logo
episode-header-image
Apr 2019
33m 53s

J. Edgar Hoover's FBI - Giant Among G-Me...

Wondery
About this episode
J. Edgar Hoover became director of the FBI when he was just 29 years old. His orders? Clean up the Bureau. At first, he proved to be a brilliant and innovative leader, setting new standards for education, physical fitness, and training of federal agents. But there was a dark side to his success. Hoover was also obsessed with tracking anyone he considered to ... Show More
Up next
Apr 2019
J. Edgar Hoover's FBI - The Bobby Sox Bandit Queen | 3
<p>During the mid-1930s, the FBI’s public relations department had effectively changed the image of its agents from accountants into action heroes; and its director, from a bureaucrat into an American icon. They pushed stories about heroic G-men facing off against violent foes, g ... Show More
43m 53s
May 2019
J. Edgar Hoover's FBI - Controlling the Message | 4
<p>The rise of fascism and World War II shifted the FBI’s focus in the 1940s from fighting midwestern outlaws to catching Communists. To Hoover and the FBI, nearly anyone on the political left was suspect, potentially part of a Soviet conspiracy to overthrow Western democracies. ... Show More
41m 37s
May 2019
J. Edgar Hoover's FBI - Black Bag Job | 5
<p>Between 1956 and 1971, the FBI carried out more than 2,000 top secret spying operations aimed at American citizens. Their target? The so-called Fifth Column, a network of undercover Soviet agents allegedly working to destroy the American government from within. The agency even ... Show More
39m 50s
Recommended Episodes
Feb 2023
J. Edgar Hoover
Today, J. Edgar Hoover is remembered as a power-hungry, corrupt and prejudiced man, obsessed with an imagined threat of domestic communists. But during his life, he was widely respected and admired as the man responsible for building the FBI into a premier law enforcement agency. ... Show More
41m 50s
May 2018
What do we actually Know about J. Edgar Hoover?
<p>Few men held as many secrets as the long-lasting FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. And while he had thousands of files documenting the secret lives of intellectuals, celebrities and politicians, Hoover had no shortage of secrets of his own. Will and Mango dig into the man, how his ... Show More
38m 44s
May 2024
J. Edgar Hoover: Evil G-Man Pt. 1
It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that J. Edgar Hoover was perhaps the most powerful American of the 20th century. By the time he established the FBI as America’s police force, presidents were afraid of him. Just exactly how did he get to be so puissant?See omnystudio.com/li ... Show More
40m 18s
Jul 2023
The Secrets of J. Edgar Hoover
As Director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover exercised a dictatorial influence over the department – and, it seems, everyone else. Meticulous and vindictive, he frequently weaponised secrets while carefully guarding his own. Deborah Friedell grapples with his overwhelming and disturbi ... Show More
46m 30s
Apr 2024
G-Man: The Life and Times of J. Edgar Hoover
<p>On this episode of <em>Our American Stories</em>, Beverly Gage, author of the new definitive biography on J. Edgar Hoover, "G-Man, J. Edgar Hoover and The Making of the American Century," tells the story of the most important lawman of the 20th century.</p> <p><a href="https:/ ... Show More
30m 17s
Apr 2024
FBI Agent Turned Russian Spy | World of Secrets | 1
<p>In 1976, at the height of the Cold War, Robert Hanssen joins the FBI to work in their counterintelligence division. Hanssen is valued for his technical skills, and put in charge of databases containing some of the country’s most valuable secrets. But he’s socially awkward, and ... Show More
41m 21s