Former Nixon official John Ehrlichman admits drug war was an excuse to lock up blacks and anti-war left.

In the April 2016 issue of Harper’s Magazine writer Dan Baum talks about the time he interviewed John Ehrlichman back in 1994. Ehrlichman was Nixon’s Watergate co-conspirator who served a year and a half in jail. In the article Baum quotes Ehrlichman as stating:

“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

Read the Harper’s article here [Report] | Legalize It All, by Dan Baum | Harper’s Magazine

Read a CNN report on the Harper’s article here Report- Nixon aide says war on drugs targeted blacks, hippies – CNNPolitics.com