OPERATION JULIE by ex-Inspector Dick
Lee and Colin Pratt of the "Daily Express"
is, the blurb would have it: the "sensa-
tional story behind the world's biggest and
most successful drugs investigation," which
Inspector Lee "master-minded". Lee it is
claimed "stumbled on a lead" indicating
the existence of an LSD factory in Wales,
and "further investigation revealed that
this was the centre of a highly sophisticated
and international drug network . . . manu-
facturing enough LSD to meet the needs
of half the world ..."
"Overcoming the initial reluctance of
his superior officers and working on a
shoestring budget, Lee and his team set
out to identify and infiltrate the ringleaders
and their centres of manufacture and dis-
tribution. This is the story of a small group
of British detectives whose selfless dedica-
tion and unremitting inquiries took them
to the drugs underworld of London, a
hippy commune in Wales, banks in Swit-
zerland, and a chateau in France. This
is Dick Lee's story but it is also the drama-
tic unfolding of the struggles, the dis-
appointments, and the final success of the
entire Operation Julie team."
The book is a ghost-written autobio-
graphical account, fashionably presented as
a sub-Maileresque "faction" with the main
protagonist referring to himself as Lee
throughout, though there's a large swatch
of unpleasant photographs, in the centre
of the book (all exclusively attributed to
the 'Daily Express"), to give the novel
documentary authenticity. Photos of the
houses where labs had been operating,
police look-out houses, the ops. room, and
a chorus line of the female cops involved
in the operation. There are mug-shots of
the defendants, some taken from holes
bored in the side of observation vehicles —
was the "Daily Express" inside them too?
— and one of Andy Munro, Chemist
Number Two, stripped of his clothes, pre-
sumably because it was felt they were
soaked in LSD. (They're the kind of lurid
and inhuman pictures that Joe Orton and
Ken Halliwell would have pounced on
with delight and ripped out for their col-
lages during their surreal vendetta against
Islington Public Library). One of the most
vile is of "DC Steve Bentley and 'Blue'"
(an unsuspecting contact) "taken after a
lengthy drinking session. At the time they
were working undercover and living the
life of drug-taking hippies."
Alcohol provides a more or less continu-
ous and mildly delirious descant to this
saga. (It is of course by now well known
that several of the six detectives who
resigned at the end of Jhe _case took up
possession in the Licensed.I Victuallers
Trade):
"It was such a staggering find the team
had to hurry to the bar to get over the
shock." (p. 301.)
"Together they got rolling drunk that
evening in Devizes, and by the time they
parted company Lee was committed to
staying on." (p. 48.)
"As they left Lee called across to Green-
slade to join him for a well-earned drink."
"Lee was due at the briefing at Tintagel
House at 10.30 p.m. There he met John
Locke and Dennis Greenslade and passed
on the news of the Seymour Road suc-
cess. Mr. Locke's gin bottle promptly
emerged." (p. 268.)
"Lee left in slightly better spirits and
gave the news to the anxiously waiting
Julie team. They all retired to the bar to
unwind over drinks." (p. 248.)
"Lee warned Kemp not to involve him-
self in any action against Thomas. Then,
shaken, he left the interview room _ and
went back to the team in the bar. (p.
302.)
INSULT
to
INJURY
IT page 17
Ex-Inspector Lee, pictured at post-trial celebrations, prepares to receive a token of
appreciation from one of his former colleagues.
The picture of Lee that emerges, apart
from his somewhat ironic devotion to gin
palaces, is of a careerist and media-
mongering cop looking for a gig. He
comes across accounts of LSD being dis-
tributed at Pop Festivals (who hasn't?).
His reaction is neither of approval nor
disapproval; it simply provides him with
a platform to make himself manifest. He
fortuitously hears of a girl in Preston
who died of asphyxia after taking LSD
(several days after by all other accounts)
and ruthlessly exploits the story in order
to set up the Operation. Between dropping
the acid and dying of asphyxia the girl's
diet is not accounted for. The causative
connection is a little limp, to say the least,
but no one seems to notice (or probably
to care). It reminds one a little of the
story of Alfred Hitchcock who was rung
up in the middle of the night by a journ-
alist who claimed that a carbon-copy
Psycho murder had just taken place. What
was the Master's reaction? Alfred Hitch-
cock retorted: "And what exactly did he
do the moment before he saw my film?"
and then added in his most sinister tones:
"Did he perhaps drink a glass of milkV'
History never repeats itself. The girl in
Preston, the sketchily described lynch-pin
of Lee's politicking, doubtless consumed
large quantities of junk food, inhaled leaa-
polluted air and for all we know munched
mandies and barbsrlbefore gagging. LSD
was probably the least of her worries, who's
to know? Dates and details are never re-
vealed. Why should they be? She's Lee's
trump card. He keeps it in his hand to
clean up the table and when he's cleaned
it up everyone will be too stunned to ask
what it was. "Bloody hell, guv'nor, you
should be selling cars. You'd make a
fortune," fawns a junior officer.
No one at Scotland Yard had been in
the least interested in LSD for some time,
despite the fact that they've been sitting
on a file containing the names of the
main manufacturers and suppliers in the
current "conspiracy" for two whole years^
Names supplied to them by the Canadian
Police who were given them by one Gerald
Thomas who'exchanged Kemp, Todd, Solo-
mon et al for a lighter sentence. (Thomas
apparently shits himself on hearing Lee's
voice at the door of his Texas home, when
Lee visits him to try and solicit more in-
formation ... at least Lee, hearing the
flushing toilet, believes that that's what
happened. It is clearly more dramatic to
have someone shit themselves when you
make your entrance, than to be merely
flushing their stash).
Scotland Yard apparently refuse to hand
over this file, which they've been sitting
on. A mysterious episide. Possibly the
Central Drugs Intelligence Unit feel pri-
madonna-ish and see no reason why they
should hand over the fruits of their "re-
searches" to this provincial hick on the
make. Lee is treated like a man with a
song in his heart newly arrived in Tin
Pan Alley. But Lee flashes the girl from
Preston which oils the cogs and from then
on all is sweetness and light and he begins
to assemble his gang of Boy Scouts and
moves into a cottage in Wales to keep an
eye on Kemp's acid factory. He feels very
miffed by accusations in the local pub
that he's gay and consequently moves in
Girl Guide Glenice Garlick, from Thames
Valley Police, as a cover.
From now on the book is an unseemly
and almost endless cat and mouse game
with the defendants, whom he loosely
tries to tie to the Brotherhood of Eternal
Love "a global organisation, one not only
intent on capturing what is the men's
pockets but also what is in their minds,"
and then to even more tenuously connect
it to an American operation whom Lee
claims are importing "Leopard tanks
through British Arms dealers ... a dis-
turbing aspect-. . ." (p 137), very disturb-
ing, if there were the remotest likelihood
of it being true. Lastly, he quite oppor-
tunistically, and totally unsubstantially, at-
tempts to make a link between the acid
conspiracy and the Baader-Meinhof gang
through a piece of tiresome and impene-
trable drivel about a hired car in Chippen-
¦I ham having the same number as a car used
1 by the gang.
| The "Baader-Meinhof connection" is
' tucked in for several cynical reasons.
Firstly to give the Julie operation interna-
tional" importance, in order initially to"
jack up the subsidies for the operation
from the Chief Constables who
were at him for results and now per-i
haps to widen the market for the book.
Secondly it is a useful way of hinting
what happened to the exaggerated
amounts of money that Lee and co.
i claimed were missing. They are very keen
throughout the interviews with the defen-
dants to ' constantly quiz them on their
political affiliations, totally refusing to
accept that, on the whole, if they're not
somewhere to the right of centre, they're
apolitical or pacifist vedgie anarchists.
Another tactical motive for including the.
"Baader-Meinhof connection" is that it
can be used to pressurise the Home Office
into supplying the team with all kinds of
sophisticated bugging equipment that goes
through walls; directional stuff which
doesn't even have to be installed. The
Home Office eventually refused Lee such
goodies, despite his ravings, and this piece
of equipment together with some tracking
gear, Lee found himself restrained from
using. A curt note from the Home Office
delivered to Greenslade, his spectral super-
visor, was placed on Lee's desk: "YOU
ARE TO DO NOTHING THAT WILL
EMBARRASS THE PRESENT GOV-
ERNMENT." (Lee and Pratt's capitals).
The "Baader - Meinhof connection"
clearly went down like a lead balloon with
the Home Office, but then again, who
would want someone as nosey as Lee hov-
ering around the place, maybe Whitehall,
with a piece of equipment that can go
through walls, particularly someone who
may have announced his intention to leave
the force and become a TV interviewer
(which is of course what he's now done).
The Home Office may have attempted
to knock the Baader-Meinhof riff out of
Lee's repertoire, but Lee, like a good
Thespian, knows a.good act when he sees
it and isn't going to knock it on the head
for a coupip of pen-pushers. Besides it gives
the book that Bulldog Drummond flavour.
Watch our intrepid team smash the Acid
Terrorists I
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