The Nation - News from Nov. 30, 1988

The Justice Department said it will review a Drug Enforcement Administration practice of sometimes arranging for local police to make well-publicized seizures of drugs brought into the United States under the control of DEA operatives. Associate Atty. Gen. Francis A. Keating II, the No. 3 official in the Justice Department, plans to meet with DEA officials to discuss the matter, said Loye Miller, a department spokesman. The meeting stems from a Houston Chronicle story Sunday that said the DEA had arranged at least two drug seizures by state or local authorities in the Houston area to generate false news reports which would protect the identity of DEA undercover operatives. Joh Seigenthaler, president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, said it is misleading to the media and public for the DEA to initiate what becomes a highly publicized drug seizure by state or local police when the shipment has in fact been controlled by the DEA.