"King, there is only one thing left for you to do....Take it before your
filthy, abnormal, fraudulent self is bared to the nation."
Dr. Martin Luther King received this demand in an anonymous letter in
1964. He believed that the letter was telling him to commit suicide.
Who wrote this anonymous letter? Most likely William Sullivan, an
assistant director of the FBI.
Who was Sullivan trying to impress in his campaign against King? J.
Edgar Hoover.
In this unsparing exploration of one of the most powerful Americans of
the twentieth century, accomplished historian Marc Aronson unmasks the
man behind the Bureau--his tangled family history and personal
relationships; his own need for secrecy, deceit, and control; and the
broad trends in American society that shaped his world. Hoover may have
given America the security it wanted, but the secrets he knew gave
him--and the Bureau--all the power he wanted. Master of Deceit
challenges readers to explore Hoover and his secrets by offering
dossiers of photos from his files, as well as FBI memoranda, movie
posters, magazine covers, and cartoons from the era. Was Hoover a
protector of America or a betrayer of its principles? What is the price
of security? Here is a book about the twentieth century that blazes with
questions and insights about our choices in the twenty-first.
