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The fact that we have gathered in this room, not only senior members of Canada, but also ambassadors from halfway around the world, by major countries, indicating the importance of the subject.

As you know, I have been indicating in several recent appearances, in particular just a few weeks ago, the need for an administrative-wide program to deal with the problem of narcotics and drugs.

That program has several aspects.

First is to get a source of supply, and second is the processing of those who are basically the pushers.

Third is to treat those who are the addicts.

And fourth is the program of education, which should be nationwide.

So there's a tendency in this whole drug field at this time to zero in on only one phase of the problem, and that is the use of drugs by our forces overseas in Vietnam, where the fact that the cost is so small increases the use, and in Europe.

This, however, obscures the larger problems.

If we had no horses in Vietnam, no horses in Europe, it would still be a nasty drug problem because it's a problem for the whole nation and it's a problem for the majority of the younger people in this country.

So what we are trying to get at here today is one aspect of the problem.

While we have, of course, the Attorney General, the Secretary of the Treasury, and others who deal with the problems of prosecution, the Secretary of the AGW deals with the problems of education, treatment of the addict, and the rest.

The basic problem of supply is, of course, outside the United States.

Where heroin is concerned, the United States is not a producer of heroin or a manufacturer of heroin.

It is produced in foreign countries.

So under certain senses, this involves getting a distortion of supply.

And we have here today, not only the Secretary of State, but the Director of Central Intelligence of the United Nations, which indicates that the problem of supply has also very sensitive foreign policy.

aspects to it.

What we want here is a first, an analysis of the problem.

A second report from the ambassadors as to what can be done, what they are doing, what they need to do further with regard to the problem.

Consistence of our foreign policy and our commitment.

And finally, an announcement of a program that we're going to announce

on Thursday and Friday this week for the whole job problem that we are centralizing his role here in the White House.

I'm going to ask him, he is the White House staff member, his primary responsibility, and call on him.

Mr. President, our presentation will begin with a general overview of the opium and heroin problem, internationally and domestically, with a briefing by the Director of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.

Then we will focus on Southeast Asia with a background briefing by Director Helms,

and then a specific discussion of the Vietnam situation with Ambassador Bunker.

And then we will follow this with a briefing on the Middle East and hear from Ambassador Hanley of Turkey versus Japan.

Mr. President and gentlemen, this morning I'm going to give you a brief discussion of the dangerous drug patterns in the world.

emphasizing the movements of opiates and the indigenous action that the United States government has taken internationally since 1969, and the role American foreign missions might play in dealing with the governments on those questions.

In the United States, we estimate that there are perhaps as many as 300,000 addicts.

That was an estimate that we had just recently arrived at for 1969.

95% of them are addicted to heroin.

Of those that we have substantial identification on, 59% are under the age of 30, and about 8 to 10% are under the age of 21, and the average age declines each year.

Pneumatics under age 18 have come into our data system during the last two years at three times the rate of the preceding three years.

Over a thousand people died last year in New York City due to drug-related causes, most of them due to overdoses of heroin.

Of these, 23% were teenagers and 52% were under 25.

The domestic problem is aggravated by its growing expansion into the suburbs as well as in the center cities and its infestation of youth.

Traffickers range from private renegade pilots who fly heroin from Mexico and South America to ex-servicemen who particularly operate in Southeast Asia to organized criminal enterprises that operate worldwide.

Another potential source to move heroin in small unit quantities in the United States are youngsters touring Europe and the Middle East who presently engage in substantial cashier trappings.

Annual seizures of drugs from 1966 to date are broad, and in the United States are shown on these two charts.

The orange bars represent heroin, and the blue on the other one, cocaine.

The purple has the extreme marijuana.

Sources of heroin, which our primary concern was at this time, lie in the Middle East.

The green areas show the opium

cultivating areas.

Europe, South America, Mexico, and Southeast Asia.

Estimated worldwide illicit production is between 1,200 and 1,400 tons.

And according to the International Narcotics Control Board in 1970, 1,800 tons were produced for legal purposes.

Opium produced in the Middle East and Southeast Asia

has moved to refinery facilities, examples of which are shown in these photographs.

The first one is a Marseilles laboratory, which was seized a few years ago, and the other photographs are of a refinery located near the Mekong River in the tri-border area of Laos.

On July 14, 1969, Mr. President, you instructed the Attorney General of the Secretary of State to explore new ways to assist foreign governments

in fighting the traffic of drugs.

We now have special arrangements with the major sources of our problem, namely Turkey, France, and Mexico.

And we have effectively increased our collaboration with a number of other governments.

In addition, the United States operating through the United Nations has provided leadership in the following three areas.

First, we initiated a new United Nations Fund to Control Drug Abuse.

with an initial $2 million contribution.

Secondly, we play a significant role in the adoption of a new convention to control non-narcotic substances internationally.

And third, we have proposed amendments to strengthen the single convention on narcotic drugs so that the International Narcotics Control Board will have the means to detect violations and then to correct the situation by policy, inspection, or a bargain.

Turning to Southeast Asia,

Illicit production amounts to some 750 to 1,000 tons annually.

In northeast China, where 300 to 600 tons are produced, and in the tri-exporter area of Thailand, Burma, and Laos, where at least another 200 tons are produced, as well as southern China, where then the quantity moves in the illicit traffic is believed to be quite small.

Raw opium is moved from the source to production mainly by horse and mule caravans.

morphine-based and high-grade heroin, which is a prevailing addictive drug among American personnel in South Vietnam, are processed in laboratories in the tri-border area or in Bangkok or Binh Chieng.

From there, the heroin may go to Saigon by air in a company of couriers or by mail.

Raw opium and morphine base are sent by fishing trawler from Bangkok to Hong Kong.

Between January and May, one trawler per day may carry one to three tons of raw opium or quantities of morphine base, which are transferred onto Hong Kong junks off mainland China.

Hong Kong is a major manufacturing area of lower-grade heroin, most of which is consumed by more than 100,000 local addicts.

to produce pure white heroin is there as well.

We know of three trafficking systems that moved heroin to the United States from Southeast Asia.

One composed of ex-servicemen operating in Okinawa, another a group of ex-servicemen operating in Thailand, and a third group of Filipinos.

APO mail is also used extensively

The most significant mail discovery in the United States recently involved eight kilograms of high-grade heroin mailed to Fort Monmouth.

It was traced back to the SGI's operating in Bangkok.

Mr. President, I think the primary need now in the American effort abroad to eradicate the sources of this problem is an escalation and further unification of activity combined with a full range of programs.

Until quite recently, such United States activities lacked a cohesive country team interest and approach.

In those cases where the entire country team, led by the ambassador, supported by expert technical assistance and other resources of the United States, has been involved, progress has accelerated.

Examples are Turkey, France, Mexico, and more recently, South Vietnam, as our ambassadors there are aware.

The recent progress in these countries illustrates that this kind of approach can achieve in months what was not accomplished before in decades.

Thanks.

Let me ask a question.

You pointed out in your briefing with the military leaders a few days ago that there had been several recent

up to maybe $80 million.

Now, I know that under your office and the other offices that have responsibilities in these areas, that there have been more prosecutions.

And they have indicated that a lot of progress has been made with regard to cooperation and so forth.

Let me come down to this.

As compared with the time when the program began and now,

Is the supply greater or less than it was?

In other words, if we're simply getting a smaller percentage of a much greater supply, we're making no progress.

We're just walking backwards.

one step forward, two steps back.

If, on the other hand, we are beginning to get in and reduce the supply, is that something else again?

What are your fingers showing?

Is there more heroin, for example, available in the United States, available to Americans abroad now than was the case when we started this operation in July of approximately two years ago?

Or is there less?

I think from what we know, Mr. President, we know of more.

Whether there is actually more than there was in the two years before that, I can't say because the information is just not collected adequately before.

Well, there are more headaches now than there were, right?

Then again, it's a difficult question to answer because we don't have information.

We don't know whether there's more addicts.

We don't know whether there are more drugs available.

I would guess that there are more addicts.

This is pretty important.

Yes, they are.

I would guess that there are more addicts because, and certainly, and there are reverse drugs available.

Then actually, then we've made no progress from the problem.

We've just been going backwards, correct?

It doesn't really say that when you say, for example, that we had a great record last year.

Instead of just capturing 100 criminals, we captured 200.

But instead of the total number of criminals being 1,000, there were 2,000.

So that's not a great record.

I don't think that we're making a very big dent in the...

That's my point.

So basically what we need right here today, despite all of this, we talk, we hear about cooperation of foreign governments, despite all the talk about better prosecution, all the talk about dealing with this problem, the problem with drugs today is worse than it was.

Wouldn't you have to say that more?

I would have to say that it's a greater supply.

What we really get down to is, and this is no fault of all of you, because it means that

that you are dealing with a more difficult problem.

It's a bigger war.

And so consequently, even though you go out and you capture a lot of the enemies, you find that because they have a lot more forces in there that you actually have made progress on the basic problems.

Would that be a fair analysis of it?

Or do you believe we have reduced the problem some?

No, I don't think we've reduced the problem, Mr. President, but I think that we are getting to the point, if we reflect this this morning, examples of getting to the point where we are at least getting a chance to get a hold on it.

The purpose of my questions is not to reflect on any of those who are working on the problem.

The purpose is to show why this meeting is necessary.

And despite all of our talk and all of our efforts and all of our big programs,

There is more heroin coming into the United States today, total, than there was.

There are more addicts than there were.

Now, there must be something, therefore, wrong with what we're doing, or if what we're doing is right, we're not doing enough of it.

That'd be embarrassing.

I think that it's now now it's time to do more of what we have been laying the groundwork

The use of heroin really began late in 1959.

Since then, it really has increased the rustling.

and now has reached alarming proportions.

The number of men who were apprehended in 69 out of a total of some 8,400 who were arrested for use of narcotics, only 250 were used as a terror.

This went to 1,146 in 1970, 2,189 through May this year.

So, as this problem assumed serious proportions by mid-1970, a comprehensive attack was begun on that drive throughout the mission.

In August, MacBee set up a task force under the accountantship of the agent Dick of the Bureau

narcotics and dangerous drugs, and the Provost Marshall to develop a comprehensive drug suppression program.

And they took a number of steps.

First, they started a drug abuse education program using radio, letters, papers, films.

Secondly, a drug abuse suppression council was formed in every military unit down to battalion level to monitor and coordinate the drug programs.

A combined American-Vietnamese anti-narcotics committee was established in each military region under the suggestion of the Vietnamese commander of military region one.

to take joint action to stop the flow of narcotics within the civilian community.

And joint narcotics investigation detachments were formed to seek out, identify, and neutralize drug sources and traffickers.

Teams were placed in Saigon and each military region.

A joint customs group was established under the U.S. Army in Vietnam with representatives from each of the CIS

A ground and aerial marijuana switch program was created to locate and destroy marijuana prior to harvest.

And the Amnesty Rehabilitation Program was expanded.

So far this year, 5,265 service members have participated.

On April this year, the Spanish Prime Minister initiated a GBN program to induce the use and trafficking of drugs throughout Vietnam.

The province chiefs were directed to prosecute offenders.

On April 15th, the National Committee to Suppress Drugs and Smuggling was formed under the chairmanship of the Minister of Justice.

A similar committee is set up in each province.

But despite these measures,

it became clear that the complexities and the magnitude of the problem was such that only with the very closest coordination and integration of the American energy agencies and the components involved that we could attack the problem effectively.

The smuggling and the drug problem had to be attacked together because they obviously had been strictly tied up together.

And it was clear that the Vietnamese effort would require the direction dimension of President Chu.

And that both our efforts would have to have coordination at top level.

And for that reason, I directed Professor Berger to take charge of the entire current program.

Bill Abramson and I had a long and very detailed talk with President Chu

on the problem of smuggling and customs of coal and narcotics, and made it very clear to them the seriousness of which the government, the involvement of the people, view this problem.

In fact, there'd be no assurance that law continues, or that the most vigorous action was taken in this situation was allowed to continue.

We gave him a very detailed name memoir, which he went over with a paragraph and suggested measures that should be taken promptly by his government.

These included appointing a senior military officer to direct the campaign, impressing him by making senior military commanders and cabinet ministers to lead the drastic action.

including more efficient policing of their own forces, greatly improving the intelligence and enforcement activities to identify and arrest narcotics ringleaders and pushers, directing the Ministry of Justice to report officials to streamline their procedures so that narcotics offenders and smugglers could be more rapidly tried and punished.

These legal procedures have been very lax and ineffective.

and directing the close coordination and integration of the Vietnamese and our own efforts.

The President acted very quickly and vigorously on this.

In fact, he responded more quickly than on anything I've been picking up with him so far.

To set up the machinery to deal with the problem.

He appointed a team of five experienced intelligence police officials headed by Lieutenant General Wang to develop and carry out an effective program.

Inter-ministerial drug suppression committees were formed at national and international levels to invest in widespread participation in the effort.

The chief of the Narcotics Bureau of the National Police was replaced.

The bureau itself reorganized and expanded.

It was now given additional training in detection and suppression of drugs.

A new and capable assistant police commissioner was appointed to direct the police efforts in the campaign.

An undercover team was organized to monitor enforcement activities.

Sir, following week, a Jew held the first of several meetings on this subject with his top military and civilian officials.

He outlined his plans, ordered the officials to give the highest priority to the suppression of smuggling of drugs and directed them to cooperate fully with our officials.

Among the first steps,

They were the replacement of some of the most corrupt Customs Service officials, including the Prime Minister's brother, tightening customs and security measures of customer therefore.

It's really quite effective now.

Replacement of all police, customs, and military security service personnel at the airport made a clean sweep of the group.

I intend to do this periodically, so get used to it.

Re-arrangement of the airport customs facilities for better control and the denial of access to unauthorized customs.

And we increased our customs advisory team from three to five and directed the U.S. military customs team to search all passengers on our military flights, including Thai and Korean service.

Well, the success of these efforts is indicated, I think, by reason.

intelligence reports that they're not having numbers in Laos.

And now they've been forced to find other points of entry in Vietnam.

And so the Vietnamese government's now moving to seal off all air force harbors, particularly the nine motel Saigon harbors.

through which most archivists have come to learn and now apparently research is working.

We are providing the Vietnamese government with intelligence information on Vietnamese military participation in the drug traffic and are advising them on ways to control their military airfields and avoid across the border, which is also very important.

points that we've got to tighten up on.

The Ministry of Health has ordered pharmacists and pharmacies to stop selling dangerous drugs without prescription.

They were selling amphetamines and barbiturates without any prescription.

I think they've closed out three pharmacies already during this.

And we have put all limits to our courses and as well as bars and restaurants where our products are sold.

The more customs advisors that have been assigned to Vietnam, and more police advisors are helping them in our House of Bureaus.

And we are engaging now very well with the Vietnamese intelligence on the drug cases more freely than we have before.

The Vietnamese government has established a system of tax-free rewards for information on narcotics to give incentive to their officials and inform us.

Since January this year, they've arrested about 2,000 people on narcotics charges, including some lower house deputies.

has seized more than 35 kilos of nearly a kilo of heroin and large quantities of opium, marijuana, and other drugs.

They've also launched a new educational campaign to involve nurses in drug abuse.

We encourage them to do a lot more in this field.

They have, to me, this is not good news as a current one, and they're getting very much worried now that it's spread to their own people and their own forces.

Well, they have, as I said, they've begun to tackle this problem energetically, and they've made a difference in progress, especially around Saigon.

But there's a greater more to be done.

It's really just getting underway.

The borders have got to be controlled and closed.

All these other airfields, military airfields, another force, the metric.

And there are still difficult obstacles to do it for.

And one, of course, is the widespread resistance of those who share in these profits.

still there's not enough command emphasis and sense of agency at all levels of government structure.

There are too few honest and competent administrators to meet the country's needs, really.

And with the result that these corrupt people are often transferred to other jobs rather than being fired or punished.

And, as I said, the legal system is not yet able to provide a rapid, impartial, and effective prosecution.

So that while many of us are, and I had another talk with President Peel on Saturdays before I left, I'm impressed by the fact that this is going to take its consequences.

support, pressure, decision.

He sent me into hearings and military matters and the classification had to have priority and now this will have to come.

So I think he's certainly fully aware of the importance of it as far as we're concerned.

Let me ask a question.

With regard to the drugs that are available in the United States, do you have statistics or do you have any guess that you're going to get

as to the proportion that comes from Southeast Asia and the proportion that comes from Turkey and other areas?

Do we know?

You mentioned there's some that ship in from Okinawa, places which, of course, would be Southeast Asia.

We think that in the neighborhood of 10% is coming in from Southeast Asia and probably between 70% and 80% from Turkey and Europe.

Traditionally, that's.

Turkey and Europe have been our sources of income.

Yes, sir.

The area of the Southeast Asian portion has gone up, but it's still a very small amount of proportion of gold.

Yes, sir, but there's a noticeable increase.

And our great concern, of course, is that if we are able to be successful in shutting off the supply from Europe and the Middle East, the Southeast Asian will take over.

And by virtue of this production, it will be able to more than adequately

special quids to try by cutting.

Yes, we have, and I think we definitely have to do something like that because they don't get anything done by it.

They have a maximum sentence so far in six months, which is not for an ad, but for a user or for a client.

For a seller.

Yeah.

In order to have the effect, you have to have quick trials, and it's all very severe on the child.

The word has to get out.

Because we have, there's a percentage who are addicted, I don't know.

They aren't making now.

You're announcing it.

It shows up.

It's interesting.

When I left, they made about 600, 567 actually.

The percent positive was two and a half percent.

No, I don't know.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Which is lower than we had thought.

But this is not being upset.

When I was speaking about punishment, I always thought about the use of something like the traffic.

Exactly.

When you mentioned that the Vietnamese as a people were not traditional users of heroin, what other people come here to do this?

Only the Chinese?

Well, the Chinese use opium, but not heroin.

Thais?

Burmese?

When I was in Thailand, sir, I read that opium smoking was originally legal there.

and primarily Chinese smoking.

What, the legal in China?

Oh, yes.

And the rest of the state of Italy don't cut it out.

And then they began to try the heroin when the legal of smoking was cut out.

And I think that's the pattern that's had us in this area.

But the Chinese are the primary.

The ethnic Chinese are the primary.

How is this used now?

Is it used by smoking or something?

Well,

Cigarettes are anesthetic.

And these don't kill them, but you know, the Cigarette people put them on the table.

Do the military people realize the seriousness of it?

I mean, more than anything, when you take it with an eagle, it's a pretty dramatic advance.

How do you know about it?

Do these fellows do it synopsically, realizing what's happening?

Yes, and they say some of them, they tell them, you know, they get sick.

But you just tell them, it's cocaine.

I think they're getting good data.

Okay, this is bad.

But Jerry said that half the replacements coming to Vietnam have used drugs.

So that they come having used some of those drugs.

Elsewhere, the intelligence reports indicated

connected to very high offices that are involved in this, will the government actually proceed against them?

Yes, I think so.

You know, yeah, largely, the cyclone is well-related to the high office of the government, but actually, one of the, well, Thomas' brothers didn't vote.

Well, of course, he and his sister and his husband

Keith's sister is reporting.

I mean, it hasn't been substantiated.

Keith, he has a sister, a Nick, who's known as the black sheep of the family, and they don't have much to do with her.

She lives largely in Laos, as it may well be, but this is what Charlie traced out.

Do you feel the government will move against him?

Yes, I do.

Yeah.

Well, you base that on the fact that they have moved against Franklin's brother?

Yes.

And I think that Q is very aware that this is going to happen.

Absolutely.

Well, he's concerned about...

He's also concerned about the spread of the infection to his own people.

Oh, yes.

He knows what he's going to do.

Yes.

I guess it is military.

We're going on that piece.

It's going to be a bad one.

Although it would be in the advantage of having someone like Arlen Kleder, who was a brother to the entertainment field, who was very concerned about this, go to Vietnam and other places where we have troops to do things, to entertain them on the one hand and investigate them on the other.

Yes, I can't wait to do it.

And the big thing is, they're doing a video, but they don't cover science.

I told you, I said, you ought to get out of being done, because people are writing things about it, and I'm sure being done doesn't get them to cover science.

We're moving in on it, but it's almost gone, I'm told.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

In 37 years in the entertainment business, he's never seen reactions such as he's getting out in front of audiences.

He says that he gets the audience's applause for five minutes after he finishes his talk.

So you can see why he wants to be an evangelist.

And he said he'd be willing to think about this type of a program.

I'm about to be shipped to Turkey now.

Mr. President, gentlemen, this is a very old problem in Turkey.

Looking through the files the other day, I found an memorandum from Joseph Groove, one of my predecessors, reporting on his farewell conversation in 1932 with the then-acting foreign minister.

And he said, this is really a serious problem between Turkey and the United States.

And can't you do something about it?

And the acting Foreign Minister said, we are going to do something about it.

Well, since I've been in Turkey for the last two years, Mr. President, I don't believe I've had any conversation with either the last Turkish Prime Minister, Prime Minister Demirel, members of his cabinet, and the present Prime Minister.

without this subject being number one on our agenda.

Where do we stand then?

We stand in terms of statistics of the area of Turkey where opium was grown.

It looks good from 1967 to today.

That is 21 provinces to seven this year and four supposed to be planted next year.

However,

a closer look at those four provinces, tell you the story, because this is the difference between, let's say, a rice crop in Maine and a wheat crop in Kansas.

We're now moving into the area of these four provinces where oak is grown in substantial quantities, where in some of the 21 where they're no longer being grown, there was not a major enterprise.

The second thing to be said, however, on a more positive note, is that where the Turkish government has actually banned the growth of opium, the opium potting, it is effective.

People simply do not grow, and when they take a chance, the field is potted, the field is burned, the people are punished.

Therefore, there is something that follows the total banning of production in a particular product.

The number of acres, unfortunately, went up last year, this year, over what it was in 1968, when there was a general decline.

Now, our policy has been to try to persuade the Turkish government to eradicate completely the growth of opium poppy in Turkey.

It has not been eradicated.

The present Prime Minister has given some indications that he too would like to eradicate, but it has to be done in pace with the real idea of the Turkish political situation.

I had a long, sweaty conversation with him, sir, on Friday just past.

with all of his economic bureaucrats who were there making the case for continuation, control, to be sure, for continuation, and if not for continuation, then for real substantial support from the United States for the eradication.

The month of June this month we're in is critical.

Right now, this morning, I talked to Ankara.

The licensing bill is being debated in the National Assembly.

It's moved from committee stage to the National Assembly.

Before the end of the month, the Prime Minister will have to announce how many more provinces will be allowed for planning purposes in September.

My indications, the indications I had in my conversation with him, would be that he's pretty much stuck legally with the four provinces for next year, but may be prepared to offer on a voluntary basis that those who do not grow opium will be compensated.

And consider that for the following year, either complete eradication or down to one or two provinces.

The Turkish government has made unprecedented efforts, I think, this year to buy up the crop, to control the distribution of the European poppy, in terms of the .

So we have a licensing bill.

We have a chance of a much better buying up of the crop.

They're showing much smarter ideas.

They're paying a higher price.

They're paying 50% advance payments.

which has recently made the growers say, well, my crop is bigger than I estimated it was going to be.

And they're buying it earlier in the year, which means there's more moisture, and therefore the price is going to be heavier.

So I think, sir, that we do have some cause for some optimism.

Now, if we price up what to me was a quite unacceptable list of projects presented to me last Friday,

I would think that this would run into a very large U.S. investment.

On the other hand, I do think that by negotiation, if we could come up in the next few years with an additional $50 million or so, we may be able to get Turkey completely out of the production of poppy and poppy.

Let me ask you a question.

In other words, the $50 million is the price for subsidizing the European government.

It is the price.

That's right.

It is more than that.

What the present Prime Minister would like to do is to offer a better life to the farmers who've been growing opium.

Now, the $50 million would be what, for one year or for a spreadable...

I think it would be spreadable in a three, four-year period.

Yeah.

Which would make a commitment by $50 million.

Now, let's suppose that we've done...

If the opening doesn't get the Prime Minister, then move on it immediately rather than waiting for it.

Here's the problem we've got.

It just isn't good enough to say four or five years from now, maybe they'll face it out.

Understand, I think you've done a splendid job, and I know how difficult it is, and I know how difficult it is for them politically.

Here we have an ally.

We don't want to embarrass them.

By the same token, as I think indicated by Mr. Ingersoll's statement here, 75% of the heroin that comes is grown there.

It's basically there, rather than southeast Asia.

It's Turkey, France, right?

The process is in the Philippines.

It's roughly like that.

All right, so this is a problem in the United States.

It's in Turkey.

Now, it's worth $50 million, even if you collect it one year.

But for $50 million, can you get it done?

That's the real question.

I mean, I like to think it's fine.

I mean, put it this way.

I don't have to go listen to projects or not.

After all, Turkey is a poor country.

It's a country in which we have a very vital interest from a foreign policy standpoint.

apart from the old human traffic that is spreading a lot of money around a lot of the other things we have, I'd rather, if I was a person, just to sit there.

But on the other hand, I think that the problem of Turkey's continuing on the foreign province basis

the opium thing.

Now this is going to get at it.

It's just like the agricultural program in this country.

The more you're going to see it reach, the bigger the crop.

You're going to see it reach, and so people just plow the better ground, and that's what we're doing here.

That's what this...

And there's been no indication, of course, that our efforts up to this point have reduced the total amount that comes up.

The total amount still stays about where it used to result.

So, my point is this, I think you naturally have thought that properly, that you have restricted your negotiations by, well,

how much we ought to be able to pay.

The answer is, of course, we don't want to put blackmail.

On the other hand, it's worth a great deal to us, provided they do something now and not 10 years from now.

That's really what it gets down to.

So Secretary Conner and I were talking about this the other day on the same story.

Would you like to comment on that?

Well, first, Mr. President, if I may, I'd like to ask a question.

I'm sitting here saying, do you think the Prime Minister, legally, is stuck with planning the four provinces?

Is it a legal problem that he has, or a political problem?

He's not stuck legally.

He had an expiration this month, didn't he?

Not yet.

The opium pill that is...

still for legal, provides that you must give the farmer a year's notice in advance before you tell him he can't grow.

And he is due to plant in September.

Last June 30th,

He was told that more provinces would still be permitted, so he's stuck with that one.

What I proposed to him, however, was a variation.

I said, all right, if it is still not possible for you to do it originally, why not offer a kind of a soil bank idea, and that is on the basis of what you turn in and sell this year, you will be paid for not growing next year.

In other words, those provinces would still be legal, but no licenses would be extended because you paid a guy for not planting.

Well, he is still thinking about that, but he modified that in his revival, or perhaps we should do it voluntarily.

That'll work just like the Soil Bank did in Greer's utter failure.

Because you tell the farmer to put in what you want voluntarily and he'll put in the land and he won't grow anything anyway.

And plant more and make more out of the other land because the price is going to go up.

At least that's the reaction.

The precise figures of the actual value of the crop and wheat for a product is wheat.

We've had some figures kicking around here, and we're not sure we can speculate the range of the cash value to the farmer in the range of about $3 million a year.

That's funny.

So, was there any reason why we couldn't say to them, we'll buy the whole crop, $3 million, we'll make it worth $5 million?

There is.

In addition to that, sir, there is a value of the opium oil.

that is not really in commercial traffic.

The Turks have been growing opium largely for their own use for oil, poppy seeds, not for opium.

There's no skin or heroin addiction at all in Turkey.

It doesn't exist.

They don't want to consume it.

They can't?

They don't use it?

No, not at all.

Not at all.

And they use the oil.

They love it.

They love the poppy seeds.

Well, the point is, when he takes, the prime minister takes a political position where he's going to ban the cultivation, he wants to say, it does clearly offer something better and more dramatic, and he has to offer something.

That's the way he feels.

And it isn't just a question of the pain of not deploying opium.

He is, as the Secretary will remember, when he was there, he believes in the need for agrarian reform in Turkey.

And there's something in his side, too.

It's more than the only question.

Well, have our agricultural initiatives, have we had people over there from the department working with them?

There are a number of possibilities.

There are activities.

Unions, dehydrated onion plants.

But, in some of the ridiculous things that were presented to me by, on Friday, we could build textile plants straight from the U.

But you know, it was pretty hard for me not to walk out of that.

There's been a whole lot of things.

One thing that puzzled me about all this is the problem of diversion itself.

We did offer, two years ago in 1969, to buy the crop.

And we had, among other things, we had American pharmaceutical houses already.

They didn't want the humiliation effect of the US using tax money to do this.

We had a pharmaceutical company lined up to buy the entire crop.

Even though they didn't need it, they would have, you know,

But there's some cultural sort of a hang-up here in the poppy seed oil and the traditional practices of the farmers.

And the government is obviously

But the other side of the question is why, assuming they're gonna grow some opium, why can't they develop a system capable of preventing diversion?

The Indian design standards grow a lot more opium than the Turks do.

And there is, as long as morphine is in worldwide use, that they...

And I know she's a, there is, of course, a substantial legal market.

And yet, it appears to be true that there is no diversion, whatever, from the Indian crop.

Isn't that true?

Well, we have no licensing bill.

It seems to be a licensing business.

They were talking about putting, when I started to anchor up,

Over a year ago, the licensing bill had just come out of commission.

Oh, we're going to put the licensing bill through next week.

Excuse me, this licensing bill is at least as important as the...

This bill's not us.

I can practically guarantee you'll pass this month.

Now, the answer there is a million dollars.

who says he's going to grow five acres at, say, 10 kilos to 50 kilos, when the collector goes around and he says, well, it's a bad year, you've got 30 kilos, the Indian government says, well, you do things.

You're a liar or a poor farmer.

Therefore, we're not going to give you a license next year because of that production.

Now, the Turks have not had that weapon in their hands.

And that is precisely what the licensing bill will give them.

Now, the answer that I find difficult at times is, all right, suppose we do control it.

Suppose the world still needs opium.

Are you going to tell us that we Turks should not participate, that we are worse people than the Indians?

Psychologically, this is the tough one.

I say that my answer is, dollars are going to cost you too much.

to raise it because the control is too high.

Indians have got a lot of Indians to go around.

They have a bigger population than you do.

They can deploy more personnel.

You're well rid of this.

Get out of it if you can.

And that's the attack I've been trying to make, Mr. President, on them.

I think we're down to an eyeball to eyeball contact at the moment in terms of what is the price.

And that raised the village last Friday.

And I think I can see a real possibility of either complete eradication of opium in the next two years in Turkey, or it will be certainly out of the hands of private farmers and maybe done entirely under state control, under licensing.

Mr. President, can I ask an ambassador question?

This is the harvest season now.

It's beginning right now.

How much have they stepped up their control of the harvest season?

Enormously.

I mean, compared with last year, thanks to Jack Ingersoll's work and people in PNDE, there are people in the field now.

We know from the accounts that people are some of the things that are

These trucks that are going out, the vehicles that are being put at disposal, the buying of the crop in advance, paying 50% in advance, and then getting higher estimates, obviously.

Narcotics offices have been set up where they never were before.

Narcotics agents have been trained.

where they were never before.

Divisional authority has been removed.

I think that the chance of this crop, and it looks like a pretty beautiful crop, the rains have been very, very good, and the blue and white poppies are beginning to look very, very nice.

Unfortunately, the growth of poppy in this area is also the earthquake area, as you know, the Kutai area, and some of the people have been pretty hard hit.

Earthquakes and the psychological problem of elimination of poppy is also involved.

But I'm optimistic, Mr. President.

I think that we are at the point of control, price,

possible eradication or probable eradication from the hands of the private farmers and maybe, for one province, maybe the province of Antioch, which means Oakland, by the government under, one might say, practically Los Alamos conditions, Mr. President.

Could I address the Secretary's question on the purchase of the crime?

If you could shoo out the seed and the oil and just buy the residue, could it be bought this year?

Well, that's not what the Turkish government says it's going to do.

They're making every effort to buy that total product.

That is debauchery.

Yes, but they are having their people in the people right now.

What's the licensing bill to assume it passes?

Well, the licensing bill means that the Turkish government determines how much opium will be needed for pharmaceutical reasons.

We're gonna use licenses to measure it with that performance to grow that much coffee and that's all.

And then... Will that become effective in order to take care of...

Yes, sir.

Because you had a season in September.

You think that'll pass?

Yes, sir.

Do you think that they'll be able to do it effectively?

Well, we'll know at the end of six weeks how good of a collection it will be.

I don't think anything like this has ever been tried before, this collection.

Anything we can do to help make it more effective?

I'm just going to sell them as I've been doing and as best I can.

No, it gets down to the control so that it doesn't get into the enlisted market.

The government has to learn before they can sell them.

Is the Prime Minister just as...

Yes, when he said he was not blessed, he had all these talks and he told me before, and I reminded him on Friday, he says, people will be amazed to forget that the era grew old.

And that's... Getting back again to the problem of subsidy and the price.

and certainly think with regard to what we would be able to pay if it works, even if it is blackmail.

Now, when we come down here is the other side of this line.

The growing awareness in this country of the problem of drugs is going to become a massive problem.

Vietnam will be out of the way, but next year we're still going to have construction.

We're still going to have 1,000 people or maybe 2,000 here dying in New York, which is more from New York City than died in Vietnam last year.

And so they're going to say, where is it coming from?

So it's coming from Turkey.

They're an ally of the United States.

I have no question about that unless we deal with this problem now, it will be dealt with by the Congress.

You know the various writers from the Congress and so forth, but the effect that all these people stopped in the country.

Representative Tashi recently said it was genocide.

Correct.

Well, that could pass.

And there was a lot of public sentiment that we developed a war against it for the wrong reasons.

Because many would join together for the right reasons.

They wanted to control the narcotics traffic.

Others would join in for the support of it because they wanted to send the tourists.

and also if you do get nailed, and so you could have a double whammy here that could get that kind of legislation through and the effect on your problems with the various governments would be even greater.

I come back to the point that I think there should be an exploration at the highest levels of whether a subsidy

I mean, what the price is, if you see it, and whether it will work.

And third, whether or not Erlichman's suggestion of separating out the poppies, the poppy oil, and so forth, from the rest, is what could be made.

And now, I think the Attorney General puts his finger, of course, on the real problem.

that even though the women purchased the crop at three to four million dollars, all the people who want to make profits out of it, my colleagues will be in there offering black market prices to take it out.

So the question really gets down to the enforcement.

But it seems to me that we must face the fact, right now, public attention is riveted on, if not, the problems of the servicemen.

As far as the national problem is concerned, which will be here long after Vietnam has come under the public subconscious, as far as that national problem is concerned, it's still going to be here if we continue to have this force from Turkey coming in at this amount.

And, of course, it will then be supplemented by an increasing amount in Southeast Asia against the fire because of the...

in the liberty market that is here.

I don't know what has been done in that area.

You examined it in your department.

I do this price business.

Who else?

Yes, we talked to the front desk department, to the Department of Agriculture.

That's where we come up with the figure.

We talked to the three million dollar.

That's the price, but I mean, a question of enforceability.

Have you talked about this, John?

Yes, we have a program over there with Jackson.

It's up.

Yeah.

Well, I, so how, how, how, how the .

I suppose not three or four, but I suppose it's ten million dollars.

Well, we have the same problem with the Council of Jackson.

In Turkey, we have all kind of government officials.

In fact, there was one of them arrested over here not long ago.

One of the cities, but you do have the same corrupt .

I don't have a problem with, you have a problem with the government officials.

And they have their constituencies.

There's an agricultural constituency.

And obviously, those who go with poppies are very strong supporters of their constituency.

They don't want to turn on them.

But I think this.

I think that we, at a time when we are with very good reason, trying not to pay too high a price for something that isn't going to work, let us look at it from another standpoint.

the price we have to pay today, if it works, is worth it.

Because later the price would be enormous in terms of what it could do to the foreign policy of this country, what it could do to the Turkish government, what it could do to NATO, as people look at this continuing flow in to the United States and so forth.

So I, you were over there, Bill, what is it, do you have any further thoughts on that?

I know, I think the Prime Minister is a much stronger man.

And he's, I think, trying to cope with it.

I think we tend to talk about Turkey, though, as if it were the United States.

He's got statistics out there.

He races, you know what I mean?

There's one man that owns three towns.

He owns everything, the people and the community and everything.

But a piece of Turkey is pretty, pretty...

So I think it's quite different than we mentioned.

But I think that we've got to keep pressure on them.

And I think that what you said, Mr. President, is that whatever the cost is, if we get it eradicated, now we need to be prepared to pay it.

And I think we have to support the Congress for that.

If we delay it, if it all disappears in the next three years or four years, then we're going to have a major problem.

It's just beginning to surface now.

But I think that it's going to be, as the President says, it's going to not only be tough on our relations in Turkey, it's going to be very difficult on NATO relations.

Because there's a lot of questioning about this turkey anywhere, turkey trees.

Sir, if they cannot buy the crop this year, with all the work that's gone into it,

then I think we should take the toughest, absolute toughest minds that there should be no more potty grown in Turkey.

Because they are deploying.

They've got the aircraft.

The John Darman is flying over.

You can't hide a potty field.

It's not like potatoes that's underground.

It's up there.

It's beautiful.

and malignant, and you can see it.

And I think that if they can't control the crops this year in terms of the harvesting and everything they go into, then I think I can get some allies within the bureaucracy who've been saying, let's see if we can control it.

So that's within the Turkish bureaucracy.

But after the crop is harvested, how much time does it take to get it

more than saleable.

If you know where the fields are, you can spot them.

How much time do they have to muck you out?

Well, there's a period of three or four days when the old man who sits and watches the old man field goes out the first time to do his work, feels the poppy fall, tells the women to go incite it, and they extract

the opium gun, and by hand.

Then it remains there, you see.

And later, these seeds are used for potty oil.

The stalks are used for fire.

Or they're shipped and exported to Holland and other places where an alkaloid processing can take place and a codeine-type thing, and a very, very sophisticated basis can be produced.

But there's some suggestion that what you do is forbid the slicing of the opium.

therefore you would not get the gum, which is a real bad thing.

I don't trust that because I don't believe you could possibly really survey a field head by head by head by head to see whether, after they slice the public, how long does it take to get the gum and for them to take it?

That is, I mean, it's right there, they process it, they conceal it, and the process of the U-man with the Honda has made a deal with, what, three or four farmers in the area, and he buys 50 kilos, and he goes back to Istanbul, and he sells it, and off it goes.

The problem, Mr. Daly, that Bill mentions is true, because our country, Alex, me, and of course you're on, the Thais, they don't have the control over their country, it's just the...

What do you think of the United States?

The Laotians.

You talk about the royal Laotian government.

You've got this stuff growing, unfortunately.

It is not in an area of all these four provinces, all contiguous, not scattered eastern turkey and the rest of it.

You have to vary this as much too.

These poppies can grow in other countries.

So you slice this down, you cut it off here, you cut it off in Southeast Asia as well.

You've still got mainland China, you've still got Africa, you've still got a lot of other parts of the world.

Afghanistan.

It might get into the business, right?

Is Afghanistan growing?

No, I don't think so.

Afghanistan is a hub for drugs now.

They have all their young gimmicks over there.

The Afghanistan opium is now used in Iran.

In where?

Iran.

So we do not want to, we don't want to overemphasize what we're going to accomplish by cutting his source of supply in general.

There is, and if it is not cut, it will become a, it could be terribly embarrassing to and detrimental to the best interests of the United States.

That's what we have to bear in mind.

I'm practically run out of vocabulary in trying to characterize how venomous it is.

And I talk to the church in Britain.

They get defensive at the end.

They say, well, it's your fault.

You're the consumer.

We don't consume it.

And it's your problem.

I can accept that.

We will, to an extent.

To an extent, they're correct.

We have to get it to the other end of the funnel.

And that's why the educational process in this country, all the way up and down, once they cross from the straight society to the drug society, I mean, the marijuana thing is so bad and so forth, just the traffic tickets, which you ought to keep in mind for the rest of the time.

They move, and the percentage of those that are going to move on is much, much higher.

And so here we are.

It becomes fashionable, acceptable, acceptable

from the end of the whole drug culture.

We're going to have a massive market here for a fundamental reason, because our people can afford it.

And particularly those who reported the greatest growth in the use of drugs now, as I understand it, and then as Senator Salfont gets out of his office,

The greatest growth, significantly enough, is in the upper middle class.

It's been, and basically the educational institutions, primarily are so-called ethnic institutions, the Eastern institutions, and the rest are kind of the fashions among many.

And not just where, but in the South, so it seems to be that sort of thing.

But nevertheless, when you see this governmental class movement, you're moving a relative away from what is increasingly what you thought was primarily a ghetto problem.

And it still is, of course, because approximately 50% of all of those in the United States

who are heroin addicts are not white.

So it is a black problem for some athletes, and it has been in the past, but it is shifting.

It is shifting as if you move into the suburbs, into the high schools that they have, the people who go to the colleges, it is shifting and could become an enormous problem.

But we're only getting one part of it, and we're the reason this is what we've been doing.

this source of supply that's going to deal with the crop.

There will be other sources of development.

But we cannot allow our relations with Turkey to be terribly jeopardized by this disappointing culture.

That's what we have to remember.

Because in the same as July, in Vietnam,

It's embarrassing to, better than I am sure, to have the Prime Minister's brother involved in something, or the Vice President's sister, if she is involved in those.

But on the other hand, for their own good, for their own relations, we have to do the same for July, the same for the oceans, because the temper of a Congress, as we all just understand it, is one, not the one, to assist any of these countries.

for a variety of reasons, political reasons and some economic.

But second, the temper of the Congress generally and of the country is not, not with just any country that engages in the program.

That's what the attitude is today.

And if you put that, if you ever give a Congress a chance to vote on that, it's a pass.

No congressman would dare, who's running in that area, would dare vote against it.

If he gets the straight up or down bills, it's all ornate in any country that produces.

In our country, it would, and that's what we're up against right now, you see.

Sir, may I?

One final thought that I haven't mentioned.

That is that if we are going to talk about the international field as an executive rather than an individual congressman, I think it complicates the Turkish prime minister's problem if we single Turkey out or any particular country out as a lead in this, because

I'm convinced he's trying, and I think he just makes it that much more difficult for him to carry out the reforms that I think he wants.

We had to put the maximum pressure on him prior to that.

That's right.

Can I ask you a little quick?

I think you mentioned the fact that the replacements in Vietnam have more drug addicts.

It turned out there were more drug addicts among the replacements.

How many there are when they leave and how many there are when they come in?

Yeah, go ahead.

Mr. President, I want to add one thing.

Mr.

Ambassador, as I understand it now, the farmers in these four provinces were planned to accept the rules.

because they were not given notice a year ago, in other words, in June of 1907.

Now, do I understand now that the prime minister is not going to take any action this month, which would give them notice that they cannot plan in September of 1972?

And that we're negotiating.

I'm trying to get him to say on that June 30th announcement that you will at the same time say, this is the last time.

Now, we may be able to make some variations of that.

I've gone about as far in being flexible within my instructions, and my instructions really have been to get him to stop producing.

But to that extent, I have tried to suggest to him, for example,

that if you tell me there will be no more production a year from now, and something happens and the world already needs opium, you know, you might be in a better position.

You can always change your mind.

But if you give them the notice now that there will be no more production, I think you will come down probably to one or two provinces, maybe just one, the one of Afyon and then come up with a suggestion that it be done

on State Farm.

Now that, it'll have to be the decision here of whether that is acceptable to us or not, but... How about the letter from the President of the U.S. Treasury back to the question of the first thing to abolish it entirely?

You know, I told him last time that I had a message from the President in which he was going to respond to my proposal in May 17.

And he said I could tell the President that for humanitarian reasons he is going to take every way possible to end opium production in Turkey.

in private hands.

He didn't, but in that view of terminology, which later came up, that he was thinking of the possibility of a state farm.

Sir, I do not think right now that I would like to have you commit yourself to him in that way, because he may not be able to respond, and then it's, may I think about that as to whether it would be wise or not.

One more question, I think.

As far as buying up the crop is concerned, as I understand it, the substantial equivalent of what we appear to propose is being carried out, but the government is doing it or trying to.

What means are they putting into effect to protect against diversion?

Well, the crop, once they hit it, it doesn't have

Oh, the government has no problem, because unless it's corruption, we're a government bureaucrat.

But really, Zach, I don't believe we've ever had any indication that the government has, that it goes out that way.

The problem is getting it into government.

Once opium gets into legitimate channels of control over every market,

They raised the price from 100 Lira a kilo, which is 100 Lira, say, $6 a kilo, to about $10 a kilo.

Incidentally, that's what it cost.

It's a pretty cheap commodity to me, when you buy it on the spot.

And they are buying it at the right time, which means there's more moisture in it, therefore the farmer's getting a better price for it than he was in the past.

The guy has enough money in their pockets

And they can pay on the spot.

They don't give IOUs and the guys have to go into town and cash it in later.

There's plenty more inventiveness in how they tackle the problem.

And if with all of that they can't do it this year, then I think the sky should fall down on them.

Could I ask this?

Could I ask, there's one following of this meeting, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Treasury and the Attorney General.

and let's see whether our subsidy, whether our subsidy that we have offered is in, and see whether the subsidy

is justified on the ground that it could purchase more performance.

What I am concerned about is not what you're going to need a fine job of following up.

I think you have the very best of intentions on it.

But I see this thing staggering through the next two or three years and so forth and then becoming a massive problem.

And I think we must explore right down to

who began giving you the ultimate weapon.

If the ultimate weapon is a paper subsidy, we will use it.

It is worth it.

It's worth $50 million this year if that's what it costs to buy $3 million on a crop.

If you look at the job, many of the social problems and the political problems and the rest of the comparison to the home for the job, my guess is that $50 million is worth it to this country.

If that will do the job, take 50 million dollars.

What that will give the Prime Minister is what, Secretary Rogers, he says, I want to offer a better life to these people.

Therefore, if I can say,

that we're asking not to grow this anymore, but instead of that, we're going to move into some new areas.

We're going to have a non-dehydration plant.

We're going to have a tomato juice plant.

We're going to have labor intensive .

The point is, the point is, it cannot be voluntary.

We have been through, we've had more experience in voluntary programs in agriculture than any country in the world.

We all produce the world.

The farmers, any farmer knows how to get around any kind of a program.

That's why the farmers typically last and the rest of us sit down still.

The farmers are concerned that any volunteering program is simply going to be producing more and fewer acres.

They'll find a way.

So let's forget that.

What you have to do is really get down to a situation.

That's why it's subsidy maintenance.

We're not going to put away 50 million bucks if we're not going to do something for it.

If that will do the job, as I said, we'll work it out with the budget.

If it'll do the job, let's get it done.

And so, of course, we can put over what it should be over a period of years or loans or various things.

You've got the 100% bank and so forth.

It's all in the ballpark.

That's all nice of it.

Yes, yes, it's, uh...

Except that it could be a down payment.

The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

I thought I'd go through the list of new initiatives that will be in the programs that will be announced later on this week.

The first step will be the establishment of a special tax office on narcotics treatment, rehabilitation, prevention, education, and research.

This will be located in the executive office of the president.

So far, our efforts in prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, and non-law enforcement aspects of drugs have been fragmented over nine other departments and agencies.

We've had quite a bit in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, OEO, the Veterans Administration, Model Cities, LAAA, and now the Department of Defense.

All of one kind or another have been involved in the non-law enforcement efforts, so it's been very difficult to spend.

a national strategy on in this area.

The authority of this new agency will span all the non-law enforcement efforts of the government

a major component and probably a new thing in this area will be an evaluation unit so that we will find out what works and what doesn't work.

There's been a lot of haphazard trying to find out what to do, throwing a lot of money in a certain area, but with no real results.

We want to find out what will lead us to a goal which will be set in advance.

And the goal right now in our credits treatment and rehabilitation is not necessarily to make a man drug free, but to make him a job holding

law-abiding civilian citizen.

And that is the goal towards which we're striving and hopefully we'll be able to marshal law efforts towards that with this new office.

The second part of the package will be greatly, substantially more money in the areas of rehabilitation.

We expect to have about $85 million in supplemental appropriations for treatment, research, and education.

The educational component will then total $29.2 million as part of the fourth major component of the national offensive.

We expect to ask for new appropriations from the law enforcement area.

That will be for the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs and the Bureau of Customs.

This will total approximately $35 million.

It will enable the Bureau of Customs to greatly expand their hardware, aircraft, detection systems, and approximately 1,000 new agents.

The Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs will be able to expand their effort overseas, and particularly in the training of law enforcement officials abroad.

The third part is the development of legislation to increase criminal penalties for certain traffickers and for certain police officials who take money to permit the drug traffic to take place, but so far are only prosecuted under bribery charges.

The bill in its present form will sit in the penalty here in the District of Columbia and for BNDD and Customs Aids.

It will parallel the existing penalties for traffickers in the bill that passed this last November.

I think that's for the first offense, let's say $25,000 for 15 years of both.

The second offense is up to 30 years, $50,000 for both.

If you might, bud, explain this to me.

Why is it necessary to expand the law or modify the law to cover the individual who is not basically a cracker but turns the other way?

Is that what you're doing?

Yes, sir.

Under these, you are dead and also you might comment briefly on whether you have a constitutional problem.

Well, so far the analysis that's been done by Justice, we don't have a constitutional problem, but what we're trying to do is to be able to include the police official who right now can only be prosecuted under a bribery charge because he does not have the specific intent to traffic in narcotics.

So what you have in a lot of police, particularly in New York, some here in Washington, D.C., are men who are on the streets, who know that trafficking is taking place,

who take a certain amount of money from people, they just turn their backs, they don't notice what's taking place.

If you get them, you can only get them under bribery.

Hopefully, with this bill, we'll be able to reach them with the same type of penalty we would get someone who was actually involved in the trafficking.

What would you, Mr. Chairman, what would you do?

How would you describe the charge and how would you put it in part of the conspiracy?

Could you make that statement?

And we find that their activities are part of the trafficking of the syndicate that may be involved.

Then we would have a federal basis for the charge.

The reason that this is not supported is that Michael was talking to a senior law enforcement official in Illinois.

And he was pointing out that if we could just get at it,

And of course, each one of us, the first one, we're only talking about a very small number of police events.

But if we could just get ahead of those students that do turn away and get them for something other than bribery, that could have a massive impact.

You've seen it in Europe.

Mr. President, we have a investigation going on in one of the largest

The voices of the voices of the country's people, the entire drug operation of that police department is hurting the terms of the officers who are taking their testimony.

Overhearings.

Could I ask you this on the conspiracy thing?

How do you, won't you have a nasty problem with the intent?

As I recall, I think everything we have included in the intent was a conspiracy.

Not if they had been an overactive presence in the conspiracy.

You mean like you would describe taking the money as an overdraft?

Yes, because it facilitates the traffic.

What does that mean?

I see.

That's the way it was written.

I like that.

And that would also cover people in the Bureau of Narcotics and so forth.

You read the story record, too.

It's in the past and has.

It's not now.

Okay, it has.

Much better than it was.

We know.

Go ahead.

The fourth part will be in the Department of Defense, as Secretary Kelly testified to.

They've initiated a program now for identification of all those in the military who, not just Vietnam, Europe, and this country, who have heroin habits.

Secondly, they have assumed the primary obligation of ensuring that those in the military do get treatment.

The question right now is where this treatment takes place.

We have three areas.

You can get it in the Veterans Administration, you can get it in civilian programs like we have in the District of Columbia with the Narcotics Treatment Administration, the OMAGA program, some in New York, or you can get it inside the military itself.

Never before have we tried to rationalize our treatment system so we have the fellow going exactly where he is, where he's living.

We don't want to have him go to a different city if we can get him treatment exactly where he comes out of the service.

So right now we're trying to link him up upon discharge to the VA program, civilian program, or if there is none available, to have him treated inside the military.

Positive treatment.

So our goal is to ensure that everyone who is identified as a heroin addict does get treatment.

And that's the fourth part of the package service.

Internationally, we will be stressing some of the things which we discussed today.

increased effort abroad.

The single convention we're going to urge countries to the right of the Congress to go with those amendments, more money for the UN fund.

We put $2 million, I believe, in that fund right now, $1 million now in addition to the other two while other countries participate in it.

I think we only have one other country that's put into the fund, which is Germany.

We'd like to get as many as we could.

Can you tell us, on one examination that was just today,

You can tell that he has morphine in his system.

Whether he's an addict or not, you can't tell the first time around.

He could have just used it.

Your analysis would show that he had it in his system.

But if he's used it for a week, for example, in South Vietnam, by snorting it or smoking it for a week, 95% of his heroin, he's just as much of an addict then as the person who's detecting it.

for a few days here, which is .

They don't believe that they can get drunk out is the term they use by snorting it for smoking.

So they can't use it to smoke it in any way.

President, one other thing that has brought my attention about this was if you were heroin, they get sad and say you couldn't inject what you do.

They have to sniff it, so they only get a small percentage of the safe ones if you were like that.

Otherwise, they die instantly.

The stuff in this country is so watered down that it really has very little heroin left in it.

That's what you can put on the veins and survive over a period of time.

Mr. President, one of the countries where

They make the most of it, which I have to live in now.

I think we've made some progress there, but one of the problems we have is getting public opinion, so therefore we get more informers.

We sent a parish priest over, which I got Cardinal Cook, who spoke French, and he spent three weeks in the Marseille area trying to get local parish churches excited.

And I'm not taking a poke at anybody and saying this, but having reviewed at least eight films on the Grudges, they're all terrible, because they start out as people wanting to make it, to get a prize for artistry, and so the first half of the film makes it look like quite the end thing to do, and of course people look at it and say, well, I'll just go halfway, and I'll never get hooked by the end, so it's unhappy.

I believe a very effective thing would be to get a real tough, realistic,

movie put together, which we in the various Western European countries, because I believe we'll knock this off in France, but it'll go to Germany, it'll go to Italy, it'll go to almost any other place.

I think if we can get a pretty darn good USI film put together that shows the horror of this, a real tough, realistic story, if we can put it into French anyway, we can get it on.

or the national television, spread this word, because this is gonna, the only way we can get it, we only have one good informer in France today, and the only way we can get it is to have people know how really tough this is, because right up until a minute ago, they said it can't happen here.

It's beginning to happen, but I think we've gotta do a much bigger project.

I think they are serious.

I've shown them to all sorts of groups over there,

I'm very disappointed with them.

They don't show the realism.

Once you're on this stuff that you've had, all due respect to all the psychologists, you can never just destroy lives.

This is what we gotta scare the hell out of them.

And I think it could be done.

We could go on a long time here.

I want to conclude the meeting by thanking the ambassadors

All the work they've done in this field has made this a long journey for this meeting.

And I emphasize what I said in the beginning, that the fact that we brought you so far for this meeting is to emphasize the priority we're putting on this program.

The FBI, Mr. Attorney General, you should put us on a list of the 10 most wanted.

or you talk about public entity number one, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

I think that at the present time, if we look at the whole fabric of American law across this country, and look at it not in terms of our temporary problems, temporary problems that we resolve internationally and the rest of it, and a little bit of society in the background,

But if we would select a public enemy, number one, it's the drug problem.

Because it is here, it is growing, and we have got to get at it, not only as a supply, as we talked about here today, the prosecuting act, which we have responsibility for, and others within the government, the treatment of addicts.

But we've got to get at it in terms of educating people, and particularly young people,

As for the enormous dangers involved, I'd just like to say in that respect that I know that it's quite fashionable now among some psychiatrists to downplay the eventual dangers and say, well, drugs are a problem, so are cigarettes, so is alcohol, and so forth and so on, without getting into that debate.

let us just understand that if you look at the societies and civilizations over the years, show me one that became substantially addicted to drugs, and I'll show you one that was virtually destroyed by that addiction.

It's also, I think,

It's not particularly relevant to note that countries that are trying to maintain some strength, character, and the rest of it, they are extremely tough on the drug trade.

The Japanese, I mean.

There's no nonsense business there.

I mean, as Dr. Rogers pointed out, just because they have a program is extremely effective.

Now, what we're moving on here, we're moving away from, we've been proceeding on a set-up basis, but we're running a little

putting down the first priority, and as we say, choose that term over and over again, that we have to let the American people know that the major American domestic problem, in other words, public enemy number one, is the drug traffic, and we're going to deal with that problem.

And I would say, in conclusion on that respect, I've been talking to the Attorney General and Mr. Hoover just the other day, and this is some way, in the cities,

crime, which is their responsibility, 60 to 70% of those who are convicted of major crimes have been, at one time or another, or at the time, are involved either as addicts or as pushers in drugs.

So those who want to deal with crime

We've got to recognize the relationship.

We do have a responsibility for the future.

The character and strength of this country have to deal with the problem in that respect.

So from now on, diplomatically, there is nothing I consider more important for the ambassadors involved around here than to get the cooperation of your governments, the evidence to which you're accredited, for this all-out assault.

Uh, if you, if more, if more conditions are needed, more enforcement people, more funds, let us know.

Uh, because of the intent of the job.

And, uh, I, uh, I will, uh, would hope that, uh, all of you can convey to your opposite members of these various governments that, uh, we, uh, really need business.

And that, uh,

We are very interested.

I am particularly interested.

I visit every one of these countries that are represented on this table.

And I want, just as all Americans do, good relations with these countries, with their people, and with their government.

Let's stop in the drug basket.

more important at this point than anything else.

And we cannot continue to pay for good relations by terrorizing the program in any of these countries.

That's the message that I want to convey.

Thank you very much.