 J. Edgar Hoover had secrets to hide, for example, so he knew well their power. A gay man at the pinnacle of American power, for most of his life, the FBI director knew that in many U.S. states, he and his lover, Clyde Tolson, could be prosecuted and sent to prison for their private, consensual behavior. Yet Hoover and Tolson lived together, and their relationship was an open secret among Washington's cognoscenti.