J. Edgar Hoover Still Firmly Entrenched At F.B.I.

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32350, 16 July 1970, Page 7

J. Edgar Hoover Still Firmly Entrenched At F.B.I.

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) WASHINGTON. The big question at the Federal Bureau of Investigation is: “Will J. Edgar Hoover still be at the helm when the agency moves into its new headquarters?” Neither Mr Hoover, who is 75, nor the new building—-across the street from the F.8.1.’s present offices at the Justice Department building in Pennsylvania Avenue are showing signs of movement.

Mr Hoover seems as firmly entrenched as director of the F. 8.1. as he was when the agency was founded in 1924, and he became its first chief.

He reached the mandatory retirement age for Federal employees in 1964, but President Johnson signed an executive order allowing him to stay on indefinitely. The new F. 8.1. offices are still a gaping hole in the street, six years after the plans were drawn and three years after work started. The building is not expected to be finished for another three years.

The recent resignation of the F.8.1.’s third-ranking official. Mr Cartha de Loach, seemed to outsiders an indication of high-level frustration within the agency at the apparent refusal of either Mr Hoover or his second-in-command, Associate Director Clyde Tolson, aged 70, to consider a graceful exit. Mr de Loach, who is 49, leaves this month. He had been with the agency since 1942, apart from two years’ war service in the Navy. He was in charge of criminal and counterespionage operations, and was Mr Hoover’s liaison man with the White House during the Johnson Administration. According to sources close to the F. 8.1., his departure was a sign that Mr de Loach foresaw no vacancy at the top for some time. The F. 8.1. staff of thousands seem as firmly wedded to Mr Hoover as they are to their present offices. And the costs of the new headquarters have gone up considerably faster than the walls. The original estimate put the cost of the 11-storey building at SUS6O million. Work started late in 1967, but so far only two levels of the three-floor basement substructure have been : completed. According to the General I Services Administration, the ioverseer of Federal public works and maintenance, the cost now is estimated at

slo2jm—which will make It the most expensive Federal building in Washington. The entire building is expected to be completed by late 1973 or early 1974, by which time Mr Hoover will be 79.

Each New Year’s Day—Mr Hoover’s birthday someone poses the possibility that he is ready to retire. But just as regularly, the F. 8.1. denies it, and each new United States President announces Mr Hoover’s reappointment. Part of the problem is that Mr Hoover has become so closely identified with the agency he organised that any reform of the F. 8.1. is probably impossible while he is there. The first reform many politicians would like to see is the imposition of a time limit on the director’s tenure of office, possibly of eight years. The second would be to have Mr Hoover’s successor chosen from outside the ranks of F. 8.1. agents. The third would be to split the directorship into two sections: operations and intelligence. One would deal strictly with crime, the other would tackle subversives and political agitators wbom the Government might regard as dangerous. At present, they are fused into one with Mr Hoover directing it all. Although Mr Hoover’s detractors are quick to criticise him for the pungent rhetoric and strident tone of his annual reports and comments on dissenters,

his defenders note some of the F.8.1.'* other achievements. They claim the F. 8.1. has been just as tough against the anti-Negro Ku Klux Klan and the militant Right-wing minutemen, for instance, as

it is against activists on the Left They also claim that F. 8.1. agents have shown considerably more restraint and regard for the rights of Negro militants than local police departments.