Part 71

Such an experience brought a protest from a Canadian, who wrote The New York Times in November, 1958, complaining of rude treatment by a churlish airport inspector. The inspector curtly demanded the Canadian’s bags be opened for inspection. Then without as much as a peek inside them, he ordered the bags to be closed in what the visitor termed “an exercise in official nuisance and an assertion of bureaucratic authority.” He added, “The trip began with irritation from this first contact with a representative of the United States....”

Baggage inspection--while it is only a small part of the overall Bureau operation--nevertheless is one of the most sensitive parts of the Bureau’s work, and officials are painfully aware of this fact. They are trying to eliminate the kind of patently absurd situation which inspired a New Yorker cartoonist to picture a stern, arms-folded Customs inspector at the U.S.-Mexico border facing a very pregnant young lady and saying, “That’s the rule, lady--if you got it in Mexico, you pay duty on it.”

The keeper of the law can hardly hope to win popularity contests. But most of the complaints against Customs spring from the average American traveller’s resentment of the baggage inspection. People simply don’t like to have a stranger poking about among personal belongings.

The Bureau has been seeking ways to speed up the examinations and to keep the public at least tranquil, if not happy, over the operation. Conveyor belts have been installed at examination counters at airports in New York, Miami, San Juan and San Francisco, and are planned at other major points of international travel. They have helped to cut down delays. Campaigns are conducted among employees to promote greater courtesy in dealing with the travelling public.

Inspector Simon, discussing this situation, said: “We rarely have difficulty with seasoned travellers who know all the rules. It’s the people who don’t travel too often, the person who makes one trip in ten years’ time, and the general tourist who are always apprehensive about Customs. One of the most difficult things is to settle them down and make them feel at ease so that you can get the answers to your questions without upsetting them too much. Once they feel that you understand their situation and you start to discuss with them what they have purchased and what they might have ordered to be shipped later and how they must go about clearing these articles, then they relax a bit and you find that it is easier to handle them.”

To train new Customs employees in their duties and responsibilities, the Customs Bureau operates a school for inspectors and examiners in an old building at 54 Stone Street in lower Manhattan. Here the recruits are not only instructed in the proper way to meet the public and to inspect luggage, but also how to look for the tricks of the smuggler, how to obtain a sample from a shipment of wool for a laboratory analysis, the proper procedures for verifying shipments of merchandise to determine their dutiable value, and what items are on the forbidden list, such as narcotics and certain plants and vegetables. They also must familiarize themselves with an impost book on whose pages are listed more than 60,000 articles which are dutiable. And in hours of study there is instruction in other phases of the Bureau’s widespread operations.

While the schooling is helpful for any future inspectors, only experience will give them the finesse and the tact necessary to avoid constant irritations in dealing with the thousands of people who pass through the ports each year from overseas, or from Canada and Mexico.

Customs inspectors have learned from long experience that elderly women returning from abroad for the first time and women who are travelling alone are apt to be the most emotional when approaching the Customs inspection lane. They require special attention by inspectors in filling out the proper forms and in getting their baggage prepared for inspection. Many of them regard Customs as a frightening barrier to entry into the United States--and not as an agency to help them comply with the laws which were written by Congress.

Actually, a close look at the record reveals that the Customs Bureau is one of the more efficient units in the Federal government. Even though the work load for examiners, agents, appraisers and other employees has increased more than 200 per cent over the past ten years, the Bureau does the job with fewer employees. In 1951 the Bureau had a total of 8,561 employees--8 more than were employed in 1962. The Bureau’s operating budget had increased from $40,500,000 to $63,400,000 over that period, but most of the increase went into pay raises voted by Congress, employee retirement funds, increased health benefits, and employee insurance contributions.

In 1960, the Bureau won a commendation from the watchdog Bureau of the Budget for an impressive showing in management improvements effected by outgoing Commissioner Ralph Kelly.

Since that remote day in 1789 when William Seton paid the first $774.41 in duties into the U.S. Treasury, the responsibility for policing the imports has grown steadily.

The nerve center for the sprawling operation is located in the office of Commissioner Philip Nichols, Jr., in Washington, D. C., whose top lieutenant is a long-time government career man, Assistant Commissioner David B. Strubinger.

Management control is maintained through seven main divisions: the Division of Engineering and Weighing, the Division of Laboratories, the Division of Tariff and Marine Administration, the Division of Personnel, the Supervisor of Appraisers, the Division of Investigations and Patrols, and the Division of Fiscal Administration.

In the field there are forty-five collectors of customs in thirty-two Customs districts, thirty-two appraisers, nine chief chemists, seven comptrollers, thirteen supervising Customs agents, and nine chief laboratory chemists, in addition to the inspectors, enforcement agents, examiners, border patrolmen, technicians, and clerical workers.

In the fiscal year 1960, the imports reached $13 billion, and in 1962 they climbed to more than $15 billion--pouring through 350 ports of entry and Customs stations along the borders. The collection of duties soared in 1962 to more than $1.5 billion. International air travel at New York’s Idlewild Airport increased more than 10 per cent over the preceding year, and air cargo shipments were up 20 per cent. Similar reports came from other points of international travel.

Perhaps one of the more notable achievements of the Service is the fact that with improved management controls, better auditing procedures, and swift action against crooked employees, the Bureau has not had a major household scandal in more than a quarter of a century.

For years, the Bureau has had one of the lowest personnel turnover rates of any of the government agencies. It is now in a period of rapid change. The reason is that many of the long-time employees, including those in top management positions, are reaching retirement age. They are the ones who came into the Service in the early 1920s and chose to remain.

Government employees may retire any time from age sixty-two on to the mandatory retirement age of seventy. Most of those retiring are stepping out at age sixty-five, and since 1960 the Bureau has been forced to seek approximately 400 new employees each year--with a heavy turnover in the upper management echelon.

The management vacancies are being filled by promotions within the Service. The upward move has left openings in the lower positions for young men and women interested in a government career and, more particularly, in the specialized work offered by Customs. This trend in employment will continue through 1965.

Why did they stay with the Customs Bureau in such numbers? One of the old-timers put it this way: “We came into the Customs Service as young people and it became a part of our life. We felt we had more than an ordinary job. We felt we were taking part in something important to our country--and for this reason we felt important. There never was time to get bored because there never was a day when you didn’t run up against a new and interesting problem. I don’t mean a gimmick problem--but a problem that might mean millions of dollars. Of course, no job can be perfect--but I don’t know where I could have found another that would have kept me interested this long....”

There is every reason to believe that the Customs Service--the gray old frontier sheriff among the Federal agencies--is improving with age.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Don Whitehead was born in Inman, Virginia, and studied at the University of Kentucky. He has spent most of his working life in newspaper work, and for twenty-one years was with the Associated Press, twice winning Pulitzer prizes. For a time he was chief of the Washington, D.C., bureau of the New York Herald Tribune. In 1956 he wrote the widely acclaimed The F.B.I. Story, and in 1960 he wrote Journey into Crime. He now lives with his wife in Concord, Tennessee, where he writes a column for the Knoxville News-Sentinel and does freelance writing.

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left unbalanced.