Most presidents before him, though, had had cause to fear Hoover or been troubled by what his FBI had become. Nixon, soon to be disgraced and forced to resign, was of course himself no paragon. "We have on our hands here a man who will pull down the temple with him, including me." In private, on hearing that he had died, Nixon had responded merely: "Jesus Christ! That old cocksucker!" Months earlier, closeted with key advisers, he had held forth on the need to persuade the elderly Hoover to resign. For public consumption when he died, President Richard Nixon eulogised him as: "One of the giants… a national symbol of courage, patriotism and granite-like honesty and integrity." He ordered flags to fly at half-mast and that Hoover's body lie in state in the Capitol. The first Director of the FBI, he remained in office for 48 years, from his appointment after the First World War to his death in 1972, achieving fame and extraordinary power.
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