over their short-wave radios: "Suspects are proceeding down Spruce Street, headed for Gold." In the third-floor ob- servation post, one agent cracked to TIME Correspondent James Willwerth, "The Chinese are very punctual." So they were—right on time for 1.ie most UNDERCOVER AGENTS SHOW HUIE ti LOK $200,000 IN TRUNK In hollowed-out heels, false-bottomed suitcases, important narcotics bust this summer. cars, girdles and boa constrictors. At 9 p.m., two wary men walked Then the General led one of the agents up to the green Cadillac: Kenneth Kan- back and dropped the heroin in a va- off on a meandering excursion that end- cant lot, arriving empty-handed. He kit Huie, 60, self-styled "unofficial ed up in a Chinatown sportswear shop. mayor of Chinatown," and Tim Lok, seemed worried about police. The agent There it was the agent's turn to inspect and Guan argued in the street in front 35, known to federal agents as "the the wares: a cardboard box packed with General" for his ramrod-stiff posture. of Beekman Hospital for several min- 14 plastic bags containing 20 lbs. of utes, and finally the hesitant Chinese The four men—two undercover narcot- pure No. 4 white heroin from South- ics agents, and the two "connections" agreed to make the deal. The four men east Asia. Street value: $10 million. piled into the green Cadillac and fol- whom they had been trying to nail for The agent and the General then four months—wasted no time. The lowed the gray Dodge station wagon to went back toward Gold Street in a taxi, a dark, deserted street, under the shad- agents opened the trunk of the Cadil- followed in a gray Dodge station wag- lac and showed the Chinese the con- ow of the Brooklyn Bridge. Following on by a third Chinese. Guan Chow- he General's directions, one undercov- tents of an olive-drab attaché case in- tok, bringing the heroin. But Guan, side: $200,000 in $50 and $100 bills. .tr agent walked through waist-high owner of the sportswear shop, doubled grass into the vacant lot. Suddenly, he knelt down and said loudly: "This is the package; this is the package." On that signal, the night fairly ex- ploded with armed men and flashing lights. Two unmarked cars squealed to a stop at opposite ends of the street, blocking the escape routes. Agents wav- ing pistols and shotguns sprinted out of the shadows from all directions. Huie. the General and a fourth Chinese accom- plice surrendered immediately. Guan jumped into his gray Dodge—and found himself staring into the muzzle of a .45 automatic in the hands of an agent who was leaning through an open window. Though last week's Chinatown bust was motion-picture perfect, to U.S. nar- cotics experts it was another bittersweet element in an increasingly frustrating, not to say disastrous situation. True, the raid was the latest in a number of suc- cessful skirmishes in what President Nixon describes, more and more plau- sibly, as a global "war on drugs." In Montreal and Saigon, narcotics officers have recently nabbed some of the big- ger wholesalers. Washington, mean-

TIME, SEPTEMBER 4, 1972

while, is awaiting the imminent extra- dition by Paraguay of Auguste Joseph Ricord, French-born boss of a Latin American connection that is alleged to have piped heroin worth $1.2 billion into the U.S. over a five-year period (TIME, Aug. 28). But the bad news about narcotics far overshadows such success. The "skag" seized at the Brooklyn Bridge last week was the second large shipment of Asian heroin to be intercepted in New York. The first seizure came last November when a Philippine diplomat and his Chinese partner were arrested at Manhattan's Lexington Hotel with 38 lbs. of heroin in their luggage. The two busts tend to confirm the gloomy THAILAND DRUG TRADERS DELIVERING OPIUM IN OPEN TRUCK forecasts of U.S. narcotics experts that as some of the old drug trade routes South Vietnamese, who have from Europe become more dangerous, picked up a taste for hard new ones will open up from Asia. The drugs from the departing emergence of Asia, with its immense American soldiers. All over opium production, as a major exporter Western Europe. which once of narcotics, promises to make the drug idly dismissed hard drugs as trade a truly global problem. "an American problem." of- New Routes. Through most of the ficials now reckon that they postwar years, drugs had flowed from have a growing addict pop- the poppy fields of Turkey and the labs ulation of about 100,000. of direct to the U.S. via the Says a U.S. State Department famed "." In the past official: "They're real scared two or three years, more and more her- about what the late 1970s oin has been routed through Latin will bring." America and the Caribbean, where law So is Washington. One enforcement is spotty and protection day last January, John E. In- cheap. But as the Latin connection be- gersoll, blunt-spoken chief of gins to feel more and more heat, and if the Justice Department's Bu- Turkey phases out remaining opium reau of Narcotics and Dan- production under pressure from Wash- gerous Drugs, went to the ington, the drug trade is expected to White House to report per- swing increasingly to Asia, drawing on sonally that an "astonishing MULE TRAIN HAULING OPIUM DOWN FROM THAI MOUNTAINS the vast surpluses of opium grown in variety" of drugs—heroin, the remote, misty hills of Burma, Thai- cocaine, amphetamines, hashish, mar- land and Laos, source of 58% of the ijuana—was continuing to pour into the 1,200 tons of illicit opium the world pro- U.S. Nixon, by all accounts, was in a duced last year. State Department nar- rage. "But dammit," he said at one cotics experts already see several routes point, "there must be something we can developing, including one to the U.S. do to stop this." via Hong Kong and Britain. The result has been a dramatic The present flow of narcotics to the change in the U.S. approach to drugs. West is capable of supporting a savage Only two years ago, U.S. narcotics agen- rise in consumption—and with it, sav- cies operated on a miserly $78 million 0 age rises in crime, in crippled lives and budget. Now the White House is ask- in deaths. Hard statistics are hard to ing Congress for $729 million nest year come by, but the best Government es- for a flock of new agencies. timates put the U.S. heroin-addict pop- The agencies are charged with what ulation at 560,000—ten times the level is essentially a broad-gauged search- of 1960 and almost double what it was and-destroy mission. In the U.S. the Jus- MARIJUANA PICKUP IN JAMAICA only two years ago. On the average. a tice Department's eight-month-old Of- And couriers. U.S. addict spends $8,000 a year to sup- fice for Drug Abuse Law Enforcement diplomatic port his habit; in New York City, with has 300 investigators tracking down Force and Air Guard squadrons have an addict population of more than 300,- street pushers. while the Internal Rev- been ordered to maintain their F-102 000, as much as 50% of all crime is re- enue Service has 410 special agents and supersonic F-106 interceptors on lated to addiction. The U.S. has become checking distributors' tax records. alert status, ready to scramble in five a heroin market worth $5 billion a year The Bureau of Customs, charged minutes. Besides the heroin smugglers, to the international drug trade. with policing thousands of miles of their targets will also include the light As other countries are discovering wide-open frontier, is due to add 330 planes that deliver something like a ton to their horror, it is an expanding mar- new men to its hard-pressed 532-man of Jamaican marijuana daily, mostly at ket. In Canada, recent estimates place border patrol force. Last month Nixon airfields in Florida. the addict population at 14,000 and ris- ordered the Air Force to help out by in- The heart of the strategy is a U.S. ef- ing. Turkey now has a small heroin-ad- stalling new extra-low-level radar at fort, one with no precedent in history. dict population—a development that sites in Texas and New Mexico, where to tear up the major international drug defies Moslem strictures against drugs it will be used to track the airborne routes. On one wall of the Washington and the powerful conviction among smugglers who scoot across the Mexi- "war room" of the Bureau of Narcot- Turks that narcotics reduce sexual po- can border in light planes. avoiding de- ics and Dangerous Drugs, magnetic tency. Heroin is spreading among young tection by flying at cactus level. Air chips on a huge map of the world in-

TIME, SEPTEMBER 4, 1972 23 THE WORLD dictate the location of the bureau's 1,610 Evidently because of recent busts in agents—up from 884 two years ago. In Canada. and New York, addicts each of the key drug-traffic countries, are shuddering through the third month such as France, Mexico, Turkey and of a major heroin drought. In Montre- Thailand. eight to 15 HNDD men act as al, a major port of entry for French her- advisers to their local counterparts, oin, one dealer complained last week gather intelligence on their own, and, that "the stuff is scarce as hell. I can when necessary, engage in what is pay but my man can't deliver." In Mar- known in CIA argot as "dirty tricks." seille, the price of a kilo of heroin has BNDD men talk as if their job is to risen in past weeks from $2,500 to tear up the Ho Chi Minh Trail, not the $5,000, partly as a result of the short- international drug trade. "We'll never age, partly because the heat is on. dry up the supply lines," Ingersoll tells Another sign of hard times is slip- war-room visitors. "But we can disrupt ping quality. Even after being cut with the lines and reduce the flow to a tol- sugar and powdered milk, retail heroin erable irritant. That's our goal." used to be about 10% pure; now the The Administration's boast that range is from 3% to 7%. So low is the "the tide has turned" is vastly exagger- potency nowadays that the "good stuff," ated, but there are encouraging signs. when it is available, may kill an unwary American agents in and out of the U.S. addict, San Antonio has had twelve so far this year have helped seize 3,966 overdose deaths in the past nine weeks lbs. of heroin, a sixfold increase over because someone—perhaps an inexpe- three years ago. The amount represents rienced pusher—has been peddling her- less than 20% of the estimated 11 I tons oin that is 53% pure. of heroin that U.S. addicts used last year To Myles J. Ambrose, a hard-bit- —a measure of how far the war is from ten former federal prosecutor and Cus- being won. But the effect is being felt on toms Bureau chief who heads the do- TURKISH WOMEN HARVESTING OPIUM GUM the street. mestic side of the Justice Department's

The Corsicans have spread around the world for much the same reason Si- The Milieu of the Corsican Godfathers cilians came to the U.S.—hopeless pov- erty at home. "We see our sons as they The eyes in the walnut face held his. instance, a Union Corse member who called himself Antoine Rinieri was ar- leave as young men and when they "I am the head of the Union Corse." come back to retire on their pensions," The Union Corse! More deadly, and rested in New York with a suspected narcotics payoff of $247,000 in cash. says a Corsican detective in France. Of- perhaps even older than the Unione ten smuggling is the only way that Cor- Siciliano, the Mafia. Bond knew that In the Corsican tradition, he refused to sicans can make a living. it controlled most organized crime give his real name or explain what he throughout metropolitan France and was doing with the money. His silence The French bring a new language her colonies—protection rackets, smug- caused him to be sent to jail for six to international crime; the army of gling, prostitution, and the suppression months for contempt of court. At the end of his term, the U.S. deported him ordinary racketeers, for instance, is of rival gangs. known simply as the "milieu." The Cor- Ian Fleming, On Her Majesty's but, since it could prove no link between — sicin gang boss ordinarily carries his Secret Service the $247,000 and dope trafficking, the government was forced to give him the identification in plain sight—a watch- fob medallion bearing the Moor's-head HE Union Corse, an organization money back—with interest. crest of . Like the Mafia, the that originated in the parched hills In France, the very existence of the T Union Corse has a code of honor; the of Corsica but is today cen- Union Corse is still denied, word of a gangster is supposed to be tered in Marseille, rules more in much the same way that his bond. The difference is that Ma- in fact than even James Bond the Mafia was often dis- fiosi are forever doublecrossing each imagined in fiction. It dom- missed as fictional in the other—hence the present gang war in inates the worldwide traffick- U.S. two decades ago. "The New York—while the Corsicans usually ing in narcotics, and in par- structure is a myth," says a senior French cop. With five keep their word. Members of the Ma- ticular controls the supply fia usually submit internal disputes to and processing of heroin gang murders in Marseille in other Mafiosi; Corsicans often call in flowing into the U.S. from the past six months alone, expert outsiders to arbitrate their France, South America and that notion is beginning to quarrels. Southeast Asia. Though it is change. The strength of the Union Corse relatively weak in the U.S., In many respects, the outside the U.S. is based largely on its the Union Corse is far more Mafia and the Union Corse ability to infiltrate government agen- powerful than the Mafia in are similar. Both are divided cies. In France the Union Corse has, many parts of the world. into a number of families— to some degree, infiltrated the police. As an organization, the the Mafia into about 24 in the CORSICA N MEDAL the military, the customs service and Union Corse is more tightly U.S., the Union Corse into the French equivalent of the U.S. Cen- knit and more secretive than its Sicil- about 15 in France. The best-known of tral Intelligence Agency, the SDECE (for ian counterpart. U.S. agencies have the Corsican families are the Francisci, Orsini, Venturi and Guerini clans. The Service de Documentation Extjrieure been able to obtain information from One of that identity of some of the clans is so deep a et de Contre-Espionage). all levels of the Mafia clans in the U.S., outfit's former agents. Roger de Lou- but not from the Union Corse. "When secret that a member could be marked for death for discussing them. And in ette, who was convicted in Newark last the Mafioso is spilling his guts." says April of smuggling $12 million worth one U.S. intelligence official, "the Cor- the matter of exterminating informers, the Union Corse is said to be quicker of heroin into the U.S. and is cur- sican is still silent—refusing even to give rently serving a five-year prison term, you his name." In the early 1960s, for and more deadly than the Mafia.

TIME, SEPTEMBER 4, 1972 24 '.1

drug effort, the shortage proves that the in Saigon in June for a scheduled meet- Administration strategy is on the right ing with the Phantom, but was arrest- track. "The name of the game for the ed. When the Phantom arrived at Tan big-time pushers is moving the stuff into Son Nhut airport, Berger fingered him. the U.S.," he says. "We belt 'em at one He turned out to be one Wan Pen Phen, place, and they move someplace else. • , a middle-aged Chinese with both Tai- When we catch the stuff, that's when wanese and Thai papers. Police say ' • • "'I-or they lose their money." Phen routed 4,500 lbs. of opium month- Of late, the big-time pushers and ly through the area. In July, the cops ar- traffickers have been losing their mon- rested Luu Phuc Ngu, a prominent Sai- ey, goods and sometimes their freedom gon hotel owner, his son Luu Se Hon, at an encouraging rate. Some of the big- and Phen's No. 2 man, Am Nui. The ' ger catches over the past year: three organized the South Viet Nam end SAIGON: South Vietnamese police of the opium trade for the Phantom. A H and BNDD agents nabbed Joseph Ber- Under interrogation last week, both ger, 66, a pudgy, balding American who Phen and Nui denied any knowledge arrived in Southeast Asia 16 years ago of any drug dealings. and skillfully worked his way up to the MARSEILLE: The shrimp boat Caprice top of the drug-smuggling heap. Nar- des Temps (Whim of Time) attracted s. cotics agents believe he is the only the attention of French customs agents ''"' 1 American to have had face-to-face deal- last March when its captain refused an ings with "the Phantom," the ubiquitous order to cut his engines. The captain, Chinese who until recently reigned su- Marcel Boucan, 58, was already being preme over drug traffic out of Indochi- watched for his dealings with cigarette na. Four months ago, Berger hauled a smugglers. The agents also noticed that 400-1b. load of opium down Thai coun- though the 60-ton boat had made two try roads, bullying his way past police trips to Miami, it never ventured near SLASHING POPPY BULB FOR GUM checkpoints into Cambodia. He arrived the shrimp-fishing grounds. After cus-

testified that he imported the drugs in is extremely influential in a number of morphine base from the Middle East league with his superiors in the agen- countries, including Mexico, Brazil, to Marseille. Jean Venturi, who went cy. The Corsican influence in French Venezuela, Paraguay, Bolivia and Pan- to Canada in 1952 and is believed to law-enforcement agencies is also be- ama. In some cases, the influence has be operating there still, is sometimes lieved to have been a large factor in proved strong enough to protect a hand- credited with pioneering the technique the French government's reluctance to ful of heroin laboratories that have re- of hiding heroin in the nooks and cran- crack down on the Corsican narcotics cently been moved there from Mar- nies of imported autos. laboratories in Marseille until drugs be- seille. In Paraguay, Corsican influence About 10 years ago, the Union came a problem—and a political issue is believed to have been behind the Corse began to move into the U.S. to —in France. U.S.'s recent difficulties in extraditing fill the vacuum created by the partial The Union Corse's immense polit- French-born Auguste Ricord to the U.S. withdrawal of the Mafia from the nar- ical influence in France stems from the to face narcotics charges. cotics racket. Its chief contact in the Corsican& work for the French under- According to testimony given be- U.S. became Florida Gang Boss Santo ground during World War 1I—German fore a U.S. Senate subcommittee in Trafficante Jr., who traveled to Saigon collaborators in Marseille were regular- 1964, one of the Corsican godfathers is and Hong Kong to work out narcotics ly and efficiently dispatched—and for Marcel Francisci, 52, a flamboyant, deals with the Corsicans and later the French government in the postwar onetime war hero (the Croix de Guerre) turned up in Ecuador to check out a co- years. In 1948 called upon the whose business interests include casinos caine network in which he had been of- Union Corse to break a strike by Com- in Britain, France and Leb- HARP ERi ROW fered a partnership. The munist-controlled unions that threat- anon. In 1968, caught in a Union Corse also supplied ened to close the port of Marseille. The gangland vendetta, Francisci and financed the new gangs Union Corse obliged by providing an barely escaped an ambush in of South Americans, Puerto army of strike-breaking longshoremen a restaurant on the island of Ricans and blacks, who to unload the ships and a crew of as- Corsica. Four months later, moved into the vacant terri- sassins to gun down defiant union lead- the men who tried to kill him tories. All members of the ers. French government officials have were murdered in a Parisian milieu were instructed to not forgotten such favors. restaurant by gunmen posing avoid disturbing those Ma- as cops. Francisci today is an fiosi who still continued to The same kind of political fix, ar- elected district official on deal in narcotics—chiefly ranged in other ways, has kept the Corsica. the capos and soldiers of Union Corse narcotics network oper- Other known leaders of the Bonanno and Gambino ating in Southeast Asia since 1948. A the Union Corse, according families. large share of the heroin used by U.S. to the Federal Bureau of The peace between the troops in Viet Nam was supplied by Narcotics in testimony be- Corsicans and the Sicilians FRAN CISCI Corsican-financed narcotics producers fore the same Senate sub- has endured for a surprising- in Laos and Thailand. For about ten committee, include Dominique Venturi, ly long time, but it may not last much years following the French withdrawal 49, and his brother Jean, 51. Domi- longer. Last week representatives of the from Indochina in 1954, a group of Cor- nique's base has been Marseille, where Mafia clans in New York met to consid- sican war veterans ran several small he has been known as a political crony er a mass re-entry into the narcotics charter airlines whose purpose was the of Mayor Gaston Deferre. the Socialist business. If they decide to proceed, and smuggling of narcotics from Laos into candidate for President of France in if approval comes from the Mafia's su- South Viet Nam; the lines were collec- 1969. Dominique got into the narcotics- preme council, the Commission, they tively known as "Air Opium." smuggling business in 1953, and at one will have to do it over the Corsicans' In Latin America, the Union Corse time ran a fleet of yachts for hauling —and some of their own—dead bodies.

TIME, SEPTEMBER 4, 1972 25 THE WORLD Thailand and Laos known as the Gold- in specially fitted vehicles. The under- er, however. the 100-kilo package is en Triangle, the richest poppy-growing world then takes advantage of the ar- area in the world and the source of the worth about $1 million. After expenses, rangement: on the return trip, the same the net profit can be as high as $750,000. Asian heroin now reaching the U.S. in compartments are filled with drugs. Those proms attract investment growing quantities. Narcotics experts say that big drug Opium production is outlawed in funds from a variety of sources. Switz- dealers share something approaching a erland is so fretful about an influx of Burma, but Lo has what the State De- community spirit. On one occasion a partment describes as "a contract" with tainted narcotics money that the gov- trafficker loaned a competitor 20 "keys" ernment has announced a special drive the Burmese government: he keeps his (kilos of narcotics) in order to make up turf clear of Communist insurgents, and to screen numbered bank accounts for a shipment. The real common denom- illegal uses. While there is no financial the government allows him to deal in inator in the business is an addiction to opium as he pleases. Lo has had no trou- "octopus" for drug money in Switzer- immense profits. At the labs in Mar- land, there are ways in which capital ble in keeping up his end of the deal. seille, a dealer must shell out anywhere He maintains a private army of some flows into narcotics. Money invested in from $120,000 to $350,000 for 100 ki- clandestine companies registered in the 5,000 local tribesmen and deserters los of heroin refined from Turkish from Chiang Kai-shek's old Kuo- name of a "manufacturer's representa- opium. On delivery to a U.S. wholesal- tive" or "legal representative" often

Portrait of a Narc: Death Is Never Far Away

HE 1,610 agents of the Justice De- lives with his Italian-speaking wife Syl- Tpartment's Bureau of Narcotics and via and their three children in a com- Dangerous Drugs are the advance fortable Parisian suburb, In his current scouts and front-rank skirmishers in the role as deputy director of aNDD's key U.S.'s war on narcotics. The BNDD Region 17, which includes Marseille, agent's business is basically intelligence: Panella's wardrobe runs to sporty suits. he deals with small-time pushers and When he operated as an agent. he add- "mules" (couriers), as well as interna- ed a big pinky diamond and, frequent- tional traffickers, in any number of sit- ly, a cigar. "By the time you're through uations and any number of languages. with a case," he says, "you sometimes He must be, in short, the compleat narc. think you're a trafficker. You sure as Roughly 45% of the BNDErs agents hell look like one." are stationed abroad, in as many as 57 The toughest place Panella has countries. They sometimes operate out worked in was Turkey. Frequently he of a U.S. Embassy or consulate but they posed as a buyer and approached the have a passion for anonymity and in- wagon trains by which heavily armed dependence. If they work with anyone, Turkish opium farmers moved their it is the local narcotics agents—espe- wares at night. "1 never made a case in cially in France. French narcs, says one the interior when there wasn't shoot- U.S. agent. "work like we do. It's all in ing," Panella says, "but nobody ever got the approach. They will stay on the job hit. The confusion is unbelievable. You RAIDED LAB NEAR MARSEILLE 24 hours a day for as many days as it just close in when the time comes and "Chemists" turn morphine into heroin. takes to break a case." grab as many farmers as you can." At any one time, an agent may be "You're always nervous when it be- mintang 93rd Independent Division. working on a dozen cases spread out gins." says Panella. "You never get used Typically, the big-time operators over several countries. U.S. agents, with deal in more than just drugs. After they to those first few minutes—you know. budgets that are the envy of their for- with the guns and all that." The closest deliver their opium to smugglers on the eign counterparts, depend heavily on in- Thai border, Lo's huge caravans—of- call he has ever had was in Beirut, when formants. Such sources, who have led he arranged the bust of a small-time ten 200 mules and 200 porters, guard- the way to major busts, have been paid dealer. "We got to the building where I ed by 600 troops—frequently return to as much as $30,000—well over the av- Burma with contraband ranging from was going to pick up the stuff. The po- erage agent's annual salary. The over- lice were supposed to stay at the top of trucks and airplane parts to bolts of seas agent is usually careful to pass his cloth and auto engines. Lo, says one U.S. some long narrow stairs until I climbed information over to local authorities, up there with the trafficker. But they official. "doesn't go empty-handed ei- and let them make the bust. Abroad. started to come down too soon. I felt ther way." agents must not only be resourceful un- the automatic in my back. When I heard Similarly, drug traffickers in Uru- dercover operators but also diplomats, the hammer click, I dived forward and guay, Argentina, Peru and Brazil dab- especially in countries sensitive to U.S. prayed. There were bullets all around, ble on the side in cigarettes, TV sets. meddling in internal affairs. as usual, but none in me—or the smug- whisky, radios and watches. By some ac- • counts, French smugglers are into some- gler, for that matter. He got away." One such agent-diplomat is Nick Eleven BNDD agents have been thing far more complex. It is said that Panella. 39, a graduate of The Bronx, the SDECE, France's CIA, has quietly en- killed in the past four years. The chief Manhattan's Hunter College. and most occupational hazard is the "little guy," gaged Paris- and Marseille-based smug- of the world's drug trade centers: New who is apt to panic when he finds he glers to move arms to a number of Mid- York, Rome, Istanbul, Marseille, Mon- has been dealing with an agent. A reg- dle East countries. These secret arms treal and Paris. Dark and compact, Pan- ular trafficker would "just back off and shipments are said to enable France to ella describes his appearance as "the ste- split." says Panella. "These guys don't bolster its export arms industry and its reotype of the Italian wise ass"—a like messy stuff." They do not hesitate influence in the Middle East, while it distinct asset in the trade. "Up in East to rub out a suspected informer. continues to adhere publicly to its 1968 Harlem," he says, "nobody's going to in- total embargo on weapons sales to the Many agents admit a respect for troduce any bright-eyed, 6- ft. Ryan to "the other team." Says Panella: "It's belligerent nations of the region. The anybody worth talking to in drugs. But professional stuff. When you get them, theory goes that arms and ammunition I fit right in. They'll sell to someone who they know you've played a good hand. are turned over to established smugglers looks like me." When they get away, you know you've and shipped in compartments concealed Panella, who earns $25,000 a year, still got something to learn from them." TIME, SEPTEMBER 4, 1972 29 gued that the "only really effective way" to end the drug traffic is to end poppy cultivation. The U.S. already has sat- ellites in orbit that can locate poppy fields on the earth's surface. In The Pol- itics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, a new study that attempts, with only partial success, to blame U.S. policy for the vig- or of the world drug trade, Author Al- fred W. McCoy, a Yale graduate stu- dent. suggests that Washington might consider paying the hill peoples of the Golden Triangle area not to grow their poppies. If they were paid the going price in the area of $50 a kilo, by Mc- Coy's reckoning, the cost to the U.S. would be $50 million. Tough Strategy. But that is hard- ly realistic; the dollar has not always served the U.S. well in Indochina, and there is little reason its luck would be any better in the hills of Burma, where the poppy is deeply embedded in the local culture. What are the alternatives then? India. which dominates the world trade in legal opium used in medicine, is widely regarded as having one of the best control programs in the world. That is somewhat mythical. however. In New Delhi, there are 800 registered addicts, served by two government opium shops —but another 30,000 or so unregistered addicts can get opium under the coun- ter at tea stalls or from cigarette ven- dors in the city. The U.S. would hardly accept dras- tic measures like those of China, where opium dealers were shot on sight in the 1950s and 1960s, or Iran, which has a chronic addiction problem. In 1955, when that country was plagued with 2,000,000 addicts in a population of 25 million, the Shah ordered Iran's opium fields burned and addicts bused off to camps for a forced withdrawal pro- gram. Addiction dropped way down, but it was only a temporary reprieve. The addict population is back up to 400,000 and still climbing, even though Iranian troops regularly fight gun bat- tles with Turkish and Afghan opium smugglers along the borders. The U.S.'s war on heroin is only get- ting under way, and it is not without its critics, who variously contend that it is too little too late, and that the effort is diffused because some narcotics agents go after marijuana dealers with the same zeal they apply to the heroin traf- fic. Yet barring any unexpected devel- opments—an international agreement for a total ban on the poppy, say, or dis- covery of insects that attack the plant, or a medical breakthrough in treatment of addiction—the outlook is for a pro- tracted war. There will be little devi- ation from the present U.S. strategy of tough, front-door diplomacy with the countries along the drug supply lines and back-alley skirmishing with the traffickers. That strategy will not bring victory in the drug war, but even a draw would be a plus—provided that the re- spite is used to develop a social and ed- ucational approach to the problem of addiction.

TIME. SEPTEMBER 4, 1972