Branding Hoover's FBI

" Hunting down America's public enemies was just one of the FBI's jobs. Another--perhaps more vital and certainly more covert--was the job of promoting the importance and power of the FBI, a process that Matthew Cecil unfolds clearly for the first time in this eye-opening book. The story of the PR men who fashioned the Hoover era, Branding Hoover's FBI reveals precisely how the Bureau became a monolithic organization of thousands of agents who lived and breathed a well-crafted public relations message, image, and worldview. Accordingly, the book shows how the public was persuaded--some would say conned--into buying and even bolstering that image. Just fifteen years after a theater impresario coined the term "public relations," the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover began practicing a sophisticated version of the activity. Cecil introduces those agency PR men in Washington who put their singular talents to work by enforcing and amplifying Hoover's message. Louis B. Nichols, overseer of the Crime Records Section for more than twenty years, was a master of bend-your-ear networking. Milton A. Jones brought meticulous analysis to bear on the mission; Fern Stukenbroeker, a gift for eloquence; and Cartha "Deke" DeLoach, a singular charm and ambition. Branding Hoover's FBI examines key moments when this dedicated cadre, all working under the protective wing of Associate Director Clyde Tolson, manipulated public perceptions of the Bureau (was the Dillinger triumph really what it seemed?). In these critical moments, the book allows us to understand as never before how America came to see the FBI's law enforcement successes and overlook the dubious accomplishments, such as domestic surveillance, that truly defined the Hoover era. "-- "An extension of and complement to Matt Cecil's prize-winning Hoover's FBI and the Fourth Estate, this study is the first to explore the little-known lives and work of the FBI's Crime Records Section. For nearly 40 years under J. Edgar Hoover's heavy-handed leadership, hundreds of FBI agents and thousands of their clerks in the CRS labored to fashion and promote the Bureau's distinctive brand while avoiding any potential public relations embarrassments. Cecil takes us into their inner sanctums to reveal how this was done and what that tells us about one of our most influential and controversial institutions"--