61 pages 2 hours read

G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2022

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Background

Historical Background: The “American Century”

Gage identifies Hoover as a central figure within the “American Century.” The term itself was coined in 1941 by Henry Luce, the publisher of Time and Life magazines, in an editorial where he called for the United States to end its neutrality in the Second World War and embrace its mission to spread freedom throughout the globe. Afterward, the term retroactively referred to the emergence of the United States as a major world power over the course of the 20th century. Since the term denotes a new era in American history, it tends to exaggerate the differences with what came before. World War II–era champions of intervention called for an end to American “isolationism,” but the United States had never been removed from world affairs. As early as 1823, President James Monroe declared the entire Western Hemisphere to be under US protection against further European colonization. The expansion across the western frontier entailed the virtual annihilation of Indigenous peoples, recognized by the US government as sovereign nations, along with the periodic risk of war with European powers still claiming territory in the Americas.

But by comparison with what it would become, the United States at the time of Hoover’s birth in 1895 was a regional rather than world power, with a small military and mostly commercial interests in Europe and Asia. When Hoover was only three years old, the United States took a major step toward empire, winning a quick and decisive victory against Spain and in the process acquiring Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines as territories. In 1917, as Hoover graduated from law school, President Woodrow Wilson called for a declaration of war against Germany, and the United States entered the First World War. While Hoover engaged in fruitful but inconclusive efforts against domestic radicals, the war itself was a success that nonetheless struck much of the public as unsatisfactory, dismembering Germany while leaving the French and British Empires intact. Like the nation itself, Hoover drew more inward, focusing on the refinement of law-enforcement methodology and later on the famous gangsters who emerged from the Great Depression. The country did not entirely turn its back on the world, and neither did Hoover, but both spent the late 1930s surveying the scene and quietly preparing for the opportunity to demonstrate their true potential.

Just as Luce predicted, the Second World War brought about an unprecedented degree of American power and influence in the world, and Hoover’s fortune rose alongside it. The public embraced a vast expansion of government power to contain the threat of communism, empowering the FBI to surveil whomever it deemed a potential threat. As the United States faced down communism in Korea, East Germany, and Latin America, the FBI waged a multifront effort in the courts, Congress, and the shadowy corners of domestic espionage. As the United States became more influential around the world, the FBI became more influential within the United States, until both succumbed to overreach. By the mid-1960s, the civil rights movement had exposed the extreme injustices at the heart of America society, which at the same time was waging a costly and counterproductive war in Vietnam. The FBI was the tip of the spear in the effort to stymie civil rights and campus activism, but both efforts proved too much for the ailing director. Following Hoover’s death in 1972, as the last US troops left Vietnam, both the FBI and the United States would survive those years of trial, while never recovering the prestige they had once had.

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