J. Edgar Hoover died on this day, May 2, in 1972 (b. 1895). He was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States. He was appointed as the director of the Bureau of Investigation – the FBI’s predecessor – in 1924 and was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director for another 37 years until his death.

Hoover became a controversial figure as evidence of his secretive abuses of power began to surface…  Hoover also established and expanded a national blacklist and was also found to have routinely violated both the FBI’s own policies and the very laws which the FBI was charged with enforcing.

Karsh photographed Hoover in 1944 on assignment for LIFE magazine. See other people who sat for Karsh and LIFE.