Customs Chief Will Go Out Fighting : He Says ‘Dithering’ Officials Hamper Anti-Drug Efforts

In farewell salvos today, departing U.S. Customs Commissioner William von Raab plans to step up his assault on “wimps” at the State Department and “dithering” officials at the Treasury and Justice departments who have opposed his anti-drug efforts.

Von Raab, whose eight years as customs chief have been marked by controversial initiatives and combative rhetoric, also plans to assail “free-wheeling licensing gurus” at the Commerce Department who have let U.S. firms sell high-technology equipment to communist countries.

“Too often those in the lower echelons of Commerce were apologists for the high-tech bandits, and those in the ranks of State were conscientious objectors in the war against drugs,” Von Raab charges in the text of a speech that he plans to give at a ceremony on the Washington Mall marking the 200th anniversary of the Customs Service.

‘Top Priority’

And in a letter being sent to President Bush, Von Raab says that it is “time for the war on drugs to take its place as our nation’s top priority,” even if it interferes with “State Department bureaucrats’ quest to make the world safe for cocktail parties.”

Copies of Von Raab’s 20-page speech and four-page letter to Bush were obtained by The Times.

During his tenure as head of the U.S. Customs Service, Von Raab transformed the agency from a routine checker of cargo and luggage into an aggressive antagonist of drug smugglers and exporters of military contraband.

‘Little Caesar’

Called “Little Caesar” by some critics, the feisty 5-foot, 2-inch attorney has been quick to criticize others. Three years ago, he accused Mexican law enforcement officials of massive corruption, bringing howls of protest from the Mexican government and causing U.S. officials to issue a series of apologies and clarifications.

In his letter to Bush, Von Raab blasted the “political jockeying, back-stabbing and malaise” that he said frustrated his own drug-fighting efforts and threaten a plan being drawn up by William J. Bennett, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

The controversial commissioner told Bush that he is formally resigning as of today. Actually, he resigned in January at the request of Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady, who has the power to appoint and fire the customs commissioner. But Brady told him that he could stay until the bicentennial observance, a source said. Bush, while noting that Von Raab had “worked very hard,” suggested that he was irritated with the commissioner for “assigning blame to people that are trying hard.”

Managers, Not Leaders

Von Raab reserved some of his harshest criticism for Justice Department officials, charging, for example, that they had torpedoed his “zero tolerance” policy designed to prosecute even small-time drug traffickers.

“Why don’t our U.S. attorneys bring these criminals before the courts? Because they have no zeal,” Von Raab says in the speech text. “They are managing their offices, not leading.”

David Runkel, a spokesman for Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh, acknowledged a disdain for the zero tolerance concept.

“I don’t think any serious person has suggested that the federal government’s responsibility in the drug war should be on the occasional user or even the street trafficker,” Runkel said. “Our responsibility is to go after the major national and international traffickers.”

A high-level Justice official, who requested anonymity, called Von Raab “a publicity-seeking hot dog . . . a cowboy.”

Spokesmen for the State and Commerce departments refused to comment on Von Raab’s criticism of their operations.

‘Tapestry Syndrome’

In the speech text, Von Raab complains that “many in government see issues linked as if they were a tapestry. They think that undoing a single knot would unleash a whole panoply of problems that would destroy the very fabric of the Republic.”

This “tapestry syndrome” has bedeviled him often, he will say. When he virtually halted the entry of cars across the Mexican border to protest the murder of a U.S. drug enforcement agent in Mexico, “the State Department said that I would jeopardize our foreign relations--that Mexico might not pay back its loans to U.S. banks or might even turn communist,” Von Raab said.

On another occasion, Von Raab ordered the embargo of imported goods made by “slave labor” in Siberian prison camps. “Immediately, the State Department was on the telephone saying that shutting off such trade from the Soviet Union would jeopardize the upcoming summit talks,” he says. “That’s the tapestry syndrome.”

Now, he adds, that same syndrome has led to measures aimed at preventing officials such as himself from taking “bold steps” unilaterally.

“A formal mechanism has been established to ‘coordinate and consult’ before any serious anti-drug action is taken,” Von Raab says. “And coordinate means defer , refer until all agencies concur --which means never for tough, bold actions against drugs. It’s a bureaucratic graveyard.”