Law Enforcement Career
In 1934, Banister joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He was present at the killing of John Dillinger. Originally based in Indianapolis, he later moved to New York City where he was involved in the investigation of the American Communist Party. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was impressed by Banister's work and, in 1938, he was promoted to run the FBI unit in Butte, Montana. He also served in Oklahoma City, Minneapolis and Chicago. In Chicago, he was the Special Agent in Charge for the FBI where one of his associates, Robert Maheu, was later to serve as liaison between the Central Intelligence Agency and the Mafia, regarding the various assassination plots against Fidel Castro. He retired from the FBI in 1954.
Banister moved to Louisiana and, in January 1955, became Assistant Superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department, where he was given the task of investigating organized crime and corruption within the police force. It later emerged that he was also involved in looking at the role that left-wing political activists were playing in the struggle for civil rights in New Orleans. On the campuses of Tulane University and Louisiana State University, he ran a network of informants collecting information on "communist" activities. He submitted reports on his findings to the FBI through contacts.
In March 1957, Banister was suspended after pulling a gun in public in a bar and threatening a waiter. His suspension ended in June of that year. However, when he refused to be transferred to the N.O.P.D.'s Planning Department, he was dismissed from the force.
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