Conversation 568-004

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Hello Ray, how are you?

Yes, fine.

How are you?

The message today was as fine as any you've ever given.

And I thought that your reception was excellent, too.

Did you feel the same way?

Yes, I did.

That's very impressive.

Did you get it all in?

Yes, sir.

All right.

I suppose you did, yes.

I sensed that the Democrats were a little reluctant to wrap the message around.

They don't want to do anything.

Sebastian, see you tomorrow.

Have you had a chance to talk to, uh, well, you just had a very brief session before coming in.

Well, you will have a chance to talk to both of them about their trip around the world.

Have you had a talk with them since their trip?

No, I have not.

But, uh, that would be great.

Because Mike, my executive director, Mike Sarkozy, had been very, uh,

Well, needless to say, I've taken the time to do this and there are three reasons that I wanted to see you on.

The first is to find out just exactly where the Commission stands with you and with the administration.

And second, to give you a report in brief, because I know you have been briefed by

The outline, and Jerry probably wants to avoid any political pitfalls.

When does the report come out?

Our first report, this is the commission that has been given a dual assignment in the legislation.

The first year's report is on marijuana, and the second year's report, which will be on the whole spectrum of

The marijuana will come out in March of 72.

In other words, we are coming into the final phases of it now.

We've had all of our public hearings.

We have nine more informal hearings.

All of the public hearings, yes.

And we have had several informal hearings.

We have nine more of those, including one at Federal College Monday.

Over 75% of the breasts are white.

And under 18, almost 85%.

It's a real tragedy.

Well, look, the thing is, we've been a very low-profile commission, as you know, from the very beginning.

We didn't go through the whole fall rule.

How long have you been operating?

Well, you appointed us last day of January.

We organized on February the 5th, so you didn't have any money until the end of March that you restarted.

Thank you.

in operation in April, since April, because you very carefully gave us some money in advance before Congress acted to give us any money, gave us some money out of your contingency fund.

And then when we got our money, we were able to move in high gear.

I want to thank you very much for the fact that all the money that we requested has been approved.

I've been working closely with George Shultz

Congress isn't doing what we ask for, which is really extraordinary.

But we've not been fighting the morale problem, as you sure may not know, and that's one of the reasons why I wanted to see you get what we're doing into proper perspective so that we won't have to go through this.

How do you think Congress would, some of your enemies in Congress, would like to use racism?

How would that happen if we can possibly avoid it?

How would they use it as a mission?

Well, when the commission was first formed, you know, this is a criticism that's part of the press about the fact that we were old and conservative and that we were put together by the president to, you know, the attitudes of the first president.

And then secondly, Mike Sonnenreich, who's our executive director and doing a very excellent job, came from the DNDD, from the Department of Justice, and those people from all scientific communities thought that they could... Do you want some tea?

I'd love some tea.

Or coffee.

Yes, coffee's better.

And...

We had no trouble getting elected by the commission.

You said you had never done that?

You know what?

Yes.

You like it?

It's confident, man.

In any event, that was just one of the topics.

Let me say that the thing I really feel concerned about is this, that Ray is, as I know you know, is a foreign prosecutor.

The difficulty with all commissions, you set them up, is that

You're kind of stuck with them.

You don't believe that so many of the screening commissioners are going to screw it off in a better direction and so forth than I am sure you are.

This is an area, of course, where we don't, I mean, there's an awful lot of stuff.

Dr. Jackson is the first to admit he's a real expert in this field where we don't know all the answers.

However, I have an extremely strong conviction, such as I have expressed in a general change about the

about the situation of marijuana in two areas.

One, about legalizing it, which is somewhat different.

Second, however,

Now, on the other hand, my attitude toward penalties on marijuana is very hard.

I've talked to your district attorney on all his items and all the rest.

And to take somebody that's focused on this and put them in jail with a bunch of hard criminals is silly.

Absolutely.

There must be different ways to do it.

I think that's your discrepancy, isn't it?

And he talked to, uh, what's his name, there, Marlowe's father?

Is that Spector?

Uh, no, I, no, I haven't.

Uh, Spector's got a remarkable time with him.

Where, where, where basically they don't even get records.

They don't even work on it.

You know, where do you call it?

So, so he, he gave him probation before, before, uh, 19, I don't know.

Illinois has just passed a similar law.

In effect, we sentenced people to a school for six months.

They have to come every Saturday.

They're doing this.

This was initiated by the district attorney.

And that ultimately, if they haven't been rearrested, if they carried out the sentence appropriately, they're not criminalized.

And yet it's not legalized.

The question here is a very interesting problem in this situation.

where there is a certain fetish group in the country that, on the one hand, want to make smoking illegal, and cigarette smoking illegal, and marijuana legal.

But now, well, we've seen all this.

I mean, now that doesn't make any damn sense now.

I mean, probably if we really wanted to think of health and its best aspects, everything should do anything, should even eat.

But, you know, everybody's going to be afraid of everything.

But on the marijuana thing, I have very strong views because

just my own analysis that once you start down that road, the chances of going further down that road are great.

And I know there's a lot of people who disagree with that.

But the, and also because the people that are frankly promoting it, they're not good people.

let me answer or not answer at least discuss with you the points that you've raised because i think this is crucial to what we're attempting to do national commissions have not been in very excellent and when you asked me to take this job i hesitated in fact did not say

cause of what happened at the Scranton mission.

I thought that was a disgrace.

I told John Lester that, and I think he passed it on to you.

I thought that the things that arose in the form of...

And third, I said that if I would take it, of course, I had to have your support, but that we were going to play it low-profile.

We were not going to have a great vibe, and we would do nothing that would in any way embarrass you or the administration, because in the long run, that's going to hurt the country.

If we have a commission that just comes through with a report that creates controversy and gives fodder for the newspapers to create a lot of conflict, then I don't need this.

So we've been very careful on that.

And secondly, I think that I'm able to say without qualification that you have a commission here, that you yourself have appointed, that they are very intelligent, they are well-known in their own fields and in their own communities, and they're not going to do anything since it happened in previous commissioning quarters.

And insofar as legalization...

I think the thing that has caused us the greatest problem was your statement in San Clemente, which is a part of your strong conviction.

Naturally, you express them as you felt them.

But you used the word legalization.

And the way I answered it was, look, we're a national division.

We're going to take a look at the whole picture.

We know that the president is interested in what we're doing, is concerned about the problem, and we've never had a chance to discuss what he means by legalization.

If he means removing all controls or if he's talking about simple possession.

These are things that can be worked out at a later date.

We're going ahead and make our studies.

And I know that he is wholeheartedly behind this because of everything that he has done.

That does not mean that he is going to agree with everything that we say, but that he knows that these are men of integrity, men and women of integrity who want to do something for the country.

Now, what happened was, when this statement was made, several members of the Commission called out and said, well, we might as well give up.

I said, no, that isn't right.

The President has his own

uh, convictions on this, and he isn't going to tell the Commission what to say or what not to say.

They've come out with a different view.

What's that mean?

What's wrong with a different view?

Well, yes, well, sure.

The point is that

I didn't say that you sent me, but the commission is following in on it.

The fact that the confidential report that I had prepared to give to Biden so that you may have even seen it, they all pointed in the direction you were going.

And I think that that should really leave your mind, and so far as your personal convictions or something.

We don't want you to say, well...

I've got a great commission.

Anything they say, we'll follow.

Of course not.

That's ridiculous.

That's what you like to look at.

But on the other hand, we are a national commission with really the first commission going in to this particular problem of long-range action on the whole field of drug abuse that the United States has ever had.

We're conducting a national survey that has never been done before.

You know, there have been many...

Well, at the present time, we have about $1.9 million we're going to need.

But the point was, we were initially authorized $1 million.

The Congress was so interested in it that they upped the authorization to $4 million.

But we're going to get by on a total amount of, what, about $3.7 million.

We're going to have a survey put out by one of the fine outfits out of Princeton, not Gallup, it's Research Associates.

They're a very good outfit.

And they're going into this problem of

marijuana additives, then we're going into the whole field of what is the extent of marijuana.

We have all kinds of figures, anywhere from 8 million up to 40 million users.

That's right.

That's what we have to do.

We don't believe that there should be given to the people

the condemnation and the use of a dangerous drug.

Respectability, exactly.

We don't want to give him respectability.

And we will not be like that.

It's making him respectable.

That's fine.

I can tell you, this is the person he can try and maybe even handle and get away with it.

One of our doctors and our

on our commission.

He's one of the finest pharmacologists in the nation.

Jerry knows him very well.

He has his own monkey farm.

He talks about heroin.

He says you can smoke a little or take a little heroin and get away with it.

It's the idea that it becomes addictive.

And what we want to do is to be sure that we don't give approval, the approval of society.

We're interested in public health.

Very important.

I can't say that public, not just physical health.

And we're not just interested in the...

We want to deep anthologize marijuana so that the kids aren't going out experimenting just because they think it's great stuff.

Any commission could, but I'm the dumbest one on the commission.

I'm having a great time learning.

But what we need from you is your public support as a commission, not from the standpoint that you're going to accept what we say, but that here is a commission that is working on a problem that cuts across the cross-section of every family in the nation.

Next to your economy, I think that what you've done in that regard is excellent.

Well, next to the economy and next to the declining down of the war, which I don't think will be a particular issue next year, I think the problems of drug abuse will be a political issue.

And while our report isn't going to give you a platform, it's going to be the thing that will bring us the kind of victory that we want, but it can be a source of possible embarrassment, and that's why I don't want to give any ammunition to those who would like to use it.

So far, you're staying away from any possible legalization of marijuana?

Absolutely.

I would keep them out of that if you can't.

We're...

Well, I have heard that one thing, too, I think you would run too strongly against the public ties and suppose it ought to be done.

Well, I understand.

You're just, you have a problem.

We have, we have four congressmen on the commission, you know, two Republicans, two Democrats, and at least one of the opposition would like to take over.

We've prevented that.

I think that we've got the commission moving in the right direction.

We're seeking unanimity.

I think we're going to have that.

And we're staying away from the, quote, legalization, end quote, syndrome that could have created it.

You see, the thing that's so terribly important here is it's not a period of commissions.

Frankly, just a bunch of do-gooders.

I mean, they say, well, they're a bunch of old men who don't understand.

That's fine.

I don't mind that.

But if they get the idea of just a bunch of do-gooders that are going to come out with a, quote, soft on marijuana report, that'll destroy them right off the bat.

Now, that doesn't mean you do come out with a report that is totally oblivious to some obvious

The differences between marijuana and other drugs, other dangerous drugs, there are differences.

And also that you don't go into the matter of penalties and that sort of thing as to whether there should be uniformity and penalties, whether or not, or as a matter of fact, rather than uniformity or diversity.

different approaches, because they go from here to where they are in Texas, they put them in jail only for six years.

Well, longer than that, you can get 99 years out of North Dakota.

Well, what did you do?

Well, the act, the act of 1970, the Revenue Act, the Narcotics Control Act of 1970, is the best thing that has hit the Casario.

That's true.

This is the best thing that has hit the country lately in the narcotics field.

And it is, and the Commission is wholeheartedly behind that.

I give you that assurance.

We're going to, we're going to call the shots on marijuana the scientific shots.

And after all, three of the members of our Commission are advisors to Jerry.

Dr. Sievers, Dr. Farnsworth, and Dr. Brill are three of the foremost of many men in the country.

And so you can rest assured that we're not going to go off half-cocked.

We're not a bunch of stupid people.

Let me ask you this.

Well, I don't want you to know it, but I know your problem, of course, Ray.

I want to keep the commission alive.

And one of the things that I can do is to raise their morale, is to have them assured.

In fact, they asked me to come see with her because they're concerned.

Well, let me ask you, how close is your contact with Krogh and Jaffa?

Oh, we have a very excellent team.

And I'm very satisfied with this.

But you work with the staff, I see.

I have not had a chance to be with Jerry as much as I would like to be, and I think that we will be doing more things.

I think that would be a good idea to see.

We've given him a very broad assignment here.

Well, I think he's... How do you feel?

Would you like to say a word about the connection with our attitude?

Well, as soon as I can stop behaving like a one-armed paperhanger, we're going to have more and more contact.

You just have too much to do, 100%.

In this interim, gearing up...

I probably share that it's part of the responsibility for not linking up with Mike and others.

Well, let's try to do that, shall we?

After all, here's a commission of spending $3.5 million.

It will have an enormous impact when it happens.

And, of course, the problem in this field is the excitability among those.

I mean, it's a question.

I mean, it doesn't make a definite difference what we say about drugs.

If people want them, they think it's all profitable.

They're going to use them.

They're going to find ways to get them.

And I think the most important

The function of the mission really is education.

It's really important to educate the country a little about this thing, so that it isn't just a mythology, mystery, and et cetera.

On both sides, some of it is that maybe marijuana is the worst thing that can happen, and others may be a very vicious lie.

having corn silk.

Well, Mr. President, I hate to make broad statements, but I think that this is going to be one of the most far-reaching reports that has come out of it.

How many members do you have in the commission?

We have nine.

Nine by you and four doctors.

Nine by the public members.

How many are doctors?

There are four doctors.

Four doctors.

Four doctors are the good men, you know.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Well, I think what we really need here, let me suggest this first, is to go back to the Commissioner, Tom.

We had a talk, and I believe the work of the Commissioner is enormously important.

Naturally, I can't endorse it if the Amnesty Administration cannot.

What it's finding, I'm not knowing what you're going to find, but I urge the Commissioner to delve deeply and particularly

I think that in this field, more than anything else, we need lots of men on the job.

And in this field, we need, above everything else, men on the job for the purpose of educating the public.

I think maybe your low-profile thing is fine.

When your report comes out, it should be very high-profile.

It should be.

And I think it would be probably helpful

probably helpful if we should have some good consultation at that time.

Well, they will in other words because if we don't have what I think they have great at the same that happens.

You know, Stratton did well himself, but his staff ran away with the thing, you know, and it was a period of time.

But you see,

And he's probably saying, but you're not a pro to knowing that for you to come out with something that would run counter to what the Congress feels, to what the country feels, to what we're planning to do, would make your commission just look bad as hell.

And I think that on the other hand, you could probably render a great service.

That doesn't mean we're going to tell you what it's going to be.

But we're looking into this too, see.

And actually, you know, we're looking into it from the White House, through the Jaffee Group, and we're looking into it

and actually the Justice Department and the HBW and all the rest.

Most of them are stepping on each other.

You should know that.

There are 13 different agencies.

It's a massive mess.

I said that, and I told Jackie when he came in here.

We're practicing.

We're not listening.

And I don't think he's been able to do much of it.

And the Defense Department, everybody's in it.

And nobody's doing it well.

That's part of the problem.

So we'd be very interested in your recommendations in that respect.

But let me just say one thing.

Don't put an H-E-W in it.

Oh, for heaven's sakes.

Don't put an H-E-W in it.

We have to get it out.

You're an old prosecutor.

As an old prosecutor, I don't want to simply put it in J. Edgar Cooper's hands, but I come down very hard right on the side of putting in a hard-headed job.

rather than a bunch of muddle-headed psychiatrists.

Well, you've hit on it very well.

You've hit on it.

Of course, I know those people.

Too many of them are.

They just let their hearts run their brains, and it should be the other way around.

Our operations are going to complement each other very well because we're working on a long-range blueprint for the benefit of the people of the United States and a total policy, health policy, social policy, and as well as...

I think you could have an enormous effect.

And I think we ought to try to play with it.

That's partly why this meeting is going to work out together.

And I've heard it, right?

I have heard strongly that the Jaffee office has the very closest contact with the commission.

Me and, of course, your defendants and theirs, they have to because Ray can't run his show without having to be independent.

You have to, rather.

But on the other hand, they're all good men and they're all happy to find the answer and maybe they don't have a lot that we don't find out.

Do you agree?

Yes.

I think we have different emphases.

They're long-term.

They're focusing right now on marijuana.

We're responding with action to the crisis with heroin and the other drugs.

Well, we just came back from Belgium.

We're not in marijuana.

We came back from Amsterdam and Belgium and England.

And one of the things that we were looking at in England primarily was the kind of methadone treatment that Jerry's interested in.

Because we think that this is an excellent approach.

And we're out in the field getting first-hand knowledge.

You're not going to reinforce what we're doing perfectly.

No, there's no reason in the world why this shouldn't be worked out in substance, just exactly what you want to have happen.

And it has to work out in semblance, too, for the benefit of the general public.

And this is what you do.

I have an abusive story, and I'm calling it a horror story.

I have an abusive story.

All right, Tim, I love you.

He said, this is the father whose son is off, you know, got arrested.

I was in the spot.

They said, you got the hell out.

So the son said, oh, you're the papa.

And I said, let me stay just a couple more weeks.

And I said, all right.

He said, you know, I'm working.

I'm gardening and everything.

I said, OK.

He said, well, maybe the kid couldn't be all that bad if he was going to go out and work in the garden.

If I'm not the little son of a bitch who's growing an arrow, I don't have to wait for the problem.

It's an absolute true story.

But I believe, having said all I have, I've got a tremendous passion on it.

I've seen these kids, you know, we were all, we've all, as we grow up, I mean, what, there was smoking, there was alcohol, there's a lot of other things that people knew.

There were the old days, there was, you know,

I mean, that was the, you know, maybe going to see Greta Garbo today.

What is it?

Don't call me yellow or something like that.

I just carried it.

I didn't see it when I heard it.

But anyway, and so we all know what it is.

But by golly, the thing to do now is to alert the country to the problem and say, now, this bird, don't fire on the bird.

Well, I think that they make a strong line.

I think this will be done, and I think that the report that comes out will be something that we can wholeheartedly embrace.

You may not admire anything, but I don't mind.

But this has something to do with the process going on in New Orleans.

And I think it's a nice thing to do.

Very good.

What is it?

Yeah.

Thanks.

How's it going?

It's, uh... You're still playing?

Yes.

Oh, thank you.

Thank you.

Here's another.

Sorry.

Well, Marianne, you were drinking like a dog because I had not recommended for the judgeship that I was pregnant.

That's right.

Well, Marianne needs to have to do that.

She's pregnant.

She does those things that are hard to get paid attention to.

Well, sure.

She must.

She's a little boy, so... Well, I mean, he was very close to the previous administration.

He probably... Good.

Good.

Now, I haven't tried that myself.

I hear you.

I believe that would fall upon yourself.

I mean, uh, you work her over.

Oh, don't worry, I will.

No, I find her, that's what they spell worse.

Okay, Ray.

Good to see you.

Thanks again.

And you, these guys, I have every confidence in.

You work with them.

I'll work with you.

You know, I would, uh... We're doing our part.

What are we doing?

Let's stop screwing them.

That's what I'm saying.

Because he worked in my campaign in your game

They made the statement that they were going to get me, and Scott played with them.

Now, he made a chance.

You, of course.

Just keep working on him, because he'll be, he can change.

There's nothing about him.

He'll change from one thing to another.

There is one of them.

We'll be ready to talk to you.

Appeals, yeah, I heard of that.

Our first appointment is not to be.

We've got to point one, but we're going to have another one after that.

We've got to have one that goes straight.

I want to help them out with their crimes.

There's going to be two.

There will be one and then another.

So talk to him actually about that.

The first thing we're going to do out of Ohio, and he will be, I just want to be with you.

There's anything that I can do to help you next year.

Military appeals might be good, but I don't know.

Something may come to your court might be better.

You're going to keep plugging that for me.

You don't want me to get out of that.

No, no, no, no.

I know.

I can't, uh, you know that it's very hard to eat.

I don't have to tell you anything about it, you know.

I'm very grateful.

It's easy.

It's all very fun.

It's much better now.

Oh, okay.

I'm worried about you.

I'm worried about the kids.

Oh, sure.

And I'd like to see something that might start a little, uh,

groups on campus that can strike up to help you.

I think they're very good.

Well, that ought to be done.

That ought to be started now.

They're two of the best to do it.

They're working on it.

Again, thanks very much.

This is your right to say to the press tonight, can I say that you're wholeheartedly with us tonight, and it's a fact of life.

You know, I ask you about the other thing I've stated in my convictions.

As your personal conviction, but you are aware that we're going to take an independent view of the whole thing.

Right.

We don't need to.

But I think we need all the information we can get.

But make it clear that my personal conviction is solid.

Right.

That's how it's going.

I'm not going to turn around and say, look, he has his personal values and he's entitled to that.

Right.

Okay.

All right.

Thanks a lot, James.