Customer Reviews
Ultimate blackmail - By: Mr. R. J. Wilson, 29 Nov 2008 
An absolutely brilliant book that blows the lid off the myth of J. Edgar Hoover as a top crimefighter. The book shows how too much power in the hand of one man without scruitiny can corrupt absolutely. I found it fascinating how Hoover could turn information so easily into blackmail of the establishment & how his own corruption was used against him by the Mafia.
I also recommend "Legacy of Ashes" a history of the CIA - another brilliant read.
An amazing expose - By: Mrs. TK Ellis, 24 Oct 2008 This book is an excellent account of the life & times of J Edgar Hoover. It reveals that a man who is still considered to be one of the finest lawmen in the 20th century was, in fact, a morallly corrupt individual who would use any dirty trick to get his own way.
The book starts with Hoover's early life, & takes the reader through his schooling & his first jobs with the Justice Department. It also shows that with the connections he made & the decisions of his bosses at the time, he was able to secure himself the job as Director of the Bureau of Investigation, later to be the FBI.
This book is completely engrossing & apart from the fact the author engages his readers through intelligent & fluid narration, the one thing that keeps you reading is the disbelief that a man in his position could have stooped so low to get what he wanted.
His predilection for blackmail was obvious from early on in his career. He was an intelligent individual who realised early on that he could manipulate the most powerful men in the country, through the fear that he had something on them, so believable was the concept that he wiretapped them. His ability to ride roughshod over the civil liberties of his fellow countrymen was absolutely breathtaking. It was not just the fact that he listened to salacious pieces of gossip & sexual tittle-tattle, but the fact that every whisper, suspicion or just malicious rumour was noted & filed for use later on.
His unwillingness to pursue the Mafia, his treatment of fellow homosexuals, his blackmailing of Presidents & politicians, his inability to cooperate with other federal authorities, his attitude to civil liberties, African Americans & any one he considered lesser to himself is astounding. It is shocking that a man with such a narrow-mind & appetite for power could run such a powerful agency for alll that time, abusing the rights of others with mindless abandon, even his friends, like the Agent Melvin Purvis, were not exempt from his petty tantrums.
I would heartily recommend this book, it will leave you feeling amazed & shocked but so engrossing is the narrative that you will not be able to put it down. This book is worth every penny, one of my favourite books this year. Anthony Summers has done a fantastic job & I look forward to reading his other works.
Miss Hoover, I presume - By: Mrs. A. Hunt, 18 Jul 2007 When this book came out, a lot was made of the sexual side of this man, that Anthony Summers found out Hoover was a cross dresser, a homosexual. Yet the critics missed the main point of the book which is to show just how corrupt this man was, how he thought he was untouchable, his Mafia links, how he held the files on every American who mattered. This guy could crush a public figure with a blink of an eye.
To many Hoover was a public figure to be held in high regard, a true American. Yet we find out he was a racist who spent his life tormented by the thought that he himself came from black blood.
What scared me more than anything about this expose was the fact that this man was alllowed free reign to do whatever he pleased under the guise of bieng the head of the FBI. His involvement & the coverage in the book on the deaths of John Dillinger & Marilyn Monroe as well as the death of JFK shocked me.
To anyone interested in recent American history, please read this. It will cast a new light on the macinations of the FBI under this man, it will show just how corrupt the American system can be when in the wrong hands.
The fact he was a cross dressing homosexual was bad enough (although the vision of him in a dress & high heels is a great source of entertainment) but this book goes far deeper.
I never liked Hoover, always thought he looked shifty, this books shows just how shifty he was.
Again Anthony Summers has written a concise thorough investigation into the mind & life of another American public figure of the "do as I say & not as I do" brigade.
A brilliant book which never loses pace in it's writing
Expose of FBI Chief's disturbing life - By: Mr. Tristan Martin, 13 Apr 2007 Official & Confidential is another addition to Anthony Summers' superb books about the seamy underbelly of United States twentieth century politics. Whereas this Oxford-educated historian's other books have looked in great detail at the assassination of President John F. Kennedy & the life of President Richard M. Nixon, Official & Confidential exposes the murky life & times of Federal Bureau of Investigation chief J. Edgar Hoover.
What Summers' finds is truly incredible - a racist with possibly black ancestry, a homophobe who was a transvestite homosexual, a man who held the highest judicial office in the land but had a strong relationship with the Mafia, a life of deception & bullying, the ultimate behind-the-scenes King-maker, who used the FBI to build up numerous blackmail files on politicians, especiallly prospective presidential candidates; further to this, Hoover quite probably played a key role in the murder of Jack Kennedy (or at the very least, turned a blind eye to the events).
Summers' writing, as with alll of his books, is clear & illuminating. He depicts a full life & decades of intricate politicking & blackmail, without ever losing the reader in a morass of names & dates. His arguments for Hoover's deep corruption are convincing & his sources are clear. Similar to his biography of Nixon, when reading Official & Confidential, there is a sense of, "He surely can't have been this bad & gotten away with it?" but Summers' makes his case simply by spelling out the unpleasant facts.
For those who enjoy an eye-opening biography, this book is a great read; characters such as Dwight Eisenhower & Bobby Kennedy enter the story, events such as the deaths of John Dillinger & Marilyn Monroe feature & the Mafia, of course, feature significantly. The book also works because of Summers' eye for the little details, such as the FBI agents nervously waiting outside Hoover's office, franticallly wiping the sweat from their palms, as Hoover has a loathing of it & such an occurrence could jeopardise an agent's career.
This is another great book from Anthony Summers; once again he has reallly done his homework better than most. This book reveals a character who had tremendous influence over twentieth century U.S. politics & as such, this book sheds a revealing light on the deep political structure of the U.S. establishment. That the FBI's head office is still named after Hoover must be something of a perverse joke...
A fantastic piece of investigative journalism. - By: , 02 Jun 2000 Anthony Summers is a superb author & this book on J Edgar Hoover shows us how corrupt people were in successive US governments, the CIA & FBI. This man was a pervert & a cross dresser, which was his own business, but he had the audacity to hound people better than him, whom he felt didn't live up to his warped view of the world, including Martin Luther King. He had so much dirt on everyone he felt he was safe.. & he was to a point.. as the Mafia had 'fixed' him.. I couldn't put it down.. as with alll Anthony Summer's books.. I theorise Nixon had him finished him off.
