The NYT always has an array of archival obituaries available on its website, and it is always insightful to read them. Here’s the one for J. Edgar Hoover. It shows that he started his 1/2 century tenure with startling innovation and pretty much coasted from there.
Mr. Hoover’s power was a compound of performance and politics, publicity and personality. At the base of it all, however, was an extraordinary record of innovation and modernization in law enforcement–most of it in the first decade or so of his tenure.
The centralized fingerprint file (the print total passed the 200-million mark this year) at the Identification Division (1925) and the crime laboratory (1932) are landmarks in the gradual application of science to police work. The National Police Academy (1935) has trained the leadership elite of local forces throughout the country. Mr. Hoover’s recruitment of lawyers and accountants, although they now make up only 32 percent of the special agent corps, set a world standard of professionalism.