Hidden life of obsessive Hoover who kept files on presidents for security

J Edgar Hoover became head of the FBI, or the Bureau of Investigation as it was then called, in 1924. He remained in his post until his death in 1971. He towered over 20th century America, although he spent most of his time with his nose in the country’s sewers. He was a strange man; a “sociopath” concludes a psychiatrist interviewed for Anthony Summers’ exhaustive biography, Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J Edgar Hoover.

The book, originally published in 1993, has been reissued — and “revamped”, says Summers — to coincide with the release of Clint Eastwood’s film, J Edgar. The original project, which took six years, was a feat of orchestration worthy of Hoover’s famed organisational powers. It incorporated 850 interviews, a $500,000 (€380,000) budget, and the marshalling of a research team, which included, among detectives and historians, Robbyn Swan, a Washington journalist who became Summers’ wife. The couple live in a renovated ferryman’s cottage in west Waterford.