Magazine content is available exclusively for TIME subscribers.THE ADMINISTRATION: The Long Reign of J. Edgar Hoover
JOHN EDGAR HOOVER'S death at 77 refreshed memories of an extraordinary fund of Americana—a long, single-minded and complicated life that became a unique national presence. Hoover and the FBI were one—creator and creation. He served eight Presidents as the world's most powerful policeman. With a genius for administration and popular myth, he fashioned his career as an improbable bureaucratic morality play peopled by bad guys and G-men. The drama worked well enough when everyone agreed on the villains—"Pretty Boy" Floyd, John Dillinger, Nazi agents—but finally curdled somewhat in more ambiguous days....
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