A biography is indeed an informative form in which facts about people can be presented. This means that such literature would most likely gain public attention in quick time. The matter contained in a biography of course does have to be the kind that would enrich public views about particular people. However, in order to write an interesting biography one has to spend a great deal of time learning about an individual’s life and verify whatever is discovered.
Not all biographies are easy to write, as they all may not be simple accounts of facts about a person’s life; there may be many details that are unknown, and there may be details found out that could difficult for the public to digest. This is precisely the point that biographers need to be careful about, and this makes biographical accounts difficult to write.
Authors may go about writing an account of any heroic figure in ways that are most common. This means that they would have to explore available documents; these documents would have to be ones that are publicly available, as only then would they be legal and not spark controversies.
An example of writing a biography that would have to be accurate in accounts and require evidence for what a biographer asserts, is a biographical account of J. Edgar Hoover’s life. This is because apart from some details about his life being not being confirmed, he is a political icon. For this reason, it would be better for a writer to be cautious. However, there are biographies about Hoover’s life that have ventured beyond points of caution. They have exposed the manner in which he dealt with the FBI in order to bring it to its present-day reputation (Denenberg, 1995). In doing so, it is suggested that as chief of the agency, there were negative as well positive reactions that the agency faced because of his actions. However, no president of the United States ever had the nerve to remove Hoover from his position. According to the author of ‘The True Story of J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI’ Barry Denenberg, Hoover was an asset to any government because in spite of his bluntness and rigidity he was a cornerstone for security in the United States.
According to Barry Denenberg’s ‘The True Story of J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI’, the FBI would not have developed into what it is today if it was not for Hoover’s long service as chief. It was due to his expertise that intelligence actually developed into what it is today; American intelligence that is heard of today is the result of the clever crime investigative processes that Hoover left behind him. It is no wonder why president after president in United States, before and after 20 th century wars, did not want to lose Hoover’s services (Spannaus, 2000).
Particular points of Hoover’s services in the FBI, which are worth referring to, include the manner in which he dealt with public opinion. Some may even criticize Hoover for his approach to handling protesting groups such as the one lead by Martin Luther King, but it was evident that Hoover’s Sunday School engrained attitude could not tolerate these societal disturbances. In addition to this, it is also known that Hoover resented alien presence. This was particularly the case when the American public showed signs of discomfort with alien presence. In order to invert public fears of alien entering America to destroy it with an atomic bomb Hoover began operations to send shiploads of Russians back to their country. Conducting such operations won him the place of an idol in the eyes of Americans, and this was mainly because he wanted America to be a ‘clean’ America, as driven by his formal education (Branc, 1987). In addition to his clear intentions, Hoover was also known for his political ability of manipulating the press. This is yet another mode through which he managed to gain a prominent position as an American leader. The darker side of this manipulation of the press and therefore the people is the suggestion that Hoover had secrets to keep. It is suggested that he maintained files of particular cases that he stored away safely with the knowledge of his companions. Were there really any big secrets? And if there were secrets, why weren’t they revealed later or at least passed on to the net in charge of intelligence? Why did Hoover’s close aids destroy and dispose of these files?
Aside from these big questions arising in Denenberg’s account of Hoover’s personal and professional life, there are other darker sides of Hoover’s life that are still really not confirmed. It is said that Hoover, in spite of wanting to maintain a ‘clean’ America, according to his definition of ‘clean’, he was self-contradictory. This was at a time when homosexuality was looked down upon, and Martin Luther King was accused of being Homosexual (Branc, 1987).
Yet, it has been said by several writers and researchers that Hoover himself was a homosexual, and that he used to practice homosexuality with one of his close aids. However, none of this can really be conformed according to Denenburg, and according to contemporary open-minded thinking nor should it matter. This is because Hoover’s professional record is the one that matters most to America, and not his personal life, whether he was homosexual, heterosexual or bisexual.
Hoover, in spite of allegations against him for homosexuality, remains in fact America’s founder of intelligence theory and investigation processes. If it were not for him, the developments that America has witnessed with regard to its intelligence agencies, might not have taken place as early as Hoover made it possible. To put this in a few words, Denenburg describes Hoover’s service with the intelligence agency one that transformed it from its amateurish outlook into a thoroughly intelligence operative force. |