THE ARIZONA PROJECT: How a Team of Investigative Reporters Got Revenge on Deadline

by Michael F. Wendland ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1977

Wendland, a reporter for the Detroit News, was one of a half-dozen fulltime staffers on the Arizona Project, an unprecedented venture in the world of investigative journalism. It was born when Don Belles, longtime newsman for the Arizona Republic, was mortally wounded by a bomb placed in his car. His death violated the unwritten law that journalists were off limits, and evoked--Wendland makes no bones about it--a desire among the press to nail every creep in the state, Among the project's targets: land fraud (""Arizona's number one industry""), heavy traffic in Mexican wetbacks, drugs, prostitution, and the infiltration of the state by ""the newcomers""--Eastern Mafia hoods gone to bask in the sun. Eventually 23 major exposes were produced. But, though Wendland doesn't say so, it's clear that there were disappointments: while Robert Goldwater was besmirched by the wetback issue, his brother the Senator could not be shown guilty of wrongdoing. Though the stories led to some legal indictments, many of the heavies escaped--including the sinister rancher who probably gave the order to have Don Belles snuffed. As Wendland tells it, the Arizona Project was a great adventure for the reporters as well as a moral vendetta against the ""official gutlessness"" of the state's power-mongers. The book tends to be longwinded and repetitive, but the Project had enough intrinsic interest--and Arizona had enough depravity--to keep things humming along.

Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1977

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Sheed Andrews & McMeel

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1977

Categories: NONFICTION