Clyde Tolson

Paul Krassner owes a debt of gratitude to the FBI. When Life magazine published a profile in 1968 of Krassner and his off-the-wall satirical publication, The Realist, it prompted this letter to the editor: "To classify Krassner as some sort of 'social rebel' is far too cute. He's a nut, a raving, unconfined nut. As for any possible intellectual rewards to be gleaned from The Realist--much better prose may be found on lavatory walls."

"There are a number of things wrong with Washington. One of them is that everyone has been away from home too long." President Dwight D. Eisenhower, May 11, 1955 IF YOU'RE NOT FROM WASHINGTON--IFyou're a tourist or a newcomer--you might well be forgiven for thinking that the city's only permanent residents are carved out of marble or cast in bronze.

W. Mark Felt, the former FBI official who ended one of the country's most intriguing political mysteries when he identified himself as "Deep Throat" -- the nickname for the anonymous source who helped guide the Washington Post's Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into the Watergate scandal -- has died. He was 95.

In February 1970, a top aide to President Nixon warned J. Edgar Hoover that a new reporter in town, Jack Nelson, was said to be gunning for the FBI. Hoover took the advice to heart. "Keep an eye on these characters," the FBI director wrote his subordinates, referring to Nelson and two of his editors at the Los Angeles Times. "They are up to no good. " As reports on Nelson's activities poured in from FBI field offices, Hoover would scribble comments across the bottom. The more he read, the more vitriolic he became.

In "J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets" we get chilling proof that, given enough power, a single bureaucrat can poison an entire government. Let me assure you that Curt Gentry is no Kitty Kelley. His goal, which he achieves, is not to sift through a life hunting only for what titillates, but to write a rounded biography, cradle to grave. It just so happens that Hoover's cradle and grave were in Washington, D.C.