OPEN LETTER: DANIEL FORBES RESPONDS TO RICHARD LINNETT

Advertising Age columnist Richard Linnett's article (6/10/02) on my
recently published work demands a response. He wrote of my months-long
study published by the Washington think tank, the Institute for Policy
Studies. It discusses the covert campaign - pursued by public employees
while on the clock - embarked on by the administration of Gov. Bob Taft
(R-OH) to defeat a treatment rather than incarceration initiative likely to
appear on the ballot in Ohio this November. It's modeled on a similar
ballot measure, Proposition 36, that passed overwhelmingly in California in
2000. Among other topics, the report discusses the supposedly apolitical
Partnership for a Drug-Free America's cooperation with the Taft
administration effort. Its URL: www.ips-dc.org/projects/drugpolicy/ohio.htm

The PDFA's PR chief, Steve Dnistrian is correct when Linnett quotes him
saying the PDFA did not actually create any advertising to influence state
elections. My report makes that clear. But his statement does not address
the fact that, in league with the Taft administration, the PDFA was up to
its eyebrows in planning how to do so.

First though, a certain slur demands to be addressed. Though never raising
the topic with me, Linnett blithely quotes Dnistrian: "Clearly, Dan is
smoking some of the wacky weed that he has a great affection for when he is
sitting down writing these things."

Dnistrian's McCarthyite attack demands either evidence that I produce my
work under the influence of "wacky weed" (how precious, how positively
fey), or an apology and a retraction from both the PDFA and Ad Age. On what
basis does Dnistrian make this accusation? More to the point, on what basis
does a presumably responsible reporter give credence to the obviously
absurd notion that Dnistrian has any idea whatsoever of my work habits?
Just because a PR guy at an organization I write about makes an ad hominem
attack, is that alone reason enough to print it? It's not incumbent on the
reporter to offer me a chance to respond? Do his editors exercise no
fact-checking authority? Do Ad Age's lawyers know this?

All the PDFA has in its corner is smear and attempted character
assassination. Dnistrian's slur just underscores the cheapness of its
response. It's classic PR: attack the journalist personally, deflect
attention, obfuscate.

Let me state that a tightly focused, approximately 22,000 word monograph is
the product of hard work and indignation at taxpayer-funded subversion of
democracy in this country. No more, no less.

Of course, Linnett cites my work in High Times. But he neglects to mention
Rolling Stone, Salon, The Village Voice or Alternet. That said, my HT's
articles meet the same standards that have been recognized with awards from
a chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Columbia
Graduate School of Journalism/Online News Association. My work has also
engendered congressional hearings on the White House anti-drug media
campaign; I testified before both the Senate and the House.

Linnett writes there's "not a whiff of a smoking gun in the [ISP] report
other than some publicly available transcripts of meetings between the
alleged conspirators ... " That's plain silly, since the entire report is
based on FOI-ed documents from the offices of Gov. Bob Taft, the First Lady
and his cabinet officials. Oddly enough, Linnett adds that no one returned
my calls. Actually, I quote extensively from an interview with Taft cabinet
member Domingo Herraiz, who runs Ohio's criminal justice department.

Linnett points out correctly that there is no ad campaign -- I never said
there was one. My report focused, in part, on the PDFA's overt, manifest
willingness to insert itself into a state election in Ohio.

The PDFA's intent is indicated by the fact it sent its four top executives
to a meeting last July to formulate plans to defeat the proposed treatment
initiative. Ohio's first lady and two Taft cabinet members participated in
this strategy session, which was held in the U.S. Capitol building itself
and hosted by a senior U.S. Senate staffer. Employing the canard that the
treatment initiative is de facto decriminalization, in a letter on PDFA
letterhead confirming the four executives' attendance, the PDFA's Director
of Operations, Michael Y. Townsend, termed it a "counter-legalization
brainstorm session." Only nuts-and-bolts planning would justify sending
four top men rather than one or two; the four traveled to Washington in
July to discuss strategy and tactics, not generic politics.

Along with getting a simple fact like the date of my original Salon series
wrong, Linnett misquotes me to the effect that the PDFA hasn't returned my
phone calls in five years. Well, five years ago I was happily unaware of
the PDFA's machinations; they've been ducking interviews only since my
original Salon stories broke some two years ago. As I wrote in the ISP
report: "With all the evidence scattered in black and white throughout the
Taft administration's plans that the PDFA was willing to meddle in Ohio's
election, it declined speaking to a reporter who has studied the documents.
Rather, in a transparent ploy, the PDFA declared it would speak only to my
editor, who - having blissfully not spent months delving into this miasma
- -- would be less likely to identify any ... inoperative statements."

As a matter of fact, when I made my several requests to the PDFA for
comment, I didn't even have an editor. I typically embark on these long
investigations on spec since I feel they make a contribution to discussion
of public policy. I figure if I nail it, they'll find a home somewhere, and
I often attempt placing them only on completion.

Permit some choice excerpts from my IPS report proving the supposedly
apolitical PDFA's full involvement in the Taft scheme, material that
Linnett was directed to but chose to totally ignore.

Discussing last July's Capitol building strategy session, Hope Taft wrote
her husband and his chief of staff about gathering "a group of people to
see how some of the national groups like ... PDFA, etc. can develop PSAs
that highlight the best aspects of the current drug court system." Such
PSAs, of course, would sway Ohio voters in favor of the status quo.
[Emphasis added.]

Marcie Seidel, Hope Taft's chief of staff, generated a set of minutes from
this D.C. session. In boldface, she wrote: "Partnership for Drug Free
America is to present a couple page concept on how they can help." Seidel
added: "PDFA can do educational PSAs starting now [July, 2001] about
success stories of people who were required to get treatment. Ohio has
enough treatment systems to do this type of campaign. They could start
these educational PSAs before the political season begins." Seidel also
wrote: "We have two media tracks: 1) the Partnership's educational,
nonpolitical piece and 2) the political ads to get out the vote."

Yet, given their genesis and intent, calling the first set of ads
nonpolitical is absurd; indeed, so-called PSAs lend themselves to any
number of political applications.

In a summary of the D.C. session written by its host, U.S. Senate staffer
William Olson (and sent to Hope Taft), Olson referred to participants'
debate over competing proposals: whether to offer "a counter-initiative
that tried to take the wind out of the legalization proposal; or ... a more
straightforward effort to kill the initiative." Olson wrote that "the PDFA
participants strongly favored" the ameliorative counter-initiatve, but that
a more strident participant [Betty Sembler, the wife of the chair of the
Republican National Committee's finance committee from 1997 to 2000] did
not. This indicates the PDFA was involved with fundamental,
fork-in-the-road planning.

Taft cabinet member Domingo Herraiz's Office of Criminal Justice Services
generated a four-page, single-spaced document entitled "Potential Ohio
Strategies for a Proactive Approach to Prop 36." A total of 17 strategies
fell under the heading, "Public Relations/Media," including, "Develop
Public Service Announcement -- before the actual campaign begins in order
to promote what is being done and the benefit of treatment -- partner with
the Partnership for a Drug-Free America."

In a formal interview, Herraiz told me, "I had the intent to talk to the
Partnership to identify what to do in Ohio." He also told me, "The PDFA was
slated to produce ads on the benefits of treatment. There's nothing illegal
regarding their 501(c)3 [tax] status." Asked whether such ads on treatment
rather than prevention would be a significant departure from the PDFA's
almost single-minded focus on prevention, Herraiz said they're "talking of
branching out to treatment and drug courts."

That is certainly news to this and other observers I quote in the ISP report.

Herraiz told me about "discussions with the PDFA on how to market the
message of treatment." But he added that any such ads would not be
"political." He said, "If the Partnership had generic PSAs [on treatment]
we would encourage that they run in Ohio." Notice that "if": apparently
Herraiz has never seen any PDFA ads on treatment either, and he's worked in
the field a long time. The Taft administration, he said, would "write a
letter of support to local TV stations encouraging using such ads."

Last summer, Herraiz wrote an anti-initiative strategy bible entitled, the
"Playbook." It contains a few more PDFA smoking guns. Under its dual
headings of "Information Campaign" and "Message Marketing," we find Task
Number 2: "Develop Public Service Announcement." The two steps to achieving
that goal are: "Contact and confirm meeting with Partnership for a
Drug-Free America" and "Meet to discuss creation of a PSA promoting Ohio
Drug Reform message." This last referring to the Taft counter-initiative
effort, the indicated resources are the PDFA, the governor's office and two
Taft cabinet departments.

An additional Playbook Task, slated for February, 2002, is "Develop PSA,
with run time concentration only days before election." The corresponding
resource is listed as the PDFA. Now, an ad buy concentrated "only days"
before an election has an irreducibly political intent. The Playbook, the
administration's formal plan of action, underscores the administration's
understanding, following their meeting, of the PDFA's political involvement.

But then the PDFA has had a covert political intent for years. As disclosed
in Salon (7/27/00) in, Fighting "Cheech & Chong" Medicine -- the phrase is
Clinton Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey's -- the initial five-year, White House
media campaign was engendered at a meeting McCaffrey convened in Washington
nine days after medical marijuana initiatives passed in Arizona and
California in 1996. Minutes of the meeting reveal that some forty officials
and private sector executives met to discuss the need for taxpayer-funded
messages to thwart any potential medical marijuana initiatives in the other
48 states and perhaps even roll back the two that had just passed. They
included two policy advisors from the Clinton White House, the head of the
DEA, representatives of the FBI, Departments of Justice, Health and Human
Services, Treasury and Education, along with state law enforcement
personnel. One private participant was quoted in the meeting's minutes as
saying, "We'll work with Arizona and California to undo it and stop the
spread of legalization to [the] other 48 states."

PDFA executive vice-president Michael Townsend attended both McCaffrey's
1996 strategy session and Olson's meeting in Washington last July. He was
quoted as telling McCaffrey's meeting, " 'National Partnership [PDFA]
concerned about what they can do about spending $ to influence
legislation.' " In the notes' clipped parlance, Townsend was also quoted as
saying that "the effort required '$175 million. Try to get fedl [sic] $.' "
Not coincidentally, $175 million was the budget the media campaign's
backers, among them, PDFA chairman James E. Burke, first proposed to
Congress. (Congress later boosted the figure, not least by demanding a
half-priced, two-for-one deal from the media.)

As I wrote in Salon: "PDFA president [in 1996] Richard Bonnette laid out
the challenge to the group. 'We lost Round I - no coordinated communication
strategy. Didn't have media,' the notes quote Bonnette telling his
colleagues. One participant not clearly identified in the notes asked the
gathering, 'Who will pay for national sound bites? Campaign will require
serious media and serious $.' "