J. Edgar Hoover Cross-Dressing: Did He Really?

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Hoover photographed in 1959. (Federal Bureau of Investigation/Wikimedia Commons)

Long after his death in 1972, J. Edgar Hoover has held the American public's attention, mostly because of all the speculation over his intensely private life. Was he gay? A cross-dresser? Secretly black, in deep with the Mafia, and/or in a Norman Bates–esque relationship with his mother? For all of the questions and secrets swirling around his personal life, the one thing that we know for sure about Hoover is that he was dedicated to law and order, or at least his own version of it.

He Was Secretly A Republican

Hoover never officially joined a political party and always claimed to be "not political," but in private, he was staunchly Republican, and despite all insistence to the contrary, his views deeply affected his work. He consistently chased after people on the left, blaming them for the "moral deterioration" of the country, and "anarchist elements." He even aspired to run for president, although at the time, that would have meant running against F.D.R. As much as Hoover hated the Squire of Hyde Park, who he felt was far too left-wing, he was elected a record four times, so it would have been a long shot at best.