Why did the FBI open a file on Elvis Presley?
Did the Bureau see him as a potential threat, like many celebs of his era?
Or was he an asset of J. Edgar Hoover's that they were working to protect?
This is everything you need to know about the FBI files on Elvis Presley.
J. Edgar Hoover became the first Director of the FBI in 1924, and remained in the post
until his death in 1972, and over the course of half a century effectively created the
bureau in his image, establishing many of the methods through which the FBI still operates
today.
But Hoover was also a controversial figure, who was happy to reflect the prejudices of
his time — as well as his private paranoias — in the operations of his rapidly expanding
organization.
At the same time he publicly declared his apolitical stance, Hoover privately admitted
his longtime support of the Republican party, and his revulsion towards Cold War communism.
This resulted in the FBI's assistance in McCarthyism and Harry S. Truman's belief that Hoover ran
the FBI like the "Gestapo or secret police."
As a result, almost every public figure of the day seemingly had their own FBI file,
through which Hoover sought to identify political subversion.
Surprisingly, this included even the most iconic stars of the day — including one
Elvis Aaron Presley.
"You seem to hear everything about me, huh?"
Presley was never the subject of an orchestrated FBI investigation like many of his more seemingly
subversive contemporaries.
Presley made it very clear to U.S. authorities that he was on their side.
Nevertheless, his name appears in hundreds of FBI files beginning in 1956 — the year
Elvis became a megastar — and ending in 1980, three years after the singer's untimely
death.
Presley was a keen supporter of U.S. police forces and security bureaus, as reflected
in the opening page of his FBI file, which begins with a 1972 letter to Richard Nixon
from a badge collector.
The collector describes himself, like Elvis, as a "police buff," and asks whether he can
be sent a Federal Narcotics badge like the one Elvis had recently been given.
The second document, dated from 1971, is a letter to Elvis from FBI director J. Edgar
Hoover.
Hoover expresses his regret that he had been unable to meet the singer during his recent
tour of the bureau's facilities.
Undoubtedly, Hoover saw Elvis as an ally.
But as the Elvis files also show, two years earlier Hoover himself received a letter from
a mother of five daughters, identifying the then-established music sensation as a danger
to American life.
The concerned citizen wrote,
"I believe he has done more harm in his style of dancing to our young people than any one
element in our society."
"Oh, I could do worse."
While Presley was identified as a moral threat by a certain segment of society, he had his
own ideas about who was actually ruining America's youth and was happy to give the FBI the benefit
of his supposed insight.
In 1978, the year after Elvis' death, the Washington Post published an article featuring
a released FBI memo from Elvis' files, which described the singer's willingness to become
an FBI informant around the time of his visit to the bureau's facilities in 1970.
The memo claimed that Elvis had also advised agents that they should undertake an investigation
into The Beatles, whose, quote, "filthy unkempt appearances and suggestive music" were a corrupting
influence.
Similarly, Elvis claimed,
"The Smothers Brothers, Jane Fonda and other persons in the entertainment industry of their
ilk have a lot to answer for in the hereafter for the way they have poisoned young minds
by disparaging the United States in public statements and unsavory activities."
The memo also notes that Elvis was open in his admiration for J. Edgar Hoover.
He claimed that he had read multiple books by the FBI director, including his critiques
of communism, and that Elvis told agents Hoover was the "greatest living American."
Though Presley's FBI files contain numerous instances of the singer's direct contact with
the bureau he admired, many others detail serious crimes plotted against the singer,
including attempts at physical and mental harm, as well as schemes dreamed up by criminals
looking to drain Elvis of his well-publicized wealth.
The second batch of FBI files contains reports of death threats, including one from August
28, 1970, when a wife of one of Elvis' confidantes received two anonymous phone calls from an
individual who claimed that a "madman" was going to kill Elvis with "a gun with a silencer."
Other anonymous phone calls received at the time by Elvis and his entourage claimed that
the singer was the target of a kidnapping plot, though nothing came of the threat.
A memo from the third batch of FBI files details a postcard Elvis received in 1956 at the start
of his career, which read:
"IF YOU DON'T STOP THIS S--T NOW WE'RE GOING TO KILL YOU"
One of the most distressing incidents detailed in his FBI files again concerns Elvis as the
victim of crime, this time while the singer was serving overseas for the U.S. Army in
West Germany.
A memorandum found in the third batch of Elvis' FBI files states that Elvis was interviewed
in 1959 concerning a blackmail attempt from a South African man claiming to be a dermatologist.
"It's all kinda mixed-up."
The document summarizes Elvis' altercation with the phoney doctor, who fraudulently performed
bogus dermatological treatments for the singer in exchange for cash, before embarrassing
Elvis by making sexual advances on Elvis' Army colleagues.
Elvis apparently confronted the man, who flew into a rage and in turn began to extort money
from Elvis with the use of blackmail.
The fake dermatologist threatened to expose Elvis as homosexual, and claimed to have photo
evidence of him in "compromising situations," though Elvis in his complaint assured his
superiors that there was no possibility such images existed.
Nevertheless, Elvis gave his blackmailer hundreds of dollars on the agreement that the man would
leave the country for England in January 1960.
The fraudster reportedly never contacted Elvis ever again.
Many of the hundreds of documents in Elvis Presley's FBI files relate to issues concerning
his Lockheed Jetstar, the last private plane the singer purchased in his lifetime.
And like his unfortunate death, the ultimate fate of Elvis' "lost" plane proves that glamour
and glory often sadly fade.
The theft of Elvis' executive jet dominates the second half of the singer's FBI files,
with the bureau continuing an investigation into the disappearance of the jet following
Elvis' death, and the possibility the plane had been transferred over state lines as stolen
goods.
The plane eventually wound up in an "airplane graveyard" in Roswell, New Mexico, where it
baked under the hot sun for 35 years before finally being put up for auction.
Sadly past its prime, the plane sold for $430,000, a fraction of the $3.5 million estimate.
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