New Series! A Historian Reads: American Desperado

Following the beginning of our film review series, we thought it appropriate to begin a book review series as well. Historians do a lot of reading (heads up for anyone interested in entering the field), but it also happens to be a passion of ours. We will review books that deal with history but they could come from different fields and include fiction and non fiction.

After reviewing the documentary Cocaine Cowboys I thought it might be interesting to introduce you to one of the books used for the making of that documentary. American Desperado is the autobiography of one of the infamous cocaine cowboys, Jon Roberts. If you read the review of that film you will know that the cocaine cowboys refers to the period of extreme drug gang violence that occurred in South Florida during the 1980's and 1990's. Participants in this violence were called the cocaine cowboys because of the lawless nature that the region had developed.

Jon Roberts was one of these cocaine cowboys. A New York native, Roberts was one of the non-Colombian affiliates of the active cartels in South Florida. He began working as a distributor in New York in the club scene during the early 1970's and found it to be a lucrative occupation. However, he moved to Florida when the drug trade through the Caribbean exploded. Cocaine became a desired drug and the main supplier, Colombian cartels, developed extensive trade networks to get their product to the United States. Jon Robert's experience with the Gambino crime family in New York made him a perfect candidate to begin working with the up and coming Colombian cartels. Roberts claims that Cuban cartels in the area were having difficulty bringing in enough product to meet demands. Colombian cartels, who had been working exclusively in production, moved to expand their empire into manufacturing and distribution. Cuban and Colombian cartels were soon in conflict and Roberts found a niche within the Colombian cartel organization. He soon went to work with another American, Mickey Munday, a pilot who used his expertise in flight and navigation to bring up cocaine undetected. Both Roberts and Munday would eventually come under the radar of the South Florida Drug Task Force organized to deal specifically with the cocaine cowboys. A raid would lead to the arrest of Roberts and the escape of Munday. Under arrest, Roberts would eventually turn criminal informant helping the U.S government bring down many of his former colleagues.

Jon Roberts with co-author Evan Wright

This autobiography is an disturbing look into the late twentieth century drug trade by one of its important figures. Interest in this book has gone up recently since Mark Wahlburg has announced interest in making a film based on the autobiography with Wahlburg starring as Roberts. This news makes me uneasy because Hollywood does not have a good record in making accurate film about history in general, the drug war, and Colombians (that will be its own stand alone post/rant). We shall have to wait and see if this film turns out to be another misinformed glamorization film or maybe something closer to the truth. And the truth is that Roberts lived in a violent world and the nonchalant style of Robert's memoir reflects this. It becomes unsettling to read about the acts he committed or was involved in described in such a matter of fact style. Interestingly, since Roberts' death his co-author, Evan Wright, added an epilogue in which he describes his own uneasiness with Roberts' personality and violent past. Wright describes how he feared Roberts as certain times during the process of helping him write the book. As a reader, I found myself experiencing something similar to Wright. Despite this, I do believe this is an important book to the history of the drug war. It reveals the world from the inside out and demonstrates how the drug trade benefited by the war on drugs and the political climate of the United States. Moreso, Roberts' autobiography allows readers to understand the reality of the drug trade outside of the hyper-hysteria of the press and glamorization of the media that most people are familiar with. As this book shows, reality is often more horrific and sensational than anything a filmmaker than make.