Levine, Michael. Deep Cover: The Inside Story of How DEA Infighting, Incompetence, and Subterfuge Lost Us the Biggest Battle of the Drug War. New York: Delacorte Press, 1990. 319 pages.

Michael Levine was a supervisor in the New York office of the Drug Enforcement Administration when he retired. By then he could brag of a 25-year career that put at least 3,000 criminals behind bars and seized several tons of illegal drugs; he even penetrated the Bolivian cartel. But ultimately he despaired of an even more difficult enemy -- the "suits" from DEA and other agencies in their air-conditioned offices, who were more interested in self-serving career moves than in locking up dealers.

Levine has a low opinion of the CIA. This is not uncommon in the DEA, whose agents often suspect the CIA of following its own agenda and protecting those drug dealers considered to be intelligence assets. But Levine is especially upset over the behind-the-scenes mismanagement, disorganization, negligence, and bureaucratic rivalry that is typical of the much-ballyhooed war on drugs. It might be comical if the stakes weren't so high. For Levine, who spent much of his career as an international undercover agent trying to nail some very nasty people, they stakes were about as high as they can get. By the time he retired in 1989, Levine felt that he had won the battle but lost the war.
ISBN 0-385-30128-6

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