Masters of Deceit: The Story of Communism in America and How to Fight It

New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966. Twelfth Printing. Hardcover. good. 374, glossary, bibliography, appendices, index, some wear to board corners and spine edges. No dust jacket present. Inscribed by the author. John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 - May 2, 1972) was an American law-enforcement administrator who served as the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Calvin Coolidge appointed Hoover as director of the Bureau of Investigation, the predecessor to the FBI, in 1924. In June 1935, Hoover became instrumental in founding the FBI, where he remained director for 37 years until his death in May 1972. Hoover expanded the FBI into a larger crime-fighting agency and instituted a number of modernizations to policing technology, such as a centralized fingerprint file and forensic laboratories. Hoover also established and expanded a national blacklist, referred to as the FBI Index or Index List. Later in life and after his death, Hoover became a controversial figure as charges of abuses of power began to surface. Hoover was concerned about what he claimed was subversion, and under his leadership, the FBI investigated tens of thousands of suspected subversives and radicals. According to critics, Hoover tended to exaggerate the dangers of these alleged subversives and many times overstepped his bounds in his pursuit of eliminating that perceived threat. Due to the FBI's aggressive targeting, by 1957 CPUSA membership had dwindled to less than 10,000, of whom some 1,500 were informants for the FBI. The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation explains the startling facts about the major menace of our time, communism: what it is, how it works, what its aims are, the real dangers it poses, and what loyal American citizens must know to protect their freedom.
MASTERS OF DECEIT is a powerful and informative book—a firsthand account of American communism from its beginnings to the present, written by a man more intimately familiar with the complete story than any other American. Mr. Hoover shows the day-to-day operations of the Communist Party, USA: who the communists are, what they claim, why people become communists and why some break away. He describes life within the Party, communist strategy and tactics, methods of mass agitation and underground infiltration, espionage, sabotage, and its treatment of minorities. The picture of what life in this country would be under communism (toward which thousands of misguided Americans actually are working now!) is vivid and shocking. The forceful, driving message of this book is clarified with many incidents and anecdotes, definitions of communist terms, key dates, and a list of international communist organizations and publications which illustrate the communist Trojan horse in action. And it concretely outlines just what you can do now to combat the evils of the "false religion" of communism, so that you can stay free. MASTERS OF DECEIT is one of the most important books of our time—a warning of the clear and present danger to our way of life.