Andrew Nakamura
4/29/14
During
the presidency of President Eisenhower, Eisenhower issued barring that any
homosexual from all federal job positions.
The president appointed Mr. J. Edgar Hoover in charge of the
investigation of the order and would keep homosexuals off of the federal
payroll. [1] However Hoover had a possible secret that he lived with during this
time that he himself was actually homosexual.
Hoover was a lifelong
bachelor who never married, never fathered and children and lived with his
mother till he was forty years old. Hoover spent an untold amount of
personal and professional time searching and gathering information about federal
workers like politicians, government leaders, and coworkers and so on to find
out if their sexual orientation was homosexual or heterosexual. There is also an account of Hoover monitoring
John F. Kennedy’s heterosexual affairs in supposedly-failed attempts to black
mail him.
There is a lot of speculation
whether or not Hoover was truly homosexual. Some historians claim he was truly homosexual. They have
gone back and found that he and his FBI associate were extremely close. The two were seen close all the time, going
out to eat going out to night clubs and even going on long vacations just the
two of them. Just like Hoover Tolson
never married or had children. After the
death of Hoover in 1972, Clyde Tolson, his close associate, inherited close to
$551,000 and his Hoovers house. Still,
historians questions if they were just close friends or homosexual
partners. If Hoover was in fact gay, he
was quite good at covering up his homosexual behavior and covering up his
homosexual personal life, while maintaining a heterosexual persona.[2] There
also some extreme rumors that have been passed through history. For instance some believe seeing Hoover dress
as a cross-dresser and seeing him in a dress at homosexual parties in the 1950’s.
However all
these are just rumors and there were never a confirmation of him being
homosexual. Simply not coming out and
being open about it was important to keep his high federal job position and not
being kicked off payroll. I suppose that
J. Edgar Hoover mystery of being homosexual will remain a secret and that
people throughout history will question his sexual orientation.
[1] Crystal Moore, “Beyond Reproduction” (lecture,
University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, April 2013)
[2] J.Hoover. "Hoover Gay Rumors" http://johnedgarhoover.com/gay-hoover/536/ (accessed April
29, 2014).
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