by Steve Hodel
I suspect my father's relationship with the Los Angeles underworld changed dramatically from his early days as a cab driver hustling downtown for whatever he could make from the high tippers at the Biltmore.
But Father abandoned his role as chauffeur after he left Los Angeles and then returned as a medical doctor and skilled surgeon. No need for street hustling now, no longer any need to threaten a passenger in his hack to "cough up the fare or I'll bust you in the nose." That was all behind him.
By 1939, as head of L.A. County's venereal disease control office, his relationship with the top crime bosses would put him on a far more powerful footing because, as a respected physician and a man of influence in his own right, perhaps even as their consigliere-medico, he would be allowed inside the center ring.
In addition, we see his documented association with elite members of the California Club and its spin-off, the L.A. Chamber of Commerce, where he came in contact with millionaire businessmen and shared any professional secrets they cared to impart. Perhaps a little bartering could be conducted between them. The doctor could provide prescriptions for prostitutes and drugs for wives and daughters. The businessmen could provide money and protection and share their information with my father, the kind of information that translated into power and influence.
I suspected another source of privileged information that was independently available to Father was the repository of medical files in his possession at his First Street Medical Clinic. There, at his venereal disease clinic, he discreetly treated the rich, the famous, and the powerful for any complications resulting from their personal and private indiscretions. This sensitive information gave George Hodel a tremendous source of power — leverage for exacting favors, or for downright extortion. These suspicions were again, unexpectedly and dramatically, confirmed by my mother's old friend Joe Barrett. By 2002, after our many talks, I had come to think of Joe affectionately as my "Franklin House mole." I was grateful for the friendship he had shown Mother and her three young sons during those difficult "gypsy" years. Joe spoke of his many conversations with my mother during 1948 and 1949, when he roomed at Franklin House. He recalled her interactions with Walter Huston; her working and writing dialogue for John Huston's soon-to-be-released The Treasure of Sierra Madre; the stories of Father's cruelty and his beatings of both her and us three boys. But here let us focus on what is relevant, namely, why George Hodel felt himself not only above the law but seemingly impervious to arrest.
"Your Mother, Dorothy, and I would talk for hours at the Franklin House," Joe said:
in the courtyard, the kitchen, in the living room, and in my studio. Dorothy had an elegant mind. Our talks were almost always when George was away from home. Just the two of us. She talked of many things. Here is what I recall her telling me about the First Street Clinic. It was a place where primarily the rich and famous were treated for venereal disease. Top people from the movie industry. Directors, producers, actors, and also police officials. She told me it was a very active place, especially in the late thirties and early to mid-forties, before penicillin had been discovered. George had a partner, a Japanese doctor, who had developed a special treatment, which drew celebrities and important people. The socially elite came to be treated, along with their girlfriends and prostitutes. Dorothy said that George kept detailed files on all his patients and that in her words, "The files made for some interesting income." Those were Dorothy's exact words.
Barrett's words verified my suspicions. In 1940s L.A., George Hodel knew too much about too many people in high places. He had all the files and all the names. He knew everything. And now we know from what Mother told Joe Barrett that not only did he possess that highly incriminating information, he was using it to his full advantage. He was actively extorting the rich for cash and the powerfully connected for protection. The medical files under his lock and key were his insurance. Unquestionably, George Hodel made it known to those in power that should anything happen to him, either by way of arrest or personal harm, the knowledge and files he possessed would be made public.*
George Hodel was, in a word, too hot to handle. Knowing this, whatever constraints or concerns he may have felt when he first went on his murder spree must have fallen away. Not only was he a genius, he was untouchable.
*Clearly the Tamar arrest in October 1949 was an aberration. The autonomous Juvenile detectives, unaware of Dr. Hodel's Gangster Squad/Homicide protectors, had acted too quickly, but Tamar's disclosures, which involved not just her father but sixteen others, could not be ignored. It was another example of LAPD's right hand not knowing what the left had done. All Dad's LAPD confederates could do was assure him that they would assist from the inside in helping him "beat the rap."
27
Dahliagate: The Double Cover-up
Sixty years ago Los Angeles politicians had the best police department that money could buy. LAPD was part of the political machine that ran this city. We must never allow ourselves to return to those days.
— Bernard Parks, LAPD chief of police
Jonathan Club Breakfast, April 9, 2002
Deputy Chiefs Thaddeus Finis Brown and William Henry Parker:
Their Fight for Power
IT IS IMPORTANT TO HAVE some understanding of the political dynamics at work within the Los Angeles Police Department in the fall of 1949 through the summer of 1950. While the local press was blasting away at the LAPD with charges of inefficiency and corruption, the DA's office, as we have just learned, believed that some police officers and detectives were destroying evidence, covering up the facts, even protecting a prime suspect in the Black Dahlia and Jeanne French investigations. Also, the DA believed, LAPD commanders were receiving extensive payoffs in return for protection they were offering local gangsters.
By February 1950 public opinion about the LAPD was at an all-time low, worse even than it had been a decade earlier when the sixty-eight high-ranking officers had "resigned."
As the heirs apparent to the chief's office, LAPD deputy chiefs Parker and Brown knew that their careers, and indeed the department's collective survival, were at stake. Another major scandal could put a knife right into the heart of the LAPD. Neither man could allow this to happen, no matter what the cost, no matter what scandals had to be covered up. Both Brown and Parker desperately needed to shepherd the department through its current difficulties, hoping they could implement their own remedies at a later date.
Brown and Parker: it was a toss-up which one would be appointed chief of police. They were two very different men, not unlike the U.S. Army generals Patton and Bradley. Like Patton, Parker was hard-drinking — known to his men as "Whiskey Bill" — arrogant, ambitious, and aggressive. He would certainly not have hesitated to slap around one of his officers if he felt it would do some good. A brilliant strategist, he won every campaign he ever began within the department. LAPD interim chief William Worton favored Parker, who had achieved the highest score on the written examination.
Brown, also a hard drinker, was more the diplomat and, like Omar Bradley, was considered to be the "GI's general" by his foot soldiers. Officers from the rank of lieutenant on down loved him. While Brown did not possess the academic strengths of Parker, he had superior people skills. During his long and distinguished career, he had built a broad base of informants, and could learn virtually anything about anybody with a simple phone call. He was loyal to his men, and would back them and their plays unquestioningly. At that time, many considered Brown to be the best detective in the United States. Throughout his entire career he had been at the center of many prominent and celebrity investigations, and he had a reputation as not only an effective but an honest cop. Most of the local press gave him high marks, and Norman Chandler, owner of the Los Angeles Times, wanted Brown as "his chief," referring to him as "the master detective."
Before he joined the LAPD, Parker, like my father, had worked the trenches of 1925 Los Angeles as a downtown-area cab driver, trolling for fares outside the Biltmore Hotel. It wa
s almost certain that they had known each other, working the same job, at the same place, at the same time, since the Yellow Cab Company during those years had only ten cabs and a force of thirty men. They might have even been partners from time to time, working the same cab on different shifts and carrying the same fares from nightspot to nightspot.
Reflecting on his early days as a hackie in an L.A. Herald Examiner article entitled "Early L.A. Cab Boom: Big Brawls Bump Business in Taxi Heyday," Chief Parker was quoted as saying this about his first job: "Driving back then made a man tough enough for anything. As chief, whenever I could, I gave a cabbie every legal break."
Despite Parkers eminent qualifications, in June 1950 word spread that Thad Brown would be the next chief of police. The police commissioners would vote in early July, and he had the swing in his pocket, which would be just enough to tip the scale in his favor. So assured seemed the outcome of the decision that Chandler's L.A. Times printed a story that Thad Brown had actually been appointed chief of police, having received three votes from the police commissioners.
At the last moment, however, fate intervened. The night before the final vote, Thad Brown's anticipated victory was snatched from him through the unexpected death of Police Commissioner Mrs. Curtis Albro, whose crucial swing vote would have guaranteed his appointment. The balance of power was tipped, and in August 1950 William H. Parker was appointed LAPD's new chief of police. Parker would rule the department as an absolute despot for the next sixteen years, and Brown would remain chief of detectives.
Upon Chief Parker's death from a heart attack shortly after the Watts riots, Thad Brown would be appointed interim chief of police in July of 1966. At the same time, a young rookie Hollywood patrol officer named Steve Hodel would be ordered by his watch commander to attend the swearing-in ceremony at the police administration building, which would shortly thereafter be renamed Parker Center. After the ceremonv, Chief Thad Brown walked out of the auditorium and approached the young officer with the silver nameplate "Hodel" above his shirt pocket and asked the startled rookie if he would like to have his picture taken with the chief. A photographer at the chief's side walked us outside and snapped a photograph. Apparently, Chief Brown could not resist the temptation to memorialize the irony of the two of us standing together in uniform.
The chief, the rookie patrol officer, and the photographer would quickly go their separate ways from there, never to see each other again. Some weeks later, I received a copy of the photograph through the interdepartment mails as a memento from an unknown sender, which, at the time, was meaningless to me. I threw the photo in my desk, moved it with me in boxes from desk to desk as I advanced up the ranks, and packed it with other memorabilia from the job when I retired. I never looked at it or even wondered about why it was taken in the first place, until I eventually recognized it as a thoughtprint in my own life some thirty-three years later.
Chief Thad Brown retired on January 12, 1968, having served forty-two years on LAPD, his final twenty-one years as a deputy chief. He died only two years later at age sixty-two on the eve of Dr. George Hodel's sixty-first birthday. My father outlived his contemporaries Chief Parker and Chief Brown by some thirty-three and twenty-nine years respectively.
Parker was the department's most respected leader, credited with taking a corrupt and sloppy police force and transforming it into what he said was the world's "number one police department." And my own timing was such that I was a Parker man from the get-go. Parker was a living legend for me and my classmates, who believed he possessed near-divine qualities of leadership, intelligence, integrity, and honesty. Parker had my unquestioning respect and devoted loyalty. There is no doubt he made the LAPD a more professional organization than it ever had been in the past. It's also clear he contributed much to reduce the graft and corruption that ran rampant in the decades before he took over.
There was, however, a dark side to Bill Parker, clearly described by people who had private and personal contact with him. First, in Thicker 'n Thieves, Sergeant Charles Stoker reveals that in mid-May 1949 he had a secret meeting with then inspector Bill Parker. (Inspector was a police rank above captain but below deputy chief.) At the meeting, Parker flattered Stoker, reminding him how much they had in common as individuals: both were World War II vets; both Catholic. Parker questioned Stoker about the Brenda Allen scandal and seemed to listen as Stoker filled him in on the entire story. Parker in turn revealed to Stoker several cases of police corruption. Stoker described one case in particular, involving Chief Horrall:
According to Parker, one source [of police corruption] was controlled by Chief of Police Clemence B. Horrall. Aligned with him as a lieutenant was Sergeant Guy Rudolph, his confidential aide. He then related this story concerning Rudolph, which I have never verified.
For years, while Bowron was in office, Rudolph had controlled the vice pay-offs in Los Angeles, and when Horrall held the chief's job, Rudolph was under his wing. At one time Rudolph had kicked a colored prostitute to death on Central Avenue; and during the investigation of that incident, he and his partner had gone to a local downtown hotel where they engaged in a drunken brawl with two women. Then, while Rudolph was out of the room buying a bottle of whiskey, one of the prostitutes had been killed, (p. 182)
Parker asked Stoker if he had heard the story about Rudolph and the prostitutes, and when Stoker said he hadn't Parker told him he could prove it. Parker further confided to Stoker that Sergeant Rudolph controlled the lottery and numbers rackets operated by Chinese and blacks.
Stoker described in detail Parker's explanations about how corruption operated within the LAPD:
[Parker] had described the two police cabals, which controlled graft under what he termed a "cop setup." By this he meant that no true underworld boss ran the rackets in Los Angeles and that racketeers were controlled and plucked by department members of the two police outfits who, in reality, were themselves racketeers as averred in the forepart of this book. (p. 187)
As for the purpose of this clandestine meeting with the inspector, Stoker explained, Parker wanted to make him a "fair and square proposition." Unaware that Stoker had already testified in secret before the grand jury a week before their meeting, Parker asked him to go to the grand jury, tell all he knew about the Brenda Allen investigation, plus what Parker had just revealed about police corruption. That, he surmised, would force Mayor Bowron to rid the department of both Chief Horrall and Reed and put Parker in a position to take command. Parker candidly informed Stoker that the department was out to get him "one way or another," and that if he, Stoker, played ball with Parker, he would make him his assistant and protect him from harm. As we know, Stoker passed on any "deals" offered by the ambitious inspector, took the road less traveled, and within weeks was drummed from the corps.
In his autobiography, In My Own Words, Mickey Cohen also described the dynamics of his relationship with Bill Parker, this time from the perspective of someone on the other side of the law. First, he said, he believed he exercised some control over who would become chief in 1950. He had the swing vote for Brown because Brown, he believed, was in his pocket:
The one copper who really gave me trouble out here was William Parker, who got into power when he was named chief of police in 1950. See, it was very important for me who was the chief of police at that time. I had gambling joints all over the city, and I needed the police just to make sure they ran efficiently. In L.A. the chief of police is chosen by the Board of Commissioners,
so we had connections on the board who were going to make sure another connection of ours got named,
[my emphasis] At a meeting, we all decided it was best if I left town until the selection was made, just to blow off any stink that could possibly come up.
.. . But, when I get to Chicago, I learn that the guy on the board that we were depending on — the one that had like the nuts, the deciding vote — passes away twenty-four hours before the selection was made. Parker made chief of police, and if it had been my d
ecision, I would have taken anyone but Parker, (pp. 146-147)
In 1957, Cohen, after strong encouragement from TV news magazine commentator Mike Wallace, agreed to be interviewed on his television show, an early version of 60 Minutes. Cohen flew back east and met with Wallace and his writers for several days before the live telecast and went over the various questions, some of which they would ask him on the air. When Wallace asked Cohen — off the air — what he thought of Police Chief William Parker, Cohen said, "He's a sadistic degenerate cocksucker." The following day, Wallace, now live in front of millions of viewers, decided to ask Cohen the same question. Cohen, an accommodating wiseguy if nothing else, gave Wallace the exact same answer he'd given off camera the day before.
Chief Parker, watching the live interview, immediately picked up the telephone and advised the network that he would be suing the network and Cohen for libel.
Cohen met daily with a crew of ABC attorneys, and describes how, together, they prepared the defense, pointing out his jailhouse knowledge of the law where he states, "The only defense against libel is the truth, and believe me, I had Parker right by the fucking nuts." Cohen had obtained a number of LAPD sworn officers still on active duty who were ready to testify, in Cohen's words, "where William Parker was an absolute bagman for Mayor Frank Shaw's administration."
The threatened libel suit was never heard, because in 1958 ABC settled with Chief Parker out of court for a purported $46,000.
Exhibit 61
Chiefs Thad Brown and William Parker, circa 1950
Captain Jack Donahoe
LAPD's Captain Jack Donahoe and the very real part he played in the Dahlia investigation has, for me, become one of the most enigmatic questions of my own investigation. We may never discover his true role. Was he hero or villain? There is no simple answer, and probably, like Chief Parker, he was both.