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The Strength of the Wolf
The Secret History of America’s War on Drugs
Douglas Valentine

“This fascinating and engrossing account of early US efforts to control the illegal drug trade is also much more. Valentine deeply examines the practices of the CIA, carefully and skillfully making a connection between it and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN). The book exposes the close relationship between organized crime and those in intelligence. From the Cold War to the 1960s, FBN director Harry Anslinger, in a desperate bid to outflank the FBI, entered into a “suicidal” relationship with the CIA. In 1962, the FBN began “its descent into knave spookery and internecine warfare.”

“Valentine also smartly examines the CIA’s role in using drugs as a weapon to turn foreign agents and supply funds to anti-communist organizations. His account of MKULTRA — the CIA experiment with LSD — is fascinating and nicely documented. Exploring the deep politics defined by Peter Dale Scott (Deep Politics and the Death of JFK), Valentine deftly plumbs the hidden roots of the early war on narcotics and proves that foreign policy considerations always trumped public health.”

“The author also makes some fascinating connections between the triumvirate of the FBI, CIA, and FBN around the time of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Summing Up: Outstanding. All levels/libraries.” — D. R. Turner, Davis and Elkins College

The Strength of the Wolf is a ground-breaking work of investigative reporting that kept me up half the night, highlighting the names and black deeds of an outlandish cast of wayward narcs, killer-spooks and globe-trotting godfathers. An expose of the never-ending lap-dance between organized crime and the national security establishment, Doug Valentine’s book is a torch held high in the labyrinths of America’s secret history. Casting a cold eye on the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Valentine reveals the Bureau for what it was: a parapolitical lunatic asylum, swirling with intrigue, rife with corruption, and punch-drunk with good intentions gone bad.” — Jim Hougan, award-winning investigative reporter and the author of Spooks and Secret Agenda

The Strength of the Wolf is a remarkable early history of America’s war on drugs, as well as the Federal Bureau of Narcotics’ war against the Mafia — long before J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI even acknowledged its existence. This early assault on the drug trade stands in revealing contrast to the phony wars on drugs perpetrated by the federal government ever since, especially the “anti-drug” charades during the Reagan and Bush I administrations. Doug Valentine has performed an admirable and important public service by pulling all of this information together.” — Dan Moldea, author of The Hoffa Wars

“A rollercoaster ride of a read! Douglas Valentine carries us from a brutal murder in a New York hotel room to a squalid CIA power grab forty years later ­ by way of Lucky Luciano, Dallas, the jungles of Vietnam, and the apprenticeship of the Watergate burglars. A Herculean exploration of the dark world of drugs and law enforcement.” — Anthony Summers, author of The Arrogance of Power

“A thoroughly engrossing, thoroughly researched and thoroughly appalling look at what’s really behind our ill-fated ‘War on Drugs.’ If the history presented here is any model for the future, our grandchildren (and theirs) will be locked into the same hopeless position in which we find ourselves today: war without end.” — Gary Webb, author of Dark Alliance: the CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion