190. Letter From President Ford to Mexican President Echeverría1 2
Dear Mr. President:
I very much appreciate your letter concerning our mutual efforts to deal with the tragic problem of drug abuse which affects so many citizens of both our nations. I welcome your initiative and view it as a most important proposal.
I have directed my staff to consider on an urgent basis the most effective way to collaborate closely with the commission and executive committee you are establishing in Mexico. Your idea of parallel and similar organizations seems appropriate to our mutual desire to increase the effectiveness of our cooperation.
As you suggest, the initiative should be understood as a development that can enhance the measures our governments are presently taking, both separately and together. Our short-term success in reducing the critical narcotics problem now confronting us depends in large part on the vigor with which we pursue efforts already underway. This new initiative will strengthen our cooperation over the longer term. I am heartened by reports of the intensive activities currently being carried out by your government and look forward to continuing progress.
For our part, I have formed a task force under the direction of the White House to improve our own effectiveness in dealing with the narcotics traffic coming into the United States from Mexico and the contraband moving from the United States into Mexico. These matters, it seems to me, might be subjects of mutual interest appropriate for our governments to take under continuing review in the context of your initiative.
[Page 2]I am pleased that your initiative includes the prevention and rehabilitation, as well as law enforcement, aspects of the narcotics problem. The concept of a federal program that balances the effort to control the demand for drugs with an effort to control the supply of drugs is the basis of our program to reduce drug abuse. You may be assured that our side, also, will deal fully with all aspects of the drug program.
In the near future I expect to have concrete proposals for action to match the new effort you have begun. At that point it might be useful for my representatives to meet with yours to ensure we are both moving ahead in the coordinated manner contemplated in your letter.
Let me also use this opportunity to express gratitude for the cordiality and good will you and members of your government have consistently extended my representatives, Ambassador Jova and Ambassador Vance, and to Attorney General Levi in his recent meeting with Attorney General Ojeda Paullada. I hope, too, that we can keep in touch to maintain a close collaboration between our two countries on this problem.
Sincerely,
- Source: Ford Library, Parsons Files, Box 22, Mexico, November 1975–May 1976. No classification marking. Echeverría’s letter to Ford is published as Document 188.↩
- Ford acknowledged Echeverría’s letter, informed him of similar measures within the United States, and proposed continuing consultations to coordinate efforts in combating drug trafficking and abuse.↩