hook-shaped bone of his brow was less pronounced. There was no sign of that raw animal in there.
Why didn’t you call the cops? I said.
Vincent is a friend of mine.
I had seen my dad and Vincent play poker together at Barrow’s house on the beach and I had always thought it was weirdthat my dad was friendly with my mom’s boyfriend’s brother. But I didn’t say anything about that.
Was what he did against the law?
My dad nodded.
Then why didn’t you call the cops?
It was just a stupid prank.
If you were still in the FBI would you have arrested him?
He laughed.
No. We went after real bad guys, not pranksters.
I stared out the window at the road. I had heard about my dad’s one-year FBI stint, stationed in Miami from 1960 to 1961. About the book he wrote exposing J. Edgar Hoover’s hypocrisies, one of the first of its kind.
Dad joined the FBI at age twenty-five. It was a coveted job, demanding a graduate degree, preferably in law. Before joining he read every book he could find about J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI, wanting to familiarize himself with the man who was considered the greatest crime fighter in American history.
In the first weeks of FBI training school Dad was shocked to find so many cracks in the facade. The instructors boasted to his class that no president would ever fire Hoover and that Congress never dared challenge the great director’s assertions about anything. Dad was surprised when he took his first exam and the instructors gave everyone in the class the answers—ensuring the success of Hoover’s policy that all FBI agents get A’s on the exams. The only real test was the final one, when he met the director himself. Hoover either gave you his blessing or dismissed you as unfit. If you caught his eye then you were thrown out. If he didn’t like your physical appearance, such as a pinhead-shaped skull, you were dismissed.
On Dad’s first day as an agent he couldn’t understand whyall the veteran agents picked the most beat-up FBI cars from the garage, even though they were unreliable in a chase and the radios didn’t work. He learned that Hoover’s policy stated that if any agent damaged an FBI vehicle in any way, even in a chase, he would have to pay for it out of his own pocket. Hoover’s policy kept insurance costs way down and allowed Hoover to brag to the congressional Ways and Means Committee that he was saving tens of thousands in taxpayer dollars. A few weeks later Dad realized that Hoover was assigning a disproportionate amount of agents to finding stolen cars. He figured out that Hoover did this to inflate the FBI’s statistics, counting retrieved stolen cars—without actually apprehending a suspect—as another crime solved by the FBI .
The hypocrisy and inefficiency drove my dad crazy—What about catching criminals? he kept protesting. After ten months he was completely disillusioned with the FBI. Two incidents amplified his frustration. He found out that there were agents in each of the fifty-two field offices across the United States whose only job was to sit around and watch TV, listen to the radio and read the newspapers looking for any mention of Hoover, which was then immediately reported to Hoover’s loyal lieutenants, who investigated the perpetrators. This discovery coincided with the firing of Agent Carter. Carter was caught alone with a girl, which was against FBI policy—regardless of the fact that the girl in question was Carter’s fiancée. Then two of Carter’s colleagues were fired for failing to report Carter’s improper relations with his fiancée. Dad concluded that fighting crime was not as important to Hoover as imposing his personal views on the agents that worked for him, so he resigned.
Mom said he was so disappointed by the way Hoover ran the FBI that he didn’t care what would happen to him if he wrotethe book. It was before Watergate, she said. Most people didn’t believe that Hoover could be bad. After Inside the
Why didn’t you call the cops? I said.
Vincent is a friend of mine.
I had seen my dad and Vincent play poker together at Barrow’s house on the beach and I had always thought it was weirdthat my dad was friendly with my mom’s boyfriend’s brother. But I didn’t say anything about that.
Was what he did against the law?
My dad nodded.
Then why didn’t you call the cops?
It was just a stupid prank.
If you were still in the FBI would you have arrested him?
He laughed.
No. We went after real bad guys, not pranksters.
I stared out the window at the road. I had heard about my dad’s one-year FBI stint, stationed in Miami from 1960 to 1961. About the book he wrote exposing J. Edgar Hoover’s hypocrisies, one of the first of its kind.
Dad joined the FBI at age twenty-five. It was a coveted job, demanding a graduate degree, preferably in law. Before joining he read every book he could find about J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI, wanting to familiarize himself with the man who was considered the greatest crime fighter in American history.
In the first weeks of FBI training school Dad was shocked to find so many cracks in the facade. The instructors boasted to his class that no president would ever fire Hoover and that Congress never dared challenge the great director’s assertions about anything. Dad was surprised when he took his first exam and the instructors gave everyone in the class the answers—ensuring the success of Hoover’s policy that all FBI agents get A’s on the exams. The only real test was the final one, when he met the director himself. Hoover either gave you his blessing or dismissed you as unfit. If you caught his eye then you were thrown out. If he didn’t like your physical appearance, such as a pinhead-shaped skull, you were dismissed.
On Dad’s first day as an agent he couldn’t understand whyall the veteran agents picked the most beat-up FBI cars from the garage, even though they were unreliable in a chase and the radios didn’t work. He learned that Hoover’s policy stated that if any agent damaged an FBI vehicle in any way, even in a chase, he would have to pay for it out of his own pocket. Hoover’s policy kept insurance costs way down and allowed Hoover to brag to the congressional Ways and Means Committee that he was saving tens of thousands in taxpayer dollars. A few weeks later Dad realized that Hoover was assigning a disproportionate amount of agents to finding stolen cars. He figured out that Hoover did this to inflate the FBI’s statistics, counting retrieved stolen cars—without actually apprehending a suspect—as another crime solved by the FBI .
The hypocrisy and inefficiency drove my dad crazy—What about catching criminals? he kept protesting. After ten months he was completely disillusioned with the FBI. Two incidents amplified his frustration. He found out that there were agents in each of the fifty-two field offices across the United States whose only job was to sit around and watch TV, listen to the radio and read the newspapers looking for any mention of Hoover, which was then immediately reported to Hoover’s loyal lieutenants, who investigated the perpetrators. This discovery coincided with the firing of Agent Carter. Carter was caught alone with a girl, which was against FBI policy—regardless of the fact that the girl in question was Carter’s fiancée. Then two of Carter’s colleagues were fired for failing to report Carter’s improper relations with his fiancée. Dad concluded that fighting crime was not as important to Hoover as imposing his personal views on the agents that worked for him, so he resigned.
Mom said he was so disappointed by the way Hoover ran the FBI that he didn’t care what would happen to him if he wrotethe book. It was before Watergate, she said. Most people didn’t believe that Hoover could be bad. After Inside the
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