‘Street Agent’s Boss’ Will Head L.A. FBI Office

A top-ranking FBI official in Minneapolis with a reputation as a “street agent’s boss” has been selected to replace Richard T. Bretzing as head of the FBI’s 450-agent Los Angeles office, FBI officials announced Friday.

Lawrence G. Lawler, 47, now head of the FBI’s 100-agent Minneapolis office, will take over the job in July when Bretzing, a Mormon bishop, retires to become world security chief for the Mormon Church.

The choice of Lawler, expected after Bretzing announced his retirement in March, was greeted favorably by rank-and-file agents in Los Angeles on Friday.

“He has a reputation of really caring about the troops,” one agent said. “A lot of the bureau’s top people forget their origins, but he’s a guy who has never forgotten his own day in the field.”

Lawler, an Oakland native who served three years on the Oakland Police Department before joining the FBI in 1965, said in an interview Friday that his top priorities include establishing rapport with his own agents as well as with local police departments.

Meeting With Gates Planned

“The lifeblood of this organization is not the management; it’s the agents on the street and the support personnel who back them up,” Lawler said. “I’m interested in what they are doing. For that reason, you won’t find me in my office much, much to my secretary’s consternation.”

Lawler added that he plans early meetings with Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates and other local law enforcement officials, who have sometimes been critical of the FBI, to discuss any possible problems they might have with the way the bureau coordinates investigations with local departments.

“I’m a former cop. I sort of understand what local law enforcement is about,” Lawler said. “The times when I’ve seen friction between the FBI and local police agencies is when it’s become a matter of personalities. I plan on talking with Chief Gates and other chiefs as quickly as I can to let them know my line is open for any problems they have with the FBI.”

During Bretzing’s six-year reign in Los Angeles, he presided over security for the 1984 Olympic Games, became involved in a bitter legal feud with a Latino assistant who has since filed a federal discrimination suit against the FBI, and spent a two years defending himself against charges of a “Mormon Mafia” within the FBI’s Los Angeles office.

He also played a leading role in one of the most embarrassing chapters in FBI history as head of the office that had employed Richard W. Miller, the first agent ever convicted as a Soviet spy.

Lawler said Friday that Bretzing has told him he thinks that “some of that should quiet down” now that there is a change of leadership in the office.

During his 23-year career with the FBI, Lawler has served as an agent in El Paso, Seattle, Washington and as special agent in charge of FBI offices in Jacksonville, Fla., and Minneapolis. He also spent five years as assistant agent in charge of the FBI’s San Francisco office during the 1970s and played a leading role in the apprehension of Patty Hearst in 1975 and the investigation of the Jonestown massacre in 1978.

“When I got to San Francisco, Patty Hearst was already missing for 17 months,” Lawler said. “They were out of leads. I was told that instead of the usual duties for my job, I would be assigned to just work the Hearst case full-time with two other agents.

“We started from there and managed to track her down,” Lawler said. “I guess I consider that the highlight of my career so far.”