Hoover called the first to do secret transcription

The first type of White House bugging was carried out by Herbert Hoover, not Franklin Roosevelt, according to a Rice University historian.

Dr. Francis Loewenheim said another historian, Dr. Frank Friedel, published transcripts of Mr. Hoover's 1932-33 stenographic recordings in 1973 -- ironically, at the height of controversy over President Nixon's secret taping -- and few people noticed. In an opinion-editorial page piece published in the Houston Chronicle, Dr. Loewenheim said Hoover used a stenographer secretly listening on another line to record conversations he had with his successor, President Roosevelt.