J. Edgar Hoover

The story of J. Edgar Hoover and the Lyric boys comes from Anthony Summer's biography of Hoover, Official and Confidential, previously cited. The same book is the source of the persistent, but otherwise unsubstantiated, story of Hoover's cross-dressing. Summers's discussion of Billy Byars, Jr. focuses on the summer of 1969, and is on pp. 377-378 of the hardcover edition. Byars "had used the bungalow next to Edgar's at [Texas oilman Cliff Murchison's] Del Charro Hotel" in La Jolla. Byars's late father had had the habit of vacationing there with Hoover. One of the hotel's charms was that it was next door to a racetrack.

At Byars's home in LosAngeles friends saw at least one Christmas card from Hoover.

"A fifteen-year-old at the house talked openly of having met Edgar at the Del Charro. 'Hoover bawled me out' he complained, 'for having long hair, but I told the old faggot where to go. No way was I getting a haircut.'"

Summers quotes his source, Charles Krebs: "On three occasions that I knew about, maybe four, boys were driven down to La Jolla at Hoover's request. I think the arrangements were made by one of Billy's friends, an older man." Hoover was met at a restaurant called Rudi's Hearthside House. Taken to meet Hoover were "the boys, the fifteen-year-old and another youngster." The group went in two limos to a tryst by a reservoir in the San Diego hills. Summers claims to have verified the existence of the restaurant and the reservoir.

Summers says Detective Don Smith of the LAPD, (also cited in the L.A. Times article reporting the arrests), interviewed juvenile witnesses in the 1973 case. Smith told Summers that the boys referred to many men by nicknames, such as "Uncle Mike" or "Mother Jones", but "The kids brought up several famous names, including Hoover and his sidekick." Smith says of the men mentioned by the juveniles, "These were upstanding community leaders, but that was their quirk."[Summers, p. 378]

In footnotes, Summers says "In 1988 Billy Byars Jr. remembered the adolescents named by Krebs and agreed one had visited the Del Charro. He said he knew nothing of the alleged sexual activity."[p. 431]

What are the names Summers knows but isn't telling? The late Guy Strait is an obvious candidate for the "older man". A more interesting question is which of the Lyric boys told the FBI director "where to go". That the notoriously conservative FBI director thought the boy's hair long in 1969 merely lets us exclude anyone with a crew cut.

References

• Summers, Anthony. Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1993