Book Talk at Pardee: Woodward Hosts Dr. David Tuch, Author of The Wireless Operator
On April 9, 2026, Dr. David Tuch discussed his latest book, The Wireless Operator: The Untold Story of the British Sailor Who Invented the Modern Drug Trade, at the Pardee School of Global Studies. Moderated by Professor John Woodward Jr., the event was sponsored by Boston University’s International History Institute.
Through family members, Tuch learned that Harold Deber was a distant cousin. Deber’s involvement in drug trade piqued Tuch’s curiosity, inspiring him to embark on a scholarly journey which culminated into his latest book.
At the event, Tuch recounted the fascinating and in many ways surreal story of Harold Derber, who grew up destitute in Manchester, England. As a teenager, Derber enlisted as a radio operator in the British Merchant Navy during World War II, surviving dangerous ocean crossings. Once the war ended, he volunteered as a de facto intelligence officer for Israel, smuggling captured German rifles and ammunition from Soviet-controlled Czechoslovakia past British blockades to Israeli forces.
A consummate, charming, and confident man, Derber began undertaking riskier exploits, including arms smuggling in Latin America, financial fraud in the United States, and other questionable schemes. In the immediate aftermath of the Bay of Pigs in 1961, he caught the attention of the Kennedy White House for his offer to transport Cubans with U.S. visas to Florida on his ship. Derber personally negotiated this arrangement with the head of Castro’s intelligence service. By the 1970s, Derber was heavily into marijuana smuggling.
“If you smoked a joint in the U.S. in the 1970s, the odds are it came into the country on one of Derber’s cargo ships,” revealed the author. “And during this time period, marijuana was the largest illegal drug smuggled into the U.S.”
Tuch explained that Derber cleverly took advantage of American law to organize a mother ship approach with marijuana grown in Colombia via the Caribbean to a point off the East Coast of the States, ensuring the ship was in international waters and not subject to the U.S. criminal law. There the mother ship would offload marijuana onto small, fast boats that would speed to U.S. shores and distribute it to dealers, making him a fortune. Derber’s money laundering operations were vast and eventually led to one of America’s largest securities fraud cases at the time involving First Jersey Securities.
Eventually, the drug trade’s inherent risks and violence caught up with Harold Derber. He was murdered in Miami in 1976, and his homicide still remains unsolved.
Erin Gable, a graduate student at Pardee, who attended the event said, ” My initial thoughts were The Wireless Operator is the book that keeps on giving. It’s Thomas Shelby [of Peaky Blinders fame] meets Che Guevara.”
Woodward noted that “Harold Derber is one of the most interesting, and least known characters present during key historic events, including World War II, the Arab-Israeli War of 1948, Castro’s Cuba in 1961, and massive marijuana smuggling in the 1970s,” crediting Tuch with bringing this notorious figure back to life through his writing.
To learn more about this book, click here.