J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets Read Free

Bureau truism that the closer you were to him, the more demanding he was.
    Theirs was a rigidly formal relationship. He’d always called her Miss Gandy (when angry, barking it out as one word). In all those fifty-four years he had never once called her by her first name.
    She did not break down on hearing the news, or take the rest of the day off, or any of those that followed. Whatever her private feelings, she did not share them. Calling John Mohr to her office, she quietly informed him of the director’s death and Tolson’s instructions.
    They also briefly discussed in this, or a subsequent conversation, the disposition of certain files.
    John Mohr did not occupy the number three spot on the Bureau’s organizational chart. That position, deputy associate director, was filled by Mark Felt, the director’s latest fair-haired boy. * But Felt’s was a recently created position,with no inherent power. Insiders knew that Mohr, a bluff, often abrasive Dutchman who had been in the FBI since 1939, was the most powerful man in the Bureau, excepting only the director and Tolson.
    As assistant to the director for administrative matters, Mohr, among his other duties, prepared the Bureau’s budget. Thus he not only controlled its purse strings but also influenced its assignments, choice and otherwise. Whether a man finished his career as special agent in charge in Honolulu or as a brick (street) agent in Oklahoma City was often dependent less on his ability than on whether Mohr was his mentor. As if this weren’t power enough, he was also responsible for the Bureau’s six and a half million files.
    The columnist Joseph Kraft, a longtime student of the FBI, observed that in recent years the Bureau had degenerated into a tangle of rival cliques, united only by the fear of one old man. There was some truth in this. There had been a number of often-feuding groups, including the Nichols, DeLoach, Sullivan, and Mohr factions. But although many of their followers remained, Nichols, DeLoach, and Sullivan had long since left the Bureau. Only Mohr had survived.
    An excellent poker player, John Mohr had systematically covered his losses and consolidated his gains. Aware that open displays of power could be dangerous, he played his cards close to the vest, usually acting quietly behind the scenes. Very little happened in the Bureau, whether on the administrative or the investigative side, that Mohr did not know about. Also aware that in the Bureau power could be a very transient thing, he hedged his bets, ingratiating himself with the director, and, especially, with Tolson.
    It appeared to have paid off. Although there was no heir apparent, the director never having seen fit to groom one, Tolson’s choice of Mohr to handle the notifications, and especially the director’s funeral arrangements, was, in its own way, a patriarchal blessing, one which would not be lost on Bureau insiders.
    One of the first he told was Mark Felt. Felt was surprised to see John Mohr standing in the doorway of his office. Usually he called first. Usually, too, he spoke in a booming voice. Only this time, after carefully closing the door behind him, his voice was remarkably soft, almost a whisper: “He’s dead.”
    Felt was startled but not really surprised. Having worked closely with him, having in fact taken over many of his duties, Felt was well aware of Clyde Tolson’s poor health.
    “Did he have another stroke?” Felt asked.
    “No, you don’t understand,” Mohr replied. “The director is dead.” 2
    Although many found it easy to dislike John Mohr, almost everyone liked Mark Felt. That was the problem, some said; he had just a touch of the chameleon. Talking with Roy Cohn, he seemed an arch-conservative; with Robert Kennedy, an enlightened liberal. Yet, though Mohr and Felt were almostopposites, they had one thing in common: once the initial shock had worn off, each saw himself as the most logical person to succeed the director. Nor were they