Washington Confidential 10 – Mortimer · Verses Across
Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
Washington Confidential 10Part 1 · UNCLE SAM: LANDLORD
18
Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
Washington Confidential 10
Part 1 · UNCLE SAM: LANDLORD
MortimerEnglish
This is Washington’s largest segment--the federal domain. More than 40 percent of the property in the District is owned by Uncle Sam. (Queen Wilhelmina of The Netherlands is said to be the largest private owner of real estate in the District. She owned the huge Westchester apartments, but sold the property recently to Hilton.)
Though not contiguous, it has an entity of its own. It is immune from local law. That is important, because some federal property oozes across District borders, such as the Pentagon and the National Airport, both on the Virginia side.
To complicate the confused problem of law enforcement, this federal potpourri has its own local police--not one force, but several. The Capitol Police have jurisdiction on the Capitol grounds and several blocks on either side, as far as the Washington Union station. The Terminal Police police that. The White House Police are the cops for the Executive Mansion and surrounding areas. They are under supervision of the Secret Service, a branch of the Treasury. The Capitol cops are under control of Congress itself. The terminal, owned by the railroads and the government, picks its own bulls.
The Park Police are part of the National Park Police, a division of the Department of the Interior. They are the law in the parks and squares, on the boulevards, and on the road in Virginia leading to the Pentagon and the Airport.
All other government buildings are policed by the Public Buildings Police, a Treasury unit. The National Airport, in Virginia, has exempt status. Its own cops not only patrol the grounds, but the main road. The Pentagon, Arlington Cemetery and other military establishments in the vicinity are under jurisdiction of the Armed Services Police.
Hundreds of thousands are employed in this federal domain. Many more use its facilities or live in its lee. This makes the task of policing almost too complex to be figured out by any court.
Elsewhere, when there is a conflict of authority over the situs of a crime, both jurisdictions fight for the right to arrest and try the accused. In the District it works the other way around. If it’s a borderline case, both sides duck.
For instance, if you’re pinched for anything on or along the road leading to the National Airport there is a conflict between the National Park Police, the Airport Police, the local Virginia Police, municipal and county police, and possibly, the MP’s. No one wants any part of it. So there is merry law-breaking in this federal domain.
At this writing, 27,000 people are employed in the Pentagon. It is a city within a city. Like all cities, it has its peccadillos. Many elevator operators are runners for bookies. Many colored messengers, male and female, sell policy slips. Reefers can be had. The cops--all kinds--don’t know what to do about it. The military police don’t like to arrest civilians, even those employed by the Army. The Virginia police say they have no authority because it’s federal property.
The same apathy that marks everything in Washington pervades the Pentagon and other federal buildings. A high Army officer, highly placed because his brother is close to the President, is a homosexual. He had gathered 95 other officers of similar inclinations to form what was known as the “Fairy Brigade.” Though scandalously abnormal acts have been committed within the Pentagon walls, no consequences ensued. No one knew how to go about it. Instead, the suspected fairies were transferred to distant posts--separately, of course--in the hope that when they got into trouble in their new stations their commanding officers would pick up the buck.
More recently a Signal Corps captain in the Pentagon was apprehended lurking in the stair wells, where he exposed himself to young women. The Army took the easiest way--transferred him to Fort Monmouth, where he was eventually chased out of the service.
The same situation applies in all government buildings in the District and in the suburbs. No one wants to do anything about anything. There is scarcely a government installation anywhere in Washington where you can’t place a bet or buy a numbers slip. When elevator jockeys aren’t selling them, clerks and typists, white and dark, are. Dates and assignations are made on U. S. property by government girls looking for fun or extra earnings, and by come-getters who barge in and solicit men for dates after work--even sometimes for affairs right on overstuffed leather couches which we own, you too.
Any punitive action in these cases is not by police officers. When things get out of hand, department heads fire the culprits.
While the Kefauver Committee was investigating bookmaking, two elevator operators in the Senate Office Building, in which the hearings were conducted, were taking bets on horses with full knowledge of most Senators, many of whom were placing wagers.
That guy you see at the corner of 1st and B, outside the House Office Building, talking to a cop, is a bookmaker’s runner. That’s his station. That’s where typists, messengers and other help in the House of Representatives lay it on the line.
Many have fallen into debt because of the convenience with which they can place bets all day. Hundreds are in the clutches of the loan-sharks in Maryland and the shylocks, who work their trade right in the government office buildings, exacting 100 percent interest for a one-month loan. Many are in arrears on their income taxes for this reason; those who owe more than what is withheld. This has posed a serious problem for the collecting authorities, who are balked by a quirk in the law which forbids them to garnishee tax delinquents among federal employes.
The indifference to rules that apply in private employment results in a sort of Alice in Wonderland atmosphere throughout the unwieldy federal domain.
Humorist George Dixon’s story about the two crews hard at work in the Pentagon sums it up:
One crew puts up partitions. The other crew takes them down. The paths of the two crews seldom cross, though there have been embarrassing occasions when they arrived at the same office simultaneously on conflicting missions. But that was the fault of “inefficiency” higher up, not of the putters-up and the takers-down.
Retired brass which had come roaring back to the Pentagon found itself assigned to broom-closets because many mere swivel-chair warmers had commandeered enough office space for a bowling alley.
That’s why the Pentagon has two crews, working independently, day and night. One makes offices bigger for new brass, the other makes them smaller for the old.
The confusion is proving hard on fixed Pentagon employes. They suffer severely from wet paint.
