Discussion»Questions»History» What are or were some of the best things J. Edgar Hoover did as the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)?
Blimey - six months have gone by and no-one has thought of anything good to say about him!
Something I did learn only today involved the FBI, but not necessarily J.E.H. personally (though he must have known).
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It's become recently revealed that the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso was being courted assiduously for propaganda purposes by both the USSR and the USA; although he did not realise this as it was all back-room manoeuvring. The American art-critic who befriended him was actually working for the CIA.
Picasso joined the French Communist Party in 1944, but was not particularly attracted to Moscow and certainly not to its "Socialist Realism" school of poster art which the French Communists probably hoped he'd copy. It even commissioned him to draw a portrait of Josef Stalin for its magazine, but he'd never met the Soviet leader and had only a vague idea of his appearance from newsreels; and his drawing of Stalin showed him as a young man not quite the rugged hero type expected.
New York was establishing its Museum of Modern Art as the major gallery it has become, and America looked after Picasso's haunting Guernica painting during Franco's regime, although Picasso himself never travelled to the USA.
That painting of course, was Picasso's impression of what the Luftwaffe had done to the city when the pre-War Nazi Germany had supported Franco's side in the Spanish Civil War. There is a story that a Nazi officer searching the artist's flat saw the painting and asked, "Did you do that?". To which Picasso replied, "No. You did." Evidently the German could not think of a suitable reply...
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So we now had the Left-wing, freedom-desiring artist having portrayed extreme-Right Nazi atrocity to the delight of Moscow, also being lionised by the largely but moderately Left-wing American art establishment with considerable if unlikely support from the US-patriotic CIA that did not want such an important artist under Kremlin influence.
While the Intelligence lot was trying to persuade Picasso to visit the USA, hoping he'd be something of a hero, the problem was Hoover's lot.
They were devoutly anti-Communist and many of its officers probably held dismissive views common in the population so also in Congress, about abstract art they did not understand. So the FBI could not grant Picasso the necessary visa: a Communist abstract-artist visiting the USA? Can't have that!
So Pablo Picasso stayed in France - I'm not sure about Spain while Franco was in charge - and splendidly if unknowingly kept aloof from this strange three-way struggle over him between three powerful but opposing factions; the Government in the USSR, and the CIA and the FBI in the USA!
He had an opportunity to do a lot for the Pride movement, given his high rank and the fact that he was in a relationship with Clyde Tolson. The fact that he chose not to is an indictment that will remain his legacy.
I concur. You make an excellent point about gay rights. I was also aware of the scare tactics employed against MLK, who, not only by contrast, was a marvellous person.
Durdle 