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  • Published: 1 February 2012
  • ISBN: 9780091941772
  • Imprint: Ebury Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 640
  • RRP: $50.00
Categories:

Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J Edgar Hoover




The sensational and definitive account of the life of J Edgar Hoover, America's most celebrated FBI Director, who is now the subject of the J Edgar movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio

For nearly fifty years, J. Edgar Hoover held great power in the United States. The creator of the FBI and its Director until his death, he played a role in nearly every major tragedy and scandal in America during the twentieth century.

Hoover was lauded when he died as an American hero. Anthony Summers' controversial bestseller, Official & Confidential, The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover, draws on more than 800 interviews to explode the myths, exposing the dark secrets that remained hidden throughout Hoover's lifetime.

Hoover used his intimate knowledge of the John F. Kennedy's sex life to ensure that Lyndon B. Johnson became Vice President, and suppressed evidence about J.F.K's assassination. Hoover himself, meanwhile, was a closet homosexual, which allegedly led to him being blackmailed by the Mafia.

This fascinating book reveals that even Hoover's death, on the eve of Watergate, was clouded with mystery. Witnesses have indicated that, in the panic over the secrets he was holding over President Nixon, an operation was mounted to break into his house - possibly even to murder him.

  • Published: 1 February 2012
  • ISBN: 9780091941772
  • Imprint: Ebury Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 640
  • RRP: $50.00
Categories:

About the author

Anthony Summers

Educated at Oxford University, Anthony Summers became a senior BBC investigative journalist and for a decade made documentaries on world events. His books The File on the Tsar (with Tom Mangold), The Kennedy Conspiracy, and Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe were all No. 1 bestsellers. Honeytrap, his book on the Profumo affair, co-authored with Stephen Dorril, was the basis for the film Scandal. Anthony Summers is married, has two sons, and lives in Ireland.

Also by Anthony Summers

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Praise for Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J Edgar Hoover

I read Official and Confidential with mounting horror, fascination, revulsion... Enthralling

Paul Theroux

Summers' book is not just a history of a single hero-sized hypocrite, it is a history of a vast national delusion

Hilary Mantel, Spectator

The exposure we have been waiting for these last forty years

Norman Mailer

Garbage... Innuendo, lies

Cartha DeLoach, former close aide to Hoover

The book is more exciting, and more damning, than the film...This is bold, excoriating, unmissable stuff.

Independent on Sunday

Fascinating and alarming.

Gore Vidal