Ronald Reagan’s FBI
By Gary Aldrich (06/16/04)
Those who worked for President Ronald Reagan have their own perspective on the man and his administration, and I have mine. I was an FBI agent who served many presidents, including Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Ronald Reagan. I saw the FBI flourish under Reagan’s vision, and founder under Democrats Carter and Clinton. The FBI’s reputation suffered major blows when Democrats were in office.
Did the FBI’s reputation suffer because they discovered intelligence agency abuses and missteps on their watch? More accurately, the assets and resources of this important law enforcement agency were misused and abused by Carter and Clinton’s Attorneys General.
Consider this: when President George H.W. Bush left office, drug use among our youth was at an all time low. The decline is credited to law enforcement policies set into motion by Ronald and Nancy Reagan’s “just say no” public service announcements.
Remember when singer and Carter friend Willie Nelson boasted that he “smoked dope” in the Carter White House with administration higher-ups? Or, how about Clinton’s bragging to the nation’s youth that he had smoked marijuana but never inhaled? His wink at recreational drug use downplayed a significant societal crisis, which, many argue, contributed to a spike in the number of kids taking drugs. In an MTV interview, Clinton said that he may have used drugs more if he had been given the opportunity.
Bill Clinton’s “best political friend” Dan Lasiter went to federal prison for selling cocaine, and so did Clinton’s brother, Roger. Clinton gave a strong signal to the nation relative to his stance on the use of illegal drugs by giving presidential pardons to serious drug dealers when he left office. Dan Lasiter was the recipient of one of those pardons.
If Reagan’s record on cutting drug use doesn’t impress you, consider child porn. Under Carter, the Mafia had seized control of the nation’s porn production and distribution. When Reagan took office, Attorney General Ed Meese, with the president’s encouragement and support, set about to rid the nation of these depraved criminals and accomplished much in eight years.
Soon, dozens of Mafioso defendants were arrested by the FBI, and taken directly to jail. Their businesses and profits were seized, and millions of video tapes – many of which depicted youngsters engaged in forced sexual activity – were confiscated and destroyed. When Bush took office he supported Reagan’s anti-porn policies. Momentum was maintained, and a program on its way to wiping out child pornography continued.
Child pornography and drug use were not priorities for Attorney General Janet Reno or the Clinton administration. As a result, these and other societal scourges proliferated. Everyone knows that sexual child abuse and rape occur as a direct result of watching sexually explicit, and often violent, material. But while Reno and Clinton mouthed words about saving women and children, they had other ideas of how to proceed. While Reno fiddled, spending time fretting about overzealous Christians in Waco, the porn dealers regrouped, and started peddling their trash on the Internet.
Reno directed the FBI’s scarce resources to follow around church goers who had been compelled to protest partial birth abortion. Somehow these gentle souls posed a greater threat to our society than drug dealers or child pornographers, but only Bill Clinton and Janet Reno know why, and they’re not talking.
Ronald Reagan took the high road and believed we could fight these social viruses. Our current president, George Bush, seems to share many of Reagan’s visions. He’s cut slimy crooks off at the pass on Internet distribution of child pornography, and drug use among our youth is once again on the decline.
Is President Bush another Reagan? Is John Ashcroft a clone of Edwin Meese? No, I don’t think these two worthy men can ever be duplicated, but President Bush, along with Attorney General Ashcroft and a reform-minded FBI Director are clearly working to repair the FBI’s reputation and performance.
Ronald Reagan is once again serving his nation, this time with his passing. Recent reflections on his administration remind us how great Americans can be, and how a man of vision and great leadership can heal a nation’s wounds. A moral president who possesses leadership qualities can also steer us away from the dark-side of our humanness. President Bush may be just such a man. I know the FBI agents like him.
Maybe the magic's in the cowboy boots.
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