Rap Sheet

Reign: 1920s-1970s

Business: FBI director

Region: United States of America

Claim to Fame: crimes against civil rights leaders

Downfall: Congressional investigation

Sentence: reputation in ruins

Status: deceased

Lesson: You can't fool all the people all the time.

Case File:

The first and most famous director of the FBI consolidated his power through a combination of brilliant public relations moves and compromising personal files he maintained on politicians who held his fate in their hands, including several presidents.

Positioned as an avowed and implacable enemy of communism, Hoover was often at odds with left-leaning Black leaders throughout his reign, including Marcus Garvey and Paul Robeson.

However during the tumultuous '60s decade, Hoover went further, undertaking a virtual counter-revolution against the civil rights movement - with particular venom directed at Martin Luther King - and ultimately enabling the bureau to employ smear campaigns, 'dirty tricks', and even armed attacks on several militant leaders.

These strategies were the work of Hoover's Counter Intelligence Program, or COINTELPRO, which was formed to investigate and undermine 'subversive' organizations that were almost invariably aligned with the movement for civil rights.

More than a decade later, U.S. congressional investigations would detail the scope of COINTELPRO's actions, which implicated the bureau in the framing and even murder of prominent activists.