J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, may have had a greater impact on the course of American history than any other unelected public official. From his early-career role in the Palmer Raids, to helping stoke the Second Red Scare, to his attempts to disrupt and destroy the civil rights movement and the New Left in the ’60s and ’70s, Hoover played a key role in undermining left-wing and progressive politics in the United States. But Hoover served in the FBI for nearly fifty years, and his legacy extends far beyond his attacks on the Left.

In this interview for Jacobin Radio podcast The Dig, guest host and Jacobin editor Micah Uetricht talked with historian Beverly Gage about her biography of Hoover, G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century. They discuss Hoover’s early personal and political influences, his strengths as a bureaucrat, his career-long vendetta against left-wing radicalism, and more. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.