L.A. Noir Part 10

One generation earlier, Berkeley police superintendent August Vollmer had dreamt of a professional police force whose members would not just uphold the law, but would also a.s.sess neighborhood problems like sociologists and address them like social workers. Parker had no interest in doing social work. "Law enforcement officers are neither equipped nor authorized to deal with broad social problems," he declared. "[W]e deal with effects, not causes." Eschatology interested him more than sociology. He wanted men who, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, would hold "the thin blue line until society came to its senses."

DRAGNET'S success rankled FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. So did Parker's carping about the FBI's temerity in investigating his department for potential civil rights violations. But irritation turned to anger when Parker informed "Kit" Carson, the special-agent-in-charge (SAC) of the L.A. office, that he intended to push for a resolution supporting a national clearinghouse for information on organized crime at the upcoming conference of the International a.s.sociation of Chiefs of Police. Parker also informed Carson that he planned to put his name forward as a candidate for the vice presidency of the IACP, a fact Carson promptly relayed to Hoover, along with the SAC's personal a.s.sessment of Parker as "an opportunist of the first order." This was too much for Hoover. Parker's clearinghouse could become a rival to the bureau. Parker himself looked suspiciously like a rival to the director. Hoover's instructions to his underlings were clear: All SACs should contact their friends in the local law enforcement community to sabotage Parker's campaign. Parker's election attempt was soundly defeated. success rankled FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. So did Parker's carping about the FBI's temerity in investigating his department for potential civil rights violations. But irritation turned to anger when Parker informed "Kit" Carson, the special-agent-in-charge (SAC) of the L.A. office, that he intended to push for a resolution supporting a national clearinghouse for information on organized crime at the upcoming conference of the International a.s.sociation of Chiefs of Police. Parker also informed Carson that he planned to put his name forward as a candidate for the vice presidency of the IACP, a fact Carson promptly relayed to Hoover, along with the SAC's personal a.s.sessment of Parker as "an opportunist of the first order." This was too much for Hoover. Parker's clearinghouse could become a rival to the bureau. Parker himself looked suspiciously like a rival to the director. Hoover's instructions to his underlings were clear: All SACs should contact their friends in the local law enforcement community to sabotage Parker's campaign. Parker's election attempt was soundly defeated.

Hoover was determined to monitor the threat posed by Parker. Instructions went out to the Los Angeles SAC to watch Parker closely. Was.h.i.+ngton was soon informed that Parker "was often drinking to excess and had the reputation of being obstinate and pugnacious when under the influence of alcohol." Scrawled Hoover on the bottom of one such memo, "I have no use for this fellow Parker and we should keep our guard up in all dealings with him. H."

Parker had acquired a dangerous enemy. But the Los Angeles chief of police was too preoccupied with another adversary to notice.

17.

The Trojan Horse.

"You should always have a positive side to your program and ACCENTUATE ACCENTUATE it, but likewise you should use it, but likewise you should use SUBTLE FEAR SUBTLE FEAR."-Cong. Norris Poulson, on how to win public office BILL PARKER wasn't willing to tolerate Communists in city government, period. Mayor Fletcher Bowron apparently was. Ironically, the two men's disagreement on the issue of how deeply authorities should pry into individuals' Political beliefs would create precisely what both men dreaded most-an opportunity for the underworld to "open" Los Angeles.

The issue was public housing. During (and immediately after) the war, Los Angeles faced an acute housing shortage. In 1949, Congress responded by pa.s.sing an act authorizing the construction of more than 800,000 public housing units. Mayor Bowron sought a sizable share for Los Angeles. That summer, the city council unanimously approved a contract between the city's housing authority and the federal government that provided for the construction of 10,000 units. But public sentiment then started to change. As the housing shortage eased, the need for federally subsidized housing seemed less pressing-and more ant.i.thetical to the principle of private owners.h.i.+p. In 1950, Los Angeles's conservative business community, led by the Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times and the chamber of commerce, persuaded the city council to overturn rent control. "Socialist housing," as they described it, was a natural next target. and the chamber of commerce, persuaded the city council to overturn rent control. "Socialist housing," as they described it, was a natural next target.

A narrow majority of the city council fell in line. On December 26, 1951, by a vote of 8-7, the city council pa.s.sed a resolution that directed the city housing agency to halt construction on the public housing units it had already started building. An exasperated Mayor Bowron refused, noting that work had already begun, millions of dollars had been spent, and that a contract with the federal government had already been signed. Bowron offered to renegotiate the agreement and, if necessary, reduce the number of units; however, he refused to stop work entirely. His conservative opponents responded by announcing an anti-public housing referendum for the summer of 1952.

Bowron had the law on his side. In the spring of 1952, the California Supreme Court ruled that the city council "had no right or power to rescind approval of the project or to cancel or abrogate the agreements." In late May, the state attorney general announced that in light of the Supreme Court's ruling, the anti-public housing referendum, Proposition B, would be invalid, void, and have no force or effect. Still, Bowron recognized that he had a Political problem. He attempted to organize a closed-door colloquium with supporters and opponents of public housing alike to reach some consensus on the issue. But the mayor's attempts at conciliation were dashed by the release of an LAPD report (requested by the conservative chamber of commerce) that depicted public housing as a breeding ground for juvenile delinquents. Furious, Mayor Bowron accused Parker of delivering "one of the most misleading reports ever issued in my administration."

"There is nothing about a public housing project," the mayor insisted, "which inherently breeds crime."

Angelenos apparently disagreed. In June, city residents voted against public housing-379,050 "no's" versus 258,777 "yeses." Most politicians would have gotten the message. Not Mayor Bowron. Instead, in a radio address after the election, Bowron questioned whether the electorate "read and understood the question." This condescending response allowed the Times Times to accuse the mayor of "saying that the public was so dumb... it didn't know what it was voting about." to accuse the mayor of "saying that the public was so dumb... it didn't know what it was voting about."

Bowron pressed ahead. He now proposed to build 7,000 units. Opponents responded with an explosive charge, claiming that Communists had infiltrated the Los Angeles housing authority. In particular, councilman Ed Davenport alleged that the housing authority's number two official, Frank Wilkinson, was a member of the Communist Party. The source of the information was the LAPD.

The charge emerged from a lawsuit involving a small parcel of property just north of downtown with striking views of the city, called Chavez Ravine. The city was proposing to evict a small group of private landowners in order to build public housing. Angry landowners responded by filing a lawsuit. During the trial, someone slipped an attorney for the plaintiffs an LAPD file that linked Wilkinson to the Communist Party. The accusation was a startling one. Wilkinson was the son of Dr. A. M. Wilkinson, a prominent civic activist who had worked closely with Mayor Bowron in the 1930s. The younger Wilkinson had taken loyalty oaths disavowing any connections to the Communist Party on numerous occasions. This time, however, he refused to answer questions about the subject.

Bowron had no interest in launching what he saw as a witch hunt into the background of a good friend's son. Wilkinson was a capable public official. That was enough. Morally, this may have been admirable. Politically, it proved disastrous.

By 1952, Fletcher Bowron had been mayor of Los Angeles for fourteen years. When he first became mayor, he had enjoyed support from both the left and the right. As the years pa.s.sed, however, Bowron had drifted ever closer to the more conservative business community. But this had not won him their grat.i.tude. Bowron was still his own man, as the dispute over public housing clearly showed. The business establishment wanted someone more pliable. They now resolved to put a wholly dependable ally into the mayor's office.

In December 1952, Times Times publisher Norman Chandler and Pacific Mutual Insurance president Asa Call summoned Los Angeles's business elite to a strategy session on the top floor of the publisher Norman Chandler and Pacific Mutual Insurance president Asa Call summoned Los Angeles's business elite to a strategy session on the top floor of the Times Times building. Among the group invited were lawyers Frank Doherty and James Beebe of O'Melveny & Myers and business leaders Neil Petree, Henry Duque, and Preston Hotchkis. The top item on their agenda was choosing a new mayor. Thirty-four names were up for discussion, but when the group got to the sixteenth, everyone agreed that they had found their man. Congressman Norris Poulson was an accountant, a dyed-in-the-wool conservative who'd done yeoman's duty in Congress blocking Arizona's efforts to secure a larger allotment of water from the Colorado River. The day after Christmas, Norman Chandler called Poulson at his home in Was.h.i.+ngton and informed the congressman that a group of civic leaders wanted to draft him to run for mayor. Chandler invited Poulson to Los Angeles so that Poulson could hear their pitch. A follow-up letter described the details of their offer. In addition to promising to bankroll Poulson's campaign "generously," Chandler's letter noted that the mayor's salary was likely to be increased and that Poulson as mayor would be "ent.i.tled to strut around in a car (Cadillac) and chauffeur supplied by the city." Although Poulson privately admitted that he "knew very little about the immediate problems of Los Angeles," except for the public housing issue (which, of course, he opposed), he quickly agreed to sign on for the race. building. Among the group invited were lawyers Frank Doherty and James Beebe of O'Melveny & Myers and business leaders Neil Petree, Henry Duque, and Preston Hotchkis. The top item on their agenda was choosing a new mayor. Thirty-four names were up for discussion, but when the group got to the sixteenth, everyone agreed that they had found their man. Congressman Norris Poulson was an accountant, a dyed-in-the-wool conservative who'd done yeoman's duty in Congress blocking Arizona's efforts to secure a larger allotment of water from the Colorado River. The day after Christmas, Norman Chandler called Poulson at his home in Was.h.i.+ngton and informed the congressman that a group of civic leaders wanted to draft him to run for mayor. Chandler invited Poulson to Los Angeles so that Poulson could hear their pitch. A follow-up letter described the details of their offer. In addition to promising to bankroll Poulson's campaign "generously," Chandler's letter noted that the mayor's salary was likely to be increased and that Poulson as mayor would be "ent.i.tled to strut around in a car (Cadillac) and chauffeur supplied by the city." Although Poulson privately admitted that he "knew very little about the immediate problems of Los Angeles," except for the public housing issue (which, of course, he opposed), he quickly agreed to sign on for the race. Times Times reporter Carlton Williams took charge of launching the congressman as a candidate. reporter Carlton Williams took charge of launching the congressman as a candidate.

Despite Parker's disagreement with Bowron on public housing and Communists in city government, Parker valued the mayor's dogged commitment to keeping Los Angeles "closed" to the underworld. Parker knew little about Poulson. So he a.s.signed the intelligence division to investigate him. The LAPD quickly uncovered an unsettling connection to Moscow. Soon after arriving in Los Angeles for his meeting with Chandler and his a.s.sociates, the intelligence division reported, Poulson had checked into a hotel and met with Joe Aidlin, a young attorney with left-wing credentials who had attracted the attention of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Although Aidlin and Poulson had very different political leanings, in 1950 Poulson had sponsored private legislation to prevent the deportation of one of Aidlin's clients to Russia. He had also stepped in to spare an Aidlin client an appearance before HUAC. The following Christmas, Aidlin had given Poulson a small "liquor refrigerator"-price $157.35-from the Hecht's department store. Poulson also seems to have realized that accepting this gift made him vulnerable. Soon after agreeing to run for mayor, he sent Aidlin a check for the refrigerator. When he came to Los Angeles to meet with Chandler, he arranged to see Aidlin in order to explain why he was paying for this gift. What Poulson didn't know was that the LAPD's intelligence division had bugged Poulson's hotel room and was listening in.

No sooner had Poulson returned to D.C., than news of the "Red" refrigerator broke. Specifically, Poulson stood accused of protecting a suspected Communist from having to testify before HUAC in exchange for "a valuable electric refrigerator." Armed with his canceled checks that showed he had paid for the refrigerator (and bolstered by supportive coverage from the Times Times and the Hearst papers), Poulson rode the scandal out. However, his troubles with the LAPD had only begun. Several weeks later, Poulson was approached by an athletic young man (a plainclothes detective) who asked the candidate what he would do about the police department if elected. and the Hearst papers), Poulson rode the scandal out. However, his troubles with the LAPD had only begun. Several weeks later, Poulson was approached by an athletic young man (a plainclothes detective) who asked the candidate what he would do about the police department if elected.

"I just casually reached over and touched a microphone which I detected pus.h.i.+ng out from his s.h.i.+rt," Poulson recounted in his unpublished memoirs. Then he walked away.

The realization that the LAPD was investigating him angered Poulson. But as the campaign progressed, Poulson's anger toward Parker was modulated by the growing realization that Chief Parker had a point: The "hoodlum element" that Mayor Bowron and Chief Parker constantly warned about was real.

This realization came slowly. First, Poulson picked up on the fact that there was a deep antipathy toward Chief William Parker in many parts of the community. "I met many, many Democrats and I noticed that they were very anti-Parker," recollected Poulson. This seemed to be particularly true of the Eastside Jewish community. Poulson's most important backer there was the newspaper publisher Sam Gach, a former Shaw a.s.sociate who was also reputed to be a close personal friend of Mickey Cohen. In meetings with Poulson, Gach and a.s.sociates frequently brought up the subject of Chief Parker.

"They would say that they did not want to see the city 'opened up,' but Parker and his 'Gestapo' should be controlled," recalled Poulson. At first Poulson wholeheartedly agreed. After all, he didn't like the LAPD's tough tactics either. But as the weeks pa.s.sed, Poulson became increasingly uncomfortable with the drift of these discussions and the people who engaged in them. Some seemed very like "the hoodlum element" that Parker and Bowron so often inveighed against. It seemed clear what these people really wanted was a commitment to replace Parker and appoint a more "friendly" Police Commission. In a hard-fought campaign, Poulson wasn't ready to reject their support, particularly "when I wasn't positive what they represented." However, he did decide-"within myself"-that if elected he would run a clean city.

As the campaign proceeded, Poulson grew increasingly concerned about the unsavory characters flocking to his campaign. The fact that he found himself mingling with the likes of District Attorney Ernest Roll and his wife in such mixed company did nothing to allay his concerns. It was highly worrisome to find the county DA a.s.sociating with such dubious characters. Poulson also discovered that there was an anti-Parker clique within the police department, just as Mickey Cohen had alleged. On one occasion, Gach took Poulson to the offices of a former LAPD captain who had hung out a s.h.i.+ngle in Beverly Hills as an attorney. His specialty was defending officers (and others) against Parker's "Gestapo" (presumably the department's Bureau of Internal Affairs). There Gach collected a check for $1,200 for pro-Poulson newspaper advertis.e.m.e.nts and campaign work. The attorney in question (whom Poulson was surprised to see surrounded by four or five uniformed officers) informed the candidate that all he wanted was "a fair deal." Naturally, Poulson agreed to provide that. Then he took the check and fled.

Los Angeles has a nonpartisan election system that requires mayoral candidates to win an outright majority in order to become mayor. As a result, mayoral elections are generally a two-step affair: the primary typically narrows the race to two candidates and then a runoff determines the winner. In April 1953, Poulson defeated Mayor Bowron in the primaries, winning 211,000 votes to Bowron's 178,000. Bowron tried to put a game face on this loss, insisting that he had saved "his best ammunition for the finals." With Screen Actors Guild president Ronald Reagan at his side, Bowron lashed out against the "the Mammon of First Street" (i.e., Norman Chandler) and "the small group of people who control a vast commercial, financial, agricultural and industrial empire.

"Norman Chandler should run for mayor himself," Bowron a.s.serted, before pausing to note that neither Chandler nor many of his coconspirators even lived in Los Angeles. (Chandler lived in Sierra Madre. Beebe and Hotchkis lived in San Marino.) But even Ronald Reagan couldn't save Fletcher Bowron. Mammon retaliated, to devastating effect. Its point of attack was Mayor Bowron's alleged softness on communism. Its weapon was Chief William Parker.

On May 18-exactly one week before the general election-the House Subcommittee on Government Operations announced that it would be coming to Los Angeles to hold two days of hearings into how Communists had infiltrated the city's housing authority. Democratic members of the committee protested this brazen attempt to influence the election-to no avail. Republican congressman Clare Hoffman insisted he knew nothing about local elections and pressed ahead. The hearings were broadcast on local TV. Three former employees who had refused to answer questions about their potential members.h.i.+p in the Communist Party on an earlier occasion were summoned to repeat the performance for the cameras. The star witness, though, was Parker. After carefully noting that he was appearing at this sensitive time only because the committee had subpoenaed him, Parker proceeded to relate how in early 1952 he had given Mayor Bowron dossiers on ten housing agency figures with radical connections, including a dossier on Frank Wilkinson. At the committee's instruction, Parker then read the confidential dossier in its entirety. Bowron, he told the committee, had simply thrown the dossier out.

Parker's testimony was extremely damaging to the mayor. But Congressman Poulson wasn't exactly reveling in what looked increasingly like an approaching victory, for as the odds of an upset grew, the underworld became even more overt in its overtures. A former city councilman whom Poulson knew well, Roy Hampton, approached the candidate to offer him "an enormous campaign fund" if he would "pledge to appoint a friendly Police Commission and get rid of Parker." Again, Poulson begged off, promising only to "investigate this situation thoroughly."

Just days before the election, Poulson went to breakfast with someone he would later identify only as "a former deputy district attorney and now the vice president of a Los Angeles and nationally known inst.i.tution." When he arrived, the candidate was startled to find the shady ex-LAPD-captain-turned-attorney and a well-known "Las Vegas gambling man" waiting for him. As he sat down to breakfast, Poulson was "really scared." The men got right to it: They offered Poulson $35,000 if he would agree to name three men to the five-member Police Commission. Poulson tried to stall. The men then insisted that "I go out and talk in the gambler's car." Even though he suspected that he was being maneuvered into a "bugged" car, Poulson was too frightened to refuse.

"I talked in circles," Poulson wrote in his memoirs. A few days later, on April 7, Poulson defeated Bowron, 53 to 47 percent, and became Los Angeles's next mayor. Yet as Poulson left the g.a.y.l.o.r.d Hotel downtown to go to his campaign headquarters to celebrate his victory, he was "filled with mixed emotions." Thoughts of Cadillacs, chauffeurs, and a nice raise seemed far away. Poulson now had to worry about how he could avoid "opening up the town" in light of the fact that "some of the people who had supported me thought I would." Some of these people were very rough. Poulson had to decide whether he would face them with Chief Parker and his intelligence division or without them.

18.

The Magna Carta of the Criminal.

"The voice of the criminal, the Communist, and the self-appointed defender of civil liberties cries out for more and more restrictions upon police authority."-Chief William Parker POLICE TACTICS WERE TOUGH.

In early 1952, Chicago Outfit bosses Tony ("Joe Batters" aka "Big Tuna") Accardo and Sam Giancana decided to pay a visit to Johnny Roselli in Los Angeles en route to a vacation in Las Vegas. Accardo was well aware of the LAPD intelligence division's practice of reviewing pa.s.senger manifests so that it could intercept suspected gangsters. As a result, he took the precaution of booking his ticket as "Mr. S. Mann." Giancana booked a separate ticket as "Michael Mancuso" and avoided any interaction with Accardo on the flight. But when the two underworld figures (and Accardo's doctor) arrived, the LAPD's airport squad quickly identified the Chicago Mob bosses. Accardo and his a.s.sociates left the airport with a police tail.

Accardo's party proceeded to Perino's restaurant on Wils.h.i.+re Boulevard in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles's poshest dining establishment. There the men pa.s.sed a pleasant meal under the watchful eye of a contingent of plainclothes policemen. As the men were finis.h.i.+ng their meal, Lt. W C. Hull stepped up to the table and ordered the men to produce identification. They did. The police then frisked the men, removing $12,000 in cash, at which point they were driven back to the airport and put on the next flight to Las Vegas.

The men who had stalked Accardo and Giancana came from Capt. James Hamilton's intelligence division. Its two watch lieutenants, seven sergeants, and twenty-six patrolmen (and women) conducted operations of remarkable scope. One team of officers worked full time on background checks, reviewing credit reports, bank account information, utility bills, and the like in order to monitor underworld attempts to infiltrate legitimate businesses. Another team specialized in electronic surveillance. (Olney's commission said only that "a considerable amount of information is obtained in this manner.") A three-man airport unit, manned by officers chosen for their ability to memorize hundreds of mug shots of gangsters from across the country, monitored Los Angeles International Airport twenty hours a day. It was this unit that spotted Accardo and Giancana.

Visiting gangsters were sent packing, with no regard for legal niceties. Hoodlums who were L.A. residents, such as Cohen henchmen Frank and Joe Sica, were tracked constantly by two-man teams of officers. These officers were not subtle. Indeed, the department openly stated "this scrutiny may at times border on hara.s.sment and [be aimed at] driving the subject hoodlum from our jurisdiction." The police wanted people to know they were being watched; they wanted the bad guys to feel uncomfortable. They also wanted a.s.sociates of criminals to feel uncomfortable. Intelligence division officers routinely visited businessmen and casual acquaintances of known hoodlums and asked them to prove that they they weren't involved in underworld activities by ending the relations.h.i.+ps. The goal was to make it difficult and unpleasant for the subject of surveillance to meet with others, transact business, or have friends. weren't involved in underworld activities by ending the relations.h.i.+ps. The goal was to make it difficult and unpleasant for the subject of surveillance to meet with others, transact business, or have friends.

The intelligence division was also the unit that was watching mayor-elect Norris Poulson.

At first, Poulson sympathized with those who railed against Parker's "secret police." But after getting a firsthand look at the underworld, he was more understanding of police tactics. His own experiences had left him with no doubt that the underworld was actively attempting to regain control of Los Angeles. Nonetheless, Parker's black-hat operations were disturbing. No target was off limits. Indeed, soon after Parker took office, conservative councilman Ed Davenport was enraged to find two policemen hiding in a closet listening in on a meeting Davenport was having with some businessmen const.i.tuents. Local politicians saw the unit as Parker's Praetorian guard. So did Parker himself. In a letter to a priest who had written to request details about the unit, Parker openly explained that one of the division's missions was to protect the chief from political attack. In addition to "exceptional traits of characters," Parker wrote that officers who hoped to be a.s.signed to intelligence had to be "trustworthy to the Office of the Chief of Police." The reason Parker provided for this extraordinary requirement was an interesting one: "While such loyalty to the Office might be interpreted by some to be of a personal nature"-as indeed it clearly was-"we believe such loyalty to be to the integrity of the department." Loyalty to Parker had become tantamount to police integrity.

Then there were the intelligence division files. The division maintained an alphabetical master card file "on all persons who have been brought to our attention." The protocol was precise: 5 8 card with name, physical description, photo, address, phone number, description and license of car, friends, activities, and a.s.sociations. These cards were then cross-indexed with the general criminal files. Fed by the intelligence division's investigations and by a clipping service that monitored twenty newspapers across the country, the files grew quickly. How quickly was a closely held secret. No judge could subpoena these files. No Police Commission could review them, for, in another extraordinary decision, Chief Parker had ruled that these were not actually official police files. Rather, they were the personal property of the chief of police.

The potential for the abuse of power was obvious-indeed, Poulson himself had experienced it during his mayoral campaign. Yet far from expressing contrition, Chief Parker seemed to take pleasure in dropping hints about just how much he knew. "In my conversations with him," Poulson would later recall, "he would inadvertently tell what he knew about this person or that.... I later found out that Chief Parker had a file on MANY PEOPLE MANY PEOPLE and not all communist suspects." Indeed, Parker continued to keep Poulson under surveillance, even after he became mayor. In most cities, this alone would have been a firing offense. But Parker was protected by several formidable defenses. The first was the legal defenses he had drafted in the thirties. As the liberal and not all communist suspects." Indeed, Parker continued to keep Poulson under surveillance, even after he became mayor. In most cities, this alone would have been a firing offense. But Parker was protected by several formidable defenses. The first was the legal defenses he had drafted in the thirties. As the liberal Daily News Daily News noted, Parker's 1930s reforms meant that the Police Commission "can't hire unless there is a vacancy and it can't create a vacancy unless there is grave cause and then only after a hearing." The second was his department's growing reputation as-in policing expert O. W. Wilson's constantly cited phrase-"the county's best big city police department." Just weeks before the Poulson-Bowron runoff election, the Governor's Commission on Organized Crime had issued a report praising the LAPD for its success in keeping eastern gangsters out. (It warned that they were resettling in Palm Springs instead.) Tangling with a chief whose work was garnering such accolades carried big political risks. noted, Parker's 1930s reforms meant that the Police Commission "can't hire unless there is a vacancy and it can't create a vacancy unless there is grave cause and then only after a hearing." The second was his department's growing reputation as-in policing expert O. W. Wilson's constantly cited phrase-"the county's best big city police department." Just weeks before the Poulson-Bowron runoff election, the Governor's Commission on Organized Crime had issued a report praising the LAPD for its success in keeping eastern gangsters out. (It warned that they were resettling in Palm Springs instead.) Tangling with a chief whose work was garnering such accolades carried big political risks.

There was a third reason to keep Parker in office as well: fear. Los Angeles was rife with rumors that gamblers and racketeers had already "cut the town up." Poulson knew from personal experience that these rumors had some basis in fact. Firing Chief Parker would have been tantamount to inviting the underworld interests who had so frightened the mayor during his campaign to open shop in Los Angeles. Poulson viewed Parker as an admirable law enforcement officer but a "cold-blooded, self-centered individual." Ultimately, though, Poulson feared the Mob more than his chief of police. Chief Parker, announced Poulson a few weeks before his swearing in, would stay.

"Chief Parker is to remain on the job on the basis of what he does from now on," Poulson pointedly told the Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times. "It will be up to the Chief to produce and to prove to the new Police Commission-and to me-that he is the proper man to remain at the head of the Police Department."

Although he had concluded that firing Parker was simply too dangerous (politically and personally), Poulson was determined to restrain him. The mayor's strategy for doing this was to appoint a Police Commission that "would not kowtow to Chief Parker but at the same time would support a clean city and law enforcement." Since Bowron's appointees had resigned, Poulson had a chance to appoint all five police commissioners. To head the commission, Poulson turned to his top a.s.sistant, attorney Jack Irwin. Other members included John Ferraro, a former USC All-American football star who was the son-in-law of state Sen. George Luckey, one of Poulson's major Democratic backers. He also added Michael Kohn, a prominent Jewish lawyer, and Herbert Greenwood, an African American attorney who had worked in the U.S. Attorney's Office. One member of the old commission, Emmett McGaughey, a former G-man-turned-advertising executive (who was also in Poulson's church), agreed to stay on.

The message Poulson intended to send was clear: A new, more a.s.sertive Police Commission was taking over. But Poulson's stern tone and high-powered appointments didn't obscure an even more important fact: Chief Parker had just become the first police chief since 1913 to survive a change in administration. By not selecting his own candidate to be Los Angeles's top cop, Poulson was in effect conceding that his police chief was too valuable to lose. The LAPD had just taken a huge step toward the kind of autonomy Bill Parker had long dreamed of.

Parker's enemies warned the new mayor that he was making a mistake. Two weeks after Poulson was sworn in, former Police Commission member Hugh Irey published a two-part open letter to the new mayor in the Los Angeles Mirror Los Angeles Mirror. Its purpose, in the author's words, was to present "irrefutable facts to show that it is physically impossible for the Police Commission-under the present system-to be more than a figurehead for the Chief of Police." Irey described Parker as "probably the most powerful official in the city." He insisted that his goal was not to attack Parker, whom he described as a man of integrity, but rather to offer a critique of a flawed system. But Irey did paint a disturbing portrait of the police department under the new chief. He called attention to the chief's $85,000 "secret service fund." He described how the commission was powerless to conduct its own investigation into brutality cases, lacking even the authority to review the material used by the chief to formulate the report he presented to the board on any given incident. In conclusion, Irey called for full-time, paid commissioners, with investigators drawn from the detectives' bureau (which unlike the three other plainclothes units-Internal Affairs, intelligence, and administrative vice-did not work directly under Parker's personal supervision).

"Until these recommendations ... are put into effect the Los Angeles Police Commission will continue to be a mere figurehead and rubber stamp for the Chief of Police-one of the most powerful and autocratic officials in the city," warned Irey.

Parker just scoffed.

"I've told the Police Commissioners repeatedly that anytime three of them are against me to let me know and I'll retire," he replied.

This was disingenuous. No Police Commission would ever act against the mayor on such an important issue, and Mayor Poulson had made it clear that he could not do without Parker. Irey's warnings were ignored. No changes were made to the organization of the commission. The department would continue to be run as Parker's personal fiefdom. Local observers marveled at Parker's triumph.

"Hardly anyone likes Parker, a contentious, abrasive individual who will never give Dale Carnegie lessons on 'How to Win Friends and Influence People,'" wrote the Los Angeles Daily News Los Angeles Daily News. Yet Parker had achieved something that his predecessors had not. He had become irreplaceable.

POULSON HOPED that his Police Commission would be able to restrain Chief Parker. But the limitations of the commission's structure and the dependencies on the department it fostered soon rea.s.serted themselves. The commission met just one afternoon a week, typically for no more than an hour and a half. Most of its meetings were devoted to humdrum licensing tasks, okaying requests for parades, licensing p.a.w.nshops, vetting requests by churches to hold rummage sales, approving applications for dance halls. Its only staff were police department personnel. On those occasions when it did take up larger, policing issues, it relied on the police for guidance. Not surprisingly, the course of action it elected to pursue was almost always the one the department itself would have chosen.

If those weren't constraints enough, Chief Parker set out to actively win over the Police Commission's most important member, former Poulson campaign manager Jack Irwin. By the end of his first year in office, Irwin was routinely siding with Chief Parker over his old friend the mayor. Poulson would later blame Parker for wrecking his friends.h.i.+p with Irwin. Slowly, Chief Parker was gaining the upper hand.

POULSON STRUGGLED in his dealings with the chief. Parker prided himself on his a.n.a.lytic approach to problems, but Poulson found him to be a volatile and unpredictable partner. At times, Parker seemed to accept that the city's elected officials had an important role in governing the department, as in setting salaries. At other times, even the most basic attempts by Mayor Poulson to guide the department would set Parker off. In the spring of 1954, for instance, Mayor Poulson (an accountant by training) and City Administrative Officer Samuel Leask decided to take a close look at Parker's budget request for the coming year. In doing so, Leask discovered that 750 officers were working at clerical and office tasks that seemed to require no special policing skills. Another 56 officers were guarding 200 low-risk chronic drunks at the Bouquet Valley police farm, a facility commonly known as the dude ranch. Transferring those officers to the field would dramatically increase the number of cops on the street without altering the standards Parker insisted had provided the city with the world's greatest police force. Surely, some of the other officers could be diverted to more arduous work as well, Poulson and Leask reasoned.

But when Leask presented the idea to Parker, the chief reacted angrily. It wasn't so much the substance of the idea that annoyed Parker. Over the course of the preceding two years, Parker himself had released 109 officers for fieldwork by hiring civilian subst.i.tutes. Rather, Parker objected to the idea that Sam Leask-a man who knew nothing about policing-could swoop in and find inefficiencies that Parker had missed. At a public meeting on the police department's budget chaired by the mayor, Parker made no attempt to conceal his pique. The chief repeatedly interrupted Leask's attempts to present his a.n.a.lysis, going so far as to inform the astonished mayor that the management and budget of the police department were "his [meaning Parker's] own business." Parker's behavior was so boorish that Mayor Poulson, who was chairing the meeting, finally stepped in and asked Parker to let Leask speak.

Parker exploded, shouting, as he jabbed his finger at the city's chief elected official, that he would not be "intimidated" by the mayor. He even threatened to resign.

Mayor Poulson was astonished.

"You talk like you're offended and that we have no right to ask you how your department functions and how the taxpayers' money is spent," Poulson told Parker. "You immediately get angry. You talk like we were sticking our nose into something that wasn't our business. It is our business and there's no use you getting red in the face."

It was cla.s.sic Parker. The chief prided himself on being rational and fact-driven; he often described critics as "emotional" or "hysterical." But in fact, Parker himself was a highly emotional man whose responses to "attacks" (real or perceived) were often more than a little hysterical. Eventually, Parker calmed down. However, he continued to resist the mayor's dictates. In the years that followed, Parker allowed the percentage of civilian employees in the department to rise only incrementally, from 23.3 percent to 25 percent.

This policy of resistance came at a high cost. Tight budgets, high standards, and attrition continued to take a terrible toll on the department. In a memo to the Police Commission in the spring of 1954, Parker noted that in July 1955 the department would have 4,453 sworn personnel-roughly the same number of officers the department had when he had become chief of police in August 1950. Yet during this same period, Los Angeles had added more than 120,000 new residents. The city was growing; its police department was not.

So far, the consequences of this situation had been minimal. Despite the comparatively small size of the LAPD, Los Angeles's crime rate remained slightly lower than in other big cities. However, crime was growing fast-faster even than the city's population. Yet while Parker desperately wanted more officers, he rejected the idea that the police had any connection to the crime rate.

"You can blame the situation on your police if you wish," he told the city council during an appearance in late 1953. "You can lay it in their laps, if you want to. Blame them even for social problems over which they have little control.... But let's be practical and realistic. The police do not create crime problems.... Nothing is solved by hysteria."

"I wish that crime were a simple plague to be solved by isolating a troublesome microbe, but it is not," Parker declared in a 1953 speech on crime and belief. "I wish it could be eliminated materialistically, by continually supplying Americans with chrome fixtures, softer beds, and shorter work hours, but I know that it cannot be thus eradicated. Certainly I do wish that the police had it within their power to solve the problem alone, but I know that they cannot." Only by restoring the citizenry's belief in the sanct.i.ty of the law could chaos be avoided, he concluded.

Parker's speeches called his audiences to a sterner morality. But the chief's worldview was fatalistic, and his a.n.a.lysis of society's problems discouraged practical responses. It was one thing to argue that the police weren't responsible for the increase in crime. But Parker seemed to be suggesting that neither police efforts nor any "materialistic" initiatives could address the rise in crime. Politically, this was a convenient proposition for everyone. It allowed Parker to avoid questions about why what was supposedly the nation's best police force was presiding over such dramatic increases in crime, and it allowed politicians to avoid raising taxes to expand a department run by a man many of them distrusted. It was easier to flatter the chief for creating the country's greatest police force, one that could do more with less.

But of course, Parker still faced the challenge of policing a growing city with a stagnant police force. The key to doing more with less was intelligence. Intelligence kept the underworld from buying politicians, corrupting police officers, and controlling the police department. Intelligence was the key to taking the fight to the underworld, and in the mid-1950s, the underworld seemed to be the locus of serious crime in Los Angeles. But the department's ability to collect intelligence was about to suffer a series of blows from an unexpected and formidable adversary-the courts.

FOR DECADES, police departments had enjoyed wide lat.i.tude in how they went about apprehending criminal suspects. In 1914, the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that evidence improperly or illegally obtained could not be used at trial-a principle known today as the exclusionary rule. But the exclusionary rule applied only to federal law enforcement agencies. For local law enforcement, the proof was in the pudding. If the evidence was incriminating, courts typically asked few questions about how it was obtained. Only the most flagrant examples of police misconduct could bestir most judges to exclude evidence. The result was corner-cutting. Civil liberties advocate Hugh Manes would later note that between 1931 and 1962, the LAPD served only 631 search warrants, about 20 a year, a shockingly low number. Police routinely responded to truly serious crimes by throwing dragnets around entire neighborhoods and "tossing" hotels, motels, and even private homes in search of potential suspects. Yet in its 1949 decision Wolf v. Colorado Wolf v. Colorado, the court reiterated its opinion that the exclusionary rule did not not apply to local law enforcement agencies. apply to local law enforcement agencies.

Of course, not every method was legal. Federal statutes prohibited wiretapping, as did California state law. The prohibition was absolute: No provision was provided for law enforcement agencies to seek court permission to tap a phone line. Parker understandably viewed this as a major problem. But the department did have a work-around; it simply broke into people's homes and businesses and installed dictographs. The police department reasoned that since these were stand-alone recording devices that did not involve "tapping" a phone line, they were legal, end of story. The courts agreed-until November 1953, when the U.S. Supreme Court took up the case of Irvine v. California Irvine v. California.

The case involved a suspected bookmaker (Irvine) who'd been targeted by the Long Beach Police Department. Officers had brought in a locksmith to make copies of the man's house keys, entered his house, and then installed a dictograph in his bedroom closet-all without a search warrant. The evidence obtained from the "bug" was the basis of the man's subsequent conviction. During his first trial in state court, the bookmaker had argued that by breaking into his house without a warrant, police had violated his Fourth Amendment rights to be safe from unreasonable search and seizure. The state court disagreed, as did the state appeals court. So Irvine pet.i.tioned the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case, successfully.

On February 8, 1954, the Supreme Court handed down its ruling. It noted that repeatedly entering the pet.i.tioner's home without a warrant "was a trespa.s.s and probably a burglary." The majority opinion described dictographs as "frightening instruments of surveillance and invasion of privacy, whether [used] by the policeman, the blackmailer, or the busybody.

"That officers of the law would break and enter a home, secrete such a device, even in a bedroom, and listen to the conversation of the occupants for over a month would be almost incredible if it were not admitted," the majority continued. "Few police measures have come to our attention that more flagrantly, deliberately, and persistently violated the fundamental principle declared by the Fourth Amendment as a restriction on the Federal Government." But the court nonetheless concluded that this restriction was one that applied only to the federal government.

"[I]n a prosecution in a State Court for a State crime, the Fourth Amendment does not forbid the admission of evidence obtained by an unreasonable search and seizure," wrote Justice Robert Jackson in the 5-4 majority decision. As a result, the court declined to overturn the conviction. However, in what Earl Warren biographer Jim Newton describes as the "extraordinary" final paragraph of the opinion, Justice Jackson and Chief Justice Warren took the highly unusual step of noting that federal law allowed for the prosecution of police officers who, acting under color of authority, willfully deprived a person of a federal right such as the right to be secure in one's home. The two justices then directed the court clerk to forward a copy of the record in this case, together with a copy of this opinion, to the U.S. attorney general for possible prosecution.

Parker was dumbfounded-and outraged. The highest court in the land had essentially described one of the most valuable tools in law enforcement-the dictograph-as something evil. In Parker's opinion, this description was incorrect and, in light of dictographs' long history as useful law enforcement tools, bizarre.

"Since the advent of appropriate electronic devices, the police of this state have utilized such devices to gather information and evidence concerning criminal activities," Parker responded three months later, in a speech at the Biltmore Hotel marking National Crime Prevention Week. He insisted that they did so in ways that were tightly controlled. Section 6539(h) of the California Penal Code allowed dictographs only when expressly authorized by the head of a police force or by the district attorney. The evidence thus obtained, Parker insisted, had been invaluable in the department's fight against organized crime: A reputed overlord of crime in this area is now serving a term in a federal prison as a result of a prosecution in which information obtained through the use of dictographic equipment contributed materially. Two reputed members of the Mafia, who escaped federal prosecution for narcotic violations when a key witness against them was found murdered, were recently convicted of crimes in the courts of this state based upon evidence obtained through a dictograph installation. The reputed head of the local Mafia is now awaiting deportation, largely as the result of a local conviction obtained through the use of a dictographic installation. One such installation alone aided our department in solving forty-three serious crimes.

If anything, Parker continued, California's total ban on wiretapping was too restrictive. Attempts by Parker and other chiefs to create a mechanism that would allow them to ask a court for permission to intercept telegraphs and tap telephones based on probable cause had stalled in the legislature, creating what Parker described in one speech as providing "a Yalu river sanctuary within the vast telegraphic and telephonic communications network of the United States within which to plan and transact their illegal activities with impunity." Parker's allusion-a reference to the river redoubt from which the Chinese Army had attacked U.S. forces during the Korean War-could hardly have been more pointed.

The position of Justice Jackson and Chief Justice Earl Warren must have been particularly galling. As California's attorney general, Warren had not hesitated to brush aside legalistic objections in his pursuit of justice (most notably, when he personally directed a police raid on Tony Cornero's gambling s.h.i.+p, the SS Rex Rex, despite a court ruling that it was operating outside of California's territorial waters). Yet now, as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Warren seemed intent on imposing unprecedented new restrictions on law enforcement. The timing, in Parker's opinion, was terrible. Between 1950 and 1953, the LAPD had actually become smaller as Los Angeles grew. The city's crime rate was growing at an ever faster rate-a trend Parker described to the city council as "a very frightening thing." Yet instead of giving the police greater power, the judiciary was imposing new restrictions. Parker believed that by criticizing the use of dictographs (which have "solved countless serious crimes"), the court was raising the prospect that police officers might be prosecuted for what had long been standard operating procedure. In one speech, he asked his audience to consider the officer who responded to a call and saw a housewife, p.r.o.ne on the floor, a probable suicide attempt at death's very door. Any officer worth his salt would kick in the door and race the woman to the hospital to pump her stomach. Was this to be treated now as trespa.s.sing, kidnapping, and rape?

"Certainly society cannot expect the police to risk criminal prosecution when their only sin is the valid enforcement of the law as they have been led to understand the law," Parker concluded.

This was a sensitive-and not entirely hypothetical-subject for Parker. For by his third year as chief, he himself had emerged as a major target of lawsuits. The first had come after the b.l.o.o.d.y Christmas beating. More serious was a 1951 lawsuit filed by civil rights attorney A. L. Wirin, lead attorney for the Southern California Civil Liberties Union. Since both the state and federal court systems were as yet unprepared to exclude evidence gathered illegally by local police departments, Wirin sought to shut down the LAPD's surveillance activities in another fas.h.i.+on-by enjoining the police department from using public money to illegally install dictographs. Parker once again detected the hand of Moscow. At a hearing, he blurted out his suspicions that the Minsk-born Wirin (whose initials stood for "Abraham Lincoln") was a Communist.

Wirin's attempts to rein in the LAPD's surveillance operations attracted broad sympathy-not least from the city's elected officials. That spring, two councilmen, Harold Harby and Ernest Debs, discovered that their work telephones had been wiretapped. Both pointed at the police. Parker vehemently denied the allegation, blaming the underworld instead. Given the history of wiretapping in City Hall, many doubted this denial. Just two days after the councilmen had accused the department of illegally listening in, the Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times reported that the new police administration building nearing completion around the corner from City Hall was chockablock with bugs and listening devices. This provided little rea.s.surance to the city's already fearful political establishment. reported that the new police administration building nearing completion around the corner from City Hall was chockablock with bugs and listening devices. This provided little rea.s.surance to the city's already fearful political establishment.

Chief Parker was determined to defend-and expand-his surveillance tools. To do so, he turned to the television show Dragnet Dragnet. By 1954, Dragnet Dragnet had become the second most popular television show in the country (after had become the second most popular television show in the country (after I Love Lucy) I Love Lucy). The radio version (which now aired Sunday nights) also continued to attract a large audience. NBC was eager to create a feature film-length version of the show. The LAPD was prepared to offer Jack Webb a particularly juicy case file to serve as the basis of the script-one that involved a spectacular gang murder-but it came with a catch. The case was solved only after the police turned to extreme tactics, including near-constant police hara.s.sment and constant surveillance. Webb accepted the deal. As a result, audiences were treated to a movie with an unusual hero-the LAPD intelligence division. With its a.s.sistance (and a skillfully placed bug), Webb cracked the case of a gangland hit-only to run into trouble in the courtroom. There, after underworld witnesses refused to testify, Friday expresses his frustration at being unable to use a wiretap too.

A female juror objects. "How do we know that all you policemen wouldn't be running around listening to all our conversations?" she asks.

"We would if you talked murder," Friday snaps back.

Even Parker supporters, such as the in-house publication of the archdiocese of Los Angeles, The Tidings The Tidings, were somewhat disconcerted by the film's depiction of harsh police tactics. But Parker insisted that such misgivings were misinformed.

"Far from being a threat to our freedom," Parker wrote in the pages of the California Law Review California Law Review the following spring, "the use of modern technological devices by the police may well be their most powerful tool in combating our internal enemies, and a vital necessity in the protection of our nation's security, harmony, and internal well-being." the following spring, "the use of modern technological devices by the police may well be their most powerful tool in combating our internal enemies, and a vital necessity in the protection of our nation's security, harmony, and internal well-being."

In addition to trying to win public support for less restrictive wiretapping laws, Parker also sought broader legal protections for his officers. In the fall of 1954, Parker kicked off a campaign to persuade allies in the state legislature to pa.s.s a law s.h.i.+elding law enforcement officers from the threat of criminal prosecution or civil lawsuits for actions taken in the routine course of their work. But just weeks after Parker floated this proposal, state attorney general Pat Brown made an announcement that preempted Parker's efforts. Brown suggested that local district attorneys henceforth consider prosecuting police officers who broke into citizens' homes to install dictographs without a court order. Then, on April 27, 1955, the California Supreme Court suddenly and unexpectedly issued a ruling that threatened to destroy what Parker had so carefully built.

The case of Cahan v. California Cahan v. California bore a striking resemblance to bore a striking resemblance to Irvine Irvine. This time it was the LAPD that had broken into the property of a suspected bookmaker, thirty-one-year-old Charlie Cahan. He was a big-time bookie, with a clearinghouse near the Coliseum, an elaborate call-back system to avoid police detection, and a network of backup "spots" across the city where debtors could place bets in person. The LAPD estimated that he was handling about $6 million a year, and his lifestyle showed it. According to an LAPD intelligence dossier, Cahan had "concubines, liquor by the case, a lavish penthouse, Cadillacs." Cahan had emerged from nowhere and become an important player virtually overnight. Many a.s.sumed he was paying for police protection. He wasn't. On the contrary, Chief Parker had instructed the intelligence division in no uncertain terms that he wanted "this son of a b.i.t.c.h in jail."

So the intelligence division sent a man disguised as a termite inspector into the building housing Cahan's accountants to install a dictograph. The recordings secured a conviction, and Cahan was fined $2,000, sentenced to nine days in prison, and given a five-year-probation. Cahan appealed the decision. An appeals court rejected it, but when Cahan took his case to the California Supreme Court, it was accepted. A narrow 4-3 majority threw out Cahan's conviction.

"We have been compelled to [void the conviction and impose new evidentiary guidelines] because other remedies have completely failed to secure compliance with const.i.tutional provisions on the part of police officers," wrote Justice Roger Traynor in the majority opinion. He continued, "The courts under the old rule have been constantly required to partic.i.p.ate in, and in effect condone, the lawless activities of law enforcement."

Traynor served notice that such practices were now coming to an end. The court struck down a California law that allowed courts to accept evidence, regardless of the manner in which it was obtained. Henceforth evidence improperly acquired would be thrown out-period. This was a fairly extreme remedy. Few other states imposed the exclusionary rule in such a blanket fas.h.i.+on. But the court insisted that the stakes justified such a draconian remedy.

"Today one of the foremost concerns is the police state," declared Justice Traynor bluntly. "Recent history has demonstrated all too clearly how short the step is from lawless although efficient enforcement of the law to the stamping out of human rights."

Parker's reaction was apoplectic. He described the ruling as "a terrible blow to efficient law enforcement" and warned that the decision "will probably set law enforcement back fifty years."

"The positive implication drawn from the Cahan Cahan case is that activities of the police are a greater social menace than are the activities of the criminal," he told the press. "This, even as a suggestion, is terrifying." State a.s.sistant attorney general Clarence Linn agreed, calling the ruling "the Magna Carta of the criminal." In a meeting with the case is that activities of the police are a greater social menace than are the activities of the criminal," he told the press. "This, even as a suggestion, is terrifying." State a.s.sistant attorney general Clarence Linn agreed, calling the ruling "the Magna Carta of the criminal." In a meeting with the Mirror Mirror, the chief revealed that in the month following the Cahan Cahan decision, arrests had plummeted across the board: bookmaking arrests, down 42 percent; narcotics, down 38 percent; weapons, down 20 percent. A headline in the decision, arrests had plummeted across the board: bookmaking arrests, down 42 percent; narcotics, down 38 percent; weapons, down 20 percent. A headline in the Mirror-News Mirror-News captured the chief's sentiments perfectly: "Criminals Laugh at L.A. Police, Says Chief. Underworld Rejoices in Ruling." captured the chief's sentiments perfectly: "Criminals Laugh at L.A. Police, Says Chief. Underworld Rejoices in Ruling."

Cahan offended Parker on many levels. As an attorney, he believed the ruling was ill considered and flew in the face of the doctrine of offended Parker on many levels. As an attorney, he believed the ruling was ill considered and flew in the face of the doctrine of stare decisis stare decisis, which held that courts should generally stand by earlier decisions. As a lawman, he found it insulting. But the new restrictions imposed by the courts on the police also worried Parker for a more immediate reason. For on October 9, 1955, after three years, eight months, and sixteen days in the joint, Mickey Cohen walked out of prison a free man.