Edward Epstein Agency of fear Opiates and politican power in America

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Downey, who was present at this meeting in the White House, later explained to me that the president's
aide was merely trying to "build a fire under Handley" and the military threat was meant only
metaphorically. At another point during this brief visit, Handley was called aside by Liddy, who said in
his deadly quiet voice, "Mr. Ambassador, how many bodies have you picked off the streets of New
York?" Again Handley fell speechless, while Liddy continued, "I have personally loaded overdosed
victims into ambulances, and the Turks are responsible. Tell them that!" Still later, as Handley prepared
to return to Ankara, President Nixon personally handed him a press clipping reporting growing concern
over "heroin-related deaths" (a broad and somewhat deceptive category which included virtually all
deaths of narcotic users, even if they died of old age or were hit by an automobile). The president told
him to present the clipping to the Turkish prime minister immediately upon his arrival. When he returned
to Ankara, Handley heard from his chief of mission that members of the ad hoc committee were
demanding that the State Department fire any "ambassadors who failed to achieve the president's
objectives in the drug program."
Fortunately, for Handley at least, the Turkish military forces overthrew the elected government of Turkey
in 1971, and installed a government which was less willing to jeopardize American military aid and
goodwill over the poppy issue. The new premier, Nihat Erim, told Handley that he was willing to
suspend poppy cultivation temporarily before the American election if the United States would agree to
compensate the farmers for the lost income and assist them in finding alternative crops and livelihoods.
Handley continued negotiating with the Turkish military government through the spring of 1971 and, in
June, finally achieved a tentative agreement. With the first victory in sight in his new crusade, President
Nixon approved the idea of providing $100 million in aid over three years to Turkish farmers. When
Rossides heard of the impending deal, he bitterly opposed "paying a dime" to Turkish peasants, but the
president, not willing to allow this major coup to slip from his grasp, immediately authorized Handley to
accept the Turkish terms, and invited Premier Erim to America for a joint announcement by the end of
the month. (In a lastditch battle Rossides managed to reduce the amount of aid to $35 million, which was
finally approved by the Treasury Department.) Although in fact this victory would cut off only a small
fraction of the opium growth in the world-less than 8 percent-and even this amount would quickly be
replaced by opium from Southeast Asia, India, and other sources, White House strategists realized that if
the announcement were properly managed in the press, it would be heralded as a decisive victory against
the forces of crime and addiction.
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The War of the Poppies
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The French Connection
Agency of Fear
Opiates and Political Power in America
By Edward Jay Epstein
Chapter 9 - The French Connection
When Arthur Watson, the former chairman of IBM World Trade Corporation, became ambassador to France,
in May, 1970, President Nixon told him, "Your job is to clean up the heroin problem in France.... That is the
most important priority today." Thus Watson left for Paris,- taking along a copy of the book The French
Connection. He was accompanied by Thomas P. Murphy, a former writer for Fortune and general
aide-de-camp to Watson, who was to serve as drug coordinator for the embassy in France. On his arrival in
Paris, Watson quickly discovered that the French were wholly indifferent to heroin addiction, which they
considered "the American disease." Although American intelligence estimated that the vast preponderance of
heroin reaching the United States passed through Marseilles, where "labs" converted morphine base into
heroin, the Police Judiciale drug force, which was charged with policing all illicit drugs in France, had only
thirty-two members, who were doing mainly administrative work. Watson believed that in order for any real
action to be taken by French officials, heroin would have to be hyped into a French problem. Stories were
therefore ingeniously planted in French newspapers about French heroin addicts. (Watson himself went on
walking tours through the place de la Republique and suspicious bars on the boulevard Saint-Michiel, looking
for addicts.) The United States Information Service, at Watson's request, had a gory American drug-addiction
film adapted to a French version and put on French television. The embassy even imported a priest from New
York to lecture on drug abuse. "The public-relations hype really worked," Murphy later told me. "Heroin went
in French polls from being a nonexistent problem to being the number-one problem perceived by the French
public."
Although the press campaign led to a doubling of the drug force in France and more cooperation from French
officials, Washington was demanding more concrete results. Ambassador Watson received telegram after
telegram from the State Department and the White House asking when a "major lab Marseilles would be
seized."
Watson gradually learned that the highly prized labs were in reality "no more than dirty kitchens" where trays
of morphine base were cooked with acetic anhydride until heroin precipitated out. Virtually any house in
France, or in the world, with running water could have a lab. Bureau of Narcotics agents in France were also
doubtful of the value of seizing labs, since the operation could be moved to another kitchen in a matter of days.
Nevertheless, President Nixon wanted labs seized, congressmen and American journalists persistently asked to
be taken on tours of the seized labs, and Watson was determined, with or without the French police, to seize as
many "dirty kitchens" as he could.
A strong believer in the magic of technology, the ambassador ordered the science attache at the embassy, Dr.
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The French Connection
Edgar Piret, to devote his full time and resources to the problem of detecting labs. Almost every week, the
ambassador, piloting his own propjet plane, would fly Dr. Piret to Marseilles, where they would lunch with
French police in a restaurant at the harbor (shown, coincidentally, in the opening sequence of the film of The
French Connection) and discuss the modus operandi of the mysterious labs. Finally Dr. Piret came up with the
idea for "sniffing out" the acetic anhydrides used in manufacturing heroin. A California firm, Varian
Associates, which had developed a technique in Vietnam for chemically detecting the presence of drugs in
urine, was given the contract for the "heroin sniffer," while Dr. Piret worked out the anticipated wind plumes
and frequency of the fumes. Then, in 1971, the sniffer, concealed in a brand-new Volkswagen camper with a
snorkel mounted on its roof, rolled into Marseilles. An American agent drove this not entirely inconspicuous
sniffer through the streets, while another agent inside charted all the beep signals on a street map. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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