Julian Bond Alleged to Use Drug; Wife’s Story Probed

U.S. Atty. Richard L. Barr Jr. said Monday that his office has begun looking into allegations that former Georgia state Sen. Julian Bond and other prominent Atlantans have been involved in cocaine abuse.

Barr said that his office had received information concerning the allegations and “other related activities,” and is reviewing them for any violation of federal drug laws.

“I can’t comment specifically as to what those other activities are,” Barr said, “but we’re moving as quickly as possible because it’s the sort of matter that needs to be looked at and resolved quickly, one way or the other.”

The allegations against Bond, 47, a longtime civil rights activist who served in the Georgia Legislature for 20 years, surfaced in the combined Saturday editions of the Atlanta Journal and Atlanta Constitution. The newspapers reported that Bond’s estranged wife, Alice, had told Atlanta narcotics officers that her husband has had a cocaine problem since 1983, and that she could no longer tolerate it.

Changed Mind Later

In the same article, the papers also reported that Mrs. Bond, in a telephone interview, had recanted the allegations and said that she gave the police false information while she was “emotionally distraught.”

The Atlanta newspapers also had reported that the three officers who interviewed Mrs. Bond had been transferred out of narcotics, and that police were not pursuing the investigation.

A police spokesman who was questioned about the newspaper report said, however, that the matter was the subject of an ongoing investigation and that the officers’ transfers were unrelated to the Bond allegations.

In his announcement Monday, U.S. Atty. Barr would not name any individual other than Bond as alleged to have been using cocaine.

Neither of the Bonds could be reached for comment. They were married in 1961 and have five children, now ages 24 to 17. Several months ago, Bond moved into his mother’s house in Atlanta, and close friends say it was a first step toward divorce.

Bond’s name skyrocketed to national prominence during the tumultuous 1968 Democratic national convention in Chicago, when he was nominated for the vice presidency. He is the only black ever so honored.

In more than two decades of political life, however, he has reached no office higher than Georgia state senator. Last fall, he lost a bid for the Democratic nomination for Atlanta’s 5th District congressional seat to former Atlanta City Councilman John Lewis. During that campaign, Bond refused to submit to a drug use test, and dismissed the suggestion that he do so as political grandstanding.