Description:

Hoover J.



Edgar Hoover TLS Re: 1971 FBI Burglary Written 2 Months after Break-In

 

1p TLS signed by J. Edgar Hoover (1895-1972), then Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as "J. Edgar Hoover" in black felt-tip pen near bottom. Written in Washington, D.C. on May 13, 1971. On Hoover's personal "Federal Bureau of Investigation / United States Department of Justice / Washington, D.C." letterhead. The watermarked cream stationery is in near fine condition, with expected light paper folds and a few wrinkles. 7.125" x 9.5".

 

A little over two months after the Media, Pennsylvania FBI Agency break-in, FBI Director Hoover thanked Philadelphia newspaper columnist Adrian Lee for his sympathetic reporting of the incident:

 

"Special Agent in Charge Joe David Jamieson has furnished me with a copy of your editorial entitled 'FBI's real worry over stolen files' which appeared in the May 7th edition of your paper. Your keen analysis of the events surrounding the burglary of our Media Resident Agency is most encouraging and I thank you for your astute observations concerning this matter."

 

On March 8, 1971, eight pacifists had burglarized the FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, located about 20 miles southwest of Philadelphia. The anti-war protestors had hoped to access documents substantiating claims that the FBI was using illegal investigatory practices. The group found evidence that the FBI was monitoring participants of the Civil Rights, Peace, and Black Power Movements, using unethical and often illegal methods, through their Cointelpro (Counter Intelligence) program.

 

The activists released the FBI files to Betty Medsger, then a reporter at the Washington Post, and now the author of its definitive study The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI (Vintage Books, New York, 2014). Despite pressure from the Nixon Administration, the Post continued reporting on FBI wrongdoing, resulting in a huge backlash against the agency a little less than a year before Hoover's death. Hoover dispatched some 200 FBI agents to find the burglars, without success. In 2014, five of the eight burglars came forward and revealed their identities, as the statute of limitations had passed.

 

Adrien Lee was a longtime columnist for Philadelphia's Evening Bulletin, a daily newspaper that folded in 1982. It's unknown what Lee argued in the May 7, 1971 article referred to by Hoover, but if was no doubt favorable in its treatment of the agency. One could expect little else from a conservative-leaning newspaper.

 

J. Edgar Hoover's name is synonymous with the intelligence agency that he helped found in 1935: the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The detective served as Director of the Bureau of Investigation (the FBI's predecessor) from 1924-1935, and as Director of the FBI from its inception until his death in 1972. While Hoover took many liberties with the information he collected, critics agree that he also built up, enlarged, modernized, and legitimized the agency.

 



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