The FBI in Peace and War

There has been a lot of discussion as to whether J. Edgar Hoover should be asked to resign from the FBI after his recent remarks about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and the Warren Report.

I can now reveal for the first time why President Johnson cannot ask J. Edgar Hoover to resign. The reason is J. Edgar Hoover doesn't exist.

He is a mythical person first thought up by the Reader's Digest, and over the years he has become such a legend that no President has dared reveal the truth.

What happened was that in 1925 the Reader's Digest was printing an article on the newly formed Federal Bureau of Investigation and, as they do with many pieces, they signed it with a nom de plume. They got the word Hoover from the vacuum cleaner, to give the idea of a cleanup; Edgar was the name of one of the publisher's nephews, and the J. stood for jail.

What they had not counted on was how successful the article would be. J. Edgar Hoover caught the imagination of the American public and became a household word. The FBI had no choice but to keep the legend going. Besides, a person who does not exist cannot make mistakes.

As part of the conspiracy, they made a composite photo of several FBI agents and published it as the picture of the No. 1 G-Man.

Then they hired people who looked like the composite photo to travel around the country to important dinners and also to testify in front of Congress. There have been, in fact, 26 J. Edgar Hoovers since 1925, and until the recent unpleasantness the FBI intended to have many more.

Naturally, when you are keeping a conspiracy like this going for so many years there are bound to be slipups. For example, once one J. Edgar Hoover was photographed in front of a Chicago movie theater arresting John Dillinger, while another one was accepting an Americanism award from the DAR in a hotel in Philadelphia.

All hell broke loose at the department and the agent in charge of keeping the different J. Edgar Hoovers on schedule was asked to resign.

It is interesting to note that some J. Edgar Hoovers have specialized in Communist-hunting, while other J. Edgar Hoovers have gone after Nazis. Still others prefer to go track down kidnappers and mobsters.

Up until a few weeks ago the conspiracy was so well handled that no one had the slightest clue, except for the President, that there was no real J. Edgar Hoover.

But then without clearing it, one of the less discreet J. Edgar Hoovers decided to call a news conference, where he violated the FBI rules about getting into politics. He blasted Dr. King, the Warren Report and the Supreme Court, and everyone started to call for Hoover's resignation.

President Johnson is now in a terrible quandary. Does he get off the hook by admitting there is no J. Edgar Hoover, or should he go ahead and have a retirement dinner for him and see the legend through to the bitter end?

If he does hold a retirement dinner, does he ask the 26 J. Edgar Hoovers who have played the role to come to the dinner and give them each a watch, or does he just ask the last guy, who was the one who really loused the legend up?

I would hate to be the one who had to make the decision.