First Lady Is Honored by Italian Drug Center : Her Efforts Lead to Drive on Smugglers

In an indication of Nancy Reagan’s influence on her husband, President Reagan on Friday persuaded his six summit colleagues here to order their foreign ministers to develop a cooperative plan for cracking down on international drug smugglers.

The action surprised the foreign ministers and their aides, who, during many weeks of preparation for the annual economic summit conference, had never expected drug trafficking to become a major item on the agenda.

U.S. officials said some of the heads of state reported being influenced by their wives, who had attended a First Ladies’ “drug summit” organized by Mrs. Reagan last week in Washington.

“It may very well be that one of the most important people (at) this meeting is not here--namely, Nancy Reagan,” Secretary of State George P. Shultz told reporters. A few hours earlier, the First Lady had visited a drug rehabilitation center outside of Rome.

Nancy Reagan became deeply involved in the battle against drug and alcohol abuse early in the President’s first term. Reagan advisers privately credit this campaign with having submerged the image she initially acquired as First Lady, which they regarded as “too imperial.”

She has traveled 60,000 miles to 44 cities and 27 states on her crusade--but some of her most effective work has been done in the family quarters of the White House. “This has become an issue that is very personal to the President,” said an adviser, speaking with the understanding he would not be identified.

And so it was that the President, seizing on a lull in the conversation, quickly turned the summit leaders’ attention to international drug smuggling during their first dinner meeting here Thursday night.

Actually, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had provided Reagan with the opportunity by turning to him and asking how his wife’s drug conference had gone. The leaders then spent about an hour discussing the tragedy of drug abuse, according to U.S. and British officials.

Main Dinner Topic

“It was by far the topic that occupied most of the dinner discussion,” White House spokesman Larry Speakes said.

Friday morning, according to Speakes and other presidential aides, Reagan called his senior staff together at the castle were he is staying just outside Bonn to enthusiastically report on the previous night’s conversation. Reagan told his dinner companions, Speakes said, that “international drug trafficking requires international cooperation if we are to make progress combatting it.”

The President told his aides, Speakes said, that “never have I seen all my summit partners so united and determined on a single subject.”

Shultz made the topic a formal agenda item later Friday at a meeting of the foreign ministers. In the end, he said, the ministers “picked up another assignment” from the heads of state--to develop a cooperative plan to be voted on at next year’s economic summit in Tokyo.

Thatcher Is Concerned

“That doesn’t mean we will be waiting until next year to do anything about the problem,” said Bernard Ingham, Thatcher’s chief press spokesman. “The prime minister is very concerned about this whole problem.”

A U.S. senior official, talking to reporters on condition that he not be identified, said “in some ways, this is the most interesting development in (the summit) discussions. We’ve already made a good deal of progress in just raising the international consciousness on this subject. It’s something that those of us who were charged with preparing the political discussions of the summit had not anticipated.”

“The President obviously is gratified,” said an anonymous White House official. “He and Nancy worship each other.”