L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City

Parker thought the primary problem was low pay and the low social status of police officers. Others thought the problem had more to do with the department’s standards. The notoriously subpar force of the 1920s had became an elite group by the 1950s. Parker seemed to take pride in the fact that less than 7 percent of the men who passed the civil service examination made it to the academy—and that only a fifth of those made it through the thirteen-week course. The Los Angeles Police Department had a reputation as “the West Point of police training,” and Bill Parker liked it that way. His men were smart (with a minimum IQ of 110) and physically imposing (with a minimum height requirement of five feet, nine inches for men). Just as many who wanted the toughest, most challenging military assignments opted for the Marine Corps, so too were proud, aggressive officers drawn to the LAPD. Of course, they had to be. Doing the work of six thousand with just over four thousand placed unusual demands on the force. The LAPD had to be bigger, faster, more efficient, tougher.

One generation earlier, Berkeley police superintendent August Vollmer had dreamt of a professional police force whose members would not just uphold the law, but would also assess neighborhood problems like sociologists and address them like social workers. Parker had no interest in doing social work. “Law enforcement officers are neither equipped nor authorized to deal with broad social problems,” he declared. “[W]e deal with effects, not causes.” Eschatology interested him more than sociology. He wanted men who, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, would hold “the thin blue line until society came to its senses.”

      DRAGNET’S success rankled FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. So did Parker’s carping about the FBI’s temerity in investigating his department for potential civil rights violations. But irritation turned to anger when Parker informed “Kit” Carson, the special-agent-in-charge (SAC) of the L.A. office, that he intended to push for a resolution supporting a national clearinghouse for information on organized crime at the upcoming conference of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. Parker also informed Carson that he planned to put his name forward as a candidate for the vice presidency of the IACP, a fact Carson promptly relayed to Hoover, along with the SAC’s personal assessment of Parker as “an opportunist of the first order.” This was too much for Hoover. Parker’s clearinghouse could become a rival to the bureau. Parker himself looked suspiciously like a rival to the director. Hoover’s instructions to his underlings were clear: All SACs should contact their friends in the local law enforcement community to sabotage Parker’s campaign. Parker’s election attempt was soundly defeated.

Hoover was determined to monitor the threat posed by Parker. Instructions went out to the Los Angeles SAC to watch Parker closely. Washington was soon informed that Parker “was often drinking to excess and had the reputation of being obstinate and pugnacious when under the influence of alcohol.” Scrawled Hoover on the bottom of one such memo, “I have no use for this fellow Parker and we should keep our guard up in all dealings with him. H.”

Parker had acquired a dangerous enemy. But the Los Angeles chief of police was too preoccupied with another adversary to notice.

17 The Trojan Horse

“You should always have a positive side to your program and ACCENTUATE it, but likewise you should use SUBTLE FEAR.”

—Cong. Norris Poulson, on how to win public office

BILL PARKER wasn’t willing to tolerate Communists in city government, period. Mayor Fletcher Bowron apparently was. Ironically, the two men’s disagreement on the issue of how deeply authorities should pry into individuals’ Political beliefs would create precisely what both men dreaded most—an opportunity for the underworld to “open” Los Angeles.

The issue was public housing. During (and immediately after) the war, Los Angeles faced an acute housing shortage. In 1949, Congress responded by passing an act authorizing the construction of more than 800,000 public housing units. Mayor Bowron sought a sizable share for Los Angeles. That summer, the city council unanimously approved a contract between the city’s housing authority and the federal government that provided for the construction of 10,000 units. But public sentiment then started to change. As the housing shortage eased, the need for federally subsidized housing seemed less pressing—and more antithetical to the principle of private ownership. In 1950, Los Angeles’s conservative business community, led by the Los Angeles Times and the chamber of commerce, persuaded the city council to overturn rent control. “Socialist housing,” as they described it, was a natural next target.