Hank Albarelli's book review of Wolf and Pack at Amazon

The hidden and secret history of this nation's so-called War on Drugs and its warriors has been waiting quite some time to be told; we are now very fortunate to have historian Douglas Valentine's two-volume set of books that provide a well-documented and robust narrative of the various government agencies that evolved into the current DEA. Valentine's first book, The Strength of the Wolf, provides us with a stunningly documented and detailed volume about the old Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN). The book is replete with a slew of startling facts about the FBN's connections to the CIA and the FBN's intelligence related overseas operations.Indeed, Valentine's first book was quite helpful to a section of my book just out on Dr. Frank Olson's murder, A TERRIBLE MISTAKE: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments.Valentine did a superb job in his first book revealing the CIA's ties to the FBN. At points, both agencies seem to merge into one and to perform as one. That the two agencies performed as one and so closely shared objectives says a lot about the overalll objectives of intelligence gathering. Valentine's excellent newer book, Strength of the Pack, moves readers into current years and delivers a cornucopia of startling and long-secret data and information that throws considerable light on the mockery of the efforts of the U.S. to rid itself of the curse of drugs. After reading Valentine's latest excellent book one does not have to contemplate very long to understand why illicit drugs will continue to flood our nation and little will be done about it. Anyone concerned about this problem, and wanting to learn about how the so-called 'War on Drugs' really operates, should read both of Valentine's very important titles.The Douglas Valentine Vietnam Collection at the National Security Archive in Washington, DC, has been open and used by researchers since early 2007. The Collection contains the research material, including original handwritten interview notes and government documents obtained through FOIA requests, for my book The Phoenix Program. The Collection can only be used in the National Security Archive's Reading Room; it is not available for interlibrary loan and an appointment must be made to use it. The "resguide" link below will help anyone who wants to read the material