Swift Approval Seen for Drug Czar

When President Clinton introduced the Army’s most decorated senior officer as his new drug czar during last month’s State of the Union address, his choice of Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey seemed a masterstroke to blunt rising Republican criticism of his antinarcotics efforts.

“They needed somebody who really would be symbolic of a big fight on this problem, and even though he’ll be retired, somebody whose first name is ‘General’ is a great way to do it,” a Clinton administration drug official said.

Even Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), in a recent speech, departed from an otherwise blistering attack on the administration’s antidrug efforts to praise the general’s nomination as a sign that Clinton might be moving in the right direction--provided it was not just election-year politics.

So the usual partisan fireworks will probably be missing Tuesday when Hatch’s committee holds its confirmation hearing for McCaffrey, who appears headed for quick Senate approval as director of the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy. That, combined with commitments McCaffrey won from Clinton upon accepting the job, suggests he will be in a stronger position to direct the federal antidrug program than any drug czar since the first, William J. Bennett, used it seven years ago as a bully pulpit to marshal resources and capture public attention.

McCaffrey was chosen by Clinton too late to have much official influence over antidrug strategy, which must be submitted to Congress next month, or the president’s decision on Friday on which countries linked to major narcotics production and shipping are taking effective countermeasures.

But as head of the U.S. Southern Command, which comprises all of the Western Hemisphere south of Mexico, he supervised more than 15% of the Pentagon’s antidrug budget, seeking to interdict cocaine and heroin as traffickers moved them north.

In preparing to take the Southern Command post in February 1994, McCaffrey spent an entire night riding with New York narcotics officers in the drug-infested, high-crime University Heights section of the Bronx.

“He wanted to get a feel for it in an American urban center,” said Robert Gelbard, assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs. “I was very impressed by that.”

Gelbard, who described the nomination as great, said McCaffrey told him he expected 75% to 80% of his new job to be in the United States, where he would confront the need to reduce demand for drugs and to improve coordination of efforts against drug-trafficking organizations.

McCaffrey has won a commitment from Clinton to restore the size of his staff to “something over 100,” one source said, from its present level of 45. During his first months in office, Clinton cut the ground out from under Lee P. Brown, his first drug czar, by reducing the drug office’s staff from 146 to 25.

Following a Washington practice of declining interviews until his confirmation, McCaffrey has not spelled out what he will push for in the way of changed tactics. But in remarks to the Heritage Foundation here 12 days before Clinton announced his nomination, McCaffrey made it clear that while he did not favor the military taking over the war on drugs, he thought some changes were overdue.

“We lack an international coalition to address the drug problem. We lack effective coordination among all the agencies that are struggling to deal with this problem. But we are working on it.”

Times staff writer Art Pine contributed to this story.