17. In an Unexpected Plot Twist, the DEA’s Predecessor Supplied America’s Biggest Demagogue With Drugs
Senator Joseph McCarthy was a severe alcoholic who by the early 1950s consumed more than a quart of liquor a day. His staffers often worried about what he might say, especially after his highly liquid lunches. The booze explains many of his reckless speeches and assertions made before reporters about an America overrun with communist spies, and that he possessed lists with the names of hundreds of Soviet agents. The wild allegations were often simply the rantings of a loaded drunk.
McCarthy was also addicted to morphine. The fact that he used illegal drugs was well known to Harry J. Anslinger, head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, predecessor of today’s Drug Enforcement Agent (DEA). Anslinger hated drug addicts and had gone on a crusade to destroy blues singer Billie Holiday for her morphine addiction. As such, one might think that he would have felt obligated to arrest McCarthy. Luckily for the senator, America’s drug czar was his personal friend. In a plot twist, rather than place him in handcuffs, Anslinger supplied McCarthy with drugs.
