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conveniently served this purpose.
The idea of creating a small intelligence unit as part of the White House's narcotics program was first
suggested by Egil Krogh in the summer of 1971. Krogh explained to his staff assistants working on the
narcotics problem at the Domestic Council that the only organization in the government capable of "tracking
the narcotics traffickers" was the CIA, but that agency was reluctant to become involved in a law-enforcement
problem. Walter Minnick, a young Harvard Business School graduate who had joined Krogh's staff only two
months before, recalled that Krogh complained to him that the CIA was the most "bureaucratically closed"
organization in the government, and that in order to cut the "red tape," Krogh instructed him to speak to E.
Howard Hunt. (Minnick did not know at that time that Hunt was also working in room 16 as one of the
Plumbers in the special-investigations unit.) Krogh's young staff assistant soon found Hunt to be extremely
well informed not only about the narcotics trade in Southeast Asia but also about the bureaucratic politics of
the CIA. Hunt authoritatively told Minnick that it would be next to impossible "to crank CIA intelligence" into
other federal agencies, since CIA employees would be extremely wary about trusting their counterparts at
BNDD or at Customs. Instead Hunt recommended establishing a new unit, under tight White House control,
which could serve as a liaison between all the law-enforcement agencies involved in suppressing narcotics. He
said that he knew key CIA officers who could be temporarily detached from the agency and employed in this
new liaison group. Krogh subsequently explained that Hunt had "counseled me in 1971 as to specifically how
we should build into the CIA operations narcotics control as an important priority; and he described the
priority list which [CIA] station chiefs maintained for their own agent activity. . . ." According to Krogh, Hunt
further convinced him that unless he was able "to communicate directly with [CIA] station chiefs and have that
backed up at their regional level in the CIA that, while they may say that they are cooperating, in fact [we]
would not get much work on the problem at that regional level."
Specifically, Hunt suggested Colonel Lucien Conein, a personal friend of his who had served with the CIA
since 1954, as a possible director for the proposed White House intelligence office. It was subsequently
decided, however, that Conein would be more useful in the strategic-intelligence office of the BNDD, where
he would be in a position to keep an eye on Ingersoll's activities (and there he could supervise the plans
approved by the President for clandestine law enforcement abroad, which possibly would include
assassination). Since Conein was unavailable to head the new office, Walter Minnick proposed James Ludlurn,
who had been a CIA official responsible for collecting intelligence on the international heroin trade. Krogh
approved this choice because, as he told me years later, "After they had assigned Jim Ludlum to be the liaison
in narcotics control, the CIA cooperation increased terrifically ... and he was a very helpful person." The White
House, however, had other plans for this new Office of National Narcotics Intelligence (ONNI). To Minnick's
dismay, Ehrlichman ordered him to offer the new position to Sullivan, who promptly accepted it. Krogh later
explained to Minnick that this was done in return for Sullivan's cooperation in doing "previous favors for the
White House." Although the implementation of ONNI was delayed until August, 1972, by the protests of
Ingersoll and Kleindienst-and finally had to be located 'in the Department of Justice rather than in the White
House, to at least partly satisfy the strong objections-Sullivan had finally gained control of the domestic
intelligence system, which John Dean presumed to be his "life's desire."
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Dangerous Liaisons
Sullivan Immediately chose Russell Asch, a deputy of the National Secunity Council with contacts in the
intelligence community, as his deputy. He also appointed liaisons with the CIA, the FBI, the Defense
Intelligence Agency, and a host of the lesser-known intelligence agencies scattered throughout the
government. In all, twenty-four liaisons were appointed to assist Sullivan in his intelligence coordination. The
CIA agents reassigned to this new office could not entirely resist the temptation of resorting to the sort of fun
and games which they practiced in the CIA. For example, one former analyst at the Office of National
Narcotics Intelligence recalled that some of these former CIA agents began working on a plan for disrupting
the cocaine market in the United States "by poisoning it with methedrene" a domestically manufactured
stimulant that could be made to resemble cocaine in color and taste. The bogus cocaine, according to this plan,
would cause violent reactions in the cocaine users (if they survived) and thereby turn them against the cocaine
dealers. After due consideration, however, the plan for the government to distribute methedrene surreptitiously
in key cities in the United States was rejected, and eventually all the plans, analyses, and reports of ONNI
dealing with cocaine were shredded and destroyed on White House orders.
The waiting game continued.
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The Heroin Hotline
Agency of Fear
Opiates and Political Power in America
By Edward Jay Epstein
Chapter 28 The Heroin Hotline
After the president designated Myles Ambrose the administration's "drug czar" in 1972, a nationwide program
of public appearances and speeches was arranged for him so that he could focus public attention on the
administration's war on heroin. "Anyone who isn't aware that President Nixon has been leading the light
against drug abuse hasn't been paying attention," Ambrose said In a typical appearance before the 18th
National Republican Women's Conference, at the Bellevue Stratford Hotel, in Philadelphia, on May 20, 1972.
"As the president's special consultant on drug abuse, I can assure you that this is true and not empty rhetoric....
The fight has been all the tougher because, prior to 1969, the government napped for most of the decade while
drug abuse ballooned into a national epidemic." Though Ambrose proved to be a "highly dramatic spokesman"
for the administration, according to Krogh, the White House also wanted him to undertake a more
"media-oriented approach" which could reach tens of millions of potential voters. At one meeting, in March,
1972, Ehrlichman suggested to Krogh that Ambrose should establish "some sort of hotline system which could
be nationally advertised on television throughout the United States. Accordingly, in three weeks of frenetic
planning, Ambrose established a national heroin hotline system through which citizens anywhere In the
continental United States Could call, without charge, a special ODA LE "Intelligence center" and report
suspected heroin sellers in their neighborhood. The intelligence center would then alert a strike force in the
area, which would immediately swoop down on the suspect. To make, the hotline operational, ODALE took [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]