J. Edgar Hoover
Overview
John Edgar Hoover was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972. Hoover is credited with building the FBI into a large and efficient crime-fighting agency, and with instituting a number of modernizations to police technology, such as a centralized fingerprint file and forensic laboratories.

Late in life and after his death Hoover became a controversial figure as evidence of his secretive actions became public.
Quotations

[Whoever did this] must be exterminated, and they must be exterminated by us.

On the perpetrators of the Kansas City Massacre|Kansas City Massacre of 1933, as quoted in Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34 by Bryan Burrough (2004: Penguin), p. 51

Banks are an almost irresistible attraction for that element of our society which seeks unearned money.

News summaries (7 April 1955)

Just the minute the FBI begins making recommendations on what should be done with its information, it becomes a Gestapo|Gestapo.

Look magazine (14 June 1956)

We are a fact-gathering organization only. We don’t clear anybody. We don’t condemn anybody.

Look magazine (14 June 1956)

The individual is handicapped by coming face-to-face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists. The American mind simply has not come to a realization of the evil which has been introduced into our midst. It rejects even the assumption that human creatures could espouse a philosophy which must ultimately destroy all that is good and decent.

The Elks Magazine (August 1956)

Above all, I would teach him to tell the truth. Truth-telling, I have found, is the key to responsible citizenship. The thousands of criminals I have seen in 40 years of law enforcement have had one thing in common: Every single one was a liar.

"What I Would Tell a Son," Family Weekly (14 July 1963)

 
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