UMBERG ASSUMES POST OF DEPUTY U.S. DRUG CZAR

The former assemblyman will concentrate on reducing smuggling.

Former Orange County Assemblyman Tom Umberg, after unanimous confirmation
by the Senate on Thursday, has become President Clinton's deputy drug czar
in charge of stemming the flow of drugs into the country.

Umberg, who will travel to Mexico on Sunday for his first trip abroad in
the new post, will develop and coordinate plans to halt foreign drug
production and smuggling.

"We have been successful so far," said Umberg, who had been special adviser
to drug czar Barry McCaffrey for several months. "Now we have to reach our
goal, which is to reduce the supply of drugs by 50 percent over the next 10
years."

Umberg, who ran Clinton's reelection campaign in California, is the only
Orange County resident serving in the Clinton administration.

Umberg, 42, is a former assistant U.S. attorney based in Santa Ana,
prosecuting drug and civil rights cases and white-collar crime. He left
that job when he beat incumbent Assemblyman Curt Pringle in 1990 and became
the first Orange County Democrat to defeat an incumbent Republican in 14
years.

He left the Assembly in 1994 for an unsuccessful bid at state attorney
general and has been a partner in the law firm of Morrison & Foerster for
the past three years, working out of the firm's Irvine office. He has a
home in Villa Park.

"It's an honor to be able to play a role in keeping drugs away from
America's young people," Umberg said.