Robert Torricelli: “Upon J. Edgar Hoover's death, perhaps his closest colleague in the Bureau, William Sullivan, described Mr. Hoover as a…”

“Upon J. Edgar Hoover's death, perhaps his closest colleague in the Bureau, William Sullivan, described Mr. Hoover as a ``master blackmailer.'' We now know from historians Mr. Hoover had compiled files on Presidents of the United States and Members of Congress through illegal surveillance and wiretapping, holding dossiers on leaders of the U.S. Government. It was a practice of blackmail. It changed policies. It threatened America. And it was wrong. Probably no one of his time, through subterfuge, within the U.S. Government, had a more adverse impact on the civil rights movement. He vigorously dispatched agents of the U.S. Government to harass the leadership of the NAACP. He called leading civil rights organizations ``Communist fronts.'' Indeed, he instructed agents to stand by and watch as racist mobs would beat up voter registration workers and civil rights workers in organized and lawful marches. To the extent that he harassed Martin Luther King, former Vice President Walter Mondale called J. Edgar Hoover ``a disgrace to every American.'' I don't know how we explain to American schoolchildren who leave their schools to honor Martin Luther King, who learn in our classrooms about the American Constitution, our respect for laws, that when they visit this proud Capital of our country, the most prominent name on the most prominent street in America is J. Edgar Hoover.”