WI: J. Edgar Retires in 1965

In real history, J. Edgar Hoover had reached the mandatory retirement age by 1965. However, Johnson waived the mandatory retirement age for Hoover, and allowed him to stay on under the President's initiative.

However, what if Hoover had not be given such special treatment and had gone off to live quietly with Clyde come 1965*? Who would have replaced him as Director, and for that matter how would they have handled the workload to come over their administration? And, what would become of all of Hoover's blackmailing material?

*Tongue in cheek.
 
Hoover would be replaced by either Bill Sullivan or Deke DeLoach, and probably Sullivan would be the new Director. RFK had made it crystal clear (in his usual smooth, Kissingerian, diplomatic manner) that come Jan. 1, 1965, Hoover would be out. Of course, by then Katzenbach will be the new AG, McNamara will be the new SoS, and RFK will be the new SECDEF...

*OOC: That was the planned '64 Cabinet shuffle.
 
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The Vulture

Banned
Perhaps Hoover takes his dirt with him and becomes active in the John Birch Society or similar. A lot of policemen were joining at the time and he might feel at home there. The dirt just forms an insurance policy.
 
Wolfman: That was the planned shuffle, which means all thoughts of RFK '68 with JFK living are inconceivable unless you have an earlier POD than Dallas. They'd make the same critique they made of George Bush Sr. in 1980: he might be a policy wonk and presidential timber, but he's never held nationally elected office. You can't be elected POTUS without having been VP, Senator or Governor.

Vulture: The Kennedys had something even bigger on Hoover: he was gay. It would be a Mexican standoff, with Hoover eventually giving way: he cannot remain Director without a waiver, which would never be given to him by either Kennedy brother.
 
And they had plenty of dirt themselves. RFK was always the family "fixer", which was because he was invulnerable to blackmail and had the required personality for said deeds in spades. Like LBJ, excellent at the "nut-cutting" sessions. Hoover was very frustrated about RFK's spotless record, but Edgar had enough dirt on JFK and JPK Sr. to fill a 747's cargo hold. Now about JFK's trysts,RFK had the same attitude as Jackie: they hated it, but they accepted an unalterable reality which had to be covered up. And I do mean unalterable: Joseph Kennedy once gave JFK a direct order to stop seeing a woman during the war, and he refused.
 

The Vulture

Banned
I should have been more clear; I was referring to what J. Edgar might have done if he had retired. Sorry about the confusion!
 
Oh, Robert Kennedy could be just as Nixonian as Tricky Dick himself. (While personally antagonistic, they were both prodigies in dirty tricks) He had civil service moles in many Cabinet departments who would inform him of LBJ's blockade of his bills and help him out when possible. One of the reasons McNamara left in '67 was because LBJ suspected him of being a RFK mole. In return, RFK even had WH staff who told him deeds of LBJ using Army soldiers as garbagemen at the Ranch, and other petty misdemeanours. Unfortunately for LBJ, he wasn't able to get anything substantive from Hoover, mainly because there's nothing to trap "the last Irish Puritan".

Vulture: Joseph Kennedy once asked Hoover in the 1950s if he'd like to become his "director of security" with a six-digit salary (quadruple his Director's salary), but Hoover refused. Once JPK dies, RFK will get rid of Hoover.
 
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What would Sullivan or Deloach have done with regards to COINTELPRO?

IOTL Sullivan was the spokesman for COINTELPRO. My thought is he might even have been more efficient in running it than Hoover, in the worst way. Deloach ran the black bag ops for COINTELPRO. Either one is actually worse for civil rights than even Hoover.
 
AmInd: It would be expanded under either, and kept on the QT. One of the reasons RFK lost the Oregon primary IOTL was because Hoover let slip that RFK personally authorized the tapping of MLK's phone. Oregon voters seemed to care more than black CA voters, somewhat ironically...
 
Hoover would be replaced by either Bill Sullivan or Deke DeLoach, and probably Sullivan would be the new Director. RFK had made it crystal clear (in his usual smooth, Kissingerian, diplomatic manner) that come Jan. 1, 1965, Hoover would be out. Of course, by then Katzenbach will be the new AG, McNamara will be the new SoS, and RFK will be the new SECDEF...

*OOC: That was the planned '64 Cabinet shuffle.
why did they want to get rid.of Dean Rusk? t Too much of a hawk.
 
Paul: Both JFK and RFK thought Rusk was a "British civil servant with a Georgia twang", too pedantic, pushing the bureaucracy's agenda and not the Administration's, etc. Mostly a personality thing though: Rusk only gave his opinion to the president one-on-one, was longwinded, and never did well in the round-table debates. McNamara was considered the better administrator, and JFK could continue to be his own SecState. Rusk would replace Stevenson at the UN.

There was also considerable tension over RFK's interference in his domain, and JFK's ambiguous resolution of that. Once, after Rusk cancelled U-2 overflights in Sept. '62, RFK, in a full NSC meeting (of which he was not a de jure member), shouted "What's the matter Dean? Have no guts!" Rusk just sat quietly without a word.
 
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