"Yet when Hoover showed up for his first day of work at the Department of Justice in June 1917, he was a bright 22-year-old, just out of law school. He still had boyish good looks and was cocky and driven. The country had just entered World War I, and Hoover had avoided the wartime draft. Instead, he was ready to help win the war at home, to save the country from spies and subversives.
"What changed this young eager beaver into the crass, cynical tyrant of later years?
"The fact is, Hoover learned his attitudes and worldview from teachers at the Justice Department during his early years there, when the country was going through a period much like today's war on terror."
Kenneth D. Ackerman in the Los Angeles Times traces the emergence of J. Edgar Hoover.
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