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J. Edgar Hoover, Sex, and Crime: An Historical Antidote. By Athan Theoharis. (Chicago: Dee, 1995. 175 pp. $19.95, ISBN 1-56663-071-1.)
In a cleverly orchestrated media blitz for his 1993 biography, Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover (1993), Anthony Summers parlayed his assertion that Hoover was a drag queen blackmailed by the mob into national publicity. By now the image of a Hoover in a Mother Hubbard, partying down with blond boy toys, has become part of popular culture, and the rising generation can be excused if it believes the "woman in red" was J. Edgar himself.
Now Hoover biographer (and preeminent expert on FBI files) Athan Theoharis takes a look at Summers's story of Plaza Hotel parties where the...