For nearly fifty years, J. Edgar Hoover held great power in the United States. The creator of the FBI and its Director until his death, he played a role in nearly every major tragedy and scandal in America during the twentieth century. Hoover was lauded when he died as an American hero. Anthony Summers' controversial bestseller, Official & Confidential, The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover, draws on more than 800 interviews to explode the myths, exposing the dark secrets that remained hidden throughout Hoover's lifetime.Hoover used his intimate knowledge of the John F. Kennedy's sex life to ensure that Lyndon B. Johnson became Vice President, and suppressed evidence about J.F.K's assassination. Hoover himself, meanwhile, was a closet homosexual, which allegedly led to him being blackmailed by the Mafia.This fascinating book reveals that even Hoover's death, on the eve of Watergate, was clouded with mystery. Witnesses have indicated that, in the panic over the secrets he was holding over President Nixon, an operation was mounted to break into his house - possibly even to murder him.

Now the subject of a major Hollywood movie, Hoover was at the summit of power in the United States for almost fifty years. He created the FBI and ran it unchecked until his death.

Anthony Summers demolishes the epic myth to reveal a racist, blackmailer and deceiver, the puppet-master who manipulated many of the key events in modern American history. He used his bulging dossiers to bring pressure on those in political and public life - including the presidents he served. Yet he was a man with his own secrets. The Mafia reportedly found out that he was a closet homosexual
and he was allegedly also a cross-dresser. Against that background, Hoover allowed the spread of organised crime, by pretending it did not exist. He suppressed evidence about the Kennedy assassination, and died holding some of Nixon's darkest secrets.

'Enthralling' Paul Theroux

'Summers' book is not just a history of a single hero-sized hypocrite, it is a history of a vast national delusion' Hilary Mantel, Spectator

'Fascinating and alarming' Gore Vidal