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Interview of Former Special Agent of the FBI Harold Judell (1939-1944)

Interviewed by Avery Rollins On March 30, 2005

Edited for spelling, repetitions, etc. by Sandra Robinette on July 19, 2005. Final edit done on June 1, 2009.

Avery Rollins/ AR: This is Avery Rollins. I am interviewing Harold Judell, a former Agent with the

FBI, who was with the FBI from 1939 to 1944. During a portion of that time he was a member of the FBI Special Intelligence Service working in South America. I am interviewing Mr. Judell at his residence in New Orleans, Louisiana. We have already executed the release forms for the interview. We will now continue the interview.

Harold, I would like to look at the early part of your life. Tell me a little bit about

your background before you went into the Bureau, when you were born, where you were born, your childhood and family.

Harold Judell/ HJ: I was born on March 9, 1915, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where my parents lived.

I was taken as a baby to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where I lived for five years and went to a nursery school there and started in first grade. My family moved back to Milwaukee, and I went to school there at a Hartford Avenue School on the Upper East Side of Milwaukee.

I went to Riverside High School and played basketball and ran track and graduated from the school. For a short time, when I was about 16, I went to the University of Wisconsin Extension School which was located then in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is now a much larger school. At any rate, I played a little basketball there on the first team and then went to the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin. I graduated from the University of Wisconsin getting a BA degree in economics and then I went to law school and combined my courses in five years, I was able to get both my BA degree in economics and my law degree in 1938. Then I went to work for a law firm in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which was called Sheinfield, Collins, Durant, and Winter and worked for them a short time. But in those days it was the height of the Depression and the salary was not very magnificent. What I got was a nice office, secretarial help and I was paid $25 a month and obtained and they gave me 50% of the business I brought in which was about zero.

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Harold Judell March 30, 2005 Page 2 HJ: Then I called one of my old professors at the University of Wisconsin and told

him, “Listen, I am starving to death here. What do you think I could do to improve my situation?” He laughed and said, “Well, look Harold, I am going to make a suggestion to you. Why don’t you try the FBI because I understand they pay very well and knowing you as well as I do I think you might like that type of work?” So I said, “Fine.” So I went down the office in Milwaukee and was interviewed and filled out the necessary documentations and everything else. In May of 1939, I received notification from the Bureau that I was accepted and would enter as a Special Agent, subject to my completing a training course and getting the necessary grades and firearms proficiency that was needed to get into the Bureau. I went into Washington, D.C. My first exposure to the FBI was at 9th and Pennsylvania Avenue, a nice classroom.

AR: Now what month was that? HJ: This was in June. AR: June, okay. HJ: The class had about 25 to 30 members. I made a mistake one day of walking into

our training class with a white coat and dark trousers on. I was promptly removed from the classroom for a moment and was told I was never going to be able to wear such clothes going to the FBI. That was my first lesson I learned, be very careful about what you wear.

At any rate, I completed the training school and on the very last day I qualified in my rifle training, a 30 ought 6 rifle training, which was the only thing left, and I did get reasonably good grades so I didn’t have any problems.

My first office was in New Orleans, Louisiana. I had never been to New Orleans, but I had rowed on a summer school crew with a fellow from New Orleans, a very, very nice fellow. When I went to New Orleans, the first person I called was my friend, L.T. Kunard with whom I rowed on the crew. Fortunately he was well married into the right type of environment, and he introduced my to all the people I should know. I started loving New Orleans and met a lot of, lot of people I became very friendly with in later years who were in business and law profession and so forth.

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Harold Judell March 30, 2005 Page 3 HJ: After that I was assigned of course to the New Orleans Office which was located

in those days in the Masonic Temple building. I was assigned to work in Mississippi and Louisiana. I traveled a bit there and had an incident when I walked into a bank which I was not suppose to be in because I took a ferry across the river. I was checking on a bank robber who supposedly was in Algiers, but failed to locate any information about him. And then came back across the river again to New Orleans and walked into the National American Bank and about the time a woman screamed and yelled. I was right behind her in line, and so I grabbed this fellow from behind. He didn’t know I was behind him of course. Then the guard came up, and we interrogated him. I took him over to the FBI office at the time. What he had done was, he had given the girl a note saying that “I’m going to blow your head off if you don’t give me some money.” But at any rate, I had an argument with the police because they wanted to take him themselves into custody but I prevailed and took him over to the FBI. Sure enough we were successful in getting him and found out that he had done the same thing in some other place. I think it was in Missouri.

AR: How much time did you had as agent when this happened approximately? HJ: Approximately, I guess about four weeks. Not a lot. AR: Not a lot, but you did the right thing. HJ: Luckily. That’s luck! My experience in both Mississippi and Louisiana was very

favorable. We were chasing one notorious criminal who was a bank robber; however, we were unable to locate him. His name was Charles Chapman if I recall correctly. He was very dangerous and was suppose to be fully armed. None of the people in the area from which he came would give me any information at all about him. Just closed mouth. But at any rate, we never did get a hold of him. He was subsequently captured some time later. I can’t recall the exact date. At any rate, when I was in Mississippi, I was looking for a criminal, and I went to the sheriff, the local sheriff, and he said that, I showed him the picture, and he says, “Oh yes, I’ve seen that fellow, I know him. He lives in a little house down the way. Why don’t you come with me, and I’ll show you the way and we can see if he is there.” We start out and he said, “You follow me.” I noticed he was shaking a little bit. He backed into a tree to start with.

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Harold Judell March 30, 2005 Page 4

HJ: Then we went to this house. Lo and behold, we got up there and the shade goes

up and somebody pulls it down. So we started up there and of course I’m first in line because he wasn’t going to be there. We knocked on the door, and they didn’t answer or anything. We finally got them when we knocked so hard. He came and opened the door. We told him who we were, the FBI and we were looking for so and so. He was not the person. I said, “Why did you run?” “Well look, I’m living with another woman, other than my wife, and I was afraid.” So that was the end of that experience. But I had several other interesting experiences but since we have a long way to go I think that’s enough.

AR: When was it that the idea of going into South America and working down there come up? When did it come up and how did it come up?

HJ: That came up. When I was in the FBI, I was assigned, my first office was in

Newark, New Jersey, then I went to Baltimore, and then I was transferred into the Bureau, into Crime Records as an administrative assistant to the Director.

AR: Okay, so you first office was New Orleans and then you went to Newark, then to

Baltimore and then to Crime Records? HJ: Then to Crime Records. Which lo and behold when I first got my orders I

thought, gee that might be crime statistics. But I soon found out that it was not, and we got a very fine group in the office. As everybody knows we handled correspondence for the Director, not his personal correspondence, we did the bulletin, internal things.

AR: What was the approximate date that you arrived at Headquarters when you were

transferred to Crime Records? HJ: In Crime Records? It must have been January of, December of 1939. I’ll have to

verify that. Can you pause just a minute? AR: Okay, sure. HJ: July 18, 1940. I think this was written in July. July 1940. AR: How long did your experience at Crime Records last?

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Harold Judell March 30, 2005 Page 5 HJ: About a year, a little over a year. Maybe a year and a quarter. I received

notification that there was a memorandum sent out that the Bureau was given jurisdiction by President Roosevelt of counter-espionage in the western hemisphere.

And at that point, the Bureau notified me or told me that they were seeking Agents to go into the Special Intelligence Service. They preferred single agents, of course. I said I was interested, and they accepted me in the SIS. Now the SIS was officed in New York City. However, before going they required that I take a course at the Berlitz School in Spanish for about four or five weeks, which I took. After that I was sent to New York and went to the office to get all my instructions as to what I was supposed to do and my orders to go to Venezuela.

AR: What type of special training as far as your counter intelligence, counter espionage activities did you receive? Limited?

HJ: Very limited. We were basically on our own. There were actually only 12 of us.

We were the first group other than one agent that had gone before us down into Latin America. I think his name was Edgar Thompson.

We went off virtually on our own with instructions on how to use a code which involved a long tedious process using the dictionary. It was necessary to compose letters in a manner that it was an ordinary letter. Because at that time, the Bureau was aware that mail went through Trinidad where they looked at it and of course anything suspicious would have been picked up. Anyway off I went on a Pan American clipper. We landed in Haiti and then we landed in Caracas at McGuire Airport outside of Caracas.

AR: Let me ask you this. You said that the mail went through Trinidad. Who was it

that looked at it? HJ: The British. AR: The British, okay. So you have landed in Venezuela. You were not associated

with the government or anything like that; I mean you were under cover at this point.

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Harold Judell March 30, 2005 Page 6 HJ: Right. I was under cover. My cover was that I was representing

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, and I was suppose to go to Maracaibo where I would be based which was the area in which a substantial amount of oil was produced from Lake Maracaibo. At the time I believe 600,000 barrels per day, and it was transferred in shallow draft tankers to Aruba and Curacao where it was refined into gasoline and sent basically to Great Britain as fuel for fighter pilots, and fighter planes.

AR: Okay, and you being more or less employed by XXXXXXXXXXX; did they

have an office there in Maracaibo? HJ: No, I lived in a hotel for a while; there were only two hotels in Maracaibo. AR: So what were you suppose to be doing? Just gathering information? HJ: Just gathering information and so forth. I had a lot of spare time, because it was

not a big town. There were three major oil companies down there, Gulf Oil which was in Minigrade, there was Royal Dutch Shell, and there was Lago or Largo Oil and Transport which was a division of Standard Oil of Venezuela.

At any rate I was able to make some good contacts in Maracaibo for a while. One

of the best contacts I had was the owner of the hotel and one of the people that worked for him. They gave me information. They were anti-Nazi. They gave me information as to who was the head of what they called the Gestapo there. So I had my first entrée into checking on him.

After a while I lived in a house with a fellow who was with General Electric. It was readily apparent to me that that was not a very good cover, because I did not have enough to do. So I decided go back to Caracas and talk to the president of XXXXXX Oil of Venezuela who was originally from Shreveport, Louisiana. His name was XXXXXXXX. He ran the whole operation of XXXXXX Oil which was a subsidiary, it went through XXXXX Oil at Canada and then went XXXXXX in New Jersey. So I talked with him and told him I felt my cover was not adequate. I explained it and I told him. He listened to my story. He said, “I will send you to Maracaibo as Assistant to the President of XXXXXXXXXXX.” His name was XXXXXXX. “But I want to tell you something that you have got to be on my payroll; I can’t do anything about that because if I did, it would raise a lot of questions.”

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Harold Judell March 30, 2005 Page 7 HJ: So I went back over to Maracaibo, and I went to the compound that was

constructed by and operated by XXXXXXXXXXXX. It had a tremendous swimming pool, beautiful grass, bachelor quarters, homes and everything else. That gave me the opportunity to do some really detailed work in Maracaibo.

AR: What was his last name?

HJ: XXXXXXXXXXX. He subsequently became head of XXXXXXXXXXXX in New Jersey. In later years, I bumped into him several times when he was working as head of his company. In fact, I took a plane ride with him to Europe one time by accident.

At any rate, one of the things that I was deeply concerned about was the fact that

the oil that was being produced in Lake Maracaibo was sent in very shallow draft tankers over to Aruba and Curacao. I felt that the Germans must have had somebody reporting on location of those ships, and I felt that that was very dangerous. So I said I’d better try and see whether I could find out where the clandestine radio and so forth would be located.

There was a German school and I said well I think I’ll go over to the German school. It was a three-story building and it was tall enough, it was quite tall, and say that I wanted to take some German lessons. That would give me an opportunity to get in to see what was going on. So I was a little naive then anyway. I did walk in, and I told them what I wanted to do. They said, “Well you will have to come back and talk to us. We don’t know whether we can or not but at any rate come back again.” So I came back again. The fellow left who was there, a German who spoke fluent English of course said, “Well why don’t you relax here a while and I will go check on some things.” I said, “I’ll just look around.” So I saw the stairway so I went up it, two flights and got to the third, opened the door and I said, “Oh, pardon me” and there was a big set up. I closed the door and said, “I got in the wrong place.”

AR: So you had found the clandestine radio station?

HJ: Yes, so down the stairs I went, and I never went back. Meanwhile it turns out that a naval fellow who was with the Navy there was in Maracaibo had seen me going in and out of the German school, and they reported me to the FBI as being a potential spy. I found out about it and he told me about it and that’s what happened.

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Harold Judell March 30, 2005 Page 8 AR: Let’s go back to the clandestine radio station. There was no one in there I guess

or was there someone? HJ: Oh yes. They were operating it. AR: They were operating it. How many were there? HJ: Two people. AR: Men, I guess? HJ: Yes. Well I went out so fast. I figured I better get out of there. They figured I

didn’t know what I was doing anyway, so. I didn’t look dangerous. AR: Good. HJ: So that’s how that happened. AR: So you were reported to the FBI as being a potential spy? HJ: Yes, by the Navy. AR: Okay. HJ: I need to tell you this story. I had done plant protection survey work or at least I

was schooled in it and I read the bulletins and everything and the booklets about it. I thought it might be a good idea since I was working for XXXXXXXXXXXX and they had a place for a big refinery in Aruba that I would do a plant protection survey. They didn’t know that I wasn’t an employee. See none of the help knew except the president and two people were the only people who knew I was with the FBI. They thought that was a good idea.

AR: Harold, you were going to do a plant protection survey? HJ: The refinery in Aruba. I was flown over to Aruba. I went to the guest house there

which was a very nice facility where they housed guests, V.I.P.s and so forth that came over.

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Harold Judell March 30, 2005 Page 9 HJ: We were seated on the little balcony overlooking the water, which we were in the

Mediterranean at that point, and suddenly several shallow draft tankers came into the port loaded with crude oil, heavy crude. Suddenly a German submarine surfaced and started firing and blew up several of the tankers and started firing some shells and incendiary bombs, I guess that is what you would call them, at the house we were staying in and the house next door. The men were just screaming. I can hear them to this day if I just think about it. They were being burned, burned in hot oil. It was a horrible situation. And, what it was, and I’m going to refer to my notes here, and this is truly what happened.

In January 1942, I think the date I am speaking about was around February 12th

when this occurred. A large wolf pack of German submarines and their crews converged on Aruba. It was apparent that their mission was to stop crude oil from being refined and petroleum products from being delivered to the Allies.

Early in February, they attacked tankers carrying crude oil and sank most of them before they reached the refineries. They also did this in, one of the objectives was Curacao, in addition to Aruba. They were very well trained and equipped crews and they had remarkable success in a few weeks. The loss was enormous. At any rate what happened there, the German submarine knew that there had been some American bombers that had landed in Aruba and they were concerned and they submerged. They didn’t stay above very long after they blew up those things. They left.

AR: How long do you think they were on the surface doing these attacks? HJ: Not very long. No more than 10 minutes. AR: What distance do you think you were from the attacks? HJ: We were about 150 yards to 200. They were close. The shells did not hit us but

they hit the next house. There was a woman sleeping and it missed her head by a little bit. We saw her afterwards. Now during all of this and this is where it gets a little careful, I’m not sure if we ought to be talking about this but anyway.

AR: Let me say this. Whatever is discussed here will be reviewed first by FBI

Headquarters and anything that is still of a classified nature will be taken out. So you can speak openly as far as that goes.

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Harold Judell March 30, 2005 Page 10 HJ: When I was living in this little house, a General arrived. His name was General

Arnold. However, it was not the famous Hap Arnold, it was another general and somebody else from the Navy whose name I have forgotten, now arrived.

The telephone rang about two hours after this happened, everything had subsided of course. I picked up the phone, and they said they would like to speak to the person who was the head of the army or navy who was there. It was the Dutch governor, it was a Dutch West Indies island, the island was under Dutch control. He said, “This is the Governor.” What had happened was that General Arnold or his aide or somebody had sent a message to the Navy apparently about what was occurring. He said, “Well, he sent this message. But it was not in code so we intercepted it and you can’t do that because we won’t permit it.” That’s what happened. That’s what I don’t like to say anything about because I’m sure in the confusion things like that can happen. But at any rate, that was the story. That was sad.

AR: How many people do you think died? HJ: I tried to find that out and I never got a very clear answer. But it certainly ran

about 75 to a 100. After that I didn’t have much desire to be talking about what happened; particularly when I got back to Maracaibo. We did a lot of research. We went on the internet trying to find out about it. We got this. One of my secretaries found this. This thing I use here telling about that. (See Addenda.)

AR: How did you report the information that you developed? Did you do it through

the Embassy? Did you do it directly to Washington or did you do it coded? HJ: I did it directly to Washington. AR: I see. Did you do it by the coded letters or did you send telegrams on occasion? HJ: No, at this point I really went back. I carried it with me back to the States. AR: I see.

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Harold Judell March 30, 2005 Page 11 HJ: I’m trying to think of anything else that would be of interest. I did find out that a

fellow by the name of Hartwig Von Jessup, who had worked for Largo Oil Transport, was a person who I suspected for some of his actions. I used him to get information. He thought at the time that I must have known that he was a spy or something. He gave me information freely about whose ships were moving. Then I made the mistake of suggesting that I could pay him. Then he clammed up. He never said another word. From that point on he stopped. I learned after the war that he was a big important character. But I could never verify that.

AR: His name is?

HJ: It was Hartwig Von Jessup. There was some other part of his name that I have forgotten. But given my age it is not unusual to forget. Now let’s get back to where we were. I don’t know where a take off point is at this point.

After my experience in Maracaibo and World War II broke out, I was seated

around the swimming pool at the complex compound and heard the fact that World War II had broke out.

AR: That Pearl Harbor had been. HJ: Pearl Harbor. During all of this, it was customary, and you must remember again

that nobody knew that I was with the FBI, to sit out in the evening and a Pan American plane would fly in about once a week. They would deliver some films and so forth. Everybody, the husbands and wives, and everybody else who worked for XXXX would sit on long benches and watch the entertainment, the movies.

Now it so happened that I was sitting there and they started the “March of Time”. Now that was the thing and I had been doing that, I mean doing things on tape that were in that movie and I’m sitting there saying, “My God.” Being vain, I knew about when I came on in that picture. I knocked over a bench. This is in darkness. I knocked over a bench and kids started screaming and nothing happened. That was interesting true story.

AR: That’s interesting. HJ: So then I became the Legal Attaché. They wanted to give us some diplomatic

protection and everything so I sent to Lima as a Legal Attaché.

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Harold Judell March 30, 2005 Page 12 AR: While you were still assigned to Venezuela, did you make any trips back to

Washington during that time? HJ: Just once. AC: Just once. Okay. Then you were transferred to Lima as Legal Attaché. HJ: I was talked to by J. Edgar Hoover himself. He gave me some advice about how

to operate. Told me of course that they didn’t want any information going to the Secretary of State at that time who was, what was his name, I’ll think of it in a minute.

AR: Okay, we are continuing the interview. You had been transferred to Lima as

Legal Attaché given some cover basically as a? HJ: As Legal Attaché. We had a nice office in the embassy; a very fine office.

(Showing papers/photos of when he was there). I had four assistants. AR: Do you recall their names? HJ: Yes, James Curtis, Joseph Laury, George Munroe, and, this name may be wrong,

his last name was Slate. I think his first name was Henry. Let me get the pictures.

I had said that I had moved to this home in Avenida Arancio in Sante Isidro and I

opened the door and was walking outside, and I saw suddenly a friend of mine come out of a house right across the street that I grew up with, John McArthur, who was a pilot with Pan American Grace Airlines at the time.

Bumping into him was very fortuitous because he knew a lot of people. His wife was very active in a lot of activities among the American speaking citizens. At any rate, he was very helpful when I needed to get something done or put on a plane or something like that.

In the embassy, we had a very nice office as I had mentioned. We had legal

assistance, and we had a male stenographer that the Bureau sent down. One of the things that is very significant about Peru was the fact that Peru was the first Latin American country to declare war on the Axis.

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Harold Judell March 30, 2005 Page 13 HJ: The president’s name was Manuel Prado. As a result with the assistance of the

Ambassador, I was able to talk to the president. It happened that a good friend of mine was married to Rosa, the president’s daughter, a fellow named Hugo Parks. He was most helpful to me for arranging for me to meet a lot of important Peruvians.

Peru was a significant country from the standpoint of the United States, because it produced a lot of raw materials and other products that were needed in the war effort such as: mining, for example, which produced antimony, silver, gold and other minerals, platinum and so forth. It also had rich forest lands and the bark of one of the trees produced the drug that is used for yellow fever; the bark of the quinqona tree. It also had oil, gas. It also had a lot of other products that were useful in the war effort, rubber. We had extremely great relationships with the law enforcement and police officers. In fact, I assigned George Munroe, who was an assistant, to be the liaison with the law enforcement divisions. I even taught a class in counter espionage to the, in Peru it’s called Estada Majore, the Chiefs of staff of the Peruvian Army. They gave me a going away present which was a beautiful portrait of the Peruvian flag and the U.S. flag. They had all the officers in my class sign it and so forth as a going away, thank you present. There were 70,000 Japanese in Peru. One of the members of the embassy staff was a fellow named John K. Emmerson. He was the third secretary in the embassy. He was very fluent in Japanese. Since there were a lot of Japanese that were involved in Peru, I arranged for John, when the Peruvian police or something had a matter that they wanted and they didn’t have anybody that could speak Japanese, lend him over there. It turned out that they discovered that the Japanese were manufacturing or making civilian uniforms that they used in Japan, civilian uniforms, but they were helpful to the Japanese government. We had to figure out why they were doing that. Well, not going into the gory details, but any way we were able, with extreme pressure to find out what they were really trying to make uniforms for and it turns out that apparently they were considering, and I don’t know how reliable this stuff is, possibly landing some rubber boats in Peru and taking over Peru. Landing, first going at the communication system, then attack the other vital services like the utility systems and all that. Whether it was true or not, I don’t know.

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Harold Judell March 30, 2005 Page 14 AR: When you say the gory details, in other words they tortured them or put them in

bad situations to force them to talk. HJ: Yes, that’s right. AR: Who were the people that they were doing this to? Leaders in the community or

suspected? HJ: No, the Japanese leaders were smart enough to have paid off the heads of law

enforcement. So they were pretty well protected. The way we found out about it; I’m starting to change the subject. But the way, they found about it was that this fellow, I don’t want to give his name out now. Anyway he was the head of all the law enforcement.

I’d better back up and say that we were deporting Germans and Japanese from the United States to interment camps. They had ships come in. What was happening was that these wealthier people who had made this arrangement with the law enforcement people, they would send somebody who would give the name of the person that was on the list and put him on the ship. We found out about this and the Ambassador and I go to see the President of Peru. We had a private conversation with him and explained to him what was going on. He said, “Well, you know, I’m not getting involved in that.” He wasn’t worried or concerned about this. That was the end to that. But that’s what they were doing. That’s the way things happened. I don’t blame the President. I’m sure he didn’t want to get involved in that side of stuff. There were 40 undercover agents.

AR: FBI/SIS, you’re talking about? HJ: We had our SIS people that were undercover. At one time there were 40 of them.

We had special employees who were U.S. businessmen who were on the payroll. Then we had paid informants including one double agent that I used to get information about what was going on; where they were smuggling anything out of the country and so forth.

I had some excellent, excellent -- two outstanding undercover agents that found out that there was a lot of unrest in the mountains of Peru with the Indians and so forth. Because the communists had made some inroads up the mountain areas where the workers were half starved to death working in the mines.

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Harold Judell March 30, 2005 Page 15 HJ: The result was that we had to devote some time to finding out what they were

doing. They were doing this in an area that was around Lake Titicaca that was the highest navigable lake in the Latin America. It went into Bolivia; it bordered Bolivia and so forth. We were able to at least get information. They also found out for me and gave me a list of all of the ammunitions that the Peruvian government had in the area. They had access if they wanted to do something. They had perfect lists of everything they had. Excellent. That was very interesting. The Maryknoll Fathers were very helpful to me, in giving me information about what was going on among the Indians who were not pro-US. Not that they were doing anything actively but they were complaining and all.

AR: This was a Catholic church, the Maryknoll Fathers, you are talking about? HJ: Yes, the Maryknoll Fathers, because they lived up there with them, and I stayed

with them a couple of times. I also had a private railroad car at my disposal. AR: Oh, really. HJ: A British railroad car. AR: A British railroad car? HJ: Yes, Britain owned the railroads. I’ll show you the pictures. One or two of the

people I used for information were archeologists; real archeologists. One of my undercover agents was an archeologist too. These were people who were outstanding in the field - world famous. He furnished information to me about certain activities and what was going on in the government also; the Peruvian government.

They had people who were not necessarily pro-US. They might sound a little more pro-German. I mean they favored the Germans but they were not going to do anything. They had a big German colony in Peru.

We were able to get assistance from some of the Germans who did not like the

Nazis. They told us what was going on in the German community and who was taking information and giving it out to Argentina and so forth. They gave us that information. So we had a real interesting situation. We had a clandestine radio that we could use also for the U.S.

Harold Judell

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March 30, 2005 Page 16 AR: For U.S. communication? HJ: For U.S. communication. I got in a little trouble. The ambassador and some of

the other top officials in the embassy asked me why we had male stenographers coming down; why didn’t we use women; why were we taking people who should be fighting in World War II? They thought that was not very smart of the FBI. Not that they were criticizing the FBI. They weren’t against the FBI obviously because they were trying to be helpful. It caused a lot of conversation in the embassy.

AR: Did that ever change? HJ: No. I got in trouble. I wrote a letter to the FBI and suggested that; I didn’t put it,

I wasn’t careful enough, but I did say that some of my agents were getting sick, and I thought I couldn’t give them any leave, I couldn’t get them annual leave being undercover agents and so forth. I wrote it in such a way that they called me back and raised hell with me. Anyway, it ultimately led to my resignation from the FBI.

AR: Oh, really? HJ: Yeah. What had happened, I was… There was one of the top naval officers, I

won’t repeat his name, in our Navy came down on a trip to Peru. The Naval Attaché was gone, and they asked me to entertain him and take him around. So I was telling him look I got two brothers fighting in the war in the army. Here I am enjoying the luxurious life of being a diplomat. Being a diplomat and being of high enough rank so I was the only one who was single that could take the wife of the ambassador when the ambassador was gone to certain parties and other functions and the Counselor of the Embassy, Jeff Patterson, or anybody’s wife that was gone; I was fair game to take their wives to social functions. It didn’t happen every day but it happened a lot. Nothing wrong with that, I enjoyed it actually. But it was a burden because I had a life of my own too.

At any rate, that’s what happened. My Peruvian friends introduced me to a girl,

who I subsequently married who was very well connected with the right families, and so forth. There were a lot of functions with the President of Peru. He tried to talk me into, he knew I had been involved in finance. He asked me; he wanted to build a road in the jungle which was his favorite project, but he wanted the United States Government … I told him to issue bonds and I’d draft the necessary legislation for it. But he wanted our government to pay for the whole thing so it never did work out. He was a very smart, brilliant guy. He was from the United States.

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Harold Judell March 30, 2005 Page 17 AR: You mentioned the naval officer that had come in? HJ: And I said, “Gee, I’d like to get into some active combat.” And so he said,

“Harold, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I think I could offer you a job as a lieutenant commander in naval intelligence. If you ever change your mind or need anything just give me a call and I’ll see what I can do.”

Well, with that in mind, when I wrote this, when I got in trouble by writing the

letter, they called me into Washington and for penitence they sent me to Kansas City.

AR: Oh, so they actually transferred you out of Lima. HJ: Yes, they transferred me, take the next plane back. AR: Oh, brother. When you went to Kansas City, what was your position there? HJ: I was a special agent. AR: Just as a street agent, not as a supervisor or anything like that? HJ: No. AR: Oh, brother. HJ: At that time my salary of course was quite high; at that point probably what a

special agent in charge would be more or less. I decided it was time for me to get out. I didn’t see any, I didn’t want to stay, I was too ambitious to stay in the FBI. I was more interested in business and so forth. So I resigned.

AR: What month would that have been? HJ: I, of course, asked for permission to accept the commission in the navy and they

didn’t even answer. They sent a letter to my draft board telling them I was available.

Harold Judell

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March 30, 2005 Page 18 HJ: But a nice thing did happen. I got very sick in Lima one time. I’m jumping

around but, yeah, this was November 24, 1943. This is to advise you that your headquarters are being changed from Washington, D.C. to Kansas City, Missouri, effective upon your arrival there. So that’s when I went from Washington to …. end of November.

Oh, here’s Lawry. I spelled his name wrong, well maybe I didn’t.

AR: Lawry? HJ: Yes. I can tell you another agent in my office, assistant, Charles E. McNabb.

Henry G. Slate, I was right. Henry Slate. Jim Rasberry apparently but anyway. Here’s where I told them I desired service in a combat area.

Let’s see. What are we trying to get?

AR: The approximate time you left the Bureau, when you resigned. Sometime in ’44? HJ: Yes, I’m trying to think. I sent them my resignation, letter of resignation. Isn’t

that funny that I can’t find it? I had it here. I got very sick when I was in Peru, and I could have died. I caught Lyle’s disease which is a strange disease and I was in the hospital for a long time. The Ambassador sent a letter to the Director, cabled to the Director. It’s right here telling him that I had been seriously ill and so forth and needed a change in the climate. Nothing happened.

Then I got this letter from Hoover saying I’m sorry to learn of your illness so

forth. Here’s what he wrote. (See Addenda.) AR: He knew how to write the letters alright. HJ: Alright, let’s see where we are now. AR: Okay, you are in Kansas City. You are not satisfied so you resigned. HJ: They notified my draft board, and I had accumulated annual leave and

accumulated sick leave that I had not used. They told me that I had to, and the Navy could touch me with all that going on. I went down to Mexico.

My folks called me and told me that they had gotten this letter from the draft board telling me to report to them.

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Harold Judell March 30, 2005 Page 19 HJ: I went back to the States and called my friend in the Navy and he said, “Harold,

I’ve got bad news for you. They have closed the air combat intelligence school and all you can get based on your age in the line of the Navy. I can make you an ensign in the line.”

The day my commission came to me was the day they were going to draft me. So

I went in and they sent me to Hollywood, Florida, for a little training, not much. I got orders to go to the European Theater, Mediterranean, to be skipper of an LCT (Landing Craft Tank). I went on an aircraft carrier and wound up in Casablanca where they lost my orders and they couldn’t find them. I had to go to Oran. They couldn’t find my orders I went to Tunis. They couldn’t find my orders.

I finally wound up in Algiers and they finally said they had orders for me to go to Red Beach that was in Marseilles. When they had just invaded Marseilles. I go bouncing into Marseilles and go to the headquarters office of there to the commander there. I said, “I would like to go to Red Beach.” He says, “You dumb son of a bitch, you go find it.” I go down and some friendly officers said it was unloading a British supply boat. They take me on one of the boats out there.

I remember I had never been on an LCT. I had seen pictures of them but not in

Hollywood, Florida. So I get there and the lieutenant is coming down the ladder of the boat docked there. He said, “Man, am I glad to see you. I’ve been waiting two years for you. Good luck.” I go up on the thing. I had never been there before but at least I knew where the conning tower was. I knew enough so I go up there and suddenly the quartermaster calls up and says “Captain, we are ready to shove off. We have finished loading.” I said, “So take the son-of-a-bitch into the beach.” We are in a hell of an area. So anyway that is what happened to me.

But now to go back to Peru. What else was interesting in Peru? AR: Let me ask you this. During the time that you were there, did any of the agents

under your leadership die in the line of duty? HJ: None died in the line of duty. Some got sick but not deadly. AR: Did you have escape plans for them in case they got into trouble or something like

that to where they could get out of the country?

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Harold Judell March 30, 2005 Page 20 HJ: You said escape plans. They always had access to my house and so forth if they

wanted to get hidden. I could arrange to hide them of course. But there was very little being a friendly country. We could have protected them. I could have because we had enough contacts with the President. And they were not opposed, they knew that we had them.

AR: Did you work closely with any other foreign intelligence agencies? HJ: Yes. The British. AR: The British. HJ: The British had an agent there, and we use to go to lunch together at least once a

week. AR: Was it just more or less exchanging information or did you? HJ: Yeah, but they didn’t have much information or as good information as I did

because they just had one man. Of course he had contacts. But that was not productive. But they would help. They would give me information that they had picked up or something but nothing that I didn’t have access to or know about.

AR: Did the Germans, their intelligence operations or their espionage operations, did

they ever have any real success down there that you are aware of? HJ: Not that I was aware of except that they could facilitate the transmittal of

information and help anybody they felt they needed to get out of Peru. Not that they were directly involved in smuggling necessarily but they knew where people ought to go where they were friendly, mainly Argentina. They sent a lot of information over there.

AR: Do you have any particular failures of the Special Intelligence Services while you

were down there? Anything that stands out as something you wished had not happened?

HJ: Well, there is one thing I wished didn’t happen but again I don’t want to involve

myself in this because one of my agents had had an affair with an ambassador from another country and it got to be a little touch and go.

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Harold Judell March 30, 2005 Page 21 HJ: He told me that he was going to tell somebody about it when he got back to

Washington. He promised me and the next thing I know he winds up coming back on his way to Peru stops and tells me, I asked him, “Did you tell anybody?” He says, “No, I’m sorry to tell you I didn’t.” But that’s the only thing that happened.

AR: In providing information back to the FBI Headquarters while you were Legat, did

you normally use the embassy communication system or you mentioned you had? HJ: Sometimes we used the courier system but very rarely and other communications

were all either in code or in direct contact. AR: Right. HJ: Percy Foxworth was in charge of this SIS operation at one time. Percy was a

friend of mine, and he came through and I told him a lot of stuff that was going on.

AR: Well now Percy died in a plane crash, didn’t he? HJ: Yes, I think so, yes. AR: And he was from Mississippi originally I believe. HJ: I think so, yes. A very fine man, very good. That was a big loss to me. AR: That’s interesting. Well, let’s finish up with your life after, when the war ended,

where were you? HJ: When the war ended, we had landed in Genoa. I was in Genoa, and we were

going to preparatory to, we were going to, but the war ended before, it happened. We were going to land in Genoa because we, the US hadn’t taken over all of Italy at the time. Oh, I have to tell you a good incident.

I was picked as the outstanding officer in my flotilla not because I was that good or anything like that but because these other fellows who had been through the war a little bit, they were angry so they picked me. This is in the middle of the war going on. I get a trip to go to Rome as a result. I had an audience of 12 people with the Pope in a class of 12. I met him.

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Harold Judell March 30, 2005 Page 22 HJ: Here I am with one stripe as an ensign and the Pope says, “You know I have

never seen anybody with one stripe before.” “Oh yes, that’s an ensign.” I didn’t say anything more.

AR: An unusual experience for the Pope? HJ: We were going out, we were in Sicily, Palermo, Sicily, my LCT was based there.

Going to Italy and going up to attack the Genoa area. The free French had one cruiser, the Jeanne D’Arc, Sicily had a big break water, big frenice break water, and you had it come into the bay there. We were going out and in front of me was a good friend. I was second in line, my ship was second in line. I am looking out, and I’m saying, “My God, there is going to be a collision.” Because he was going on a collision course and this cruiser is coming in. The next thing you know he smashes into the cruiser and gashes a big hole in the cruiser. He wound up at Cite del Abbis, the French Foreign Legion Post in North Africa, manning a radio.

Oh, man I can see that now. It was one of those unbelievable things. Another

time what happened was that I had a landing craft rocket ship, next to mine, and I come back to my ship and the quartermaster comes up to me and tells me, “Oh, Mr. Judell, Captain, you know what happened?” He said, “Do you remember Lieutenant so and so?” “Yeah, definitely.” “There was a landing craft rocket, and he was up in front in the bow and one of them discharged accidentally.” We never found his body.

Then I went back to the United States after the World War ended and became one

of the legal officers for demobilization in the Bureau of Naval Personnel. I figured a way of getting myself demobilized. That was the end of my Navy career.

AR: So how did you wind up coming to New Orleans and establishing your life here? HJ: Well because I had gotten married. Let’s put it this way, I eventually married a

girl I met in Lima, Peru; the family name was Van Roselyn. Her father was Dutch and her mother was Spanish. We were married for 32 years.

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March 30, 2005 Page 24 AR: Was it business that brought you here, was based on you being assigned here first

or was it because New Orleans represented a happy contrast to Lima? HJ: Yes, that’s right. All of that. I knew a lot of people here. I enjoyed and loved

New Orleans, and I felt it was a real nice place to be. We were fortunate enough to be able to bring a servant back from Peru with us. I mean we got a servant to come up and so forth.

I managed some agricultural properties. I was in the oil and gas business basically. We were successful in that. I managed about 100,000 acres of land in central Louisiana which were both agricultural and produced forest, large timber. I grew ramey roots which is ramey is a fiber that alleged wrapped Egyptian mummies in. They decordicated it into a nice white thing. But the problem was to decordicate it, they didn’t have a proper machine that could do it and it took many years before it ever worked out properly. But we grew ramey roots, root stock, in central Louisiana on some land I was managing. We shipped it to California, and we sold roots there.

I moved to California during that time with my first wife, and we had a place in

Toluca Lake, which was in north Hollywood across the street from Frank Sinatra. My backyard backed up to where Bing Crosby and Bob Hope used to play golf, (unintel) Golf Club, and you could here them laughing and joking. Fred MacMurray lived down the block. The Sinatra kids were always at our house playing. I had an interesting life.

AR: It sounds like it. HJ: Now, do you want to know what I did after I came here? AR: Sure. Well we had an oil business, and I was the president of the ex-FBI Agents

Society one year, so I knew a fellow named Dudley Foley who was a bond lawyer, municipal bond lawyer. I’m in the oil and gas business and doing fine. We discovered a couple major fields in the Wilcox in Mississippi.

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March 30, 2005 Page 25

HJ: I knew John Bricker who was head of Humboldt land department, he was head of

Humboldt Oil here, office here. I went to see him about some farm lots, and they had drilled an 11,000 foot dry hole in Mississippi, a deep one, and he farmed it out with a lot of acreage. We discovered 330 feet from that dry hole we hit Wilcox oil field. The next wild cat he gave us we discovered another field. Gordon Stars was one of them and another in the Natchez area. That gave me my capital to start because it was 37 ½ percent depletion. I was able to accumulate some capital to do some things which I could not have otherwise. After we drilled our oils, we didn’t have any money, much money. We were able to borrow money from the Hibernia Bank. It was the only bank that had an oil and gas department. I knew the head of it, Alexander, and he financed us. But we had to give him all our money for about two years, eighteen months, before we were able to get anything back. It turned out very well. Then I get a call one day from Dudley Foley who was the bond lawyer, his wife called me, and she said, “Harold, my husband is going to have a nervous break down.” He is flying his plane because we operated all over the state of Louisiana, represented all parishes, municipalities and special service districts and everything. She said, “Please help him.” So I go see him at least. So I went over and I listened to his story and I said I would help him. I told him though, I had a continuing oil business, and I wasn’t going to let that go. He said that was fine with him. So I started with him. The bond business, he had a large business, and it was a very nice profession at the time. It was wonderful, and I enjoyed it. I started doing more and more bond work. The next thing you know I am letting other things go. But it was alright, I don’t regret it at all. That’s when I had my office over at Fernando Cuquet. He had his law firm right in the same office with me. I have been in many businesses. I have been on the board of seven publicly held New York Stock Exchange companies. I’m still on the board of one which my term doesn’t run out until 2007. That’s another publicly held company. I have been very active in a lot of things. I have been on the board of the Tulane Business School and in numerous things. I have been President of the National Association of Bond Lawyers which has 3,000 bond lawyers involved in the United States. I have been a Director of the National Association of Bond Lawyers. (See Addenda.)

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Harold Judell March 30, 2005 Page 25 HJ: I also received the Bernard-Freil Award given sometimes once a

year to a person who had an outstanding career in public finance and service. AR: I noticed you have some folders there with some documents. Is there anything in

particular that we need to look at or that you think that would be of interest as far as the Oral History Program is concerned?

HJ: As far as the Bureau is concerned, I want to show you some pictures and things. AR: Let’s go ahead and bring the pictures over here. AR: Okay, this is Avery Rollins. I am going to close out the interview with Harold

Judell. We’ll take a look here at his office space just to give a sense of an individual who has been successful in a number of areas, including government service. This will conclude the interview.