Drawing on previously unknown personal documents, a study of F.B.I. files, and the presidential papers of nine administrations, this biography reveals the public record and private life of J. Edgar Hoover, America's most controversial law enforcer.

The FBI that failed on 9/11 is the creation and captive of its spectacular and controversial past. Its original mission -- the investigation and prosecution of only the most serious crimes against the United States -- was forsaken almost from the beginning. This abandonment of purpose has been accompanied by a long history of political pressure, both from within and without. This sorry and scandal-ridden path culminated in a twenty-five-year run-up to 9/11 in which predictable and preventable lapses became hopelessly entrenched.

In "Broken," Richard Gid Powers, one of the country's leading historians of national security and law enforcement, offers a definitive and provocative study of the Bureau from its origins to the present. Combing through the archives, and interviewing more than 100 past and current agents, he unearths stories behind some of the most famous cases and characters in our history. Powers, who attended new-agent training classes at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, was granted access to restricted FBI facilities. His research included visits to the scenes of controversial FBI cases across the country, including Ruby Ridge, Waco, and the Indian reservation at Pine Ridge.

Powers did not set out to write a muckraking attack, and he gives the Bureau its due for many triumphs. Nonetheless, his story features an astonishing range of political abuses, misdirected investigations, skewed priorities, and sheer intelligence failures.

From the Bureau's outrageous participation in the anticommunist Palmer Raids and their successors, to its abuses of civil liberties during the Cold War, to its flagrant acts of domestic political interference during the civil rights era, it has often seemed to be consumed by feuds with such opponents as Harry Truman, Martin Luther King Jr., the Kennedys, and Bill Clinton. With the discovery of turncoat spies within its own ranks, and with the severe intelligence failures of 9/11, the Bureau has finally proven itself incapable of spotting the true enemies of our country within our borders.

Richard Powers's account is a searing indictment of failure, yet it is also strong evidence that the Bureau could be returned to its original mission of detecting the most serious crimes against the United States: terrorism, political corruption, corporate crime, and organized crime. Readers must decide for themselves whether America should mend it or end it.

The American anticommunist movement has been viewed as a product of right-wing hysteria that deeply scarred our society and institutions. This book restores the struggle against communism to its historic place in American life. Richard Gid Powers shows that McCarthyism, red-baiting, and black-listing were only one aspect of this struggle and that the movement was in fact composed of a wide range of Americans-Jews, Protestants, blacks, Catholics, Socialists, union leaders, businessmen, and conservatives-whose ideas and political initiatives were rooted not in ignorance and fear but in real knowledge and experience of the Communist system. "Not Without Power is superbly written and richly detailed. Perceptive and thoughtful, it is an impressively thorough and valuable book."-David J. Garrow "One of the contributions of [Powers's] provocative narrative history is to bring to life certain segments of anti-Communist opinion that have largely been forgotten."-Sean Wilentz, New York Times Book Review "[Powers] makes extensive use of primary sources and uncovers much that is new. He vividly recreates the complex relationships within and between several ethnic and radical communities within the United States, including their firsthand and often disillusioning experience with communism. . . . The depth and range of his work add a great deal to knowledge."-Journal of American History "A valuable, well-executed study and summation of a vast topic, one whose various threads the author has woven into a rich tapestry."-Richard M. Fried, Reviews in American History