President Bush holds up a bag of crack in the Oval Office
President George H. W. Bush holds up a bag of crack cocaine during his first prime-time Oval Office address, 5 September 1989, saying it had been seized by Drug Enforcement agents in a park across the street from the White House. The Washington Post later reported that speechwriters wanted the prop and that DEA agents lured an 18-year-old seller to Lafayette Park to make the buy. The spoken line was literally true; how the bag came to be seized there was left out.
- Date
- September 5, 1989
- Period
- Cold War
- Made by
- U.S. government (President George H. W. Bush and White House speechwriters, with the Drug Enforcement Administration)
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Photograph
- Issuer type
- State
- Regime
- George H. W. Bush Administration
- Leader
- George H. W. Bush
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Persuade or win support
- Themes
- Security and surveillance, Health, Media and information
- Event
- War on Drugs
- Techniques
- Card stackingFear appealTransfer
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Wikimedia Commons (George Bush Presidential Library), retrieved September 27, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (U.S. government work)
White House photograph, George Bush Presidential Library and Museum (P06075-35).
Text on the object
[illegible]
Two printed text elements are visible but not legible at this image's resolution: (1) a red-covered bound document on the desk shows two lines of light-colored lettering near its lower-right corner and a small circular emblem; (2) a typed page held in the President's right hand shows several lines of typed text (apparently speech notes). Individual words could not be made out in either case, so nothing was guessed at; no text was read from either object.
