J. EDGAR HOOVER

J. Edgar Hoover was first director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from the 1930s to the 1970s. Hoover is credited with creating the FBI as it is today and instituting technology such as a centralized fingerprint database and forensic methods and laboratories. Because he was appointed for life, he became a very controversial figure in the 1960s, when he began using the FBI to compile secret files on people he deemed enemies of the U.S.! After he passed away in 1972 at the age of 77, many changes were made to the FBI so that it was not independent of the rest of the government.