J. Edgar Re-opens Rumors of Hoover's Gay Exploits

The is no modern man known for more secrecy and elusiveness than J. Edgar Hoover. Once a clerk at the Department of Justice, Hoover transformed the then Bureau of Investigations into the FBI, a seemingly impenetrable crime fighting organization.

In Richard Hack’s book, The Puppet Master: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover, he credits Hoover’s success and 50 year tenure at the FBI with his ability to keep a secret. Hoover came to represent power. It’s said that he was Washington from 1924 when he started leading the agency until his death in 1972.

"He certainly knew how to keep a secret, which was really the key to his success. Not only did he know the secrets, but nobody knew which secrets he knew," Hack writes.

For the successes of Hoover’s vault of secrets brings to his legacy as a crime fighter, it’s those same secrets that muddle his personal life and professional methods.

In Hoover’s shadows live numerous human rights violations, managed by Hoover himself. Hack writes: "He looked at everything. He looked at every movie, every reference, every scene, every actor. He approved it all." If Hoover’s image wasn’t as he wanted, he changed it. Again, Hoover’s influence didn’t come with elected office or 1 percent financial influence, but a far more powerful adversary to potential Hoover enemies: unknown secrets.

Few—correction, no one—can say what Hoover knew or didn’t know. Hoover mirrored the secrecy of the organized crime organizations that he infiltrated. He fought elusiveness with elusiveness and organized strikes. Still today no one truly knows how large his chest of unknowns was. What is left upon his death is either staunch defense or circles of speculation.

Included in Hoover’s private files are speculations about his sexuality. Was Hoover gay or at least bi-curious? Some believe Hoover wasn’t just the most powerful man in Washington, but the most snaky closet case in history and a new film by gay Oscar-winner Dustin Lance Black opens new suspicions.

Black’s newest creation, J. Edgar, touches on Hoovers shifty work ethic and, surprisingly, his love life. Black is known for using heavy-hitting A-listers to drive his point into mainstream minds. Sean Penn was tapped for Milk and J. Edgar bills Clint Eastwood as director and Leonardo DiCaprio as the powerful man-up-front J. Edgar; however, takes a leaping risk heightening innuendo of Hoover sexuality.

See, rumors of Hoover’s secret romance centers not in a seedy back room or dark alley, but on his relationship with right-hand and FBI second-in-charge Clyde Tolson. The two were for all rumored purposes inseparable, often seen at work and non work related places. In the absence of other juicy details of Hoover’s private life sans wife and kids, the public still wonders if his sexuality wasn’t the only federal secret in Washington.

Richard Hack believes that the rumors are just juicy gossip and that Hoover and Tolson were no more than close colleagues. Hack attests that Hoover and Tolson couldn’t have been lovers since they were often seen in public together. Hack rationalizes that "gay" during Hoover’s reign would look more like a mystery than an open flaunt for the cameras. He proclaims that Hoover and Tolson would have hidden their relationship instead of taunting it for the public to digest.

But, Hoover’s actions speak the opposite if you consider that he ran his personal life in similar fashion as his professional career. On the surface Hoover’s "secrecy" wasn’t secrecy at all, but hostile and often public dares at challenges to his authority. It wasn’t what Hoover knew; it was what people thought he knew. Why then would anyone challenge his relationship with Tolson?

For all purposes, Hoover was off limits and he knew it. So if there was romantic involvement with Tolson, why not openly display it dare anyone challenge the implication? Whether it was allegation of human rights violations or his sexuality, the rush of the poker game Hoover played with the public and the public’s enemies would’ve been the same. If anything, he was consistent.

Still, we can’t forget Hoover was also the master of his own image. And if he were alive to use his Hollywood veto power he would definitely play that card today. In Hoover’s day, Black’s film wouldn’t leave the editing room.

For hard supporters of Hoover, the chief and his ghost can still do no wrong. In true Hoover fashion, the FBI launched a public relations campaign of its own in an effort to protect its iconic step father.

Huffington Post Gay Voices reports that when Eastwood and DiCaprio met with FBI heads about the film they were flooded with a dam of resistance to the gay rumors. FBI Director Mike Kortan told them that "vague rumors and fabrications have cropped up from time to time, but there is no evidence in the historical record on this issue." The J. Edgar Hoover Foundation jumped in as well with their claim of Hoover's straightness.

Black was quoted in the September issue of Next: "When I finished a draft I liked, and think I got to what the truth is, it’s a story that reflects what gay life was like pre-Stonewall, which was very different from what it looked like for Harvey Milk. That’s the script Clint and the studio read and I’ll tell you what—not only did Clint and the studio never cut or change a word, they never had a note about it."

Ultimately, even in death, Hoover remains a mystery. One we can only quip and speculate about. He was a government security agency’s best friend, a topic for gossip and the icon of public fear. Anymore, is a story only Hoover can tell.