NEW STATE FBI CHIEF TO FOCUS ON ANTI-TERRORISM EFFORT

The new head of the FBI's Columbia Division said federal agents in South
Carolina will commit less time to drug investigations and more time to
preventing terrorism in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

James K. Schweitzer, who became the state's special agent in charge last
month, will lead the state's federal agents through what may be the most
significant change in the history of the bureau.

As the bureau's resources are stretched, its relationship with local, state
and other federal agencies will become more critical, the 32-year FBI
veteran said.

"The FBI will not be out of the drug business," he said. "However, all of
our drug investigations will be worked in a task force environment with
state, local and other federal agencies."

Bank robberies, especially those that include, the simple passing of a
note, will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, he said.

The shift of priority coincides with the agenda set by FBI Director Robert
Mueller last month while acknowledging that the FBI had failed to adapt
quickly to the altered law enforcement environment following the terrorist
attacks.

"We're going to follow the director's priorities," Schweitzer said. "We're
going to be focused on counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence but that
will not be to exclusion of everything else we do."

Local and state officials said they agree with the priorities the FBI is
implementing.

"Clearly they need to spend more time on true national crime issues that no
one else can do," said Chief Robert Stewart, chief of the State Law
Enforcement Division.

Government data released this week suggests that the priority shift will be
dramatic.

The records, obtained by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access
Clearinghouse (TRAC), show that in 2001, bank robbery and drug cases made
up 39.6 percent of all cases the Columbia district referred to the U.S.
Attorney's office for prosecution.

One international terrorism referral made up 0.2 percent of all the cases,
records show.

Dodge Frederick, who served as special agent in charge of South Carolina
for five years until he retired in 2000, said the reallocation of resources
could have a significant impact on other investigations.

"We always have reallocated resources where the crime problems seem to
exist, whether it was the Mafia or whether it was drugs," he said. "We make
those adjustments but this is a lot different from what we've done before."

Frederick said this is probably the biggest change he's seen in more than
30 years since he joined the agency.

"This is going to force them to look at things a little differently and put
people into areas where we hadn't put people into before, which means it's
probably going to detract from some of the things we've historically done
our best on," he said.

Authorities said local agencies have become better at investigating
mid-level drug dealers.

Spartanburg County Sheriff Bill Coffey said his office will have to pick up
some slack in investigating bank robberies, but there are other agencies,
such as the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the federal Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and SLED that they can rely on.

Greenville Police Chief Willie Johnson and Greenville County Sheriff Sam
Simmons both said they don't expect to see an adverse effect on their agencies.

"We've always had a healthy working relationship with the FBI in the
Upstate," Johnson said. "Really, I can't see anything getting in the way of
that."

Both Coffey and Stewart said in the past they have noticed a duplication of
efforts by federal agencies.

"There seems to be some competition between federal agencies in terms of
getting in there to demonstrate they were accomplishing the mission that
had been given them based on whatever the word was from Washington," Coffey
said.

Stewart said that, hopefully, having a clear-cut priority will eliminate that.

"If anything, this will help see that there's one agency -- except in some
major cases -- that there's one federal agency primarily involved," he said.

Stewart and local officials said they are also prepared to help investigate
terrorist activities. SLED, he said, designated agents to help the FBI
within two hours of the 9/11 attacks.

The state agency will permanently assign about 12 agents to the Joint
Terrorism Task Force, he said. Two agents will be in each of the state's
four regions gathering intelligence while three or four others will be in
Columbia dealing with intelligence matters.

The FBI itself plans on hiring 900 more agents by September. Schweitzer
headed the bureau's new agent training program in Quantico for six months
before receiving his assignment to Columbia. His career began in 1970 when
he received a recruitment letter from the FBI right out of high school in
Tampa, Fla. "They needed people to basically sort fingerprints at
headquarters," he said.

It was enough to make him want to become an FBI agent. He completed college
and started as an agent in the Macon, Ga., office, combating deserters,
gamblers and kidnappers. It was the beginning of a career that has spanned
assignments in Atlanta, New York and Washington, D.C.

He worked on counter-intelligence in New York, supervised a special
operations group and an organized crime squad while in Atlanta and served
as the assistant special agent in charge in Jacksonville.

For two years, he oversaw the National Academy program at Quantico, a
10-week program for state and local law enforcement officers.

Now, his relationship with those same people becomes as important as ever.
"It's absolutely critical that the FBI be seen by state and local agencies
as a partner," he said.