From Kirkus Reviews
The up-your-nose, in-your-face life of George Jung, the high-school football star from small-town USA who became the American linchpin of the Colombian cocaine connection. Relying on extensive interviews with Jung and other key figures, Porter (Journalism/Brooklyn College) recounts a sleigh- ride-to-hell story of how 60's hippie innocence turned into 80's megadepravity. Porter dwells too long on Jung's unexceptional childhood (poor grades, risk-taking, shaky family life) but picks up steam when his subject comes of age--as a likable, handsome, well-muscled hedonist--and takes off for California and a haze of sunbathing, sex, pot, and LSD. Soon enough, Jung becomes chief marijuana importer to a number of prestigious East Coast colleges. Likening himself to Butch Cassidy, he moves his operation to Mexico and makes a mint until a series of busts stops him--temporarily. In prison, Jung befriends a young Carlos Lehder and links up with the Medell¡n coke cartel. The money bandied about is staggering: The Colombian suppliers gross $35 billion a year, and Jung buys a house just to stash his cash (lining floors and walls with $100 bills): ``Money, Learjets, fast cars, wild women, houses with maids,'' is how he recalls it later. Inevitably, the roller-coaster hits the steep downward slope: paranoia, as Jung snorts mountains of coke; a heart attack in his mid-30s; a car-bomb attack by Lehder, by now a business enemy; scary trips to Colombia, during one of which Jung watched coke czar Pablo Escobar execute a police informer; a flurry of arrests and escapes; finally, the Big Bust. But, as always, Jung comes out unscathed, turning state's witness (with Escobar's approval) to sing against Lehder. Set scot-free in exchange for his testimony, Jung now works in a legit delivery service, transporting fish up and down Cape Cod. How a happy hippie blew it on blow--finely researched, told with pizzazz. (Illustrations) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Kurzbeschreibung
In the mid-1970s, George Jung, former high school football star and hippie, met Carlos Lehder, psychopath and admirer of John Lennon, Hitler and Che Guevara. They were both doing time for drug dealing. The two men began one of the most profitable partnerships in history by turning the smuggling of cocaine, then a scarce luxury commodity into an unimaginably lucrative mass industry. By teaming up with Pablo Escobar of the tightly-knit Columbian Medellin cartel, they supplied more than 80% of the cocaine to the US for the next 15 years and grossed nearly $35 billion a year. In this book, Bruce Porter shows how Jung, who was his principal source for the book, created a business that went from a modest suitcase stash to one that could have placed sixth on the Fortune 500 list. Through Jung, the reader becomes privy to the inner workings of the organization, witnessing high life and high jinks in the daily operations of the rich and powerful Medellin drug cartel.
Synopsis
In the mid-1970s, George Jung, former high school football star and hippie, met Carlos Lehder, psychopath and admirer of John Lennon, Hitler and Che Guevara. They were both doing time for drug dealing. The two men began one of the most profitable partnerships in history by turning the smuggling of cocaine, then a scarce luxury commodity into an unimaginably lucrative mass industry. By teaming up with Pablo Escobar of the tightly-knit Columbian Medellin cartel, they supplied more than 80% of the cocaine to the US for the next 15 years and grossed nearly $35 billion a year. In this book, Bruce Porter shows how Jung, who was his principal source for the book, created a business that went from a modest suitcase stash to one that could have placed sixth on the Fortune 500 list. Through Jung, the reader becomes privy to the inner workings of the organization, witnessing high life and high jinks in the daily operations of the rich and powerful Medellin drug cartel.
