The Wire­less Oper­a­tor tells the unbe­liev­able true sto­ry of Harold Der­ber, the debonair British Mer­chant Navy vet­er­an who became America’s largest mar­i­jua­na traf­fick­er. Draw­ing on his mas­tery of nav­i­ga­tion and counter-sur­veil­lance, Der­ber pio­neered the use of off­shore ​“drug moth­er­ships” in the 1970s, trans­form­ing mar­i­jua­na smug­gling into a large-scale inter­na­tion­al enter­prise. This grip­ping biog­ra­phy fol­lows Der­ber — born Hyman Tuchverder­ber — from his hum­ble begin­nings in wartime Man­ches­ter through mar­itime ser­vice in the Bat­tle of the Atlantic and the Israeli War of Inde­pen­dence, into the Cold War under­world of smug­gling of ille­gal arms, refugees, and drugs. Along the way, he con­sort­ed with Fidel Cas­tro and Mey­er Lan­sky, while becom­ing a per­sis­tent thorn in the side of John F. Kennedy and Hen­ry Kissinger. His ascent end­ed with his assas­si­na­tion in Mia­mi by pro­fes­sion­al hit­men. Based on exten­sive inter­na­tion­al archival research, recent­ly declas­si­fied intel­li­gence reports, and first­hand inter­views, The Wire­less Oper­a­tor brings Derber’s life into focus for the first time — and explores how war, dis­place­ment, and inge­nu­ity can blur the line between crim­i­nal­i­ty and survival.