The Strength of the Wolf by Douglas Valentine

their opium derivatives, and Anslinger was serving as the guardian of the free world’s drug supply. When he learned that Peru had built a cocaine factory, he and the Board of Economic Warfare confiscated its product before it could be sold to Germany or Japan. In another instance Anslinger and George A. Morlock (who had replaced Stuart Fuller as his counterpart at the State Department) prevented a Hoffman La Roche subsidiary in Argentina from selling drugs to Germany. At the same time, Anslinger met his security and counterespionage responsibilities by permitting “an American company to ship drugs to Southeast Asia despite receiving intelligence reports that French authorities were permitting opiate smuggling into China and collaborating with Japanese drug traffickers.” 3
    Reconciling the FBN’s incompatible espionage and drug law enforcement functions would become one of Anslinger’s primary public relations goals throughout the remainder of his tenure as Commissioner of Narcotics.
PROMOTING THE BUREAU
    As a result of his wartime services, Anslinger’s prestige and power increased dramatically within the national security Establishment. But there had been no sensational narcotics cases, and drug law enforcement was of little concern to the war-weary public. Many of his agents had been conscripted into the military, and his agent force had dwindled to a bare minimum, to as few as 150 agents. So Anslinger launched a major publicity campaign to create an urgent need for his organization.
    The campaign kicked off in 1945 in Washington, DC, when he accused Judge Bolitha Laws of being soft on drug offenders. When, in response to the provocation, Judge Laws suggested that Anslinger’s agents might be inept, the Commissioner was ready and waiting: noting to his friends inthe press that the Washington field office had only three agents, he summoned fifty more from around the nation and divided them into two teams. 4 With the aid of local policemen and Deputy US Marshals, the teams led spectacular raids on several narcotics rings. One team under Agent LeRoy W. Morrison arrested 200 Blacks in the capital’s ghetto and seized a quantity of heroin that was traced to Harlem. The other team, under the direction of Agent Gon Sam Mue, arrested 123 Chinese suspects in fourteen downtown opium dens. The raids brought home the immediacy of the drug problem, proved the FBN was not inept, and scored Anslinger points with the Washington press corps, which appreciated the well-staged publicity stunt. 5
    Sustaining the public’s perception of an urgent need, however, required a steady diet of sensational publicity, so Anslinger aimed his agents at celebrities like Robert Mitchum (busted for marijuana possession) and Errol Flynn (vilified for his cocaine habit). FBN agents paid particular attention to Black jazz musicians like Billie Holiday, arrested by Agent Joe Bransky in 1947 in Philadelphia, and saxophonist Charlie Parker, arrested by Agent John T. Cusack in June 1948 in New York City.
    Putting a famous face on the drug problem highlighted the increasing availability of heroin and, as a bonus, by linking marijuana to surges in juvenile delinquency, homosexuality, interracial sex, and other signs of social decay brought about by liberalism, Anslinger bolstered the need for a punitive approach to drug abuse, thus satisfying his conservative core of supporters in Congress while, at the same time, reinforcing the urgent need for his organization.
    Another aspect of Anslinger’s publicity campaign began in January 1946, when Governor Thomas Dewey approved the commutation of Lucky Luciano’s lengthy prison term in return for his wartime services. Luciano was deported to Italy and freedom on 9 February 1946, bringing joy to his Mafia associates. Anslinger, however, was livid with rage, and within a year, allegations that the Mafia had purchased Luciano’s freedom were traced to FBN agents, prompting