Arizona Invasion Force

On the 13th floor of the Adams Hotel in downtown Phoenix, there is an unmarked suite, guarded by a security man and bristling with typewriters, telephones, dictating and duplicating equipment. Last week the first of some 18 investigative reporters from 14 papers across the U.S. began drifting into that mini-city room to start the most remarkable journalistic joint effort since Woodward met Bernstein.

What drew them to Phoenix was the death of Don Bolles, 47, the Arizona Republic investigative reporter killed four months ago when a bomb blew up his car. Bolles had for years been digging into local political corruption and organized crime. On June 2 he was finally lured to his death by a telephone tipster who claimed to be offering information on a land-sales fraud. Now Bolles' colleagues of the IRE (Investigative Reporters and Editors Association) will try to pick up where he left off. "We're not here to catch Don Bolles' killer," says Michael Wendland of the Detroit News. (A local race-dog breeder goes on trial for the murder next week.) "We know something is very, very rotten in the state of Arizona, and we want to find out how it got that way."

The reporters, who are among 50 or so members of the year-old group, came to that conclusion within days after the killing of Bolles, who was also a member. So far, they have raised some $20,000 for the venture (the goal: $50,000). They have chosen as their leader Robert Greene, whose investigative task forces at Long Island's Newsday have won two Pulitzer Prizes. The IRE volunteers plan to publish the results of the investigation simultaneously in their 14 papers next January.

Guns for Dope. To avoid teletyping their punches to possible targets of inquiry, the reporters refuse to discuss their activities publicly. Privately they complain of being snubbed by some Arizona journalists, harassed by crank calls and pressured by their editors to finish early and come home. No matter. The reporters say they have already dug up enough new information to turn the project from vindication of a slain colleague into a valuable story in its own right. "We've learned that heroin dealers in Arizona are selling guns to Mexican guerrillas in exchange for dope," reports one member. Says another: "It's not just Arizona. We've followed leads into six other states. It's a hell of a story."

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