Witsec: Inside the Federal Witness Protection Program review
Witsec: Inside the Federal Witness Protection Program by Pete Earley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A mostly interesting history of the Witness Protection Program, as recounted by its founder. There were quite a few amusing anecdotes:
- After Nixon announced that there were mob "strike forces" in 18 cities when in truth there were only 17, instead of correcting him the Justice Department created another one!
- A lot of mob people who went into the program had a wife and a mistress, and both would generally get protection. One guy asked them to protect his mistress but not his wife! (they protected both)
- One of the things the program does for people is to try to help them find a job. Here's a quote:An executive from a manufacturing company asked me not to send him anyone who had hijacked trucks, so I sent him a counterfeiter. A few weeks later, the owner called to say the witness had been arrested for felony theft. "But I have good news", he added. "The stuff he stole wasn't ours, so you can send down another witness to take his place."
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