Hoover’s blond wig
From Anthony Summers Sir: Gwynplaine MacIntyre writes (Letters, 21 May) that my biography of J. Edgar Hoover, Official and Confidential, contained the ‘outright lie’ that the FBI director was a transvestite. He refers — as if it stood alone — to the assertion by Susan Rosenstiel, former wife of millionaire whisky distiller Lewis Rosenstiel, whom I quoted as saying she witnessed a sex episode in which Hoover dressed up as a woman. I did report this allegation, but probably would not have done so had it stood alone.
The passage in my book that immediately follows the Rosenstiel claim is an account by two other interviewees, who said they learnt of Hoover’s penchant for women’s clothes at a different time and place from those described by Mrs Rosenstiel. They said they were shown photographs of Hoover wearing a blond wig and an evening gown. The famous face, they claimed, was entirely recognisable, and they did not think the pictures were faked. These two interviewees had never heard of Mrs Rosenstiel, and their story was unknown to her.
Anthony Summers
Co. Waterford, Ireland
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