[[J. Edgar Hoover]] served as the first Director of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] (and its predecessor, the Bureau of Investigation) for 48 years, from 1924 until his death in 1972. His long tenure was marked by both his law enforcement activities and his connections to influential political and business figures. ### Hotel Del Charro Connections Hoover was a frequent visitor to the Hotel Del Charro in La Jolla, California, an exclusive hotel opened by [[Clint Murchison, Sr.]] in the early 1950s. Hoover visited the hotel every summer between 1953 and 1959. During these visits, [[Clint Murchison, Sr.]] covered Hoover's tab, which amounted to approximately $19,000 in free vacations over those years. [[Richard Nixon]] and Senator [[Joseph McCarthy]] were also often seen at Murchison's Hotel Del Charro.[^1] ### NUMEC Investigation and CIA Conflicts In October 1965, the [[Atomic Energy Commission|AEC]] referred the [[Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation|NUMEC]] losses to the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]]. However, [[J. Edgar Hoover]] saw no basis for an investigation, concluding that the situation was an administrative matter. He was in the midst of a bitter dispute with [[James Jesus Angleton]]'s counterintelligence shop over the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]'s handling of defectors and illegal spying inside the [[United States]]. Hoover chose to spar with [[Richard M. Helms|Helms]] over the [[Zalman Mordecai Shapiro|Shapiro]] issue, telling the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] to go to [[Israel]] and get inside [[Dimona]] to find evidence of the alleged uranium diversion.[^2] ### Footnotes [^1]: Seymour, Cheri. _The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal_. First Edition. TrineDay, 2010. [^2]: Hersh, Seymour M. _The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy_. Random House, 1991. Chapter 18.