The Strength of the Wolf (2 page)

Harney, Malachi L.
– In the early 1920s served as a supervisor in the IRS Intelligence Unit; established a reputation as a “gang buster” while overseeing Eliot Ness and the legendary Untouchables in their successful pursuit of Al Capone in Chicago; served in Anslinger's Flying Squad, and as FBN enforcement assistant until the mid-1950s, when he was appointed assistant to the Treasury Secretary for law enforcement.

Hayes, Crofton J.
– Agent in New York; agent in charge of the Newark field office; died under mysterious circumstances of a heroin overdose in September 1953.

Knight, Paul E.
– Agent in New York; joined Siragusa in Rome in 1952; first agent in charge in Beirut in 1954; helped make the First Ambassador case in 1960, then assigned to Paris; joined the CIA in 1963 and returned to Beirut where he worked undercover as an FBN agent and chief of security for Pan Am.

Manfredi, Henry L.
– As an Army CID agent worked with Charlie Siragusa in Italy in 1950; joined the FBN in 1951; was an FBN and CIA agent in Rome until 1967, when he returned to work at FBN headquarters as chief of foreign operations, as well as other capacities.

Mangiaracina, Anthony
– Known as “Tony Grapes”, did the undercover work for Schrier on the Orlandino case; transferred to Rome in 1959; then back to New York in 1961; jumped to BDAC in 1966.

Maria, Victor G.
– Joined the FBN in San Francisco; studied under Howard Chappell in Los Angeles; fluent in Lebanese; replaced Paul Knight in Paris and made many cases across Europe; involved in the controversial Ben Barka Affair of 1965.

Marshall, Eugene J.
– Agent in New York; agent in charge of Miami; arrested in Miami in 1965 for taking bribes.

McDonnell, Charles R.
– Undercover agent and member of Group Three in New York, then in Los Angeles; jumped to BDAC; was arrested and imprisoned for selling heroin in 1968.

O'Carroll, Patrick P.
– Agent in New York; chief of the Treasury Department's training school in Washington.

Oyler, Ralph H.
– Top narcotic agent of the 1920s, he made the case through which the Supreme Court found latent police powers in the Harrison Narcotic Act; made the case that led to the Jones–Miller Act of 1922, which standardized licensing and registration practices, and provided for a federal narcotics commission, later chaired by Anslinger, which controlled the importation and exportation of narcotics; district supervisor in New York and Chicago in old Narcotics Division; FBN district supervisor in Detroit until his death in 1947.

Panich, Walter
– Joined the FBN in 1942 as a clerk in Detroit and became an agent in 1948; served almost continually in Detroit until Henry Giordano brought him to headquarters in late 1961 as his personal assistant on administrative matters.

Pera, Martin F.
– Joined the FBN in Chicago; traveled to Europe with Charlie Siragusa in 1951; worked on a special case with George White in 1952; leader of the International Group in New York; acting district supervisor in Rome in 1961; consultant to the McClellan Committee; resigned and joined the Office of Naval Intelligence in 1963.

Picini, Michael G.
– An undercover agent in New York, Washington, DC, and California; then group leader in New York; then district supervisor in Boston; district supervisor in Rome under Commissioner Henry Giordano from 1963 until 1968.

Pohl, Anthony S.
– A French-speaking agent recruited into the FBN from the Army CID in 1960; sent to Paris in 1961 and established the FBN's first official office in Marseilles in 1962; transferred to Chicago in 1963.

Salmi, Richard E.
– Joined the FBN in Los Angeles, worked undercover there and in Mexico and Las Vegas; involved in the controversial Bobby Baker wiretapping incident; transferred to Turkey in 1966 where he made many important undercover cases.

Schrier, Leonard S.
– Considered by many to be the premier case-making agent in New York; competed with the Gaffney–Ward–Dolce clique;
leader of Enforcement Groups One and Two in 1964, and the International Group from 1965 until his resignation in 1967.

Seifer, Matthew
– Pharmacist and agent in the FBN before the Second World War; served in New York, Buffalo and Boston.

Selvaggi, Francis J.
– Controversial agent married to Charlie Siragusa's niece, made the Joe Valachi case and the Rinaldo–Palmieri case; targeted by the FBI as a result of the Valachi case; accused by Valachi of being a member of the Bronx mob; resigned in 1967 rather than take a transfer to San Francisco; perhaps the greatest case-making agent of his era.

Siragusa, Charles
– Joined the FBN before the Second World War; protégé of George White; served in the OSS; group leader in New York; opened the FBN's first overseas office in Rome in 1951; became the FBN's liaison to the CIA in 1959 when he returned to Washington as field supervisor; competed with Giordano to replace Anslinger as Commissioner, served as Deputy Commissioner until his retirement in December 1963.

Speer, Wayland L.
– A pharmacist and agent in Texas; served in Japan for four years after the Second World War; field supervisor investigating agent wrongdoing; and a consultant to the Daniel Committee; as enforcement assistant at headquarters, launched a corruption investigation in New York in 1961; his investigation failed and he became district supervisor in Denver.

Tartaglino, Andrew C.
– Started as an agent in New York, went to Rome in 1956 and became Charlie Siragusa's protégé; opened the Paris office in 1959 and helped make the First Ambassador case; member of the New York Court House Squad; Gaffney's assistant at headquarters before his transfer to Main Treasury where, in 1965, he organized a corruption investigation focused on the New York agents. The investigation began in earnest in 1967 and climaxed in 1968 with the formation of a four-member Task Force that helped bring about the FBN's abolition in April 1968.

Taylor, Bowman
– An agent in Texas until his transfer to Bangkok, where he opened the FBN's first office in the Far East in 1963; while working undercover in Vientiane, arrested General Vang Pao, head of the CIA's secret army in Laos, for selling fifty kilograms of morphine base; expelled from Laos by the CIA as a result; a member of Tartaglino's Task Force that investigated agent corruption in New York in 1968.

Taylor, Thomas P.
– Former NYPD detective and IRS inspector, became an FBN agent in 1967 to work for Andy Tartaglino during his corruption investigation in New York.

Tripodi, Thomas C.
– First an FBN agent in New York, then an assistant to Charlie Siragusa at headquarters; joined the CIA for five years; returned to the FBN in 1967 to work for Andy Tartaglino during his corruption investigation in New York.

Vizzini, Salvatore
– Joined the FBN in Atlanta in 1953; transferred to New York in 1955 and to Miami in 1957; performed lots of undercover work in Cuba; assigned to Rome in 1959, where he made a case on several of Lucky Luciano's associates; opened the FBN's first office in Istanbul in 1961; worked in Bangkok before Bowman Taylor; returned to Miami and went on disability after getting mugged in Puerto Rico; resigned in 1966.

Ward, Charles G.
– Joined the FBN in New York as a clerk; leader of Enforcement Group Three and mentor to many of the FBN's finest agents, including George Gaffney and John Dolce; enforcement assistant to New York district supervisors Ryan and Gaffney; head of the Gambling Squad; district supervisor in Chicago starting in 1964.

Waters, Francis E.
– The agent most responsible for the 1962 French Connection case, later a group leader; a target of Andy Tartaglino, he resigned in 1967 rather than take a transfer to Texas; tried and acquitted of selling to Charlie McDonnell a small portion of the heroin from the French Connection case that may have gone astray.

White, George H.
– Perhaps the FBN's most flamboyant and controversial character, his claim to fame was making the 1937 Hip Sing T'ong case; joined the OSS in 1942 and worked with James Angleton in counter-intelligence; also worked on OSS Truth Drug operations; after the war served as district supervisor in Chicago, Detroit, and San Francisco; in 1951 he hoped to become New York's district supervisor, but the job went to James C. Ryan, so he took a contract with the CIA and managed its MKULTRA safehouse in New York until 1954; became the FBN's supervisor at large; in 1955 became district supervisor in San Francisco, where he ran three CIA safehouses until his retirement in 1965.

Williams, Garland H.
– Joined the customs service in 1929, worked for Anslinger in the Flying Squad on some of the Foreign Control Board's most important cases; in 1936 negotiated an anti-smuggling agreement that allowed Treasury agents to operate inside Mexico, and formed the
Southwest Border Patrol in El Paso; in 1937 became the FBN's district supervisor in New York; left the FBN in 1941 to organize the Army's Counterintelligence Corps; joined the OSS in 1942 in a senior position; returned to New York in 1945 as district supervisor; left the FBN in 1951 to organize and command the Army's 525th Military Intelligence Group; in 1952 became assistant Commissioner of the IRS Intelligence Division, fired in late 1953 for some unknown reason, and vanished for two years; surfaced as a narcotic specialist for the State Department's Office of Public Safety, where he remained until retiring in 1964.

Wurms, Ivan
– Narcotic detective in Washington, in 1953 assigned to the US Attorney investigating Garland Williams and problems at FBN headquarters; joined the FBN in 1956; worked with Frank Selvaggi on the Valachi investigation; later worked as inspector with Andy Tartaglino investigating agent wrongdoing in New York, 1967–68.

Zirilli, Anthony
– Perhaps the greatest FBN undercover agent ever, worked on top Mafiosi in New York and Europe; worked with Howard Chappell on an integrity investigation in the Chicago area in 1956; later targeted himself in New Orleans; said to Jim Attie, “They can't pay me enough to do this job.” Then quit the FBN in disgust rather than apologize to Giordano.

A writer's research can take him to unexpected places, and I had little idea of my final destination when I began work on
The Strength of the Wolf
.

Over ten years ago, I started researching a book about the CIA's infiltration and subversion of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). I had just finished writing a book about the CIA's Phoenix Program in Vietnam, and I knew that with the gradual reduction of forces there, many CIA officers had been transferred to other government agencies, and that a few were filtered into the DEA and the DEA's predecessor organization, the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD), which existed from April 1968 until the DEA was created in July 1973. I was curious to know how these officers were put to use in the war on drugs and who was really giving them their orders.

A retired colonel, Tully Acampora, was my entrée into the arcane underworld of spies, drug smugglers, and narcotic agents. Tully had worked closely with the CIA's Phoenix Program in South Vietnam, and he told me that he had funneled some junior CIA officers into the BNDD and the DEA through his old friend Andrew Tartaglino. Before going to work for the CIA in Vietnam in 1966, Tully had served for seven years in Italy, and during that time he had come to know Andy Tartaglino, as well as Andy's mentors in the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), Charlie Siragusa and Hank Manfredi.

The FBN is the main subject of this book. It existed from 1930 until 1968, and it was the federal drug law enforcement agency that preceded the BNDD and DEA. Charlie Siragusa and Hank Manfredi established the FBN's first overseas office in Rome in 1951, and Andy Tartaglino joined them there in 1956.

Tully's insights into the personalities and activities of Siragusa and Manfredi, and several other FBN agents, were invaluable contributions to this book, as was his introduction to Andy Tartaglino. A member of the FBN since 1952, Andy rose steadily through the ranks and reorganizations of federal drug law enforcement until July 1973, when he was named the DEA's first chief inspector. Shortly after his appointment to this critical position, Andy initiated a controversial corruption investigation that culminated in 1975 with sensational hearings before a Senate committee. Among other things, there were allegations that a CIA assassination squad, staffed by former Phoenix personnel, existed inside the DEA's Special Operations Unit. I wanted to know if those allegations were true.

As a favor for Tully, Andy agreed to tell me about his corruption investigation, and the role the CIA played in it. We began by discussing a Justice Department report that enumerated the charges Andy had brought against several of the DEA's senior officials, and about forty DEA agents, most of whom had started in the FBN.

During our interviews, Andy made it clear that in order to understand the DEA's integrity problems, I had to learn how they originated in the FBN. Having been a “shoofly” (Bureau jargon for an inspector who investigates agent wrongdoing) in the FBN, Andy knew almost everything about this subject, and it was through him that I first heard about the fascinating characters who appear in the pages that follow – the “case-making” agents he targeted, and the executive officers he contended with, back in the rough-and-tumble days of the FBN. And that's when I seriously considered writing this book.

Before I could begin work on it, however, I first had to find and interview the old FBN agents, and that was no easy task. But Tully came through once again and introduced me to Fred Dick, the first federal narcotic agent assigned to South Vietnam. Tully and Fred had met and become friends in Saigon, and Fred provided me with a book listing the names and addresses of the members of the Association of Former Federal Narcotics Agents. One thing led to another and, with very few exceptions, the agents I located were agreeable and eagerly discussed everything that contributed to the FBN's successes and failures. It didn't take long to realize that I had a chance to do something truly original: that these FBN agents were a new cast of characters on America's historical stage, and that their collective recollections were a priceless contribution to American history.