These calls failed, Peroff said, but he pushed forward. He explained: I found myself quite alone and in a position where we had waited all this time for this investigation to come to a head and now that a possible financier had been identified and was waiting for me to go through with this deal, there could not be any delay that could satisfactorily be explained away to Bouchard or to the financier (p. 79).

Peroff said he had tried to persuade DEA Group Supervisor John J. O'Neill that the Bouchard heroin effort was not being run by "amateurs or fools," that if he, Peroff, did not make the trip to Costa Rica by private aircraft "the case is dead." But, he said, he could not change O'Neill's mind (p. 79).

Peroff also had failed in his attempt to go over O'Neill's head. That was on July 17 when he tried to call Cox, Acree and Brockman. Peroff didn't give up. The next day he called the White House.

PEROFF CALLS FOR J. FRED BUZHARDT

Reporting to the White House was a kind of last resort, Peroff said, but he felt he had no other recourse. He said he tried to call and explain his predicament to various federal officials, including John R. Bartels, Jr., the DEA Administrator; and other officers at the DEA and Customs. He said he was also trying to get through to John R. Wing, a prosecutor in the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Wing was handling the government's case against John Mitchell, Maurice Stans and Robert Vesco. Finally, Peroff said, he concluded that going right to the White House was a course of action that offered the best chance for success (p. 78).

His need for money was motivating him now, Peroff said. Peroff said that he had "never considered myself a paid informant" but now, owing to the amount of time he had invested in the case, it was a matter of economic survival for him that Bouchard's heroin plot be foiled and Peroff be paid a handsome reward. "I very much needed this case to happen," Peroff said (pp. 79, 80).

He said that his pursuits in Europe, some legal, some admittedly illegal, had been providing him and his family a "comfortable and rather normal life" but all that had disappeared when his government had enlisted him in the Bouchard inquiry and brought him back to North America. While Peroff made no reference to the unpaid bills he left behind in Rome, he did tell Senators that he would have stayed in Italy "if I had been able to avoid prosecution" (p. 80).

Peroff said he could have made $350,000 in his own pursuits if he had not become a government informant (p. 120).

In any event, Peroff believed the White House to be his last remaining chance to get the Bouchard case going again. He said he had seen the name of J. Fred Buzhardt in the news a lot lately and he decided to start with him. Buzhardt was President Nixon's Special Consultant. In July of 1973 he was working on matters related to the Watergate litigation. Before placing the call, Peroff wrote out a statement so that he could make a reasonably organized presentation of his story. to Buzhardt (pp. 80, 162).

PEROFF TALKS TO PETER GRANT

Peroff said a switchboard operator at the White House referred his call to a person identifying himself as Peter Grant, attorney and assistant to Buzhardt. Peroff said he read his statement over the phone to Peter Grant (p. 80).

Peroff gave the Subcommittee the statement he said he read to Grant. It was made part of the hearing record. Written in erratic script in an eight- by 10-inch notebook, the statement traced Peroff's involvement with federal agents going back to his role in the SolarikSilverman narcotics transactions. Peroff's statement asserted that he was coerced by federal agents into working on the Bouchard inquiry. The statement said that when Robert Vesco's name surfaced in the inquiry drug enforcement officials set out to sabotage the case and, in so doing, exposed him and his family to retaliation by criminals.

Apparently at some point in the call with Peter Grant, it occurred to Peroff that his statement might be difficult for Grant to believe, for Peroff wrote in his notebook, "Peter Grant thinks I'm a nut." Peroff also wrote in his notebook obscene epithets beside the names of Frank Leyva, John O'Neill and J. Fred Buzhardt.

Peroff said he did not identify himself by name to Grant. Instead, he said, he gave his old Customs informant code, D-73-1. Peroff said that someone at the White House must have called Customs to check on the code identification because the next time he called the White House he was referred to as Frank Peroff, even though he had yet to give his name (p. 82).

Peroff recalled that over the next four days he spoke with other White House personnel, including persons who identified themselves as being Mr. Andrews, J. Fred Buzhardt and "a lady who said she was Mr. Buzhardt's personal secretary." Peroff said he received about six calls from the White House. He said that, following Grant's instructions, he made two collect calls to the White House (p. 81).

THE STATEMENT OF MORRIS H. DAVIS, JR.

DEA Agent Morris H. Davis, Jr., gave a sworn statement to the DEA-Customs inquiry December 5, 1973. Davis said he was working at DEA Headquarters in Washington "one afternoon in July 1973" when Peter Grant of the Secret Service called him.

Davis said Grant explained that a man named Peroff was making charges against DEA. Davis said Grant wondered if he knew Peroff's control agents. Davis said he would try to find out who they were and have them call Grant back. Davis also said that Grant told him there was an outstanding warrant in Florida for Peroff.

Davis said he then called the DEA Regional Office in New York and spoke to a DEA agent but he could not remember the agent's name. Davis said he told the agent what Grant had told him about Peroff. The existence of the warrant on Peroff in Florida was discussed with the New York DEA agent, Davis said, adding that he gave the agent Grant's name and telephone number and explained that Grant was awaiting a call. The New York DEA agent said that he would call Grant, Davis asserted in the DEA-Customs statement.

Davis said that at no time was the name of Robert Vesco mentioned in either of the two phone calls.

Davis said he took no notes nor did he write a memorandum in connection with either call.

THE TOLL TICKETS

The Hilton Inn at Kennedy Airport is located at 138-10_135th Avenue, Jamaica Queens, New York. The manager of the Inn is Edouard Debs. Debs told Subcommittee Investigator William Gallinaro November 29, 1973 that the Peroffs had occupied rooms 634 and 636 from July 17 through August 4, 1973. Under Subcommittee subpoena, Debs turned over 43 toll tickets charged to Peroff's room. Of these, eight calls were made to the White House switchboard number, area code 202-456-1414, on July 18 and two calls were made to that number July 19. Four of the calls lasted two minutes each, the others lasted 32, 8, 10, 36, 6 and 7 minutes, respectively.

While at the Hilton Inn, Gallinaro also interviewed David C. Peterson, a desk clerk. In an affidavit, Peterson said that on July 18, while he was on duty, a man called and identified himself as being at the White House. Peterson said he could not remember the man's name. But he did remember that he asked "one or two" questions about Frank Peroff.

TALKS WITH BOUCHARD CONTINUE

Peroff said that while he was talking to Grant and others at the White House, he was also continuing his contacts with Conrad Bouchard. Peroff said that Bouchard told him to be at a certain phone booth at the International Hotel at Kennedy Airport at 5:30 p.m. July 20. There he would receive "final instructions" for the Costa Rica trip, Peroff said (pp. 133, 161).

The call came through, Peroff said. Bouchard had indicated that a password would be used to identify Peroff in Costa Rica. But, Peroff said, the caller did not stipulate a password. Instead, he told Peroff to wear "a distinctive suit" and that would serve to identify Peroff. Peroff said he told the caller he would wear a blue plaid suit. The caller added, "You weigh well over 200 pounds and you always wear sunglasses." Peroff said he replied, "That is right." (P. 161.)

Peroff said he knew nothing of the identity of the caller, except that the man spoke in "a New York accent." (P. 160.)

PEROFF TALKS TO JOHN WING

In approximately the same time frame in which he spoke with the man with the New York accent, Peroff said, he did get through to a Justice Department official-John R. Wing, the federal prosecutor preparing the Mitchell-Stans-Vesco case for trial (p. 78). Wing is chief of the frauds unit of the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the

Southern District of New York.

Wing testified before the Investigations Subcommittee June 13, 1974 (pp. 701–757). Wing said he spoke on the phone to a man about July 18 for more than an hour. The man refused to give his name but Wing was later able to establish that he was Frank Peroff (pp. 704, 708).

The thrust of Peroff's remarks, Wing said, was that he had turned up information tying Robert Vesco to a narcotics scheme and that drug agents had "short-circuited" the inquiry as soon as Vesco's name surfaced (p. 704). Wing said he was not positive but he thought that Peroff told him the Vesco angle to the case "had been turned off by" DEA, that it was no longer viable but, Wing added, "I can't really be sure." (P. 726.)

Wing said he was "incredibly busy" with the Mitchell-Stans-Vesco case and he wanted to keep the call as short as possible. Yet Peroff was making assertions at the start of the call which "sounded very interesting," Wing said (p. 705).

The name Cotroni caught his attention for one thing, Wing said, and he made a note of it (p. 705). But he did not save any of the notes he took so he remembered few specifics of the call and said he was testifying mostly from a general "impression of the call." (P. 704.) While some of what Peroff said seemed deserving of further investigation, Wing said, gradually the focus of Peroff's comments began to settle on how the Government was not paying him money owed him. This made Wing skeptical about Peroff because he knew informants often feuded with law enforcement agencies over money. Making him even more suspicious, Wing said, was Peroff's assertion that he had called Watergate Prosecutor Archibald Cox, the White House and the New York Times (p. 706).

Robert Vesco, who was very much on Wing's mind at the time, was alleged to be in the heroin business by Peroff and this interested Wing. Yet Peroff did not give Wing enough information to lead the federal prosecutor to think it would help in the government's effort to extradite Vesco from Costa Rica or the Bahamas. Wing said:

... I am pretty sure he didn't tell me anything that made me think there was any kind of a case that could be made against Vesco because we were, of course, interested then as we are now in trying to extradite Mr. Vesco.

If there had been any kind of decent narcotics case that might have been a very good avenue.

It didn't appear from any thing he told me that that was a fact. In fact, I think probably what he told me was he was putting the emphasis on the fact that the investigation was cut off before anything was done. So that I guess really there wasn't a case but maybe there would have been a case, something to that effect (p. 707).

Wing noted that while he was interested in any information regarding Robert Vesco he could not bring himself to accept Peroff's assertion that the world famous financier was mixed up in drugs. “It didn't seem terribly likely," Wing said (p. 726).

Wing added that he did not remember Peroff making any reference to a taped conversation in which Robert Vesco was implicated in the alleged drug conspiracy (pp. 707, 708). Later, however, Wing said he was not sure whether or not Peroff talked about a tape (p. 708). After some considerable effort to get Peroff off the phone, Wing contacted Gerald Feffer of the narcotics unit of the U.S. Attorney's Office. Wing told Feffer about the call and about the Cotroni angle (p. 708).

ARTHUR VIVIANI BECOMES INVOLVED

Wing said Feffer apparently passed the information of the Peroff call to Arthur Viviani, Assistant Chief of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney's Office. Viviani called Wing for more details. Wing said Viviani wanted to know who the caller was-at that point no one knew Peroff's name-and how to get hold of him (p. 708).

Viviani testified before the Subcommittee with Wing. Viviani told Senators that he had spent two years in narcotics investigations before becoming Assistant Chief of the Criminal Division (p. 709). Viviani said, for example, that he was quite familiar with Cotroni (p. 717). Viviani said he got into the Peroff matter when a secretary in the narcotics unit, Anna Schwartz, called him to say Gerald Feffer was busy on other matters and would he, Viviani, help Wing evaluate the information that the anonymous caller had phoned in on Cotroni and a Canadian narcotics effort that also included Conrad Bouchard (pp. 709, 710).

Viviani checked with Wing. Viviani said Wing filled him in on what the anonymous caller had said. Viviani said Wing mentioned three names-Bouchard, Cotroni and Vesco (p. 710).

Viviani then called Wayne T. Valentine, the Assistant Regional Director of DEA for the New York office. Viviani said he told Valentine about the call Wing had received and gave Valentine the names Cotroni, Bouchard and Vesco. Viviani said Valentine recognized the names as being subjects in a DEA inquiry in which DEA Agent Richard Dos Santos was working. Viviani said Valentine stated that the caller was Dos Santos' informant, Frank Peroff (pp. 710, 716). Viviani said:

I ran the names [Cotroni, Bouchard, Vesco] by him [Valentine]. I recall him saying to me something to the effect, yes, that is the Dos Santos informant and they are working out of Dillon's office (p. 710).

Viviani identified Dennis Dillon as being a federal prosecutor in the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York (p. 710).

SIGNIFICANCE OF TAPE IS DISCUSSED

Viviani said Valentine did not mention the taped telephone call that was the source of the assertion that Vesco was involved (p. 713). Subcommittee Chief Counsel Howard Feldman asked Viviani if Valentine had made reference to the Bouchard-Peroff tape implicating Vesco, would that information have interested him "because of the Vesco indictment and possible extradition?" (P. 713.)

Viviani replied:

I guess it would have, yes, if it had been that specific I felt as though I was just volunteering to get two people together who had mutual information to develop. That is about all (p. 713).

"That is, Mr. Wing and Mr. Valentine? Feldman asked. "Yes," said Viviani.