---
alias:
- Claude R. Kirk Jr.
- Governor Kirk
category: Political Figure
created: 2026-09-21
location: Tallahassee, Florida
summary: Governor of Florida from 1967 to 1971 who put George Wackenhut and his company's
  detectives in charge of a war on crime paid for by private donors, which the FBI
  refused to recognize.
tags:
- Person
- ClaudeKirk
- Florida
- Wackenhut
- PrivatePolice
- OrganizedCrime
- RepublicanParty
updated: 2026-09-21
---

Claude R. Kirk Jr. was the governor of [Florida](/places/florida/) from January 1967 to January 1971, the first Republican to hold the office since Reconstruction.[^1]

### The War on Crime

In his inaugural address of January 3, 1967, Kirk announced a "war on crime" and named [George R. Wackenhut](/people/george-r-wackenhut/) its director at a dollar a year. The detectives and offices were supplied by the [Wackenhut Corporation](/organizations/wackenhut-corporation/) of [Coral Gables](/places/coral-gables-florida/) under a contract reported at 500,000 dollars, to be paid not by the state but by the donations of citizens. Against what Time called "anguished cries of 'Nazism!' and 'Dictatorship!'" the experiment, the magazine wrote, "succeeded to the extent of pointing up the need for a regular state police force and led to formation of the first statewide law-enforcement bureau." It produced more than eighty indictments, some of them of local officials. Time put the unpaid bill owed to the company at more than 300,000 dollars.[^1]

On January 13, 1967, headquarters of the [FBI](/organizations/federal-bureau-of-investigation/) instructed its Florida offices to give Kirk's men nothing: "The Bureau does not recognize the Wackenhut Corporation as a properly constituted law enforcement agency." The order was repeated on April 3, after Kirk had called on the attorney general. That month the [CIA](/organizations/central-intelligence-agency/), which had used Wackenhut's company since 1961 to give cover to its officers in [Miami](/places/miami/), withdrew his covert security approval "due to the notoriety that Mr. Wackenhut had received in connection with his activities in Florida." The crime reporter [Hank Messick](/people/hank-messick/), hired from the [Miami Herald](/organizations/miami-herald/), resigned from the company after six weeks, calling the campaign "a cruel hoax" and objecting that Wackenhut kept as a client a former Bahamian minister with gambling interests. The company told the legislature that the "overlord of the whole state's criminal syndicates" was [Santo Trafficante](/people/santos-trafficante-jr/).[^2][^3]

[^1]: "Florida: I, Claudius," *Time,* 1967. https://time.com/archive/6631431/florida-i-claudius/
[^2]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, airtel to SAC Jacksonville, January 13, 1967, and memorandum recording the instruction of April 3, 1967, with press clippings, headquarters, Miami, and Tampa files on the Wackenhut Corporation. https://archive.org/details/WackenhutCorporation
[^3]: Central Intelligence Agency, "Wackenhut Corporation, SF# 493 364," memorandum for the record, July 28, 1975, JFK record 104-10130-10454.