V o L u m e I : a d

Hoover, the longest-serving FBI director in history, died of a heart attack

on 2 May 1972 in Washington, D.C. Although still respected at the time of

his death, revelations about the extent of his domestic spying and the FBI’s

illegal activities as well as about the details of his personal life greatly tar-

nished his reputation.

Vernon L. Pedersen

See also

Black Panthers; Communist Fronts; Federal Bureau of Investigation; Hiss, Alger;

King, Martin Luther, Jr.; McCarthy Hearings; McCarthyism; Roosevelt, Franklin

Delano; Rosenberg, Julius; Truman Loyalty Program

References

DeLoach, Cartha D. “Deke.” Hoover’s FBI: The Inside Story by Hoover’s Trusted Lieu-

tenant. Washington, DC: Regnery, 1995.

Gentry, Curt. J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets. New York: Norton, 1991.

Powers, Richard Gid. Secrecy and Power: The Life of J. Edgar Hoover. New York: Free

Press, 1988.

Theoharis, Athan G., and John Stuart Cox. The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the Great

American Inquisition. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988.

An instantaneous, point-to-point, secure link between the president of the

United States and the leader of the Soviet Union, established in 1963. Some-

times referred to as the “red phone,” the direct White House–Kremlin hot-

line was set up in the immediate aftermath of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

The most dangerous confrontation of the entire Cold War, the Cuban Missile

Crisis demonstrated how a simple misunderstanding or delay in communi-

cation might result in an accidental nuclear exchange. The hotline was

designed to establish instant communications between the leaders of the

two superpowers. Actually, the hotline was not a telephone at all but rather a

series of quick-printing teletype machines.

At the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, it took nearly twelve hours

for Washington to receive Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s initial 3,000-

word response to President John F. Kennedy’s ultimatum. By the time the

White House had written a response, it had received a second, much tougher

response. Convinced that faster, more direct communication might have

ended the showdown earlier, Kennedy administration officials proposed the

hotline to Moscow, which readily embraced the concept. Although few par-

ticulars of the hotline are known, it is believed to have been encrypted with

a virtually fool-proof system. The hotline was first used during the 1967 Arab-

Israeli War to be sure that each side was aware of the other’s military moves

in response to the crisis.

Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr.

926

Hotline

Hotline

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See also

Arab-Israeli Wars; Cuban Missile Crisis

Reference

Brugioni, Dino A. Eyeball to Eyeball: Inside the Cuban Missile Crisis. New York: Random

House, 1993.

See McCarthy Hearings

Founder of the Albanian Communist Party and Albanian head of state

(1944–1985). Born on 16 October 1908 in Gjinokaster, Albania, Enver Hoxha

studied at a French secondary school in Korce, Albania, and then at the Uni-

versity of Montpellier in France. While in France, he began writing for a

communist newspaper. In 1934 he became a secretary in the Albanian con-

sulate in Brussels, but his consular appointment was canceled in 1936 because

of articles he wrote criticizing the Albanian monarchy. He then returned to

Albania to teach French in Korce.

In 1939 the Italian Army invaded Albania, ousted the monarchy, and

established a puppet regime. Hoxha was fired from his teaching position for

refusing to join the Albanian Fascist Party. He opened a retail tobacco store

in Tirana that also served as a front for his communist activities. In 1940 he

became the founder and head of the Albanian Communist Party, also serving

as editor of the party’s newspaper.

During World War II, Hoxha assembled a guerrilla force of 70,000 men

that fought the occupying Italian Army and then the Germans who arrived

to assist their ally. In 1944, the Italians withdrew their forces from Albania.

Soon thereafter, the communists established a provisional Albanian govern-

ment in October 1944 with Hoxha as prime minister and defense minister.

The Western Allies recognized this government in 1945, expecting that

Albania would later hold free elections. When elections were held and the

communists were the only candidates, Great Britain and the United States

rescinded their recognition. The country’s leaders proclaimed a People’s

Republic in Albania in January 1946.

Yugoslav communists had assisted their Albanian comrades during the

war, and the two states engaged in a monetary and customs union after World

War II. Suspicious of his neighbor’s desires to make Albania a province of

Yugoslavia, however, Hoxha cut all ties with Yugoslavia in 1948. That same

year, he renamed the Albanian Communist Party the Workers’ Party. He

Hoxha, Enver

927

House Un-American

Activities Committee

Hoxha, Enver

(1908–1985)

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relinquished the premiership to Mehmet Shehu in 1954 but remained in

control as head of the party with the title of first secretary.

In 1961 Hoxha cut his nation’s ties with the Soviet Union in response to

Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization campaign. At about the

same time, the Soviet Union severed relations with the People’s Republic of

China (PRC). Hoxha then began relying on the PRC for economic support,

viewing Mao Zedong as the only true Stalinist remaining in power. Shortly

after Mao’s death in 1976, relations between China and Albania began to cool

as Hoxha criticized the new Chinese leadership. The PRC ended all assis-

tance programs to Albania in 1978.

As Hoxha’s health declined in the late 1970s, preparations began for a

succession of leadership. In 1980 he appointed Ramiz Alia as the party’s first

secretary, bypassing longtime Premier Mehmet Shehu. Hoxha tried to per-

suade Shehu to step aside voluntarily. When this failed, he had the Politburo

publicly rebuke Shehu, who allegedly committed suicide in 1981. Hoxha

died in Tirana on 11 April 1985, his nation the most cut-off from the outside

world in all Europe.

John David Rausch Jr.

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Hoxha, Enver

Hard-line communist leader Enver Hoxha, who held power in Albania from 1944 to 1985, shown here voting in a 1967

national election. (Bettmann/Corbis)

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