Clyde Tolson was an American secret service agent and the first Associate Director of the FBI who was in office for over four decades. He was primarily responsible for personnel and discipline, and was honored with the ‘President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service’ by President Lyndon B. Johnson for increasing the proficiency of law enforcement. During most of his career, he was assistant to the first director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, and after his death, briefly held office as the acting director of the FBI for a day. The two were also very close personally, and were virtually inseparable throughout the day during the four decades they worked together. The fact that Tolson retired soon after Hoover died and moved into Hoover's estate, which he had inherited, sparked rumors about the nature of their relationship and fuelled the imagination of later writers who wrote on their intimacy. While many later sources described the two bachelors as romantic partners, the details about their relationship is still a mystery. Both of them were well aware of the repercussions of an openly gay relationship and how such revelations could ruin their careers, and as such, they kept their personal lives private.