The Nation: The File on J. Edgar Hoover

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UNDER J. Edgar Hoover's dictatorial, 47-year rule, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has in the past been widely regarded as one of the finest law-enforcement agencies in the world. Yet now the 76-year-old director's fiefdom shows evidence of crumbling, largely because of his own mistakes. The FBI's spirit is sapped, its morale low, its initiative stifled. For the first time, there are doubts within the bureau and within the Administration about the FBI's ability to serve as an effective agency against subversion. An experienced former CIA agent, until recently an open admirer of the director, remarks unhappily: "Hoover, because of his personal pride, has seriously affected the efficient operation of American intelligence. And personal pride in a matter of national security has no place. If a guy does that, he is a real liability."

For months a feud between Hoover and one of his most senior assistants has shaken the higher levels of the bureau. In the midst of a bureaucratic war of memos, some FBI men have resigned to escape the crossfire. Said one Justice Department official who has followed the battle: "Hoover is flailing out in all directions. Everybody in the FBI is looking for cover." Even more significant is the pattern of damaging isolation in which Hoover has placed the bureau. A year and a half ago, he ordered the FBI to break off direct daily liaison with the Central Intelligence Agency, raising apprehension in the intelligence community about effective counterespionage in the U.S.

Hoover gave those orders in irritation over a minor piece of information that was relayed by an FBI agent in Denver to a CIA employee in 1969. The case involved the disappearance of a Czech-born University of Colorado professor named Thomas Riha. The FBI had refused to give the president of the university any assurance that the disappearance did not involve foul play, but an FBI agent, acting on his own, told a CIA employee that it did not. The CIA man passed on the message —no foul play—to the president, who then let it slip to the press. Hoover was furious. Because of that fairly obscure incident, he has limited most FBI contacts with the CIA since then to written and telephone messages and occasional direct meetings that he specifically approves.

Sharing the Glory. Given the complexity of most espionage cases, coordination between the two agencies is often crucial. Men from the FBI and CIA continued, on rare occasions, to circumvent Hoover's directive by meeting privately, without his knowledge. CIA men complained that Hoover's action effectively cut off the international from the national intelligence effort. One former CIA agent argues that Hoover, finding himself under heavy attack, believes that he is safer making fewer moves and allowing fewer initiatives so that there is less possibility of a damaging mistake.