24 of the Most Reviled Figures in US History

History is filled with leaders whose names became synonymous with brutality. Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong are among the most infamous, blamed for policies and campaigns that resulted in the deaths of millions. But cruelty, corruption, betrayal, and abuse of power are hardly limited to foreign dictators. American history has produced plenty of its own figures who became deeply despised for what they did and the damage they left behind.

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is one example of just how complicated those legacies can become. His death in 2023 renewed fierce debate over U.S. bombing campaigns in Cambodia during the Vietnam War and American support for coups and authoritarian governments abroad. Kissinger also retained prominent defenders throughout his life, a reminder that some of history's most controversial figures can remain admired by one group while being condemned by another.

To identify some of the most detested Americans in history, 24/7 Tempo reviewed contemporary reporting, historical accounts, biographies, and reference sources including Britannica, focusing on the actions that made these figures notorious and how their reputations endured over time. The list stretches well beyond presidents and politicians to include military figures, spies, traitors, assassins, fraudsters, and cult leaders. People who were fiercely hated during their own lifetimes but later became widely celebrated national figures, including Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln, and Muhammad Ali, were excluded.

Perhaps the most notorious traitor in American history, Benedict Arnold was a valiant general in the Continental Army who was severely wounded multiple times while fighting the British. Incensed at not receiving the promotions and recognition he felt he deserved, Arnold began sending sensitive information to the British, offered to surrender his post, and eventually defected to their side.

Famous for his rivalry with Alexander Hamilton, which he settled by killing Hamilton in a duel, Aaron Burr's most notable treachery wasn't the duel, but rather a plan of armed insurrection against the new Nation. Although acquitted for lack of evidence, Burr was charged with treason for conspiring to take power over the western states and Louisiana Territory to establish an independent country. Although his alleged plan never panned out, his political career crashed and burned.

Touted by some as a populist hero who expedited westward expansion, the seventh president has come to be loathed by others for his racism and genocidal policies. Jackson not only profited from his ownership of enslaved people – whom he treated abhorrently – but also signed the Indian Removal Act, which expropriated Native lands and led to the forced relocation of over 60,000 Native Americans, with tens of thousands dying in the process.

Remembered for leading Union troops through Georgia on a destructive "March to the Sea," General William Tecumseh Sherman ensured Union success in the Civil War by torching every possible element of Confederate war-making. His troops destroyed not only military targets, but railroads, farms, cotton warehouses, and other civilian infrastructure. His plan to demoralize the South worked – and his legacy as a ruthless villain is alive and well in the areas he ravaged.

One of the most controversial players in the Civil War, Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest commanded the troops responsible for the Fort Pillow Massacre, in which several hundred Union soldiers – most of them African American – were killed after surrendering. His post-war career included becoming the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Forrest is regarded as a hero by many in his home state of Tennessee. Although he reportedly renounced his racist views later in life, his legacy as a symbol of racial hatred remains.

A Methodist pastor and Army colonel in Colorado, John Chivington was eager to advance his career with an Army victory. Instead, he orchestrated one of the most atrocious acts in U.S. Military history – the Sand Creek Massacre. Chivington ordered his men to fire on a peaceful encampment of Cheyenne and Arapaho, mostly women, children, and the elderly. His men killed about 230 innocent people, mutilating their bodies before declaring a victory against "hostiles." A subsequent investigation brought the truth to light, but Chivington escaped charges.

Railroad tycoon Jay Gould is often remembered as the most despised businessman of the 19th century. Known as a backstabber who would do anything to make a buck, including bribery, disregarding the law, and manipulating stocks, he became the poster child for greedy robber barons. Although he sounds no different from many notorious business magnates, Gould earned extra ire for being reticent with the press, which left space for all manner of enduring rumors to fill the newspapers.

A Shakespearean actor and Confederate sympathizer, John Wilkes Booth believed, like many of his compatriots, that Abraham Lincoln was a tyrant and the worst thing that had ever happened to the people of the South. After several plans to abduct the president failed, Booth finally succeeded in assassinating Lincoln in a theater. Although he thought he would be praised for the act, Booth found that newspapers from around the nation characterized him as an unstable villain.

As a biologist, Charles Davenport started the early American eugenics movement. Seeking to breed out "undesirable" traits in humans, he advocated for racist immigration policies and the sterilization of people deemed genetically inferior. Due to sterilization laws passed in the early 1900s after lobbying by eugenicists, over 30,000 people were sterilized unknowingly or against their will between 1907 and 1939. Davenport also supported and influenced Nazi eugenics programs in Germany.

Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and its predecessor for 48 years, J. Edgar Hoover was once celebrated as an anti-communist lawman. However, his homophobic, racist, and anti-radical views began to clash with those of the general public in the '60s, and his current legacy is much more fraught. The truth has since emerged of his use of illegal surveillance, blackmail, media manipulation, and other unwarranted tactics to control politicians and disrupt political groups.

Unable to establish a successful acting career, Maine native Mildred Gillars moved to Germany and in 1940 took a job as a radio announcer with German State Radio. Although her initial programs were apolitical, she eventually became the voice of a propaganda segment meant to demoralize American GIs by telling them their wives were cheating on them and that they'd be returning home maimed. She also spouted antisemitic vitriol and attacks on FDR, and was captured and convicted of treason after the war.

Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy rose to prominence during the Red Scare of the early Cold War years. His fear-mongering tactics put him in the spotlight as he accused prominent government officials, military members, and scores of civilians of having communist leanings. His reputation was extinguished nearly overnight, however, when it became clear to the public that his outlandish claims were often supported by nothing but lies, and that he relied on bullying, blackmail, and intimidation to control his political opponents.

Richard Nixon has gone down in history as the first U.S. president to resign. His voluntary resignation came during the investigation of his involvement in the Watergate scandal, where he was accused of funneling up to $1 million in campaign funds to silence perpetrators of a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters. Secret recordings of Nixon and his staff surfaced at the time, proving his involvement in the break-in and the coverup, revealing to the public his paranoid and conniving personality, and all but ruining his reputation.

Former national security adviser and secretary of state Henry Kissinger is at once a celebrated diplomat and a man responsible for the deaths of millions of people. He played a role in prolonging the Vietnam War, expanding it into Cambodia, facilitating genocides in several countries, and supporting coups and death squads in Latin America. Kissinger was responsible for significant civilian casualties, leading many to consider him an unprosecuted war criminal.

Known as the founder of the Westboro Baptist Church – which the Southern Poverty Law Center categorizes as a hate group – Fred Phelps was a rabidly anti-gay preacher who stooped to despicable lows including picketing with "God hates fags" signs, holding demonstrations at the funerals of people who died from AIDS and LGBTQ-related hate crimes, and picketing at military funerals to proclaim that God kills soldiers to punish the country for its acceptance of homosexuality.

Peoples Temple cult leader Jim Jones is infamous for inciting one of the largest mass murder/suicides in history. After facing media exposés and fraud allegations in California, Jones moved his followers to a Guyana commune dubbed Jonestown. Reports of child abuse and false imprisonment led California congressman Leo Ryan and an NBC news crew to investigate the commune. After instructing armed members to murder Ryan and his delegation, Jones forced his followers – some at gun point – to ingest a cyanide-laced punch, resulting in 909 deaths, including around 300 children.

A failed musician who became the leader of a murderous cult family, Charles Manson aspired to start an apocalyptic race war, fed his followers LSD, and instructed them to commit the sadistic Tate-LaBianca murders in LA in 1969. He was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in 1971, and lived the rest of his life in prison. Although he continued to intrigue the public during his incarceration, Manson's name has become synonymous with evil.

Navy communications officer John Anthony Walker, Jr. was experiencing financial troubles in 1967 when he began spying for the Soviets by selling them a radio cipher card, which would allow them to decode secret Naval communication. Over the next 18 years, he handed over the locations of all U.S. nuclear submarines, Vietnam troop movements and strikes, and over a million decrypted messages. Some consider his actions the most damaging security breach of the Cold War.

Bernie Madoff was a financier and asset manager who orchestrated the largest accounting fraud scheme in American history. He defrauded clients of $65 billion through an elaborate Ponzi scheme over the course of five decades. When his company collapsed in 2008, his sons turned him in and Madoff received a 150 year prison sentence and was ordered to forfeit $170 billion in assets. Madoff's scheme affected over 40,000 victims, some of whom lost their life savings.

Most Americans who were alive when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated remember exactly what they were doing when the news broke. Although conspiracy theories still abound that place the blame on someone other than a lone gunman, the man who went down in history as JFK's assassin is still remembered as a disturbed extremist who took out a beloved American icon and plunged the nation into mourning to fulfill a misguided fantasy of being a political revolutionary.

In exchange for over $1.4 million in diamonds, bank funds, and cash, FBI agent Robert Hanssen provided classified information to the KGB from 1979 until he was caught in 2001. He gave up the identities of U.S. operatives, details on nuclear operations, and the existence of an eavesdropping tunnel under the Soviet Embassy in D.C. Hanssen is considered the most damaging spy in FBI history, and has been implicated in the deaths of at least three Soviet officers who were working for U.S. intelligence.

The highly polarizing right-wing political commentator Rush Limbaugh was a popular talk radio host that was loved by many but despised by most. His hateful rhetoric, racism, lies, and bullying gained him millions of listeners, but also sowed divisions and normalized hate speech. Limbaugh was known for denigrating women, Black people, LGBTQ people, and people who died of AIDS. He even referred to a 13 year old Chelsea Clinton as the White House dog.

This celebrity financier is alleged to have organized a child sex trafficking ring that lured underage girls from numerous countries to his private island, where they were assaulted by his wealthy friends and clients. Epstein was convicted of two sex trafficking crimes in 2008, but continued to abuse girls in New York, Florida, and the Caribbean before his suspicious 2019 death in a prison cell while awaiting another sex trafficking trial.

Timothy McVeigh orchestrated the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people – including 19 children in a daycare center – and injured over 600, marking the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history. McVeigh, a decorated Army veteran turned anti-government extremist was seeking retribution for the 1993 ATF/FBI siege on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. He was arrested shortly after the bombing, found guilty on all charges, and executed for the attack in 2001. (Here are 26 rulers who were killed by their own people.)