A Quote by Benjamin Wittes
The notion of law enforcement as professional, not political, began developing as an aspiration and an ethos even while, in practice, the FBI was the personal fiefdom of J. Edgar Hoover.
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I have great respect for the FBI, and I know that there have been some rumors lately that the FBI was disenchanted because of what we were doing in story, or doing a certain take: that's not true. Actually the FBI was tremendously enthusiastic about us doing [ J. Edgar Hoover ] film.
My father was the first black Secret Service agent. He wanted to get into the FBI but J. Edgar Hoover, who was the head of the FBI, was a racist and he said we don't want any black people.
Complex man that he was, J. Edgar Hoover left nothing to chance. The director shrewdly recognized that building what became known as the world's greatest law enforcement agency would not necessarily keep him in office.
The president has a duty and a right to oversee the FBI, and you know, he properly delegate the law enforcement to the FBI and try to insulate it from politics. But that's not to curb the president's authority over the FBI. So if he wants to meet with the FBI and give his opinion or even talk about his hopes, if indeed, he said that, he has every right to do so.
It's an incredible education [for the movie J. Edgar Hoover] . It was like I did a college course on J. Edgar Hoover but not knowing and understanding the history and reading the books, but understanding what motivated this man was the most fascinating part of the research.
When my father began to work with President John. F.Kennedy, we moved to Washington, D.C. I was fortunate in my pre-adolescent years, as my social and political consciousness was developing, to live at the epicentre of that dynamic, idealistic, and inspiring moment in U.S. political history, with its ethos of personal and civic responsibility, summed up so succinctly in his exhortation: "Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country."
This killer [in Orlando] was interviewed by the FBI three times and I'm not going to second guess what career law enforcement professionals do everyday to defend our nation. But we need to look carefully at this. Should we have a broader database? You know, someone comes to the attention of FBI not once but three times, does that suggest that local law enforcement needs to know.
They [FBI] had a lot of clippings, a lot of articles I'd written. And to me the - the funniest one was - I had done a piece for Playboy about J. Edgar Hoover.
Also, with information having just come out at the time about J. Edgar Hoover's electronic surveillance of Dr. King, it gave greater weight to the statements of those persons who were alleging involvement of the FBI.
I just kind of had my own impressions growing up with Hoover as a heroic figure in the 40s - actually the 30s, 40s, and 50s and beyond - but this was all prior to the information age so we didn't know about Hoover except what was usually in the papers, and this was fun, because this was a chance to go into it [ during filming 'J. Edgar Hoover' ]
As president, I will instruct the Department of Justice to create a joint task force throughout the United States to work together with federal, state, and local law enforcement authorities and international law enforcement to crush this still-developing area of crime.
I frankly don't think it's going to be a successful war on terrorism until law enforcement agencies like the FBI are willing to share with other law enforcement agencies. If they can't share information, there's no way this war can be won.
If Congress is going to investigate baseball players about whether or not they told the truth, how can we justify giving the most powerful intelligence official, [James] Clapper, a pass? This is how J. Edgar Hoover ended up in charge of the FBI forever.
In my case, I've always been interested in law enforcement. I've always dabbled in law enforcement in between gigs, quite honestly. Back before things really began to pop off for me, I would work in private security for companies and stuff.
[ J. Edgar]Hoover, I'm sure, felt that he was right in everything he did and even the things that we don't like about his character.
I had not been very kind to J. Edgar Hoover. And the field agent had written on - it was sent directly to Hoover - that - the director should see this - `And, besides, Hentoff is a lousy writer.' And I thought that went a bit far.
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