LETTER TO HONORABLE RICHARD HELMS FROM JOHN H. HUGHES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP73B00296R000300060005-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 6, 2004
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: May 20, 1971
• Content Type: LETTER

25X1A
25X1A
Approv
DATE
2
CIA-RDP731300
96R0
TO:
ROOM NO. BUILDING
REMARKS:
FROM:
ROOM NO. EXTEN
FORM RM NO -24 1 REPLACES FORM 36-8 FEB 55 WHICH MAY BE USED.
CRC, 6/5/2003
Approved For Release 2004/03/17 : CIA-RDP73B00296R000300060005-8
 25X1A
25X1A
S ER I L CH IC
~
99
69
2
ON -PEN
TIMC
-r -
1
-
MR
OFFICIAL ROUTING SLIP
T
NAME AND ADDRESS
DATE
INITIALS
I
Mr. John Maury
2
3
4
5
6
ACTION
DIRECT REPLY
PREPARE REPLY
APPROVAL
DISPATCH
RECOMMENDATION
COMMENT
FILE
RETURN
CONCURRENCE
FORMATION
SIGNATURE
Remarks :
FOLD HERE TO RETURN TO SENDER
FROM: NAME, ADDRESS AND PHONE NO.
DATE
Office of the Director _
II
26/5/71
UNCLASSIFIED CONFIDENTIAL
SECRET
FORM NO. 237 Use previous editions
1-67
Approved For Release 2004/03/17 : CIA-RDP73B00296R000300060005-8
0005-8
 Approved For Release 2004/03/17 : CIA-RDP73B00296R000300060005-8
JOHN H. HUGHES
45?- DISTRICT
CHAIRMAN
COMMITTEE ON JUDICIARY
THE SENATE
STATE OF NEW YORK
ALBANY
MAY 20, 1971
HONORABLE RICHARD HELMS
Director, Central Intelligence
Agency
The Capitol
Washington, D. C. 20000
Enclosed please find Concurrent Resolution
No. 141 passed by the Senate and Assembly of New
York State on May 13, 1971. A copy of this
Resolution with an attached letter has been sent
to each member of the United States Congress.
In view of the importance of the subject
treated in the letter and in the Resolution, I
thought you might appreciate a copy of each.
Respectfully yours,
Approved For Release 2004/03/17 : CIA-RDP73B00296R000300060005-8
 Approved For Release 2004/03/17 : CIA-RDP73B00296R000300060005-8
JOHN H. HUGHES
48?i DISTRICT
CHAIRMAN
COMMITTEE ON JUDICIARY
THE SENATE
STATE OF NEW YORK
ALBANY
I have enclosed for your advice concurrent
Resolution No. 141 passed by the Senate and Assembly of
this state on May 13, 1971. Essentially the Resolution
calls upon the Congress of the United States to use every
resource at its command to insure the destruction of the
1971 Turkish opium poppy crop.
After twenty-five years as a member of the Senate
of the State of New York, I am not so naive as to assume that
this, or any other state, memorializing Resolution to Congress
can alone be considered as an effective instrument to move
your august body. However, such resolutions do possess those
qualities necessary to an efficient vehicle for gaining your
attention.
As a sponsor of the subject Resolution as well
as the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and addi-
tionally Chairman of the Joint Legislative Committee on Crime
Its Causes, Control and Effect on Society, I felt that you
would be benefitted by an explanation of the crisis which
prompted this unique Resolution.
Heroin addiction in this State has reached such
critical proportions that I feel that if permitted to increase
at its present rate for even one year more that New York
State would have to come to grips with the very real possi-
bility of a governmental emergency of massive proportions.
So pervasive has this crisis of addiction become that it is
Approved For Release 2004/03/17 : CIA-RDP73B00296R000300060005-8
 Approved For Release 2004/03/17 : CIA-RDP73B00296R000300060005-8
difficult, if not impossible, to conceive of any serious
problem confronting the state not excerbated by it. I
fully appreciate that the arithmetic of addicts, addiction,
costs of drugs, etc., have been cited so often that much of
their significance is lost through their insistent repetition.
Aware of this, permit me to briefly define the boundaries of
the problem.
The fifty-two thousand identifiable heroin addicts
in New York City in 1968 grew, by 1971, to 103,000. Translated
into phases of the crisis of addiction, 103,000 identifiable
heroin addicts equals a criminal court system which is collap-
sing under the weight of 30,000 felony narcotic arrests in
1970 and which arrests are growing at a rate of 44% annually.
It means a narcotic addict rehabilitation program costing over
one hundred million dollars a year and which program rehabili-
tates less than five percent of our addicts and is able to
treat less than ten percent. It means a welfare program bur-
dened with 15,000 addicts at a cost of fifty million dollars
each year. It means a public school system about to be overcome
by the very magnitude of the number of addicted students. It
means an emergency situation in housing caused by the abandonment
of habitable buildings as a result of their virtual takeover
by addicts as places for indulgence. It means the erosion o
confidence of our citizens in the entire law enforcement es-
tablishment stemming from the increasing public exposure of
corruption. It means an infection in our young people so
virulent that death from overdosage of natcotics has become
the greatest single cause of death in our 15 to 25 year old age
group.
The litany of the problems of the crisis of
addiction is complemented by a similar litany of our efforts
to relieve the crisis. In the past 20 years we have increased
both maximum and mandatory-minimum imposable sentences for
drug sellers. In fact our state now permits a life sentence
for some heroin violators. Additionally, we have augmented
local police efforts with state police reinforcements. We
have added to our criminal court bench. We have supported
our prosecutors with a totally state subsidized special pro-
secutor for organized crime. We have enacted "stop and frisk"
Approved For Release 2004/03/17 : CIA-RDP73B00296R000300060005-8
 Approved For Release~2004/03/17 : CIA-RDP73B00296R000300060005-8
legislation, "no-knock" search warrants as well as providing
for eavesdropping and wiretapping, all these restrictions
on our freedom initiated largely by the crisis of addiction.
In a word our citizens have sacrificed both their
treasure and their freedom to stem this flood. Our efforts
have failed and no present proposal now available to our
state offers any greater promise of success. The crisis of
addiction has reached Constitutional dimensions which the
United States Congress will choose to ignore at its peril.
We must stop the flow of heroin this year. The only means
with any hope of success is to destroy the present opium
poppy crop. This crop is now growing in Turkey. Opium,
the only base for heroin, is not grown in any amount meaning-
ful to us anywhere else in the world. If the 1971 Turkish
poppy crop is destroyed I assure you New York State will not
have a crisis of addiction in 6 months.
No consideration, including the placing in jeopardy
of our existing military airfields, radar sites, and electronic
surveillance outposts in Turkey approaches the danger to which
our national interest will be exposed if the crisis of addiction
is permitted to continue unabated for even one more year. It
is my judgment that despite our presently existing acute fiscal
crisis, the dimensions of addiction are such that our state
would be willing to underwrite the expense of the program of
destruction called for in the Resolution, if an unwillingness
to incur such expense would be used as an excuse by the federal
government to avoid taking action.
I have been made aware of various bills now
pending in Congress which call for the cessation of all foreign
aid to any country failing to cooperate fully and completely
with the control of illicit traffic in heroin. I reject such
proposals as being worse than useless, since not only are they
foredoomed but they have the additional and possibly greater
evil of raising the hopes of the affected public by offering
a shadow of a program, with no substance.
Accordingly, while we are requesting the destruction
of the 1971 poppy crop we do not suggest limits to the alterna-
tive means available to our government in executing such a
Approved For Release 2004/03/17 : CIA-RDP73B00296R000300060005-8
 Approved For Release 2004/03/17 : CIA-RDP73B00296R000300060005-8
program. However, if it is believed that the suspension
of foreign aid can be effective in persuading the Turkish
government to undertake and support such a program then
the only legislation which could be considered credible
would be that calling for our immediate suspension of all
aid unless the 1971 opium crop were destroyed before harvest.
Let me assure you, with humility, and good wishes
that the Legislature of the State of New York, could not be
more serious than it is in demanding the action by the Congress
called for in our Resolution. It would be folly to be mis-
led by the reasonableness of the tone of the subject Resolution
into a belief that the Legislature is prepared to dismiss its
obligations with regard to the destruction of the opium poppy
crop merely with this Resolution. We anticipate and anxiously
await Congressional proposals in response to our Resolution.
Respectfully yours,
\ JOHN H. HUGHES
Chairman
Approved For Release 2004/03/17 : CIA-RDP73B00296R000300060005-8