New York Times Tough Conservative Picked for Drug Czar, Officials Say By Christopher Marquis WASHINGTON -- President Bush plans to name John P. Walters, a
law-and-order conservative who was harshly critical of the Clinton
administration's efforts against illegal narcotics, as the drug
czar, Bush administration officials said today. Mr. Walters, who was the top deputy to William J. Bennett, the
drug czar in the last Bush administration, shares Mr. Bennett's
emphasis on publicly stigmatizing drugs at home while mobilizing
considerable resources — including the American military — against
narcotics producers abroad. Mr. Walters favors severe prison sentences for violent felons,
marijuana smugglers and repeat offenders, but he views first-time
drug users more leniently. He criticized a recommendation by the
United States Sentencing Commission in 1995 to reduce sentences for
dealers of crack cocaine significantly. The nomination, which officials said is imminent, comes as the
Bush administration struggles to maintain cooperation with important
drug- producing allies in Latin America. The United States this week suspended intelligence-sharing with
the Peruvian air force pending an inquiry into Peru's downing of an
unarmed plane carrying a family of American missionaries.
Administration officials, moreover, are seeking to win the support
of other South American nations that have voiced concerns about
American-backed military buildup in Colombia. If confirmed by the Senate, Mr. Walters will succeed Barry R.
McCaffrey, a retired general who sought to reduce the level of
confrontation with drug-exporting nations and spearheaded a national
advertising campaign aimed at convincing American youth that drugs
ruin lives. As the new chief at the White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy, Mr. Walters, 49, would oversee a staff of more than
150 and a budget that — including grant programs — amounts to nearly
a half- billion dollars, officials said. An important job of the
drug czar is to scrutinize the antinarcotics programs of federal
agencies and sign off on their budgets. President Bush has not decided whether to make the drug czar a
cabinet level appointment, officials said, though several Republican
lawmakers have urged the president to maintain the visibility of the
position with cabinet ranking, a status General McCaffrey had. Before settling on Mr. Walters, the White House had considered
several candidates, including Bill McCollum, a former Florida
representative; Jim McDonough, the Florida drug czar; and Rick
Romley, an Arizona district attorney, the lawmakers said. Mr. Walters' background as a chief of enforcement and supply
reduction in the last Bush administration has raised the concerns of
some that he will not focus enough on treatment and prevention. "Some of his positions in my own view need to be carefully
considered by the confirmation committee," General McCaffrey said in
an interview today. "I am hopeful to maintain a commitment to the
bipartisan support for treatment programs." General McCaffrey, who said he has researched Mr. Walters' views,
complained that Mr. Walters had voiced a concern "that there is too
much treatment capacity in the United States, which I found
shocking." Mr. Walters, who declined to comment on his pending nomination,
has told associates that his enforcement experience will give him
greater credibility on the softer aspects of drug reduction,
including treatment. President Bush has repeatedly emphasized the
need to reduce demand in the United States. Mr. Walters, who was the acting drug czar briefly in 1993, quit
in protest when President Clinton slashed his staff to 25 from 146
and announced he would reorient anti- narcotics policy to focus on
hard- core users, while de-emphasizing law enforcement and
interdiction. In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1996, Mr.
Walters criticized "this ineffectual policy — the latest
manifestation of the liberals' commitment to a `therapeutic state'
in which government serves as the agent of personal rehabilitation."
In his Senate appearance, Mr. Walters outlined elements of what
he said was an effective drug policy. He said the president should make use of the "bully pulpit" to
heighten awareness of the dangers of drugs, and noted that President
George Bush had used his first national prime-time address in 1989
to discuss the drug issue. Mr. Walters urged the United States to step up the battle against
drugs at their source, in Latin America, and called foreign programs
cheap and effective. He also advocated giving the military a lead role in interdiction
efforts, stiffening federal marijuana penalties, and opposed federal
financing for needle exchanges to reduce the spread of AIDS. A Michigan native, Mr. Walters is president of the Philanthropy
Roundtable, a conservative association that advises more than 600
donors to charity. Before that, he was president of the New
Citizenship Project, which promoted increasing the role of religion
in public life. In the 1980's, he was a top aide to Mr. Bennett at
the Education Department, then followed his boss into the drug
czar's office at its inception, in 1989. Together with Mr. Bennett and John J. DiIulio — Mr. Bush's recent
appointee to head a White House office on religious-based and
community initiatives — Mr. Walters wrote a book: "Body Count: Moral
Poverty and How to Win America's War against Crime and Drugs." The
book, published in 1997, warns of the young criminals branded
"superpredators," who come from broken homes, alienated communities
and attack without remorse. Such criminals, Mr. Walters and his colleagues wrote, suffer from
"moral poverty" and should face stiff and certain punishment.
Society must protect itself, according to Mr. Walters, who displays
little patience for those who say the nation's prisons are too full.
Copyright © 2001. New York Times Company. All rights reserved. saved from url:http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/26/politics/26DRUG.html
April 26, 2001
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