The Strength of the Wolf by Douglas Valentine Read Free Book Online Page B

and made them district supervisors. He had a soft spot for old-timers like George Cunningham, his deputy from 1949 until 1958, and Joe Bransky, the dean of district supervisors, stationed in Philadelphia. No one in the FBN after the Second World War ever got as close to him as they did, with the exception of Ross B. Ellis in Detroit and George White.
    With the advent of the Cold War, no agent had the courage to publicly question Anslinger’s policies either. His control over the FBN and its agents was absolute and served to magnify his mistakes, the biggest of which was having agents initiate two cases a month, thus forcing them to arrest as many addicts as possible. This “two buys and a bust” format enabled him to compile the statistics he needed to impress the congressional appropriations committees, and ensure that conspiracy cases were managed by a cadre of trusted friends, but it also focused attention on addicts rather than distributors, and it fostered a cut-throat environment that pitted case-making agents against one another, with dire consequences for the FBN.
    Anslinger was the prototype of what modern agents facetiously call “a suit.” His battles were waged in boardrooms, the halls of Congress, andthe press. His angst was over the fate of the nation’s ruling elite, not its average citizens, and yet that class consciousness served only to enhance his exquisite mystique – his carefully crafted image as a man serving a higher purpose in which his agents could believe. And they believed. They looked at Anslinger with nostalgic awe, as a symbol of the higher authority from which their powers derived. His presence looms.

4
INSIDE THE FBN
    â€œWhat’s past is prologue.”
    Shakespeare,
The Tempest
, act II, scene 1
    At the end of the Second World War, momentous changes were taking place in US foreign and domestic policies that would radically affect the FBN’s organizational consciousness and direction. Within the FBN the issues were corruption and competition among agents, race relations, closer collaboration with government security and intelligence agencies, the fallout from the Luciano Project, and bureaucratic conflicts with the FBI and customs service. In this transitional period dynamics were set in motion that would determine the course of drug law enforcement during the second half of the twentieth century and set the stage for the FBN’s demise in 1968.
    The FBN’s primary image-maker and consciousness-shaper was Harry Anslinger. Unlike many of his bureaucratic peers, Anslinger had seen the war coming and had taken steps to ensure that a five-year supply of opium would be available to America’s military and civilian populations. In 1939 he had “arranged with drug manufacturers to stockpile a sufficient quantity of opium to carry the US and her allies through a conflict.” 1 He did this without congressional appropriations, by having private funds made available directly to opium manufacturers in Turkey, Iran, and India. To ensure security he convinced the League of Nations to move its narcotics files and experts to the US, and in early 1942 he instructed the Defense Supplies Corporation to “acquire all available stocks of opium inpreparation for a long war.” 2 He personally determined the amount of opium that was brought from Turkey and Iran to the manufacturing companies and he stationed inspectors at their facilities.
    â€œHe would send surrendered drugs down to Fort Knox by American Express,” recalls Agent Matt Seifer. “Ten trucks loaded with opium, guarded by FBN agents armed with Tommy guns. From Fort Knox it went to the pharmaceutical companies where the morphine was extracted; places like Ligits, New York Quinine, and Mallinchrodt and Merck. Anslinger had a control committee and every manufacturer had a quota.”
    As a result of Anslinger’s foresight, the Allies by 1943 were relying on America for most of