Athan G. Theoharis

Explicit sex keeps you turning the page' GuardianFelicity is a girl with two different sides to her character, each leading two very separate lives. There's Fizz – wild child, drummer in a retro punk band, and car thief. And then there's Felicity – a quiet, polite, and ultra efficient office worker. But as her attractive, controlling boss takes an interest in her, she finds it hard to keep the two parts of her life separate. Will being with Stephen mean choosing between personas and sacrificing so much of her life? But then, it also appears that Stephen has some very peculiar and addictive ideas about sex.

Was J. Edgar Hoover a homosexual? And did organized-crime leaders, knowing this, blackmail the FBI director into leaving them alone? These charges won almost instant popular acceptance when they were aired not long ago in a sensational biography of Hoover. But Athan Theoharis, our foremost authority on Hoover and the FBI, here shows that the accusations are spurious, and that the story of Hoover's real approach to sex and organized crime is far more intriguing. The chilling portrait that takes shape in these pages is that of a moralistic bureaucrat who would not hesitate to use sex-related information against his political enemies - but only when it could not be traced to FBI investigations. And the FBI's ineffectiveness in pursuing organized-crime leaders had nothing to do with Hoover's vulnerability; it resulted from the director's lack of accountability, his use of illegal investigative techniques, and his focus on political activities. Punctuating his narrative with case materials drawn from Hoover's secret files - on presidential candidates, senators, congressmen, artists and writers, college presidents, and others - Theoharis unravels the brilliantly devious means that Hoover used to accomplish his political ends. And he shows how they contributed to a culture of lawlessness within the FBI itself. J. Edgar Hoover, Sex, and Crime is a useful corrective to our history as well as a fascinating exploration of one of the twentieth century's most sinister minds.

This book is a comprehensive history of the abuses of the American domestic intelligence system from 1936 until May 1978. Drawing from the mountain of bureaucratic memos that Congressional committees and the Freedom of Information Act have pried loose, the author traces the step-by-step expansion of the authority of the FBI and other agencies to investigate the loyalty of American citizens exercising their civil liberties. In the process, he also shows the daily Washington struggle of top-level bureaucrats for power and programs. -- from Publisher description.

Publisher's description: The long history of the Federal Bureau of Investigation under J. Edgar Hoover is studded with serious questions about the Bureau's professionalism and accountability. Revelations in the recent cases of Wen Ho Lee, Robert Hannsen, and Timothy McVeigh illustrate these misgivings. In Chasing Spies, Athan Theoharis, historian and perhaps the foremost authority on the FBI's record, raises urgent new uncertainties about the Bureau's behavior--and about the prospects for giving the FBI expanded powers of surveillance during the current national emergency. Mr. Theoharis here redefines the politics of the World War II and cold war eras, moving the debate beyond the narrow perspective triggered by the release of KGB records and intercepted Soviet consular reports (the Venona messages). The intriguing issue, he argues, is not the effectiveness of Soviet espionage activities as supported by the new evidence. Nor is it the long-standing charges of b3ssoftness toward communismb4s in the Roosevelt and Truman administrations. The real issue, he says, is the failure of the FBI to apprehend and convict Soviet agents. Based on meticulous research in FBI files, Chasing Spies uncovers the FBI's role in the most important espionage cases of the cold war years. The book shows how secrecy immunized FBI operations from critical scrutiny and enabled FBI officials to mask their counterintelligence failures while promoting a politics of McCarthyism.

"Investigators who studied the tragic events of 9/11 faulted U.S. intelligence for not discovering the terrorists' plans, pointing to the intelligence agencies' lack of coordination as a key ingredient in this failure. In its 2004 report, the Kean Commission criticized both the FBI and the CIA for their inadequate sharing of information, urging greater mutual assistance to achieve absolute security." "But, says the distinguished historian Athan Theoharis, absolute security is an illusory quest. It is certain to nurture disappointment - and worse. His compelling analysis traces the troubled nature of relations among American intelligence agencies and identifies the historical myopia that characterizes the official view of the problem, " "Surprisingly, as Mr. Theoharis shows, coordination has been promoted since the 1930s by U.S. presidents who have publicly and secretly acted to ensure greater cooperation among the agencies. And the nation's intelligence services have in fact been determined of the need to anticipate internal security threats - espionage and subversion during World War II and the cold war, espionage and terrorism since the 1990s. Despite these measures, the nation has not enjoyed greater security. Both the CIA and the FBI have turned this quest into abuses of power and violations of individual liberties." "The Quest for Absolute Security is a cautionary reminder of the costs to a democratic society of policies that expand the government's surveillance powers yet may bring us no closer to perfect safety."--Jacket.