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Unione Corse

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The Unione Corse is a term designating the Corsican organized crime as a whole during the period 1930s–1970s, in the context of the French Connection , an international heroin trade network operated at that time between Turkey, Southern France, and the United States . A 1972 Time article described the "Unione Corse" as a Corsican-based unified and secretive crime syndicate akin to the American Five Families . The local situation in Southern France during this period was in reality more complex, with a nebula of mainly Corsican and Italian-French clans cooperating or fighting each other according to the circumstances and opportunities. If they constituted a key element of the wider French Connection, flooding the American market with Marseille-produced heroin from the 1950s to early 1970s, those clans remained overshadowed by the much more powerful Italian-American Mafia .

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79-652: The geographic location of Marseille and Corsica in the Mediterranean led them to become strategic points of the French Connection from the early 1950s up until the early 1970s. Corsican and Italian mobsters Paul Carbone and François Spirito , who dominated organised crime in Marseille in the 1930s, had laid the foundations of the French segment by setting up the first opium processing chain intended for

158-471: A " limited war " policy. His focus shifted to negotiating a settlement, which was finally reached in 1953. For his part, MacArthur denounced Truman's "no-win policy." Many Republicans, including John Foster Dulles , were concerned that Truman had been too timid. In 1952, Dulles called for rollback and the eventual liberation of Eastern Europe. Dulles was named secretary of state by incoming President Eisenhower, but Eisenhower's decision not to intervene during

237-512: A "galaxy of separate clans, sometimes allies, sometimes enemies, which have taken advantage of particular historical circumstances to flourish, and who know how to make some relations with the political and administrative apparatus in order to protect themselves." According to writer Laurent Mucchielli, the hierarchy of this multitude of networks was based "on authority and prestige [and] the principle of vendettas (...) [They were organised] as competing families which have in common only their origin and

316-689: A "quarantine." The World War I allies launched an incursion into Russia , as after the Bolshevik Revolution, Vladimir Lenin withdrew the country from the First World War, allowing Germany to reallocate troops to face the Allied forces on the Western Front. Concurrently, President Wilson became increasingly aware of the human rights violations perpetuated by the new Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic , and opposed

395-442: A 'cordon of freedom' around slavery, hemming it in until the system's own internal weaknesses forced the slave states one by one to abandon slavery. Between 1873 and 1877, Germany repeatedly intervened in the internal affairs of France's neighbors. In Belgium, Spain, and Italy, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck exerted strong and sustained political pressure to support the election or appointment of liberal, anticlerical governments. That

474-652: A Communist contagion in Western Europe, did work with Italo-Corsican clans in the late 1940s–early 1950s to break dockworkers strikes in Marseille in the context of the containment doctrine. Scholars also contend that the influence of the Italo-Corsican organized crime on local authorities in the Marseille area rather flourished in the 1930s and declined after World War II, when the French Connection thrived. Researcher Paola Monzini has argued that

553-517: A call for tender from the Sicilians in New York. According to scholar Laurent Mucchielli, they rather constituted the local segment of a vast international network and were commercial partners, or even subcontractors, of the much more powerful Italian-American Cosa Nostra . In 1972, a year after the release of the film The French Connection , a Time magazine article mentioned the existence of

632-571: A complete ban on the growing of Turkish poppies for the production of opium , effective June 29, 1971. During these protracted negotiations, law enforcement personnel went into action. One of the major roundups began on January 4, 1972, when agents from the U.S. Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD) and French authorities seized 110 pounds (50 kg) of heroin at the Paris airport. Subsequently, traffickers Jean-Baptiste Croce and Joseph Mari were arrested in Marseille. One such French seizure from

711-646: A component of the Cold War, this policy caused a response from the Soviet Union to increase communist influence in Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Containment represented a middle-ground position between détente (relaxation of relations) and rollback (actively replacing a regime). The basis of the doctrine was articulated in a 1946 cable by U.S. diplomat George F. Kennan during

790-548: A global war. There were three alternative policies to containment under discussion in the late 1940s. The first was a return to isolationism , minimizing American involvement with the rest of the world, a policy that was supported by conservative Republicans, especially from the Midwest , including former President Herbert Hoover and Senator Robert A. Taft . However, many other Republicans, led by Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg , said that policy had helped cause World War II and so

869-502: A group of elder statesmen called The Wise Men . The group included Kennan, Acheson and other former Truman advisors. Rallies in support of the troops were discouraged for fear that a patriotic response would lead to demands for victory and rollback. Military responsibility was divided among three generals so that no powerful theater commander could emerge to challenge Johnson as MacArthur had challenged Truman. Nixon, who replaced Johnson in 1969, referred to his foreign policy as détente,

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948-498: A large army and defeated the UN forces, pushing them back below the 38th parallel. Truman publicly hinted that he might use his "ace in the hole" of the atomic bomb, but Mao was unmoved. The episode was used to support the wisdom of the containment doctrine as opposed to rollback. The Communists were later pushed back to roughly around the original border, with minimal changes. Truman criticized MacArthur's focus on absolute victory and adopted

1027-767: A meeting between Sicilian Mafia and American Mafia members was held at the Grand Hotel et des Palmes in Palermo to discuss the international illegal heroin trade in the French Connection. The first major French Connection seizure in the 1960s began in June, when an informant told a drug agent in Lebanon that Mauricio Rosal, the Guatemalan Ambassador to Belgium , the Netherlands and Luxembourg ,

1106-692: A more aggressive approach to dealings with the Soviets and believed that détente was misguided and peaceful coexistence was tantamount to surrender. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, American policymakers worried that the Soviets were making a run for control of the Persian Gulf. Throughout the 1980s, under a policy that came to be known as the Reagan Doctrine , the United States provided technical and economic assistance to

1185-589: A policy called Vietnamization . As the war continued, it grew less popular. A Democratic Congress forced Nixon, a Republican, to abandon the policy in 1973 by enacting the Case–Church Amendment , which ended U.S. military involvement in Vietnam and led to successful communist invasions of South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. President Jimmy Carter came to office in 1977 and was committed to a foreign policy that emphasized human rights . However, in response to

1264-469: A psychological analysis by Deborah Larson, Truman felt a need to prove his decisiveness and feared that aides would make unfavorable comparisons between him and his predecessor, Roosevelt. "I am here to make decisions, and whether they prove right or wrong I am going to take them", he once said. The drama surrounding the announcement of the Truman Doctrine catered to the president's self-image of

1343-536: A relaxation of tension. Although it continued to aim at restraining the Soviet Union, it was based on political realism, thinking in terms of national interest, as opposed to crusades against communism or for democracy. Emphasis was placed on talks with the Soviet Union concerning nuclear weapons called the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks . Nixon reduced U.S. military presence in Vietnam to the minimum required to contain communist advances, in

1422-730: A significant influence in forming Truman's views on the Soviet Union. In February 1946, the U.S. State Department asked George F. Kennan , then at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, why the Russians opposed the creation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund . He responded with a wide-ranging analysis of Russian policy now called the Long Telegram : Soviet power, unlike that of Hitlerite Germany,

1501-538: A state. However, the success of the Inchon landing inspired the U.S. and the United Nations to adopt a rollback strategy instead and to overthrow communist North Korea, thus allowing nationwide elections under UN auspices. General Douglas MacArthur then advanced across the 38th Parallel into North Korea. The Chinese, fearful of a possible U.S. presence on their border or even an invasion by them, then sent in

1580-604: A street value of $ 50 million. In a 14-month period, starting in February 1972, six major illicit heroin laboratories were seized and dismantled in the suburbs of Marseille by French national narcotics police in collaboration with agents from the United States Drug Enforcement Administration . On February 29, 1972, French authorities seized the shrimp boat, Caprice des Temps , as it put to sea near Marseille heading towards Miami . It

1659-554: A strong and decisive leader, but his real decision-making process was more complex and gradual. The timing of the speech was not a response to any particular Soviet action but to the fact that the Republican Party had just gained control of Congress. Truman was little involved in drafting the speech and did not himself adopt the hard-line attitude that it suggested until several months later. The British, with their own position weakened by economic distress, urgently called on

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1738-653: A unified crime syndicate composed of about fifteen Corsican families, including the Francisci , Orsini, Venturi and Guerini clans, operating in the manner of the American mafia families. The article claims that "the Union Corse is more tightly knit and more secretive than its Sicilian counterpart", family ties creating bonds between the members, which are not only stronger but allow protection against outsiders trying to either infiltrate or gather information about any of

1817-516: Is neither schematic nor adventuristic. It does not work with fixed plans. It does not take unnecessary risks. Impervious to the logic of reason, and it is highly sensitive to the logic of force. For this reason, it can easily withdraw—and usually does when strong resistance is encountered at any point. Kennan's cable was hailed in the State Department as "the appreciation of the situation that had long been needed." Kennan himself attributed

1896-658: The 1956 Hungarian Revolution , which was put down by the Soviet Army , made containment a bipartisan doctrine. Eisenhower relied on clandestine CIA actions to undermine hostile governments and used economic and military foreign aid to strengthen governments supporting the American position in the Cold War. In the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, the top officials in Washington debated using rollback to get rid of Soviet nuclear missiles, which were threatening

1975-460: The Algerian War until 1962, and the opposition to American interference by the ruling Gaullist party. Furthermore, French-American collaboration against the French Connection precedes the eventual shutdown of the network in the early 1970s, as evidenced by the arrest of prominent Corsican chemist Jo Cesari near Marseille in 1964. At any rate, both the American and French authorities, who feared

2054-580: The Axis powers : Germany, Italy, and Japan. Key State Department personnel grew increasingly frustrated with and suspicious of the Soviets as the war drew to a close. Averell Harriman , U.S. Ambassador in Moscow, once a "confirmed optimist" regarding U.S.–Soviet relations, was disillusioned by what he saw as the Soviet betrayal of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising as well as by violations of the February 1945 Yalta Agreement concerning Poland . Harriman would later have

2133-546: The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan , containment was again made a priority. The wording of the Carter Doctrine (1980) intentionally echoed that of the Truman Doctrine. Following the communist victory in Vietnam, Democrats began to view further communist advances as inevitable, but Republicans returned to the rollback doctrine. Ronald Reagan , a long-time advocate of rollback, was elected U.S. president in 1980. He took

2212-601: The Truman Doctrine . Portraying the issue as a mighty clash between "totalitarian regimes" and "free peoples", the speech marks the adoption of containment as official US policy. Congress appropriated the money. Truman's motives on that occasion have been the subject of considerable scholarship and several schools of interpretation. In the orthodox explanation of Herbert Feis , a series of aggressive Soviet actions in 1945–1947 in Poland, Iran, Turkey, and elsewhere awakened

2291-556: The 1946 elections, President Truman, a Democrat, made a dramatic speech that is often considered to mark the beginning of the Cold War . In March 1947, he requested that Congress appropriate $ 400 million in aid to the Greek and Turkish governments, which were fighting communist subversion. Truman pledged to, "support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." This pledge became known as

2370-459: The 1960s was Corsican Jean Jehan. Although Jehan is reported to have arranged the famous 1962 deal gone wrong of 64 pounds of "pure" heroin, he was never arrested for his involvement in international heroin smuggling. According to Grosso, all warrants for the arrest of Jehan were left open. For years thereafter, Jehan was reported to be seen arranging and operating drug activities at will throughout Europe. According to William Friedkin , director of

2449-608: The 1971 film The French Connection , Jehan had been a member of the French Resistance to Nazi Occupation during World War II and, because of that, French law enforcement officials refused to arrest him. Friedkin was told that Jehan died peacefully of old age at his home in Corsica. Following five subsequent years of concessions, combined with international cooperation, the Turkish government finally agreed in 1971 to

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2528-568: The Allied-aligned Czech Legion , sent a small number of troops to Northern Russia and Siberia . The United States also provided indirect aid such as food and supplies to the White Army . The incursion was unpopular at home and lacked a cohesive strategy, leading the allies to ultimately withdraw from Russia. The U.S. initially refused to recognize the Soviet Union, but President Franklin D. Roosevelt reversed

2607-435: The American public to the new danger to freedom to which Truman responded. In the revisionist view of William Appleman Williams , Truman's speech was an expression of longstanding American expansionism. In the realpolitik view of Lynn E. Davis , Truman was a naive idealist who unnecessarily provoked the Soviets by couching disputes in terms like democracy and freedom that were alien to the communist vision. According to

2686-765: The Corsican underworld had been involved in the manufacturing and trafficking of heroin, primarily to the United States . It was this heroin network that eventually became known as "the French Connection". The Corsican Gang was protected by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the SDECE after World War II in exchange for working to prevent French Communists from bringing the Old Port of Marseille under their control. Historically,

2765-620: The Democratic nominee, answered that rollback risked nuclear war. Johnson explained containment doctrine by quoting the Bible: "Hitherto shalt thou come, but not further." Goldwater lost to Johnson in the 1964 election by a wide margin. Johnson adhered closely to containment during the Vietnam War . Rejecting proposals by General William Westmoreland for U.S. ground forces to advance into Laos and cut communist supply lines, Johnson gathered

2844-562: The East Coast of the United States during the early 1970s, which in turn led to a major New York Police Department (NYPD) corruption scheme. The scope and depth of this scheme are still not known, but officials suspect it involved corrupt NYPD officers who allowed Papa, Alessi, and Loria access to the NYPD property/evidence storage room, where hundreds of kilograms of heroin lay seized from the now-infamous French Connection bust, and from which

2923-580: The French Connection in 1973 netted 210 pounds (95 kg) of heroin worth $ 38 million. In February 1972, French traffickers offered a United States Army sergeant $ 96,000 (equivalent to $ 699,265 in 2023) to smuggle 240 pounds (109 kg) of heroin into the United States. He informed his superior who in turn notified the BNDD. As a result of this investigation, five men in New York and two in Paris were arrested with 264 pounds (120 kg) of heroin, which had

3002-595: The French liner St. Tropez . On January 7, 1949, more than 50 pounds (22.75 kg) of opium and heroin were seized on the French ship Batista . After Paul Carbone's death, the Guérini clan was the ruling dynasty of the Unione Corse and had systematically organized the smuggling of opium from Turkey and other Middle Eastern countries . The Guérini clan was led by Marseille mob boss Antoine Guérini and his brothers, Barthelemy, Francois and Pascal. In October 1957,

3081-438: The Marseille area, and from there was shipped to its final destination, the large and growing American market. Heroin produced at that time in Marseille was reputed to be 98% pure. It is estimated that around 80% of the heroin consumed in the United States by the early 1970s had been smuggled in from France. By the early 1960s, this figure was 90%. The French Connection was eventually broken up by French and American authorities in

3160-484: The Soviets had successfully tested an atomic bomb, they had been known to possess nuclear weapons . The U.S. followed containment when it first entered the Korean War to defend South Korea from a communist invasion by North Korea . Initially, this directed the action of the U.S. to only push back North Korea across the 38th Parallel and restore South Korea's sovereignty, thereby allowing North Korea's survival as

3239-598: The U.S. and Western European nations. Because containment required detailed information about communist moves, the government relied increasingly on the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Established by the National Security Act of 1947, the CIA conducted espionage in foreign lands, some of it visible, more of it secret. Truman approved a classified statement of containment policy called NSC 20/4 in November 1948,

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3318-643: The U.S. to take over the traditional British role in Greece. Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson took the lead in Washington, warning congressional leaders in late February 1947 that if the United States did not take over from the British, the result most probably would be a "Soviet breakthrough" that "might open three continents to Soviet penetration." Truman was explicit about the challenge of communism taking control of Greece. He won wide support from both parties as well as experts in foreign policy inside and outside

3397-481: The United States annually from France. The French traffickers continued to exploit the demand for their illegal product, and by 1969, they were supplying the United States with 80 percent of its heroin. On April 26, 1968, a record setting seizure was made, 246 lb (111.6 kg) of heroin smuggled to New York concealed in a Citroën DS on the SS France (1960) ocean liner. The total amount smuggled during

3476-479: The United States' efforts to impede its global ascent . Both Americans and Europeans were aware with significant historical antecedents. In the 1850s, anti-slavery forces in the United States developed a free soil strategy of containment to stop the expansion of slavery until it later collapsed. Historian James Oakes explains the strategy: The Federal government would surround the south with free states, free territories, and free waters, building what they called

3555-580: The United States. The international drug route Turkey–Marseille–New York flourished after the early 1950s, when it was structured by mobster Lucky Luciano and the Italian-American mafia after their previous source, legal Italian pharmaceutical production hijacked by the Camorra , was shut down in 1951. Morphine base, derived from the cultivation of poppies, was smuggled in from Turkey by boat, before being transformed into heroin by local chemists in

3634-562: The United States. There was fear of a nuclear war until a deal was reached in which the Soviets would publicly remove their nuclear weapons, the United States would secretly remove its missiles from Turkey and to avoid invading Cuba. The policy of containing Cuba was put into effect by President John F. Kennedy and continued until 2015. Senator Barry Goldwater , the Republican candidate for president in 1964, challenged containment and asked, "Why not victory?" President Lyndon Johnson ,

3713-615: The busiest ports in the western Mediterranean Sea , known for shipping all types of illegal goods. The Marseille heroin was considered high quality. The convenience of the port at Marseille and the frequent arrival of ships from opium-producing countries made it easy to smuggle the morphine base to Marseille from the Far East or the Near East . The French underground would then ship large quantities of heroin from Marseille to New York City . The first significant post-World War II seizure

3792-399: The containment of Soviet Power "by military means of a military threat, but the political containment of a political threat." Second, Kennan admitted a failure in the article to specify the geographical scope of "containment", and that containment was not something he believed the United States could necessarily achieve everywhere successfully. After Republicans gained control of Congress in

3871-527: The dynamics of this policy. After the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, there were calls by Western leaders to isolate the Bolshevik government, which seemed intent on promoting worldwide revolution. In March 1919, French Premier Georges Clemenceau called for a cordon sanitaire , a ring of non-communist states, to isolate Soviet Russia . Translating that phrase, US President Woodrow Wilson called for

3950-488: The early 1970s, in the context of the " war on drugs " campaign launched by Richard Nixon in 1971. French judge Pierre Michel, whose investigations were decisive in breaking up the traffic in Southern France, was assassinated in 1981 in Marseille. The French Connection was mainly managed on its French section by Italo-Corsican clans. The latter did not control the whole traffic and participated in it in response to

4029-418: The early 1970s, most French and American observers believe that the existence of a Corsican crime syndicate as described by Time magazine is an exaggerated account of the reality of that time, as there was no such thing as a pyramidal Corsican mafia run by a single board of directors and deeply infiltrated into the state. Investigative journalist Jacques Follorou writes the local situation was characterized by

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4108-407: The end of the 1960s, after Robert Blemant's assassination by Antoine Guérini, a gang war started in Marseille, caused by competition over casino revenues. Blemant's associate Marcel Francisci continued the war over the next years. Former New York City Police Department Narcotics Bureau detective Sonny Grosso has stated that the kingpin of the French Connection heroin ring during the 1950s into

4187-539: The enthusiastic reception to timing: "Six months earlier the message would probably have been received in the State Department with raised eyebrows and lips pursed in disapproval. Six months later, it would probably have sounded redundant." Clark Clifford and George Elsey produced a report elaborating on the Long Telegram and proposing concrete policy recommendations based on its analysis. This report, which recommended "restraining and confining" Soviet influence,

4266-459: The fact that they occasionally join together to make a good deal. If the initial French official response to the French Connection was seen or exploited by the American authorities as evidence of relations between local political elites and the organised crime, scholars highlight other probable explanations: the low level of drug use in France until the end of the 1960s, the major efforts required by

4345-558: The first comprehensive statement of security policy ever created by the United States. The Soviet Union's first nuclear test in 1949 prompted the National Security Council to formulate a revised security doctrine. Completed in April 1950, it became known as NSC 68 . It concluded that a massive military buildup was necessary to deal with the Soviet threat. According to the report, drafted by Paul Nitze and others: In

4424-514: The government. It was strongly opposed by the left, notably by former Vice President Henry A. Wallace , who ran against Truman in the 1948 presidential campaign. Truman, under the guidance of Acheson, followed up his speech with a series of measures to contain Soviet influence in Europe, including the Marshall Plan , or European Recovery Program, and NATO , a 1949 military alliance between

4503-409: The head of the Union Corse, Dino Golzine , is the main antagonist of the story. French Connection The French Connection was a scheme through which heroin was smuggled from Indochina through Turkey to France and then to the United States and Canada . The operation started in the 1930s, reached its peak in the 1960s, and was dismantled in the 1970s. It was responsible for providing

4582-407: The many transatlantic voyages of just this one car was 1,606 lb (728.5 kg) according to arrested smuggler Jacques Bousquet. In an effort to limit the most proximate source of supply to the Corsican cartel, US officials went to Turkey to negotiate the phasing out of opium production. Initially, the Turkish government agreed to limit their opium production starting with the 1968 crop. At

4661-402: The members. According to the article, the symbol of the Unione Corse was the same as the symbol for Corsica , the Moor's head , a depiction of a black human head with a rag tied around the forehead, on a white field. A member of this society may wear it as a pendant or a watch fob. Although they concede that Corsican clans participating in the French Connection enjoyed relative impunity until

4740-437: The men would help themselves and replace missing heroin with flour and corn starch to avoid detection. The substitution was discovered only when officers noticed insects eating all the bags of "heroin". By that point an estimated street value of approximately $ 70 million worth of heroin had already been taken. The racket was brought to light and arrests were made. Certain plotters received jail sentences, including Papa, who

4819-447: The new regime's militant atheism and advocacy of a command economy . He also was concerned that Marxism–Leninism would spread to the remainder of the Western world, and intended his landmark Fourteen Points partially to provide liberal democracy as an alternative worldwide ideology to Communism. Despite reservations, the United States, as a result of the fear of Japanese expansion into Russian-held territory and their support for

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4898-412: The parking lot of the building where he lived in Paris, France. Containment Containment was a geopolitical strategic foreign policy pursued by the United States during the Cold War to prevent the spread of communism after the end of World War II . The name was loosely related to the term cordon sanitaire , which was containment of the Soviet Union in the interwar period . As

4977-458: The policy in 1933 in the hope to expand American export markets. The Munich Agreement of 1938 was a failed attempt to contain Nazi expansion in Europe. The U.S. tried to contain Japanese expansion in Asia from 1937 to 1941, and Japan reacted with its attack on Pearl Harbor . After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 during World War II , the U.S. and the Soviet Union found themselves allied against Germany and used rollback to defeat

5056-458: The post- World War II term of U.S. President Harry S. Truman . As a description of U.S. foreign policy , the word originated in a report Kennan submitted to US Defense Secretary James Forrestal in 1947, which was later used in a Foreign Affairs article. In a broader context, the term is employed to denote a strategy designed to limit or hinder an opponent's capacity for international power projection . China used this term to characterize

5135-405: The raw material for most of the heroin consumed in the United States came from Indochina , then Turkey . Turkish farmers were licensed to grow opium poppies for sale to legal drug companies, but many sold their excess to the underworld market, where it was manufactured into heroin and transported to the United States. The morphine paste was refined in Corsican laboratories in Marseille, one of

5214-404: The relevance of a rapprochement with local politicians becomes less obvious as trafficking takes on an international dimension. In Ian Fleming 's novel On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1964), the Unione Corse is depicted as a Corsican-based mafia led by Marc-Ange Draco. The Union Corse also appears in Frederick Forsyth 's novel The Day of the Jackal (1971). In the manga Banana Fish ,

5293-437: The rollback policy, but Truman fired him for insubordination . Under President Dwight D. Eisenhower , a rollback strategy was considered against communism in Eastern Europe from 1953 to 1956. Eisenhower agreed to a propaganda campaign to roll back the influence of communism psychologically, but he refused to intervene in the 1956 Hungarian Revolution , mainly for fear that it would cause World War III . Since late 1949, when

5372-410: The vast majority of the heroin used in the United States at the time. The operation was headed by Corsicans Antoine Guérini and Paul Carbone (with associate François Spirito ). It also involved Auguste Ricord , Paul Mondoloni and Salvatore Greco . Illegal heroin labs were first discovered near Marseille , France , in 1937. These labs were run by Corsican gang leader Paul Carbone . For years,

5451-430: The word "containment" originates from this so-called "X Article": "In these circumstances, it is clear that the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies." Kennan later turned against the containment policy and noted several deficiencies in his X Article. He later said that by containment he meant not

5530-438: The words of the Federalist (No. 28) "The means to be employed must be proportioned to the extent of the mischief." The mischief may be a global war or it may be a Soviet campaign for limited objectives. In either case, we should take no avoidable initiative which would cause it to become a war of annihilation, and if we have the forces to defeat a Soviet drive for limited objectives it may well be to our interest not to let it become

5609-415: Was carrying 915 pounds (415 kg) of heroin. Drug arrests in France skyrocketed from 57 in 1970 to 3,016 in 1972. Also broken up as part of this investigation was the crew of American Mafia Lucchese family mobster Vincent Papa , whose members included Anthony Loria Sr. and Virgil Alessi . The well-organized gang was responsible for distributing close to a million dollars worth of heroin up and down

5688-456: Was later murdered in federal prison in Atlanta, Georgia . Ultimately, the Guérini clan was exterminated during internecine wars within the French underworld. In 1971, Marcel Francisci was accused by the U.S. Bureau of Narcotics of being involved in the trafficking of heroin between Marseilles and New York City. On 16 January 1982, Marcel Francisci was shot to death as he was entering his car in

5767-429: Was made in New York on February 5, 1947, when seven pounds (3 kg) of heroin were seized from a Corsican sailor disembarking from a vessel that had just arrived from France. It soon became clear that the French underground was increasing not only its participation in the illegal trade of opium, but also its expertise and efficiency in heroin trafficking. On March 17, 1947, 28 pounds (13 kg) of heroin were found on

5846-405: Was part of an integrated strategy to promote republicanism in France by strategically and ideologically isolating the clerical-monarchist regime of President Patrice de MacMahon . It was hoped that by surrounding France with a number of liberal states, French Republicans could defeat MacMahon and his reactionary supporters. The modern concept of containment provides a useful model for understanding

5925-423: Was presented to Truman on September 24, 1946. In January 1947, Kennan drafted an essay entitled " The Sources of Soviet Conduct ." Navy Secretary James Forrestal gave permission for the report to be published in the journal Foreign Affairs under the pseudonym "X." Biographer Douglas Brinkley has dubbed Forrestal "godfather of containment" on account of his work in distributing Kennan's writing. The use of

6004-634: Was proposed by James Burnham and other conservative strategists in the late 1940s. After 1954, Burnham and like-minded strategists became editors and regular contributors to William F. Buckley Jr. 's National Review magazine. Truman himself adopted a rollback strategy in the Korean War after the success of the Inchon landings in September 1950, only to reverse himself after the Chinese counterattack two months later and revert to containment. General Douglas MacArthur called on Congress to continue

6083-514: Was smuggling morphine base from Beirut to Marseille. Narcotics agents had been seizing about 200 pounds (90 kg) of heroin in a typical year, but intelligence showed that the Corsican traffickers were smuggling in 200 pounds (90 kg) every other week. Rosal alone, in one year, had used his diplomatic status to bring in about 440 pounds (200 kg). The Federal Bureau of Narcotics 's 1960 annual report estimated that from 2,600 to 5,000 pounds (1,200 to 2,300 kg) of heroin were coming into

6162-514: Was supported by far-left elements of the CIO , but they were purged in 1947 and 1948. Wallace ran against Truman on the Progressive Party ticket in 1948, but his campaign was increasingly dominated by Communists, which helped to discredit détente. The third policy was rollback , an aggressive effort to undercut or destroy the Soviet Union itself. Military rollback against the Soviet Union

6241-490: Was too dangerous to revive. The second policy was a continuation of the détente policies that aimed at friendly relationships with the Soviet Union, especially trade. Roosevelt had been the champion of détente, but he was dead, and most of his inner circle had left the government by 1946. The chief proponent of détente was Henry Wallace, a former vice president and the Secretary of Commerce under Truman. Wallace's position

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