57.820 --> 30:00.060 of what these organizations were about. 30:00.060 --> 30:03.990 The communist party did not exist until 1919. 30:03.990 --> 30:05.610 The word was brand new. 30:05.610 --> 30:08.370 Most people thought it was either a social organization, 30:08.370 --> 30:11.230 a way to keep track of current events in Russia 30:11.230 --> 30:16.630 or to if they were backing political change, it was along the line 30:16.630 --> 30:20.680 of socialism as espoused by Eugene Debs. 30:20.680 --> 30:24.250 Sure enough, word got out about what was going on. 30:24.250 --> 30:27.220 What has started as a very, very popular exercise, 30:27.220 --> 30:30.990 the rounding up of these radicals, became very unpopular 30:30.990 --> 30:33.980 in a short period of time. 30:33.980 --> 30:37.940 In my book, I talked about some of the people who led the opposition. 30:37.940 --> 30:40.870 I'll skip that now for time purposes. 30:40.870 --> 30:45.150 This is Felix Frankfurter who was then a lawyer at Harvard 30:45.150 --> 30:49.300 who led a habeas corpus action on behalf of the communist 30:49.300 --> 30:53.260 who were arrested in the Boston area that he used to disclose some 30:53.260 --> 30:56.820 of the abusive methods that have been used by the police. 30:56.820 --> 31:00.920 This is Clarence Darrow who represented many of the communist 31:00.920 --> 31:05.310 who had been arrested in the round ups on free speech grounds. 31:05.310 --> 31:08.680 They were dramatic trials in very hostile court rooms 31:08.680 --> 31:10.770 that only someone like Clarence Darrow would have had the 31:10.770 --> 31:14.120 wherewithal to carry off. 31:14.120 --> 31:18.190 And finally this is a man named Louis Post, 31:18.190 --> 31:21.430 as the Assistant Secretary of Labor at that time. 31:21.430 --> 31:24.380 He was in charge of deportations and he-- 31:24.380 --> 31:28.510 basically when these reached his desk, he canceled several thousand 31:28.510 --> 31:33.950 of them to the point that Hoover and Palmer tried to get him impeached. 31:33.950 --> 31:36.420 Much of what we know about the Palmer Raids comes 31:36.420 --> 31:40.470 from the transcript of the impeachment's trial of Louis Post. 31:40.470 --> 31:42.510 Louis Post was not impeached. 31:42.510 --> 31:45.270 He acquitted himself very well. 31:45.270 --> 31:49.170 All of which brings us back to our friend, Hoover. 31:49.170 --> 31:52.320 Michel Palmer was destroyed politically by the Palmer Raids. 31:52.320 --> 31:54.530 He did run for President in 1920. 31:54.530 --> 31:58.900 He went to the Democratic Convention that year which ran for 44 ballots. 31:58.900 --> 32:01.180 He lost to James Cox. 32:01.180 --> 32:05.240 James Cox in turn lost to Warren G. Harding, the Republican. 32:05.240 --> 32:08.340 Warren G. Harding was promising a return to normalcy 32:08.340 --> 32:12.730 which after the Palmer Raids made a lot sense to a lot of people. 32:12.730 --> 32:16.400 Not withstanding Hoover's role, however, 32:16.400 --> 32:20.620 he managed to turn defeat into victory. 32:20.620 --> 32:23.880 He survived not only the transition from the Hoover-- 32:23.880 --> 32:25.530 from the Woodrow-Wilson Administration 32:25.530 --> 32:30.590 to the Harding Administration, but in May 1924, 4 years later, 32:30.590 --> 32:33.810 he was asked by Harlan Fiske Stone, the new Attorney General 32:33.810 --> 32:37.600 to become the acting director of the Bureau of Investigation. 32:37.600 --> 32:42.480 The irony is that Harlan Fiske Stone was one of the lawyers 32:42.480 --> 32:48.320 who opposed the raids, who took a substantial personal risk 32:48.320 --> 32:52.230 to present testimony to congress against the raids, 32:52.230 --> 32:55.160 accusing Palmer of abuse of power. 32:55.160 --> 32:59.640 Yet 4 years later, he met this bright young man 32:59.640 --> 33:05.130 who he thought he could use as his vehicle to reform the bureau. 33:05.130 --> 33:07.390 And once in power, Hoover implemented 33:07.390 --> 33:09.340 that reform very effectively. 33:09.340 --> 33:13.370 It was a master piece of bureaucratic dexterity. 33:13.370 --> 33:17.680 Hoover learned much from his coming of age adventure. 33:17.680 --> 33:21.690 He learned a life long distrust of communism, a life long distrust 33:21.690 --> 33:25.540 of liberals, anyone who defends criminals behind the veneer 33:25.540 --> 33:28.880 of civil liberties and free speech, and a life long sense 33:28.880 --> 33:33.070 of empowerment either to protect the country or protect himself. 33:33.070 --> 33:35.720 And all these started here at the Library of Congress. 33:35.720 --> 33:36.380 [ Laughter ] 33:36.380 --> 33:41.120 So I hope all of you do your work well, do your research well 33:41.120 --> 33:43.240 and you too can achieve great things 33:43.240 --> 33:45.920 but I hope you will keep the dark side under control. 33:45.920 --> 33:46.570 [ Laughter ] 33:46.570 --> 33:47.600 And with that I thank you. 33:47.600 --> 33:48.000 [ Applause ] 33:48.000 --> 33:57.010 >> We do have time for questions and comments. 33:57.010 --> 33:59.820 My instructions are since we're tapping, if you have questions, 33:59.820 --> 34:02.490 I will repeat them so that they'll be on the tape. 34:02.490 --> 34:03.010 Yes sir? 34:03.010 --> 34:06.550 >> Just a comment on the J. Edgar movie. 34:06.550 --> 34:09.410 I saw it and I was fascinated with it. 34:09.410 --> 34:12.120 I read Richard Gid Power's biography of Hoover 34:12.120 --> 34:15.430 which I thought was very well done and I assume you drew on that. 34:15.430 --> 34:16.040 >> Yes. 34:16.040 --> 34:17.150 >> Who wrote the book. 34:17.150 --> 34:21.490 I think the problem with the movie is that there are scenes 34:21.490 --> 34:24.450 that are presented that seem to be objective reality 34:24.450 --> 34:28.080 but in fact Hoover is dictating his memoirs at that time. 34:28.080 --> 34:31.110 So he's embellishing but without a voice over, 34:31.110 --> 34:32.690 you don't-- you lose tract of that. 34:32.690 --> 34:36.370 You don't understand that it's Hoover's version. 34:36.370 --> 34:39.870 He's condemning the card catalog and then posing 34:39.870 --> 34:41.870 to the Naomi Watts character. 34:41.870 --> 34:45.960 So I think that's where you deal with the confuse in terms 34:45.960 --> 34:48.180 of the inaccuracies of the movie. 34:48.180 --> 34:51.720 >> [Inaudible] and I think it's a good point that the movie 34:51.720 --> 34:54.800 as I saw it, I saw it in very similar way that to you is 34:54.800 --> 34:58.080 that it tried to do a lot of different things 34:58.080 --> 35:00.180 and probably bit off a little too much. 35:00.180 --> 35:01.050 >> Yeah. 35:01.050 --> 35:04.880 >> As a result some parts of it got confusing particularly the flash 35:04.880 --> 35:06.030 backs back and forth. 35:06.030 --> 35:08.750 The flash backs were generally, as you say, 35:08.750 --> 35:11.320 Hoover dictating his biography 35:11.320 --> 35:13.770 and sometimes it became unclear what was intended 35:13.770 --> 35:15.530 to be his point of view. 35:15.530 --> 35:19.820 But some of those flash backs which start as his point of view 35:19.820 --> 35:22.940 and then morph into the story of him and Mr. Tolson 35:22.940 --> 35:25.780 which became more what was supposed to be more 35:25.780 --> 35:29.930 of an objective story even though a lot of that was based on conjecture. 35:29.930 --> 35:32.500 So it was-- there were parts that were confusing. 35:32.500 --> 35:34.400 Yes ma'am or yes sir? 35:34.400 --> 35:36.470 >> Another question about the movie. 35:36.470 --> 35:39.210 When Hoover was challenged 35:39.210 --> 35:45.200 that he had never arrested the victims himself, he goes out 35:45.200 --> 35:48.280 and gets a machine gun, he gets some support 35:48.280 --> 35:53.340 and makes [inaudible] really involve arrest in the movie. 35:53.340 --> 35:56.780 Was that real state-- was that reality I mean? 35:56.780 --> 36:00.290 >> Well he was involved in the arrest of Alvin Karpis although-- 36:00.290 --> 36:02.570 which is one of the ones they do portray in the movie, 36:02.570 --> 36:04.850 although it's-- his exact role is unclear. 36:04.850 --> 36:07.210 Obviously, he went in with a group of people. 36:07.210 --> 36:09.180 He was the administrator of the agency. 36:09.180 --> 36:13.250 It wasn't his job to be the guy with the gun arresting people. 36:13.250 --> 36:18.590 I pointed out in an article on this recently that people accused Hoover 36:18.590 --> 36:22.290 of being personally not being a-- 36:22.290 --> 36:24.220 of showing personal cowardice 'cause he wasn't 36:24.220 --> 36:27.290 in the front line arresting people and I thought 36:27.290 --> 36:28.960 that was an unfair criticism. 36:28.960 --> 36:30.140 That wasn't his job. 36:30.140 --> 36:33.830 He was the head of bureau administering a nationwide 36:33.830 --> 36:35.910 organization of police. 36:35.910 --> 36:39.010 When he was young during the Palmer Raids and he had that job, 36:39.010 --> 36:43.580 he did have an opportunity to go out on one particular raid in Patterson, 36:43.580 --> 36:46.520 New Jersey which was in fact very dangerous. 36:46.520 --> 36:50.960 A group that was quite radical and violent and he made a point 36:50.960 --> 36:52.930 to go out with his agents. 36:52.930 --> 36:55.240 He was right there at the front of them. 36:55.240 --> 36:58.690 He personally conducted several of the interrogations and, 36:58.690 --> 37:01.210 you know, he showed his stuff. 37:01.210 --> 37:04.510 You know, yes, he did not conduct many arrest 'cause 37:04.510 --> 37:09.410 that wasn't his job, but to me that criticism was a little over done 37:09.410 --> 37:12.650 and I thought his reaction to it-- 37:12.650 --> 37:16.580 his defensiveness about it was also overdone. 37:16.580 --> 37:18.280 Yes sir? 37:18.280 --> 37:25.110 >> The house on Seward Square where Hoover grew up if it's still there 37:25.110 --> 37:28.290 and if it was not still there, what's there? 37:28.290 --> 37:29.830 >> It's not there however. 37:29.830 --> 37:31.350 >> You have to repeat the question. 37:31.350 --> 37:31.990 >> Oh I'm sorry. 37:31.990 --> 37:35.770 The house on Seward Square where Hoover grew up, is it still there 37:35.770 --> 37:37.470 and if it's not there, what's there? 37:37.470 --> 37:41.860 The house is not there however a lot of the houses from that era are. 37:41.860 --> 37:43.710 And so if you go over to Seward Square, 37:43.710 --> 37:45.450 you can see exactly what the house looked like, 37:45.450 --> 37:47.100 just look for the other houses on the block. 37:47.100 --> 37:53.680 I believe the number was 413 or 415, so somewhere in that range. 37:53.680 --> 37:57.020 And I believe there's a church on that specific spot right now. 37:57.020 --> 37:58.730 >> I believe there's a church there. 37:58.730 --> 38:02.030 I believe the window is named to J. Edgar Hoover, a window. 38:02.030 --> 38:03.680 >> That would make sense. 38:03.680 --> 38:05.090 That would make good sense. 38:05.090 --> 38:06.140 >> Upon the way out. 38:06.140 --> 38:08.940 A few weeks ago, there was an article 38:08.940 --> 38:11.870 and they post 5 myths about J. Edgar Hoover. 38:11.870 --> 38:12.270 >> Yes. 38:12.270 --> 38:13.970 >> I think you wrote that, is that correct? 38:13.970 --> 38:17.160 >> Yes I wrote that article in Washington Post. 38:17.160 --> 38:17.610 [ Laughter ] 38:17.610 --> 38:18.690 >> I'm guilty as charged. 38:18.690 --> 38:20.560 >> But I hear because the movie came out 38:20.560 --> 38:22.320 and I thought it was very accurate. 38:22.320 --> 38:30.640 I was in the Library of Congress in 1959 for a few months 38:30.640 --> 38:34.880 and I later went and became an FBI agent for 25 years. 38:34.880 --> 38:41.270 I know J. Edgar Hoover but I appreciate your comments 38:41.270 --> 38:45.620 about J. Edgar Hoover and how some things in that movie might be missed 38:45.620 --> 38:48.070 or might be over extended. 38:48.070 --> 38:49.830 >> Well, I appreciate it thank you very much. 38:49.830 --> 38:52.490 It was an article in the Washington Post called 5 myths 38:52.490 --> 38:54.230 about J. Edgar Hoover. 38:54.230 --> 38:57.440 The one-- I'll just bring it out because it's 38:57.440 --> 39:01.450 that one question everyone always raises which was so what's the story 39:01.450 --> 39:05.440 with Clyde Tolson which always comes up. 39:05.440 --> 39:08.980 And basically this, yes Hoover 39:08.980 --> 39:12.760 and Clyde Tolson had a very longstanding relationship. 39:12.760 --> 39:15.790 He-- Clyde Tolson was hired into the bureau 39:15.790 --> 39:18.290 by Mr. Hoover in the late 1920's. 39:18.290 --> 39:21.560 He made him his associate director basically the number 2 39:21.560 --> 39:24.930 in the bureau in the early 1930's. 39:24.930 --> 39:28.330 They travel together both on vacations and personally. 39:28.330 --> 39:30.240 They have lunch together everyday. 39:30.240 --> 39:33.400 They spent a lot of their personal time together. 39:33.400 --> 39:36.820 There are a lot of old photographs of them when they were young coming 39:36.820 --> 39:38.770 to work in matching clothes. 39:38.770 --> 39:41.620 In fact not just matching clothes but you would see a, you know, 39:41.620 --> 39:46.220 a dozen or so gray looking men and then these 2 guys 39:46.220 --> 39:50.490 in sharp suits together in the middle. 39:50.490 --> 39:56.360 That's a well known, when Hoover died, he left the bulk of his estate 39:56.360 --> 39:59.040 to Mr. Tolson in his will. 39:59.040 --> 40:02.240 What they did behind closed doors, these were two people 40:02.240 --> 40:04.370 who were extremely discreet. 40:04.370 --> 40:08.630 They recognized that if-- that if anything was going on, 40:08.630 --> 40:11.760 if they did have a gay relationship that it could destroy both 40:11.760 --> 40:13.750 of their careers and these were 2 people who were not 40:13.750 --> 40:15.290 about to let that happen. 40:15.290 --> 40:19.110 So the fact that we don't know is not a surprise 40:19.110 --> 40:21.080 but the fact is that we don't know. 40:21.080 --> 40:22.720 Yes ma'am? 40:22.720 --> 40:26.000 >> Were there any photos of a girl who-- 40:26.000 --> 40:27.920 while he was working at the library? 40:27.920 --> 40:30.620 I suspect not or [inaudible]. 40:30.620 --> 40:31.990 >> Yeah, I've never seen any. 40:31.990 --> 40:34.060 There maybe, but I've never seen them. 40:34.060 --> 40:35.570 Yes ma'am? 40:35.570 --> 40:39.260 >> What about the relationship with his mother? 40:39.260 --> 40:42.480 >> The relationship with his mother. 40:42.480 --> 40:45.750 His mother Annie Scheitlin was her name, 40:45.750 --> 40:49.500 she was the granddaughter of a Swiss diplomat. 40:49.500 --> 40:52.020 Her grandfather was the first consul 40:52.020 --> 40:55.060 from Switzerland to come over to America. 40:55.060 --> 40:57.990 And he was very well known in this country. 40:57.990 --> 41:00.940 During the Civil War, he had a high profile. 41:00.940 --> 41:05.760 He and his family made a point to go in and work at in hospitals 41:05.760 --> 41:08.390 where Union soldiers were being treated. 41:08.390 --> 41:11.540 After the war, he made a lot of money as a banker. 41:11.540 --> 41:15.040 He helped create what was called the [inaudible] Institute for the Deaf. 41:15.040 --> 41:19.160 He helped create-- he was very close to the founder of Gallaudet College. 41:19.160 --> 41:21.730 At his funeral, which is a very striking event, 41:21.730 --> 41:26.900 and Young J. Edgar was like a 12 year old, remembered going to it. 41:26.900 --> 41:30.380 It drew a slew of celebrities. 41:30.380 --> 41:33.310 Helen Keller was there. 41:33.310 --> 41:34.970 Clara Barton was there. 41:34.970 --> 41:37.560 The Swiss Ambassador was there. 41:37.560 --> 41:39.580 Alexander Graham Bell was there. 41:39.580 --> 41:41.290 So a very well known person 41:41.290 --> 41:44.320 and there were several other very prominent people on the Hoover, 41:44.320 --> 41:48.380 excuse me, on the Scheitlin side of the family. 41:48.380 --> 41:53.490 She was the stronger personality certainly in the household. 41:53.490 --> 42:00.170 Mr. Hoover, J. Edgar's father was a 40-year long federal employee 42:00.170 --> 42:02.080 as I mentioned, a map printer. 42:02.080 --> 42:04.440 He did suffer from mental illness. 42:04.440 --> 42:07.150 He had what they called melancholia. 42:07.150 --> 42:11.030 That was the word they used, what that meant is very unclear. 42:11.030 --> 42:15.060 He was committed to an asylum in Laurel, Maryland. 42:15.060 --> 42:17.950 How exactly he was treated is very unclear, 42:17.950 --> 42:21.180 although the way they treated people back then was not-- 42:21.180 --> 42:24.670 what we would consider I think barbaric by modern standards. 42:24.670 --> 42:26.980 They used shock therapies of different kinds 42:26.980 --> 42:28.560 on people who were there. 42:28.560 --> 42:30.600 But at any rate as a result of that, 42:30.600 --> 42:33.960 she was very much the stronger personality in the household. 42:33.960 --> 42:40.440 He did live with-- his father died in the early 1920's and after that, 42:40.440 --> 42:43.030 Hoover stayed in his mother's household 42:43.030 --> 42:46.500 until the day she died in the mid 1930's. 42:46.500 --> 42:51.240 He described her later on to reporters as the person 42:51.240 --> 42:55.030 who taught him discipline, right and wrong, 42:55.030 --> 42:59.540 who had a certain marshall spirit in the household. 42:59.540 --> 43:02.230 So that the way she was portrayed in the movie 43:02.230 --> 43:05.830 as the very strong personality, the shaping personality, 43:05.830 --> 43:08.170 there is a lot behind that. 43:08.170 --> 43:11.020 Whether she was quite as controlling as they made her out of the movie, 43:11.020 --> 43:15.230 I don't know but, but that basic dynamic seems to hold up. 43:15.230 --> 43:17.770 In the back? 43:17.770 --> 43:22.460 >> Oh yes when Frances Perkins became Secretary of Labor, 43:22.460 --> 43:24.560 as soon as she took over the department 43:24.560 --> 43:28.010 which included immigration at that time, she found a huge number 43:28.010 --> 43:31.850 of irregularities in the immigration records and a number of people went 43:31.850 --> 43:35.030 to jail for shaking down immigrants 43:35.030 --> 43:42.460 and were essentially blackmailing even legal immigrants 43:42.460 --> 43:47.680 that they would pursue and try to extort money 43:47.680 --> 43:53.890 from them to permit them to stay. 43:53.890 --> 44:03.540 She was very fearful after that and kept off her own records of things 44:03.540 --> 44:10.060 because she was afraid of what would happen to her. 44:10.060 --> 44:17.150 Did you ever come across any-- anything in the '20s and early '30s 44:17.150 --> 44:21.790 where Hoover might have been in some way associated with any corrupt, 44:21.790 --> 44:27.260 you, know for financial gain deporting [inaudible]. 44:27.260 --> 44:29.820 >> A couple of things on that. 44:29.820 --> 44:32.930 It's-- we have a very gauzy, nostalgic image 44:32.930 --> 44:39.510 of what immigration was like in this country in the 1920's and 19-teens 44:39.510 --> 44:43.990 when our grandparents and great grandparents came over. 44:43.990 --> 44:46.650 It was a very tough system. 44:46.650 --> 44:51.680 And in fact on Ellis Island in the teens and '20s, 44:51.680 --> 44:57.430 there were several investigations into corruption and rings 44:57.430 --> 45:02.590 that were shaking down immigrants in many different ways 45:02.590 --> 45:04.320 from the cafeterias to the railroads to-- 45:04.320 --> 45:08.430 there was quite a lot of fraud that was going on. 45:08.430 --> 45:11.560 There were several investigations, several prosecutions. 45:11.560 --> 45:15.750 Hoover personally was not really involved with that. 45:15.750 --> 45:18.210 His involvement with immigration had been on the-- 45:18.210 --> 45:20.250 through the deportations, 45:20.250 --> 45:24.970 his attempt to deportations in the teens and '20s. 45:24.970 --> 45:30.560 During World War I, Ellis Island was essentially a prison. 45:30.560 --> 45:34.270 It was the place where German sailors were being held 45:34.270 --> 45:37.660 until they could figure out what to do with them at the end of the war. 45:37.660 --> 45:40.410 It was where subversives were being held. 45:40.410 --> 45:42.890 If any of you go Ellis Island, 45:42.890 --> 45:49.890 you'll notice the big main hall has been restored to its current status. 45:49.890 --> 45:54.030 But there are a couple of other buildings that have not and one 45:54.030 --> 45:57.490 of them, I had a chance to see when I was researching the book, 45:57.490 --> 45:59.900 it was the baggage and dormitory room 45:59.900 --> 46:01.000 which is basically a big prison. 46:01.000 --> 46:04.860 It was where Emma Goldman was kept 46:04.860 --> 46:12.260 with Alexander Berkman while they were getting ready to deport them. 46:12.260 --> 46:14.610 People were kept several hundred to a room. 46:14.610 --> 46:16.170 So it was very tough. 46:16.170 --> 46:20.980 Hoover as far as being having anything to do with these kinds 46:20.980 --> 46:23.550 of bad practices towards immigrants, 46:23.550 --> 46:26.940 I've not ran into anything that would support that. 46:26.940 --> 46:31.840 The fact that Frances Perkins found all of these and the fact 46:31.840 --> 46:34.880 that she felt that she had to be as careful 46:34.880 --> 46:39.000 as she was is very documentable, it's very sound. 46:39.000 --> 46:39.990 More questions? 46:39.990 --> 46:43.840 >> What became of Hoover's siblings and did they-- 46:43.840 --> 46:49.840 what kind of relationship did they have with him or comments 46:49.840 --> 46:53.790 on what his career ended up being? 46:53.790 --> 46:58.900 >> He had a very kind of competitive relationship with one 46:58.900 --> 47:03.550 of his brothers, one of his older brothers. 47:03.550 --> 47:10.100 His brother got a big job right around the time that Hoover got 47:10.100 --> 47:12.840 to be the head of the radical division. 47:12.840 --> 47:19.370 He was-- became the inspector general of the steamboat commission 47:19.370 --> 47:25.760 which at that time was a very important agency in Washington. 47:25.760 --> 47:29.020 We had a lot of steamships in America and so-- 47:29.020 --> 47:34.810 it was like being the head of the aviation commission. 47:34.810 --> 47:37.920 So it's a very good job and he used to needle Hoover over it. 47:37.920 --> 47:40.000 He used to needle J. Edgar over it. 47:40.000 --> 47:42.530 This is Hoover, Annie Scheitlin Hoover, 47:42.530 --> 47:45.520 very much favored her youngest son. 47:45.520 --> 47:46.600 And Hoover's older-- J. 47:46.600 --> 47:50.570 Edgar's older brother resented it quite a bit. 47:50.570 --> 47:52.740 Their interviews that he gave 47:52.740 --> 47:57.760 as a middle aged man describing how he had to push around Young J. Edgar 47:57.760 --> 48:02.710 in a baby carriage all over Capitol Hill when he was growing 48:02.710 --> 48:06.750 up because mother wanted him to take care of precious little J. Edgar. 48:06.750 --> 48:10.380 He had one younger sister who died in child, excuse me, 48:10.380 --> 48:15.470 older sister who died in childbirth, another older sister who got married 48:15.470 --> 48:17.490 when Hoover was quite young. 48:17.490 --> 48:21.510 The wonder, who he had the nicest relationship 48:21.510 --> 48:23.010 in a way was his niece, Margaret. 48:23.010 --> 48:26.940 J. Edgar's oldest sister got married and moved into the house next door 48:26.940 --> 48:29.790 on Seward Square and they had 2 daughters and 1 of them was 48:29.790 --> 48:34.060 about 10 years younger than J. Edgar, her name was Margaret. 48:34.060 --> 48:36.560 They show her at one point in the movie but Hoover used 48:36.560 --> 48:38.150 to pal around with her a lot. 48:38.150 --> 48:40.110 There are stories about how when they were growing up, 48:40.110 --> 48:41.540 they used to takes walks together in the summer. 48:41.540 --> 48:44.630 Washington's summers are terrible as you know. 48:44.630 --> 48:47.160 The weather here is hot, hazy and humid 48:47.160 --> 48:50.150 and it is terrible to be in your house. 48:50.150 --> 48:53.990 So Hoover and little Margaret would walk all over town, 48:53.990 --> 48:55.600 sometimes hours at a time. 48:55.600 --> 48:58.780 They would walk down to 7th Street 48:58.780 --> 49:00.850 to see movies and they were friendly. 49:00.850 --> 49:05.650 There was one time when they eluded to go see a movie 49:05.650 --> 49:08.900 but they didn't really explain it. 49:08.900 --> 49:12.040 There was one point when Hoover was-- 49:12.040 --> 49:15.900 when J. Edgar was suffering from stress related to all 49:15.900 --> 49:21.110 of the pressure of arresting all those people during the Palmer Raids 49:21.110 --> 49:25.750 and a doc-- he went to see a doctor and the doctor told him 49:25.750 --> 49:29.410 that he needed to start smoking cigarettes. 49:29.410 --> 49:29.810 [ Laughter ] 49:29.810 --> 49:32.750 And you laugh but it was a very common thing in the teens and '20s, 49:32.750 --> 49:34.310 doctors felt that cigarettes were good to settle to your nerves. 49:34.310 --> 49:35.000 They were a common influence. 49:35.000 --> 49:36.200 And so a doctor told him to start smoking. 49:36.200 --> 49:37.910 And he thought he was doing a favor but he tried to get Margaret 49:37.910 --> 49:39.410 to start smoking because he thought it would be good for her. 49:39.410 --> 49:40.880 She was very young at that time, she tried it and didn't 49:40.880 --> 49:41.570 like it at all and stopped. 49:41.570 --> 49:43.430 But that was probably the one that he was closest to, was Margaret. 49:43.430 --> 49:43.830 Uhm-- hmm? 49:43.830 --> 49:45.230 >> His card goes to the high school, a successive Central High School? 49:45.230 --> 49:45.680 >> Yes, that's correct. 49:45.680 --> 49:46.340 [Inaudible] high school is that building. 49:46.340 --> 49:46.740 Uhm-- hmm? 49:46.740 --> 49:47.990 >> Any reflections on his personal relationship with any 49:47.990 --> 49:48.860 of the presidents he served with? 49:48.860 --> 49:49.730 >> On the presidents he served with. 49:49.730 --> 49:51.320 You know, it's interesting the image always is that Hoover managed 49:51.320 --> 49:52.940 to keep his job by blackmailing presidents and that's, you know, 49:52.940 --> 49:54.440 yes there is some of the files he had could be embarrassing 49:54.440 --> 49:56.030 to a number of presidents and probably with John Kennedy, 49:56.030 --> 49:57.110 Hoover did come across some of his affairs 49:57.110 --> 49:58.370 with women before they became public knowledge and, 49:58.370 --> 49:59.120 you know, yes that was an issue. 49:59.120 --> 50:00.620 But what's I guess is surprising is that his relationships 50:00.620 --> 50:02.380 to presidents were generally much better than the image. 50:02.380 --> 50:04.700 If anything he had a particularly good relationship 50:04.700 --> 50:06.380 with Franklin Roosevelt. 50:06.380 --> 50:08.860 Both of them-- when you think about it, both of them believed 50:08.860 --> 50:11.260 in a strong central government. 50:11.260 --> 50:14.900 FDR for purposes of the new deal and reviving the economy, 50:14.900 --> 50:17.110 Hoover for purposes of law enforcement. 50:17.110 --> 50:19.850 So the two of them saw things eye to eye. 50:19.850 --> 50:25.510 It was Franklin Roosevelt who asked Hoover to get back, 50:25.510 --> 50:28.680 involved in counter espionage in the late 1930's 50:28.680 --> 50:30.820 against the fatuous semicommunist. 50:30.820 --> 50:32.720 Hoover did not ask to that. 50:32.720 --> 50:35.750 It was FDR who raised it. 50:35.750 --> 50:38.510 Given the chance, Hoover of course jumped in with both feet 50:38.510 --> 50:39.900 but it was FDR who raised it. 50:39.900 --> 50:43.080 As mostly the post war presidents that he had problems with. 50:43.080 --> 50:43.990 >> Two more questions. 50:43.990 --> 50:44.930 >> Okay, ma'am? 50:44.930 --> 50:48.980 >> I presume J. Edgar didn't have any personal favors. 50:48.980 --> 50:51.590 What were some of your best sources? 50:51.590 --> 50:53.980 >> Well, obviously the Library of Congress. 50:53.980 --> 50:57.740 There were John that mentioned there were some 14 paper collections here 50:57.740 --> 50:58.780 that [inaudible]. 50:58.780 --> 51:00.380 >> [Inaudible] in the manuscripts. 51:00.380 --> 51:06.890 >> Yes. It's just in the manuscript division plus the newspapers 51:06.890 --> 51:08.740 and magazine sections. 51:08.740 --> 51:15.440 In addition to that, probably the best source was the FBI files 51:15.440 --> 51:18.090 themselves from that period. 51:18.090 --> 51:22.370 There is a very good collection from them some time in the 1950's. 51:22.370 --> 51:25.050 They threw them all out and they microfilmed them. 51:25.050 --> 51:32.460 The card catalog itself covers a hundred reels of film. 51:32.460 --> 51:36.830 The rest of the files cover another thousand reels of film. 51:36.830 --> 51:40.080 This is just from the period of 1918 to 1922. 51:40.080 --> 51:40.890 >> Oh my goodness. 51:40.890 --> 51:45.890 >> And so, it's a huge source of material. 51:45.890 --> 51:47.310 What I did find though that-- 51:47.310 --> 51:51.270 was that to talk about Hoover as a young man, it was impossible to talk 51:51.270 --> 51:55.300 to anyone because no one is neutral about J. Edgar Hoover. 51:55.300 --> 51:57.780 Everyone has an attitude one way or the other. 51:57.780 --> 52:00.570 I felt the only way I could do the job honestly was to look 52:00.570 --> 52:05.130 at contemporary papers, what people were saying at the time. 52:05.130 --> 52:05.530 >> Yeah. 52:05.530 --> 52:08.590 >> Before they had a chance to become prejudiced one way 52:08.590 --> 52:11.980 or the other, and one more? 52:11.980 --> 52:13.390 >> Alright, we will end. 52:13.390 --> 52:22.510 Let's give Ken a hand. 52:22.510 --> 52:22.910 [ Applause ] 52:22.910 --> 52:23.310 >> Okay. 52:23.310 --> 52:23.710 >> Okay. 52:23.710 --> 52:26.840 >> And not only was that a thorough presentation about the topic 52:26.840 --> 52:30.760 but you could get a sense of Ken's thoroughness as a researcher 52:30.760 --> 52:33.530 and Caroline [phonetic] in fact reminded me, 52:33.530 --> 52:36.850 I forgot to mention how many of the resources at the Library 52:36.850 --> 52:39.230 of Congess that Ken had used. 52:39.230 --> 52:42.220 But you can tell that he is a [inaudible] researcher 52:42.220 --> 52:46.260 and an articulate spokesperson and really a wonderful biographer. 52:46.260 --> 52:49.770 And we will now move to the book signing part of this 52:49.770 --> 52:51.760 and I'll have Ken sit here. 52:51.760 --> 52:55.940 And if we could form the line this way as it works a little better. 52:55.940 --> 52:59.870 The book or the paper back version of this is on sale from the shop 52:59.870 --> 53:02.110 at the Library for 17 dollars. 53:02.110 --> 53:04.410 And you could get it signed today but let's conclude 53:04.410 --> 53:08.730 with another round of applause for Ken Ackerman. 53:08.730 --> 53:09.540 [ Applause ] 53:09.540 --> 53:13.190 >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. 53:13.190 --> 53:16.130 Visit us at loc.gov.