Myles Ambrose

Myles Ambrose was born on July 21, 1926, in The Bronx, New York.[1][2][3] His father, Arthur Ambrose, was a stockbroker on Wall Street.[1] His mother, Ann Campbell, was a singer.[1]

Ambrose was educated at the New Hampton School.[1] He received his bachelor's degree in business administration from Manhattan College in 1948 and his law degree from New York Law School in 1952.[1][2]

Ambrose started his career as a lawyer in New York City.[1] He served as an assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1954 to 1957.[1] He joined the United States Department of the Treasury in 1957, when he was appointed as chief coordinator of law enforcement and he prosecuted gang members.[1][2] From 1960 to 1963, he served as the executive director of the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor,[1] where he prosecuted organized crime figures.[2] He returned to legal practice in Washington, D.C., in 1963.[2]

In 1969, Ambrose was appointed as the Commissioner of Customs under President Richard M. Nixon.[2] Under his leadership, he oversaw the implementation of Operation Intercept, which consisted in searching vehicles entering the United States from Mexico.[2] The program was discontinued within weeks; instead, the Mexican police was expected to search for illicit drugs in cars driving into U.S. soil.[2] Meanwhile, it was Ambrose who promoted the use of dogs to look for drugs like heroin and marijuana.[2] In 1971, he successfully completed the seizure of 200 pounds of pure heroin entering the United States in three batches.[2] In January 1972, he became the director of the Office of Drug Abuse Law Enforcement (ODALE), a drug enforcement agency tasked primarily with the US federal government aiding local drug enforcement.[1] He proposed the creation of the more encompassing Drug Enforcement Administration in 1973.[1][2]

Ambrose returned to legal practise in Washington, D.C., upon retiring from the federal government.[1] He served on the inaugural committee of the Reagan-Bush campaign in 1980.[2] He served as the chairman of the board of Daytop, a drug addiction treatment organization.[2]

With his first wife, Elaine Miller, he had three sons and three daughters.[2] After she died in 1975, he married Joan Fitzpatrick, but he later divorced.[2] At the time of his death he was married to Lorraine Genovese. He wed Lorraine Genovese, a mother of three sons and two daughters, in 1994.[2] He attended Mass at St. Theresa Catholic Church in Ashburn, Virginia.[2] He resided in Lansdowne, Virginia and later Leesburg, Virginia, where he died of a congestive heart failure at the age of 87.[1][2][3]

• Interview Myles Ambrose, Frontline