"ANTICOMMUNISM WAS THE FORCE THAT BROUGHT HOOVER TO POWER": PRESENTATION/ASSOCIATION FIRST EDITION OF J. EDGAR HOOVER'S LAST BOOK, ON COMMUNISM, INSCRIBED BY HIM PRIOR TO PUBLICATION TO CARTHA DELOACH, HOOVER'S NO. 3 MAN AT THE FBI

(DELOACH, Cartha) HOOVER, J. Edgar. On Communism. New York: Random House, (1969). Octavo, original half black cloth, original dust jacket.

First edition of FBI director Hoover's final book, a distinctive presentation/association copy inscribed prior to publication by him to his deputy associate director, "To Cartha D. DeLoach. In appreciation of your valued assistance. J. Edgar Hoover, 12.4.68," a fine copy.

"On May 9, 1924, at the age of 29, J. Edgar Hoover became the third Director of the FBI. On May 2, 1972, when he was 77, Hoover died in office, having shaped a lasting government agency in his image." His biographer Richard Gid Powers has noted: "Hoover was in the very midst of the combat over the most important issues of the first three-quarters of the 20th century—Communism and racial justice" (New York Times). "Anticommunism was the force that brought Hoover to power and it was the force that defined both his career and the shape of the FBI from the 1920s to the late 1960s" (O'Brien, American Political Leaders, 196). On Communism, his last book, specifically highlights Hoover's deep concerns over "the student New Left, ghetto riots, black power, the rise of extremism, violence in society, the war in Vietnam…. In our current society, with its violence, chaos and uncertainty, the [Communist] Party has its best opportunity for exploitation since the depression days of the 1930s." "First printing" stated on copyright page. This copy is inscribed by Hoover three years before his death to Cartha DeLoach, who "spent more than 25 years in the FBI, rising to deputy associate director, the No. 3 position, behind only Hoover and the associate director, Clyde Tolson." Tim Weiner, author of Enemies: A History of the FBI, described DeLoach as "a talented political hatchet man, a trusted deputy to Hoover. He was also crucial to intelligence investigations conducted during the Johnson presidency." After DeLoach served as the FBI's spokesperson following the murders of civil rights workers Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner, he "supervised the investigation of the murder of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. But he had also been part of the bureau's scrutiny of the civil rights movement and was aware of the bureau's secret surveillance of Dr. King." At DeLoach's death in 2013, then-FBI director Robert Mueller praised his lifelong "commitment to the F.B.I. and to the American people" (New York Times).

A fine presentation copy with a memorable association.