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Sexuality

From the 1940s, rumors circulated that Hoover, who was still living with his mother in his early 40s, was homosexual. The historians John Stuart Cox and Athan G. Theoharis speculated that Clyde Tolson, who became an assistant director to Hoover in his mid 40s and became his primary heir, had a sexual relationship with Hoover until the latter's death. Hoover reportedly hunted down and threatened anyone who made insinuations about his sexuality. Truman Capote, who enjoyed repeating salacious rumors about Hoover, once remarked that he was more interested in making Hoover angry than determining whether the rumors were true. On May 2, 1969, Screw published the first reference in print to Hoover's sexuality, titled "Is J. Edgar Hoover a Fag ?"

Some associates and scholars dismiss rumors about Hoover's sexuality, and rumors about his relationship with Tolson in particular, as unlikely, while others have described them as probable or even "confirmed". Still other scholars have reported the rumors without expressing an opinion. Cox and Theoharis concluded that "the strange likelihood is that Hoover never knew sexual desire at all." Anthony Summers, who wrote Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover (1993), stated that there was no ambiguity about the FBI director's sexual proclivities and described him as " bisexual with failed heterosexuality."