At the President’s request, I am reviewing Federal drug control
management.
The international program is an essential component of the overall
anti-drug effort.
Given personnel changes and the President’s desire to move program
management out of the White House wherever possible, my feeling is that
the State Department should undertake expanded responsibility for
overseeing international narcotics control, including its interagency
aspects. The Department would thus assume many of the responsibilities
now performed by Domestic Council staff.
To assist in upgrading and expanding the State Department’s drug role, I
would hope to be able to make available an executive level position from
the White House pool for this purpose.
I would be pleased to discuss this subject with you at your convenience.
My Administrative Assistant, Jim Edwards, is coordinating this project
at the staff level.2
Tab A
Paper Prepared by the Assistant to the President
(Ash)
3
INSTITUTIONALIZING INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS CONTROL
I. The Problem
The United States launched an intensive worldwide offensive against
the international drug traffic with the President’s June 17, 1971,
special drug message to Congress.4
A substantial beginning has now been made toward getting our own
bureaucracy concerned about international narcotics control and in
conveying to other governments the seriousness with which we view
the problem.
Continuous diplomatic pressure—as well as the alarming spread of drug
abuse abroad—has resulted in all fifty-nine target governments
paying at least some attention to narcotics control.
Despite a good start, for which the State Department is in large part
responsible, much more must be done—especially in more effectively
managing the program.
Under the aegis of the Cabinet Committee on International Narcotics
Control (CCINC), Domestic Council
staff have been heavily involved in most major operating
decisions.
The present decision-making mechanism has been hobbled by a lack of
clear lines of authority, the absence of independent funding or
budget coordination, the need to secure agreement (or at least
reluctant acquiescence) from each of the seven organizations
involved for even minor program decisions, and the absence of any
real management information system or program evaluation
capability.
With the turnover of most of the program’s key personnel and a
sharply reduced Domestic Council staff, a new international drug
management apparatus must be created and institutionalized.
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Although it is not feasible to combine functions as disparate as
covert action, training of foreign narcotics officers, control of
GI drug smuggling, negotiation
of overseas treatment programs, and foreign agricultural research
into any one department, these activities must be carefully
integrated into one overall program in each Mission and in
Washington.
The ambassador is the key to success or failure of our drug program
in each country overseas. Given the neatly stratified and status
conscious nature of our diplomatic establishment, the man in charge
of the program in Washington must be at a sufficiently high level to
be able to deal effectively with ambassadors. He must, in addition,
have an appropriate interagency title to be able to oversee the
international drug activities of the other departments and agencies
contributing to the program.
II. Recommendation
That the State Department name an executive level Deputy Under
Secretary of State for Narcotics, who would also be Executive
Director of the Cabinet Committee on International Narcotics Control
(CCINC).
The Deputy should report directly to the Under Secretary of State for
Political Affairs to emphasize the importance placed by the
President on drug control as a key foreign policy objective of the
United States and the “diplomatic” rather than “assistance” nature
of the effort.
The new Deputy Under Secretary’s responsibilities should include:
1. Coordinating international narcotics control Government-wide.
2. Overseeing the operation of the CCINC interagency committee structure.
3. Acting as the principal point of contact and advisor on
international narcotics control matters for OMB, the NSC, and the
Domestic Council.
4. Ensuring implementation of White House policy guidance.
5. Providing drug control direction to United States ambassadors and
narcotics control coordinators in our fifty-nine target
countries.
6. Communicating, as appropriate, with foreign governments on drug
control matters.
7. Representing the United States at the annual United Nations
Commission on Narcotic Drugs meeting and like international drug
conferences.
8. Directly supervising expenditure of the drug control funds now
appropriated to the President and administered by AID.
9. Advising OMB on the international
narcotics control budget submissions of other departments and
agencies.
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10. Serving as the principal customer and action officer for
international narcotics control management information and program
evaluation conclusions generated at OMB’s behest.
The Office of the Special Assistant to the Secretary for Narcotics
Matters (S/NM) has been somewhat
less effective than it might have been because of inadequate staff
size and the absence of anyone with real expertise in the budget and
programming and in the law enforcement areas. Both are critical to
the successful implementation of our fifty-nine Narcotics Control
Action Plans. If S/NM is to assume
the greatly expanded responsibilities envisioned by this proposal,
it is essential that it be upgraded and strengthened in these
respects.
S/NM should be headed by the new
Deputy Under Secretary for Narcotics. The staff of the office should
include: (1) a deputy; (2) an administrative, budget, and
programming expert; (3) an intelligence, law enforcement, and
training expert; and (4) three regional specialists. Someone should
also have special expertise in dealing with international
organizations.
III. Advantages of the Proposed Solution
1. Places the Executive Director of the Cabinet Committee in the same
department as the Committee’s chairman.
2. Provides the top Washington man on international narcotics control
with an appropriate forum from which to give direction to
ambassadors and to obtain a fair hearing on his ideas within our
diplomatic establishment.
3. Establishes a sufficiently strong institutional link to the White
House to permit the new international drug boss to command the
attention of the other departments and agencies whose coordinated
participation are essential to success of the program.
4. Permits a program of key importance to the President which is
irrevocably interagency in nature to be centrally coordinated and
directed from a position organizationally removed from the Executive
Office and without the need for any Executive Office staff
personnel.
5. Makes it possible for those on the President’s staff to have a
single point of contact on international narcotics control.
