Clinton's Phony Drug War
York, Byron
Byron York Clinton's Phony Drug War Do-nothing drug czar Lee Brown has cabinet status, but no ideas, no goals, and no money—which is just the way the president wants it. A man in a dark suit...
...Then they refused to reauthorize the drug office for five years...
...The detail is excessive," he says...
...Lawmakers who accepted that explanation were infuriated just days later when they read reports that the president's health planners had dramatically cut back their proposal for drug treatment (one of the plan's "technical corrections...
...Unless the president dramatically changes his policy, Congress will probably dump the office altogether, though it'll probably wait until early 1995...
...The drug office had "managed to skillfully undo the relationships" they had with Capitol Hill, says one aide to DeConcini...
...The report says Brown "did not direct, closely oversee, or monitor the police response to the disturbance...
...A savvy guy...
...And the drug office saved a lot of money...
...I tried before...
...Brown did not respond to any of the members' specific concerns...
...Bill Clinton, speaking with Brown at his side last April, said he elevated the drug czar to the cabinet "because I believe drug abuse is as serious a problem as we have in America...
...And he promised to name a strong drug czar—one who would really get things done, not like the "political hack" (as Paul Begala and James Carville described Bob Martinez) whom George Bush had appointed...
...laughter] As president-elect, Clinton ignored the issue...
...I had lunch with some of my old buddies," says one former staffer...
...On top of that, the building just happened to house the Colombian embassy...
...Staffers fretted about its design: "Built to be car-bombed," said one security analyst...
...But it still wasn't cheap...
...We sent them over to the Clinton people," says one former staffer, "and got no response...
...Walters's departure left virtually nobody in charge...
...The source who has worked in the drug office with Brown says the U.S...
...I reduced security dramatically...
...Nobody wants to kill a crime-fighting symbol, even an empty one, in an election year...
...And they rejected Clinton's request for a $5.8 million office budget, allocating $11.7 million instead...
...Whatever the effectiveness, a former official who spoke on condition of anonymity says in the early days the drug office spent about $2 million each year just to protect Bennett...
...agencies that believe he won't be around in a year have no incentive to take him seriously...
...Brown, unlike previous drug czars, is a member of the president's cabinet...
...Today, as a result of Clinton's cuts and Brown's acquiesByron York is a television producer and writer in Washington, D.C...
...even though he didn't have much actual power, Brown said if he needed help he could just call up fellow cabinet members Donna Shalala or Janet Reno and get it...
...That problem was masked during William Bennett's term, because he had the ability to cajole, rave, intimidate, and bully the bureaucracy until it did what he wanted...
...I might add, supported Bill Clinton, even though the Clinton White House thought it The American Spectator February 1994 41 was a den of Republicans—they were sitting around their offices just contemplating their navels...
...What is most remarkable is the percentage of overall drug office spending that is taken up by Brown's protection...
...These assurances did not serve the Mayor well...
...It was a two-page, single-spaced, detailed list of their concerns about the direction of drug policy since the Clinton inauguration...
...But critics on all sides agree that the drug office's single greatest problem is a president's lack of commitment to the drug war...
...He got a lot...
...He questioned Clinton's commitment to the drug war...
...Bennett's replacement, Bob Martinez, did not...
...In July, the House voted to cut $231 million from anti-drug programs...
...The doors to the director's impressive office are built to withstand grenades: "Here's a real Washington power office," Bennett once told some young staffers...
...Bennett was protected by a contingent of U.S...
...I took the subway to work...
...Congress acted, says Kyl, "to keep a string on the office...
...Kyl wrote, "If, at the end of this trial year, we have not seen a . . . substantial improvement, we will vote to eliminate the office...
...After a long period of meandering Q&A, chairman John Conyers quietly blew up...
...Either the president is with you, or he has just given you a chair at the cabinet level," Conyers said...
...career police officer, Brown had nine months earlier A quit his job as New York police commissioner (he left for personal reasons...
...since there had never been a drug czar before, nobody knew exactly how much protection he would need...
...Unfortunately, such improvisation is exactly what the drug czar's job demands...
...But after taking that largely symbolic action, the president proceeded to sabotage the drug war...
...But at the same time, Clinton's "didn't inhale" problem made it impossible for him to make drugs much of a campaign issue...
...And Brown's extensive travel further pads a big budget: a source who hasworked in the drug office with Brown says the czar is now spending roughly $2 million a year on his own protection, comparable to the highest spending under Bennett...
...they required the office to have at least forty staffers...
...his time at the drug office was, in the words of one former staffer, "pretty much downhill after the confirmation...
...Staffers worked on their résumés...
...He is, as he frequently reminds people, a member of the cabinet (earning $12,366 a month...
...He exerted little influence at the White House, and therefore had little influence anywhere else...
...But she said the staff cut, despite most assumptions, was an indication that the drug issue had actually risen on the presidential agenda under Clinton...
...The Arkansas governor promised to combine tough law enforcement with expanded treatment and prevention programs...
...Next year the czar's office might well become the first cabinet agency ever to disappear...
...I stopped 24 hours...
...Brown's office survived a near-death experience on Capitol Hill last November—but won just a tentative one-year lease on life...
...A man in a dark suit stands in front of an office building near the White House, speaking into his cufflink in the standard security style...
...He rarely goes anywhere without agents, limos, and walkie-talkies...
...It cannot make sure Congress is going in the right direction on the issue...
...The former official says protecting Martinez cost about $1 million a year...
...he is reluctant to step outside the chain of command to get things done...
...he was passive...
...After Bennett's exit, says one former official, "the White House just decided they had gotten all they could get out of the drug issue...
...And, by many accounts, Brown lacks the boldness, inclination, and skill to fight back...
...And occasional Keystone Kops lapses in security worried them even more...
...We were quite nervous that one day we would be blown up," says Joe McHugh, former director of congressional affairs for the office...
...The Senate committee heard testimony from Hasidic Jews who said police failed to protect them during the Crown Heights violence...
...First czar William Bennett was a high-profile, controversial official...
...He questioned Brown's influence in the administration...
...little if anything got done...
...He said being a member of the cabinet was a great asset...
...Even when Brown hosted a recent two-day meeting for state and local drug-fighters at Washington's luxurious ANA hotel, he was accompanied by two agents, with another waiting outside...
...42 The American Spectator February 1994 Ironically, the death threats further weaken the drug czar...
...Possible targets were the Office of Management and Budget, the U.S...
...In late April, with no czar in place, the administration sent Alice Rivlin, deputy director of OMB, to congressional budget hearings...
...Brown received some good marks for his attempt to implement his professional passion, "community policing...
...Instead, his first action on drugs was to cut the drug office staff by more than 80 percent...
...a spokeswoman said he was "too busy...
...its influence depends almost entirely on the forcefulness of the drug czar...
...he ordered 17,500 copies at a cost to taxpayers of $18,960...
...There are serious doubts about whether any of this is necessary...
...But the strategy contained little beyond broad outlines of his earlier statements...
...Two more dark-suited men get out and stand guard while the driver waits behind the wheel...
...n late November, Brown appeared before Congress to discuss his "interim strategy," entitled "Breaking the Cycle of Drug Abuse...
...That made it virtually impossible for the office to be effective...
...marshals, a bullet-proof car, and round-the-clock coverage...
...They never got one—nor was there any contact between the Clinton transition team and the drug office until a few days before the inauguration...
...Conyers abruptly adjourned the meeting with one last threat...
...by then the office had been drifting for nearly six months...
...Nonetheless, the security bills keep piling up...
...Bennett wasn't there at the time...
...I stayed until they announced they would cut it to twenty-five," says John Walters, who was acting director at the time and had been at the drug office since the beginning...
...It prompted protest from senators ranging from Ted Kennedy to Dennis DeConcini to Alan Simpson...
...still no drug czar...
...A five-year reauthorization was thought to be automatic...
...The ratio astonished one former official of the ONDCP, who says, "I don't think the cartel even knows they exist anymore...
...But in February the drug office was cut from 146 employees to 25, less than half the size of the White House communications staff...
...With Brown at the cabinet table, Clinton has slashed the czar's staff, cut him out of the White House loop, and taken away his power to play any substantial role in the government's effort to stop drug abuse...
...On the contrary it is more important...
...We were looking for someone to forcefully present law enforcement policies, and help make them, too," says a source familiar with those talks...
...One former drug office staffer describes how the choice was made: "Leon Panetta gets appointed [at OMB...
...in 1989 he interviewed with William Bennett for the post of deputy director...
...They rejected Clinton's proposal to cut the drug office staff to twenty-five...
...He wasn't impressed with the cabinet line...
...its status will be reconsidered this November...
...The first headquarters was a building near Washington's Dupont Circle...
...A strong drug czar, Rivlin said, would be the most important player in the Clinton war on drugs...
...He did it to fulfill another campaign promise: to cut the White House staff...
...A: Sure, if I could...
...First, lawmakers forced the White House to do more—or at least spend more—on the drug war...
...Now the same things are being said about Bill Clinton...
...Lee Brown—despite his experience in law enforcement—is no better...
...Brown, by his own admission, learned about the whole thing when he read it in the Washington Post...
...Although Clinton announced nominees for all cabinet posts during the transition, January 20 came and went and the new president—despite his plan to make the drug czar a member of the cabinet—failed.to name a candidate for the job...
...But the committee did not have access to the state report...
...White House budget officials accepted the decision...
...By the end of the hearings process, the Clinton administration had done little more than create a curious coalition of conservative Republicans and Congressional Black Caucus members, both threatening to kill the drug office...
...He has chosen to restore the multiple-agents-and-a-driver detail...
...After the vote, the president told reporters he had not read the report, but if it said Brown didn't do a good job managing the riot, then "he wouldn't be the first police chief about whom you could say that...
...But he offered few specifics, instead asking members to wait until his "interim strategy" was released later...
...Summing up Brown's actions, the report says his leadership was "less than satisfactory...
...He envisions an America renewed by reduced drug use and drug-related violence...
...Wednesday evening, as he accompanied the mayor to Crown Heights, Brown's car "was pelted by rocks and his driver radioed a request for assistance for 'Car One.'" Only then did Brown "experience first-hand the seriousness of the situation on the streets and the apparent ineffectiveness of the Department's response...
...The Crown Heights report suggests his management style is thoroughly bureaucratic...
...Instead, Martinez made do with just three agents and a driver...
...T he drug issue was a difficult one for the Clinton campaign...
...CI 44 The American Spectator February 1994...
...The man in the car is Lee P. Brown, America's "drug czar," a man who has been given the trappings of power even as he presides over the slow death of the war on drugs...
...Brown later said he did not think the report's criticism of his leadership would have had any effect on his confirmation...
...Since the new president made few changes in the number of White House_ policy and imagemaking positions (if anything, he increased staffing in some of those areas), he had to find other places to cut...
...Brown had the document printed as a glossy booklet...
...They refused to reauthorize it for even two years...
...And virtually as she spoke, the president finally announced his choice for the job: Lee Patrick Brown...
...Brown sent back a brief reply, which began: President Clinton's vision of America is one where all Americans have a chance of achieving their hopes and dreams...
...The Clinton administration's original $5.8 million budget would have meant that between 30 and 40 percent of drug office funds would have gone simply to protect the drug czar...
...The interview went nowhere...
...Panetta' s OMB was exempted from cuts, Kantor's office untouched...
...C linton's handling of the drug office has highlighted weaknesses that have plagued ONDCP since its inception...
...Transition teams spread throughout several federal agencies, and holdover staffers at the drug office spent their time preparing materials for the expected Clinton team...
...And making Brown a member of the cabinet—while drastically reducing his budget—didn't make the office any more powerful...
...B ut even as Brown's influence disappears, he maintains the trappings of importance...
...In addition to the marshals, ONDCP hired a private security firm to protect its offices...
...It is not that drug policy is less important," she said...
...If it is the latter, you are getting ready to be the biggest fall guy in the Clinton administration...
...At times he has displayed an extraordinarily cavalier attitude toward members who ask for specifics about his strategy...
...Instead, they gave the office just one year to live...
...And, when courting younger voters, he seemed to take a softer line on the subject, as he did during an interview on MTV in June 1992: 40 The American Spectator February 1994 Q: If you had it to do over again, would you inhale...
...But he couldn't say how much, and he conceded that Clinton's overall drug budget provided for less treatment than he would like...
...A Friend of Bill...
...Ironically, a few years earlier, Brown's leadership was an issue at the drug office...
...A few moments later a black limousine pulls up...
...Former Florida governor Bob Martinez changed the security set-up when he became drug czar...
...Just barged in, said he wanted to see the drug czar...
...February, March, and most of April passed...
...Rivlin confessed she did not know a lot about the drug issue...
...Brown would not answer questions for this article...
...According to the report, Brown then "simply repeated to the Mayor assurances that had been given to him by others...
...But he left in the shadow of the Crown Heights riot, and the subsequent investigation into his conduct during the riot raised serious questions about Brown's leadership—questions that were not fully considered by the Senate committee that confirmed him...
...Brown told investigators he asked his commanders how things were going in Crown Heights and was told everything was under control...
...He was never threatened...
...Mickey Kantor [at USTR...
...He envisions an America renewed by reduced drug use and drug-related crime and violence...
...The position of drug czar, he said, "was created in this committee room and it will be ended in this committee room...
...Observant congressmen might have noticed a similarity between Brown's letter and his interim strategy, "Breaking the Cycle of Drug Abuse," which began: The President's vision of America is one where all Americans have a chance of achieving their hopes and dreams...
...they're always with him...
...Brown simply had no satisfactory answers...
...Marshals' evaluation of the drug czar's security needs concluded that there is no domestic threat against Brown, although he might face the possibility of a threat when traveling abroad...
...The back door opens and out walks the object of all this protection: not a visiting head of state, nor a top elected official, nor even a Hollywood star in town to testify on Capitol Hill...
...Republicans and Democrats, while praising Brown's qualifications, wanted to hear details on how he would conduct the drug war...
...He told lawmakers the government planned to ease up on efforts to interdict drugs at the borders, and concentrate instead on anti-drug campaigns in the producing countries...
...the result was just the opposite...
...The threat assessments weren't anything unique," says Martinez...
...He again stressed the administration's intention to provide more drug treatment and prevention...
...Given the recent history of the drug czar, it's likely no one will even notice...
...And there was nobody there to represent the drug office...
...But he just wasn't very impressive...
...Without his support, the drug czar is just an expensive symbol...
...Even though the rioting began on Monday, August 19, the report says Brown did not realize the seriousness of the situation until two days later...
...Unfinished business, like the agency's budget, piled up...
...Nobody is happy with the administration's lack of support...
...There have been other reasons for the deterioration of Brown's relations with Congress...
...The problem has been a lack of leadership, not the size of the staff...
...The career people—many of whom...
...One day a homeless guy made it into Bennett's office," says McHugh...
...cence, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, known around the White House as "the drug office," cannot fully perform its job of overseeing the government's multi-billion dollar anti-drug effort...
...it was not released until one month after Brown's confirmation...
...B ut even with Brown as czar, the office continued to fall victim to the long knives in Washington...
...To be fair, security has long been a big-ticket item at the drug office...
...We have got to get back in the loop," he told the paper...
...Meanwhile, Capitol Hill lawmakers began to consider whether the drug office should stay in business (the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 gave the office a five-year lifespan, which ran out in November 1993...
...And that is the clearest lesson of Bush's last years...
...In a letter to the president, Rep...
...The crippling of the drug office has annoyed Congress to the point that influential lawmakers in both parties now want to do away with the drug czar altogether...
...And that did not include the money spent to fortify the building that became ONDCP's new headquarters a few years ago...
...When Martinez left, "acting czar" John Walters got rid of the personal security altogether...
...But the shortfall, according to Brown, would be covered by the president'shealth-care plan, which would provide generous treatment benefits for all those in need...
...At that point it was just a charade...
...They're talking about a staff reduction...
...First, the office has no power to enforce...
...How are you going to do it, they asked, given the cuts Clinton has imposed...
...The news seemed the last straw for Brown's credibility...
...In "A Report to the Governor on the Disturbances in Crown Heights," New York state's director of criminal justice faults Brown for failing to realize the seriousness of the civil unrest in Brooklyn in August 1991...
...The hearing was a disaster...
...In fact, given its low budget and the high price of cabinet-level perks given Brown, the office can scarcely afford to do anything more than sustain the drug czar himself...
...But then, in October, Brown appeared before a subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations...
...F finally, Congress took matters into its own hands...
...L ee Brown has reversed the trend...
...Trade Representative, and the drug office...
...Brown started his new job in July...
...Conyers made it clear he suspects that is the case...
...If so, he said, "we might as well close [the drug office] down and stop the pretense...
...In October two dozen Republicans, including Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, Henry Hyde, and Jon Kyl, sent Brown a letter...
...And, as it is with some other lesser bureaucrats in the capital, Brown's most visible sign of status is the security that surrounds him...
Vol. 27 • February 1994 • No. 2
