Reply #65: Nixon was involved in the racist War on Drugs -- -- [View All]

and John Ehrlichman made that clear --

It began with Nixon's statement, as recorded in the diary of his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, in 1969 (cf. Dan Baum's book "Smoke and Mirrors"'): "You have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to."' In 1971 Nixon declared his war on drugs, destined to replace and nationalize the states' Jim Crow laws trashed by the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

John Ehrlichman got a slightly different explanation for the purpose of this "White House Theater." Jeffrey Donfeld stated in an April 3 memorandum, "The government has a difficult time changing the attitudes of people.... Television, however, is a subliminal stimulus." In other words, viewers would receive a hidden, or subliminal, message, which they would not be conscious of receiving but which would all the same stimulate their fear of heroin addicts. "If indeed television is a subliminal stimulus," Donfeld suggested to Ehrlichman, "you are urging the producers to focus their creative genius to effect changes in people's attitudes about drugs ... to guide them in presenting efficacious programs." The talking points Donfeld prepared for Ehrlichman included such instructions as: "Program content should be carefully designed for the audience that is likely to be tuned in at a given time"; "It would not be accurate to portray the drug problem as a ghetto problem .... It i,, a problem which touches all economic, social and racial strata,, of' America"; "You will receive a drug information kit.... Included in that kit will be a telephone contact list so that you or your script writers can call government officials for clarification and additional information"; "Television subtly and inexorably helps to mold the attitudes, thinking and motivations of a vast number of Americans." See article below









And this from an article by Jay Epstein . . .

The extraordinary measures that the White House planned to undertake in its war against crime depended heavily for their success on the organization of public fears. If Americans could be persuaded that their lives and the lives of their children were being threatened by a rampant epidemic of narcotics addiction, Nixon's advisors presumed they would not object to decisive government actions, such as no-knock warrants, pretrial detention, wiretaps, and unorthodox strike forces-even if the emergency measures had to cross or circumvent the traditional rights of a suspect. To achieve this state of fear required transforming a relatively small heroin addiction problem-which even according to the most exaggerated estimates directly affected only a minute fraction of the population in 1971-into -a plague that threatened all. This in turn required the artful use of the media to propagate a simple but terrifying set of stereotypes about drug addiction: the addict-dealer would be depicted as a modern-day version of the medieval vampire, ineluctably driven to commit crimes and infect others by his insatiable and incurable need for heroin. The victims would be shown as innocent youth, totally vulnerable to the vampire-addict. And the federal law-enforcement officer would be shown as the only effective instrument for stopping the vampire-addicts from contaminating the rest of society. The most obvious medium available for projecting these stereotypes on the popular imagination was television.

The plan to mobilize the media developed in March, 1970. President Nixon had instructed his chief domestic advisor, John Ehrllchman, to "further utilize television as a too] in the fight against drug abuse." Ehrlichman then turned the project over to Egli Krogh, his assistant, and Jeb Stuart Magruder, the deputy director of the Office of Communications in the White House. Magruder, a thirty six-year-old former advertising salesman and merchandise manager for a department store, found initially that officials in the various federal agencies resisted his plans for a publicity hype of the drug issue. He recalled in his autobiography, "The first meeting we called was hilarious-I couldn't believe those people were working on the same problem.... We encountered the usual hostility the White House people meet in the bureaucratic world." But eventually "everyone agreed that television was the single most effective means to reach young people and alert them to the hazards of drugs." On March I I the White House held a press conference, and the memorandum by Magruder summing up the "feedback" noted that the media interest sparked by the press conference had been favorable.... We have been getting calls from all over the Country ... ranging from network television to rural weeklies to professional journals.... A pod many of those calling indicated enthusiastic support for the Administration programs and inferred
The White House strategists, however, were more interested in primetime television. On March 18, 1970, Jeffrey Donfeld, the enterprising assistant to Krogh, sent a memorandum to the White House proposing that since "the President expressed his desire to have more anti-drug themes on television," the president should personally attend a meeting of television producers that Donfeld was arranging for April 9, 1970, at the White House. Among those being invited, Donfeld noted, were:

1. The vice-presidents in charge of programming of the three networks.

2. The vice-presidents in charge of continuity acceptance of the networks.

3. The heads of production of the six major television production companies.

4. The producers of select programs which can accommodate narcotics themes ... this group will represent at least 90 percent of prime-time shows.

5. Television programming vice-presidents of the three major advertising agencies.

Donfeld explained that the day-long program would be held in the White House theater and that the purpose of the meeting would be to stimulate these producers to include in their fall programming antidrug themes." In a March 19 memorandum John Ehrlichman recommended personally that the president meet the television executives in his office for a "photo opportunity." On April 2 a detailed scenario was drawn up for the meeting of the following week. "To expedite the meeting and give It a little novelty," it recommended:


More . . .
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/aof/aof20.html