I once had a landlord, Lew, who owned a TV repair shop in Arlington, VA, worked as a TV repair man, and performed other electrical work in the DC area from the 1950s through the 1980s. He recounted a story to me about one of his clients, a neighbor of Hoover in DC. I forgot the instigation, but the neighbor paid Lew to install a flood light and aim it squarely at one of Hoover's windows (one of his bedroom windows, IIRC), to spite Hoover.
> On the night of March 8, 1971, burglars broke into an F.B.I. field office in Media, Pennsylvania, and made off with a cache of top-secret files.
If I recall this story correctly, the burglars left a note on the door that day, saying not to lock it, and apparently the people working there respected that, so when the burglars arrived that night, the door was unlocked.
I think you mixed this up with some other story. Original plan was to pick the lock, but additional high-security lock was unexpectedly installed.
From "The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI" book (highly recommended!):
"Acting as though he lived in the building, Forsyth opened the always unlocked front door, walked upstairs to the second floor, and went directly to the FBI office door. He felt slightly nervous but very confident.
His confidence quickly evaporated.
He could not pick the lock in thirty seconds. He could not pick the lock at all.
As he faced the object of his many rounds of picking practice, Forsyth was startled. There were two locks, not one, on the main entrance of the FBI office. One was the simple five-pin tumbler lock that he remembered seeing and was prepared to pick, the same one Bonnie Raines remembered. But now there was a second lock, a much more complex one—a high-security lock that was extremely difficult to pick. Forsyth’s homemade tools were useless on this lock.
[...]
Forsyth arrived at the FBI office about that time. The thirty-second break-in plan now long gone, breaking in now seemed like it would be more like a small demolition job than a swift lock-picking exercise.
[...]
This time, in addition to the set of homemade tools in his briefcase, Forsyth carried a crowbar. It fit fairly well in the deep inside pocket of his used Brooks Brothers overcoat. A long time later, he marveled in amusement at how well the overcoat’s pockets, with their unusual depth, could be adapted to the special storage needs of a burglar. He easily picked the lock on the second door, the one that was not used as an entrance, in thirty seconds. But that was just the beginning. There was a deadbolt near the top of the door. He pulled out his crowbar and, with a quick maneuver, popped it. “I had to do it fast. Otherwise, there would have been a long creaking sound. I figured if you cause a quick bang, if someone hears it, they will think a cat knocked over the trash can in the alley, and it’s all done with.” He wasn’t sure that rationale made sense, but he found it comforting at the time.
Then he pushed on the door. It wouldn’t move. Yes, Bonnie Raines was right. He didn’t remember exactly what she had said blocked the door; he just realized now that something “very big and very heavy” was on the other side. To move it even a tiny fraction of an inch, he had to lean on it with all his might. An agent who worked at the Media office said years later that, given the weight of the large cabinet leaning against that door, all of the burglars must have pushed the door open together. In fact, Forsyth alone did it, but with a great deal of worry. “It was obvious,” he recalled, “that if that sucker hit the floor it was going to wake up the whole neighborhood, not just the caretaker who lived directly below the office."
Found the story about door note (quote from the same book):
"As burglars, they used some unusual techniques, ones Davidon enjoyed recalling years later, such as what some of them did in 1970 at a draft board office in Delaware. During their casing, they had noticed that the interior door that opened to the draft board office was always locked. There was no padlock to replace, as they had done at a draft board raid in Philadelphia a few months earlier, and no one in the group was able to pick the lock. The break-in technique they settled on at that office must be unique in the annals of burglary. Several hours before the burglary was to take place, one of them wrote a note and tacked it to the door they wanted to enter: “Please don’t lock this door tonight.” Sure enough, when the burglars arrived that night, someone had obediently left the door unlocked. The burglars entered the office with ease, stole the Selective Service records, and left."
There’s huge tension between the idea that Nixon was responsible for Watergate and:
> the President “revealed something more acute: a fear of Hoover’s skill at wielding power, and a sense that even the President was no match for the F.B.I. director.” Nixon told his aides, “We may have on our hands here a man who will pull down the temple with him, including me.
It's kinda funny how over time Hoover gets gayer and gayer as with each passing year that becomes easier to rationalize than why a man who made it to middle age without getting seriously involved with women would decide to keep it that way going forward. And to throw some icing on that cake, as the FBI director he would have surely been privy to all sorts of stories of people who's lives were brought crashing down via the missteps of their spouses and children.
I swear I have seen a B&W candid photo of Hoover in his back yard wearing a dress. It was years ago, and I can't seem to find it with image search. It could have been faked, which was my first thought, but as far as I could tell, as a graphics professional, it did not appear so to me. It looked like it was his gag, like he put on a dress as a joke. iirc, Tolson was in the picture dressed causally, and they were both laughing, not very close to the camera, and the picture did not appear staged. It looked like he was hanging out in his back yard in a dress as a joke and I assumed it was the (false) source of the rumors that he was a transvestite, like, if someone had seen it in 1950 they'd be sure he was, but to me it just looked like a man in a dress goofing off, and there's a huge difference. He wasn't wearing makeup or a wig, and he was smoking a cigar. It would have looked like a Halloween scene, except Tolson was dressed normally.
I feel like I've seen this picture as a bit on a TV show, but I can't remember which one. Maybe Arrested Development, when they were making a lot of George Sr/Transparent jokes?
>The truth is, no one knows because there is no reliable evidence that Hoover was gay.
>The Soviet KGB began spreading disinformation about J Edgar Hoover's sexual proclivities in the 1960s. These included claims that Hoover was a gay cross-dresser. The fact is that in the well-regarded history book, The Sword And The Shield - The Mitrokhin Archive And The Secret History Of The KGB, authors Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, point out that like the CIA, the FBI was a major target of KGB disinformation operations and that, until his death in 1972, many of these measures were directed against J Edgar Hoover.
This account is a timely reminder of the power of kompromat. With so many politicians having used Twitter and other platforms, I am a bit concerned about how much power certain tech moguls now hold over them. Combining this with campaign contributions could explain some things.
From what I understand, Twitter's security was/is shit, and bribing some random employee is all that was needed to hijack very high value accounts. I'd be surprised if the number of people who were able to access DMs and "like history" wasn't in the hundreds. Kompromat isn't very useful if everybody has it.
I watched Mudge's testimony to congress as well. Just because half the employees could access sensitive information, it does not mean that many did. Those who did funneled it to a few unless I missed a major online dump somewhere. Musk and others definitely have location history, DM's, relationships, and probably more that they could use against people.
My favorite portrayal was in James Ellroy's "Underworld USA" trilogy.
Of course establishment sources like The New Yoker would have us believe that state institutions are now non-partisan and trustworthy. Some would even suggest that mere suspicion of these institutions is a thought crime.
From my side, the historical record is more illustrative of the human condition. Names of individuals and bureaus may change, but the underlying incentives for corruption and abuse of power remain.
> Of course establishment sources like The New Yoker would have us believe that state institutions are now non-partisan and trustworthy.
The New Yorker is somewhat famous for its sober, balanced tone. Even so, it's impossible to read this article and come away thinking that the writer considers the FBI trustworthy.
>Can Joe Biden Restore America’s Belief That Government Is Good for People?
Despite the gravity of the challenges ahead, President Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris are setting out with some distinct advantages.
Sure, specifically the FBI is criticized in a narrower partisan context. The larger picture of institutional authority is celebrated by the author.
Take your pick of the stories from these search results. Show me where they critique the FBI's current political slant. Compare this coverage to stories celebrating institutional authority during the red scare or civil rights era. Please note that what we now call overreach wasn't overreach in the eyes of proponents or the complicit media voices.
My thesis stands. The New Yorker has no problem with institutional authority where it suits their partisan biases.
>The Growing Threat of American Political Violencehttps://www.newyorker.com › News › 2020 Election
Oct 15, 2020 — The F.B.I. case agent assigned to the shooting was Tom O'Connor, a specialist in investigating violent extremist groups, from the Aryan ...
>Two January 6th Defendants and the Consolidation of Right ...https://www.newyorker.com › News › 2020 Election
Jun 6, 2022 — A few days later, the F.B.I. arrested Reffitt in an early-morning raid. At Reffitt's trial in March, Jackson testified against his father and ...
>Biden's Vital but Fraught Battle Against Domestic Terrorismhttps://www.newyorker.com › News › Joe Biden
Jan 25, 2021 — He warned of “a rise of political extremism, white supremacy, ... Previous F.B.I. campaigns to counter domestic threats have resulted, ...
I don't know what you think you've demonstrated here: I can't find a single reference to the FBI in that second article you've linked.
I also don't buy the premise: the existence of any individual action by the FBI doesn't indicate a shift in their partisan tendencies. The original article goes to great pains to demonstrate this, e.g. with Hoover's begrudging support for civil rights violation prosecutions.
In other words, you're overextending yourself. Nobody has claimed that the New Yorker isn't okay with institutional authority (what would that even mean?). The only claim is that they haven't demonstrated any particular inconsistency regarding the FBI.
EDIT: Lew wasn't one to tell tales, AFAIK. One of the most earnest and good-natured individuals I've ever met, though apparently not averse to a little mischief. RIP, Mr. Hedges. https://adventfuneral.com/tribute/details/174967/Lewis-Hedge...