Customer Reviews

The Strength of the Wolf: The Secret History of America's War on Drugs

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Based on exhaustive research and interviews, this detailed and extensively footnoted history of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics is both a fine reference work for scholars, and an eye-opening, exciting narrative for the general reader. The book itself is the highest quality, made to last for generations, and includes a section of rare photographs, and an appendix consisting of a rogue's gallery from the FBN's files. The FBN, headed by Harry J. Anslinger, was the precursor agency to today's DEA. The War on Drugs that has been waged for years now, with a price is no object mentality, is now being reconsidered by more and more people as either an ill-considered mistake, or perhaps even as a Big Government/Big Brother monkey on the public's fiscal back. The War has surely not stopped the supply of drugs, and if you have ever thought that it was never intended to, but wondered why that was so, The Strength of The Wolf, will provide some answers. There are many books about drug enforcement (or lack thereof) in the recent past, but this work is unique in that it looks at what might be called the dawn of drug enforcement.

Given how much money this country spends to fight drug dealers and to lock up drug dealers & users both, I am amazed how little I hear people question the War on Drugs.

This book provides the historical framework critical to understand this, with the War on Drugs beginning as an attempt to provide what equates to trade protection to the pharmaceutical companies (who competed with the real thing of the day, opium/heroin), and how later racism led to marijuana users being targeted as well (Black Americans in Harlem and Latinos in the SW and California), and of course the violence fueled by the cocaine/crack trade made it a national buzzword.

It is a crime that this assault on our own citizens continues today - one would think that after the dismal failure of Prohibition that we would have learned our lesson.

Hopefully this book can start raising a consciousness to question it, at the very least more public debate (without the hysteria) is long overdue.

This book is packed with great information. It is, however, very sloppy. As someone familiar with Kennedy assassination literature, the chapter referring to the FBN's various connections to the Big Hit is particularly telling (there is a crazy part on CIA Agent Desmond Fitzgerald that is loaded with implication and woefully inadequate in context that was just irresponsible). Valentine hops around incoherently and speculatively, overshadowing some of the great stories he's found. That said, I would say those great stories are worth it. I've read it twice, developed a deep skepticism and still enjoyed the book.

Valentine promises to blow the lid on the involvement of the CIA and FBI in coddling and protecting organized crime mobsters in the drug biz. But unfortunately the book is mostly about the internal politics and personal pecadilloes of the FBN agents, with just a hint of the CIA complicity in the drug business. Of course, the book is about the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, but Valentine's style annoys more than it informs; he repeats himself more than a few times and offers a lot of admitted speculation about motives and unexplained events. Even the dissolution of the FBN, supposedly because the agents were meddling too much in the CIAS's clandestine mob ties, is weakly handled. All in all, I'd suggest passing on this one if you're looking for the dirt on America's biggest drug peddler, the Cocaine Importation Agency.

I basically bought this book because my Uncle is in it. His name was William A. Carrozo. It was misspelled in the book. However, he recently passed away on March 11, 2009.