This was a solid read and well researched. Mr. Summers goes after Hoover like a pitbull in many areas of the text. Really, he doesn't have anything good to say about him. I don't think this could stand as a true comprehensive biography for that fact, but it does make for fun reading.

Mr. Summers does introduce some tired and sad conspiracy theories to spice up the text and sales, so I would recommend checking major incidents independently of the text. All in all, a well researched and presented trek through the life of Mr. Hoover that deals with many of his sordid plots and schemes to stay in power. ( )

Well written and researched. Disturbing from cover to cover. The willingness of FDR to use the Hoover dirty tricks and surveillance for his own advancement is the beginning of real power for Hoover and he wielded it until his death. The book brings to mind the sausage making story, you don't want to know how your government works. Quite frankly, no one comes out looking good in this one. Given the story in the news today (23 May 2013, just in case post dating vanishes) is about the IRS using it's power to persecute groups of citizens I guess we can say that some things just never change. ( )

4977. Official and Confidential The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover, by Anthony Summers (read 20 Nov 2012) This 1993 book, published more than 20 years after J. Edgar Hoover's death in 1972, is full of information and gossip, but the picture it draws of Hoover's behavior and evil is persuasive. Summers quotes a psychiatry professor who said "Hoover would have made a perfect high-level Nazi." Reading the book lends reliability to that assessment--and it is very disturbing that Hoover was able to induce presidents to allow him to continue in office into his dotage. One need not accept all that the book sets out as Gospel but I was appalled that so much of it might well be true. ( )