WALTER CRONKITE RECOGNIZED FAILED WARS

Everyone knows Walter Cronkite was "the most trusted man in America"
and someone whose rare expressions of personal opinion -- such as on
the Vietnam War -- could powerfully influence the views of middle
America. But fewer are aware of a passion of his that he came to
relatively late in life -- ending the nation's disastrous war on drugs.

I first learned of Walter Cronkite's interest in the drug war back in
1995, when a producer for "The Cronkite Report" -- an occasional
series on the Discovery Channel -- called to ask for my help on a
documentary that he and Cronkite were doing on the drug war. The one
hour report that resulted provided a devastating critique of the
nation's drug policies.

Focusing on the lives of three women who had been sentenced to many
years in Bedford Hills prison in New York, the program revealed the
utter waste of human lives and taxpayer dollars that define the drug
war. Neither Cronkite nor the women involved suggested that they had
done nothing wrong. But the extraordinary lengths of the prison terms
to which they had been sentenced, for relatively minor participation
in the illicit sale of drugs, combined with the impact on their
children and families, and the absurd amount of money being spent to
punish rather than help and treat -- all this shaped Cronkite's
devastating indictment of the drug war.

Walter Cronkite got it -- and he got it early. He knew a failed war
when he saw one.

Then in 1998, he joined other prominent individuals in signing a
public letter to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan that
stated: "We believe that the global war on drugs is now causing more
harm than drug abuse itself."

Two women played a pivotal role in Cronkite's involvement thereafter
with my organization, the Drug Policy Alliance. The first was Marlene
Adler, his longtime assistant, who appreciated Walter's commitment to
this issue. And the second was Dr. Mathilde Krim, a friend and
neighbor of the Cronkites in New York, the founder and co-chair of
amfAR, the HIV/AIDS research and advocacy organization, and a board
member of the Drug Policy Alliance. It was with Mathilde's and
Marlene's assistance that Walter agreed both to join the alliance's
honorary board and sign the fundraising letter that has helped the
group recruit tens of thousands of new members.

He wrote: "I remember. I covered the Vietnam War. I remember the lies
that were told, the lives that were lost -- and the shock when, 20
years after the war ended, former Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara
admitted he knew it was a mistake all along.

"Today, our nation is fighting two wars: one abroad and one at home.
While the war in Iraq is in the headlines, the other war is still
being fought on our own streets. Its casualties are the wasted lives
of our own citizens.

"I am speaking of the war on drugs.

"And I cannot help but wonder how many more lives, and how much more
money, will be wasted before another Robert McNamara admits what is
plain for all to see: the war on drugs is a failure.

"While the politicians stutter and stall -- while they chase their
losses by claiming we could win this war if only we committed more
resources, jailed more people and knocked down more doors -- the Drug
Policy Alliance continues to tell the American people the truth --
'the way it is.'","

I once asked Walter -- at a dinner at Mathilde's home a few years ago
- -- whether he had ever tried marijuana. As I recall, he laughed and
said not exactly, except for the "contact high" he might have gotten
around CBS's offices back in the 1960s, when smoking was still allowed
and not everything smoked was tobacco.

But of course the issue for him was never about the drugs. What
mattered was intellectual honesty, sensible moral judgment and the
obligation to speak truth to power, no matter how unwelcome or
inconvenient that truth might be.