WASHINGTON — A historic link to the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover and JFK and Robert Kennedy is gone.
Courtney A. Evans, 95, a high ranking FBI official who was a liaison between Hoover and the Kennedy’s, died last month of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in Naples, Fla., the Washington Post reported.
The Post reported that the veteran FBI agent became friendly with the Kennedys in the 1950s and became the bureau’s assistant director in the early 1960s.
“His job landed him in the middle of a power struggle between the autocratic Hoover and a new administration determined to rein in Hoover’s authority, said Athan G. Theoharis, a retired professor at Marquette University, who is a historian of the FBI’s Hoover years,” the Post reported.
“Evans found himself in this very difficult position,” Theoharis said, according to the Post.”He briefed the attorney general, but it wasn’t always clear that he fully informed the attorney general of FBI practices — and there was some indication that Kennedy was party to a ‘hear no evil, see no evil’ [attitude]. Even so, Evans became persona non grata in the bureau.”
He resigned from the FBI in 1964 and eventually was a founding partner in a D.C. law firm, the Post reported.
To read the full obituary click here.
