Mr. Blackwell entered the U.S. Border Patrol with the 26th Training Session on March 20, 1944. He was one of the first generation of Officers who established the Border Patrol as one of the elite enforcement agencies in the United States. I believe readers would be interested to know that some of this same generation included: Charles Beechie, Bob Stewart, Herman Moore, Bill Toney, Harlan Carter, Jim Kelly, Bill Jordan, Tom Maddrey, Elmo Rainbolt, Ed Cupp, Robin Clack, Jim Greene, Jeff Fell, Bill Sabin, Tom Ball, & Don Coppock. They, and many others in this generation well understood the motto “Honor First” One has only to contemplate the last paragraph of Mr. Blackwell’s oral history to understand.

Today is May 16, 1987. My name is David Van Blackwell, I was born on October 9, 1922 in Altoona, Iowa. Dorothy Gohman and I were married in Edinburg, Texas on June 20, 1942. We have two daughters. The older is Carolyn Jean, now Mrs. Raymond Kretz who was born June 14, 1944, at Weslaco, Texas, and Barbara Ann, now Mrs. Alan Weikel, born September 24, 1946 at McAllen, Texas.

I entered on duty in the Border Patrol at McAllen, Texas, on March 20, 1944. During the years I was in the Service, I was stationed at Edinburg, Falfurrias, McAllen, and Hebbronville, Texas. I then went to Houlton, Maine and Burlington, Vermont. Returning to Texas, I was stationed in Brownsville, Port Isabel, and El Paso, Texas, where I retired on December 31, 1976. The positions I held included Patrol Inspector, Patrol Inspector-in-charge, Senior Patrol Inspector, Intelligence Officer, Regional Air Detail Officer, Deputy Chief Patrol Inspector and Chief Patrol Agent.

At the time I entered the Service, the key personnel in the McAllen Sector were: Fletcher L. Rawls, Chief Patrol Inspector; John R. Peavey, Assistant Chief Patrol Inspector; W. Gregory Hale, Senior Patrol Inspector (he was assigned to headquarters to do the administrative work); and Autogiro Pilot, Ned Henderson. There were two clerk stenos: Winifred Whitten, and Earlene Kiefer. Radio Operators that I recall were Glenn Gerhardt, Kenneth Lombard, and Marcella Cikanek.

I can’t remember if there was a fourth operator. The garage was under the direction of Johnny Griffin and the other mechanic out there was Rodolfo Alvarado. The Seniors for the various stations included: James P. Cottingham, and Walter Swain, both at McAllen; Charlie Wallis, Brownsville; Ireneus E. Snavel at San Benito; Bill Holt at Harlingen; Dlaso Kite at La Feria; Clifton D. Brown at Mercedes; and Charles R. Wroten, Westlaco. I believe Thomas E. Phillips was a Senior at Mission. Jesse Perez was a Senior at Rio Grande City, but he died soon after, and Delbert A. Valentine was the Senior there. Oscar Stetson was Senior at Roma, Earnest A, “Cap” Kilborn at Raymondville, William M. Davis at Falfurrias, and I don’t recall who was Senior at Kingsville, at that time.

The San Antonio District was the parent organization to the sector and was under the direction of William A. Whalen, District Director. I think John Holland was the Deputy D.D. but I am not positive of that. Hubert P. Brady was the District Chief Enforcement Officer. Mr. Walter Mehlhause was the District Administrative Officer. The Chief of the Laredo Sector was Elmer DeBrail and his Assistant Chief was Charles R. Kirk. The Chief at Del Rio was Buck West and his Assistant Chief was Charlie McBee. The sectors were called sub-districts also, and each one had a number, but I don’t remember what they were. I rather think McAllen was Sub-district #3.

The policy of the service at the time I entered on duty was for trainees to work three or four months at each of three different stations, and this gave them an opportunity to be exposed to the various types of patrol operations and also to receive on the job training and evaluation by a variety of experienced officers. The school, which I think was called the Border Patrol Training School, was of six weeks duration and was held at the old El Paso Sector Headquarters. It was called Camp Chigas.

The trainees were divided into northern and southern border trainees. The northern border men were required to learn C. W. (morse code) for radio transmissions, but the southern border P.I.’s were not required to take that course, and instead, were required to study Spanish. Prior to our class, I think everyone had to learn C.W. I know all the older officers I worked with could send Morse code messages.

When I was at the training school, they didn’t have any particular housing or living accommodations for us. They had arranged with an old hotel downtown, and a lot of individual home owners, to rent rooms to trainees. The homes were scattered all over town. We all either walked or rode street cars between Headquarters, where we took our classes everyday, and wherever we were staying.

My first station was Edinburg, where Oscar D. Kelly was the Senior. He was from Indiana and had been a stone-mason prior to entering the Border Patrol. He and a brother owned really good farmland in Indiana, and he would go home annually and visit relatives and also see about his property up there. He was a bachelor. He told me that when he came in the Border Patrol (I think he entered on duty in 1934) that he had had several suits. He saw no sense in having any civilian clothes so he had never bought another suit and the only civilian clothes he owned were a few pairs of “wash” pants and work shirts that he could wear when he was working in the yard at the house where he was living. Other than that, he wore a uniform at all times, never out of uniform, and he insisted that all of us at the station dress as he did. He said that when he came in, he was the last man hired for two years, which put him low man on the totem pole for a long time, and he was assigned all the menial tasks, like washing cars and just other flunky jobs until another officer was hired and entered on duty. Then, the new man inherited those jobs. Kelly lived with the Frank E. Berrys; he roomed and boarded with them in Edinburg. Their son, known as “Buster” was Frank E. Berry, Jr., later joined the Border Patrol and ultimately was an investigator in Pittsburgh. Also, their daughter, Audry, married a man who had a career in the Immigration Service, Francis Dawson. Kelly had a 1935 Chevrolet Coach that was just slick as a button. It was in mint condition, and so far as I knew, he never drove that car except when he went on vacation back to Indiana. Transportation was in pretty short supply during, and for some time after the war years. One of the P.I.’s needed a car real bad, so Kelly sold his car to him and never owned another. After that, when was in the local area he was always on duty and always in a government car, but when he went on vacation, still in dress uniform, armed and all, he rode the bus.

The other man at that station when I arrived was Russell K. Golden. He was a P.I. and the two of them made up the force. Two or three weeks after I entered on duty, two more trainees, Pete Stogner and Hollis Mitchel, entered on duty.

The work at that station was primarily apprehending farm workers, whether on farms, or on the highways en route to work, or in town. Kelly’s standing order was to report for work at 6:00 AM unless it was raining, in which case you would go in at 8:00AM and report to the office. Many mornings we’d be out at 6:00 AM waiting for daybreak on some canal bank or remote road so we could start checking camps where wets were suspected of living. Golden, on the other hand, liked to work evening shifts, so when Kelly went on leave, Golden had us work the evening shift, and then when Kelly came back they didn’t break back to his system right away. It took a while, so we were working mornings and evenings for several weeks.

My next station was Falflurrias. I transferred up there in September, 1944 and stayed until July, 1945. The Senior was William M. Davis. Not too many months after I transferred to Falfurrias, Davis left the Service to go into the Navy, and Bob Dayton acted as Senior the remainder of the time I was stationed there. The work at Falfurrias was mainly traffic check and train check, and initially there was very little ranch check. As time went on, we had a loss of personnel and were no longer able to maintain anything like a continuous highway check, se we began doing more ranch check. While I was at Falfurrias, I think pretty early on, I hadn’t been there too long, they decided that we could not use the Brooks County jail to house aliens overnight and that any we apprehended would have to be transported either to Hidalgo for voluntary departure to Mexico, or to McAllen to be put in with their group of aliens, or placed in the Hidalgo County jail at Edinburg. It was 65 miles down to Edinburg, and another eleven over to McAllen, so I don’t know of anyone who used the Edinburg jail. It just wasn’t very practical to drive all the way down there with the certain knowledge that the next day would have to go back and get them and take them on to either Hidalgo or Mcallen.

We did some traffic check at La Gloria, which is a little ranch community about halfway between Rio Grande City and Falfurrias. A road leads up from the river into the ranch country and at that point it forks. One fork leads on to Falfurrrias and the other to Hebronville, They had the Rio Grande City unit checking that road twelve hours a day, and then we held it the other twelve hours each day for several weeks. It was not very productive. I remember sitting out there from seven at night through to seven the next morning, and only check two vehicles all night long.

A little about some of the other officers at Falfurras when I was there. Bob Dayton, who I have already mentioned, resigned not too much later to become a gate keeper at the Lasater Ranch and to work at the new cracking plant northwest of Falfurrias. Another man was Gerald D. Madden. He too, resigned a year or two later, to go into the grocery business in the Valley. He had been a grocer at Waxahachie before joining the patrol. Dempsey L. King, who was later stationed at McAllen and much later than that, transferred to the Department of Labor in connection with the enforcement of contact labor laws. Hansford Niles, who was another trainee was also there at the time. Niles was later stationed at McAllen and finally retired as Senior Patrol Inspector at Brownsville. Another man there was Oswald Brassell who resigned just a few months after I arrived at Falfurrias to return to Carthage, where he was going to seek his fortune in the oil boom. Charles Hinesley was also there. He was really Bill Davis’s Segundo. During the first few months of my time at Falfurrias, the officer strength was pretty good, so assignments to traffic check work didn’t include either Bill Davis or Charlie Hinesley. As the on-duty force dwindled, Charlie started having to pull shifts on the highway, too, but he was really in a bad way with rheumatoid arthritis. He was a good officer, spoke good Spanish, did a good job at work but he just couldn’t walk, he couldn’t get up and move around. He tried mightily to hold up his end of everything that had to be done. Finally though, he just got so bad that he couldn’t continue. His last day of duty he asked me to drive him to McAllen so he could turn in his gear, see Mr. Rawls, and say good-by to other people there that he was interested. in. When we got to McAllen, he asked me to pull into a filling station in town so he could get out and walk around a little bit. I’m positive it took between five and ten minutes for him to get out of the car, get to his feet, and move his joints enough to be able to walk a little. He was a proud man and just didn’t want anybody at headquarters to see how difficult it was for him to move. He always whistled and carried on as if there were no pain, but you knew the pain was excruciating. Anyhow, when we got to the office, he got out and was able to walk with a little more confidence and dignity than he had displayed when we arrived in McAllen.

Bill Davis came back from the Navy and was reassigned as the second Senior, under Charlie Wallis, at Brownsville. From there he went on to Laredo as Assistant Chief and from there to Chula Vista as Chief Patrol Inspector. After two or three years in Chula Vista (I’ve forgotten just how long) he went to Newark and finally to Miami as an Investigator. Bill was just a super person; he was a good man, but his Spanish and his ability to communicate and deal successfully with Mexican people was outstanding. His father had been an engineer working the silver mines in Mexico. Bill lived in Mexico until he was 12 and was just completely bilingual. Even after he was out of the Patrol, he was used to accompany groups of Mexican officials that the Service was transporting up and down the border and around the country in an effort to develop cooperation, friendship, and an exchange of views. Because Bill was so superior in dealing with them, he continued to be used in that capacity though he was no longer a Border Patrolman.

My next station was McAllen. I moved there in July of 1945. The principal activity there was farm and ranch check. There was some patrolling of towns, and an occasional traffic check for short periods, and there was line and river watch. The illegal aliens, who both we and the aliens themselves referred to as “wets” were here in just huge numbers you couldn’t imagine how many there must have been. At various times through the ensuing years the Sector was beefed up and they would push the population of the aliens down a little bit, temporarily, and then something would happen and it would bounce right back up and there would be more aliens than before. The valley economy was largely agriculture, and for that matter, is still pretty much that way. The farmers welcomed the plentiful and cheap labor and the aliens who did virtually all the work on the farms, in packing sheds, and other agricultural product related fields, did some of the more menial tasks for as little as a dollar a day. Skilled workers, or the ones who had a little more on the ball, like tractor drivers and irrigators and some of the other skills, got up to about $5 per day. A lot of those days were 12 hours long. Wages for farm workers were really low. So low in fact that the local labor force just didn’t have any choice but to board up their homes and follow the harvest north every year. About the only ones who could really afford to stay here year round were the crew bosses employed by many farmers and nearly all packing sheds, and the harvest contractors who furnished crews of aliens to harvest the crops. These people had their trucks, and every able-bodied person they could find to cram on those trucks would be part of their crew. They kept books for them (the farmers) and took their cut off the top, and paid the aliens on a piece meal basis because that’s the way they were being paid by the farmers. Employers (again the farmers) liked the set-up because they were paying low wages and had no medical or unemployment insurance responsibilities, and almost no responsibility to the alien other than to pay him whatever scale was agreed upon for the work actually produced. Yet they were able to sell their produce on markets away from this area where they were competing with prices based on different, and a lot higher, labor rates. When minimum was laws were talked of, particularly for farm workers, the idea wasn’t popular at all in the Valley. The farmers were always opposed and they’d have two or three fall-back positions in their arguments each time. They claimed that having to pay minimum wage, even though low, would put them out of business; and that the marginal quality of labor just wouldn’t support that kind of expense. They always went through this same type of routine each time the government, or whoever made the decision, would talk of raising the rates. I think it started out around 15 cents and hour, and gradually bumped up. First, they didn’t want minimum wages applied to domestic help or farmers or others who hired less than five employees. Now, I see that they have even had written into the current law, that the Border Patrol no longer has the authority to enter on open fields to check farm labor to see whether or not they are in the country illegally. They always made some sort of effort to salvage as much as they could of their presumed right or continued ability to employ illegal aliens.

As more and more Valley people began benefiting from the illegal alien labor, they resorted to ever increasing efforts to shield the aliens from apprehension. Wets were housed in every conceivable kind of shelter; ramshackled abandoned old houses, barns, sheds, chicken coops, abandoned automobile bodies, caves dug into canal banks, and tents. There were some farmers who built little one room houses for their laborers. The larger operators, and some really not-so-large, also provided a sort of commissary service. It was not unusual, when we took aliens to collect their wages and belongings, that they had little or no money coming. The wages would be tallied and also the provisions they had used would be tallied, and the alien would get whatever the difference might be. Some times, the difference wasn’t very much, particularly if we’d had inclement weather and they hadn’t worked every day. Then, too, there was a mark-up on the items they were buying from the farmers. Prices were usually a little higher than regular retail prices in town. There were always a few employers, though usually not farmers, who would try to completely beat the aliens out of their wages.

Valley farmers had a system, well not just the farmers, everybody who had a wet, whether it was a wet maid, wet yardman or farm worker, no matter what. Many employers kept these people in line by threatening to report them to La Patrulla or La Migra, and back through the years the Mexicans, particularly the less educated peon type person from deep in the interior, was really frightened by the thought of the Border Patrol and being apprehended by them. One constable in Hidalgo County had a large crew of wets that he farmed out to work on various farms around the area. They were his employees, they were his people, and he had them in tents way back in deep brush concealed from view by some big canals. You just wouldn’t notice them driving by on the road. Someone reported them and when the P.I.’s raided the place and caught the wets, the wets told us of having been forced to stay there and to work even though they had been abused and underpaid and wanted to go home, wanted to quit, wanted to leave and were not allowed to. This constable was charged and convicted of some sate statute relating slavery. I don’t remember just what it was.

There were several times when the Service mounted operations that really appeared to have everything going for them. We were just right on the brink of gaining control of the illegal alien problem and each time we started to make significant headway, the Farm Bureau and some of the more powerful local figures prevailed upon their Congressmen or Senators to dry up the money. Our efforts were curtailed and the wets immediately returned in numbers even greater than before. The Valley newspapers editorialized against immigration enforcement and made big sensational events and wrote long diatribes relating to any incident or alleged impropriety by any of our officers. Attitudes of many in the Valley was illustrated by a couple of the restaurants. One of these restaurants had a sign up over the mirror, behind the counter, that said, “Border Patrol not welcome” Another had a sign too, but it said, “coffee – 10 cents, for Border Patrolman – 50 cents. Some of the officers’ children were not treated well by the local citizenry. Some were belittled, ridiculed, and ostracized by other kids at school and even at Sunday school a few times. These actions reflected their parents’ adamant views against everything Border Patrol or Immigration enforcement.

Among the methods employed to discourage illegal entries was an air-lift to the interior of Mexico. The Service contracted with Flying Tigers to fly, on transport planes, loads of aliens to Leon, Gto. And Guadalajara, Jal. Every day. The planes were based at the Brownsville airport and all of the Stations in the Sector, when they made their apprehensions each day, would screen the males to determine if they were; first, from the interior, second, if they had families either in Texas or in the border area. Male aliens from the interior, whose families were in the interior, were taken to the Hidalgo County jail, and the Edinburg Border Patrol unit would manifest them and do whatever else had to be done in the way of documentation. The aliens were then hauled to the Brownsville airport and loaded aboard Flying Tigers planes. Seems to me they made a couple of trips a day to each destination. The effect of this, or the result of this operation, really was noticeable. The frequency with which you encountered wets really took a nose dive; and you just didn’t see anything like the numbers of wets we were accustomed to seeing, after this operation had been in effect a few weeks. However, the operation was soon ended, by termination of our funds.

Another time arrangements were made with Mexican Officials to remove the aliens from the border town by train. You have to realize that the Mexican border town officials didn’t want these people any more than the Border Patrol did. The usual procedure was to send the aliens back to Mexico at the Ports of Entry. The numbers were so great that they simply overwhelmed the facilities of border towns like Matamores, Reynosa, and Rio Bravo. The local officials didn’t want them there, and I’m sure that had some bearing on the Mexican government’s decision to allow their citizens to be transported inland from the border. That kind of removal benefited us too, because it got the aliens back to the interior where some would stay and not r-enter illegally, and it at least delayed those determined to come right back. Mexicans were moved literally by the hundreds and mostly in railway boxcars. The trains were loaded in Reynosa, and every two or three cars there was a soldier. It was the soldier’s job to keep the people being returned to the interior from getting off the train and walking right back to the border. Since it didn’t take long for them to figure out their little mordida system and apply it to that, the trains soon began reaching their destination all but empty. To try to encourage them to be a little more diligent, some of our officers were assigned to ride the train and just observe. They didn’t have any authority, but were to observe, and as a result the number of passengers aboard the trains, when they reached their destinations in the interior, increased dramatically.

Years later, after we had out detention camp at McAllen, we had a fleet of small school buses built on Ford truck chassis. The procurement officer for the department at that time was a man named Anthony. He’d purchased these little buses which were dubbed “Anthony Ants” by Mr. Rawls. They kind of looked like a bunch of ants, as, all loaded with aliens, they would file out of the camp in convoy en route to Zapata. The purpose of their going to Zapata was to VR aliens across the river at that point, which was real isolated, on both sides of the river. The little village on the Mexican side was a good many miles, seems like it was bout 15, or maybe 20 miles north of the highway between Nuevo Laredo and Reynosa. There was no public transportation there, so the aliens had to walk at least to that road, and maybe farther, to get away from that village. There was no incentive for them to return en masse at Zapata because there were no jobs on the American side in that area. It was tough traveling, too, to get back to the Valley from Zapata.

It seems like an inhumane way of dealing with these people, but it was not nearly as bad as it would appear. Back at that time, most of the aliens we were catching (farm workers) were from interior towns, ranches, and farms and they had walked all the way from their homes to the border, and from the border to wherever they were going in the Valley. For that matter, they would go on north always just walking. They walked long distances and really, they did it pretty fast and without ever appearing to hurry. They traveled single file and walked along the edge of highways or roads, along railroads, trails, or even across open country, and they just kept moving. It was surprising how far they would go in a day. To illustrate their ability to travel, I will relate a story of my dealings with a young wet at Edinburg. I caught him early one morning along with some others; in fact, we had a pretty good group before to late in the morning. It was our practice at Edinburg to go out early each day, as I mentioned, and catch all the aliens we could, or a least as many as we could handle, then take them into the office, which at that time was a room next to the JP court in the basement of the old courthouse. Once we got them in there, we would process them and then haul them on to Mexico, or take them wherever they had to be disposed of. Except on rare occasions, when the court was in session, we would use that little courtroom to hold all of the aliens and we would just type the required apprehension reports right there in the courtroom.

As soon as we had a couple of carloads ready, some of us started taking loads to Hidalgo for VR, while other officers continued processing the aliens we had apprehended., Trips were made as long as we still had aliens to return to Mexico. There was no lunch break; no nothing. Mr. Kelly did not want anybody to stop until all the aliens were disposed of. He quit at noon and went home to eat and did not come back, unless it would be that night sometimes, but he did not come back for the rest of the afternoon’s processing. This particular wet I mentioned was in the load I took to Hidalgo the first load that day. Then, a little later, I was taking another oa

load and I saw that same wet on this side, in Hidalgo, so I stopped and picked him up again and brought him on back to Ediunburg, and put him in the bunch to be processed. Later, he was taken to Mexico again. Well, a third time that day I encountered him, again on this side in Hidalgo, and processed and VR’d him again. That evening, about 6 or 7, I was going to a dairy that is on the edge of Edinburg to buy some milk and I saw this same wet walking up the road into town. I was in my personal car then, and I pulled up to him and stopped. He started over to the car, I know expecting to be offered a job or a ride, and when he looked in and recognized me he just kind of hung his head, looked dejected, opened the door and got in. That time I did not take him back; I just put him in jail overnight and figured we both had seen enough of the other for one day. That case is not typical of the number of times you catch a particular alien in a day, but it is typical of their determination to immediately return after being sent back to Mexico. They were determined to come over here and be here, and simple VR to Mexico and the long walk back was absolutely no deterrent. Neither was Federal Court much of a deterrent.

We did not send anyone to court except smugglers or those who were really aggravated repeater cases where they had probably been deported a time or two and been prosecuted previously. Just those with long and bad records. I have been in Federal Court at Brownsville where I saw Judge Hannay turn his chair half around, away from the bench, rear back and appear to go to sleep when he was told the next cases to be presented were Immigration cases. His obvious disinterest carried over into sentencing. He gave almost all defendants in our cases suspended sentences, and really short ones at that. He did not act that way in all cases. When a marijuana case came up, for example, he sat upright, leaned forward and paid close attention. Another Federal Judge, James V. Allred, a former Governor of Texas heard an alien transporting case one time and at the end of it he said, “this is a two-bit case.”, and then he fined the defendant two-bits. Needless to say, Valley employers had no fear of standing in judgment before a panel of their peers on charges of Immigration law violations.

The pressure that was applied, just incessant pressure, to not enforce the Immigration always laws all but unimaginable. One year Willard Kelly, the Associate Commissioner for Enforcement at the Central Office in Washington, was down here and he was holding news conferences and trying to develop a little support, or a least acceptance, from the local citizenry, when I guess he kind of lost his cool. They of course objected to every effort to reason with them, so at some point he indicated he might just let them have their way. He could just pull the Border Patrol back and form a line above the border, like from Kingsville to Falfurrias and on across that way, and the Valley could have its wets. That was not what they wanted. They just wanted to have all the wets they could use, but they wanted us to control them. The story goes, that when Mr. Kelly got back to Washington, the work of his threat preceded him, and he was criticized severely for what he had done, and was told the nobody has the authority to give up any part of the United States. I think his job was whittled down a little bit as a result of that trip to south Texas, at least that was the story that was floating around.

When I came into the Border Patrol everyone was being entered on duty on Temporary, War-Service appointments. They did not have Civil Service Status. In fact, everyone who entered from sometime early in 1942 until well after the war, had the same king of appointment. I didn’t happen to take an examination. By the time I applied they were just giving oral, and of course a physical, but some of the men had taken and passed the written examination and were appointed in the regular manner, yet they too had temporary appointments. The decision to change their appointments, and the arbitrary date they set, killed their permanent status. When we were told, several years later – after the war, that everyone would have to take the written examination and be appointed to permanent positions or be separated, all of us were a little concerned. Those of us who were going to be affected certainly were. We had to take the written exam and then we had to go through the oral and physical exams all over again. The oral exam was pretty well cut and dried ahead of time. The Board members, who were Chiefs from within the District, all knew us and knew how they were going to handle each of us, and I think the Board members just played with us, just enjoyed hasseling us a little bit that day. Those of us in the Valley went to San Benito to the Post Office building and took our written test there. Then we waited several weeks to find out what scores we had made – then waited some more for the orals to be scheduled. After all the tests, our names went on a register according to our written test grade. Appointments were made from that register over a period of two or three months, maybe longer. Finally the Service told us that if we were not reached on the register for appointment and we were down to within thirty days of being separated, they would add ten points to our score. It that put a name within reach, the man was converted to Permanent appointment. Most of us managed to be retained and get permanent status, but there were several who just did not make it; they were dropped and some of them were real good men. That was an unnerving period for those who had that kind of appointment.

Another period in the history of the Service which I think was much worse, much more unnerving because it affected everyone, occurred back in the early ‘30’s , I think. It was then the Border Patrol was under the Department of Labor. The old timers I encountered when I joined all talked about the Benzene Board. This board, it seems, was formed by – they called her Madam Perkins, her first name was Frances. She was the Secretary of Labor under part of Franklin Roosevelt’s administration – probably during his first term. She created this Benzene Board and sent it around to interview all of the officers of the Border Patrol. Preceding the arrival of the Board, there was a notice that as of a certain day, every single Patrol Officer was fired, and that the following day were all rehired, but on a temporary basis. They were required to appear before the Benzene Board and, depending upon their decision – the interview they conducted, their appoints were either converted back to permanent or they were separated. Most of the men that I met had been regained, but there were four or five who had been let go. After several years out of the Service, trying to get back in, they had managed to be re-appointed, probably after she had gone out of office. The old-timers were very much aware of that Benzene Board and it was never very far from their consciousness. I had always thought the Benzene Board had been set up to determine technical competence of the men on the job, but something Dogie Wright said recently made me think that was not it at all. It was to cut out the men who were doing a lot of gun fighting, too prone to use their guns. I really do not know what caused it but it really did cause a stir in the Service. There was another period of considerable upheaval in the Service, but I will talk about that a little later. Next, I want to talk about the kind of radios we had when I came into the Border Patrol. When we wanted to send a message by radio, we had to stop the car, assemble a long antenna and mount it on the back of the car, and then get the engine running good so it would generate its maximum electrical output. Then we could send out a strong radio signal. There were a lot of places that the signals just did not go out well; they either encountered interference or they skipped or something. Anyhow, you frequently could not get through. To improve our chances, at times we would back the car up so the antenna touched a telephone wire, or sometimes a fence. It seemed to increase the signal a little bit by elongating our antennae. The radios were really sorry looking. The ones in various headquarters were home made by employees of the Service. You could talk, depending on the weather (AM radios are drastically affected by weather conditions, sunspots, etc.) to Detroit, Buffalo, Miami or Chula Vista and frequently we would get Laredo, but not reach McAllen even though we would be only 30 or 40 miles away. All the Sector radio stations were good about relaying your messages. They all had a lot more powerful radios than the cars had and they all had CW so they could quickly handle you traffic for you.

I think the time for radio checks in McAllen (all sectors had a designated time for radio checks and they were staggered across the border) was 9:20 AM., 2:20 PM, and 6:20 PM. Seems to me Mcallens’ call letters were KYZK 980, or perhaps 940. Each car had a number preceded by the letter “K”. Laredo used “L” and their numbers; Del Rio used “D” and a series of numbers. Not too imaginative, but that was the system. The operators made a special effort to be alert, have their sets tuned up to their highest peak of efficiency, to try to receive your signal during those checks. If you did not reach them, or reach somebody, your message just did not go through. We were not encouraged to use a telephone.

FM radios came along later and have been the only type in use for years. They are clear and real dependable. The only thing wrong with FM is that it is a line of sight signal, so you have only short range. You need a lot of repeaters to cover a given area. Our first FM radios were a bunch of old GE’s and they were big things. I think they were supposed to have a range of forty or fifty miles. Frequently, though, you could not even reach a car you could see. The FM radios could be monitored continuously and could transmit without having to stop and do anything. You could respond immediately to any call and, although the first ones were not very good, they have improved unbelievable. I believe they are the single most important item of equipment that has been provided that materially affected and improved Border Patrol operations. Prior to the FM radio, plans could be made; you could go out and work, but even trying to time coordinate efforts with your watches, it never was really smooth and did not work right. Once we got the radios, we could coordinate various kinds of equipment, any number of people; we could check factories, packing sheds, farms and ranches. We could coordinate the movement of the vehicles so that we could do just about what we wanted to do. I believe it was a major element in the improvement and efficiency of the Border Patrol.

That radio or communications capability is the foundation of our sensor system today. You can have remotely monitored units scattered all across the Sector’s border area and be aware instantly of that is going on in all the different places and dispatch men, again by virtue of radio, to intercept what ever disturbed your sensor.

Sam McKone, I think, was the initiator of the Task Force Operations as a means of doing Border Patrol work. In it’s early stages, several patrol cars would go to a pre-determined area and try to interview every single workman visible in that two or three square mile area. Phil Pring was out pilot and he would coordinate, and be sure that we would not skip any pockets of people that were not visible from the ground level. The concept really was excellent and practice improved our technique. As time went on descriptions of the operations were included in various reports, and together, with word of mouth, the principle as adapted to operational needs and demands all across the border.

I mentioned another thing which seemed to be pretty jarring or disturbing to Service personnel. The period I am thing of now resulted in a lot of untimely retirements, mass transfers and dislocation of the families of all our people. This period is generally referred to as the “Swing era”. This expression had absolutely nothing to do with the popular dance music so in favor then. General Swing was one of Eisenhower’s classmates at West Point and was the Commanding General of whatever army was responsible for the western part of the country. I think he was headquartered at the Presidio at San Francisco. There was really a serious alien problem all across the Mexican Border, and, at least the story goes, he was asked to make a study of the problem and furnish recommendations for regaining control of the border. Apparently his plan was considered a good one, because it was not too long before we learned that he had retired from military service and had been appointed Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization Service.

A few months after General Swing became our Commissioner, a big task force operation began. It all started in California. Personnel of those sectors were augmented by details of investigators and patrol officers from all over the country. They were organized into two large forces, with a Chief Patrol Inspector in charge of each force. It was really a massive undertaking with logistics and financing no small problems. Though the whole border was in trouble, the major drives were in California and the lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Other areas did not lend themselves to the huge numbers of illegal entrants that these did because they did not have as much agriculture, and at that time, the major attraction for illegal entrants was for agricultural work.

The task force reached the Valley in May 1954. The valley was divided into two areas with separate task forces working in Hidalgo and Cameron Counties. The Cameron County force was under the direction of Charlie Kirk, who, by that time was Chief at Del Rio. The Hidalgo County force was under the direction of George Harrison, Chief at Marfa. Harlan Carter was in charge of the Border Patrol under General Partridge, who was brought to the INS by General Swing. Carter set up an office in the McAllen Sector Headquarters, and had several Chief Patrol Inspectors on his staff. He arranged to have Preston C. Clayton, the District Administrative Officer from San Antonio on hand to handle finances. Joe Dupuis was either a Senior or an Assistant Chief then and was good at shorthand and typing. He served as Carter’s personal secretary.

Without going into a lot of detail, the general plan, General Swing’s plan and Carter’s plan, was to round up the aliens with a lot of noise and fanfare and then ship them back to Mexico aboard ships contracted or leased from Mexican owners. At the same time, farmers and others associated with agricultural production, processing, shipping, etc., would be offered contract laborers from Mexico on the condition they would not also work wets. It really was not too different in concept from the current Immigration law, which places sanctions against employers for hiring illegal aliens, yet grants huge numbers of them legal status in this country. Their plan for regaining control of the border did not rid the country of any aliens. It did however, achieve a measure of control and established the level of stability that was desirable. The people who had been here as deportable aliens became contract laborers, so essentially they had almost the same people here, but just under a little different circumstances. After the contract labor, or bracero program had been in effect a few months, apprehensions really did plummet, and then stayed that way a while. They stayed at a really low level for several years. The assurance of a plentiful supply of labor at a reasonable cost, though a little higher than before, quieted the farmers and their organization. Too, I think there was little indication to any of the Farm Bureau, farm organizations, or individuals, that anything the might say would have any impact on General Swing and his determination to do what he set out to do. I believe that had a bearing on the initial success of the program.

When the task forces reached south Texas we were estimating that there were 100,000 wets in the Valley, which turned out to be a pretty accurate figure. The aliens we caught, and those counted returning to Mexico on their own through the various Ports of Entry in the Valley totaled just about 100,000. We have no idea how many might have just gone back to Mexico by crossing the river unobserved by Service personnel.

Mr. Rawls, who was Chief at McAllen and Mr. Brady, the District Chief Enforcement Officer at San Antonio, and Mr. Holland, the District Director there, I thought were all treated shamefully. In fact, I think a lot of people thought that. It seemed that they were looked upon as the people who had caused the problem in the first place and if they had been competent there would never have been any need to bring to bear all of the brains that had been detailed in. Of course, that was not the case at all. They administered Service policies just exactly as they had been directed to do, and the problem ensued. An example of how the policy was established at a lot higher level: a report that I have heard was, that on some occasion, an El Paso patrol officer had made some arrests of illegal aliens and either the employer, or a friend of the employer, was big in politics. It happened that President Truman was coming through El Paso on the train. This guy got aboard the train, was offered a chance to see the President, and told him of his problem, and President Truman ordered the aliens released. It is conceivable it could be true. A similar thing happened at Harlingen, Texas due to intervention from Senator Tom Conally.

The Border Patrol and just about everything else in the Immigration Service underwent really basic changes under Swing’s leadership. Most of the Chiefs and District Directors were either transferred or reassigned. It appeared people in the Central Office thought everybody was too provincial and the only way they were going to gain control of the personnel was to shake them up real good, break up friendships and scatter everyone to the four winds, and that is what they did. Some people, who were eligible for retirement, decided to retire rather than be transferred, particularly if they were scheduled to go to a location that was considered undesirable. Several sectors wound up being run by Assistant Chiefs, one of whom was designated as Acting Chief. Small Border Patrol stations were closed and the remaining stations received increased personnel and a lot of new equipment. For the first time there was more equipment than you had to have to exist. They did not seem to mind buying specialized equipment that could really assist the officers in doing their jobs. That was a radical change from the way it had been under the old system. The sectors were taken out from under the authority of the District Directors and Regional Offices were established in December, 1954. That was just in time for everyone destined to those offices to be on the road for Christmas that year. Initially the Chief Patrol Inspectors reported to an Assistant Regional Commissioner for Border Patrol, and that later changed and the reporting was direct to the Deputy Regional Commissioner. Some of the sector boundaries were changed. For example, Yuma became a Sector headquarters and it had previously been a station the El Centro Sector. Brownsville was also made a Sector headquarters and it had been a part of the McAllen Sector. This new sector, the Brownsville Sector, included Cameron, Willacy, Kenedy and Kleberg counties, which were carved out of the old McAllen Sector, and then a area north along the coast and up into east Texas. The upper part of east Texas and part of Arkansas were allocated to the Brownsville Sector for intelligence purposes.

Under General Partridge, there was a lot of interest in crewman control. That is the only class of aliens who enter this Country that you can tell for sure did or did not leave if they were supposed to; for al other classes of aliens here can be doubt. The Brownsville Sector, later re-designated the Port Isabel Sector, was responsible for crewman control at all Texas ports except Houston. There was little crewman activity at Brownsville (I only recall a couple of crewmen jumping there, and then two or three more who went across the river, got drunk, and failed to get back to their ship); they just didn’t jump ship there. If they were going to jump, they jumped at Corpus, Galveston, Houston, Beaumont, or up in that area where transportation was better and they could move right on to whatever part of the country they were trying to reach. We had some very good crewman people. Wally Baxter was in charge of the Corpus Christi unit and they had a very effective crewman control program. In Galveston, initially, Don Jordan ran the station and he was very effective. Next H.K. Nettle was in charge there. Nettle was a real character, but he was most effective in running that station and catching crewmen who jumped ship in his area, which include all ports except Houston from Freeport to Port Arthur and Orange.

Before the Regional Offices were established, Einar Wahl had been made Assistant District Director for Enforcement in San Antonio and he detailed me to his office to write an operational plan for task force operations in the Border Patrol. The idea was to assign all Seniors and Patrol Inspectors in 12 man squads; that would be 2 Seniors and 10 P.I.’s with appropriate vehicles. Initially these men were expected to be used as units within their Stations for routine assignments, be on call for detail as units on really short notice to wherever they might be needed. There were a few details, some were just exercises to see if the thing would work, but it really was not a practical arrangement for day to day operations in the stations. While it was retained on paper, it was kind of side tracked as far as actual operation was concerned.

My next station was Hebbronville. Hebbronville is a small ranching town; it had been in the middle of an oil boom for several years. I could not move there for a while after being notified of my transfer because I was to replace Allen Gerhardt and he was on detail, but also to be transferred, and he could not get home to effect his transfer and vacate the house I was to occupy. After waiting two or three months, and he still was not able to move out, I subleased an apartment Owen Deeg had rented. He was a P.I. assigned to the Hebbronville station but on detail to Brownsville. I rented from him, and went on up there. Finally, when Gerhardt transferred to Maine, I moved into the house he vacated. The house I had waited for was really not much of a house. There was such a shortage of housing there, due primarily to the oil boom, that after the war the Government moved several prefab houses from the Crystal City Internment Camp and assembled them on a single city block in Hebbronville. I think these buildings were 20 X 26 feet; they were not very large. They were constructed of lumber, but were prefabs in the sense that they were in sections of floor and wall, bolted together, with a conventional roof built over it. The floors were covered with linoleum and, since the sections did not fit real tight, you could see the linoleum rise and fall or float up and down gently when the wind blew pretty good, and there was quite a bit of wind at Hebbronville.

We did not have any line or river watch but we did have a huge area; most of our work was ranch check. There were several towns and we did traffic check at that station. Our largest town was Alice, but we had Freer, George West, Three Rivers, and the territory on up toward San Antonio to Tilden, which is a big area. Though I was stationed there for over a year, I was actually on duty for only four or five months. I spent a lot of that year as a representative of the Civil Service Commission interviewing applicants for Border Patrol Trainee positions and then I was detailed to the Central Office in September and did not get back to Hebbronville until sometime the next spring. Initially the detail had been to write, with Donald G. McEdward, a new course of instruction on Border Patrol to be included in the “charm school”. That was a school they were holding at the C.O. I believe its official name was Advanced Officers Training Class. After McEdward and I wrote the course of instruction (It turned out to be a little booklet and was pretty well done), we taught the course at the next session of the school. At the end of that class, McEdwards detail ended and he went on back to his official station and I stayed on to be instructor in the next session. I was joined by a replacement for McEdward, and at the end of the second session, I was relieved of that duty and someone else replaced me with a new partner. Instead of returning to Hebbronville, my next assignment was in DeWitt Marshal’s office in the Border Patrol Branch of the C.O. where I was replacing Dick Batchelor. He had been there several months and was going home.

A few months after getting back to Hebbronville, I was transferred to Houlton, Maine as Intelligence Officer. The set up was a little out of the ordinary in that the Intelligence Officer position carried a GS-11 grade, but on the northern border Chiefs were GS-10. That, in time, was corrected; the Chiefs’ grades went up and the Intelligence Officers’ grades stayed the same. While I was in Houlton, in addition to being the Intelligence Officer, I handled all of the prosecution cases. It started because there really was not anyone else to do it when I entered on duty up there. The Chief, Marvin Hensley, was on detail attending “Charm School”, Al Gerhardt, the A.C.P.I. was on leave preparing to transfer to Buffalo, and there was no anti-smuggling officer. Later on an anti-smuggling officer was appointed, but he and I actually worked as partners most of the time so we were involved in practically everything together.

The northern border was an altogether new and different world to me. There was absolutely no hostility from the public, none at all. Everyone was cooperative and friendly; the courts were cooperative and really effective. You could absolutely depend on what the Canadian Officials told you, and they did exactly what they said they would do. If there was something they could not do, they would tell you they couldn’t and why. If there was something you wanted them to explore the possibility of doing, and you could not wait for an answer, they would do it and let you know the result of their effort. That was not like my experiences on the Mexican border and I thoroughly enjoyed that phase of it.

After a year in Houlton, I was transferred to Burlington, Vermont as Regional Air Detail Officer. That was a position in the Border Patrol Branch under Donald R. (Rex) Kelley, who was the Assistant Regional Commissioner for Border Patrol. Frank Hornyak was the Regional Chief for Border Patrol and Joe Dupuis was Assistant Chief. Cliff Oviatt and I were the junior members of the staff there and Walter Krein was the Regional airplane pilot. He was the only pilot in the region and his was the only plane, so he spent a lot of time working in the various Sectors. My job was to set up a program to keep track of airplanes entering the country from Canada as a means for combating smuggling. A similar program for the Northwest Region was centered in Detroit and then the largest center was at Yuma. That was the office housing all the records and important documents. Field officers could call in their inquiries about a suspect, plane, or pilot, and get whatever information might be available in Service files at Yuma. Each sector chief designated a P.I. to do the air-detail work in his area. Pete Grootendorst was selected as the man to handle the program in the Buffalo Sector. One day someone Grootendorst had developed as an airport observer and informant, called from a field in Pennsylvania and told him there was an old military plane being loaded with arms, and he thought we would be interested. We were. Several hours elapsed, and when this plane landed in West Virginia to refuel, the pilot was arrested and the plane and arms were confiscated. The plane was en-route to Cuba; he was taking guns to Castro, who at that time was trying to over throw the Bautista regime and gain control of Cuba. The guns had been furnished by a big crime family in Pennsylvania. It turned out that the arms had been stolen from several National Guard Armories in the northeast and north central states and that the plane was loaded to the hilt with machine guns and rifles of various types. When we took the pilot for arraignment before a magistrate, he really fixed himself. We took him into the Federal Building and while being arraigned by the magistrate, he said, “here I’ve traveled all over the world and what do I do; I get caught by a bunch of hillbillies.” That did not set too well with the magistrate, so instead of setting a reasonable bond, he set a $100,000 cash bond, and that pilot went to jail and stayed there a long time.