was signed by the United States on February 21 and submitted by the President to the Senate on June 29 for advice and consent to its ratification.

International cooperation in the world-wide campaign against drug abuse was strengthened considerably during the month-long meeting in Geneva of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs concluded last Thursday. The U.S. Delegate John E. Ingersoll reports that the session laid a solid basis for the plenipotentiary conference scheduled for March. He stressed that wide agreement was reached among the delegations on the common objective of eliminating the illegal traffic in narcotic drugs, but noted that only time would tell to what extent the plans worked out by the experts and technicians attending the Geneva meeting will be translated into effective actions by their governments. Among the key results of the Commission was the call for strengthening international drug legislation contained in a 14-nation resolution passed without a dissenting voice. The resolution calls attention to the critical proportions of the drug problem, noting it constitutes “a menace to which no country can feel immune." The key part of the document puts the Commission on record as believing "that a review of the 1961 Convention on Narcotic Drugs is warranted" and it recommends that all nations invited to the plenipotentiary conference in March of next year give urgent consideration to the proposals made to amend that convention. In addition to the proposals from the United States, suggested amendments to the Single Convention have also been put forward by France, Peru, and Sweden.

In action to strengthen regional cooperation against illicit drug cultivators and traffickers, Iran, Pakistan and Turkey took steps to set up a subcommittee of national representatives that will meet between regular sessions of the full Commission. The decision was taken by means of a resolation that declared stronger cooperation among Near East and Middle East governments to be essential in the struggle against drug traffickers.

During the meeting the Commission also examined the comprehensive action plan against drug abuse drawn up by the Secretary General. Many delegations expressed their general satisfaction with the short and long-range projects listed in the document.

These then are the principal recent initiatives in drug abuse control. We look for a much broader campaign internationally to prevent the further spread of a rapidly growing menace. Certainly the U.S. Government agencies have embarked upon a strong concerted effort to alleviate the problem. The job calls for determination and a constant effort on all fronts.

Mr. GROSS. Secretary Rossides has covered much of the ground and my statement is a rather general one.

I want to repeat that the President has established the Cabinet Committee on International Narcotics Control, which I think includes all of the personnel who should properly be on such a committee.

In case you are not informed on the workings below the actual Cabinet members, the Cabinet Committee has a working group with Mr. Egil Krogh as its executive director, and there are subcommittees within that group. I chair the subcommittee on Diplomacy and Foreign Aid. Mr. Ingersoll chairs the Subcommittee on Enforcement. Dr. Jaffe is a member of the working group on the demand side, so to speak.

Mr. ROGERS. I think it would be well if you could let us have for the record the organization of the Cabinet Committee and its subagencies and their jurisdiction.

Mr. GROSS. We will let you have that.

(The following letter was received for the record :)

Hon. PAUL G. ROGERS,

House of Representatives,

Washington, D.C.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, D.C., November 8, 1971.

DEAR MR. ROGERS: During the testimony by Mr. Nelson Gross on October 27, you asked for further details on the Cabinet Committee on International Narcotics Control. The information is provided herewith.

The Cabinet Committee was established on August 17, 1971, and announced by Secretary Rogers at the White House on September 7. The membership as announced was as follows:

William P. Rogers, Secretary of State (Chairman).

John N. Mitchell, Attorney General.

Melvin R. Laird, Secretary of Defense.

John B. Connally, Jr., Secretary of the Treasury.

Richard Helms, Director, CIA.

George Bush, U.S. Representative to the UN.

Membership was subsequently extended to include Secretary of Agriculture Clifford M. Hardin. Other agencies will be asked to participate in the work of the Committee, as appropriate.

As indicated in Mr. Gross's statement, the Cabinet Committee is responsible for the formulation and coordination of all U.S. Government policies relating to the goal of curtailing and eventually eliminating the flow of illegal narcotics and dangerous drugs into the United States. Specifically, the Committee is charged with developing comprehensive plans and programs for international drug control; assuring the coordination of all diplomatic, intelligence, and Federal law enforcement programs and activities of international scope; evaluating all such programs and activities and their implementation; making recommendations to the Office of Management and Budget on proposed fundings; and providing periodic progress reports to the President.

The Cabinet Committee is supported by a Working Group composed of highlevel personnel from each of the member agencies (e.g. Nelson Gross from State) plus the Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention. The Working Group is chaired by Egil Krogh, Jr., of the White House staff; Mr. Krogh also serves as Executive Director of the Cabinet Committee.

The Working Group has seven subcommittees to deal with special subject areas and to coordinate on-going activities. There are six functional subcommittees as follows (agency chairmanship is given in parentheses): Intelligence (CIA), Law Enforcement (Justice), Public Information (White House), Diplomacy and Foreign Aid (State), Congressional Relations (White House), and Rehabilitation, Treatment, and Research (Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention). The seventh subcommittee to the Working Group, known as the Coordinating Subcommittee, reviews outgoing communications, coordinates the narcotics control activities at the staff level among interested agencies and departments, and carries out all the necessary staff work on questions raised at the Working Group level. The Coordinating Subcommittee members are in close liaison with the Regional Interagency Task Forces on Narcotics Control which have been established by the geographic bureaus in the Department of State.

As Mr. Gross indicated, the first formal meeting of the Cabinet Committee was held on September 28. A number of specific options and projects growing out of that meeting are currently being developed for policy consideration and action. I hope this information will be helpful. If I can be of further assistance, please let me know.

Sincerely yours,

DAVID M. ABSHIRE,

Assistant Secretary for Congressional Relations.

Mr. ROGERS. How often does the Cabinet Committee meet?

Mr. GROSS. The Cabinet Committee thus far has had only one meeting. That was the meeting held on September 28 at which Secretary Rogers announced that Secretary Hardin would go to Turkey to head an agricultural mission.

He also announced at that time the agreement which was signed afterward between the United States and the Goverment of Thailand, a broad memorandum of understanding which will be implemented in various stages with help from BNDD, Customs, and AID; there would be crop substitution and the rest of it.

Also he announced at that time--I don't think it had been publicly acknowledged that Laos had within a day or two before passed a law for the first time banning the production of opium and trafficking in opium and its derivatives.

In case you have not heard, Laos has gone one step further. A law has just been passed banning the use of acetic anhydride, which is an ingredient for heroin. I think that is another good and constructive step forward.

Mr. KYROS. How are they going to make rubber and glass? I understand that for rubber, glass, and paper, you need acetic anhydride.

Mr. GROSS. Acetic anhydride is a widely used chemical. It makes a myriad of different products, plastics of all kinds, products you just mentioned. But in Laos, evidently, industry does not require that particular product. So at least for this period of time they have banned it. If later on they acquire uses for it, I assume the machinery would be there for proper regulation and licensing, which is what we would be looking for.

I might mention-because Idon't think it has been made public— that Secretary Rogers, as Chairman of the Cabinet Committee, met yesterday with the Ambassadors involved in the Golden Triangle area, that is the Ambassadors from Burma, Thailand, South Vietnam, and Laos. I attended the meeting, as did Marshall Green, and we discussed such things as whether other countries might also be interested in the regulation of acetic anhydride as well as any other cooperative and regional efforts which they might be able to exert.

Mr. ROGERS. What reaction did you get?

Mr. GROSS. Very good. We spent considerable time, and I would say that the Ambassadors, as they expressed the views of their governments, were quite anxious to move ahead.

They are not anxious to establish a new regional entity, but perhaps some informal liaison at a ministerial level between and among those governments to handle problems which obviously cross borders. Air trafficking is one example. Day-to-day border control is another example.

I think the Ambassadors might get together on their own. Of course, we volunteered our assistance wherever we could be helpful. Mr. ROGERS. That is commendable.

Mr. GROSS. Thank you.

Just by way of giving you the organization on this, the State Department has obviously led in the development of the programs in Southeast Asia, the Thai program specifically. Mr. Masters, who runs the East Asian task force, is here with me today. It was his task force which originated the thinking on this. Agencies represented on the group include State, AID, BNDD, Treasury, Defense, CIA, and USIA.

Mr. Masters is conducting these meetings on a two-a-week basis, but sometimes 4 to 5 meetings weekly. The task force is in the process now of implementing the United States-Thai Memorandum of Understanding so that we can have detailed agreements in each of the enforcement areas. It is also beginning to discuss country programs for the other countries, Laos and the rest.

Mr. ROGERS. I wonder if you have had an opportunity to look at the subcommittee's report that has been issued on their trip? Mr. GROSS. Yes, sir.

Mr. ROGERS. We were concerned about Thailand there and the help that is needed, particularly in the border areas. I think if you do have an opportunity to review that, it would perhaps be helpful.

Mr. GROSS. The particular program which you cite as No. 3 in your subcommittee recommendations, of course, was taken up by the State Department immediately. That has been approved. In fact, when I went to Thailand myself I carried the approval for that as an illustrative program earmarking a certain amount of money and indicating that more would be made available as, when, and if the various subagreements were formalized with particular priority on the enforcement projects that we envisioned.

Mr. ROGERS. And you know the border police. I guess you are aware of that problem. We visited them and they had wanted to get M-16 rifles. They have the old Springfield rifle and the AID mission there will not allow them to have it because there is a police category in their name. They will give them to the armed services but simply because they have police, someone here has a hangup on that.

What they are doing is trying to secure the sovereignty of the area there and until they get to that they are certainly not going to do anything about drugs.

I think you need to give some attention to that area.

Mr. GROSS. I, myself, met, along with Ambassador Unger, with Minister Prepot who, as you know, is the national commander, if that is the proper word, of the border patrol police as well as the Army, too. He indicated to us that the anti-insurgency effort was their main concern at this time.

We tried to counter by indicating that the insurgents very often profited from the opium trade and indeed with the elimination of the opium trade, it would help their efforts in the anti-insurgency. I think the real problem here I am not sure I should say it is a problembut what has to be done is to get the Thai themselves, in the military level, on the border patrol police level, and on their national police level, to begin to implement, to begin to effect controls on narcotics. It is all well and good that we have a few BNDD agents, but they can only provide some leads.

Mr. ROGERS. I think the point we made in the report was, and that we were concerned with on the trip there, that it is not possible for them to devote their efforts and energy to the drug problem as long as they are out trying to secure a village and save people's lives, and unless we give them some help to do that, we are not going to make any headway.

Mr. GROSS. We are working on that directly now, too. As I understand it, there is a contract with a German munitions operation which would provide them essentially with an equivalent weapon.

Mr. ROGERS. They need some weapon to respond to the insurgency. Mr. GROSS. AID had a meeting here in Washington of all of their regional people, including their representatives in Thailand, South Vietnam, and Laos, just last week in an effort to gear them up, and this point was stressed.

Mr. KYROS. Mr. Gross, I looked over your statement and listened to your remarks. I think the State Department is doing everything it possibly can and I have a lot of admiration for those people. That is why I am puzzled by the fact that on page 6, you point out in depth the cooperation we have with the French Government, and what a great job they are doing.

At the same time, in our own Government, Postmaster General Blount says that we ought to have a ban or a boycott on French goods.

Do you really know what you are doing? Is this really cooperation, or are we going to try to bludgeon the French?

Mr. GROSS. I think the statement of Mr. Blount was totally unauthorized and unexpected.

I was in Europe at the time and received immediate calls from the White House, as did Ambassador Watson, and it was stressed that Mr. Blount was a former member of the Cabinet, which, of course, he is. He had no reason to do this in terms of anticipation of White House or Government reaction.

I think, frankly, that he has gone too far in this and I don't think the remarks are justified and appropriate, particularly, in my own opinion, considering the fast developing beefing up of the forces in the French Government. I must say that President Pompidou and Interior Minister Marcelin have gone even further here. They are proposing initiatives within the EC community and going beyond, and at the Geneva narcotics meeting they proposed some other devices.

Mr. KYROS. Have we officially indicated to the French that the remarks were irresponsible and not representative of this Government's opinion about what the French Government is doing about narcotics control?

Mr. GROSS. The State Department has not but I believe the Cabinet Committee, that is Mr. Krogh, has sent the message.

Mr. ROGERS. We have second bells.

Now, could you let us know what progress is being made in working out the differences between BNDD and Customs and how your group settles this?

Mr. GROSS. The Cabinet committee group has the ultimate responsibility to settle it because it is charged with the responsibility to see that we have effective controls. So, therefore, if there is an impediment along the way we try to do something about it. We will get back to you on it.

Mr. ROGERS. I think this would be good to let us have this. (The following letter was received for the record :)

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, D.C., December 3, 1971.

Hon. PAUL G. ROGERS,

House of Representatives,

Washington, D.C.

DEAR MR. ROGERS: With reference to your question concerning the resolution of any differences that may appear between Customs and BNDD, please be advised that a new program has been instituted by the Cabinet Committee as follows:

The Cabinet Committee has initiated the preparation of narcotics control action plans for those countries considered to have a current or potential involvement in the production, processing, consumption, or transiting of illicit hard drugs. The project is focusing on world supplies, trafficking, and smuggling of heroin and cocaine destined for the U.S. market or U.S. personnel abroad. Selected Foreign Service posts have been asked to prepare preliminary action plans without consultation at this stage with host governments. Such plans will include a description of the drug situation, a statement of goals, the strategy to achieve such goals, estimated costs, priorities and a general time-table for actions. The plans will be reviewed by the Department's regional Interagency Narcotics Control Committees and, where appropriate, submitted for approval to the Working Group to the Cabinet Committee. The approved narcotics control action plans will then be forwarded to posts abroad to serve as a basis for opening discussions with host governments for the negotiation of bilateral narcotics control action programs.