Washington insider wanted J. Edgar Hoover to leverage his friendship with Walt Disney so he'd produce religious cartoons • MuckRock

As we’ve written before, Walt Disney and J. Edgar Hoover enjoyed a decades-long professional and person friendship, with fringe benefits including union busting and free admission to Disneyland for FBI agents. There were downsides, however - such as when one unnamed DC insider tried to leverage the Director’s relationship to pressure Disney into making religious cartoons.

A 1956 memo in Disney’s FBI file documents the Bureau’s visit from a certain Mrs. ██████. Hoover, perhaps tipped off that she was coming, was not in.

Whoever drew the short straw and had to serve as Hoover’s surrogate listened patiently to ██████’s idea - to have the Director lend the weight of his endorsement to her idea of getting Disney to produce Biblically-themed features.

If you’re wondering why this was a matter for the nation’s number one policeman, this had apparently been ██████’s crusade for quite a while. She was convinced that an animated Noah would help solve juvenile delinquency and had been pitching anyone in government that would listen - which included no less than the First Lady.

The Bureau officer politely suggested to ██████ that she take the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare’s suggestion and just contact Disney herself. ██████, not wanting to be too much of a bother, took the hint, gave her compliments to the Director, and the affair was over.

Or so the Bureau thought - one month later, ██████ returned. She had contacted Disney, only to receive this rather curt response.

Now it was time to break out the big guns - in order to preserve our children’s welfare, Hoover had to intercede on ██████’s behalf, and convince Disney to start producing Christian programming.