|
George Hunter White
George Hunter White (June 22, 1908 – October 23, 1975) was an American federal agent.[1][2] He was a Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) investigator, undercover Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative, World War II veteran, and one of the men responsible for the capture of Lucky Luciano.[3] While working for the Commissioner of the FBN, Harry J. Anslinger, White travelled around the world in pursuit of drug dealers and crime lords. During World War II, he trained undercover Allied operatives for the Office of Strategic Services on the fundamentals of counterespionage before they were deployed on missions in Europe, Asia, and Africa.[4] He was also a federal observer for the controversial narcotics experiments by the Central Intelligence Agency as part of MK-ULTRA and Midnight Climax.[5] In later life, he served as the chief of the Stinson Beach Fire Department.[6] Early lifeWhite was born in 1908 in Los Angeles, California. In 1928, at the age of twenty, White graduated from Oregon State College.[7] After graduating, White worked as a journalist and was a police reporter for the San Francisco Bulletin and the Call-Bulletin.[6] After moving to Los Angeles, he covered several narcotics trials for newspapers there.[6] Federal agentIn 1933, White joined the United States Border Patrol along the US-Mexico border, his first assignment as a federal officer of the law.[7] In 1934, White joined the Federal Bureau of Narcotics.[7] In this role, he worked with agents like Garland H. Williams under the direction of Commissioner Harry J. Anslinger to pursue mob bosses and drug dealers, and infiltrate criminal organizations.[1][2] He remained an FBN special agent throughout the rest of his federal service - while he was in the Army, at OSS, and the CIA, he was still operating as an FBN agent, sending regular reports to Anslinger. In 1936, he infiltrated a Chinese opium smuggling ring called the Hip Sing Tong in Seattle. In 1938, he led the FBN effort to wrap up Hip Sing Tong operations across the country, where the FBN sent 30 members of the organization to federal prison.[6] In 1938, he shot New York City drug dealer Albert "Tuffy" Jackson in the head and abdomen while working undercover.[8] World War IIWhen the United States declared war on Germany in World War II, White was one person on a list of names that Anslinger sent to William J. Donovan, Millard Preston Goodfellow, and David K. E. Bruce to use in the effort against the Axis powers in their new intelligence agency - what was at that time called the Office of the Coordinator of Information (COI), the direct precursor to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), and what would eventually become the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).[4] In January 1942, White was one of a dozen COI men of the Special Operations Branch (SO) to attend training at a British Special Operations Executive (SOE) training camp outside of Toronto, Canada, called Camp X.[4] There, he was trained in British methods of sabotage, reconnaissance, guerrilla warfare, underwater and amphibious assault, trailing suspects, and managing networks.[4][9] White is quoted as calling this the "school of mayhem and murder."[10][11] In the spring of that year, White became one of the cadre of instructors at the COI schoolhouses in Washington, D.C. under the command of his FBN Supervisor and COI Training Director Garland H. Williams, where he taught counterintelligence to hundreds of would-be and hopeful undercover operatives and guerrilla warfighters.[12][9] Those operatives and operators who were successful were then deployed around the world to fight the Axis powers.[9] Later in the war, White was deployed to Asia and the Pacific to fight the Imperial Japanese as an undercover agent.[6] One night, while he was in Calcutta, India, White was hiding in the closet of a hotel room where he was observing a clandestine meeting between a Japanese soldier and a US Army soldier. The Japanese soldier pulled a knife on the American soldier, and White popped out of the closet and shot the Japanese soldier dead.[6] After the warIn 1946, White was responsible for apprehending and shutting down the criminal organization of Arthur Zweier in Mexico.[7] White received a promotion to the rank of FBN District Supervisor, running offices in Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio.[6] White then was given the assignment by Anslinger to join Garland H. Williams to bring to justice Lucky Luciano - the Chicago mob boss that the OSS and the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) had previously depended on to guarantee safety of shipbuilding in Chicago and New York.[13] ONI and OSS during the war had also used Luciano as an asset to ensure protection of American forces by the Italian criminal underworld as they invaded the country and advanced northward against the Germans.[1][2] Lucky Luciano had still been running his crime family from behind bars, but he was granted a reduced sentence in 1945 for "wartime services to the country."[13][1][2] Williams charged that three months after Luciano's return [to Italy] from Cuba in 1947, the first large shipment of heroin, worth $250,000, was smuggled into the United States.[13] White also investigated other branches of the Italian Mafia, Iranian and Middle Eastern crime families, the French Connection in Marseilles, and other European drug smuggling networks.[14] In 1948, White was made the District Supervisor of the San Francisco FBN office.[6] Also in 1948, White helped police capture a narcotics trafficker, Lucien Santoni in France. In Rome, he compiled evidence against the heroin ring of Marcello Enzi.[6] In May 1948, White went undercover and aided Turkish police in capturing smugglers led by Severt Dalgakiran, and in the seizure of heroin plants.[7] In 1949, White worked for U.S. Senators Estes Kefauver and Herbert O'Conor, and the United States Senate Special Committee to Investigate Crime in Interstate Commerce, or the "Kefauver Committee" to investigate organized crime.[6] President Truman appointed White to investigate corruption in the government.[6] In 1954, White was summoned to investigate corruption within the Houston Police Department. During a conversation with a detective of this department, White shot and killed the detective. This investigation also led to a significant shake-up, resulting in the dismissal of Police Chief Morrison, who was revealed to be a drug addict.[7] This prompted a comprehensive restructuring of the entire department.[7] In 1955, in San Francisco, White conducted a sting operation that exposed state narcotics agent Braumoeller for selling drugs seized in raids to known criminals, leading to Braumoeller's arrest.[7] In 1956, White championed the cause of convicted school teacher Robert Enzensperger, who had been falsely accused of transporting marijuana. His investigation resulted in the teacher's release and exoneration.[7] That same year, he led a heroin seizure operation in San Francisco, which resulted in the imprisonment of Rinaldo (Red) Ferrari for narcotics trafficking.[7] White continued to voice his opposition to marijuana use. Testifying before a Senate subcommittee in 1959, he advocated for greater cooperation with Mexican authorities and harsher penalties for drug offenders.[7] Death of Billie HolidayWhite allegedly planted evidence in the jazz singer Billie Holiday's hotel room at the Mark Twin Hotel in San Francisco, and then had her arrested for possession.[15] Holiday represented herself in her criminal trial, "The United States of America versus Billie Holiday."[15] In 1959, when Holiday collapsed and was rushed to the hospital, doctors informed her that her continued use of heroin was causing her health to decline.[15] The FBN arrived and claimed they found more narcotics in her possession.[16] Doctors attempted to detox her with methadone, but the FBN interrupted the process; they also refused to let her see a lawyer. She died on the hospital bed that she was handcuffed to.[15][16] Operations Midnight Climax and MKUltraWhite's other activities have been overshadowed by his involvement in the United States government's efforts at creating a mind control drug, which began during World War II and lasted into the 1960's.[17] One of the experiments in which he participated was Operation Midnight Climax.[3] In this operation, CIA chemist Sidney Gottlieb and White gave experimental drugs such as LSD to unknowing American citizens in New York and San Francisco to observe their behavior.[5][18] As the FBN Director of Midnight Climax, White was assigned custodianship of U.S. government employee Frank Olson, who was a subject of the experiments.[11] White entrusted supervision of Olson to his aide, Jacques Voignier. Olson committed suicide at a New York City hotel while in custody of Voignier and Frank Spirito.[11] Olson's death opened public scrutiny into the MKUltra program. White's codename was Morgan Hall.[19] Retirement and later lifeIn 1966, White retired from the FBN.[6] He became the chief of the Stinson Beach fire department, in Stinson Beach, California; nine years later, he died at age 67 from heart problems.[6] References
|
||||||||||||||||||||
