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Davis, within the next two or three days, I would have been briefed on the fact that warrants did exist by Mr. O'Neill.

MANUEL. Did you have any prior knowledge of the existence of those warrants?

VALENTINE. No, sir (pp. 673, 674).

In his testimony, Group Supervisor John J. O'Neill said that Secret Service Agent Peter Grant was the first to tell him about the warrants on Peroff (p. 582).

But at a later point in his testimony O'Neill amended his remarks somewhat. He said it might have been Wayne Valentine who first told him about the warrants. O'Neill testified:

My recollection is that the first time I found out about those warrants was when Mr. Valentine told me or Peter Grant told me (p. 593).

O'Neill made another assertion which undercut Valentine's testimony that he did not learn of the warrants until two or three days after the call from Davis. Manuel asked O'Neill what he did after talking to Valentine about Valentine's talk with Davis. O'Neill replied:

I went in and told Dos Santos that there were outstanding warrants for Peroff, that we should find out if they were still in existence and if they were viable would the local authorities extradite him (p. 578).

O'Neill said he could not remember the exact date of these conversations with Valentine and Dos Santos but, he explained, "it was the day that Grant called Davis and Davis called New York." (P. 578.)

On a directly related issue, the DEA-Customs report on the inquiry into the Peroff allegations is in error. The error, if not corrected at this point in the Subcommittee staff study, could conceivably be used to confuse the record regarding Wayne Valentine's knowledge of the outstanding warrants on Peroff.

In his sworn statement, Agent Davis makes clear that when he called the DEA office in New York he called one time only and talked to only one agent. And, Davis said, the agent to whom he spoke was the same agent who was to call Peter Grant. The language Davis used in his statement is as follows:

I then called New York City, Drug Enforcement Adminis-
tration Regional Office, and spoke with an agent assigned to
the Regional Office whose name I don't recall at this time and
related the information that I had received from Special
Agent Grant. I also furnished this agent with Special Agent
Grant's telephone number and told him that Special Agent
Grant is standing by to receive a telephone call from him. The
Agent said he would call Special Agent Grant, and that was
the end of this telephone call.

During the telephone call from Special Agent Grant, he
told me that there was an outstanding warrant in Florida for
Peroff. I related this information to the New York Agent who
I was talking to.

However, in the summaries of the sworn statements in the DEACustoms report, the Davis sworn statement is interpreted incorrectly. The summary reported that Davis "spoke to an agent, whose name he cannot recall, and advised that agent to have the agent, who was handling Peroff, telephone Grant . . ." [Emphasis supplied.]

The Davis statement does not say that the Peroff control agent would call Grant. Davis, in his statement, said the agent with whom he spoke would call Grant.

The error in the DEA-Customs interpretation of Davis' sworn statement is potentially very misleading. A person who read only the summary and not the original statement could conclude that the DEA official who took the call from Davis understood that he was to seek out Peroff's control agent and that the first person Davis talked to, then, would pass on to someone else the information given him by Davis. Some of the information then-the part about the outstanding warrants, for example-could be lost in the shuffle.

This study wishes to make clear, therefore, that Davis said he gave the information of the warrants to one person, in one phone call and that one recipient of the information told him that he would call Peter Grant.

Accordingly, Wayne Valentine told Senators, and asserted in the DEA-Customs inquiry under oath, that it was he who received the call from Davis. Moreover, if Davis' statement is accurate, it was Valentine, then, who learned on July 18 or 19 that there were warrants on Frank Peroff in Florida.

WHAT VALENTINE TOLD HIS SUPERIORS

On July 18 or 19, 1973, DEA Agent Morris H. Davis called DEA Assistant Regional Director Wayne T. Valentine and told him about Frank Peroff's having complained to the White House about the way DEA was treating him.

Valentine testified that he, in turn, directed Group Supervisor John J. O'Neill to get the facts of the situation. Valentine also said. he told O'Neill to "handle the matter."

The directions to O'Neill represented the downward thrust of Valentine's actions. The Subcommittee also wanted to know the upward thrust. What official above him did he tell? Valentine admitted that he should have told somebody above him but he could not remember if he did and, if he did, who it was.

Manuel asked Valentine if he told John W. Fallon, his supervisor, or Jerry Jensen, the then regional director. Valentine said he could not remember (p. 675).

Manuel asked Valentine if reporting to Fallon or Jensen would have been the "logical" thing to do under the circumstances of an informant lodging criticisms of DEA at the White House. Valentine agreed that it would have been logical to make such an upward report but he still could not remember if he did or not (p. 675).

Valentine added:

I am not saying I didn't. I am saying I don't recall whether
I did or not. Normally, I would report that (p. 675).

At another point in the hearings, Valentine said:

Without being able to recall the situation itself, I am sure I did brief the superiors once I found out the call was made to the White House . . . (p. 678).

The one absolute certainty Valentine could provide on the reporting of the White House calls was that if he did report Peroff's activities, he did it on the phone or in a face to face meeting. Valentine said he prepared no memoranda on the subject (p. 671).

Fallon, who replaced Jensen as DEA Regional Director in New York, testified before the Subcommittee June 12, 1974 (pp. 690-698). Fallon said the first he heard of Vesco's and LeBlanc's alleged involvement in the Bouchard inquiry was in late September or midOctober of 1973. He said he was given this information by Arthur Viviani, of the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York (p. 697).

Fallon said he had no knowledge of the Vesco-LeBlanc lead in July of 1973 (pp. 697, 698). At the hearings, Fallon was not asked if Valentine informed him in July of Peroff's July 1973 phone calls

to the White House.

WHAT O'NEILL TOLD VALENTINE JULY 18 OR 19

Wayne Valentine testified that in the first week of July 1973 John W. Fallon, the Regional Director of DEA in New York, warned him about Frank Peroff. Fallon, Valentine's boss, had come over to the new DEA from Customs and he knew the potential pitfalls inherent in dealing with Peroff, Valentine said, adding that Fallon described Peroff as "basically a troublemaker, or that at least he had the potential of being a troublemaker" (pp. 669, 670).

Valentine quoted Fallon as saying something new to the Subcommittee's knowledge of Frank Peroff, that Peroff, as a Customs informant, had called the White House (p. 670). Fallon also reiterated for Valentine Peroff's having complained directly to Customs Commissioner Vernon D. Acree in April of 1973 about the expense money owed him (p. 670).

These remarks by Fallon served to put him on notice, Valentine said, of the fact that Peroff was "this type of individual then" (p. 670).

Knowing of the alleged call to the White House Peroff had made while a Customs informant, Valentine was anxious to obtain a full reading of the situation when Peroff called the White House again on July 18 and 19. Valentine said, "I, of course, wanted to know what was behind it, what Peroff had said, why he had called, and so forth" (p. 671).

Because DEA Agent Morris H. (Pete) Davis had given him only the general outline of the Peroff call to Peter Grant-that is, that Peroff was being critical of DEA (pp. 66S, 669)-Valentine turned to O'Neill for the details of the Peroff case.

Valentine said O'Neill described the heroin inquiry and how Peroff had penetrated the Conrad Bouchard group. But, Valentine testified, O'Neill said nothing at all about the alleged role of Robert Vesco and Norman LeBlanc (p. 671).

Valentine did acknowledge to Senators, however, that, in light of what he had since learned about the Bouchard heroin case, he was surprised, if not disappointed, that O'Neill had not briefed him on the Vesco-LeBlanc angle.

According to the hearing testimony, Valentine said that O'Neill briefed him on or about July 18 on the heroin inquiry but only "insofar as Conrad Bouchard" was involved (p. 671). Philip Manuel, Subcommittee Investigator, asked Valentine:

Insofar as the information that had just come from Peroff regarding the possibility that Vesco and LeBlanc were to be financiers of a narcotics buy that had been in the mill for six months prior to that. Were you briefed on that? (p. 671). Valentine replied:

Not insofar as Vesco is concerned; no, sir; not that I recall. Again, I say I have worked with Mr. O'Neill for many, many years. I have had him as a [Group] supervisor for many, many years. Knowing his methods, his techniques, his ability to distinguish between important matters and non-important matters, I cannot imagine going through that period without having heard from O'Neill in regard to Vesco (pp. 671, 672). O'Neill testified that "I think Mr. Valentine" knew about the VescoLeBlanc angle before July 17, 1973 (p. 564).

At another point in the hearing, O'Neill said he did tell Wayne Valentine about the Vesco-LeBlanc lead. O'Neill said he gave this information to Valentine at about the same time he gave it to DEA Agent Jack McCarthy of the Montreal office. That would place the date on or about July 6, 1973 (pp. 536, 537).

WHY O'NEILL CALLED GRANT

It was important to the Subcommittee inquiry to establish who it was from DEA who contacted Peter Grant of the Secret Service on the Peroff issue on July 18 or 19.

In his testimony, Group Supervisor John J. O'Neill at first denied talking to Grant. But then he remembered that he did. In fact, he said, it was he, O'Neill, who placed the call to Grant. O'Neill made these points in this discussion with Subcommittee Investigator Philip Manuel:

MANUEL. Did you speak personally to Agent Grant?
O'NEILL. NO.

MANUEL. You did not?

O'NEILL. I might have. I am not sure. I might have. I think I did. Wait, I think I did. I talked to him . . . I think I called him (p. 580).

That point established, the Subcommittee sought to determine why O'Neill called Grant. O'Neill said the reason was that his supervisor, DEA Assistant Regional Administrator, Wayne T. Valentine, called and gave him Peter Grant's name and phone number and, because he, O'Neill, was a friend of Grant he contacted Grant (pp. 580, 581).

O'Neill testified:

As I remember it, Mr. Valentine had the telephone number and the thing with Agent Grant. The reason that I would have called was because I knew Agent Grant. When I had been in Newark he had been with the Secret Service in Newark (p. 580).

Manuel asked O'Neill what Valentine told him about Peroff's calls to the White House.

"I don't remember," O'Neill said (p. 581).

Manuel asked O'Neill what was said by Valentine about Vesco and Norman LeBlanc.

"I don't remember," O'Neill said, adding that about all he did remember was being "absolutely totally furious" that Peroff had contacted the White House (p. 581).

O'Neill conceded that any American citizen has the right to call the White House but the fact that Peroff, an informant, did it made him mad because, O'Neill said, "I am still very naive in very many ways, I guess." (P. 581.)

Manuel asked O'Neill if Valentine had told him that Peroff was alleging to the White House that Vesco and LeBlanc were participants in a heroin scheme. Again, O'Neill said he could not remember. All he was sure of, O'Neill said, was that Peroff had, in fact, called the White House (p. 581).

WHAT O'NEILL AND GRANT TALKED ABOUT

The content of the conversation between O'Neill and Grant was a subject of some interest to the Subcommittee. It was relevant, to begin with, because the purpose of the inquiry was to examine Frank Peroff's allegation that the federal government had sabotaged the heroin case as soon as Robert Vesco's name surfaced. One of the ways the government sabotaged the case, Peroff said, was by having him arrested right at a time when Conrad Bouchard, Giuseppe Cotroni and Vesco operatives were expecting him to be in Costa Rica on the first leg of the heroin smuggling sojourn. In this context, the July 18 or July 19 telephone call between John J. O'Neill and Peter Grant was significant, for it is in this discussion that DEA was put on notice that Frank Peroff intended to inform the highest office in the nation that officials at the Justice Department, primarily in DEA, were obstructing an investigation of considerable consequence.

Now, John O'Neill may not have understood the Subcommittee's interest in his discussion with Grant; he may not have wished to be of assistance as the Subcommittee pursued this question or he simply may have had difficulty recalling the events. In any event, his answers to questions in this regard were not altogether responsive. The Q. and A. at the hearings went like this:

MANUEL. What was said, to the best of your memory in your conversation with Agent Grant subsequent to your learning of this matter from Mr. Valentine?

O'NEILL. I asked him if he still had his Corvette, how everything was doing, what he was doing, how Washington was, stuff like that, personal things.

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