The Nation - News from Sept. 22, 1989

Federal agents had to manipulate a drug dealer into selling them crack cocaine in a park across from the White House so President Bush could show the drug on television and say that’s where it came from, the Washington Post said in today’s editions. The park, Lafayette Park, is not a usual drug market. The suspect, who still hasn’t been arrested, already had sold crack to agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration elsewhere in Washington, the newspaper reported. The sale of three ounces of crack was consummated on Sept. 1, four days before Bush held up a plastic bag and told viewers: “This is crack cocaine. It was seized a few days ago in a park across the street from the White House.”