High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Helen W. Gandy (April 8, 1897 – July 7, 1988) was an American civil servant. She was the secretary to Federal Bureau of Investigation director J. Edgar Hoover for fifty-four years. Hoover called her "indispensable" and she exercised great behind-the-scenes influence on Hoover and the workings of the Bureau. Following Hoover`s death in 1972, she spent weeks destroying his "Personal File," thought to be where the most incriminating material he used to manipulate and control the most powerful figures in Washington was kept.