The Enforcer Steps Down

When Will R. Wilson, head of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, was implicated in June in the financial wheelings and dealings of convicted Texas Swindler Frank Sharp (TIME, Sept. 13), it became only a matter of time before the chief enforcer of federal criminal laws would be forced to step down. Last week Wilson, a 25-year veteran of fighting crime and corruption, turned in a four-page letter of resignation to President Nixon. "Political enemies of the past, misplaced confidences and forces whose face I do not recognize have assailed my character," Wilson wrote. "I cannot permit any side issue to impede the federal drive against organized crime."

There was no denying the "misplaced confidences." Wilson, a former Texas attorney general, accepted a $30,000 interest-free loan from Sharp after he joined the Justice Department--at a time when Sharp was being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission for "systematically looting" three banks and insurance companies. Wilson claimed not to have known that such an investigation was under way. He also asserted that he had done no wrong by using Sharp's money to buy stock for a federal bank examiner who was checking Sharp's bank. The most serious charge that Wilson could not brush off was that he had paid for the installation of eavesdropping devices used against federal and state bank examiners investigating irregularities in the Sharp-controlled Sharpstown State Bank in 1967. While such bugging is not unlawful in Texas, it did break the security of an official investigation. Wilson insists that he did not know what the fee was for.

Eventually, Sharp pleaded guilty to bilking a Jesuit preparatory school of $6,000,000, forcing two insurance companies into receivership and causing the first bank failure in the history of Houston. Testifying under a federal grant of immunity, he named Wilson as one of the people involved in creating his financial empire. Whether Wilson's actions were dishonest--or merely unwise--they made his resignation inevitable.

When it finally came, it put a sad end to nearly three successful years of battling mobsters. Attorney General John Mitchell, in a terse, noncommittal statement accepting Wilson's resignation, conceded that his tainted assistant had "contributed significantly to the substantial progress that has been achieved in the war on organized crime." The White House had no comment on Wilson's departure. In the stately corridors of the Justice Department there was an almost audible sigh of relief.

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