ABSTRACT
In 1921 J. Edgar Hoover was elevated to the assistant directorship and in 1924 to the directorship of the agency that in 1935 was renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Hoover focused on professionalizing the agency by developing scientific law enforcement techniques, including fingerprinting, as well as issuing annual reports on crime in the United States. The Federal Bureau of Investigation battled prominent gangsters that brought it increasingly into the public eye. During World War II, Hoover worked closely with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the agency was involved in counterintelligence against the Nazis. Hoover developed a "Counter Intelligence Program," first against Communists and later against the Ku Klux Klan, the Black Panthers, and the new Left. Today, Hoover is often mentioned in connection with a longtime relationship with his associate director, Clyde Tolson, believed by some Washington observers to have been homosexual.
