Mob FilesPublic-domain archive of American organized crime
Studio portrait of Harry J. Anslinger, bald, in a dark double-breasted pinstripe suit, hands in his pockets.
Open the full imageJPG, 943 × 1200 px, 0.1 MB

Portrait of Harry Jacob Anslinger, U.S. Commissioner of Narcotics (National Archives, 306-PSA-55-11680)

Formal studio portrait of Harry J. Anslinger, captioned by the National Archives as U.S. Commissioner of Narcotics, with the source given as the Bureau of Narcotics. Undated. A copy is stored here.

Date
undated
Kind
photograph
Source
National Archives Catalog
Retrieved
2026-10-12
NAID
505634166
Rights
Held by the National Archives in the Records of the U.S. Information Agency (Record Group 306); the caption gives the source as the Bureau of Narcotics, Treasury Department. The catalog records use and access as "Unrestricted." A federal record, public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105.

The National Archives catalog describes item 505634166, local identifier 306-PSA-55-11680, as: “Formal portrait of Harry Jacob Anslinger, U.S. Commissioner of Narcotics. Source: Bureau of Narcotics.” It is in the series “Master File Photographs of U.S. and Foreign Personalities” (NAID 541937), which the catalog dates to about 1953 to about 1994. The item itself carries no date, and this page gives none.

The copy stored here is a 1,200-pixel JPEG made from the catalog’s TIFF. The catalog lists a second digital object for the item, which has not been opened.

itemHarry Jacob Anslinger at his desk, 1 July 1930 (Library of Congress)Half-length photograph of Harry J. Anslinger seated behind a desk, dated by the Library of Congress to 1 July 1930 from caption-card data. A copy is stored here.itemCanadian and U.S. narcotics officials meet on marihuana control, Washington, 24 March 1937 or 1938 (Library of Congress)Harris & Ewing photograph of Col. C.H.L. Sharman, Chief of Canadian Narcotic Control, Harry Anslinger, U.S. Commissioner of Narcotics, and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Stephen B. Gibbons, at a meeting on cooperation in marihuana control. A copy is stored here.itemTestimony of Harry J. Anslinger, Commissioner of Narcotics, 27 March 1951 (Kefauver Committee, Part 12, pp. 662–668)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.itemTestimony of Harry J. Anslinger, 28–29 July 1964 (Organized Crime and Illicit Traffic in Narcotics, Part 3)The former Commissioner of Narcotics, by then the U.S. representative on the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs, testifies mainly on the international control treaties. His prepared statement says addiction is concentrated in large cities "where organized criminals have made it available."