In March,
1972, the domain of the White House had been effectively
extended over all elements of the narcotics program
except those in the Treasury Department. The Nixon strategists
had succeeded through the creation of new offices in
divorcing most of the domestic operations of BNDD agents
from the control of Ingersoll, who had been reduced
through these maneuvers to little more than a public
spokesman for his own bureau. Rossides, however, still
remained to be dealt with at the Treasury Department.
Ehrlichman and Krogh thus planned, at the March 28 meeting
of the Cabinet Committee on International Narcotics
Control, to emasculate what remained of Rossides's power
by announcing a presidential decision to curtail the
overseas operations of customs agents and place them
under the direct control of the cabinet committee, of
which Krogh was executive director (and which, for all
practical purposes, he ran single handedly). Rossides,
however, was not to be so easily defeated: he persuaded
Secretary of the Treasury Connally to intervene. The
day of the meeting, Connally "pulled an end play,"
according to Krogh, by walking straight past Ehrlichman
into the president's office and then emerging arm in
arm with him later. In the few minutes that intervened
Connally had persuaded the president to reverse the
entire decision urged on him by Elirlichman and Krogh.
At the opening of the meeting the president announced
that Customs was to be allowed to send additional agents
overseas to investigate narcotics cases, and that the
earlier guidelines restricting Customs were to be eased.
Krogh realized that he had seriously underestimated
the determination of Rossides, but it was only a minor
defeat for the Domestic Council and a Pyrrhic victory
for the Treasury Department.
Claiming that the narcotics
program was again fragmented among the Bureau of Customs,
the Internal Revenue Service, the Bureau of Narcotics
and Dangerous Drugs, and the new offices, the White
House ordered plans to be drawn up for a new superagency
into which all the competing law-enforcement agencies
involved in the drug program could be merged. In effect,
this new agency would be little more than an expansion
of the ODALE concept: the investigative agents of the
Bureau of Customs and the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous
Drugs would be merged into this new agency along with
prosecutors who handled narcotics cases. The Office
of National Narcotics Intelligence would also be folded
into this new agency. In size, it would resemble a smaller
version of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; it would
have both extraordinary search authority (deriving from
that of customs agents) and electronic-surveillance
powers. It would also have liaisons with the target-selection
committee of the Internal Revenue Service and the Central
Intelligence Agency. Reorganization Plan Number Two,
as the new scheme was officially called, would also
allow the White House to replace all the top civil servants
and careerists with White House loyalists. Not only
would this new agency be free of bureaucratic restraints
but it would be headed by Ambrose, according to some
speculation. It was also assumed by certain members
of the White House staff that Sullivan, Liddy, and Hunt
would play important roles in the intelligence gathering
activities of this new unit.
Rossides foresaw that the creation
of this new superagency would eliminate all the checks
and balances that traditionally limited law enforcement
operations in the field of narcotics, and, although
nominally located in the Department of Justice, it would
give the White House de facto control over strike forces
and investigative agents. In the battle of memoranda
that followed, Rossides argued that ODALE "was
ill conceived, alienated local enforcement officials
and was counterproductive," and that "consolidating
these vast powers destroys traditional checks and balances
(and] violate[s] the fundamental American criminal justice
concept of separation of the investigating function
and the prosecuting function." The White House,
however, moved ahead with its consolidation. A three-man
hearing board was set up to hear the objections of Rossides,
Ingersoll, and others, but since two of its members,
Donald Santarelli and Geoffrey Sheppard, were close
colleagues of Krogh's and committed to the "reorganization,"
all objections were easily overridden. (The third member
of the panel, Mark Alger, a staff member of the Office
of Management and Budget, also approved the consolidation
on grounds that it was more "efficient"-which
no doubt it was.) To be sure, Congress had the power
to veto an executive reorganization plan, but in an
election year few Congressmen were willing to oppose
a new federal effort to reduce the national heroin epidemic.
Without effective resistance the White House would be
in control of a major investigative agency soon after
the election.
Moreover, the reorganization
plan would abolish John Ingersoll's position as director
of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. Furthermore,
Connally, who was resigning as secretary of the treasury
to head the Democrats for Nixon committee, reluctantly
agreed to replace Rossides as assistant secretary of
the treasury for law enforcement with one of Krogh's
young staff assistants on the Domestic Council, Edward
Morgan. It was also planned that Caulfield, who had
helped plan the "private detective agency"
for the White House, would be given a controlling position
in the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms enforcement unit
of the Treasury Department. Vernon "Mike"
Acree, a former IRS official who had shown a willingness
to cooperate with the White House, was chosen to succeed
Ambrose as commissioner of customs. A number of other
loyalists from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)
were selected for other key positions in the Treasury
Department. And the key position of director of the
new investigative superagency for "drug enforcement"
could be tendered to someone who could be closely counted
on by the White House.
On May 2, 1972, J. Edgar Hoover
died, and Clyde Tolson, who had been Hoover's right-hand
man, offered to resign. The White House immediately
saw a possibility of realizing its long-term ambition
of controlling that crucial investigative agency and
appointed L. Patrick Gray, a former office manager of
the Nixon election campaign, as acting director of the
FBI. There were still powerful inspectors and executives
in that bureau whom the Nixon administration could not
count on, but with the help of William Sullivan the
White House strategists hoped that after the election
campaign was concluded, these men would be replaced
by loyalists. Thus, by the spring of 1972, the Nixon
administration approached its objective of controlling
the investigative agencies of the government, and consolidating
power.
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