17. Despite numerous rumors, nobody ever accused Hoover of using the secret files for blackmail
One of the legends surrounding J. Edgar Hoover’s secret personal files was that they were used, or were to be used, to blackmail members of the Washington community to do his bidding as necessary. It is widely assumed by those who assign to Hoover an evil hold on the reins of government throughout his reign as Director of the FBI that he used his ill-gotten information as the source of his almost unlimited power, controlling the government through fear, and when necessary, through the time-honored criminal art of blackmail. Hoover did not use blackmail overtly, he did not demand tit for tat in his dealings with either members of congress or the occupants of the Oval Office. He was far more subtle in his use of the information which the FBI held in its files, including implying that he (Hoover) was not the only FBI official privy to the information.
In March, 1962, Hoover met with John Kennedy in the Oval Office, according to his own notes. The meeting was ostensibly a working lunch during which, according to author Ronald Kessler, Hoover informed the President that the FBI had information regarding Kennedy having an affair with Judith Campbell, a 25-year-old divorcee who also was having a concurrent affair with Chicago Mob boss Sam Giancana. According to Kessler, Hoover simply let JFK know that the FBI had the information, allowing the President to stew over it on his own. According to Kessler, JFK responded by ending the affair. Numerous and conflicting accounts of the affair and Kennedy’s relationship with Campbell (later known as Judith Exner) have been “revealed” ever since, though nothing which could be confirmed as unimpeachable evidence of the affair, or the luncheon in which Hoover revealed his knowledge of it to the President has ever surfaced.