Episode 365: The Beat: Profiles of Police Nationwide: Joe Valiquette - FBI (Volume 18) - Mic’d In New Haven

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
You're listening to the Bike to Do Even podcast hosted
by media personality and consultant Mike Globe. We're not out

(00:43):
there fighting anything other than crime. We see stuff that
nobody should have.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
To you know, you Shorge thirty one, right it out,

(01:09):
make your car.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
You're listening to the Beat Profiles of Police Nationwide. Sorry
about that. We were having some technological difficulties, so we're
walking to guests through that. Again, it happens from time
and time. That's okay, So we're slightly tardy and starting
the show. But nevertheless, hey listen, we call that for
a Friday fashionably late, and tonight's guest, it doesn't matter.

(01:33):
We're gonna have a great conversation. He's done a whole
heck of a lot, so I look forward to it
and welcome back on that notes, Episode three hundred and
sixty five of the Mike the Newable podcast for what
will be volume eighteen of The Beat Profiles of Police Nationwide.
It's been a busy week for the show. Monday, of course,
was volume seventeen paying tribute to our late friend Miles Son,
and Wednesday was a double header. Hadn't done one of
those in a bit Boomer, a sisin host of Boomer

(01:55):
and g O on w f AN for the morning
Cap and then for the Nightcap. Lieutenant Mickey fair GARLD
of New York City Fire Department for another volume, Volume
seventy one of the best of the bravest interviews with
the FD and wives Elite. Hello to all you tuning
in across the board. We're live right now on YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook,
and of course Twitter x whatever you call it. These days,
we won't keep our guests waiting long. Good to see

(02:16):
everybody in the chat as always, But first a word
from the Ryan Investigative Group. The Mike Thing You Have
in podcast is proudly sponsored and supported by the Ryan
Investigative Group. If you need an elite PI, look no
further than the Elite Ryan Investigative Group, which is run
by retired NYP Detective Bill Ryan, a twenty year veteran
of the Department who served the majority of his career

(02:36):
in the detective Bureau, most notably in the arson explosion squad.
So if you need a PI to handle anything from fraud,
legal services, and anything else that you might require, contact
Bill at three four seven, four one seven, sixteen ten
again three four seven four one, seven, sixteen ten. Reach
him at his website or the email that you see here. Again,
if you need a PI, look no further than Bill

(02:56):
Ryan and the Ryan Investigative Group, a proud supporter and
sponsors of the Mike de new Haven podcast. And as
noted before, if you have any desire of let's say
you have a business of your own and you know
somebody else who does that'd like to partner with the program.
Were more than eager to have more sponsors on the program.
Billy Ryan's getting lonely, so if you want to keep

(03:17):
him company by all means, reach out to us. We'll
be happy to have you on board. All right. My
next guest is retired FBI supervised respecial agent whose career
spanned just about thirty years inside the bureau's largest field office,
that of course of the FBI, like I mentioned in
New York, from investigating domestic terrorism and organized crime to
serving as to face the bureau as it's a spokesman
for quite a number of years during some very high

(03:39):
profile incidents. He was a trusted voice both inside and
outside of the bureau, and after he retired from the FBI,
he brought that same credibility and insight to WNBC locally
as an investigative producer and reporter, and that for this
volume eighteen of the Beat profiles of police nationwide, his
retired FBI agent Joe Vallecada man who I found out about,
as I mentioned to you when we first talked through

(04:01):
the columns of my late friend Len. He live.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
Right, Lenny and I go way back. Sadly he passed
away a few years ago. Yes, but yeah, I used
to work with him, I guess when he was a
news day and I mean he was always I forget
the name of his column, but he.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
Was all police plaza, right.

Speaker 3 (04:24):
Yeah. He was always kind of edgy a little bit,
but he was always fair and that's what I appreciated.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
Oh yeah, he's definitely missed, and I had the good
fortune of having it him on the program quite a
number of years ago during the program's early days. That
was episode twenty six, if you want to go back
and listen to it. So what's interesting about you for
a guy that spent so much of his time and
it's still in the New York area even in retirement.
You know, we'll forgive you. You're originally from Boston and
you're a Red Sox fan. But that's okay, you know, listen,

(04:51):
We'll forgive you. It's fine.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
Do you know how difficult it is to live for
almost fifty years, Yes, in the New York area as
a Red Sox in the first twenty five years were
kind of tough. But once we hit the New Century,
I have to say it got a lot easier once
the Red Sox started winning World Series to the chagrin

(05:13):
of the Yankees.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
I know, well, it's been there been. They've been the
better run franchise, you know. Listen, They've had four championships
the century to the Yankees one. And even with the
turnover and management in different ownership, even over the years,
I always say, especially as I look at Brian Cashman
and Aaron Boone these days, I'm like, they don't hang
banners verstability, you know, even if they're stayoffs in between.
If you're hanging banners, you're doing something right. But we

(05:35):
won't talk about that because I don't want my blood
pressure to rise. Okay, podcasts, but just tell me through
tell me about growing up. Nevertheless, in the Boston area
during those early years, and you know, from the looks
of it. You originally had an interest in law before
you went into law.

Speaker 3 (05:49):
Enforcement, right, well, I had. I graduated from Boston College
in nineteen seventy one, long time ago with a bachelor's degree,
and there was a liberal arts degree, and I just
kind of thought I would go in becoming an attorney.
And so I applied to various law schools and wound

(06:10):
up in another Jesuit school, Saint Louis University School of
Law in Saint Louis, Missouri, and graduated from there in
nineteen seventy four, and took the message, came back home,
took the Massachusetts Bar exam twice. I failed it the
first time, as many of us do, and but the
second time was the charm. And it was in the

(06:33):
process I was in the process of sending out resumes
to various law firms in the basically in the Boston
metropolitan area, when a friend of mine who worked in
the federal government, said, you know why you want you
come down to Washington to make the rounds of the
various agencies down there, including the FBI. So I did that,

(06:54):
and I went into the Justice Department, and in those days,
you could just walk into the department the Justice Department
building and without security or anything. And I got an
application and filled it out, and lo and behold. A
few months later, I got this call saying can you
be at Quantico in two weeks? And so I thought

(07:15):
it over before about five minutes, and I said yes.
And so then I went to Quantico in early nineteen
seventy five and I spent four months there for the
academy training. It was assigned to New York after that.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
So before I get to be assigned to the field
office in New York. Of course, we're talking with Joe
Balette here in the mike. Did we have a podcast
if you got a question for Joe, fire away and
the chat as always, you guys know the drill by.
Now just tell me what I mean. I don't know
what it consists of today, but back then in Quantico,
what did the training consist of.

Speaker 3 (07:48):
Well, it's pretty much the same today. I mean, obviously
there are they tweak it a bit given a changing
crime environment, but basically a third of the time is
classroom training, basically getting familiar with the FBI and Justice
Department guidelines and the criminal procedures and that kind of thing.

(08:13):
The various statutes that the FBI has jurisdiction over. Another
third is firearms training. There's a lot of firearms training
out on the range with the shotguns and automatic weapons
and what have you. And then the third, I say,
the next third is the final third is a physical

(08:33):
training in the gym, and that's number one, getting in shape,
but also doing a defensive tactics, learning how to take
down a recalcitrant arrestee and handcuffing and that kind of thing.
But they're also during the course of the four months,
there are also practical problems that the scenarios that the

(08:56):
agent trainees run through. The Quantico over the years has
built a very elaborate mark Town with the movie theater
and a drug store and uh, you know, gambling casino
and all these kinds of things. And on any given
day you'll see a class of new agents out there

(09:18):
trying to uh execute a mark search warrant or look
for look for a fugitive, to to apprehend that that
sort of thing. So there's some real they're trying to
make it as lifelike as as possible, and and it's
as I say, it's it's been tweaked a little bit
over the years, because now there's a bit more of

(09:39):
a emphasis on cyber cyber crime and other national security
issues over the over the years, the Bureau has sort
of gotten out of the the uh, the street crime,
bank robberies and that, and fusion is that kind of thing.
They still have a hand in it, but it's it's

(10:02):
it's changed with the times.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
Oh naturally, especially now post nine to eleven, which we'll
talk about a little bit later on and focus a
little bit too on counter terrorism. So getting to the
go ahead, Sorry, no, I'm good getting to the New
York field office in seventy five. I mean anywhere as
an eye opener out of Quantico, especially as a rookie,
you're excited to have made it through the academy and
to begin your career. But if there's field offices to start,

(10:26):
I mean you have La right, you have Chicago. You know,
some of the field offices in Texas for the same reason.
But New York, and it's been debated. I mean, DC
likes to stake their claim to it, but people would
say that New York is the flagship office of the Bureau.

Speaker 3 (10:41):
I would say that as well.

Speaker 1 (10:43):
Of course, no disrespect to my friend Tom O'Connor who
worked in the d C Field office for a long time.
He was a guest on this program a while ago.
But nevertheless, getting there in seventy five a much different
New York, New York that was dealing with domestic terrorism,
or New York that was dealing with the mob having
its hands and pretty much everything which we'll discuss. Tell
me about just getting there and learning the ropes early

(11:03):
on from senior agents.

Speaker 3 (11:05):
Well. The the policy then, as it is now, is
that a new agent coming into the office works what
we call applicant matters. In other words, there's a squad
that just does background checks for potential new agents or
or presidential appointees and that kind of thing, and those
agents are taken under the wing of a more experienced,

(11:29):
more experienced agent so basically learn of the paperwork, how
the office runs, and things like that, and then after
a period of time, the agent can express an interest,
not always granted, but express an interest in moving on
to what are the fields that most interests them, whether

(11:50):
it's a counter terrorism squad or a national security squad
that handles espionage matters kind of intelligence, or a cyber
crime or organized crime or white collar crime, what what
have you. But but basically, you're assigned wherever the need
is most and most prevalent. And the New York Office

(12:14):
we call it the flagship office for a good reason.
It's the only only office of the fifty six field
offices where the Bureau's national priorities are also priorities of
the office. New York is the only office that has
an organized a major organ or at least at that time,
a major organized crime problem, given the presence of the

(12:37):
u n as a major counterintelligence responsibility, major counter terrorism responsibility,
given Wall Street major white collar crime responsibility. Uh and
you know so so just about that, none of the
other field officers can claim a that their priorities match

(13:00):
those in New York.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
And it's not to say that they're any less busy,
but what you mentioned, I mean New York. They don't
call New York the crossroads in the world for nothing.
All those thanks factor significantly into the investigations that take
place to not just threats coming into the city of
any form, but as people pointed out in the program previously,
threats emanating from the city going elsewhere. O.

Speaker 3 (13:21):
Sure, yeah, I mean, you know, it's eight million people
in the city itself, and I don't know what the
population is of the greater metropolitan area, but there are
various ethnic groups, and those those folks in far off
places that want to do us harm can insinuate themselves

(13:43):
into the various neighborhoods here in the New York area,
and you know, plan things to happen elsewhere in the country.
So yeah, it's it's we run, we cover the game,
We run the gamut of threats.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
Absolutely. So after that initial assignment as a newer agent
that you just alluded to, what was your primary beat
for a little.

Speaker 3 (14:05):
Bit, Well, I was assigned to a kidnapping and an
extortion squad on our Criminal Division, And that squad had
just before I got to New York, that squad had
investigated the kidnapping of Bronfman, the Edgar Bronfman's son, Bronfman

(14:28):
of the Whiskey Fame Company Fame. There was a major
kidnapping involving his son. But after I got there, probably
the most prominent kidnapping that I was involved with was
the daughter of Calvin Klein, Marcy Klein. That was in
nineteen seventy eight. Turns out, make a long story short,

(14:51):
her babysitter. I think she was only eight or nine
years old at the time, but her babysitter basically kidnapped
her a ransom demand. She wanted one hundred thousand dollars,
and there was a whole big surveillance throughout Manhattan with
we knew that the drop, so to speak, the ransom

(15:13):
was going to be dropped by Calvin Klein at Grand
Central Station in a certain area and Grand Central Station,
so obviously we had it staked out and it would
behold the for a few hours. The the friend of
the of the babysitter came and picked up the package,
and we obviously surveiled that person back to the location

(15:35):
where the where the Marcy was recovered. There were three
arrests and the convictions in that case. But but that
whole period in the late mid to late seventies, the
violent crime, the bank robberies especially, we're going through the
roof in New York and we had we had two

(15:55):
bank robbery squads actually in the office that worked along
with the New York Police departments, a major case squad.
And it was only in like nineteen seventy nine that
the head of the New York FBI Office and the
Police Summission at the time, Bob Maguire decided that, you know,
we're going to work together on these things. So the

(16:19):
FBI NYPD Joint Bank Robbery Task Force was formed and
bank robberies came down. That unit investigated only armed bank robberies,
the so called note jobs where somebody goes into a
bank in his hands, the tellery note saying you know,
I've got a gun but doesn't display it. Those were
handled strictly by the Major Case Squad of the NYPD,

(16:43):
but the task force s turned out to be very,
very successful, and that in turn that led to the
creation of the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
And that oftentimes, I mean listen, with robberies and terrorism alike.
One of the connecting factors is we'll discuss tonight is money.
So that's sensical when you explained it, I didn't know
that was the origins. So that's fascinating to here because
especially with some of the and we'll get into it now,
with some of the domestic terrorism going on back then,
the need for a joint Terrorism Task Force. People think
of it in a different context now post nine eleven,

(17:14):
but in the seventies there was a need with how
many groups were running around.

Speaker 3 (17:17):
That's right. As a matter of fact, I will get
into the test the task force later, but pre task
pre terrorism task force, I was on the squad that
investigated some of the domestic groups here and all the
way from the FALN, which was the Puerto Rican Independence
group that bombed their France's tavern or claimed credit for

(17:42):
the bombing of the Mobile Oil building in August of
seventy seven. Besides the Faln, there was the Jewish Defense League.
There was an organization named Omega seven, which was an
anti Castro Cuban group that periodically would place bombs outside
the Russian Consulate the UN Russian I'm sorry, the Russian

(18:02):
mission to the UN on sixty seventh Street. That happened
three or four times, and sometimes they set off bombs
at the Cuban missions to the UN as well. There
was also even a group called okpor Otpo R, which
was a Croatian group that was seeking independence of Croatia
from Yugoslavia, and they set off a bomb on St.

(18:25):
Patrick's Day in nineteen eighty outside the Hugo Bank on
Fifth Avenue. So there were a variety of domestic groups,
although they were they had interest really for you know,
outside the United States, but they were committing their acts
here in the United States, and so we were investigating

(18:46):
those cases. But so was the NYPD's Arsenal and Explosion Division.
So what what happened is a little few, you know,
we were butt heads every once in a while that
a bomb would go off, the FBI would show up,
the NYPD would show up. We wouldn't interview the witnesses.

(19:07):
The NYPD would interview the same witnesses. There'd be a
fight over whose laboratory is going to analyze the evidence
and all that. And as I say, finally, based on
the success of the Bank Robbery Task Force, cooler heads
prevailed and said, you know what, we have to do
this in the terrorism field. And so that was the

(19:28):
genesis of the Joint Terrorism Task Force in May of
nineteen eighty.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
And it's interesting you mentioned the Cuban Group because I
remember a story a good friend of mine told me
Danny McNally from the Bomb Squad, where that Cuban Group
had an office of their own, hidden nondescript within the
confines of Midtown Manhattan, and one night, in one particular
bombing incident, one guy pretends to be drunk, and he
goes up to the booth, which was manned by an

(19:53):
NYPD officer acting drunk. He falls down. The officer leaves
the booth to check on him and has he because
the bomb goes off doesn't injure. The officer takes the
officer out of the line of fire. The guy gets up,
gives the thumbs up, runs off.

Speaker 3 (20:09):
Well it's funny, you know. Given the FBI's counter intelligence responsibilities,
it's safe to say that the Bureau in New York
was monitoring the Soviet at that time, the Soviet mission
to the UN pretty extensively. So I remember one particular
night when one of those Omega seven bombs went off.

(20:33):
We all responded to the mission, and I always remember
my boss saying to the head of security, the Russian
security person, we're gonna watch your videotapes from your security cameras.
And he said, well, you'll get those videotapes when you
give me your videotapes of our building, because he was

(20:55):
assuming that we had coverage of the electronic coverage of
their a building, which may not be.

Speaker 1 (21:02):
True allegedly could have happened perhaps, but nevertheless, let's get
let's dive into the f ALN for a moment, because,
as you mentioned, mobile oil building in seventy seven, Frances
Tavern in nineteen seventy five, which killed several and that
was during the peak of lunch hour at the time.
Their mission was independence for Puerto Rico, separate, completely free
in the United States. And during you know, this time,

(21:24):
they were really neck and neck with the Black Panthers
organization in terms of the terror that was being caused.
The Black Panthers specialized the robberies and assassinations of police officers.
The fail N specialized bombs, So you definitely had your
hands full during the seventies early eighties.

Speaker 3 (21:38):
Right, Well, the f ALN was active in Chicago as
well as New York. Yeah, and they were. They would
every once in a while they would do these big
bomb events, but also they would go into Macy's or
at that time Gimbals department store and place little incendiary
devices in the pockets of men's suits in the men's

(22:00):
department or whatever, and it caused all kinds of havoc.
You know, the buildings would have to be evacuating, all
that kind of thing. But yeah, they their goal was
to the independence of Puerto Rico from the United States,
you know, is the United States territory. And in August
of seventy seven, you mentioned the Mobile Oil building that

(22:23):
was the there was one person murdered as a result
of that bomb. And it turns out after actually I
was the case agent on that particular case, and it
turned out that Marie Haiti Torres, who was the wife
of Carlos Torres, the head of the fail and Marie
Haiti Torres is the one who went into the Mobile
Oil building that morning wearing a disguise and she had

(22:48):
sticks of dynamite taped to the shaft of an umbrella
and she hung it on a She went to the
employment office there and she hung it on a code
rack next to this poor guy who was applying for
a job. She left and the bong was off and
he obviously dies. But the way we identified her as

(23:12):
the culprit was because she left a fingerprint on a
piece of paper an application, because she had asked the
clerk there for an application, the job application, and then
she gave it back to the to the clerk just
before she left, and we found that one piece of

(23:32):
paper and it had that one fingerprint turns out that
she had been arrested in Chicago some time before that
at some protests, and the Chicago PD had fingerprinted her.
It was only because of that arrest in Chicago that
we knew it was Marie Haiti Torres, and we knew that,
you know, she was the wife of Carlos Torres, and
one thing led to another. Eventually she and her husband

(23:55):
and a few others were arrested in Evanston, Illinois a
few years later, and Marie eighty tours is now doing
a life sentence in a federal lock up out on
the West Coast.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
And one of the turning points too is as they
were creating bombs one night, one of them went off
and one of the founders of FAIL and blew his
hand off in the process. So that was the key
to identifying him.

Speaker 3 (24:16):
Yeah, Morales, who even injured as he was, was able
to escape from Bellevue Hospital.

Speaker 1 (24:22):
Yeah, by Colne window of all things.

Speaker 3 (24:26):
Yeah. But yeah, so if you're dedicated, I guess you
can do almost anything.

Speaker 1 (24:32):
Yeah. One of the things I didn't want to ask
you about correlating to the FAIL and is March of
eighty they do two raids and this is how far
they took it, and in today's scope of terrorism, you
would never think about something like this, But this did happen.
Back in March of eighty they raided the headquarters campaign
headquarters of then President Carter and Vice President Mondale, and
that occurred in Chicago. But then there was the raid

(24:52):
of George H. W. Bush's headquarters in New York City.
Any hand in that investigation.

Speaker 3 (24:57):
I do remember. I wasn't the case agent, but I
do rememb remember responding to the to the campaign office,
which I think was on fifty ninth Street, very close
to Park Avenue, and I remember that we were we
did the we were doing the crime scene investigation. But

(25:18):
other than that, I have to tell you my memory
is a little bit weak on that we are we
are talking a number of years ago. But yes, I
was involved in it, but not not in any supervisory way.

Speaker 1 (25:33):
That's fine. Joe Valket's our guest here in the Mike
neaven podcast, retired Supervisory Special Agent of the FBI, also
the FBI spokesman from nineteen eighty one until two thousand
and five. While you eighteen of the Beat profiles police nationwide.
Now you know, it's interesting segueing into you becoming the spokesman. So,
and this is something you volunteer for. It's not a
bad gig. But one of the originals is part of

(25:53):
Joint Terrorism Task Force when it was founded in eighty one.
Of the twelve agents assigned to it, you mentioned a
good partnership that was formed early on the New York
City Police Department. That's a good gig to have. It's
a gig that if one wants to stay there for
the remainder of their career, the majority of their career,
they could. But this opportunity opened up in eighty one.
You volunteered for it, you got it. So take me
through your thought process to go from JTTF to be

(26:15):
a spokesman.

Speaker 3 (26:17):
Well, I was always interested in the media and news,
and I remember watching Walter Cronkite when the Notley Brinkley
when the broadcast for only fifteen minutes long back in
the late fifties and early sixties. I think they went
to a half hour in nineteen sixty two or three.

(26:38):
But so I always had I always had that interest
in the back of my mind that you know, someday
if I could get in that line, you know, that
would be it would be good. There was a vacancy
in the New York office. Of course, New York being
the media capital of the world, we did have a
media coordinator in the in the New York office. The

(27:00):
problem was that there was a vacancy because my predecessor
had a bit of a got swept up in a
leak investigation on apscam, and as a result of that,
there was this vacancy. And you know, in the bureau

(27:21):
there is this there is this tendency to think of
dealing with the media as a ticket to nowhere. You
can only get into trouble, right, And so if you
wanted to ask me how many people volunteered for the
media job in New York, I would have to tell
you there was just one volunteer, and that was me.

(27:42):
So it was not a highly sought after a position,
but I expressed my interest and by process of elimination,
I got it and then wound up doing that for
twenty four years, most of that by myself, but then
about thirteen years later, in the mid mid nineties, I

(28:04):
was joined by Jim Mark Golan, who I don't know
if you know that name, but after he retired from
the Bureau. He became a spokesman for the Usitorney's Office
of the Southern District of New York. He has since
retired from that job as well. We're all getting older,
but anyway, so that's how I wound up in the
media position, was that nobody else wanted a number one,

(28:24):
and I had an interest in doing it. And that's
so I did that for twenty four years until I
retired No. Five.

Speaker 1 (28:33):
So I go back to something John Miller mentioned on
this program a few years ago when he was the
guest for my one hundredth episode, where he said, and
he wore both hats as a reporter and as somebody
in the side of law enforcement as well, mainly with
the NYPD, where you should never, un paraphrasing, expect law
enforcement to ask the press to be an arm for

(28:54):
them to get the message out or vice versa. But
at the same time there has to be that work
in relationship ship. Naturally the press wants to be clued
in what's going on because they have to relay that
message to the general public rather be a local or
national and in this instance locally in a hotbed like
New York City where you have legacy media like CBS,
NBC as well as ABC and Fox. You know, it's

(29:15):
critical to know, you know, to not only give an
insight into cases, but also listen on a more lighter level,
the good work the Bureau is doing it the serves
to be recognized.

Speaker 3 (29:24):
Oh absolutely, you know that. That's one message that I
tried to convey to the supervisors of the various squads
of the office. All that that. You know, the media
can sometimes be viewed as yours are as the investigator's enemy,
but also you know, there they can be helpful in

(29:47):
a lot of ways, and one of those ways is
getting the bureau's message out whether you're looking for a fugitive. Obviously,
we want publicity for the for the fugitive seeking leads
on a particular in a particular matter of ring or
or what have you. But uh, but I know that
over the years, every time I would walk into an

(30:09):
FBI supervisor's office, they would they would kind of look
askance at me like, oh, oh my god. If I'm
going to tell Joe this, you know, is he gonna
is he gonna leak this to the to the to
the media or whatever, which I you know, I would
not do that but but yeah, no, it's the one thing,
the one thing I always stood by, and the and

(30:32):
the Bureau always kind of instilled this in their media
coordinators around the around the country, is that you know,
you don't lie. You don't lie to the media. If
you can't say anything, don't say anything. You know it's
but but once, once you are caught in a lie,
then your credibility is shot and they're gonna believe you again.
But yes, we want we want positive publicity for the

(30:54):
Bureau because when that when those FBI agents go go
conduct their leads and go and see the super of
a building and pull out their credentials and say I'm
with the FBI, we want them to have a positive
view of the FBI and cooperate. We don't want them
to know be fearful that you know that they're only

(31:17):
going to get into trouble if they if they talk
to an FBI agent.

Speaker 1 (31:21):
I think part of it too, also goes back to
when cases are hot and heavy, and we'll talk about
some of the more notable ones in a little bit.
But nevertheless, like I said earlier, the press wants to know.
The press is an extension of the public. Therefore, the
public wants to know, but there's a balancing act where
and I'm glad you just mentioned not leaking anything where
you do want to keep the press formed to a
reasonable degree, but not at the risk of compromising the

(31:44):
case that the agents are building. And as somebody that
wore both hats, it was on the other side of that,
as an agent that had to build cases at times.
That's a delicate line to walk. So what was the
key for you to successfully walk it?

Speaker 3 (31:56):
Well, I guess it's just, I mean, was tough. The
it's it's your reputation, right, I mean, you're you're you're
basically are are only as good as your reputation is.
And it certainly was. Never if a reporter called me
when I was at the Bureau, if a reporter called
me with uh information that was wrong and about a

(32:23):
particular investigation that we were conducting, I would in a
in a subtle way, trying to steer that person away
from that because we don't want misinformation out there either,
because that they can only complicate what what the Bureau
is doing. I did feel when I when I went

(32:43):
made the jump, I'm getting a little bit ahead of
myself here. But when I made the when I made
the jump over to w n b C and sort
of on the other side of the fence. I did
feel that sometimes we in the media now, uh, were
in a race with those on the other side of
the fence, the Bureau or the NYPD or whoever it was,

(33:07):
to get the answers, you know, to find that witness,
to get that videotape from the you know, from the
surveillance camera from the bodega down the street or whatever.
And I always had mixed feelings about about that, uh,
And which is one of the reasons why I'm not

(33:28):
still doing still not doing that, because obviously we want
we want the cases to be solved and all that,
and we don't want premature you know, we don't want
witness statements to be in the media before the Bureau
or the or the NYPD can they can talk to
these witnesses and all that. It's it's a fine line,
and it's kind of like you have to feel your

(33:49):
way as you go, as you as you.

Speaker 1 (33:51):
Go, right, you know. And I harken back something that
happened in Los Angeles at the time when the police
back then, or at least a mayor at the time
was a little bit too candid about the night stalker
and the leads the police were building on the nightstalker,
and that allowed him to hear that essentially be able
to act around that. It continued killing. You know, it
threw the investigation off and threw it into haywire. That's

(34:11):
perhaps the most egregious example of the twentieth century. And
you know, again it still is talked about in the
twenty first century. So I mentioned hot and Heavy, and
we'll start with the BOP in terms of notable cases
while you were in spokesman, so before you became spokesman,
they were quite active at the seventies. You had the
assassination of Carmi Galante in seventy nine, which kickstarted internal
power struggle to murder the three capitals in eighty one.

(34:33):
Then you get the murder of Castellano and Bellati outside
Sparks Steakhouse, of which the fortieth anniversary is coming up
December of eighty five. So that plays into the prosecution
of the Five Families. God it becomes Boss. Unfortunately for
the mafia, he's not as low key as his predecessors
had been. A lot of indictments came down especially with

(34:53):
the Commission Trial being the spokesman during that time, as
you're seeing quite literally up power struggle for New York
and with law enforcement winning and the grip that mafia
had in New York being significantly weakened. What was that like?

Speaker 3 (35:08):
Well, I mean, that was an exciting time. You used
the correct term when you said the mafia is now weakened.
We would never want to say that the mafia is dead,
because it's not dead. But certainly back in the seventies,
during my time in the Bureau, in the seventies and
the eighties, the mafia reigned supreme. And it was only

(35:33):
in the early eighties that the prosecutors in the US
Attorney's offices both in the Southern District of New York
and the Eastern District of New York, as well as
the FBI and investigators started to use the Rico statue. Now,
the Rico Statute had been on the on the on
the books since like nineteen sixty seven or whatever around
that time, and but nobody understood how to use it

(35:57):
or what And finally, I don't know exactly who should
get the credit, but uh, but but it was decided
that you know what, we're going to have to attack
these people as a racketeering enterprise and which which carries
much greater penalties the life and a lot of these

(36:20):
mob bosses, the mob bosses that got convicted in that
commission case were all sentenced to life life terms even
I mean a lot they were they were old to
begin with. But but they were put away, you know,
for life after that. But the but the racketeering, the
Rico Statute allowed other crimes to predicate crimes, as they say,

(36:42):
to be brought into the conspiracy and made it easier
to attack this this monolith that was the Mob. Now
with all the convictions over the years, including subsequently Gaudy
and Sirih Gravano helped out on on that. No, the

(37:04):
the mob has definitely been weakened, but it's still a factor.
It's still there. The New York FBI office has reduced
the number of agents working organized crime. I don't know
exactly what the numbers are, and that's probably classified anyway,
But but there is still one or two squads that
are devoted to to to the traditional organized crime. But

(37:27):
simultaneous with that, though, there was yet another task force
that was formed in the eighties to to address the
problems of Asian and Eastern European organized crime element elements,
whether it be the Russian I forget exactly the name
of the Russian organized crime group, but but they were

(37:50):
very active out in Brighton Beach and the Brooklyn area
and all that, and and some of the Asian gangs
were into drugs and things here in the in the area.
So so the FBI and the NYPD were addressing all
of that as well as simultaneously addressing the traditional mob.

(38:11):
As I say, the traditional mob is not what it was.
It's still there and it'll probably never be totally eradicated
as long as as long as people are looking to
make a quick book and don't mind a little violence,
they're going to be there.

Speaker 1 (38:27):
Yes, I believe the term for Russian mafia is bratva
if I'm not mistaken.

Speaker 3 (38:31):
Uh, I thought that was another one. But I'm I'm
older than you, so my member is probably not as.

Speaker 1 (38:41):
But nevertheless, to your point, I mean, especially now with
social media being what it is, different apps existing for
different things. Mainly the FBI is heavily involved in the mafia,
rather is heavily involved in gambling. When you have these
betting apps as well. They can kind of rig that,
so they're always going to have a hand, but it's
not as compelling as it was back in the day
when you know, again, quite like I mentioned earlier, they

(39:03):
had their hands and literally everything you can think of, construction, movies,
you name it, they had a hand in it. And
you know, segueing that into Gotti, gott he had not
only run a muck, but in the process he had
made a mockery of the justice system. You know, he
didn't earn the nickname teflon Don for nothing, but it
was only his own carelessness that got him brought down ultimately.
Besides Gravano, I think even the Sami hadn't flipped, you know, eventually,

(39:26):
with how reckless and flamboyant John was. Much of the
chagrin of his fellow mobsters who were a little bit
more old school, he would have brought himself down anyway,
So finally being able to nail him. He was popular
in his neighborhood. But there's a lot of bodies behind
that and a lot of bloodshed behind that. What was
that like? And did it intrigue you at all to
see how anti his conviction and arrest his neighborhood in

(39:48):
the Italian community for at least for the most part
in New York City. How opposed they were to that?

Speaker 3 (39:52):
Oh, yeah, definitely. I mean Gotti had, as you say,
he had been able to skate on a number of
UH state convict jury trials. UH jury tampering was one
of his fortes or those around him. And UH we

(40:12):
had been we the FBI had been surveilling him outside
his social club in little Italy for you forever, and
finally there was information developed that when he had to
have one to have secret meetings where decisions were going
to be made as to who was going to get
hit and that kind of thing, he would go to

(40:34):
an apartment upstairs and the social club I think it
was Multis and it was there was a an older
woman who's had that apartment and basically and basically he
would tell her to leave and uh and he would
have his secret meetings with his intement up there. We

(40:55):
the FBI were able to uh plant electronic surveillance devices
in that apartment and that's where some of those tapes
came that were used at his subsequent federal trial. I
was I was at the office the night that he was.
I and Gravano were arrested in nineteen ninety I think

(41:18):
it was in December, and and he was he was
a gentleman as you would expect. I mean, when he
was being processed, photographed, fingerprinted, everything from his mouth was yes, sir,
no sir, and all that kind of thing. And uh.

(41:38):
But yes, the the the reaction from his neighborhood to
the charges being brought against him, we were very surprising
this he was actually larger than life. And you know,
and in a way, I mean that was very disappointing

(41:59):
to see that somebody like could be held up as
a as a hero in some quarters of New York.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
You know, it's kind of similar to Pablo Escobar to
a degree, different types of organized crime, but ultimately the
same perception publicly, or if you went to Pablo's Pablo's
neighborhood in Columbia, he was regarded as a hero. He
would supply them with food, He would supply them with
the basic necessities and take care of them, to essentially
have them eating out of the palm in his hand.
It was kind of a twisted case of Stockholm syndrome.

(42:28):
Not that God, he's so much preyed on the community.
He'd normally prayed on other criminals. But you know, the
common thing that I've heard with people who lived in
the neighborhood during that time is, oh, the neighborhood was
so safe. Everything was so prim and pristine. Nobody messed
with the neighborhood when he.

Speaker 3 (42:40):
Was right, And I think I guess it was for
the July. He used to put on a big fireworks
yes show and all that kind of thing for the
neighborhood and all that, and they appreciated that. I'm sure
it was.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
I'm sure it was spectacular, at least for the time being.
My favorite clip is after he was arrested, a reporter
I forget who, she asked how one gentleman felt about
the arrest. He's like, he was the best guy around. Yes,
what about all the people?

Speaker 3 (43:08):
He were what murder?

Speaker 1 (43:11):
That's just a glimpse into how they felt about him
at the time. Of course, he went to jail for
life in ninety two, died in two thousand and two
of cancer at the age of sixty two, and of
course was.

Speaker 3 (43:21):
One of the big accomplishments there, and factors in getting
him convicted was the cooperation of us his underboss Sammy,
and of course Samby has gone on to other other
things following is that that whole incident where he's gotten
into trouble subsequently when he was even after he was

(43:43):
in the witness protection program.

Speaker 1 (43:45):
Yeah, got kicked out, Yeah right, yeah, for of all
things drug trafficking in Arizona. Now he has a podcast
of his own, so yeah, he sat Man has led
a rather interesting life, to put it mildly right right
talking with Joe Valichet here the Mike the New Even
podcast while you mainteen of the beat profiles of police nationwides,
Do I do see your question. I'll try to get

(44:05):
to it a little bit later if I can. I
don't want you to think I'm ignoring it. So terrorism
had existed domestically and we're starting to see it kind
of sprout up in terms of feign adversaries bringing it
to United States Shorts. I go back to Mayra Kahani's
assassination in nineteen ninety as a hallmark moment because a
lot of the players involved with that would be involved

(44:26):
with the world trades that are bombing of February twenty
sixth of nineteen ninety three Elsa. Even no Sarah was
the shooter. He was one of the guys involved, of course,
in that plot. One of the guys that helped to
organize this defense fund was Osama bin Lad when that
and I'll take I'll let you kind of take it
from here. It's a cold day, it's kind of snowy,
and then just afternoon all hell breaks loose when that
truck bomb goes off. Take me through your.

Speaker 3 (44:47):
Day, Well, my day actually started at Newark Airport because
I was about to leave to go on a golf
vacation at Myrtle Beach. Obviously I didn't go. The uh
that was that was astounding to think that somebody would

(45:08):
drive a truck into the basement of the of the
World Trade Center and uh loaded. I guess it was
a uh, it wasn't. I think it was a U
haul truck. It was a rental truck rider truck, right,
I'm sorry. And uh and and basically their goal, their
goal was to bring down the building. Yeah, that's why

(45:29):
they went down into the basement and thought that, you know,
that's what they could achieve. But the uh, that's when
we really started to see foreign groups, foreign terrorists come
to the United States and do their dirty work here.
It's funny over the years, you know, we had these

(45:51):
domestic groups when you know F A, LN and and
all those, and then and then they kind of morphed
into this international uh groups coming here doing things and
eventually with the nine to eleven and what have you.
And now and now I know I'm getting ahead of us,
but but now we're sort of seeing the domestic groups
are you know, white nationalists and things like that. It

(46:14):
sort of becoming a domestic terrorism threat is rising to
the top again. So it kind of goes in cycles.
But but that day, the media attention on the first
Wild Trees and O Bombay in nineteen ninety three, of course,
was was huge. And I remember even Ted Copple came up.

(46:39):
He was doing Nightline at the time and on ABC,
and he wanted access to the This is a couple
of days after the bomb went off. He wanted access
to the to the site, and we did. It was
all secured at that point. We had recovered the evidence
that we thought would would help, so we allowed him

(46:59):
to go down there and he did a he did
one or two shows I think from from down there.
But of course in that crime scene. One of the
pieces of evidence that was recovered was the event number, Yes,
that ride a rental truck, which was traced then back
to a rental agency here in New Jersey. There was

(47:20):
rented here in New Jersey. I want to say Jersey City,
but I'm not I'm not sure if it was Jersey City.
But but anyway, so we contacted the investigators, contacted the
rental agency and found out that the person who rented
the the rider rental truck was going to come back
to get their deposits stupidly enough. So uh so, obviously

(47:46):
we set up a surveillance at the right of rental
facility and when he showed up, he was arrested, and
one thing led to another. But but yeah, we didn't
realize I guess we didn't realize at the time, just
how this was the beginning of what was to come,

(48:07):
certainly in our neck of the voods here in the
New York area, in terms of international terrorism.

Speaker 1 (48:15):
Well, I mean, of course you had Mohammed Salameh coming
back to get the deposit Specifically, it was the work
of and I have chronicled it on the program NYPD
Bomb Squad Detectic non sa Dowie and alumni of this
program who did some great work in that case at
the time to discover that VIT number with Joe Hanlon
I believe as well, who was an atf AGE and
the FBI was involved in that investigation quite heavily obviously

(48:35):
as well. And it's very much it kickstarts a period
of time even before nine to eleven. I'll just stop
short where the USS coal was bombed in October of
two thousand, where you're really starting to see just how
elaborate this network is. And a quick note before I
proceeded with that. By the way, this was also kind
of at least for the rest of the nation break
Kelly's coming out party. New York City knew who he was,

(48:56):
but he really became one of the leading voices at
that time as well, and his first did as NYPD commissioner.
But I'll never forget something he said a couple of
years ago when they were doing an interview with him
about the twentieth anniversary of nine to eleven, where he mentioned,
you know, he thought it was a one off. A
lot of people did in hindsight, you know this in
Hindsight's twenty twenty. Obviously it wasn't. But was that the
feeling in the bureau at the time that once they

(49:18):
were arrested considering you know, it seemed that the exception
of USEF, this was the game that couldn't shoot straight
and it wasn't one off? Was that the sentim.

Speaker 3 (49:25):
Yes, I think so. And as you say, it wasn't
too long after that, whether it was the bombing of
the Coal or the US embassies in Kenya and Tan Yep.
We're members of the Joy Terrorism Task Force, both detectives
and agents deployed to Africa, into Yemen and the instance

(49:52):
of the Coal investigation. The task Force actually became a
worldwide arm of of the US law enforcement and it
was recognized as as the premier investigative agency based on Unfortunately,
they were gaining a lot of experience because of all

(50:15):
these incidents and everything, so they were kind of the
go to the fly team when there was a US
entity that had been that was attacked by a terrorist
organization abroad. The tentacles of the task was really expanded.
You know, when it was first formed in nineteen eighty,
there were only twenty four of us. There were twelve

(50:36):
agents and twelve NYPD detectives. The detectives were from the
Arsenal Explosion Division. Now it's somewhere around four hundred or
so just in New York, Just in New York City,
it's somewhere around three fifty to four hundred, primarily FBI
and NYPD, but also atf and DEA is in there,

(51:01):
and US Customs ICE, you know, Ice, New York State Police.
Everybody and their brother is part of that task force,
and that became the model for the other one hundred
and twenty or so joint terrorism task forces that were
subsequently formed in other parts of the country.

Speaker 1 (51:22):
Bill Ryan, who is a detective assigned arsen explosion at
the time, says, not everyone thought it was on off.
I certainly did not, and yes, that is true. A
lot of people did think, mainly John O'Neill, who will
talk about a little bit as well, that it was
not a one off that they would return in a
return they did. And I do want to get the
TWA flight eight hundred and I will momentarily, but gradually
we saw the nineties when it came to terrorism, was

(51:43):
it was becoming more personal because think about it, nineteen
ninety three, that same year the helicopters of the US
military and Somalia are shot down. Nineteen ninety five, a
bomb explodes in Riad near a US Air Force base.
Klobar Towers is bombed, killing twenty US soldiers in nineteen
ninety six. We also, of course get as you mentioned
the bombing of Kenya and Tanzania and those those embassies

(52:05):
in Kenya and Tanzania ninety eight. The year before that,
two Hamaska i Is tried to blow up the subway
at nineteen ninety seven on Atlantic Avenue. So it's getting
more and more obvious just how violent this threat is
and how troubling and determined these individuals are, to say
the least. So before I moved to WA I'll ask
you when Bin Laden sat down with John Miller Fortnightlive

(52:26):
in nineteen ninety eight, when you saw that interview, I
imagine the hare on your neck had to stand up.

Speaker 3 (52:32):
Oh absolutely, John. I've known John for forty years, thirty
five or forty years, And first off, I'm not surprised
that he was able to get access to Osama. Bin
Laden NEWI there are mine, Yeah, given his talents and
all that, But yeah, I mean the message that was
that came out of that whole interview was definitely chilling,

(52:56):
and anybody who had any doubts as to what the
future held, they were relayed at that point. I mean,
everybody knew how ben Laden was the target of of
all of our investigative efforts from then.

Speaker 1 (53:13):
On, and we'll talk about how that came to a
head in two thousand and one. But smack dab in
the middle of this, and the concerns initially went to
terrorism was later proven not to be, but there were
still a lot of questions about it. July seventeenth, nineteen
ninety six, twa flight eight hundred explodes over Long Island
shortly after takeoff. More riches to be exact, goes into
the water. Everybody on board perished. We're not far removed

(53:34):
from Usef's arrest, and it's not just for the bombing
of the trade center that he's being arrested for. He
would eerily say, if I had a little bit more
money when they took off the cape over his head
and he looks at the trade center, if I had
a little bit more money and time, I would have
brought them both down. In line with that, he'd also
been arrested for Boljinga, which were those not familiar with
that plot. He wanted to blow up airliners across the world.

(53:56):
He had twelve planes in mind that he was trying
to bring down through bombs. Naturally, hearing this and not
too far removed from the bombing, we get t w
a flight eight Hunter going down in the sun of
ninety six. Excuse me, so when that first happened, just
take me through the night itself. And when you first
heard about this, did your initial mindset go to terrorist?

Speaker 3 (54:16):
Oh? Absolutely, yeah. I remember we all gathered in the
command post. The New York FBI office has a permanent
command post used for major arrests, situations, or you know,
other incidents that happened, and everybody immediately responded to that.

(54:39):
And the FBI had had an officer and satellite offices
out at JFK Airport as well as further out on
Long Island, and those agents all responded, as well as
the Nasau County and Suffer County in the New York
State Police. But yes, the the every but he thought

(55:00):
at first that this is definitely terrorism. And I remember
Jim Calstrom was the assistant director in charge of the
FBI office in New York at the time, another larger
than life figure.

Speaker 1 (55:14):
Yes, I would have left to have had him on
the show.

Speaker 3 (55:16):
Yeah, the late Jim Calstrom. And uh, I mean he
took the bull by the horns, and I remember that,
I guess was the next day he and I went
out to Senator Merchants, to the Coast Guard station out
there where the recovery, search and recovery effort was being

(55:40):
coordinated with the Coast Guard and what have you. Mayhem
I mean, it was just it was there was a
gargantuan effort to try to get assets together from the Navy,
the US Navy, the Coast Guard, and law enforcement to
recover victims number one, and then to send divers down

(56:06):
to try to recover as much of the of the
fuselage and the plane as possible. And then of course
the issue came up, well what are we going to
do with all this material that we recover and wound
up identifying a hangar at the Grumman. Grumman gave it,
gave us the use of one of the hangars where

(56:27):
the reconstruction happened, and a good part of that plane
was reconstructed. I don't know if you remember seeing photos
of that.

Speaker 1 (56:35):
Yeah, it was in the hangar for about twenty five
years until fifth anniversary.

Speaker 3 (56:38):
Yeah, I walked inside that the reconstruction. I mean it
was very, very eerie. But anyway, the the it was
through the United States Navy that had the side scanning
sonar and and and the really these really professional divers
that we were able to recover the victims as well

(57:00):
as the debris. But of course, the the the everybody
was supposing that this was either a bomb on the
plane or or malfunction on the plane. And then of
course there was also the theory out there that the
United States had accidentally shot down the plane. Yes, because

(57:24):
they were there were one or two Navy ship cruisers
that were off the coast of Long Island doing some
kind of training exercises or whatever, and they were equipped
with with missiles and would have rockets that the theoretically
could have been launched. That that theory took on a

(57:48):
life of its own, and the people who were proponents
of that theory would not listen to reason. We had.
We had gone to Saint Asian UH and other investigators
out to those ships. We interviewed all every crew member,
took an inventory of their their weaponry. Nothing was missing.

(58:12):
And uh, and and to think that with all the
sailors that would have been involved in this and would
have witnessed it, that some one of them wouldn't have
whispered to a girlfriend or a wife or whatever that hey,
you know, our our ship was responsible. And but it's unbelievable.
So we never really gave that much credence, although Peter,

(58:32):
Pierre Sallenger and a few others, uh did Pierre Sallenger,
you know, being the journalist but also the press secretary
for John President Kennedy years ago. But working with the NTSB,
the National Transportation Safety Board, we were able to bring

(58:53):
the debris in and and the metallers just went over
everything that was recovered, the scientists, the chemists and whatever.
And finally, as you know, I'm sure that there was
determined that there was a short in a wire. There
are miles and miles of wires wiring in the seven
forty seven. There was a short in one of the

(59:16):
wires that went through the main the central fuel tank
of the of the plane. If you recall, this was July.
It was a hot night, it was, yes, but the
plane was late taking off, so it was everybody was
on board. It was it was sitting on the tarmac,

(59:36):
engines running air conditioning going and that fuel center fuel
tank was not totally full because they didn't they felt
they didn't need all the tanks to be filled to
fly to Paris. So there was a It was determined
that this broken wire that went through the center fuel

(59:57):
tank created some sort of a spark which ignited the
fumes that were in the central the center of fuel tank. Uh,
and that's that's what caused the explosion. Since then, I
guess the wiry does not go through uh fuel tanks

(01:00:17):
and uh and I think the fuel tanks are always
totally filled now. They don't want they don't want the vacancy,
you know, in the space in these fuel tanks where
fumes can accumulate. So so that's what came out of that,
But that that was always not everybody believes that that theory.
But I think I think most people kind of accept

(01:00:40):
that that was the cause.

Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
Yeah, I've I've had a few friends of mine from
the bomb squad on this program to kind of dissect
that case who are involved in the investigation. I've had
differing perspectives. I understand all I understand where each one's
coming from. And at the time I remember correctly the
black box was obtained, but it was when you heard
the audio, it wasn't as definitive or conclusive to identify. Oh, yeah,
this is where things went wrong. That's why that happened, right,

(01:01:04):
you're right.

Speaker 3 (01:01:04):
I had forgotten about that. But yes, the black box
was recovered on the two black boxes, and yeah, they
didn't really help a whole lot.

Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
Yeah, one thing I didn't want to gloss over either
before I get to Unfortunately, nine to eleven a few
months after this, again continuing the theme of terrorism and
it's nexus to America and particularly New York City. I
don't know if the Bureau ever figured out who sent them,
but January nineteen ninety seven letter bombs the United Nations
targeting Al Hayat, which was a controversial Arabic language newspaper,

(01:01:34):
notable in that it would publish perspectives from all sides
of the political spectrum, which in the Middle East, as
we know, it's especially folatile. Four bombs is specific to
different offices, one in Washington, d C. About a few
of them in New York City. The NYPD bomb Squad
was able to successfully diffuse. The ones in New York,
one of which I forget where it was sent to,
went off injuring a couple of workers. Any involvement was

(01:01:56):
as a spokesman at a time with that, And did the
Bureau ever really identify who had sent those bombs from
the first place.

Speaker 3 (01:02:02):
I'm going to have to plead the ignorance says that
I I don't really recall. Yeah, that was a long
time ago. I really don't recall that.

Speaker 1 (01:02:13):
No worries, No worries. I was covered before on this
program as part of the Tails from the Boom Room
series that occurred on Monday, January thirteenth of nineteen ninety seven,
four bobs in total.

Speaker 3 (01:02:24):
I remember, I remember the incident, but I don't remember
the aftermath and whether whether anybody was ever held responsible.

Speaker 1 (01:02:31):
No problem, no problem. So that segues into again, you know,
just to set the stage. John O'Neill was a maverick.
John O'Neill had a style that some loved, others did it.
He had been one of the early voices. He wasn't
the only one, but he was one of the earliest
voices to point out the threat had been Ladden. He
was working in the New York Field Office during that time,
having different meetings with the likes of NYPD Commissioner Howard Safer,

(01:02:53):
NYPD Chief of Department Lou Animon, and different figures to
alert them to this threat. John had been a part
of the investing into the coal bombing in two thousand,
which was difficult because I'll never forget what somebody said
in that episode of Nightline featuring Midlaten in ninety eight
where they described the FBI, at least in the Middle
East as a forensic bull in a Arab China shop.

(01:03:13):
It was always going to be a volatile relationship which
came to a head in of course, two thousand and one,
with September eleven, two thousand and one. Right, I'll just
let you take take me through in the audience by
extension that day. Where were you when at eight forty six,
everything for the Bureau, everything for the world changed.

Speaker 3 (01:03:30):
Well, let me just before I do that, let me
just say about John O'Neale. He I got to know
him very well in New York and he was a
special Agent in charge of the FBI's counter Terrorism Division
in New York, and he himself had gone to Yemen
on the coal investigation, and he was recognized as a

(01:03:51):
terrorism expert. And I always remember during that summer of
two thousand and one, I always remember him saying to
folks in the office that something's happening, something's gonna happen,
something's coming. Unfortunately, he turned out to be prophetic. John

(01:04:13):
retired from the Bureau and UH at the end of
August and UH he's hired by Larry Silverstein to become
the head of security at the World Trade Center talk
about irony, Yeah, and and John is seen on the
day of nine to eleven the videotape that was taken

(01:04:37):
by the two French videographers, Yeah, who were doing the
documentary on the videotape that they took in the lobby
of one of which tower I forget, but you can
see John. You can see John on the phone making calls.
You probably calling headquarters to see what you know, what
they knew, and all that kind of thing. And of

(01:04:59):
course John became one of the victims of of the
collapse of one of the towers. But on that day,
as everybody knows, it was a bright, beautiful day. Everybody
thought there was a Tuesday. I'm pretty sure it was
a Tuesday, and we sitting in the office. Our office

(01:05:20):
was about four blocks away from the World Trade Center,
the Federal Building was and I remember hearing a buzz noise,
buzzing noise come over the top of the building, which
was which was strange. I figured it was a helicopter
or whatever. And then you hear a bang, and I
heard one of the secretaries yell that a plane had

(01:05:40):
just gotten gone into flown into the one of the towers.
It would have been the North tower. And uh so,
uh like everybody else, we figured at first this was
an accident, you know, there was there was some malfunction
in the plane or whatever, and uh so, so our

(01:06:01):
office I immediately responded to the area down there, and
I remember, uh, I guess was maybe a half hour later.
I was looking out the window of our from our
conference room. I was looking at the smoke coming out
of the tower on that first plane, when all of
a sudden, that big burst of flame got ball of

(01:06:23):
flame comes out of the South tower because that second plane,
which I couldn't see because it was south of the
of where I was, but that second plane had approached
from the south and went into the South tower, and
I was just happened to be watching the two towers
when that burst comes out, and then of course we
knew this is this is deliberate. Everybody and their brother

(01:06:49):
responded to the scene. We actually evacuated everyone, all the
other agencies that were in the world in the twenty
six Federal Plaza because we didn't know whether the World
Trade Center was the only target, were there going to
be other targets in Lower Manhattan because there had been
significant terrorist prosecutions of Ramsey Yusef and others right across

(01:07:14):
the street in the in the in the Federal Courthouse,
and so we didn't know, you know, we didn't know
what we didn't know. So so make a long story short,
we had to relocate the entire office to our parking
garage which was up on the west side Highway twenty
fifth Street I think it was, and we had to

(01:07:36):
dump all the cars out of the out of the
garage and basically set up a huge command post in
our parking garage. NYPD was there, everybody was there. I
remember the assistant director in charge at the time, Barry
mad Was was in building number seven with Rudy Giuliani

(01:07:58):
and Bernie Carrick. When that building uh was eventually collapsed
because if you remember, the city had recently built their
their own command post, it was the Office of Emergency Management. Yeah,
and they were in that the the bottom of that
building when that that building came down. It was only

(01:08:21):
by the by luck that they were able to make
their way out. But anyway, the we couldn't go back
to our office because there was all kinds of soot
coming in through the ventilation system, and obviously the whole
phone system lower Manhattan was was dead. So we worked
out of our garage. But we lost two FBI people

(01:08:46):
that day. One was John O'Neill and the other was
Lenny Hatton. Lenny Hatton was was had been an agent,
longtime agent on our Bank Robbery Squad Bank Robbery Task Force,
but he was also a volunteer firefighter in his hometown
in Jersey, and as he was driving to the office
that morning, he's he was on the Jersey side of
the Hudson River and saw the flames and all that.

(01:09:08):
He immediately went to the World Trade Center site and
he eventually became a victim of the collapse of one
of the towers as well. But unforgettable period of time,
Mayor Giuliani deserves a lot of credit for calming the

(01:09:32):
city or as much as anybody, and he, you know,
was much as humanly possible, and it was a gargantuan
effort to recover the debris and whatever and eventually get
it out to a landfill in Staten Island. I mean,
this was an amazing, amazing effort. And of course simultaneously

(01:09:54):
with all this we get reports that a plane is
gonna hit the Pentagon, so so nobody really knew how
how far flung this whole incident was going to be.
But I mean, it's certainly a day that nobody's ever
going to forget, and you know, it's something we should remember.

(01:10:16):
I know, I'm always going to remember looking at that
building when that second second plane went in.

Speaker 1 (01:10:21):
And then thank you for sharing your perspective on that,
and a couple of notes on that. To your point
about not knowing at the time that the trade center
was the only target, it's worth noting that bin Laden
granted in at Sempstua or in absent you at the time.
I've been indicted in that very court room, you know,
year by twenty six federal process for his role in
financing numerous terrorist stacks, including most recently the ninety eight
bobbing of the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. So there

(01:10:44):
was a significance for sure, and a correlation to where
nobody knew in that moment, right, it was.

Speaker 3 (01:10:48):
A legitimate concern that they were going to target that courthouse.

Speaker 1 (01:10:51):
Yeah, and with Lenny, it's worth noting you mentioned John
appearing in the footage. Lenny appears in the footage too
for the Nowday Brothers. So he's visibly wearing a white
shirt and khaki pants. And given he kind of fell
back on his firefighting role, he was helping. He was
last seen in the South Tower, I believe, according to

(01:11:12):
what I've read, helping fireman evacuate the victims. He was
returning radio traffic back. There's audio this on YouTube. Two
agents who knew where he was. And then after the
South Tower they did not hear from him any longer.
So he died as he lived. He died heroically, right.

Speaker 3 (01:11:27):
And let me say two about John O'Neill. John Uh,
in his own way, was a larger than life figure.

Speaker 1 (01:11:34):
Yes, he was King of Alanes exactly, and.

Speaker 3 (01:11:37):
But John could be at the lanes it's all late
at night, but he was always in the office the
next morning by eight o'clock, shoeshine pants pressed, uh. And
he knew everything that was going on in his division.
I mean, I don't know when he ever slept, but
he was h It really is a tragedy what happened

(01:12:03):
to him.

Speaker 1 (01:12:04):
And he was last seat in the South Tower helping
as well. He was an FBI agent to the very end,
and he died as he lived helping others. And a
documentary for those of you if you haven't seen in
the audience that I highly recommend about John and what
he knew as well, The Man Who Knew, which TV
has produced and aired in October of two thousand and two. John,
if you wrote a movie about the guy, and they
did actually put together a TV show about him, The

(01:12:25):
Looming Tower, which is also a must watch on Hulu.
But if he wrote a movie on the guy, he
could be hard pressed to find a guy to play him.
He led quite the life right.

Speaker 3 (01:12:33):
He was a very controversial figure within the mule. It's
a variety of reasons here.

Speaker 1 (01:12:39):
So I'll ask you after a tragedy like this, which
is personal for a variety of reasons, namely a chief
among them, because of not only the proximity to the
trade center, I'm sure just beyond obviously losing John and Lenny.
Even if you don't you didn't know Lenny that well,
it's still one of yours who was killed in the
line of duty in this attack. I'm sure he had
several friends in the fire department, in the police department,
maybe even billions who worked in those towers who perished

(01:13:01):
that day. Trying to be the spokesman in the aftermath
is something like this, when people want to know, people
are out for blood, particularly the lattens, and you're grieving
your own losses. How did you manage that? What helped
you keep it together during late two thousand and one
early two thousand and two, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:13:19):
We were really behind the behind the eight ball, because
you know, the era of cell phones and all was
like just at the at the beginning, and as I say,
our phone systems were down for a long time, and
it was really tough to communicate. The only way we
really had to communicate I couldn't take phone calls from

(01:13:40):
the media. As a matter of fact, you mentioned Lenny
Levitt at the beginning of our talk today, Lenny Levitt
wrote in a column one time, where's Joe valle cat? Yeah,
because he couldn't get hold of me, He later explained
to another column. But anyway, uh, Mayor Giuliani and Commissioner Carrick,

(01:14:03):
and our boss and the BARRYMND, as well as other
folks from the city. I held daily, yeah, daily press conferences,
and that was the only way to get the word out,
is to you know, what where the investigation stood and
and what you know, what progress was being made, and
to try to basically calm the city and in the

(01:14:25):
lay fears that you know, something else, the other shoe
was about to drop. It's tough, especially when you can't
when you can't communicate with anyone. Uh So for the
so basically to answer your question. For the first couple
of weeks in all, we were kind of flying by
the seat of our pants media wise, and I really

(01:14:48):
couldn't be that responsive.

Speaker 1 (01:14:51):
And it's understandable in a situation like that. I'm evident
I'm looking for the column now. I was written about
late September of two thousand and one. Uh Spook's been found,
it says here September twenty fourth, the FBI New York.
It says here in lady's comb, the FBI's New York
Office spokesman Joe Valaqett has surfaced. Unlike your humble servant
who couldn't find him last week, three other news Day
reporters had no trouble locating him.

Speaker 3 (01:15:12):
Balaqett reports, As I said at the beginning, Lenny there
was always an edge to lennybody, but he was he
was fair. He did the right thing there.

Speaker 1 (01:15:23):
Yeah, of course he did. He had definitely he was
a man of integrity for sure, amongst many other things.
So you know again, and you're to your point. Just
to wrap up our discussion on terrorism and counter terrorism,
segue into your news reporting career. There was a time
when producer Victor knows that he was living in New
York City at the time where there was legitimate concerns
and warnings from that moment when the World Trade Center

(01:15:46):
was attacked again in two thousand and one to about
two thousand and three and two thousand and four by
both New York City police officials and by the FBI
as well as other branches of federal law enforcement. Another
terrorist attack is imminent. I mean New Yorkers are still
on edge. But in two thousand two, two thousand and three,
New Yorkers, in terms of being on edge, it was
it was at a crescendo, and how could it not
be right?

Speaker 3 (01:16:06):
And the only thing you can do is is try
to try to communicate with you know, through any means. Uh.
You know, we did a lot of newspaper interviews. Uh.
It's funny the Bureau, unlike the NYPD, the Bureau is
not big on engaging with the media.

Speaker 1 (01:16:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:16:29):
I was speaking, you know, more broadly than just the
New York Office, which I find ironic given the fact
that the Bureau's reputation was really created by a very
media savvy person in the name of J. G. Hoover.
Yes for good for ill. But but he did get
the Bureau's reputation out there with the g men and

(01:16:51):
in the movies and the newsreels and all that back
in the thirties and in the in the forties. But yeah,
but the Bureau does not have a very robust uh
media uh presence and uh. And part of that is
because of the Department of Justice media guidelines, which are
very very restrictive. Basically, they say you can't say much

(01:17:15):
of much of anything beyond what's in the public record
by way of indictments or criminal complaints or or what
have you. It doesn't mean that you can't do uh
interviews about general crime problems or terrorist threats that may
be afoot but uh, you know, but but but we're
always cognizant of the fact that we don't want to

(01:17:36):
jeopardize an investigation and say something that we you know,
that we shouldn't. Uh. I can I. I still kind
of think though that the Bureau is UH is a
little bit too slow to react sometimes media wise to
U two events.

Speaker 1 (01:17:56):
That's a debate that can go on, you know, for
for a long long time. And I can see where
you're coming from. And you had a perspective that few did.
That brings us into two thousand and five. Now I
go back to John because it's funny when John left
NBC for the NYPD in nineteen ninety four, when Commissioner
Bratton came in the first time, his colleagues kidding him
that he was going over to the dark side. So

(01:18:16):
you leave in two thousand and five and do the reverse.
You go from law enforcement into media. Now, granted, your
passion for as we discussed earlier, had always been there,
but nevertheless it had been a whirl win last few
years with nine to eleven and its aftermath. It had
been a hell of a career for you as well.
Nearly thirty years in the bureau, thirty years in total,
from seventy five to five. What was it that ultimately

(01:18:38):
made you say, Okay, you know what, it's time to
close just this chapter of my life and open up
a new one with WNBC.

Speaker 3 (01:18:44):
Well, part of the one of the factors that went
into the equation was that I was approaching retirement age.
You know, the Bureau has a mandatory fifty seven year
retirement age, and at the time I was fifty five.
And as long as you have twenty years in our
at least fifty years old, you can retire and collect
a pension. So I was sort of approaching the end anyway.

(01:19:10):
And because of the position that I held as media
coordinator in the FBI, I became acquainted with the Jonathan
Dean story to WNBC, the chief investigative reporter, and helt
with him a lot, and he knew I was sort
of thinking about retiring, and he said, well, you know,

(01:19:31):
one day he called me. He said, you know, we're
going to put together an investigative team here of on
air people and producers. Would you think would you consider
coming over? And I thought about it, and I said yes,
And so following I guess, I retired in February of
five and in March I was then working out of

(01:19:53):
three Rockefeller Plaza in the WNBC newsroom and did that
for thirteen years, I guess, And I was. I was
helping mainly Jonathan Dean's but but also any of the
other reporters and producers who had to interact with the

(01:20:14):
FBI or other federal law enforcement entities on stories that
they were working on. They would come to me and
see if I could, you know, increase the skids a
little bit or give them some guidance.

Speaker 1 (01:20:28):
At the time, I think I think Sarah was She's
part of the how Sarah Wallace you crossed passed with
say as well, right, Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:20:33):
Definitely, yeah. You know, she was a long time WABC,
but then she came over to WNBC maybe two years
before I left.

Speaker 1 (01:20:41):
Fantastic reporter. I really enjoyed Sarah Wallace's work. So you know,
these are high profile cases in which you're not only
covering anything federal, but obviously local with the NYPD as well.
So in terms of interaction, even if they know you
and you obviously had a track record, you went way back,
both in the federal and the local side. You'd been
an ally, you've been a partner. There's still that and
we talked about it earlier. Bureau to media, there's that trepudation.

(01:21:05):
Media to bureau, there's also equal levels of trepidation because
even if you were involved in it in the past,
the guard may come down slightly, but the guard's still there.
What was key in helping to kind of ease attention
and allow for good communication.

Speaker 3 (01:21:17):
Well, you know, I always did feel a bit awkward,
to be quite honest, in my role as producer of WNBC,
when I had to call back to the FBI, for instance,
because you know, there were FBI agents spotted and wearing
ray jackets on Queen's Boulevard. What are they doing? That
kind of thing? And I always did feel kind of

(01:21:38):
awkward calling to see if I could get some sort
of guidance or whatever. The thing I had going for
me was that I had they everybody as a bureau
and then some of the other law enforcement agencies knew me,
and they knew that that neither I Norah Jonathan D's
for whom I was working. Primarily, we're going to do

(01:22:01):
anything that was going to jeopardize an investigation, even the
slightest bit of help when I would call the Bureau
and say, you know, are we on the right track
if we were to report this, are we going to
jeopardize anything? Are we on the right track? And if
we could just get some little sense of yeah, you're

(01:22:22):
on the right track without them spilling the beans, obviously,
I mean that was enormously helpful, but I think they
only did that because of my time on this side
of the fence and and the reputation that Jonathan has
and that I had, So it kind of worked out.

(01:22:42):
But yeah, no, I'll admit I did feel awkward calling
back there. It would have been great if they had
spilled all the beans to me, but I didn't really
think they would, and they didn't.

Speaker 1 (01:22:56):
And I can understand that too to degree, because I mean, again,
once you leave, even if they respect you, and obviously
you didn't leave on acrimonious terms, there is well you're
on the other side now, so it's a little bit
different and wearing both hats. You know. Again, I'm sure
it kind of came full circle for you if there
was some frustration on the media side over things that
you wouldn't divulge because you couldn't. Now, I guess you

(01:23:16):
could understand the reporter's pain on the other side of
the coin.

Speaker 3 (01:23:19):
Oh absolutely. I must say that one of the things
that I found very heartening, if that's the word. Once
I came over to NBC, especially when we were contributing,
when Jonathan and I were contributing stories to the network
or helping out the network NBC News itself on various

(01:23:42):
whether it's a terrorism story or whatever. What I found
reassuring was the degree to which NBC always had the
lawyers involved. You write a script, and if it was
really sticky sensitive subject matter, yeah, subject matter, the lawyers

(01:24:03):
got involved because they wanted to make sure that we
were being fair and that we weren't uh, you know,
defaming anyone or or or jeopardizing anything. And I found
that to be reassuring. Actually, I didn't know that when
I was on the law enforcement side. I didn't know
the degree to which the care goes into the stories,

(01:24:27):
at least at the legacy Media's now obviously we can't
say that about every media outlet in the world, and
you have to kind of, you know, watchr you know,
have a sophisticated outlook as to I always told I
always told the people in the bureau that succeeded me
in the media office, just know who you're talking to.

(01:24:48):
If it's somebody, if it's a reporter that's calling you
that you've never dealt with before, or they're from you know,
they're calling you from Las Vegas, was some place, somebody
that you have no relationship, you know, be careful. But
if it's somebody that you have an ongoing relationship with
that you know is not going to do anything to

(01:25:09):
jeopardize an investigation, because if they jeopardize an investigation, they're
never going to get help again. It's then the reporter's
interest not to jeopardize the investigation because they they'll the
bureau will never help them again. But if somebody comes
along and calls you that you have a relationship with
and you feel that you can kind of give a

(01:25:30):
little guidance without going too far, do it. But again,
you've got to be careful. You have to know who
you're talking to and and so anyway, coming over to
NBC open my eyes is to the care and that
they put into all their stories. I was pleasantly surprised.

Speaker 1 (01:25:52):
Yeah, they're a very well run organization. There's a lot
of reporters at NBC that I respect. I would love
it if I can get some of them on this program,
and hopefully before working on that so in the near future,
hopefully that can be a reality.

Speaker 3 (01:26:02):
I'll lobby on your behalf.

Speaker 1 (01:26:04):
I appreciate that. And one of them would be mister Deans.
So let's spend some time on him, because again thorough
with the capital T is mister Dean's his coverage and reporting.
He's very well respected across the board. You go way
back with him, as you mentioned earlier, what did you
most enjoy about working with him? And what do you
think is the best quality in him not only as
a reporter, but as a person.

Speaker 3 (01:26:22):
Well as a reporter. I mean he is dogged. Yeah,
at the end of the day, towards the end of
the day, when if I'd be getting ready to leave
and then something happened, I knew we were here for
the long haul all night. Because Jonathan is another one
of those people that never sleeps. He's a bulldog when

(01:26:46):
when the story is when something happens, very very thorough.
His his his cash of sources throughout the New York
City metropolitan area alat especially on the law enforcement side,
is astounding. He has very good sources and that's because

(01:27:10):
they trust him and it's his reputation. He's been around
for I guess almost thirty years now, and so so
working with him it was great because we we we
knew that, you know, we were gonna put anything on
the air willy nilly that wasn't right. And plus I

(01:27:33):
mean as a person, I mean, he's a great guy.
He's he's always talking about his dogs and his kids.
He's a very friendly guy. I'm not sure how well
you might know him, but but you know, working with
him was actually easy, except for when when the story
was was breaking, then all all hell rocals.

Speaker 1 (01:27:57):
Well, one thing I'll ask you that thank you for
opening up on him. Like I said, he's someone I
don't know him on a deeply personal level. We know
one another professionally through LinkedIn primarily, but I've definitely left
to have him on this program eventually. But I'll ask
you during those thirteen years in NBC, a lot of
major stories covered. What's one that stands out?

Speaker 3 (01:28:15):
Oh, it's probably working on the Senator Robert Menendez. Yes,
I mean that that went on forever.

Speaker 1 (01:28:25):
Yeah, that was a long time.

Speaker 3 (01:28:27):
I was involved in the early The early stage is
when in that case, I think he won an appeal
as opposed to the most recent one which I had
nothing to do with. But but I worked with the
Jonathan on the Menandez case, the the the Sheldon Silver,

(01:28:48):
the New York State Assembly speaker was charged with extortion
and what have you back forget I forget exactly what
year that was, but but I worked with him on that.
Bernie Carrick when when he got charged for line the

(01:29:10):
line to the authorities and tax fraud regarding renovations that
were made to his apartment that he had and I
think it was in the Bronx or.

Speaker 1 (01:29:20):
Upper Manhattan in the Riverdale area.

Speaker 3 (01:29:23):
Yeah right, Basically he got free renovations done by a
construction company that was had mob connections. And I remember
I remember chasing Bernie Carrick with a microphone up in
the Bronx one time trying to get a comment from him.

(01:29:43):
I really felt O doing that because because not too
many years prior to that, when he was commissioner, I
remember sitting next to him at the FBI office when
some big case was happening and he was the commissioner
and I was in the FBI, and here now I'm
chasing him down the street with a microphone. But we

(01:30:03):
also had the pressure cooker bombers in Manhattan and over
in Jersey. I forget what year, it was sixteen two,
that was sixteen Yeah, there were two pressure cookers. I
think one of them went off and the other one
was recovered down to the Chelsea section of Manhattan, and

(01:30:24):
then there were several that were recovered over in New Jersey.
I mean, those are those are the ones that stand
out at the moment.

Speaker 1 (01:30:34):
And again they were all very noteworthy. So you had
to believe in. And I'll ask you two questions, kind
of put a bow on your time at NBC and
your time on the Bureau. Thirty years will start with
the Bureau. Thirty years in the bureau across that time
from nineteen seventy five to two thousand and five, What changed,
what stayed the same?

Speaker 3 (01:30:51):
What changed? Well, the technology changed, certainly, but not the
Bureau does not have the technology that you see on TV,
uh these days, the three FBI shows that are on
CBS on at least they were on Tuesday nights last
TV season, where you know, they get that they get

(01:31:12):
a photo of somebody and they can immediately through facial
recognition and UH and other means identify the person and
what kind of car drives and and everything. Nothing is
instantaneous as as TV makes it out to be. But
but there have been advances in technology, just as they
have been changes over the years in the Bureau's priorities.

(01:31:35):
As I said, you know, back when I started, UH,
violent crime was was a priority, the bank robberies and
the future, the futures and that kind of thing, and
the Bureau has kind of weaned its way away from that.
It's funny it was during that period that the mandatory
retirement age was enacted by Congress because because the Bureau

(01:31:56):
was job was viewed as a as a young person,
young man's job, because it was basically men, although there
were a few women at the time, and they thought, well,
you know, only the young folks can run down the
street and chase. After some fusion of and all, well
that's all changed obviously, with the advent of cyber criminals

(01:32:18):
and computers and what have you. So the Bureau winds
up losing a lot of experience by having such an
early retirement age. But it's really going to take an
Act of Congress to ever change that. But but the Bureau,
the Bureau's priorities have changed, and uh after after nine

(01:32:40):
to eleven, Bob Muller, then Director, basically put a greater
emphasis on counter terrorism counterintelligence over white collar crime and
political corruption and which was still being addressed, but not
to the degree that they had been prior. So I mean,
that's that's probably the biggest change. It's an evolving an

(01:33:02):
evolving atmosphere as and as it should be. You want
to be consistent with the times, and this is where
we are and this is what we should be doing.

Speaker 1 (01:33:13):
Of course, And I'll ask you the same question when
it comes to NBC thirteen years across the board there,
what changed, what stayed the same?

Speaker 3 (01:33:23):
What changed? I don't know that much did change, to
be honest, I mean, because I was sort of there.
I mean I got there not that long ago, and
so whatever phase they're in, I think I came in
in that phase that they're still in so I can't

(01:33:44):
really identify any changes from my time at w NBC,
to be honest.

Speaker 1 (01:33:53):
All right, no problem there, And again this is this
has been a heck of a conversation with you, and
this brings us into rabid fire now, and I thank
you very much for your time. Five hit run questions
for me, Five hit run answers from you, And the
first one is you can say past if you want
to as well. First question I'll ask you is, either
as the FBI spokesman or as a reporter for NBC,
what would you say was the most intense press moment

(01:34:15):
you ever had?

Speaker 3 (01:34:18):
Well, the t w A eight hundred, I would think,
I mean, you can always say nine to eleven. But
as I said earlier, I wasn't those initial days, I
wasn't really hitteracting with the media. But t w A
eight hundred was, you know, right off the bat again,
because there were so many conflicted, conflicting theories, and of
course the victims, the over two hundred victims were a number.

(01:34:43):
I don't know if it was the majority of mine,
but there were young students the victim the victims themselves
were just the age, you know, the youth. It just
added to the tragedy of the whole event.

Speaker 1 (01:34:56):
Besides t W a case that sticks with you the most.

Speaker 3 (01:35:00):
Well, nine to eleven, that's that's kind of It's probably
not surprising having lost the two FBI friends that I had,
and in a couple since then, who you know who
developed various cancers and respiratory issues and all that and
succumbed to them. Some of those folks were working at

(01:35:22):
the landfill in Staten Island and a couple of others
were working down at ground zero sifting through the initial
debris and all that, and you know, as everybody was
doing that, nobody was really thinking about the consequences of
that down the.

Speaker 1 (01:35:39):
Road, unfortunately. And you're still seeing people across the board
who were down there first, sponsors from the fire Department,
police departments for Athorty, n NYPD, you like, and the
bureau still paying the price, still passing away from nine
to eleven related illnesses, and NYPD captain just died at
fdny EMT just died from nine to eleven cancer. So
it's still take third question, on a lighter note, of

(01:36:02):
the rapid fire when they portray it on television, what's
one thing in movies too. What's one thing Hollywood always
gets wrong about the FBI. You mentioned technology earlier, earlier,
what else?

Speaker 3 (01:36:13):
Well, yeah, the technology is the first thing I would
go to. But secondly, at least what I have seen
on these on the TV. I know so much about
the movies, but the TV side, there are agents that
are running around with these outfits with the big through
the letter the big three letters FBI on their backs

(01:36:35):
as just as they're conducting leads. I mean, they're not
even going out on an arrest or you know, some
high high tension event, which I turned to my wife,
who also is a veteran of the FBI. That's where
we met, and uh, and I look at her and say,
this is so, this is so unbelievable. So it's technology

(01:36:58):
plus just the way they tray, at least on these
TV shows anyway, the dress of the agents, I mean
gone o the days when FBI agents are wearing fedoras
and uh, you know, in white shirts with the ties.
You know, it used to be said that Jaed go
Hoover always said that, man, if you want to go
under cover on surveillance, just take off your tie and

(01:37:21):
unbutton your top the top button on your on your
white shirt and you're you're undercover. Uh that that's how
you know, stayed we were at the time. But uh,
but yeah, that's that's one thing I think that Hollywood
do gets wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:37:38):
Another thing too. I'm not saying FBI agents when the
time comes and you're dealing with the violent suspect, don't
get their hands dirty and throw hands and throw down
with some of these guys. But the hand to hand
combat scenes i've seen.

Speaker 3 (01:37:52):
Yes, it never No, that's a good point, I mean absolutely,
And you know, I mean the Bureau tries to do
everything uh o. If they're going to go out and
arrest or they try to use overwhelming force. And by
that I mean numbers of people. In the TV shows
they have two wages go uh into the warehouse, uh,

(01:38:13):
you know, looking for the bad guy. Uh when you know,
when time is not of the essence. I mean, they
can certainly round up a whole cadre of of support
squad people and snipers and all that kind of thing. Right,
It's just totally ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (01:38:29):
Yeah, we could talk about that all night. Fourth question,
the rapid fire, either at at WNBC or in the bureau.
Favorite part of the job.

Speaker 3 (01:38:41):
Well, at the at the Bureau. Actually, the favorite part
of the job at the Bureau, I would say is
I was kind of in a unique position where when
you're assigned to an FBI squad, if it's a white
collar squad or an organized crime squad, that's your focus.
You know, you sort of have blinds on to what
the what the squad sitting next to you might be doing.

(01:39:05):
In the position that I had, I wasn't conducting these
investigations as the media coordinator, but I had exposure to
what everybody what what was going on throughout the whole office,
and it gave me a greater appreciation for the work
that the FBI does. I mean, I think, I mean,

(01:39:29):
I think if that qualifies as my favorite thing about
the Bureau. But from from my perspective for the job
that I had, I think I was really blessed to
have an opportunity to see the Bureau in a broader
spectrum than most FBI agents ever experienced.

Speaker 1 (01:39:51):
Well said, and finally, given your time in media and
your time of course in the bureau, advice for young
young professionals rather excuse me, trying to make a difference
in either field.

Speaker 3 (01:40:03):
Well, on the on the media, side. I think, I know,
the competition and the ratings and cliques are the lifeblood
of of the of today's media environment. Some people think

(01:40:24):
that that's the key to success, and there is something
to be said for that. However, I kind of look
at what Jonathan Dean says has achieved over the years
by developing relationships and and and and and fostering a
trusting relationship with with whichever entity he's dealing with. He

(01:40:50):
doesn't when he's calling. He's not always calling for the
latest tip, uh, or you know, or because something has happened,
sometimes calling to see how you are and to house
the family. You'll ever believe what my dog did? Uh?
You know, I mean that kind of thing. And so

(01:41:11):
I guess I guess what I'm saying is it's great
to be young and energetic and on the go and
on the make, but you have to kind of take
a step back too and and realize that, you know,
there's more to it than just getting that one that
first scoop. You want scoops eventually, but joly I get

(01:41:31):
scoops if you have relationships, if you form relationships over
the years. Yeah, And on the FBI side, given what's
going on these days in the FBI. My advice to
young folks is keep the faith and and I hope

(01:41:52):
that you know, do the right things and the right
way for the right reason and uh and and and
and challenge authority when you think when you think that
you know it needs to be challenged. I always remember
those first days of the task force concept in New
York where we'd be in the command post with these

(01:42:14):
n y p detectives and the and the FBI agents
would be there, and the leaders of the n y
P D and the Bureau and the FBI would be
up on the upper tier, you know, at the begin
at the front of the room, and the FBI agents
would address the head FBI agent by his first name,
which the detectives that you can't do this, you know

(01:42:37):
that it has to be sir or you know or
or you know, inspector or whatever. Uh. You know. The
Bureau is a bit more casual in that respect. It's
more of a family kind of or oriented thing. And
and and so the newer agents should feel take advantage

(01:42:58):
of that and feel that if they're comfortable with some
assignment they've been given or or order or whatever, to
at least go and get clarifications to why are we
doing this? You know it's it's uh, it's not. It's
not unheard enough to do that in the Bureau, and
it should.

Speaker 1 (01:43:18):
Be done, especially when there's legitimate questions and concerns to
be had. Great answers across the board, great conversation before
we say goodbye to the audience. Stick around, We will
talk off there if you have any shout outs to
anyone or anything. As always, the floor is the guests
at the end of the program.

Speaker 3 (01:43:34):
Uh, no show. I guess I gave enough of a
shout out to Jonathan Diste already, so I'm not gonna.

Speaker 1 (01:43:42):
Fine.

Speaker 3 (01:43:42):
Yeah, uh no, I don't think. I don't think. I
just I just hope that the Bureau well, uh, we'll
be able to continue to enjoy the reputation that has
been built over the last fifty years to the wake
of War Again eight and Cohen Telpro and all those
things that happened fifty and sixty years ago. I just

(01:44:06):
hope that the bureaus reputation remains untarnished and still commands
the respect of the public.

Speaker 1 (01:44:15):
Amen to that. Like I said, stick around, we'll talk
off air. As always. A big shout out to everyone
who tuned in tonight and producer Victor always doing a
great job on the Ones in twos coming up next
to the Mike then New Even podcast. He for a
long time was chief of the Ft and Y Special
Operations Command, the big job to have considering the size
of the city, trying to get him for a number
of years. Finally did our schedules matched up in that

(01:44:36):
for volume seventy two of the best of the Bravest
Interviews with the Ft and Wise Elite. This Monday at
six will be retired FDNY chief Fred la Famina, who's
also a former Captain of Special Operations Squad two seventy
and Queens. And on next Friday at six pms well
he was a former assistant Commissioner the New York City
Police Department, had a prolonged career on the street prior
to that as well. And that'll be Kevin O'Connor. So

(01:44:58):
looking forward to those two shows coming up, respectively. And
John Deanes, if you listen to this, the invitation is yours.
I'd love to have the other show sometimes be great
to chronicle your career as well. For those of you
listening on the audio side from their nineteen eighty album
Remain in Light. It's the Talking Heads with Once in
a Lifetime in the meantime on behalf of producer Victor
and retired FBI agent and spokesman Joe Belliqett. This has

(01:45:20):
been wall you mainteen of the beat profiles of police nationwide.
We will see you next time. Take care and be
safe and have it awesome.

Speaker 4 (01:45:43):
And you may find yourself living gonna shut gun shot
when you may find yourself and another part of the
wh And you may find yourself behind the of the automobile.
You may find yourself in a beautiful help with a
beautiful wife. And you may ask yourself, well, how.

Speaker 5 (01:46:07):
Did I get here?

Speaker 4 (01:46:24):
And you may ask yourself how do I work this?
And you may ask yourself where is that audible here?

Speaker 5 (01:46:32):
And you may tell yourself this is not my beautiful house.

Speaker 4 (01:46:37):
And you may tell yourself this is not my beautiful way.

Speaker 6 (01:46:57):
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was,
same as it ever was, same as it ever was,
same as it ever was, same as it ever was,
same as it ever was, same as it ever was.

Speaker 5 (01:47:14):
War dissolving and water the mountain. There is warm at
the bottom of the ocean, under the water, carry the water.

(01:48:02):
You may ask yourself, what is that beautiful house? You go,
ask yourself where does that all about? You?

Speaker 4 (01:48:10):
You may ask yourself, I'm all right, I'm not wrong,
And you may say to yourself, my God, what have
I done?

Speaker 7 (01:48:52):
Whatever? My handy time isn't hold enough. Time is an
extra us, same as it ever was. What's the same
as it ever was, same as it ever was about word,
same as whatever was, the same as ever the same

(01:49:18):
as ever.

Speaker 5 (01:49:21):
What's the coming You're comes

Speaker 7 (01:49:25):
Ever was

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Episode 365: The Beat: Profiles of Police Nationwide: Joe Valiquette - FBI (Volume 18)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 365: The Beat: Profiles of Police Nationwide: Joe Valiquette - FBI (Volume 18)