l climate of the time and act accordingly. In particular, Hoover became part of the "Red Hunting" group that feared communist insurgency after the Russian Revolution.2
Hoover's enthusiasm did not go unnoticed, and on August 22, 1921, he was transferred to the post of assistant director of the FBI. Although not yet a maker of policy, Hoover quickly decided that the current attitude regarding traitors and subversives must be given all possible energy. With the unexpected death of President Warren Harding, Congress began a series of inquiries into the Bureau's activities. The defense and selective hiding of evidence served as an apprenticeship for Hoover, who was to go through many such investigations in his career with the FBI.3
By the spring of 1924, under the new Coolidge administration, governmental figures were anxious to improve the image and usefulness of the FBI. On May 10, Hoover was
2 Hank Messick, John Edgar Hoover (New York: David McKay Company, 1972), 9 13.
3 Jay Robert Nash, Citizen Hoover (Chicago: Nelson Hall, 1972), 24 30.
offered the job as director, but had been forewarned that his position and his agency would serve the law, not "make the law." Moreover, it appears that this early constraint figured prominently in Hoover's continual need to amass governmental power and influence.4
In 1924 the role of the FBI was not yet clearly defined. Hoover saw the agency as an extension of his own personality, and struggle
...