Though the posters and trailers promise quality performances, Clint Eastwood's biopic J. Edgar seems intent on skirting certain issues in the former FBI director's personal life. The JEH Foundation is already denying the "rumors" louder than ever, but so far there's little indication that they've got anything to fear beyond a little hand-holding. QUEERTY asks: if Clint Eastwood is cool with homos, why is he freaking out about J. Edgar not being a gay movie? Despite the tame promos, screenwriter Dustin Lance Black insists that the gay subplot makes up "about a third" of the story. Meanwhile, an upcoming memoir by former Hollywood pimpster Scotty Bowers is rumored to contain a firsthand account of a gay weekend getaway with Hoover and company.
posted by hermitosis on Oct 9, 2011 - 81 comments

A FOIA request for Ernest Hemingway's FBI file has revealed that J. Edgar Hoover had placed him under surveillance due to his activities in Cuba. His fear that the FBI was spying on him was previously viewed as a consequence of the mental deterioration that eventually lead to his suicide.
posted by jeffburdges on Jul 2, 2011 - 76 comments

Alex Ross examines the 800-page FBI file of Leonard Bernstein. (single page print link.)
posted by NemesisVex on Aug 11, 2009 - 30 comments

Ho[over]! Ho[over]!Ho[over]!
According to a document that was one of many declassified [PDF] by The State Department yesterday, “Former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had a plan to suspend the rules against illegal detention and arrest up to 12,000 Americans he suspected of being disloyal....The plan called for the FBI to apprehend all potentially dangerous individuals whose names were on a list Hoover had been compiling for years. ‘The index now contains approximately twelve thousand individuals, of which approximately ninety-seven percent are citizens of the United States,’ Hoover wrote in the now-declassified document. ‘In order to make effective these apprehensions, the proclamation suspends the writ of habeas corpus.’” [habeas corpus previously -- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.]
posted by ericb on Dec 22, 2007 - 58 comments