# Testimony of Harry J. Anslinger, Commissioner of Narcotics, 27 March 1951 (Kefauver Committee, Part 12, pp. 662–668)

Canonical: https://mobfiles.org/items/kefauver-part-12-anslinger-testimony-1951/

The Commissioner of Narcotics tells the Kefauver Committee that heroin traffic "is all interstate because it must originate abroad," that about 200 of a list of 800 hoodlums he gave the committee have narcotic records, and that his Bureau has 200 men.

The testimony is headed "Testimony of Harry J. Anslinger, Commissioner, Bureau of Narcotics, Treasury Department" and is printed in [Part 12](/items/kefauver-part-12-treasury-justice-officials-1950/) of the committee's hearings. The chairman welcomed him back; Anslinger said he had appeared before the committee twice before.

On the committee's subject he said: "Now many of the top smugglers dip into the narcotic traffic. Of a list of 800 hoodlums I furnished your committee, about 200 have narcotic records." He went on: "We convicted Lepke Buchalter and Mendy Weiss, two leaders of Murder, Inc., who smuggled heroin from Japan; the One Hundred and Seventh Street mob, with national ramifications; and many other international gangs." Asked about interstate traffic, he answered that "the heroin traffic is all interstate because it must originate abroad." He asked for a larger force: "We have 200 men."

He repeated earlier proposals: heavier sentences for second and third offenders, then pending in Congress; a means of protecting government witnesses, because "we are having too many witnesses killed"; and a central "gallery of major interstate racketeers and international racketeers," compiled along the lines of "the Treasury Department's list of major narcotics suspects."

The list of 800 is not printed in this passage and is not filed here. The convictions he names are his account; this archive has not filed the court records of them.

## Sources

- Internet Archive, scan of the printed hearings (Boston Public Library copy): https://archive.org/details/investigationofo12unit
- Full text (OCR) on the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/download/investigationofo12unit/investigationofo12unit_djvu.txt