Author Event: David Tuch
When:
Wednesday, Nov 05, 2025 6:00p -
8:00p
Wednesday, Nov 05, 2025 6:00p -
8:00p
Where:
Trident Booksellers & Café
338 Newbury Street
Boston, MA 02115
Admission:
FREE
Hosted by:
Categories:
Business & Professional, History, Lectures & Conferences, Meetup
Event website:
https://author-event-david-tuch-fxarz.tripleseattickets.com/registration/select
Join us for a riveting conversation between two authors, David Tuch and John D. Woodworth Jr., as they discuss Tuch's debut book, The Wireless Operator. Read below to learn more!
Food, beverage, and books will be available for purchase in the room.
About the author...
David Tuch is an author and entrepreneur passionate about uncovering history’s hidden chapters. His debut book, The Wireless Operator, tells the extraordinary true story of his cousin Harold Derber—one of the largest marijuana traffickers in American history. Originally from New York, David lived in England and France, and now resides in Brookline, Massachusetts, with his wife and four children. www.davidtuch.com
About The Wireless Operator...
Government agencies and rival factions were closing in. His look-alike had already fallen victim to professional hitmen and his once-powerful allies in Cuban intelligence and the DEA could no longer guarantee his safety. How did a boy from Manchester revolutionize the criminal world and become the largest marijuana trafficker in American history?
This is the never-before-told story of Harold Derber, the debonair British Merchant Navy veteran who pioneered the modern drug trade with his groundbreaking invention: the drug mothership. Through his ghost fleet of drug ships, Derber eventually became the chief supplier of marijuana to post-war America. This gripping true tale follows Derber from humble beginnings in Manchester, England, to his assassination in the sun-kissed streets of Miami. Along the way, Derber's story takes in some of the most significant events of the twentieth century - the Second World War's Battle of the Atlantic, the Cuban Revolution and the murky shadows of the Cold War.
Based on newly declassified government files, undercover photographs, an unpublished memoir, and first-hand accounts from both Derber's trafficking accomplices and the agents who pursued them, The Wireless Operator reveals the astonishing origins of the modern narcotics trade. Bringing his extraordinary life into focus for the first time, this gripping transatlantic tale offers a complex portrait of a singular criminal mastermind who operated at the fault lines of state power, secrecy, and organized crime - and whose legacy still echoes in today's global war on drugs.
About the conversation partner...
John D. Woodworth, Jr. is a Professor of the Practice of International Relations at Boston University and the Director of BU’s Division of Military Education. Prior to coming to BU in 2015, John served as a Central Intelligence Agency officer, Department of Defense official, and RAND Corporation analyst. At the CIA, John worked as an operations officer in the Clandestine Service and as a technical intelligence officer in the Directorate of Science and Technology, with numerous overseas assignments. John has presented and written extensively on intelligence, technology, and national security topics. His most recent book is Spying: From the Fall of Jericho to the Fall of the Wall.
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