The Marseille Connection

Was the Watergate burglary motivated by President Nixon’s fear that the Democratic National Committee had evidence of his connections to French narcotics traffickers? Former federal prosecutor McCallion (Profiles in Courage in the Trump Era) stumbles while making that spectacular claim in this under-sourced true crime account. According to McCallion, the Unione Corse network—popularized in the book and film The French Connection—established a heroin pipeline to the U.S. in 1947 and was abetted in the coming decades by both the French and U.S. governments in a convoluted pro-trade, anti-communist plot. In another eyebrow-raising claim, he asserts that Nixon’s War on Drugs was designed to eliminate competition to Unione Corse from Mexican drug dealers. There’s plenty of sizzle here—McCallion concludes that the long-unidentified mastermind of Unione Corse was French WWI hero and wealthy industrialist Paul-Louis Weiller—but too little steak. For instance, when McCallion discovers that transcripts and evidence from the New York State senate’s 1970s public hearings about Union Corse have disappeared, he takes it as proof of a cover-up. Readers seeking support for key portions of the account will find it lacking. McCallion promises far more than he delivers. Agent: Susan Hynes, HHI Media. (May)