Stunned reporters asked questions; Exley refused to answer them. He did state that the commanding officer of Narcotics Division, Captain Daniel Wilhite, 44, recently committed suicide, and that Internal Affairs detectives were currently interviewing various “Narco” officers with an eye toward securing voluntary grand jury testimony.
Asked just how “dirty” “Narco” was, Chief Exley said, “Very. I am personally stating that it has been in collusion with a vicious dope-pushing family for over twenty years. It is my desire to reform the Narcotics Division from the ground up and take that family down. I will be passing pertinent Federal venue information on to U.S. Attorney Welles Noonan, but he should know that I am taking the primary responsibility for cleaning my own house.”
_Hush-Hush_ Magazine, 12/11/58:
FREEDOM OF SPEECH GAGGED!!!!!
J’ACCUSE! J’ACCUSE!
Journalistic nitroglycerine-that’s the only way to describe it. 94 pages that arrived at _Hush-Hush_ ten days ago, atom bomb accusations that were also sent to a Los Angeles newspaper and the State Attorney General’s Office.
They chose to ignore it; we chose to print it. The confidential source that transmitted this literary A-bomb verified its authenticity–and we believed him.
94 pages: scorching, scalding, burning hot revelations, the confessions of a crooked Los Angeles policeman on the run from the mob, the cops and his own violent past. You _would have seen it here_ on December 18th–but something happened.
Kats and kittens, we’re on dicey legal ground here. We can describe the “legal”
machinations that have censored us; our lawyers tell us that the vague description of the material covered in the preceding paragraph does not violate the “legal” injunction filed against us by the Los Angeles Police Department.
And we’ll go just a tad further in our description: those 94 pages would have brought the LAPD to its knees. Our (regrettably) anonymous author, unflinching in his portrayal of his own corruption, also charged celebrated Los Angeles policemen with felony malfeasance on a spectacular scale and claimed that LAPD
off icials covered up a complex web of circumstances surrounding the recent L.A.
crime wave. Scalding, scorching hot revelations– verifiably true–and we can’t print them.
That’s as much as our attorneys will permit us to tell you about those 94 pages.
Is your appetite whetted? Good, now let us stoke your rage.
An employee of ours, a man charged with gathering electronic information, has a drinking problem. He saw those 94 pages, recognized them as dynamite and called an LAPD acquaintance. Our employee, a probation absconder ducking drunk driving warrants, leaked those pages to his acquaintance. Word spread to the LAPD
hierarchy; a restraining order was secured. Our employee was rewarded: his warrants were rendered null and void. Those scalding 94 pages were seized; we cannot print any portion of them under threat of “legal” injunction.
The newspaper? The State Attorney General’s Office?
They discarded their 94 pages. They ridiculed them as hogwash. The monstrous facts were too ugly to believe.
The author? He’s out there among the night blooming fiends in the City of the Fallen Angels.
The upshot? You decide. Decry this fascistic censorship. Write to us. Write to Side 241
Ellroy – White Jazz
the LAPD. Express your rage. Send one up for a rogue cop whose mea culpa read too explosive to print.
BANNERS:
L.A. _Times_, 12/14/58:
GRAND JURY CONVENED; “NARCO” COPS TESTIFY
L.A. _Mirror_, 12/15/58:
HUSH-HUSH “CENSORSHIP” BLAST
MEETS DEAF EARS
L.A. _Herald-Express_, 12/16/58:
LAPD DERIDES HUSH-HUSH INVECTIVE
L.A. _Times_, 12/19/58:
NARCOTICS OFFICERS INDICTED
L.A. _Mirror_, 12/21/58:
EXLEY:
HUSH-HUSH ACCUSATIONS “NONSENSE”
L.A. _Mirror_, 12/22/58:
REPUTED DOPE KINGPINS FACE GRAND JURY
L.A. _Herald-Express_, 12/23/58:
GRAND JURY SHOCKER: NO
KAFESJIAN INDICTMENTS–ACTING
DA SAYS NARCO TESTIMONY COMPROMISED
L.A. _Examiner_, 12/26/58:
GALLAUDET STILL MISSING; SEARCH CONTINUES
L.A. _Mirror_, 12/27/58:
MAYOR POULSON: HUSH-HUSH
ACCUSATIONS LAUGHABLE
L.A. _Mirror_, 12/28/58:
FEDERAL RACKETS PROBE DISBANDS
L.A. _Herald-Express_, 1/3/59:
TOASTMASTER POLICEMAN VOTED SPECIAL PENSION
The scene was sad, touching, antithetical to recent police headlines: Narcotics officers indicted on graft charges. That scene: a grossly injured Los Angeles policeman fighting for his life in a hospital bed.
Dudley L. Smith, Captain, LAPD. Dublin born, Los Angeles raised, a World War II OSS spymaster. 53 years old, thirty years a policeman. A wife, five daughters.
Numerous commendations for bravery, LAPD toastmaster, lay chaplain. Dudley L.