Conrad Bouchard was not doing anything-he was not doing anything of the preliminary, elementary, rudimentary things, that were accomplished that he was telling Peroff had to be done (p. 525).

Manuel asked O'Neill how he knew that? O'Neill said the Mounties told him. But, O'Neill said, the Mounties told him in conversation; none of it was written in reports. Then O'Neill testified as if he were still at BNDD, as if he were not at DEA and as if he had no involvement in the 1973 Bouchard inquiry. O'Neill said:

We were getting this information prior to July 1, 1971 and it was not an investigation that we were asked to participate in. Therefore, since we were not asked to participate in it we did not reduce any of it to writing. It was a Customs case being coordinated with Mounties (p. 525).

NO RECORDS WERE KEPT ON VESCO-LEBLANC LEAD

Frank Peroff's instructions when he went to Puerto Rico were to stay in telephone contact with Conrad Bouchard, record the calls and then replay them over the phone to Richard Dos Santos in New York. In addition, Peroff was to be ready at a moment's notice to travel to Montreal to see Bouchard.

Peroff testified that he played tapes of his talks with Bouchard over the phone for Dos Santos. Peroff said he assumed Dos Santos was recording the tapes (p. 32). In other instances, Peroff said, he gave tapes to Octavio Pinol with the understanding that Pinol would mail them to Dos Santos (p. 51).

In his testimony, Dos Santos said Peroff played for him "many" taped conversations but Dos Santos refused to say how many, although he did assert that the number was less than 50. Dos Santos said he "recorded some" of the conversations of Bouchard and Peroff (pp. 396, 397).

Dos Santos testified that Peroff reported on or replayed for him or O'Neill approximately five conversations with Bouchard in which Bouchard identified Robert Vesco or Norman LeBlanc as prospective financiers of the large heroin purchase (p. 408). Dos Santos said that neither he nor John O'Neill wrote a single report or memorandum or otherwise committed to writing the substance of these PeroffBouchard talks (p. 409).

Dos Santos acknowledged that by not committing to writing the substance of the taped conversations he was in violation of the DEA Agents Operating Manual, paragraph 6612.67, "Documenting Informant Contacts." (P. 410.) The Subcommittee obtained a copy of the DEA Agents Operating Manual, and it was made part of the hearing record. Paragraph 6612.67 says in part:

Every agent is responsible to insure that any information derived from a cooperating individual is documented in a numbered or general file regardless of its apparent significance. An investigative report need not be prepared following every meeting or conversation; however, all information derived from a series of conversations will be reported..

The fact that the informant had no new information may be significant in itself and must be set out in an investigative report.

At first, Dos Santos could not explain why Section 6612.67 was not adhered to (p. 409). Then he said he did not realize it at the time. he did not write up the conversations that he was in violation of the Manual (p. 410). Then he said, "If that is what the regulation states, then I guess I was in violation" (p. 410).

Group Supervisor John J. O'Neill, Dos Santos' boss, told Senators that he did not insist that records be kept in connection with the possible Vesco-LeBlanc aspect of the Bouchard case. Therefore, O'Neill said, he was to blame that no such records were maintained (p. 658). Senator William V. Roth of Delaware asked O'Neill if it was a "conscious decision" on his part not to keep records. "Conscious in the fact that I didn't do it, yes, sir," O'Neill said. O'Neill also noted that "when it finally ends, it ends with me. It was my responsibility to see that it was done and it wasn't." (P. 658.)

DEA Administrator John R. Bartels, Jr., testified, however, that the blame for not reporting the Vesco-LeBlanc lead rested not with O'Neill but with Dos Santos because "it is the duty of the journeyman agent supervising the informant to record such information and not his superior." (P. 468.) Bartels said that for not writing up the VescoLeBlanc development Dos Santos could have received a reprimand or been given a five-day suspension (p. 468). Dos Santos was not disciplined, though, although he did request, and received, a transfer back to Customs. The transfer was effective September 16, 1973, some 78 days after he joined DEA (p. 468).

Not only were no records kept on the Vesco-LeBlanc lead, but senior officers of the DEA said they were not advised of this aspect of the inquiry. For example, Bartels, the DEA Administrator, said he learned of the Vesco-LeBlanc angle for the first time in October of 1973. He said that at that time he promptly ordered an inquiry into Peroff's allegations that the Vesco lead was deliberately sabotaged by the government (p. 470). That investigation presumably was the December 13, 1973 DEA-Customs inquiry which exonerated federal agents of all charges of wrongdoing.

Bartels did say that in the future cases of this nature will not be left exclusively in the hands of Group Supervisors like John J. O'Neill. Bartels testified:

In the future, I would hope that situations like this involving somebody of such notoriety attached, or alleged to be attached, in some way with members or former members of the Cabinet would be brought to my attention (p. 475).

Conversely, Bartels found some merit in the fact that his agents did. not document the Vesco-LeBlanc lead, for it indicated that the DEA men had not over-reacted to the mere mention of the name of Robert Vesco (p. 470).

While officials in politically conscious Washington would have been excited at the possibility of Vesco's being tied in with drugs, Bartels said, the "professional narcotics investigators" of the DEA went about

the inquiry without considering "Vesco's involvement in political scandal." (Pp. 469, 470.)

Bartels said the "lack of documentation in this instance, which is now certainly regretted by everyone, can, nevertheless, be viewed in its context." (P. 469.)

Gene R. Haislip, Acting Chief of the Congressional Relations Section of DEA, said the blame for the lack of record keeping rested with Richard Dos Santos and that O'Neill was not at fault. Haislip said Dos Santos was new to DEA and did not know the procedures (pp. 658,659).

Senator Roth asked Haislip if there were any other cases in which records were not kept. Haislip said he knew of no other investigations by DEA in which adequate records were not maintained. Senator Roth asked:

So that in this particular case the records were not kept that you would ordinarily expect to be kept?

Haislip replied:

We would have expected the agent [Dos Santos] to have made a record that we do not have (p. 660).

Haislip said because Dos Santos came to DEA from Customs in early July, he needed to be made current on the agency's procedures. For that purpose, Haislip said, Dos Santos was given a 32-hour course in late July "to familiarize himself with all of the requirements of our agency." "Prior to that time," Haislip said, "I don't really know what knowledge he had of DEA procedures." (P. 659.)

Haislip did not say whether John J. O'Neill was also given the same course in the DEA Agent's Manual. For O'Neill had no more experience at DEA than Dos Santos did. O'Neill came to DEA from BNDD July 1, 1973, the same day Dos Santos came to DEA from Customs. Senators did not pursue the question of how knowledgeable O'Neill was with the Agent's Manual.

Presumably, however, O'Neill, as a former BNDD agent, did know that DEA procedures required reports be written about contacts with informants. Attesting to that presumption was a February 26, 1974 memorandum from Haislip to the Subcommittee in which Haislip said that the DEA Operating Agents Manual was "essentially similar" to the old BNDD Manual, "although sections are and continue to be revised from time to time."

O'Neill himself testified that DEA now requires Group Supervisors to file a "weekly enforcement activity report" which provides a continuing review of ongoing cases for senior DEA officials. No such reporting system was required of him in July of 1973, O'Neill said (p. 661).

O'NEILL SUBLIMINALLY LINKED COTRONI AND LE BLANC

In the sworn statement he gave to the DEA-Customs inquiry November 9, 1973, Group Supervisor John J. O'Neill said that he checked with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police regarding the July 6 tape he had heard of Frank Peroff and Conrad Bouchard discussing the heroin deal. O'Neill said in that sworn statement:

The RCMP then advised that an associate of Cotroni and a swindler and an international thief by the name of LeBlanc, I think, first name unknown to me now, was in fact with Vesco in Costa Rica . . .

Previously, in the same statement, O'Neill referred to both Giuseppe (Pepe) Cotroni and his brother, Victor Cotroni. So there was no telling which Cotroni O'Neill was referring to when he said Cotroni and LeBlanc were associates.

But, in his appearance before the Subcommittee, O'Neill said it was Victor-not Giuseppe-Cotroni he had reference to (pp. 534, 550). But, he said, it didn't matter anyway. O'Neill said it was wrong of him to have ever linked any Cotroni to Norman LeBlanc (p. 551). He was a victim of a subliminal slip in logic, O'Neill said. What happened, O'Neill went on to say, was that he knew that LeBlanc was a person of questionable character in Montreal and he knew that Vic Cotroni was a person of questionable character in Montreal and that "subliminally" (p. 551) he had put the two persons of questionable character together. He then erroneously concluded that the two men were associates. He swore to this erroneous finding November 9, 1973. O'Neill testified this way:

In July, I met with [RCMP] Staff Sergeant [Giles] Poissant who was in New York on another matter and he mentioned that they knew who LeBlanc was, and that he was the Canadian equivalent to Vesco. When I prepared this statement [November 9, 1973] I assumed that LeBlanc and Cotroni were associates. Since that time I have found out they are not (p. 550).

The second part

"Wait a minute," Subcommittee Investigator Philip Manuel interrupted, and this exchange followed:

MANUEL. Before you go on to that, what made that Cotroni and LeBlanc were associates?

you assume O'NEILL. The fact that LeBlanc was a swindler and a thief and he was in Montreal, I assumed that because of that, because he had stolen supposedly millions and millions of dollars, I assumed that he would know Cotroni, Vic Cotroni. MANUEL. That is not any information that you received from the RCMP?

O'NEILL. I have since then found out that the RCMP have no way of linking Norman LeBlanc, Vic and Frank Cotroni. MANUEL. How about Pepe [Giuseppe] Cotroni?

O'NEILL. And Pepe also.

MANUEL. Pepe also?

O'NEILL. Yes, sir.

MANUEL. So that your statement of November 9 is inaccurate with respect to the characterization of LeBlanc as an associate of Cotroni?

O'NEILL. Yes, sir.

MANUEL. I still don't understand how you come to that conclusion of the association between LeBlanc and Cotroni when

in fact you had not received that information from the
RCMP. Is that what happened?

O'NEILL. NO. When I was talking to Poissant he knew the name LeBlanc. So I assumed then, that if-first, I knew that LeBlanc was a Canadian operating in Montreal. It may be subliminally because of Bouchard linking Vesco and LeBlanc together with this, the big calls that were supposed to be made, that I associated LeBlanc with Cotroni that way. My mental process of arriving at that conclusion I think is saying that if there is something of a major nature going on in Montreal, Vic Cotroni somehow or other, sooner or later, gets a piece of it. Maybe that is the way I did it (pp. 550, 551). The date O'Neill swore that LeBlanc and Cotroni were associatesNovember 9, 1973-is significant. While he testified before the Subcommittee that the Cotroni-LeBlanc link was later proven false, O'Neill did believe in it through the late summer and fall of 1973 and at least until November 9. He did not say on what date he learned there was no Cotroni-Le Blanc relationship but it would have been sometime between November 9, 1973 and June 11, 1974, the date of his first Subcommittee appearance.

The significance of the November 9 date is that O'Neill's decisions in the Bouchard heroin inquiry were all made prior to November 9, 1973. His lack of faith in the inquiry, his decision to not let Peroff fly to Costa Rica in a private jet, his direction to have Peroff arrested and put in jail, his decision to send Peroff back to Montreal in late July of 1973-all of these and other of O'Neill's decisions were made at a time when he believed that a Cotroni was an associate of Norman LeBlanc.

DOS SANTOS FOUND NO COTRONI-LE BLANC TIE

Richard Dos Santos said he never could establish the relationship of Giuseppe Cotroni to Norman LeBlanc. He was not even sure there was one. But Dos Santos did concede that it was "reasonable" to assume that if information had turned up tying LeBlanc to Giuseppe Cotroni that this information would tend to support Bouchard's claim that LeBlanc and Vesco, through Cotroni, were spending their money to finance the heroin deal (pp. 402–405).

However, Dos Santos could not reconcile what he knew of Robert Vesco with the assertion that this same person could be mixed up with the traffic in heroin. Dos Santos said that he would not evaluate Bouchard's allegation about Vesco until it was proven that LeBlanc and Cotroni were engaged together in "high-level criminal activity." (P. 403.)

Dos Santos said he never saw such proof. Dos Santos denied that he had ever received information from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that revealed that LeBlanc and Giuseppe Cotroni were associates. Dos Santos said that if John O'Neill was given such information by the Mounties O'Neill never shared it with him (p. 405).

THE CALL FROM DEA OFFICE IN SAN JUAN

Peroff testified that on the night of July 8, 1973, he and DEA Agent Octavio Pinol placed a call to Conrad Bouchard from the DEA office