The Insider: The FBI's Undercover ""Wiseguy"" Goes Public

Billy Breen served in the Navy toward the end of WW II, was given a psychiatric disability pension after being traumatized by an encounter with waterlogged corpses and spent several years regaining his sanity. He joined the Somerville, Mass., police department in 1956, only to find it almost totally corrupt. Working undercover for the state police, he infiltrated a Boston mob and was convicted with them of armed robbery; he served seven years in prison rather than reveal his links to law enforcement. He then became an FBI informant. Though never an employee of the bureau, for 25 years he supplied information in such cases as U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani's crusade against the New York City Mafia, the investigation of federal judge John Wood's murder in San Antonio, Tex., and numerous drug busts. Goddard ( Undercover ) provides a detailed account of Breen's complicated interactions with cops and criminals and reports his idiosyncratic view of the FBI as home to both the best and the worst law enforcement agents in the country. ( Feb. )