Paul Lawrence: A Customs Career

Paul Lawrence began working for the U.S. Customs in the 1930’s. His career spanned over 40 years, taking him back and forth across the country from San Francisco and Seattle, to Texas, Buffalo, Vermont, Chicago, and Baltimore—not necessarily in that order! During one memorable stretch in the mid-1950’s, he served as Treasury Representative in Charge for the U.S. Bureau of Customs in Hong Kong.

Opium smuggling was a continuing problem for Customs. While in Hong Kong, Lawrence went on official assignment to document opium cultivation, sale and use in nearby Thailand, the only country that still licensed public opium smoking houses and where the government controlled opium sales. Over a few days, he visited poppy fields and four opium smoking houses in Bangkok. While in town, he quietly snapped photographs with a camera and flash bulbs he concealed in his pockets.

Most of the people were friendly and willing to talk to him, though he made “strategic” withdrawals before being kicked out of two houses when the “boss-man” discovered his activities. It wasn’t until later that he learned of an ordinance against taking pictures inside opium dens—but by then he had his evidence. His report of May 18, 1955 featured several photographs selected from a large pool of images that detailed the preparation and smoking of opium, clients and staff, equipment, conditions in and operation of opium dens.

Hong Kong may have been his most exotic posting, but according to his son, Brad, Paul Lawrence loved his job and believed in the Customs mission, never turned down a relocation, and “saw it all as a great adventure that included searching the holds of ships and car trunks for contraband, working the border between Canada, Mexico, and the U.S., through higher levels of management to being Regional Commissioner in Baltimore.”