Mark Felt - After Hoover's Death

After Hoover's Death

Hoover died in his sleep and was found on the morning of May 2, 1972. Tolson was nominally in charge until the next day when Nixon appointed L. Patrick Gray III as Acting FBI Director. Tolson submitted his resignation, which Gray accepted. Felt took Tolson's post as Associate Director, the number-two job in the Bureau. Felt served as an honorary pallbearer at Hoover's funeral.

On the day of Hoover's death, Hoover's secretary for five decades, Helen Gandy, began destroying his files. She turned over twelve boxes of the "Official/Confidential" files to Felt on May 4, 1972. This consisted of 167 files and 17,750 pages, many of them containing derogatory information. Felt stored them in his office, and Gray told the press that afternoon that "there are no dossiers or secret files. There are just general files and I took steps to preserve their integrity." Felt earlier that day had told Gray, "Mr. Gray, the Bureau doesn't have any secret files", and later accompanied Gray to Hoover's office. They found Gandy boxing up papers. Felt said Gray "looked casually at an open file drawer and approved her work", though Gray would later deny he looked at anything. Gandy retained Hoover's "Personal File" and destroyed it. When Felt was called to testify in 1975 by the U.S. House about the destruction of Hoover's papers, he said, "There's no serious problems if we lose some papers. I don't see anything wrong and I still don't." At the same hearing, Gandy claimed that she had destroyed Hoover's personal files only after receiving Gray's approval. In a letter submitted to the committee in rebuttal of Gandy's testimony, Gray vehemently denied ever giving such permission. Both Gandy's testimony and Gray's letter were included in the committee's final report.

In his memoir, Felt expressed mixed feelings about Gray. While noting Gray did work hard, Felt was critical of how often he was away from FBI headquarters. Gray lived in Stonington, Connecticut, and commuted to Washington. He also visited all of the Bureau's field offices except Honolulu. His frequent absences led to the nickname "Three-Day Gray". These absences, combined with Gray's hospitalization and recuperation from November 20, 1972, to January 2, 1973, meant that Felt was effectively in charge for much of his final year at the Bureau. Bob Woodward wrote "Gray got to be director of the F.B.I. and Felt did the work." Felt wrote in his memoir:

The record amply demonstrates that President Nixon made Pat Gray the Acting Director of the FBI because he wanted a politician in J. Edgar Hoover's position who would convert the Bureau into an adjunct of the White House machine.

Gray's defenders would later argue that Gray simply practiced a different management style than that of Hoover. Gray's program of field office visits was something that Hoover had not done since his early years as director, and some felt this did much to raise the morale of the agents working in those field offices. Furthermore, Gray's leadership style seemed to mirror what he had learned in the US Navy, in which the executive officer concentrates on the basic operation of the ship, while the captain concentrates on its position and heading. Felt believed Gray's methods were an unnecessary distraction and showed a lack of leadership. He was sure he was not the only one of the FBI leaders who disapproved of Gray's methods, particularly among those who had served under Hoover.