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The Documentary: The people v J Edgar Hoover: Part two

The people v J Edgar Hoover

25/12/2022 GMT

The people v J Edgar Hoover: Part two

BBC World Service - The Documentary, The people v J Edgar Hoover: Part two

The life and legacy of J Edgar Hoover, who ran the FBI for almost five decades

The life and legacy of J Edgar Hoover, who ran the FBI for almost five decades.

Emily Maitlis explores the life and legacy of J Edgar Hoover, who ran the FBI for almost five decades and turned it into a premier crime-fighting and counterintelligence force.

In part two Hoover begins to lose control of the American narrative. When we meet the FBI director this time, he is at the height of his authority, taking on Martin Luther King Jr, a man he called the “most notorious liar” in America. It does not end well, ultimately, for either of them. The balance of power between Hoover’s long list of allies and enemies shifts as a complicated new era unfolds, amid plummeting public trust and rising demands for official accountability.

(Photo: circa 1945, American criminologist John Edgar Hoover (1895 - 1972), the Director of the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) for 48 years. Credit: MPI/Getty Images)

Correction note: The programme wrongly identifies the Church Committee as the Church Commission.

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