11. The Kennedy’s pushed Hoover into attacking organized crime in the United States
Until the Kennedy Administration J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI paid little attention to organized crime in the United States. From the 1930s through the late 1950s Hoover largely denied the existence of organized crime along the lines of the Cosa Nostra, preferring to focus the investigative abilities of the FBI on American citizens suspected of communist leanings. In 1957 the Apalachin meeting revealed to the world that Hoover was wrong, and an embarrassed Hoover began to direct efforts by the FBI against the Mafia, but it was half-hearted at best, directed more at public relations than crime control, especially considering mob influence with labor unions. Hoover preferred to shape public opinion along the lines of communist influence within the American labor movement. The public embarrassment and congressional outcry against the FBI led to Hoover redoubling his collection of potentially harmful information on political enemies, retained in the FBI files.
One target was an old target, Eleanor Roosevelt. Long considered (by Hoover) an anti-American, pro-communist, and what was worse, a desegregationist, Hoover collected information on Eleanor’s personal life, including her sexual relationships, which were retained in official files (where they can be viewed in the National Archives) as well as supposedly in his personal files. Whether the information was leaked to the press in order to discredit FDR’s widow is a matter of speculation, Eleanor remained a strident pro-union and pro-integration voice for the rest of her life. When Bobby Kennedy directed Hoover to concentrate the forces of the FBI on organized crime and its undue influence, an angry director overtly complied, but secretly continued to focus on communism as the main threat to American life.