John O'Neill: The Head
of Security
John
O'Neill of the Federal Bureau of Investigation was a
relative newcomer to New York, but nearly everybody saw
him as New York to the bone. And not just any New Yorker,
but a New Yorker of a certain pure strain -- the
gregarious, high-living, deeply curious Irish cop, who
loved wit and companionship and, most of all,
investigating crimes.
During his six years as head of
national security at the New York F.B.I. office, he
seemed to have become acquainted with half the population
of the city. One after another, said Valerie James, his
companion, people would stop by his table at Elaine's or
Bruno's or one of the other restaurants he frequented
nearly every night. He would order a Chivas with water
and a twist and a hearty, meaty meal, smoke a Dominican
cigar and talk -- to cops, colleagues, movie stars,
kitchen workers, musicians.
He was a complicated man, with a
life full of contradictions. Long estranged -- but not
divorced -- from Christine O'Neill, his wife in New
Jersey, he lived with Ms. James, a fashion sales director
he met in Chicago. As well as a driven F.B.I.
investigator, he was a well-studied lover of jazz and
French Impressionism. He led the agency's investigations
into the terror attacks on the American Embassies in
Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and the World Trade Center
bombing in 1993, and was its foremost expert on Osama bin
Laden. In August 2001, he retired from the F.B.I. to
become head of security at the World Trade Center, which
he intended to protect against the enemies he had studied
so deeply.
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