5. "The Most Notorious Liar in the Countryâ€
Martin Luther King Jr crosses Hoover's radar. It doesn't end well. Emily Maitlis on the legacy of perhaps the most powerful figure in 20th-century America.
Martin Luther King Jr crosses Hoover's radar. It doesn't end well.
J Edgar Hoover built then ran the FBI for almost five decades. He turned it from a bureaucratic backwater into a premier crime fighting and counterintelligence force. In the process, he arguably became America’s most powerful man. He’s been dead 50 years and still his shadow looms over the US. Today’s fears of a ‘deep state’ - of unaccountable government officials working against the public in their own interest – can be traced back to him. In this 8-part series, Emily Maitlis shows how though his job was to enforce the law...he would not always be bound by it.
Producer: Neal Razzell
Research: Louise Byrne
Editor: Hugh Levinson
Production Coordinator: Janet Staples
Sound: Tom Brignell
Last on
More episodes
Previous
Next
Broadcast
- Mon 20 Jun 2022 13:45´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 4
Podcast
-
The People vs J Edgar Hoover
An examination of how the first director of the FBI's iron grip still permeates America.