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Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey and welcome to the podcast, I'm Josh, there's Chuck and Jerry's here too.
You know us because you were just listening to part 1 of J. Edgar Hoover,
and here's part 2. So, let's go Stuff You Should Know. First of all, I hope everyone had a nice
Wednesday. That's nice, yeah. Because I assume we're going to release these as we usually do
on a Tuesday, Thursday, one to two part. Yeah, I'm going to be weird otherwise, right?
I hope no one did any research on that Wednesday. Hope no one watched that Clint Eastwood movie.
No. On that Wednesday or any day. Yeah, I heard it was brainless and passionless.
Is that Ebert? No, I think it was like a D.B. reviewer.
Just a regular schmo. Yeah, who has strong opinions.
All right, to catch everybody up, we are talking about J. Edgar Hoover, who headed the FBI for 48 years
through eight presidential terms. I think where we left off, it was
through World War II, which we should mention. I don't think we got to this last time.
This is a pretty good stat. During World War II, he managed to quadruple the size of the FBI.
That's crazy. It grew for X during World War II, which would set him up very nicely
as we teased in the last episode to go and root out the commies.
Yeah, which was something that the average American was totally fine with the FBI doing.
Like before, they kind of broke their teeth on chasing Nazis, rooting out Nazi sympathizers.
America was totally fine with that because we were at war with the Nazis. It made sense.
Now we're in the Cold War. This really kind of uneasy, weird war with the Soviets.
Yeah. So, yeah, the Soviets were enemies. Therefore, communism was the enemy of America. So, yeah,
FBI, go find those guys. Don't tell us how you're doing this. Just go do it.
Yeah. I know. And last time we didn't even finish answering because I don't think we knew for sure
the two presidents that loved him, the two that didn't like him, and then the poor that played ball.
But I think we can throw Harry Truman and that did not like him camp.
Yeah. Because it seems that Truman was one of the only smart people that was like, hey,
if this FBI is getting a little out of control and there's potential for this to become the American
Gestapo here to no avail because the power just grew and grew despite what Truman thought.
So, that is a great example of about the time where the power of the FBI, and in particular,
the power of J. A. Grohover, became potent enough that it was decoupled from the executive branch.
It became its own thing. Yeah. And J. A. Grohover was as powerful as presidents from about this point
on because as you said, Truman didn't like him or the FBI or what it could become and it didn't
amount to anything. Yeah. This is where it started, joke. Except, well, nevermind, I was going to make
a political joke, but I'm not going to do that. Okay. I'm going to be a bigger person. So,
we're talking in the late 1940s here. There were top secret programs being run,
trying to infiltrate the American Communist Party, trying to infiltrate the spy network of the Soviet
Union. It, one thing that will probably do an episode on at some point is the execution of
the Rosenbergs, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. But that was sort of one of the, in results of this
program was when he executed that married couple for espionage, not he, but, you know, he didn't
literally do it. He certainly said it in motion. I'm sure he would have pulled that lever if they
given him the opportunity. Yeah. Speculation, of course. So, just like back in the day when he created
the Criminal Records Division and used that to essentially get Hollywood on the FBI side,
he did, he went back to that playbook, but instead of just creating movies that celebrated
the FBI, he also sought to root out any kind of subversive message that might show up in movies,
too. Like you said before, he didn't like James Cagney playing a gangster, but he said,
okay, you can do it as long as you die. Like the gangster has to die, right? They took it
further in the Cold War, where they were like not only does the gangster have to die, he has to
basically be waving an American flag when he dies, or he kills a communist as he's dying.
That essentially is what we need to do here in these movies from now on.
Yeah. And also set of motion actions that would lead to the eventual Hollywood black list,
had secret files on artists. Charlie Chaplin, Orson Wells was another, and this is just from that time
period. He very famously, and we talked about the fact that he had files on John Lennon,
people like that later on in the 60s and 70s. Love this files. But also little things like,
hey, that movie, it's a wonderful life. I don't like it. It's on a list now because it's subversive,
because it demonizes big banks, and you know, problems facing the common man. I don't like the message
of it's a wonderful life. Yeah, we'll talk, I think it's going to have to make one of our Christmas
specials because it's been on my list for years now. Oh yeah, that'd be good to fill that out a
little bit. Yeah, but essentially it's like you said, like that kind of message. Imagine finding
it's a wonderful life subversive. That is how on guard they were looking for any, not just
pro-communist theme, but anti-American or anti-capitalist theme. There were FBI agents. I don't know if
there was their job or just one of the things they did occasionally was go to the movies and just
watch movies to see if they needed to be investigated. That's what the FBI, one of the things
FBI was doing at the time. And again, bear in mind, we know this with the benefit of history with
hindsight. At the time, America did not know that the FBI was going in seeing movies. I think a lot
of Americans would have had a problem with that. And as a result, the FBI had a really great
reputation across the board, across the political spectrum. Yeah, I wonder if they reported back
like this movie is subversive and has some third act problems. Exactly. They introduced a gun in
the first act and they didn't shoot it in the third act. Another thing he had agents do was listen
to music. Long before the PMRC and Tipper Gore came along, he had the FBI listening to R&B music
that had what he deemed obscene lyrics. And he called it race music and he said that when this
stuff gets to the ears of white teenagers, we're in big trouble. So he was sticking his fingers,
like you said, into every facet of American life, including as we'll find out right now,
the early gay rights movement. Yeah, so the gay rights movement would have fallen into the
obscenity file, which I think you referenced in the last episode that he had a huge, huge collection
of pornography. It wasn't just that. There were files on the sexual activities and proclivities of
everyday Americans and also American elite, like leaders and celebrities and all that. But the
the gay community was investigated as a, because it was obscene, they actually were, they went after
them for using the mail to send out mailers that had no trace of sexuality associated with them. It
was just pro gay mailers because gayness in the FBI's eyes was obscene sending out pro gay pamphlets
in the mail was tantamount to sending obscenity through the mail. And so they would use like these
the slightest pretense. And then in a lot of cases, no pretense whatsoever to go investigate and
often infiltrate some of these movements that that that Jay Aguilversaw is on American.
Yeah. And as you know, we talked a lot about his PR savvy. Some of the things he did was after the fact
he would go in and just kind of make stuff up to justify things he did, one of which, and you know,
I'll get to where I was going here in terms of the gay rights movement. But Ma Barker
was a famous matriarch of a crime family. And her sons did a lot of crimes. They brought Mama along,
Ma Barker to sort of distract, you know, that they had this little old lady with them to distract
them and stuff. But by all accounts, she was never actually involved in any crimes. And he made up
all this stuff afterward to justify the fact that they killed her. Yeah, the FBI killed her and her
favorite son Fred and a shootout in Florida. Yeah. So he basically said that Ma Barker led this
criminal like family criminal ring when in fact, she was the mom, but she wasn't leading anything.
No, like you said, they just brought her along to deflect suspicion from the rest of the gang,
right? People today still think Ma Barker was a criminal mastermind. Yeah. All because Jay Aguilvers
made that up back in the day to justify the FBI doing that. And you were kind of using that as
an example for making stuff up after the fact that and that had to do with the gay community.
Yeah, exactly. He basically created what's now known as the lavender scare, which was, hey,
I'm trying to root out gay people period and gay people who work within the government,
especially because they are potential security risks for the fact that like a Russian spy might
have dirt on them to blackmail them. So they could blackmail them to give up government secrets.
So we need to purge the government of gay employees, basically.
Ironies notwithstanding as we'll get to Hoover's sexuality and more G.J. later on.
Right. So yeah, that was the lavender scare. It was quite effective. It's referenced indirectly
and clue the movie. Michael McKeens being blackmailed because he's gay and he's a government worker.
That's a direct reference to that. That whole unhappy period. And America.
And Hoover's even mentioned in that movie, right? Yeah. For sure. He was the one who supposedly
called the somebody. I can't remember who he's the phone or no, maybe Tim Kury, I don't remember.
And one of those groups was the Mad Ashine Society. And they were, we talked about them in our
episode on Stonewall uprising. We talked about them in the episode about the the trans uprising
that came before Stonewall in San Francisco and the tenderloin. The Mad Ashine Society was there.
They were the foils to those groups. They wanted to gain respect for the gay community by
pointing out the gay community goes to work and goes to church and feeds their dog and
and and and tips their newspaper delivery guy. Just like you, that was the Mad Ashine Society's
thing. But they also had kind of like a brutal little sense of humor. They would frequently mail
Jay Gohover invitations to their meetings because they were infiltrated anyway, but they were also
making reference to the rumors that Jay Gohover was gay and they were like come join us in our
in our meetings and apparently it used to drive him up the wall whenever he got one of those.
That's pretty funny. Yeah. So we talked about the conundrum that is Jay Gohover
despite the fact that he was a K.A. in college and hired all these sort of you know legacy
confederate supporter types. He was not sympathetic to the clan at all because they fell into the
the bucket of a vigilante organization that would flout the rule of law. So he was not into that.
The FBI was were the ones who uncovered the Mississippi burning murders of 1964. So I'm not saying like
that he was just some great friend of the black race or anything like that, but just sort of one
of those odd conundrums of his career. Yeah, I've never seen an explanation for that aside from
he found the KKK to flout the law that he didn't like that. They were vigilantes and you can't
have vigilantes and Jay Gohover's America. So yeah, but they did have some successes in investigating
some civil rights murders and crimes. Again though, this is at a time when America is totally
unaware of what the FBI's tactics are. And so because the FBI you know investigated the
Mississippi burning murders in 1964 and what's so far is to set up a field office in Jackson, Mississippi
all of a sudden the NAACP the ACLU they love the FBI. That's on one side. On the other side are
conservative Americans who hate the idea of any communism infiltrating into America. He's fighting
communism very publicly. One of the masterful things he did was to use Joseph McCarthy as a foil
just a McCarthy was off the rails accusing anybody and anyone of being a communist on the flimsy
as evidence and eventually public opinion kind of turned on him. But Jay Gohover used that as
like I'm fighting communists for real and I'm level headed above the boards and super competent
and it helped him raise his his status among communists hating and fearing Americans too. So at
this point say the early to mid 60s everyone essentially considers Jay Gohover an American hero
and the FBI as a nonpartisan law enforcement agency that's above reproach. That's right. But not
everybody and we'll take a break because we're going to talk about one person who didn't like him
and that was Martin Luther King Jr.
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All right we're back. We were talking about how J. Edgar Hoover was just building his power by
doing things that would win over to the hearts of Americans left and right black and white.
And in 1956 we need to back up just a little bit because under Eisenhower Hoover created
something called Cointill Pro the counter intelligence program. We've talked about it a little bit
on different episodes. I see on my master list the one that the guy made that where he wrote down
everything we ever mentioned doing a full episode on. And you have Cointill Pro listed as one
that you wanted to do a full episode on. Yeah it's on my ideas list still. Okay just wonder
remind you. It's just such a bummer sometimes I'm like I can't bring myself to doing that one yet.
So going till pro comes along initially was fighting the Communist Party but then expanded
to surveil and get files on the civil rights movement, civil rights leaders, black power
groups, also white supremacist organizations. But we had you know I mentioned that Martin Luther
King Jr. was not a fan. That is to say the least. They were they were enemies in a big way
in 1957 Hoover had him surveilled, had him wire tapped, learned of kings and fiddellities and basically
like he was known to do was like hey we've got this stuff on you by the way here's a little
a tidy package. It's anonymous. You should probably go kill yourself is what that package also said.
And all of this supposedly stems from a few things. One is that apparently Martin Luther King Jr.
ignored a phone call from him one time. No. And that disrespect just consumed Hoover. And King
also very publicly questioned whether the FBI was like why more resources were being used
and put out to investigate crime against civil rights leaders. Mississippi burning case aside.
Right. He was like there's no black FBI agents. You guys are not investigating black crime
and crimes against civil rights leaders like you should. And so because of all of this
he was not a fan of Martin Luther King Jr. And here's the point where we should at least mention
that there was a rumor that has never been proven one way or the other that Jay Edgar Hoover
was a mixed race. Oh really? Yeah there was a Wapo article in 2011 where a woman came out and
said hey my great uncle like when we were young said that Jay Edgar Hoover was a second cousin.
And he could prove it but he no one ever talked about it out loud because we were all scared to
because Hoover would have probably had us killed or something or we would have disappeared. And
if you look up Jay it was Jay Edgar Hoover of mixed race or part black you'll get just scores
and scores of articles of people that think he was which could help explain like he was sort of
a self-hating like the fact that he may have been of mixed race and also gay could help explain
the fact that he went after civil rights leaders and the gay community as sort of a self-hating
sort of thing. Right that's certainly tracks. But there's never been anything that's been proven.
I think some people are saying that it's absolutely not true but it's the kind of thing we should
at least mention. Right for sure. So I want to talk a little more about that package that arrived
anonymously. Supposedly the FBI made it seem as if it was written by a disillusioned black
supporter of Martin Luther King who had somehow come upon audio tapes of his sexual exescapades
in hotels. Somehow. They sent it right after he got the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 and his wife
Coretta received the package and she opened it and I was looking into it a little bit she wrote
an autobiography in 2017 and she said still to that day she did not believe that that was MLK on
those tapes. She did not believe that he had ever been unfaithful that he had such a guilty
conscience he would not have been able to walk around carrying that. He would have had to have
just blurted it out or something like that and that wasn't that wasn't him that that was all just
made up and I thought that was fascinating because you hear so much about like it's just just
put out there as a matter of fact that that MLK cheated on his wife and that the FBI had audio
recordings on it never even occurred to me that the FBI had sent him potentially something that
wasn't him that had framed him and exactly the way that people walk around today thinking
Ma Barker was a criminal mastermind it's entirely possible that we all walk around thinking MLK
used to go to sex orgies because the FBI made that up that was totally within the realm of
J. Edgar Hoover's FBI's tactics. Yeah it's a good point. It just really makes you question some
of the stuff that we know about things for sure because that was exactly the kind of thing they did
they used underhanded tactics in Coentel Pro where they would try to break up marriages like you
said they would try to drive people to suicide for organizations they would send in people who
would essentially put they would they would identify who is maybe the the second in command and try
to get them to turn on the first in command and just create turmoil they did it everywhere including
the black panthers as we talked about extensively in the black panther episode. That's just that's just
what they did and I also saw that it one of the things they would do is send them to meetings to
just ask all sorts of dumb mundane questions to drag the meeting out and make it so boring that people
wouldn't come back again. Yeah oh yeah he had moles all over the place using all sorts of disruptive
tactics. Yeah pretty crazy. Really interesting. So we talked a lot sort of about the presidents
that were using him tolerating him and working with him in different capacities.
Nixon like you said love the guy because Nixon was a crook and was game for any kind of
ill gotten gains that he could get through Hoover. They were kind of like yeah he was like this
is all just great this is fine I love you. He did consider firing him at one point like many have
and again we kind of went over that in the first episode most of them had their reasons whether
or not they had dirt against them or I did find some historians that say that Hoover may have had
dirt on these people he may not have it could it could have been a career long bluff but he had such
power and work in such secrecy that nobody knew what he had on anyone so it wasn't worth it wasn't
worth going up against them to like test that and find out. Yeah I saw elsewhere also and all of
this probably came from Beverly Gates she did such a great like investigation of him as a person
in the impacts he had one of the explanations I saw is that some presidents and other elected
officials were just plain scared of the guy he just had so much power it was so willing to use it
in just the worst ways to to personally ruin your life if you wanted to that to to be so bold
as to go on as get on his bad side some people are just like it's I don't have the the metal for
that kind of thing and then another explanation I saw is that all of those presidents who couldn't
couldn't resist the temptation of using the black arts that he was a master of yeah that automatically
was dirt that he had on them right yeah it's a point like they they he'd be like okay you can get
rid of me but I'm taking you down with me so you probably just leave me on the job yeah this quote from
LBJ was pretty great and it kind of sums it up was I would rather have him inside the tent pissing
out than outside the tent pissing in so like it's better to keep an eye on the sky then fire him
and see what happens next exactly and again this was like so in a there was a big you scratch my back
I'll scratch yours going on with all eight of the presidents that he served under and again it did
not matter what political leanings or stripes they had what ideology they came from he he would find
a way to work with them and get them to work for him yeah he we mentioned early on in the first
episode I believe that the Kennedys were not fans nor he of them he specifically oversaw the investigation
into the JFK assassination was later criticized for not looking more into the conspiracy
the various conspiracies but certainly that the American government could have somehow been involved
he didn't really didn't like Bobby Kennedy Bobby was young he was 35 years old he was seen by
Hoover and others as underqualified and he would you know he would go to work and take off his
tie in his jacket and just work in his in his unbuttoned suit shirt with his sleeves rolled up
and Hoover did not like that kind of thing at all when he wanted appearances to be very tidy
and very old-fashioned just really interesting stuff I think it was LBJ that gave him an
indefinite exemption from mandatory government retirement at age 70 which was the law at the time
and this was in 1964 just a few days before Hoover was to testify for the Warren commission
and he you know he stayed on that job until he died when I was a one-year-old baby
one in change may second 1972 at the age of 77 he died from a heart attack yeah
that's that's how we quit yeah and and died died popular yeah that's the thing like you you said
one of the reasons like probably some presidents didn't want to take him out it was just out of his
popularity um he he was just looked up to by a huge swath of American society
for essentially the whole time he was on the job so much so that he could also alter public opinion
about things like you explained how he was not a fan of Martin Luther King he came out and called
Martin Luther King America's quote most notorious liar at a time when the same year that MLK was
given the Nobel Peace Prize where he was at his his peak of popularity or he was ascending to the
peak of popularity and reverence right um like Jay Hoover comes out he's like I don't like it
he's a liar and a lot of America was like yeah totally he's a liar we agree with you
he could just kind of sway things like that too he also had the willingness to do stuff like that
if he thought it would serve him well or if he hated somebody so much that he would publicly
denounce them because they didn't return his call you know when I read that story I was like no way
but then the more I learned about the guy it's like it seems like that could have been a thing he
thought so much of himself that being ignored by a prominent civil rights leader was like all right
you're on the list so amazing you talked about how um Bobby Kennedy and he did not like each other
not apparently the machinations of the social lives of elected officials was so Lucy Goosey I'm sure
still is but was so Lucy Goosey during the Kennedy administration that Bobby would borrow the
Los Angeles field office directors car to go visit Marilyn Monroe when he was having an
affair with her that be the head of the FBI in Los Angeles no Bobby they both were having an
affair with Marilyn oh did they mm-hmm I don't think I do that and supposedly he had borrowed the
field office directors car and went to go visit Marilyn the day that she died and that she's
some people trace her suicide to having just been broken up with by Bobby Kennedy who was again
he's using the field office of Los Angeles directors car to go do that well despite all this like
we said he remained popular in 1971 there was a Gallup poll that found 74% 74% it's pretty high
number of Americans thought he was doing an excellent or good job and then only 7% thought he was
doing a poor or bad job I imagine in 1971 you know kind of through the 60s that 7% were sort of
the most hardcore you know left wing hippies that were around at the time there's still mad about
the Rosenberg's probably yeah I mean they seem like the only people in America that didn't like the
guy yeah so you know yes the thing is is he wasn't immune to to changes in public opinion and shifts
in public opinion there was a point where Nixon got frustrated with them and actually this is
about the time where he was thinking of firing him because Jagger Hoover essentially said no I can't
do anymore your dirty tricks the public's bad at me because they're learning about stuff that I've
done and said like for example he told the the White House that the Kent State protesters that were
killed by the National Guard invited and got what they deserved and he became more and more of a
loose cannon the older he got there he would take hours long naps in the in his office during the day
he just he just wasn't somebody he was too powerful to be that a loose of a cannon
but he also he was sensitive to how people viewed him he was a perfectionist so we wanted everybody
I think he was perfect so when public opinion would kind of like ebb and flow he would say like
Nixon now I can't help you out so Nixon turned to his own dirty tricks group and used former FBI
agents to to carry out his tricks when when Jagger Hoover wouldn't have the FBI directly do it anymore
yeah and I think that happened on the heels of in 1971 there was a group that broke in to a field
office and FBI field office in Pennsylvania and stole stole some coin till pro documents some top
top secret documents that were released to some to the media and some to members of Congress that
didn't even know this stuff and this was during the Nixon administration and it was very embarrassing
but also just really screwed up what Nixon was was up to so it was it was a big public thing
I think Hoover sort of backed off on it was such a big deal like what was released that he he
he backed down from really pursuing the whoever leaked to this Pentagon papers right and that
that just wouldn't do for Nixon so that's why like you said he turned to dudes like Gordon
Whitty yeah so I say we take a break and then we come back and talk about the tide turning and
just public opinion about Hoover and his personal life after the break what do you think let's do it
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okay so almost immediately after Hoover's death stuff starts coming out that co-entalpro
break in in Pennsylvania was a huge turning point that happened in 1971 he died in 1972 I think by
1975 the senate was undertaking investigations into some of these abuses that have been revealed by
the co-entalpro papers and as more and more stuff came out jager Hoover's image completely turned
in was tarnished and became what we think of him today starting around the mid 70s before that again
American hero after that I mean sure there are a lot of people with crew cuts and
pocket protectors who were still totally fine with all the tactics had done but most Americans
started to change their opinion of them starting around then yeah absolutely this is also when the
government was like hey that guy that was the headed the FBI for 48 years maybe that's not
such a good idea right to have give someone that much power so in 1976 Congress said a 10-year
term limit for the director of the FBI and the justice department got together and was like we
need good some new guidelines here that really separate things out so so the FBI isn't just like
the the police wing of the White House of law yeah like the new thing is like if the president says
hide you in the hall you can't even say hi back you just have to walk past him yeah so I thought
that would get a chuckle out there we go no it was good but also semi believable so yeah so we
have this terrible image of jager Hoover these days but there's another another kind of facet to it
that isn't necessarily terrible it's more just fascinating and that is you know a question was
jager Hoover gay and aside from say like photo documentary evidence it's essentially everything else
you could possibly need to say like yes the sky was gay he was gay because he wasn't even hiding
it in a lot of ways he was living out in plain sight which again kind of goes to underscore how
powerful he was he was essentially living in a gay marriage with another man and all the people
around him knew it and no one was comfortable talking about it yeah so this was Clyde Tulson
portrayed by army hammer in the cleniswood movie and although I didn't see the movie I did read
a lot about it today and the movie is that's a big part of the movie is like making no quams about
the fact that they were essentially married to one another right Hoover backing up just a little
bit he lived with his mom in the home that he grew up in until she died in 1938 he was a 43-year-old
man nothing wrong with that necessarily just pointing that out he never married obviously he had a
a very forward facing public relationship with Dorothy Lamora the actor some people and this is
again with it sort of the different biographers takes I saw one biographer say oh they were he is
not gay they he was absolutely in love with Dorothy Lamora that was a love of his life
he said that it was one of the biographers and he said it was absolutely true because Dorothy
Lamora never denied that that was the case okay other people say no come on she was a beard
and that was a fake romance created for PR he always said he couldn't find an old-fashioned girl
but it was like he said it was it was well-known sort of sort of like a lot of stuff when you work
in politics I remember when my friend worked on Capitol Hill like 30 something years ago
and he would talk about George Bush seniors affair and mistress and he was like yeah everyone knows
that that's going on and I was like how does this stuff not get out and he was like it's Capitol Hill
he's like there are a lot of just secrets within this city within this very small area
that are just sort of out in the open secrets that somehow just don't get talked about in the
mainstream press this was back then I think it's probably a little bit different now but apparently
everybody in Washington knew and I guess sort of quasi accepted the fact that Clyde Tolson and
Jay Gahoever were in love let's talk about how the evidence that people knew and accepted the fact
shall we sure every morning Jay Gahoever in the Bureau limousine would go pick up Clyde Tolson
on the way to work every morning every day they would go eat lunch together at Harvies
can I say something real quick yeah I did see one historian say something kind of funny
when he was talking about the fact that they came and left together for work he said this is a time
when Carpooling was not in fashion right there's probably considered communist maybe so so that's
you know all very circumstantial then you get lunch together you said they had lunch every single
day together at Harvies on the house I read or saw somewhere and then they would vacation together
apparently they would go to Miami during the winter they would spend a month every year in
LaHoya with Pat and Richard Nixon a couple's vacation right there's plenty of photographs of
them hanging out on the beach together and then the one that gets me the one where it's like okay
this group of people is totally aware of this and totally accepting of it I know where you're going
they would send joint invitations to them to party yeah like you did not just send Jay
Edgar Hoover in invitation to a social event you sent Jay Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson in
invitation to the social event or else you were on Hoover's S list yeah and they sent joint thank
you notes for stuff yeah like a couple they were a couple the only thing I'll say is that you and
I get joint invitations for weddings and stuff okay yeah sure but we're a couple of sorts we'd
never been in Miami together no nor have we spent a month in LaHoya that's on my list though we
spend a weekend in LaHoya I think for a comic con we spent we can go out of my way together that's
true so we're comparing apples oranges here I think yeah and we're just getting around of course
but there was a who knows how many real letters because his personal longtime secretary Helen
Gandhi portrayed by Naomi Watts in the movie like we said shredded and burned all of his personal
files a lot of it was apparently boring stuff like IRS stuff and pet records and just boring
day-to-day things but among that stuff was all of his personal correspondence and letters
and who knows what was in those letters because we do know of one you know love letter
that existed to Tolson from 1943 yeah I don't remember the exact quote but essentially what he's
saying is like you know there's no words can describe how much love I have in my heart for you
and like it's a love letter it's a love letter it certainly is an appropriate for a boss to his
right-hand man because I don't know if we spelled this out this was his right-hand man this guy was
his number two with the FBI essentially the entire time he was at the FBI so even accepting the
idea that maybe they they were gay married couple essentially at the very least all of this stuff
is not appropriate for a boss and his underling at the very least yeah he also left Tolson his
entire state about 550 grand back then a little more than 4 million today the flag draped on his
casket at his funeral was given to Tolson Tolson was buried with him when he died there were all
kinds of rumors and things and columns written about this sort of things mocking him at the time
Tolson said on his FBI application that he handed Hoover that he was quote not interested in women
and then Hoover also had a collection of photos of Tolson a sleep and bed and you know they
weren't like necessarily naked or anything but sure just a large collection of photos of him sleeping
in bed I saw them described as tender photos sure so yeah that that was that's there's a lot of
evidence that they had a marriage a long like like decades long marriage out in the open and one
of the things that stands out to me is that everybody in their society in their group in Washington
society accepted at least to some degree or another and other people clearly didn't care at all
and this is at a time where like you could you could fire employees for being gay because you were
worried they were going to get black mailed I think it's just fascinating that that duality where
politicians or other people have to be like yeah I know being gay is terrible middle America isn't
it the worst where in personally they're like there's nothing wrong with gay people I have nothing
wrong with with gay people they just it just got dragged out because so many people did have a
problem with it and ironically it wasn't the people calling the shots it was the people who I
guess elect the people calling the shots yeah absolutely when Hoover died Nixon named Tolson the
acting director of the FBI he held that position for one day and then retired it was not in great
health himself and another little fun fact that's stuff you should know related is that Tolson was
part of the FBI team that nabbed the Nazis that invaded Florida awesome yeah great job Tolson
what else you got well I mean if this is the end we promise at the beginning just a little arm
chair diagnoses of his mental fitness this is this is not something that people should do properly
it's it's round upon to just sort of diagnose someone after their death but it was a time where he
a lot of this stuff people weren't seeking help for given his family history with his fathers
depression and mental illness that ended his life a lot of legitimate you know clinicians have
said that they fully believe that jade gruhover at the very least had a narcissistic personality disorder
with paranoia attached and that that could very well explain sort of how he went about his career yeah
I saw the very least it was a perfectionist that it can be very hard is that a disorder it's not a
disorder but it certainly can make you make some strange decisions and go in strange
directions that other people might not good thing I'm not a perfectionist you know so what
else you got I got nothing else all right so Chuck we I mean there's so much stuff that has been left
like uncovered unsaid on red unresearched so if anybody out there has some great stories about
jade gruhover that we didn't touch on we'd love to hear them and in the meantime while you're
generating those emails it's time for listener mail all right explanation of gears for Josh
hey guys here's a possible way to explain gears speed changes and gear ratios okay let's have
that may help with your comprehension even if you don't understand the mechanical concept that is
driven divided by drive for example your input gear which is the one being driven by the
windmill rotor for instance okay has 500 teeth the gear on the generator itself only has 50 teeth
okay so it's about one tenth the size you divide divide 500 by 50 you equal 10 so that will
make give you a 10 times increase in speed so for every one turn of that windmill rotor the generator
turns 10 times and if you want to slow things down just put the gears in the opposite place 50 teeth
on the input gear 500 teeth on the output 50 divided by 500 is 0.1 so that is a ratio of 1 to 10
so for every 10 turns of the windmill blade the generator turns once okay I think the different I
think I actually have this now I think in addition to it being explained really well I had my eyes
closed it was visualizing it while you were reading so I think that was the big break
all right so that is from Mike Lewis Mike just want to shout out Mike's company he's owner of
iron doctors if you are in Colorado Springs and really they said they go anywhere in Colorado
and he didn't ask he had in fact said please you don't have to plug my business it was just a work
email but I like to because iron doctors service industrial machinery and construction vehicles
anywhere in Colorado well thanks a lot Mike I appreciate it I truly understand gears now
way to go and if you want to be like Mike then you can send us an email to stuffpodcast at iHeartRadio.com
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