Reid looses Hoover bid

Paul Kane

Thursday, Feb. 5, 1998 | 10:19 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., lost his bid Wednesday to remove the notorious J. Edgar Hoover's name from the FBI headquarters in downtown Washington.

During the debate to rename Washington National Airport after President Ronald Reagan, Reid tried to use the opportunity to pull the former FBI director's name off the headquarters and simply call it the FBI building.

"He did more to denigrate human rights and civil rights than any American this century," Reid said.

But Republicans, along with almost 10 Democrats, blocked a vote on Reid's amendment, voting 62-36 to table the issue.

Reid, a co-sponsor of the original effort to pull Hoover's name in 1993, said he would try again to rename the FBI building. "I've felt this way for a long time. I'm sure this thing hasn't died," he said, adding, "I'll just wait for the right opportunity."

Opponents of Reid, led by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said that Hoover was an important figure in the agency's development, and that many agents would be upset with the name change.

But Reid cited Hoover's investigations into the private lives of such figures as Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, as well as other political groups whose ideology he did not see eye-to-eye with.

"Hoover ran roughshod over the Constitution," Reid said on the Senate floor. "It's time to take his name off of this building."