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Enemies: A History of the FBI by [Tim Weiner]

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Tim Weiner

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Enemies: A History of the FBI Kindle Edition

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The hidden history of the FBI and its hundred-year war against terrorists, spies, and anyone it deemed subversive—including even American presidents.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW A SHOWTIME ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARY SERIES

“Turns the long history of the FBI into a story that is as compelling, and important, as today’s headlines.”—Jeffrey Toobin, author of American Heiress

Enemies is the first definitive history of the FBI’s secret intelligence operations, from an author whose work on the Pentagon and the CIA won him the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.

We think of the FBI as America’s police force. But secret intelligence is the Bureau’s first and foremost mission. The FBI’s secret intelligence and surveillance techniques have created a tug-of-war between national security and civil liberties, a tension that strains the very fabric of a free republic. Enemies is the story of how presidents have used the FBI to conduct political warfare—and how it has sometimes been turned against them. And it is the story of how the Bureau became the most powerful intelligence service the United States possesses.

Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The Washington Post, New York Daily News, and Slate

“Pulitzer Prize–winning author Tim Weiner has written a riveting inside account of the FBI’s secret machinations that goes so deep into the Bureau’s skulduggery, readers will feel they are tapping the phones along with J. Edgar Hoover. This is a book that every American who cares about civil liberties should read.”—Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money

“Outstanding.”—The New York Times

“Absorbing . . . a sweeping narrative that is all the more entertaining because it is so redolent with screw-ups and scandals.”—Los Angeles Times

“Fascinating.”—The Wall Street Journal

“Important and disturbing . . . with all the verve and coherence of a good spy thriller.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Exciting and fast-paced.”—The Daily Beast

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686 pages
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English
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Random House
Publication date

February 14, 2012
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3447 KB
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Turns the long history of the FBI into a story that is as compelling, and important, as today’s headlines.”—Jeffrey Toobin, author of American Heiress

“Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tim Weiner has written a riveting inside account of the FBI’s secret machinations that goes so deep into the Bureau’s skulduggery, readers will feel they are tapping the phones along with J. Edgar Hoover. This is a book that every American who cares about civil liberties should read.”—Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money

“Outstanding.”—The New York Times

“Fascinating.”—The Wall Street Journal

“Absorbing . . . a sweeping narrative that is all the more entertaining because it is so redolent with screw-ups and scandals.”—Los Angeles Times

“Important and disturbing . . . with all the verve and coherence of a good spy thriller.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Exciting and fast-paced.”—The Daily Beast

“Pulitzer-Prize–winning author Tim Weiner has written a riveting inside account of the FBI’s secret machinations that goes so deep into the Agency’s skullduggery, readers will feel they are tapping the phones along with J. Edgar Hoover. This is a book that every American who cares about civil liberties should read.”—Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money

“Enemies is a research masterpiece. Picking through seventy thousand newly declassified documents and using on-the-record interviews, Weiner reveals startling new truths and debunks nagging old myths about the FBI. Enemies reads like a thriller, but don’t let the heart-pumping prose fool you. Weiner has written a scholarly tour de force that will be an instant classic for any serious student of American national security.”—Amy B. Zegart, Ph.D., Stanford University, author of Spying Blind

“Tim Weiner’s Enemies is the most comprehensive history of the FBI as an intelligence agency we have ever had. Based on extensive research in previously unavailable materials, Weiner gives us a fresh way to think about J. Edgar Hoover, the many presidents he worked with, and the FBI as a national security agency. The book is also a cautionary tale that is essential reading for anyone concerned about American civil liberties.”—Robert Dallek, author of An Unfinished Life

Review

Truly impressive ... [Enemies] could have been put together only by a journalist of Weiner's stature -- Keith Lowe Sunday Telegraph A history that moves at the pace of a James Ellroy novel. But Weiner's truth is wilder even than Ellroy's fiction. Weiner sets the record straight on the FBI's first 100 years using only the Bureau's documents and oral testimony, most of which has never been seen -- David Blackburn Spectator An outstanding piece of work, even-handed, exhaustively researched, smoothly written and thematically timely ... This is certainly the most complete book we are likely to see about the F.B.I.'s intelligence-gathering operations, from Emma Goldman to Osama bin Laden -- Bryan Burrough New York Times Extensively researched, admirably understated, yet terrifically entertaining Boston Globe Important and disturbing ... Weiner lays bare a record of embarrassing, even stunning failure, in which the bureau's lawlessness was matched only by its incompetence ... [he] has done prodigious research, yet tells this depressing story with all the verve and coherence of a good spy thriller New York Times Book Review A fascinating account of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's counterespionage snooping over the past century ... A very good read Wall Street Journal An authoritative and often frightening history of what has been, in effect, America's secret police ... A sober, monumental and unflinchingly critical account of a problematic institution Kirkus Reviews An important, judicious account of the tension between national security and civil liberties Publishers Weekly Fascinating ... an important and biting inquiry into an agency that protects Americans in a dangerous world while straining against the limitations we rightly impose upon it San Francisco Chronicle [A] masterpiece ... reads like a thriller, but don't let the heart-pumping prose fool you ... a scholarly tour de force that will be an instant classic for any serious student of American national security -- Amy Zegart (Author Of Spying Blind: The Cia, The Fbi And The Origins Of 9/11) Fast-paced, fair-minded and fascinating ... turns the long history of the FBI into a story that is as compelling, and important, as today's headlines -- Jeffrey Toobin (Author Of The Nine: Inside The Secret World Of The Supreme Court) Riveting ... goes so deep into the agency's skullduggery, readers feel they are tapping the phones along with J. Edgar Hoover. This is a book that every American who cares about civil liberties should read -- Jane Mayer (Author Of The Dark Side) The most comprehensive history of the FBI as an intelligence agency we have ever had ... essential reading for anyone concerned about American civil liberties -- Robert Dallek (Author Of John F. Kennedy) --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1
Anarchy
J . Edgar Hoover went to war at the age of -twenty--two, on Thursday morning, July 26, 1917. He walked out of his boyhood home in Washington, D.C., and set off for his new life at the Justice Department, to serve as a foot soldier in the army of lawmen fighting spies, saboteurs, Communists, and anarchists in the United States.

America had entered World War I in April. The first waves of her troops were landing in France, unprepared for the horrors that faced them. On the home front, Americans were gripped by the fear of sabotage by German secret agents. The country had been on high alert for a year, ever since an enemy attack on a huge warehouse of American munitions bound for the battlefront. The blast at Black Tom Island, on the western edge of New York Harbor, had set off two thousand tons of explosives in the dark of a midsummer night. Seven people died at the site. In Manhattan, thousands of windows were shattered by the shock waves. The Statue of Liberty was scarred by shrapnel.

Hoover worked for the War Emergency Division at the Justice Department, charged with preventing the next surprise attack. He displayed a martial spirit and a knack for shaping the thinking of his superiors. He won praise from the division’s chief, John Lord O’Brian. “He worked Sundays and nights, as I did,” O’Brian recounted. “I promoted him several times, simply on merits.”

Hoover rose quickly to the top of the division’s Alien Enemy Bureau, which was responsible for identifying and imprisoning politically suspect foreigners living in the United States. At the age of -twenty--three, Hoover oversaw 6,200 Germans who were interned in camps and 450,000 more who were under government surveillance. At -twenty--four, he was placed in charge of the newly created Radical Division of the Justice Department, and he ran the biggest counterterrorism operations in the history of the United States, rounding up thousands of radical suspects across the country. He had no guns or ammunition. Secret intelligence was his weapon.

Hoover lived all his life in Washington, D.C., where he was born on New Year’s Day 1895, the youngest of four children. He was the son and the grandson of government servants. His father, Dickerson, was afflicted with depression; deep melancholy cost him his job as a government cartographer and likely hastened his death. His mother, Annie, was doting but dour. Hoover lived at home with her for the first -forty--three years of his life, until the day she died. He told several of his closest aides that he remained a single man because he feared the wrong woman would be his downfall; a bad marriage would destroy him. Hoover’s niece, Margaret Fennell, grew up alongside him; she stayed in touch with him for six decades. She knew him as well as anyone could. “I sometimes have thought that he -really—-I don’t know how to put -it—-had a fear of becoming too personally involved with people,” she reflected. If he ever expressed love beyond his devotion to God and country, there were no witnesses. He was sentimental about dogs, but unemotional about people. His inner life was a mystery, even to his immediate family and his few close friends.

Hoover learned how to march in military formation and how to make a formal argument. The drill team and the debate team at Central High School were the highlights of his youth. Central High’s debate squad was the best in the city, and Hoover became one of its stars; his school newspaper praised his competitive spirit and his “cool relentless logic.” He told the paper, after a stirring victory over a college team, that debating had given him “a practical and beneficial example of life, which is nothing more or less than the matching of one man’s wit against another.”

Hoover went to work for the government of the United States as soon as he had his high school diploma. Its monuments were all around him. His -two--story home sat six blocks southeast of Capitol Hill. At the crest of the hill stood the chandeliered chambers of the Senate and the House, the colossal temple of the Supreme Court, and the Library of Congress, with its vaulted ceilings and stained glass. Hoover dutifully recited the devotions of the Presbyterian Church on Sundays, but the Library of Congress was the secular cathedral of his youth. The library possessed every book published in the United States. The reverent hush of its central reading room imparted a sense that all knowledge was at hand, if you knew where to look. The library had its own system of classification, and Hoover learned its complexities as a cataloguer, earning money for school by filing and retrieving information. He worked days at the library while he studied in the early evenings and on summer mornings at George Washington University, where he earned his master’s degree in law in June 1917. He registered for military service but joined the Justice Department to fight the war at home.
“The gravest threats”

On April 6, 1917, the day America entered World War I, President Woodrow W. Wilson signed executive orders giving the Justice Department the power to command the arrest and imprisonment, without trial, of any foreigner deemed disloyal. He told the American people that Germany had “filled our unsuspecting communities and even our offices of government with spies, and set criminal intrigues everywhere afoot.” The president’s words stoked fear across the country, and the fear placed a great weight on the Justice Department. “When we declared war,” O’Brian said, “there were persons who expected to see a veritable reign of terror in America.”

O’Brian watched over Hoover and his colleagues as they labored day and night in cramped and smoky rooms at the War Emergency Division and the Alien Enemy Bureau, poring over fragmentary reports of plots against America. They were like firemen hearing the ceaseless ringing of false alarms. “Immense pressure” fell upon them, O’Brian recalled; they faced demands from politicians and the public for the “indiscriminate prosecution” and “wholesale repression” of suspect Americans and aliens alike, often “based on nothing more than irresponsible rumor.” Before Black Tom, “the people of this nation had no experience with subversive activities,” he said. “The government was likewise unprepared.” After Black Tom, thousands of potential threats were reported to the government. American leaders feared the enemy could strike anywhere, at any time.

The German masterminds of Black Tom had been at work from the moment World War I began in Europe, in the summer of 1914. They had planned to infiltrate Washington and undermine Wall Street; they had enlisted Irish and Hindu nationalists to strike American targets; they had used Mexico and Canada as safe havens for covert operations against the United States. While Hoover was still studying law at night school, at the start of 1915, Germany’s military attaché in the United States, Captain Franz von Papen, had received secret orders from Berlin: undermine America’s will to fight. Von Papen began to build a propaganda machine in the United States; the Germans secretly gained control of a major New York newspaper, the Evening Mail; their front men negotiated to buy The Washington Post and the New York Sun. Political fixers, corrupt journalists, and crooked detectives served the German cause.

But after a German -U--boat torpedoed the British passenger ship Lusitania on May 7, 1915, killing 1,119 people, including 274 Americans, the German ambassador glumly cabled Berlin: “We might as well admit openly that our propaganda here has collapsed completely.” Americans were enraged at the attack on civilians; Germany’s political and diplomatic status in the United States was grievously damaged. President Wilson ordered that all German embassy personnel in the United States be placed under surveillance. Secretary of State Robert Lansing sent secret agents to wiretap German diplomats. By year’s end, von Papen and his fellow attachés were expelled from the United States.

When Hoover arrived at the Justice Department, O’Brian had just tried and convicted a German spy, Captain Franz von Rintelen. The case was -front--page news. Von Rintelen had arrived in New York a few weeks before the sinking of the Lusitania, carrying a forged Swiss passport. On orders from the German high command, he had recruited idle sailors on New York’s docks, radical Irish nationalists, a Wall Street con artist, and a drunken Chicago congressman in plans to sabotage American war industries with a combination of business frauds and firebombs. But Captain von Rintelen had fled the United States, rightly fearing the exposure of his secret plans. British intelligence officers, who had been reading German cables, arrested him as he landed in -En-gland, roughly interrogated him in the Tower of London, and handed him over to the Justice Department for indictment and trial.

“America never witnessed anything like this before,” President Wilson told Congress after the captain’s arrest. “A little while ago, such a thing would have seemed incredible. Because it was incredible we made no preparation for it.”

Terrorists and anarchists represented “the gravest threats against our national peace and safety,” the president said. “Such creatures of passion, disloyalty, and anarchy must be crushed out. . . . The hand of our power should close over them at once.”
J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI would become the instruments of that power. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

About the Author

Tim Weiner has won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting and writing on secret intelligence and national security. As a correspondent for The New York Times, he covered the Central Intelligence Agency in Washington and terrorism in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Sudan, and other nations. Enemies is his fourth book. His Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA won the National Book Award and was acclaimed as one of the year’s best books by The New York Times, The Economist, The Washington Post, Time, and many other publications. The Wall Street Journal called Betrayal “the best book ever written on a case of espionage.” He is now working on a history of the American military. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B006HUIZZO
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Random House (February 14, 2012)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 14, 2012
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 3447 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 686 pages
Lending ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: #218,868 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #42 in Legal History (Kindle Store)
- #113 in Law Enforcement (Kindle Store)
- #173 in Intelligence & Espionage (Kindle Store)

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415 ratings

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Tim Weiner

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Tim Weiner has won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for his reporting and writing on American national security. As a correspondent for The New York Times, he covered the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon in Washington, and reported on war and terrorism from Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Sudan, and many other nations over the course of 15 years.

His new book, ONE MAN AGAINST THE WORLD: The Tragedy of Richard Nixon, was hailed as "[an] eye-opening study of Richard Nixon's booze-soaked, paranoid White House years and the endless tragedies they wrought" by Kirkus Reviews prior to publication. "It speaks volumes about Nixon that there is still more to learn about him, 40-plus years after Watergate. It speaks further volumes that what we are learning is even worse than what we knew."

Publisher's Weekly said ONE MAN AGAINST THE WORLD is a "devastating account of Nixon's presidency, drawing on documents declassified in the last seven years.... Chilling excerpts from tape recordings that have only recently been made accessible include cold-blooded exchanges between Nixon and [Henry] Kissinger in which the two debate the merits of committing war crimes in order to win in Vietnam. This is powerful raw material, but Weiner's brilliant turns of phrase transform it into something extraordinary."

His previous books include ENEMIES, a history of the FBI acclaimed as "fascinating" by The Wall Street Journal. LEGACY OF ASHES, his chronicle of the CIA, won the 2007 National Book Award; it was a bestseller across the United States and around the world. He has lectured at the CIA, universities, political think tanks, and Presidential libraries. He directs the Carey Institute's nonfiction residency program in upstate New York and teaches as the 2015 Anschutz Distinguished Fellow in American Studies at Princeton.

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Top reviews from the United States

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dwee dwee

a fun read, but can't accurately be called a "history of the FBI"

Reviewed in the United States on May 20, 2018

Verified Purchase

This is certainly a compellingly quick read. As far as its narrative style is concerned, the comparison to a spy novel is apt; despite the book's heft, you're likely to blow through it and enjoy the experience. However, the title is inaccurate. This book is less a "history of the FBI" than it is a history of J. Edgar Hoover via the Bureau's extra-legal black bag jobs, wire taps, and domestic surveillance of left-wing groups and American citizens. What's left out or glossed over is striking, and ultimately disappointing.

The first 2/3 of "Enemies" details the rise of J. Edgar Hoover, but only in broad strokes of his most galling manipulations. The final third talks about the Bureau's attempts at reformation and reckoning with its history of secret intelligence following Hoover's death. Hoover's obsession with Communism is covered at length, as are his relationships with Presidents and Attorneys General who encouraged his (and the FBI's) collection of secret files on Americans. The FBI's role in installing a friendly-to-America government in the Dominican Republic gets some attention. Hoover's clashes with Robert Kennedy are discussed. But the Osage murders are never mentioned. Neither is the FBI's work fighting John Dillinger and organized crime. Japanese internment camps are never mentioned. When one of Hoover's successors is shocked to learn of what agents before him have done in the FBI's name, it dawned on me as a reader: so what ELSE was the FBI doing all those years? What did they THINK they were doing? Surely, if the Bureau had a large staff of agents who were unaware of COINTELPRO etc... what were all the FBO agents who weren't J. Edgar Hoover busy doing? There must be a large part of the FBI's story that's not being told in this book.

As for what's glossed over, it's a jarring part of Weiner's writing. He spends significant time describing Hoover's clashes with Bobby Kennedy, but then John Kennedy's assassination is mentioned quickly in passing as the narrative moves on to LBJ. Tension rises as Nixon and his staff inch toward the inevitable, but then Nixon's resignation happens off-screen as well, as an off-hand detail within a paragraph about Carter. How events like these affect contemporary FBI agents is barely mentioned, other than as they relate to Hoover's narrative. True, there are plenty of other books that talk about these events in detail, but this is billed as a history of the Bureau... so as a reader, I got the feeling that perhaps some pages were torn from my copy. Even Hoover's obsession with Communists is hardly analyzed. The contradiction of Hoover's life-long motivation to preserve his idea of America while doggedly and knowingly breaking the law is not explored. His single-minded pursuit of Communists once other threats were more pressing is mentioned, but never explained or discussed. I wanted Wiener to pause from his narrative and make some sense of it. A history of the FBI that's so focused on this one aspect of its history never really lets me understand Hoover's perspective; instead, the author continually registers shock by the Bureau's blatant hypocrisy and the institutional silence that let it continue. And then he moves on.

The ultimate effect of this book on me was that I enjoyed reading it, but periodically returned to Amazon to find other books about the FBI that would flesh out aspects of the story. Long as the book is, it's still too short and strangely narrow in scope.

45 people found this helpful

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J. Janos

Very Accurate History Of The FBI Recommended By Former FBI Legal CLE Instructor!

Reviewed in the United States on April 2, 2020

Verified Purchase

Took a Legal Compliance Education Class from a Former FBI CLE Instructor that recommended reading the History of the FBI. The Instructor was noted for his FBI 30 Years for his dedication to Domestic Counter Terrorism, Gang Related Prosecutions, and 911 Response Investigations. Although the Book is Critical of many FBI previous methods and means to protect America under FBI Hoover's Reign. There is no question the FBI Protected Americans and Allies when called upon during a National and International Crisis. The Courses in 2015, 2016 and 2017 were before the 2016 Election and did not detailed was has happen since Muller Report Conclusions, Impeachment, and DOJ-IG Reports that has revealed many Revelations on Factual Non-Compliance on FISA Warrants now an Embarrassment to previous FBI Leadership an FISA Court Judges upset about what has happen. Required Reforms were and still are necessary, but do not underestimate the dedication of such FBI Professionals. As well as, the Hardships to FBI Employee's Families that come under Threats and Sacrifices requiring Protection as well. Be assured the Agency Learns from its errors and still must carry out it duties to take on International Crimes, Terror, and Domestic Threats. The Book is a Great History of Learning but also a Foundation for Future Warnings in a New Age of Internet Surveillance now just emerging as well.

3 people found this helpful

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Fred Shoppin

Another corrupt institution

Reviewed in the United States on June 3, 2018

Verified Purchase

The seamy side of the FBI, especially under Hoover. Truman had to deal with them right after he took office and he feared they would turn into a Gestapo (that's the word he used). He found that Hoover was tapping lots of DC politicians for political rather than legal reasons. Of course being published in 2013 it does not have the most recent shenanigans involving the Russia investigations, but this book demonstrates that the agency has always had some questionable practices. Reading this might turn you into a Libertarian, so be careful (haha)

10 people found this helpful

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beckster77

Excellent resource!

Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2021

Verified Purchase

This book has a plethora of information and a great breakdown of the origins of the FBI. I used this primarily for research and found it a wonderful resource. It isn't necessarily a book I'd read for fun or leisure, and that's where the 3/5 rating comes from and not due to content. I liked it as a resource and for the information it provided which was thorough and efficient. I think it's a great book for anyone wanting more information or to learn about the history of the FBI. Therefore, I rated it a "liked it" because it has the content and detail anyone can appreciate. I do recommend it for anyone wanting to have more in-depth understanding of the Bureau and its beginnings.

One person found this helpful

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Carl J. Foreman

Still True Today

Reviewed in the United States on August 17, 2017

Verified Purchase

A real world story about the FBI, where it came from, the man who developed it, the struggles between government officials and the director of the FBI, and its power. Reading it makes you wonder if anything has changed concerning our enemies (terrorist groups) and why America myst always be on guard,

The book clearly shows that power can easily corrupt a moral and ethical person. Greed is usually the heart of the matter. This book should be required reading in high school.

7 people found this helpful

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Jonathan MacFarlane

Good, but a bit of a letdown

Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2020

Verified Purchase

After reading Weiner's book on the CIA, Legacy of Ashes, I was expecting the same kind of thing but about the FBI. The book is well-written, and engaging, but not quite so much as LoA was, at least for me. I'm not sure that's the author's fault though--it seems the FBI, while they definitely have gotten up to some (many of them illegal) shenanigans, they're actually good at it, unlike the CIA. And I guess that does naturally make it less entertaining.

One person found this helpful

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James

Read it to see why the title is ironic.

Reviewed in the United States on September 1, 2017

Verified Purchase

This is a well written account of the birth of the FBI and J Edgar Hoovers rise to power. The story is a disturbing history of the growing abuse of power and the unwillingness of Presidents, who sometimes benefited from Hoover's power, to restrain him. It is a cautionary tale and is most relevant in light of current conditions.

11 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Shakespeare

Enjoyable - but nowhere near thorough enough

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 7, 2021

Verified Purchase

An interesting read: how the FBI & CIA acted like a couple who weren't speaking to each other; how the war on terror was just one in a series of wars on terror; how the FBI destroyed thousands of lives on hunches. But nothing about the state sanctioned assassinations of the 60s - JFK's murder comes as a surprise even though they were watching every communist in the country and Lee Harvey Oswald was a communist and Frank Hamptons murder by the FBI as made to appear like justified retaliation...you have to look elsewhere to find out just how pernicious the FBI were.