>> Good morning! I am David Ferriero the Archivist
of the United States, and it's a pleasure
to welcome you here for another of the Nixon
Legacy Forums that we co‑sponsor with the
Richard Nixon Foundation. Welcome to those
of you who are attending in person here at
the William G. McGowan Theater at the National
Archives building in Washington, DC. Also
those of you who are joining us on our YouTube
channel. A special welcome to our C‑SPAN
viewers this morning. We started doing these
in 2010 and have now put on over three dozen
such programs which feature in‑depth discussions
of various public policy initiatives undertaken
by the Nixon administration. Documents concerning
these initiatives are housed in the archives
kept at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda,
California. What these programs add are the
insights and explanations of the discussions
and debates behind those documents by the
very people who created them, which can provide
unique insights into the policy, development
and implementation process utilized by President
Nixon. What we are adding today is the ability
to electronically retrieve relevant documents
from the Nixon Library Archives, which will
be posted on our website at the same time
as the video of today's presentation. We are
most pleased to be working with the Nixon
Foundation to make the documents and authors
available to future researchers and scholars.
Today's presentation is entitled: No Final
Victories: Lessons from President Nixon's
Drug Abuse Initiatives. And we are going to
hear from several people from both the treatment
and law enforcement sides who were involved
in responses of the Nixon administration to
the spread of heroin addiction in our inner
cities in the late 1960s. The essence of the
issue: Heroin has been a scourge to society
ever since it was first developed as a treatment
for morphine addiction by Bayer in 1898. Did
Nixon administration initiatives really have
heroin addiction on the run when we lost focus,
or are opioids a continuing threat that can
never be eliminated. Please let me introduce
the moderator of today's forum, Geoff Shepard.
He joined the Nixon administration as a White
House Fellow in 1969, and then served for
five years on President Nixon's White House
Domestic Council.
>> David, thank you. Good to be here. Welcome
to all of you. As David said, this is probably
our 38th Nixon Legacy Forum. It provides a
wonderful opportunity, wonderful partnership
between National Archives and the Richard
Nixon Foundation to help the effort at future
research by presidential scholars by looking
into what papers are at the Nixon Library
in Yorba Linda, and by these programs to hearing
from the people that helped draft those papers.
So you get the ability to actually get new
insights into what happened. Our favorite
analogy is to the Civil War, the Archives
has extensive records of what happened in
the Civil War, but nobody sat down with General
Grant and said, why did you do this? What
was your thinking? And what we are able to
do with support from the Nixon Foundation
and from National Archives is to go behind
the documents and talk about the why's and
the wherefore's of what we did. Today's program
is on President Nixon's drug abuse initiatives.
And those of us that worked in that area,
believe that we made dramatic progress against
a particular sort of heroin addiction, which
was crippling the inner‑cities. And we will
talk about how that came about and what we
did, and how that may have been lost with
a focus ‑‑ when the focus moved on to
other things. So, what I am going to do is
sit and have our panelists introduce themselves
and tell you where they were when President
Nixon was inaugurated, and how they became
involved in the drug abuse issue. We will
start with Jeff Donfeld.
>> Thank you Geoff. I graduated law school
from Berkeley in 1968, but during the December
of 1967 I was a clerk at the Nixon law firm
in New York, that ultimately led to my being
hired at the White House. I joined the White
House staff in early 1969, and worked for
Bud Wilkinson, famous Oklahoma football coach.
Bud had a vast portfolio of obligations, one
of which was drug abuse. When I came to his
staff, he said, what would you like to do?
And I felt that drug abuse was an area in
which I knew nothing about but I felt that
I could make a contribution to the well‑being
of America, if I could figure out what the
issues were and how it might be approached.
It turned out that as a result of research,
which I was able to do primarily but traveling
around the country, including visiting Dr. DuPont's
program in Washington, DC. Dr. Vinnie Pram
in New York and Doctors Knolls and (inaudible)
in New York. And primarily Dr. Jerome Jaffe
in Chicago. Jerry was head of the Illinois
drug abuse program. I visited therapeutic
communities, I visited methadone maintenance
communities, and the only folks in the treatment
arena who had data on recidivism were the
folks who were dealing with methadone. When
I ‑‑
>> Wait. You are getting way ahead of us.
You are going to give our whole program away.
We are just introducing ourselves.
>> Okay.
>> So, I am going to stop you.
(LAUGHTER)
>> Jeff and I are very, very good friends,
he can't spell his name, but we are very good
friends. He is the policy guy at the White
House on drug treatment. And then we go to
Bob DuPont. Bob, where were you when Nixon
was elected? How did you become involved in
this?
>> Well, my life changed when Richard Nixon
was inaugurated in a dramatic way. Let me
go back before, that how I got to that point
where my life changed so dramatically. I graduated
from Emory College in Atlanta 1958, and from
Harvard Medical School in 1963. I did my psychiatric
training at Harvard, and then came to NIH
for research training. When I finished that,
at the same time, at the age of 32, it was
time for me to find my first job up until
that time I had been in training. And one
day a week during my residency I worked at
a state prison in Massachusetts, the Norfolk
prison, which was distinguished as the place
where Malcolm X served six years. I really
fell in love with the prisoners and the prison
as a career thought. And I thought, I really
care about these people. I want to help them.
I want to make a career in this area and find
some way to use my medical knowledge to do
something about that. So, come my time, I
finish training July 1 of 1968, which is a
very important time with what we are talking
about, I went to work for the District of
Columbia department of corrections. To understand
what happened next, you have to understand
that at the time Washington, DC was a federal
city. The mayor had just been appointed by
Lyndon Johnson, Walter Washington. And the
city was run by the federal government. The
President was in charge of what was going
on here. So, in that context I am a lifelong
democrat. I was then I am now. When Richard
Nixon was elected I thought my life was coming
to an end. I had a lot of ideas for reforms
in corrections, mostly having to do with alternatives
to incarceration and use of medical treatments.
And I thought, well this is over. And everybody
expected Richard Nixon was going to not reappoint
Walter Washington as the mayor. When Nixon
came in and reappointed Walter Washington,
it changed the whole climate in the District
of Columbia in terms of opening up possibilities.
What I found was once Nixon was there, was
all of my reform ideas that I had in mind
which was languished under Lyndon Johnson
were suddenly interesting and by May of '69
my first correctional programs were funded.
You can't imagine how fast the federal government
moved under those circumstances. That, as
I said, changed my life. What really changed
it ‑‑
>> We are going to stop you right there.
>> Okay. That gets you started.
(LAUGHTER)
>> Life was changed. We are very eager to
tell our stories. These are good idealistic
people, young people, coming to Washington.
And then we get to John Coleman.
>> Thank you very much Geoff. I am very honored
to be here today on this panel. I graduated
from college in New York, Iona College in
1964. A year later I joined the Federal Bureau
of Narcotics in New York. And my boss found
out that I had taken some postgraduate courses
in French literature, and that qualified me
to work on the French connection cases in
New York at the time. And eventually in 1969,
when an opening occurred in Paris for a narcotics
attache, I applied and was selected. And in
the fall of 1969 in September I arrived in
Paris, and I was in ‑‑ stationed in France
for over three and a half years. And that's
where I was the day when President Nixon was ‑‑
>> See, John learned not to go on too long,
otherwise he takes the whip. Normally, I just
moderate, I don't really get involved, but
I was also involved in drug abuse at the Nixon
White House on the law enforcement side. I
joined the domestic council in 1970, and my
public policy beat was law and order, crime
and drugs. But what you have here is four
people, two of whom are young lawyers that
are working on policy development and effectuation.
And two people who are career experts. Jeff
and Bob are on the treatment side, John and
I were on the law enforcement side. But we
come from different aspects. So, what we are
going to do is go through the development
of President Nixon's attitudes and initiatives
in drug abuse, and each ‑‑ each of these
people is going to add as we go through, because
the development may be everything in the story
of Nixon's drug abuse initiatives. So, let
me go to our first exhibit. And this is ‑‑
these are all papers that you would find at
the National Archives. This is from the 1968
campaign. And this was a booklet called: Nixon
on the issues, that was compiled by Annelise
and Marty Anderson, who did domestic affairs
for President Nixon during the campaign. And
what they were asked to do was demonstrate
that Nixon had made substantive statements
about different policy initiatives. And what
we were able to find was he did speak to the
drug abuse issue. We highlighted the first
and fourth statements only to show that from
the very outset Nixon is talking about drug
abuse as a law enforcement issue, always first,
but treatment is always there. He doesn't
lead with treatment, but treatment is always
a part of Nixon's approach to ‑‑ to drug
abuse. And just to remind you, in case you
weren't around in 1969, President Nixon campaign
had two principle themes with honor and restore
law and order. The drug abuse part comes in
over the latter, but the lead was law enforcement.
And then we go to President Nixon special
message to the congress. And this is July
14th, he has been president for six months,
and he submits a message to the congress divided
into ten principal areas where he wants initiatives
and reforms. And if you are looking for the
origins of what he wanted to do on drug abuse
or what staff was helping him to do on drug
abuse, this is the key document. We will ‑‑
we will keep going, but from the very outset
he is talking and including drug abuse as
an important situation. And then we came across
this memo from Daniel Moynihan, the professor
was the original assistant to the press for
urban affairs, and he dabbled in everything.
He was an absolute delight. We came across
a memorandum he wrote to the attorney general
and there is a highlighted part that says:
You know, we could interdict the smuggling
of heroin and make a huge difference. Jeff,
you have some memory of that?
>> Well, one of the comments that Dr. Moynihan
makes is, if we attack the problem we can
solve heroin addiction problem in the United States
between 12 and 24 months. That was ‑‑
>> Disrupt the supply chain.
>> That would end it as we look back on history,
that obviously was not a correct perception.
>> But‑‑but the idea of going and trying
to disrupt the supply chain at its source,
or the ‑‑ the French part is not an irrational
approach it was just the timing ‑‑
>> It was two prong. I will let John Coleman
talk to this more specifically Turkey the
source of the opium and France for the laboratories.
>> We should have John go into it. He had
sense not to go into it in his introduction
so he wouldn't get cutoff. But this is his
moment because he was heavily involved in
the French connection.
>> Dr. Moynihan went through offices throughout
The Middle East and Europe and visited Turkey
and saw firsthand the growing the opium poppies
in Turkey. And then visited France and talked
with the agents in the embassy as well as
some of the other embassy personnel about
some of the dib low mat particular initiatives
that might be undertaken. Because at the time
we are talking about now 1969, 1970. 85% of
the heroin available in the United States
being consumed in the United States 85% was
made in laboratories clandestine laboratories
in southern France. And it was made from opium
produced in Turkey, or morphine based, which
is a refined form of the opium, intermediary
stage between opium and heroin. It was easier
to smuggle. He realized the importance of
controlling the international traffic if you
are going to ‑‑ if you are going to stop
the importation of heroin to the United States.
And so, I think that was key in his recommendations
to the attorney general Dr. Moynihan's recommendations
were to increase diplomatic efforts increase
operations overseas and increase the pressure
on the producing nations, particularly Turkey
in the opium business.
>> This was not out of the blue, nobody thought
of before, what is different is this, is the
assistant to the president ‑‑
>> Exactly.
>> ‑‑ saying to the newly installed attorney
general, let's put some muscle behind this.
>> Exactly.
>> I think we benefit, John, from just describing
for the audience, the trek. Poppies are grown
in Turkey. The ‑‑ they ooze gum.
>> Right.
>> That you score the pod, the gum oozes
out overnight, you scrape the gum off. They
are labor intensive. That becomes gum opium.
And how does it get from there to France to
where we are?
>> Well, about 10% of the raw materials in
France consisted of raw opium, but that was
very cheap because, Jeff said it, was produced
by the opium pod, scraped off the pod at night,
whatever, and solidified into a ball‑like
half a kilo or kilo package and shipped off
to France to the laboratories. But they found
out early in the game it would be a lot easier,
and they would make more money if they convert
it to morphine base. Natural opium, particularly
Turkish or Persian opium, has morphine content
of 10%. If you turn it into morphine base
by a chemical process the morphine base, the
finish base now has a morphine content sometimes
exceeding 90%. When that is turned into heroin,
the heroin will have a final percentage purity
of between 90 and 95, sometimes reaching out
95%. So by being able to smuggle morphine
base as opposed to opium, there is a 10 to
1 volume ratio. For every 10 kilos of opium
they can make one kilo of morphine base.
>> When they have heroin in the south of France,
how does it show up over here?
>> Well, that was a very complex and difficult
challenge for the BNDD at the time. We knew
French heroin was reaching New York because
New York was the hub for the entire United States,
not just the east coast, but far west as California
in some cases. So, the mystery was how was
the heroin getting from the laboratories in
southern France into New York City where
it would be controlled by the mafia mostly
and at the first turnover from the French
connections. And it turns out there were a
group of ‑‑ there was a group of French
ex patriots, these are French criminals, people
wanted for crimes in France as far back as
the French Indo China war. Some of these people
lived in southern Brazil. The Brazilian authorities
wanted them out of the country because they
were creating problems in Brazil. The Brazilian
authorities worked closely with the United States
the BNDD people and they were deported to
France in one case deported to Italy because
he was Italian. But there were no direct flights
between Brazil and Europe because they had
could tomorrow through the United States.
When they came through the United States,
they were captured, and in most cases rather
than go back to France where several of them
were sentenced in absence I can't to one was
death although the death penalty had been
cancelled since he was sentenced to death
they would basically be facing life in prison.
Rather than do that, they agreed to come.
They basically turned over everything they
knew about the investigations. It turned out
they were the conduit. They were the link
between the sources in southern France and
the Italian mafia groups importing heroin.
>> In the movie, the French Connection, it's
in the doorjambs of a Jaguar, as I recall.
>> Exactly.
>> But it's ‑‑ it's typical smuggling,
it just happens to be heroin, it could have
been diamonds.
>> Exactly. By the way the French Connection
movie was a wonderful movie based on the book
by Robin Moore, but it was actually a compilation
of different vignettes from different cases.
There wasn't a single French Connection case,
per se. And all of the vignettes in the production
in the movie occurred but they occurred in
different cases. Yes, cars were very popular,
smuggling instruments from the French because
back in those days, we had a number of Transatlantic
vessels between ‑‑ traveling between
New York and Europe. They were Italian vessels,
French, Swedish, Scandinavian, British, et cetera,
and these vessels were ideal places to place
things like personal cargo, automobiles. But
the problem was even though we were able to
at times get the drugs by seizing the automobiles,
the people who accompanied them were what
we call mules they really didn't know much
about the organization other than they were
hired to simply accompany a car. And so, even
if they cooperated they were unable to tell
us very much. It wasn't until we got the people
out of Brazil that we were able to put the
pieces together in the puzzle and link up
the Italian mafia people in New York.
>> And just to remind the audience, you got
started because you were in New York working
for the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, and you
started working on French Connection cases.
>> Exactly.
>> And you did such a good job they sent
you to France.
>> Well, thank you very much for the compliment.
But I had ‑‑ you know, a very good familiarity
with the cases, and that helped get the start.
>> Super. We will go on. This is President
Nixon at a meeting in the cabinet room with
bipartisan congressional leadership, and they
are talking about drug abuse control and treatment
issues. Again, this is the first year of his
administration. So, he is ‑‑ he has sent
the message to congress then he invites the
leadership up to the cabinet room to talk
about the importance and the desire. These
people in a nice way are being lobbied to
pass legislation, it takes a little over a
year and a half to actually get the legislation.
But they are working very hard. Nixon is devoting
personal time and attention to moving this
along. We were able to spot Bud Krogh in the
back of the picture in the far right corner.
Bud is not able to be with us today, Jeff
and I both work for Bud, and in the minds
of people who look for the origins of the
staffing of President Nixon on the drug abuse
issue that's Jeff's job, we were mere helpers
at the time. Talented but helpers. This is
an interesting shot because none of us are
in the shot. This is President Nixon saying
hi to the President of France, welcoming him
in the rose garden with Secretary of State
Bill Rogers looking on, and John has a story
about this.
>> Yes. This is a very interesting meeting.
Because at the time there was a lot of growing
pressure in the United States on France to
do something about the heroin traffic. There
were several French restaurants including
one in Washington, DC that advertised they
were refusing to serve French wine until France
did something about the heroin problem. The
daily news in New York was running a daily
tally of overdoses, et cetera, much like they
had done during The Vietnam War. And there
was a good deal of pressure on France to do
something. And so, when president poppy came
to the White House to visit President Nixon
he was not prepared to ‑‑ to have the
President basically place upon him this tremendous
responsibility of getting his country out
of the heroin business that was damaging the
United States so much. And again, I was in
Paris at the time. I was working with the
police. And I recall very clearly that when
president poppy do returned from his visit
to the White House, the message came down
through the ministry of interior to the police
that they had to step up their operations
and they had to really get serious about the
heroin labs in southern France. And my colleagues,
the police officers that I worked with on
a daily basis told me: We don't know what
your president said to our president but whatever
it was he lit a fire under us and we have
to go to work now and close these places down.
And that precipitated a lot of initiatives
between the French and the Americans, and
of course Mr. Krogh from the White House
came over and that was the beginning of a
project that was called: The Franco‑American
committee. It actually became known as the
Franco‑American Commission. It started as
a committee, but basically it was a bilateral
agreement between France and the United States
to not just share information about drug cases
or drug matters but to allow the officers
of the French police to cope on office in
New York which they did and allow the BNDD
officers such as myself in Paris and the ones
that we had in March say to work jointly with
the French police doing things that were let
us stay a little bit out of the normal course
of events in French policing. For example,
in the United States, in BNDD often used
techniques like undercover buys using informants.
The nature of the narcotics crime is where
you never had a complainant, like in property
crime or personal crime. So you have to have
to have other way of getting into the organizations.
A very effective way was using informants
to give you information about what was going
on, and wire taps, and things like that. In
France, under the Napoleonic Code in France,
which was in most of Europe, informants were
not allowed to participate in the cases as
they were in the U.S. they couldn't pay them,
for example, for their information. And undercover
buys were completely out of the picture because
that would be a crime in itself to actually
precipitate a buy. So, these techniques that
were very common in the United States and
very effective were unknown in France. But
the French police had a great interest in
this so this Franco‑American committee set
up by Mr. Krogh and his assistants were very
effective in creating an atmosphere in which
there could be cross training. For example,
rather than we Americans telling the French
you don't know what you are doing, or the
French telling we Americans you don't know
what you are doing in our country, we could
actually have training sessions, formal training
sessions at the police academy in which we
would explain the legal basis for how we work
and how best to work. And the French learned
a great deal from us and we learned a great
deal from them on all of this.
>> We are almost ‑‑ almost exporting
our law enforcement approach to a completely
different culture.
>> Right.
>> Who they have a common interest in stopping
this but they don't use our way.
>> Precisely. And ‑‑ and this committee
that I talked about had two levels. One was
executive committee level which was made up
of the principles minister of interior for
France, man by the name of Raymond Marselan,
who spoke flawless English and liked our country,
our president and our people. And of course
John Mitchell, who was Mr. Nixon's President
Nixon's attorney general. They got along very,
very well. They signed the agreements and
formal group would meet once or twice a year,
once in France and once in the United States,
back in France and in the United States.
They would meet to discuss bilateral issues
that were given to them by the working group.
We were part of the working group because
we were the police. And so, we knew, for example,
that if there are any obstacles in our relationships
they would be communicated up to the principles
and neither one of us neither one of the working
groups whether French police or BNDD agents
wanted to give our bosses a problem they would
have to resolve the a the executive level
we made sure we worked together very well
so everything was looking well at the top.
So it was a brilliant plan and project.
>> So, what you have, I think fairly, is
in the first year of the Nixon administration
you have more direct involvement and photographic
evidence of law enforcement. He alludes to
treatment but treatment is not leading in
the first year. But watch as we go through
the panel watch how this changes. This is
why we do these panels because this stuff
is fascinating.
>> When you talk about the first year ‑‑
>> Sure.
>> ‑‑ you are going past that now. I
want to go back to this and what happened.
President Nixon or Richard Nixon ran on a
campaign of law and order. Drugs was part
of that in terms of the social disruption
that was going on in 1968. But drugs during
that campaign meant LSD and marijuana, it
did not mean heroin. And it had to do with
the social chaos that was associated with
the drug problem during that campaign. Then
Nixon ran against the crime he called Washington
the crime capitol of the nation. He focused
on crime in Washington, DC, as an example,
of disorder in the country that he was going
to take care of. When he came in he had an
agenda, a lot of things on his mind. Washington,
DC was not the highest on his priority. But
a group of leaders in Washington, DC business
people including captain Graham and bank leaders
met with Nixon and said: You ran about this
being the crime capitol of the country. You
are accountable for crime in this city, starting
January 20th, 1969. And we are going to hold
a press conference every single month about
crime in Washington and it is now your problem
to do something about that. That re‑focused
Nixon on Washington, DC and what could be
done about the crime problem. He then ‑‑
just to talk ‑‑ to get the sequence of
this clear about what happened. 
That started an interest in things like I
was doing in corrections but the question
was: What is causing crime in Washington?
Why is it going up? Lyndon Johnson established
the DC crime commission he had a national
crime commission. It wasn't invented by Nixon
it was real it was serious but what was causing
it why was it going up? This was a time of
prosperity, the economy was going well, unemployment
was down in the District of Columbia. That's
when I got in the picture in 1969 working
in the Department of Corrections, I did drug
testing of everybody coming into the DC jail.
I identified that 44% of the people coming
in were heroin addicts. And then I asked the
question: What year did you first start using
heroin. I put a graph together of what that
was and in the DC crime rate they tracked
perfectly. That was the moment that was why
he reported right away published in the New England
Journal of Medicine a year later it was reported
immediately. It re‑focused the attention
on the drug but this time on heroin not on
LSD and marijuana. And on crime and that became
an entirely different way of thinking about
it. And this was Nixon's priority. He had
started with a major increase in the police
force. Then the question was: What do you
do about the heroin problem. That's when I
got interested in drug treatment and did like
John Donfeld doing things like sin vent and
others in New York and Jerry Jaffe in Chicago.
And said we have to have a drug treatment
program in Washington, DC and on September
15, 1969, the first methadone program in Washington
started in the Department of Corrections with
me as the leader of that.
>> Okay. Let me stop.
>> One more step. On February 17, 1970, Walter
Washington building on that beginning, created
the narcotics treatment administration in
Washington a massive methadone program in
Washington. The next three years treated 15,000
heroin addicts in the city. That was unprecedented
that went on. And every month there was a
crime ‑‑ a report on crime rates, and
consistently those crime rates came down along
with the overdose deaths. We will talk more
about that. I wanted to get the timing of
that very important in that switching of the
focus and suddenly the emergence of treatment
as a very important part of not just reducing
overdose death, which is very clear was a
purpose, but also reducing crime.
>> I want to make the point that this is
going on below the surface of national coverage
and what we would say White House concerns.
Here is Bob DuPont idealistic young doctor
out of Harvard Medical School, who is continuing
to make the case that treatment of heroin
addicts reduces crime. But he is leading ‑‑
and we don't know ‑‑ we don't even know
who he is. He is dealing with a local problem ‑‑
I mean, it's important, it's in Washington,
DC, but that kind of innovation isn't being
driven by the White House.
>> No, but Bob ‑‑
>> Called.
>> (inaudible).
>> Now connected your work to the White House.
>> Well, first of all, Walter Washington reported
to Bud Krogh, let's start with that whatever
was going on in Washington was on Bud Krogh's
agenda, I can't impress on you enough what
we were doing was front page news in Washington,
DC day after day after day there was incredible
focus on the crime issue. And the methadone
program by September of 1970. We had an expose
on the CBS television station, hour long,
talking about how I was a liar and fraud methadone
was poisoning the city. It was amazing ‑‑
I am a young guy just started this thing,
suddenly there is an hour‑long prime time
documentary.
>> Against you.
>> Against me.
>> Enemy of the people.
>> Racial issues was involved what happened
at that point was very striking both of the
newspapers the Washington Post and the evening
star put their top people on the question
of what was going on this television report.
And both of them came ‑‑ the editor of
the editorial page of the post said he had
to go to Katharine Graham, because she owned
the television station attacking me, he was
going to come out with a thing. Both papers
came out, DuPont is right, methadone is the
answer, the television program is wrong. That
was an extremely important ‑‑ I can't
tell you how big it was in terms of the controversy
that was going on. It was not something going
on the record, under the radar. And early
on Bud Krogh wanted to talk to me the first
visit to the west wing. It was very exciting.
Met people like you two guys. And it was very ‑‑
he was very interested in this Walter Washington,
the mayor, was deeply involved in what we
were doing. When I would get into trouble
on racial issues on methadone I would get
discouraged, go to the mayor and say, this
is too hard for me. He said, no, the people
of the city love you. You are doing the right
thing. You are helping us. If you don't show
up here often enough I am worried you are
getting another job or you are sick, so keep
going. That was very visible.
>> Do you have something to add?
>> I do. I want to clarify something that
you said Geoff. I think you said treatment,
heroin treatment had an effect on crime. You
have to be more specific. It was really methadone
treatment.
>> Exactly.
>> That had an impact on crime reduction,
not just crime reduction, but the unemployment
of people in methadone did not ‑‑ it
stayed up. The criminal recidivism was reduced.
And that was my findings when I went around
the country to compare the difference between
methadone maintenance and the therapeutic
communities. An important comment that Bob
is making, the country at least in, I will
say, the black community, a lot of the black
community, felt that administration's advocacy
of methadone maintenance was an effort to
quote, subjugate the black community. There
was nothing further from the truth in that
statement. As a result of methadone maintenance,
we not only reduced the death rate among heroin
addicts, but we gave them an opportunity to
have productive lives and so there was a perception
especially therapeutic psychiatric community,
that we were pushing an alternative addiction
which we were methadone is certainly addictive.
But it had beneficial effects.
>> Okay. I know what the next slide is, I
want to get to that.
>> Go ahead.
>> Where we can really dwell on methadone.
And you are front running my slides.
>> I apologize.
>> It's all right. You can catch up in a minute.
This is just a campaign event in Denver. They
have the date, and I can't read the date,
1970. And this is ‑‑ law enforcement
people. But this is the first time that we
see the words "methadone maintenance" appear
from the president's remarks. We have now
and were, I grant you, Bob is doing good work,
it's coming to the attention of the White
House, and Jeff is devoting full‑time and
attention to treatment. But this is percolated
up to the President himself. This is a law
enforcement show, there is a White House conference,
but it's a sniffing dog. You were talking
earlier about what we were doing with these
conferences.
>> Yes. We were trying to get the media,
television, movie producers, radio, disk jockeys
to inject anti‑drug abuse messages into
their programming. So one of the things that
we did was we brought these folks it Washington.
We had Bureau of Customs put on the demonstration
of the heroin sniffing dogs. We had programs
in the White House theater where we had ex
addicts act out, what happens in the therapeutic
community. We were really, I will call it,
a multi‑modality approach to try to infuse
into the culture of America the notion that
drugs was not really cool.
>> And this particular picture was Gene Autry
standing to the President's left. This is
on the White House lawn. Then we get to undated
memo from the (inaudible) council which was
created by President Nixon to comment on government
structure and how structure affected the efficiency
of the government and unfortunately this particular
memo is undated so we don't know for sure
when it came in. But it's describing the difficulty
that they uncovered with this spread of drug
abuse enforcement and treatment in all of
these different agencies because drugs is
a growing ‑‑ growingly recognized problem.
There is money available. So every agency
says, wow, we can get a bigger budget if we
get involved in the drug abuse effort. And
it ‑‑ what you get is too big a spread
of effort and authority. That's all the ASH
council recognized in this memo. And then
we have the narcotics treatment and control
act of 1970, and this is President Nixon signing
the bill in ‑‑ at the Department of Justice,
but in the office of John Ingersol, who is
the head of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous
Drugs, this is not a giant press event. You
knew how to do giant press events. This particular
event he is standing in front of the law enforcement
officers the BNDD officers. So it's a different
kind of leadership it's not just the public
leadership that's encouraging the troops.
And then this is the statement that he made
at that signing. I highlighted at the bottom
in yellow, again treatment is still there.
He is saying that we ‑‑ we can't abandon
these people. We have got to do something
on treatment. And the language is unique here
because he is predicting that we are going
to come up with better treatment. We are working
very, very hard at trying to develop more
efficient treatment. I think that you could
say, I am looking for it, but you could say,
he is anticipating methadone is becoming the
treatment of choice for heroin addiction.
We are going to go back to John here, this
is President Nixon in Paris attending Charles
de Gaulle's, funeral. John, you were there?
>> Yes, I was there. I remember the day very
well because all of the law enforcement officers
assigned to the embassy in Paris which would
be the ATF, the FBI, the BNDD, Secret Service
and some of the Army CID Criminal Investigation
Division officers, they were all put on duty
actually to supplement the protection detail
for the President when he visited Notre Dam
for the funeral service of President de Gaulle.
We were in the charge for that particular
service that day. And I remember the President
and he was very well received by a number
of dignitaries that attended the service as
well as by President Pompidou. >> I will tell
you, when we do the forums, we work very hard
to get the members of the panel in a picture
with the President of the United States.
That's the way these things work. One of the
difficulties is when you are on the President's
staff, one of our requirements is you stay
out of the pictures. You bring in the people
the President wants to meet with or be seen
with and the staff is supposed to be off camera.
So, with John, who spent 33 years doing drug
abuse law enforcement, we don't have a picture
of John with President Nixon but they were
both at the same event. So this is close.
>> We go to church together.
(LAUGHTER)
>> Well done. Well done.
(LAUGHTER)
>> Okay. Here we go. This is President Nixon
and (inaudible) there are fun stories about
this. When we told David Ferriero, the archivist,
that the panel today was on drug abuse, his
first question was: Are you going to include
the picture with Elvis Presley? As you may
know, it's the single most popular picture
owned by the National Archives. It's not The
Constitution or Bill of Rights, it's Elvis
Presley and President Nixon, two somewhat
different personalities. Jeff and I were there
on the day as we tell our grandkids. I will
let Jeff tell it first.
>> One day sitting in my office in the old
executive office building I received a call
from Bud Krogh, whose office was literally
across the hall from mine and Bud said: The
King is here. I said what? He said the King
is here. I said, Bud, I am really busy what
do you want. Elvis Presley is at the north
gate of the White House and he wants to see
the President. I said, you have got to be
kidding me. No, I am not kidding. You come
over to my office, we have got to prepare
talking points for the President. Before the
staff would bring in someone to visit the
President in the oval office, the staff would
prepare talking points. Here is what we suggest
that you say and the thrust of what we wanted
President Nixon to say to Elvis is to try
to get Elvis involved again some anti‑drug
abuse comments. So, I am ‑‑ we prepare
the remarks. Elvis is invited into the oval
office and he was bringing with him a silver
plated .45 automatic that he wanted to give
the President.
>> Commemorative pistol, beautiful box.
>> The Secret Service immediately confiscated
the weapon. I was sitting with Elvis' two
body guards in my office while Elvis went
into the oval office the body guard said we
want to go into the oval office with Elvis.
And I said, you can't do that. He said, well,
there will be a call for us to come over.
Well, when the call comes I will escort you
over. Meantime, the phone rings and it's Bud
Krogh. He says: Jeff, get a BNDD badge, Elvis
wants a badge. I said, what? Yep. Call over
to Jack Ingersol and get a badge.
Okay. I called Jack Ingersol, the director
of Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drug,
as I said, Jack, I need a BNDD badge. He said,
what for? The President wants to give one
to Elvis Presley. And the response was: No
can do. I said, what do you mean no can do?
Well, Elvis hasn't gone through the training
program.
I said, Jeff, you probably don't understand
this, but the leader of the western world
wants to give Elvis Presley the BNDD badge.
Get me an expletive badge over to the White
House right away. Yes, sir.
(LAUGHTER)
>> And that's how that happened. Elvis never
got involved in helping us with any anti‑drug
abuse messages. Very disappointing. Let me
add this. Because we were such squares at
the White House, we had no understanding of
Elvis' involvement with drugs.
>> Right. Right. >> Nobody knew. It's slightly
different take, we were both there. Elvis
wants to come see the President to tell the
President that he is really for law and order
and that in his own way he is discouraging
drug use amongst his fan base. And he can't
come out and say, look kids, don't use drugs
because that will detract from the sales of
records, but he wants the President to know
that he is trying in his own way. And he collects
badges, you know, and that's he wants the
BNDD badge.
This is ‑‑ this is toward the end. I
mean, Elvis had an interesting career. And
when he wasn't on tour, he would eat ‑‑
his favorite dish was fried bananas and honey
I think, and he would gain a lot of weight.
And then he would have to shed the weight
to go on tour, and it got harder and harder.
He abused amphetamines, he would get doctor's
prescriptions and it was what comes to light
later it was drug abuse. But he wouldn't have
described it that way, he would say, no, I
am trying to trim down. You can see he is
a little heavy. When he came, this is Elvis,
you know, Nixon and Elvis are not out of the
same mold. And one of our jobs was to hold
Elvis for an hour to make sure things were
calm enough to take him over to the oval office.
There was a big debate about whether this
was an astute audience to grant ‑‑ Elvis
just showed up at the northwest gate, hi,
I would like to see the President. You don't
do that. So, Bud and Jeff and I were making
nice with Elvis for an hour before we gave
the signal ‑‑ one of the old executive
building, the west wing is across the street ‑‑
before we gave the signal that we thought
it was okay. That he wasn't going to say something
rabid. But Elvis is dressed like the King.
He is sweeping up and down the hallway of
the old executive office building going into
offices and embracing the secretaries. And
they are having an absolute ball. I mean,
this is ‑‑ everything stopped. Elvis
is in the building. Everything stopped. And
it was ‑‑ it was a glorious day. And
it's ‑‑ you know, it's the most popular
picture for a reason.
About 15 years later, I took my son down to
Washington trying to convince him how great
his father once was, and we were going to
go in and see a friend who was back as a member
of the White House staff, so worked in north ‑‑
we are at the northwest gate to go in, my
son is too young to have a driver's license,
he doesn't have I.D. and I have been cleared
and he is cleared with the wrong first name.
There is a kid who wants to come in with me
to go into the west wing and the guard isn't
quite sure what to do because it's the wrong
name. So he calls over to his supervisor,
and his supervisor says: I think it will be
okay. I remember Mr. Shepard when he was
on the White House staff, I was there five
years. I remember when Mr. Shepard was on
the White House staff, in fact, he was here
the day Elvis came. And my kid's eyes ‑‑
that was the most important thing to him the
whole trip. You know, that Elvis ‑‑ to
this day if you were involved in the Elvis
visit, I mean, it's ‑‑ it's significant.
>> Historic.
>> And he meant well. He was a great singer.
He was ‑‑ he was and awe shucks kind
of guy if he was off the stage. I mean, it
was ‑‑ it was madam and sir and ‑‑
he was just on interesting guy. In any event,
he was there. This is why I shut these people
off. This is the key meeting. If you are looking
for origins if you are going back through
the documents, and you are looking for origins
of a change in policy, it's something like
seeking out the source of the Nile you go
back up to the smallest creek, where does
it start? This picture and what went on a
little bit before and a little bit after is
key to understanding the dramatic change in
drug treatment and we let Jeff go without
my interruptions for a little bit here because
he has a heck of a story to tell.
>> As I mentioned earlier, I went around
the country trying to identify the best that
America had to offer in terms of treatment
and people. And all fingers pointed in the
direction of Dr. Jerome Jaffe. Within the
therapeutic community there was always criticism
pointing out deficiencies in either the individuals
or the program of various treatment programs.
However, no one criticized Dr. Jaffe. As
a result of his respect in the treatment community,
I asked Dr. Jaffe to form a group of outside
experts none government folks to put together
a paper, of recommendations for what the federal
government should do in the way of treatment,
education, rehabilitation, epidemiology. At
first, many of the folks approach were reluctant
because people in the therapeutic communities
didn't trust Richard Nixon. The irony of all
of this is that here in the oval office Dr. Jerome
Jaffe, a Jewish democrat is appointed really
the America's first drug czar. Jerry then
collected a man, Paul Corio.
>> Let's go backwards, I know the stories
you should be telling. Before you got to the
oval office you faced down cabinet officers,
a little bit before this.
>> Okay. Thank you.
>> You said you weren't going to interrupt
but I was ‑‑
>> This is a good interruption.
>> It is. I put together ‑‑ before this
meeting I had put together a paper a memo
to Bud Krogh in which I analyzed the various
treatment programs that I visited around the
country, and came up with recommendations
for the United States to adopt methadone
maintenance as a legitimate treatment modality.
Following that memo, I was called into the
attorney general's office, participating was
John Mitchell, the attorney general, Elliott
Richardson health education and Jeff Ingersol
director of the bureau of narcotics, Dr. Brown
the director of the National Institute of
Mental Health, Ehrlichman. I was the only
one recommending methadone I had the statistics,
the other gentlemen were silent or opposed.
Dr. Brown was opposed to it because that
was a threat to funding and really criticism
of the psychiatric community. Jack Ingersol
and John Mitchell were opposed because it
was introducing into America an a wide‑scale
basis if the program were implemented and ‑‑
>> Interdictive drug.
>> Interdictive drug.
>> Ehrlichman sat in and listened and recommended
to the President that the United States adopted
methadone maintenance.
>> Let's pause for a second. Let's go through,
with Bob's help, what the alternative treatments
were and how methadone actually worked. 
Bob?
>> Yes. There had been an earlier episode
of heroin addiction that focused in California
and New York and both of those states they
had developed substantial civil commitment
program for heroin addicts. Nelson Rockefeller,
as governor of New York, embraced the ‑‑
embraced the commitment approach to the problem.
Separate from that, growing out of a program
called Circumstances Anon in California, came
across as (inaudible) and Phoenix and Odyssey
House, which were therapy units. It was a
treatment program involving a year or two
or three years of residential care of heroin
addicts to change their character and send
them out into the community as reformed. And
that was the approach John Lindsay, the mayor
of New York, picked for what was going on
was ‑‑ so those were the two sort of
polar ideas. What happened, Vincent started
in the 1960s this methadone program which
involved giving the person an oral dose of
methadone once a day heroin have to inject
four or five times a day very unstable. Methadone
because orally effective longer lasting you
use once a day dose what dole found people
could be stabilized with methadone it prevented
overdoses. It stopped ‑‑ stopped the
euphoric effect while they were taking because
of the blockade of methadone and people could
go about functioning well. But there was tremendous
controversy about the methadone. You can hear
it here in this presentation.
And the genius among the genius moves of Jaffe
was to package the methadone in a multi‑modality
program. It wasn't just methadone. We were
talking about what the government did was
just methadone it wasn't that it was methadone
plus it was including a commitment a federal
act in law. It was a multi‑modality package
and the primary treatment and driver of this
was methadone. If you look at both therapeutic
and civil commitment they were unscalable
to the size of the problem. You couldn't mobilize
a response like that in the district with
15,000 addicts we treated you couldn't have
done it with either therapy in the communities
or civil commitment. There just wasn't enough
ability to do that. But methadone you could
you could scale it.
>> Okay. Stop for a second. I am going to
summarize this because I am on the outside
of methadone is addictive it's a synthetic
nothing to do with opium.
>> Correct.
>> You take it orally you take it once a
day they put it with orange juice, you don't
get a high because it's going through the
system and it ‑‑ but it blocks the craving
for heroin.
>> Yes.
>> So, you become functional but addicted
to a drug that doesn't give you a high.
>> I wouldn't use addicted. I would use physically
dependent.
>> Fine.
>> Better word.
>> Happy to do that. So, what this young inexperienced
lawyer who is working nonstop on treatment
he has gone around and he has seen in your
great country several examples of where methadone
is working. He comes back and does a paper
and he says, this is the future. And he goes
and faces down ‑‑ now, John Ehrlichman
is his boss, he has weight on his side. He
faces down all of the powers that be that
have been relying on civil commitment and
therapeutic communities and the money that
comes with that. And this young aggressive
White House staffer wins ‑‑ the picture
before this we don't have a picture with John
Ehrlichman's office and the cabinet secretaries,
but Jeff prevails. And then he takes Jaffe
as the guy with the ‑‑ with the answer,
in to see the President. Okay? Now I am going
to go to the next picture unless you have
more to add on this one. This is pitching
the President in private. And this is John
Ehrlichman, Bob Halderman, Jeff, Bob Krogh.
>> I have hair there, you don't recognize
me.
>> It is true. And you never want your back
to the camera.
>> It's a bad place to be.
>> Then, one week later, we go public. And
probably this whole development from your
paper to the meeting in Erhlichman's office
to the meeting in the oval office is what
a month?
>> Probably.
>> Okay. You think the government can't act
when it wants to?
>> Well, it's even a better story than that
in terms of government acting quickly. You
know there was a confluence of the concern
a among the American people with regard to
the relationship of heroin addiction and the
commission of crime and the war of Vietnam.
>> We are a slide we are coming to that.
>> You are.
>> You can't anticipate.
>> I apologize.
>> It's okay, you have a good story, but not
this story. Here we are, there are two or
three of these slides. This is the President's
message on June 17th, 1971, where he says:
I want to create the special action office
for drug abuse prevention. I want congress
to enact it. I am going to create it by Executive
Order, and I am going to appoint Jerry Jaffe
to run it. Jeff has done all of the staffing
on this, of course he is not in the picture,
he is not quite senior enough to be in the
picture. This is Bud Krogh and John Ehrlichman,
but Jeff has done all of the work. There is
a public announcement of this presidential
endorsement and organization designed to encourage
a treatment based on methadone maintenance.
>> Geoff, it's more than that. CEODAP was
designed to focus within the federal government
all nonlaw enforcement treatment, education,
rehabilitation.
>> Research.
>> Research. Before CEODAP there were 14 different
federal agencies, each had their own domain.
There was no consensus, there was no vision,
there was no uniform concept as to what we
were trying to achieve. The concept of CEODAP
was centralized program and budgetary authority
within the executive office of the president,
so that we would have clout to give direction
to the federal government's approach to the
drug problem.
>> Okay. Two issues here. We don't want you
to miss this. This is terribly important.
Treatment comes to the fore, you could say
radical new treatment. It's tried but this
is putting the full effort of the President
of the United States behind this treatment
modality. Bringing into the executive office
of the president the authority to do this.
This is not NHEW is going to do this, it's
interesting design. It's going to be in for
three or four years. Then it's going to go
back out to the National Institutes of Health.
But it's bringing it in to get it right to
be sure the bureaucracy follows the presidential
leadership. As we said when we were rehearsing,
you can tell we didn't rehearse very well.
When we were rehearsing this, seldom in government
policy changes can you point to the exact
moment when the decision was made. But this
is ‑‑ this is over the course of a month
this is the moment on treatment.
>> I think the other interesting aspect of
CEODAP at least the legislation that finally
went to congress and unanimously passed by
congress was the idea of a sunset clause.
We decided if we didn't accomplish our goal
within three or four years we ought to disintegrate.
We didn't want to create another perpetual
bureaucracy. I think that was another unique
aspect of the Nixon administration, not wanting
to expand the federal bureaucracy.
>> So Jerry Jaffe is the first drug czar,
but tempered.
>> Yes.
>> Okay. Now we get to go to Vietnam. It's
a color picture and it was worth the wait.
>> Okay. Shortly after that meeting in the
oval office, Jerry Jaffe and I are told to
go to the Pentagon to talk to the Pentagon
about the drug ‑‑ the heroin addiction
problem in Vietnam. So, Jerry and I just the
two of us go over to the Pentagon, we meet
in a very large conference room with generals
and admirals and Jerry says: You know, you
folks have a problem in Vietnam with heroin
addiction. The ‑‑ the military was not
very forthcoming in conceding there was a
problem. And Jerry said, well, you know, the
President thinks it's a problem and we have
to do something about it. What would you like
to do Dr. Jaffe. We have to identify the
problem and determine how many soldiers are
in front addicted to heroin. This comes right
after two congressmen return from the trip
to Vietnam and claim that 10 to 15% of our
soldiers are addicted to heroin. So Jerry
says, well, we could do urine analysis to
determine what the incidence of heroin addiction
is in Vietnam and the generals say there isn't
the technology to assay urine samples in any
short period of time. And Jerry says, what
if there is a machine that can analyze a urine
sample in 30 seconds? Well, the generals,
admirals say it doesn't exist. Jerry says,
do you have a speaker phone in the conference
room. Yes, sir, I do. Can I make a phone call?
Jerry calls some folks who he knew in hall
toe alt toe and said ‑‑ Palo Alto and
says, I am in the conference room of the Pentagon,
can you explain the free radical assay technique
the machines that you developed? Long story
short, there were two machines that had been
developed that could do a urine ‑‑ a
urine sample in 30 seconds. The deal Jerry
made with the Pentagon was if I can find these
machines will you fly them over to Vietnam?
>> Two machines in the entire United States.
>> Two machines in the entire United States,
yes, sir we can do that. These scientists
in Palo Alto say yep, we have the machines.
The machines were put on Air Force jets at
Moffett Air Force base on the west coast.
And Jerry and I and Dr. Benny Prim of New York
flew over to Vietnam, to watch the machines
in operation. I was flown out to a fire base
to observe soldiers urinating into bottles
to see how the system worked. And when we
came back from Vietnam, we came to the western
White House to brief the President. I did
not ‑‑ I am not in that picture because
I wanted to go see my parents in Los Angeles.
>> You can see how years later these ‑‑
these parental respect visits come home to
roost. So you have Benny Prim, John Ehrlichman,
President Nixon, Jerry Jaffe and John coming
back from Vietnam reporting on the installation
of these machines put it because we are a
bit short on time. To put it into context.
The accusation was these returning soldiers ‑‑
because Nixon's drawing down ‑‑ there
were 537,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam when Nixon
took office he is drawing them down. And the
accusation was, these are heroin addicts,
killers, heroin addicts that you are returning
to the United States and letting loose in
society. And we have come up with a machine
that shows if you are really addicted. And
word gets out, correct me if I am wrong, word
gets out if you skip use of drugs for three
days, you will come out clean and you can
go home. If you do not pass the test, you
cannot go home.
>> Right. The soldiers were told if they
were not clean they would stay in country
for detoxification and then they would be
sent to VA or Department of Defense detox
facility perhaps in Southeast Asia. So we
were creating an incentive for the soldiers
to stay off of heroin. And out of 22,000 tests
that were done at one point in time the incidence
of heroin dependency was one and a half percent
versus the two congressman claimed to be 10
to 15%.
>> After the incentive.
>> After the incentive was instituted.
>> Fantastic. And the rumor the allegation
of these heroin addicts being loosed on the
United States went away.
>> Correct.
>> So we had a separate but significant victory
but based on scientific testing.
>> Yes.
>> All right. So, we are going to go to law
enforcement for a minute. This is President
Nixon with Miles Ambrose, the commissioner
of customs, and had the idea of bringing treatment
into the executive office of the president
seemed like such a great idea the next step
was we brought law enforcement in to the executive
office of the president through the creation
of what was called ODAL, the office of drug
abuse law enforcement. And we took the commissioner
of customs and made him in charge. And here
he is taking President Nixon through the customs
facilities at JFK where a lot of the drugs
are coming in and they are touring the drug
detention facilities at JFK. This is yet another
meeting in a cabinet room. The President has
a lot of these, this is the international
narcotics control cabinet committee, and it's
got the senior cabinet officers. And what
is unique this about particular picture they
had recently seized a heroin lab. If you look
behind the President where we would normally
have some people seated. There is a laboratory.
And in front of each of the cabinet officers,
we have a glassine envelope that looks like
a pound of flour and that's pure heroin. We
told ‑‑ this is what we do here we seize
drugs and then we distribute them in cabinet
committee meetings. But the word was: Don't
touch the envelope, because you will pick
up some of the heroin dust. But it was a very
impressive display of the cabinet officers.
I think we can name some of them if you go
up left side, it's John Connolly of treasury
and then (inaudible) who is now attorney general.
And across President Nixon those are assigned
seats and to Nixon's left is Mel Laird, Secretary
of Defense and Nixon's right is Bill Rogers,
the Secretary of State. I can't name the other
ones. But the way the cabinet room is set
up the four oldest departments flank the President,
state, justice, treasury and defense on either
side of them vice‑presidents directly across,
he is not in the picture, but treasury and
justice are. So, this is another example of
the use of the President's time and the emphasis
coming down from the President on the importance
of combatting narcotics, law enforcement,
and treatment.
This is back to you treatment guys you have
laugh of ‑‑ you have half of these slides.
What is this?
>> I think is this the President signing the
act.
>> Yes, it is.
>> So, this is March 21, 1972, congress passes
the Drug Abuse Office and Treatment Act of
1972. Which led to enormous increase in the
federal budget for drug programming. I want
to mention one of Jerry Jaffe's mantra's was,
America should have a sufficient number of
treatment slots within the country so that
no addict can claim that he committed a crime
because of his heroin dependency because he
could not get adequate treatment. So, that
was one of our goals was to vastly increase
treatment opportunities throughout the United States.
One of the things that you have to keep in
mind is, America really didn't have ‑‑
I would like Bob to talk to this. Didn't have
adequate infrastructure of treatment folks,
people that knew how to deal with manipulative
heroin addict. The therapeutic communities
were very expensive to operate. Methadone
maintenance treatment programs were not that
expensive and Bob I would love for you to
talk to the relative expenses but, again,
that was Jerry Jaffe's mantra, let's get treatment
out into America. And this in my view created
the compassionate balance between what was
perceived as only the Nixon administration's
focus on law enforcement balanced with compassionate
treatment programs.
>> But look at what this did for the law
enforcement side. We are seizing importation.
We are increasing the price of drugs because
we are working really hard at interdiction.
We are doing our dead level best to end the
available of heroin. And at the same time,
we are making treatment available for those
people so they are not left in the lurch,
you have a very happy balance at the time
between stronger law enforcement and wider
available of treatment. So, this particular
note this is the President signing this bill.
When you go back to Jerry Jaffe in the press
room, he is being named head of CEODAP created
by Executive Order. This is the actual legislation
and you see the room is full. Because this
legislation that's passed the congress without
a single dissenting vote. Now, Nixon said
off camera, time and time again to his people,
you know, the votes are for law enforcement.
People don't want addicts roaming around on
the streets. And that's what the ‑‑ my
constituency wants. But we can't do that to
these addicts without supplying treatment.
There aren't any votes for expanded treatment.
But that's not how we are doing it. We are
do going down both paths at once okay? So ‑‑
>> I am concerned that we are about running
out of time.
>> Yes.
>> And we have to draw some conclusions here.
>> You have the slide.
>> But I think we got more than the slides
to talk about. I think it's a ‑‑ I think
I am the only person who has this known every
White House drug czar, all 17 of them.
>> Let me get through the last two slides.
>> I am chomping at the bit.
>> Here is Nixon meeting with the treasury
and law enforcement people in the oval office
talking about drugs. Yet again. Here is another
meeting in the cabinet room. Yet again. If
you go through a chronology Nixon is doing
something at least every other month on drug
abuse treatment or law enforcement. Here he
goes down to Laredo, Texas and talking to
the custom agents where the stuff is starting
to come in across the Mexican ‑‑ Mexican
border, down again viewing law enforcement.
These are two articles by Bob DuPont, we don't
have time for you to read them. But Bob has
written at the time authored a very, very
important articles influential articles this
is Science Magazine. This he co‑authors
with (inaudible) James Q. Wilson, he is the
author of the broken windows theory. That
you have got to get on crime and petty crime
right away or it grows. He co‑authors a
wonderful article that we recommend to all
of you with Bob DuPont. And this is another
signature Bob is in this, we have broken into
color, color pictures this is Nixon signing
two bills the narcotic treatment act of 1974
and comprehensive alcohol abuse and Rehabilitation
Act of 74. And then this is we are going on
the last three slides, you can hold still.
Bob organized and sponsored a 35th anniversary
reunion of the people who worked on the drug
treatment side in the Nixon administration.
And this is the morning panel Jerry Jaffe
is at the podium and Bud Krogh and Paul Perito
who are deputy are there, and they are talking
about this dramatic change in treatment and
the fighting drug abuse that that had occurred
under the Nixon administration. And we have
Bob ‑‑ Bob himself addressing the second
panel, but that's because we didn't get a
picture of the panel. But it was so interesting
because at this region we had people from
HEW and people from Department of Justice,
and the guy at HEW I thought had the best ‑‑
he said he had been bureaucrat at HEW 30 years,
and never in his entire existence had he remembered
a situation like what happened when the Nixon
administration took leadership of drug abuse
treatment. He said he was called in to a meeting
in the secretary's office the only time he
saw the secretary. And L. A. Richardson said,
this is a presidential initiative the President
is exercising leadership and I don't want
to hear my department is not supporting. If
people from the White House call I want to
know that you jumped at their request. Which
brings us to the last slide and we are going
to let Bob dwell on this. We have 5 whole
minutes, okay? What are the lessons that we
learned from President Nixon drug initiative.
What was done then that may be transferable
may be not transferable. Bob? >> I wanted
to go back a little bit what was Nixon reacting
to? Nixon was reacting to the modern drug
abuse epidemic. A change in the world that
went on in the late 1960s. It was not like
anything that happened before people will
tell you drugs have been around a long time
nothing before it happened like what happened
in the 60s with the drug abuse epidemic. Marijuana
was part of that psychedelics heroin. There
was a huge phenomenal change on what was going
on. And the Nixon administration was right
there when it happened what happened was very
dramatic Nixon grabbed on to that issue and
created the‑‑created The Foundation for
everything that happened since in dealing
with the drug problem. I think that's very
important. He made it a signature part of
his administration. This first bullet there,
he said: This is top priority. We have to
pay attention to this. We have to get this
right here. And that was a very big deal.
He created what first White House drug office.
There has been a White House drug office ever
since and there is to this day 47 years later
a White House drug office. There is no other
issue that has had a White House office over
that period of time. That tells you something
about the gravity of the issue. And the importance
of that issue. He created the national institute
on drug abuse. NIDA the premiere research
institution for drugs for the entire world.
Maybe 80% of drug research in the world is
through NIDA. Its budget is $1.25 billion
just in drug research going on. That started
in 1973. Nixon started that. He started DEA,
the Drug Enforcement Administration, which
is the focus of what is going on. That is
really important to understand that. And I
go crazy when people say: Drug policy is a
war between law enforcement and treatment.
Whether you believe Nixon is credited with
saying the war on drugs Nixon is just law
enforcement, wrong! I am a doctor. I am going
to tell you that the law enforcement is a
public health strategy to deal with the drug
epidemic. Treatment needs law enforcement.
Prevention needs law enforcement. It's commonplace
to say we can't arrest our way out of the
drug epidemic, right. But we can't read our
way out of the drug epidemic either. We need
them to be working together. That was the
signature of Nixon was before Nixon it was
just law enforcement. Nixon focused on law
enforcement we have done that but he built
and created the health the research the prevention
the treatment side of that as co‑equal.
Working together that happened during those
precious years and one of the things that
Jeff hasn't said I want to put into words
is that there was a moment ‑‑ there was
a magic moment in history, with the Nixon
administration with a lot of young people,
this was in the district government it was
true in the federal government that had a
lot of ideas and were given authority to do
things to make things happen and they did
just what the Jeff was talking about, learning
from what is going on. Not just going back
what have we been doing I want to do more
of that no. Jeff went on, what is the best
new thing to do how, do you do that, how do
we make that national policy that was the
attitude happening.
>> Fair enough. That credit that you are giving
to Jeff, it's not to me, it's that Jeff.
>> Both of you.
>> They are a group of people.
>> We are at the end of our time. The last
slide says, look, here is what we did. Number
one priority, accountability, bipartisan bases
innovation committed leadership. We have demonstrated
it time and time and time not a single speech
by President Nixon, it's heavy involvement.
We grant you that today may be different.
Because it's a different kind of problem,
it's in a different communities. But lots
of these things, lots of these things are
transferable. We appreciate you coming pre
appreciate you participating in the forum
and we hope at some point you will come on
the website and look at the documents that
accompany this panel, thank you very much.
(APPLAUSE)
