George Hunter White

George Hunter White remains one of the most controversial federal agents in American history, and highly debated subject within law enforcement circles. A lifelong Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) investigator, undercover operative, spymaster, World War II hero, one of the men responsible for the capture of Lucky Luciano, known for killing suspects, and known to have consumed most of the drugs he was chasing. While working for the famous Commissioner of the FBN, Harry J. Anslinger, White travelled all across the world hunting drug dealers and crime lords. He notoriously hated jazz, believed it to have a corrupting influence on the youth, and arrested Billie Holiday. 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 operations in Europe, Asia, and Africa. He was also a federal observer to the controversial narcotics experiments by the Central Intelligence Agency as part of MK-ULTRA and Midnight Climax.

In later life, he became the Chief of the Stinson Beach Fire Department.

He died in 1975 at age 67 at Luke's Hospital in San Francisco.

Early life
White was born in 1908 in Los Angeles, California. In 1928, at the age of twenty, White graduated from Oregon State College.

After graduating, White worked as a journalist. He was a police reporter for the San Francisco Bulletin and the Call-Bulletin. After moving to Los Angeles, he covered several narcotics trials for newspapers there.

Federal agent
In 1933, White joined the United States Border Patrol along the US-Mexico Border, his first assignment as a federal officer of the law.

In 1934, White joined the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. In this career, he worked with agents like Garland H. Williams under the direction of Commissioner Harry J. Anslinger to hunt mob bosses and drug dealers, and infiltrate criminal organizations. 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, learning Mandarin in the process to take a blood oath before an altar fire. 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.

In 1938 he shot New York City drug dealer Albert "Tuffy" Jackson in the head and abdomen while working undercover.

World War II
When World War II broke out, 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).

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 training camp outside of Toronto, Canada, called Camp X. There, he was trained in British methods of sabotage, reconnaissance, guerrilla warfare, underwater and amphibious assault, trailing suspects, and managing networks. White is quoted as calling this the "school of mayhem and murder."

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. Those operatives and operators who were successful were then deployed all around the world to fight the Axis powers.

Later in the war, White was deployed to Asia and the Pacific to fight the Imperial Japanese as an undercover agent. His service there was full of intrigue. 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. On another occasion, he strangled a Japanese soldier to death, and kept the photograph of the dead man in his apartment.

After the war
In 1946, White busted the criminal organization of Arthur Zweier in Mexico.

White received a promotion to the rank of FBN District Supervisor, running the offices of Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio.

White then was given the assignment by Anslinger to join Garland H. Williams to hunt down and bring to justice Lucky Luciano - the Italian Chicago mob boss that the OSS and the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) had heavily depended on to guarantee safety of shipbuilding in Chicago and New York. 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. Lucky Luciano had still been running his mob from behind bars, but the US granted him reduced sentence in 1945 for "wartime services to the country."

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. -- The Luciano Story

Williams and White chased down the mob all around the world for Anslinger, sending reports from London, Paris, Iran, Ankara, Tehran, Athens, Baghdad, Beijing, and many more. 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.

In 1948, White was made the District Supervisor of the San Fransisco FBN office.

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.

In May 1948 White went undercover and aided Turkish police in capturing smugglers led by Severt Dalgakiran, and in the seizure of heroin plant.

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.

President Truman appointed White to investigate corruption in the government.

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 an addict. This prompted a comprehensive restructuring of the entire department.

In 1955, back in San Francisco, White conducted a sting operation that exposed state narcotic agent Braumoeller for selling drugs seized in raids to known criminals, leading to Braumoeller's arrest.

In 1956, White championed the cause of convicted schoolteacher Robert Enzensperger, who had been falsely accused of transporting marijuana. His investigation resulted in the teacher's release and exoneration.

That same year, he led a heroin seizure operation in San Francisco, which resulted in the imprisonment of Rinaldo (Red) Ferrari for narcotics trafficking.

As society became more permissive, 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.

The framing and death of Billie Holiday
White allegedly planted evidence in the jazz singer Billie Holiday's hotel room at the Mark Twin Hotel in San Fransisco, and then had her arrested for possession. It is also alleged that White was high on narcotics when he arrested Holiday.

She represented herself in her criminal trial, "The United States of America versus Billie Holiday."

Years later, 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. The FBN arrived and claimed they found more narcotics in her possession. They formed security on her room, and placed her under house arrest. Doctors attempted to provide her with methodone, but the FBN interrupted the process, and would not allow her into surgery. They also refused to let her see a lawyer. She died on the hospital bed that she was handcuffed to, with FBN agents and police officers having denied any of her friends or relatives to see her.

The "T drug," Midnight Climax, and MKUltra
White's other exploits have been overshadowed by his involvement in the United States Government's efforts at creating a mind control drug, which began in World War II and lasted into the 1960's. One of the experiments that he is most known for in this era was called Operation Midnight Climax. In this operation, CIA officer Sydney Gottlieb and White gave drugs to unknowing American citizens and observed their behaviors afterwards.

His codename was Morgan Hall.

Retirement and later life
In 1966, White retired from the FBN. He became the Chief of the Stinson Beach fire department, in Stinson Beach, California.

Eleven years later, he died at age 67 from heart problems. His family requested that people donate to the American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society.