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FBI directors through the years in a league of their own

By Jennifer Harper, THE WASHINGTON TIMES | Friday, July 25, 2008

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Maybe it's in the eyes - a certain gaze that is both shrewd and resolute, the look of a lawman who most likely has seen it all. And then some.

Those who have led the FBI are a special breed; that goes without saying.

Saturday marks the 100th anniversary of the bureau. That's 10 decades of visceral history, not to mention variety.

The FBI has had 17 directors in the past century, some manning the post for a matter of weeks, some for years, one for decades.

Each has been tenacious, balancing the gut instinct of a cop with the exactitude of an investigator, the decisiveness of a trial attorney with the deliberation of a chess player - while employing the patience of Job. The FBI is, after all, is a federal agency.

The job of its director requires a kaleidoscope of virtues and street smarts. It is fueled by brute force, cunning, delicate instincts, discipline, diplomacy. There is the matter of mission: The job is not without a calling to serve public and president, to uphold good, vanquish evil and shore up the American way in all its permutations over the decades.

"We are a fact-gathering organization only. We don't clear anybody. We don't condemn anybody," J. Edgar Hoover once said.

If anyone, Mr. Hoover was entitled to summarize the agency's role, having served as its director from 1924 to his death in 1972, though his near five decades of service ultimately prompted the FBI to put a 10-year limit on the post's tenure.

However, he also had a stark fix on criminal nature. Mr. Hoover publicly concluded at one point that every lawbreaker he had ever encountered was a liar. Justice itself was "incidental to law and order," he said, and the effect of astute fingerprinting, stakeouts and apprehension couldn't compare to a most basic, very human influence.

"No amount of law enforcement can solve a problem that goes back to the family," Mr. Hoover said. "The cure for crime is not the electric chair, but the highchair."