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Chapter 5 Public Relations in the "Safe" Cigarette Era
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Selling Doubt

Following publication in 1964 of the first Surgeon General's report, Smoking and Health (2), concern over tobacco skyrocketed among the public and government policy makers, particularly at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which has the authority to regulate cigarette advertising. After an initial period of uncertainty around the release of the Surgeon General's report (see the "Grave Crisis" section in chapter 2), the tobacco industry started an aggressive campaign to create controversy about the scientific evidence that smoking is dangerous and to defend the "right" to smoke. While some of these efforts were overt, many of them were covert, with the industry operating quietly through public relations firms to secure publication of articles from seemingly neutral sources that supported the tobacco industry's position. The documents illuminate four of these efforts.


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You May Smoke

In 1966 a book titled YouMaySmoke , which questioned the health dangers of smoking, was published in England. Although the author, C. Harcourt Kitchin, wrote this book on his own, the British cigarette company Carreras Tobacco bought seven thousand copies. Tiderock Corporation, a public relations firm working for B&W, approached Kitchin to publish an American version that would debunk the 1964 US Surgeon General's report, with research assistance from American tobacco companies {2101.02}. On August 16, 1967, Kitchin wrote to Rosser Reeves of the Tiderock Corporation outlining what he could do.

I have given a little thought to that [writing an American edition of YouMaySmoke ]. The book is obviously written first for British consumption, though with the idea in mind that it might find an American publisher. To try and disguise it as an American book would, I am sure, fail. We can, however, introduce material, and make changes, to make it more acceptable, and less "foreign", to the American reader. Although the Surgeon General's report is fuller, and far more technical, than the report of the Royal College of Physicians, it contained no new research and no conclusions that had not already been drawn.

What I think I can do, if I can find the necessary material, is to put more emphasis on arguing against the Surgeon General's report than, at present, against the British one, and to base the arguments upon American, rather than British statistics and research. If the book is to be republished anyhow, I think it will be more convincing to make these changes through the body of the script than, as you first suggested, to write additional chapters.

With this in mind I have listed and attached a few first thoughts on the sort of additional information I shall need, much of which I think is not available in this country. It may be that I could get some of it from my friendly tobacco manufacturers or from the Tobacco Research Council, but I hesitate to invite questions on why I want it [emphasis added]. {2101.03, pp. 1–2}

Kitchin published the US edition of YouMaySmoke (3). In the prologue to the book, Kitchin explains why he wrote it. As a moderate smoker, he had been disturbed by the early reports that smoking could cause lung cancer. When the Royal College of Physicians released its first report on smoking and health in 1962 (discussed in chapter 2), however, he began to sense "a slight scent of propaganda." His own book, Kitchin states, "seeks neither to encourage smoking nor to debunk the reports. It is an attempt to look at the evidence through the eyes of an ordinary member of the general public who neither rejects the possibility that smoking may contribute to lung cancer nor is blinded by propaganda or fear" (3, p. xi).


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At the end of the book, Kitchin concludes that more research is needed to prove that smoking is truly harmful to health; in the interim, he suggests, smoking in moderation probably is not too bad.

May you smoke? The answer is for you and for you only. ... If you enjoy your smoking, as opposed to the chain smoker who is seldom conscious of having lit the cigarette that is staining his fingers, you may decide that the answer lies in moderation. If you examine the statistics carefully you will find little condemnation of that. (3, p. 176)

Scientific studies have shown, however, that Kitchin's theory regarding moderation was wrong. The more you smoke, the more likely you are to develop diseases such as lung cancer and heart disease. Even if you smoke only moderately, your risk is still elevated above normal.

Nowhere did Kitchin mention that he had been aided by the tobacco industry to write YouMaySmoke for a US audience, or that some of the information quoted was provided by tobacco industry representatives.

Barron's Editorial

Following publication of the Surgeon General's report in 1964, several states and the Federal Trade Commission began to move to require warnings on cigarette packages and, possibly, on cigarette advertisements. There was also talk of severely restricting or even ending cigarette advertising (4) The tobacco industry aggressively fought advertising restrictions, both at a public relations level and at a political level in Congress. In 1965, however, Congress passed the federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act, which first required warning labels to be placed on cigarette packages, but preempted the states from taking any action of their own in this area. It contained an automatic review after three years. Although the tobacco industry quietly acceded to the Congressionally mandated placing of warning labels on cigarette packages, which it preferred to regulation by the Federal Trade Commission, because such labels offered protection from products liability lawsuits, it aggressively fought other parts of the legislation and mounted a strong public relations campaign against the regulation of its products generally.

For example, on October 18, 1967, the industry made use of one of its public relations tools when it ran newspaper ads, prepared by Tiderock, featuring a reprint of a front-page editorial from Barron's (figure 5.1). The editorial, as reprinted in the advertisements, criticizes the 1964 Surgeon General's report, Smoking and Health, and attacks government efforts to control tobacco.


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Figure
5.1. Advertisement run by the Tobacco Institute in 1967 based
on Barron's editorial atacking government actions to control tobacco.


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What began a few years ago as a seemingly well-intentioned, if disturbing, effort to brainwash the citizenry into kicking the habit thus has spiraled into a crusade as menacing and ugly as Prohibition. At the time (Barron's ,—January 18, 1965), regarding the gross exaggerations of Emerson Foote [a former advertising executive], who headed the movement, we accused the Public Health Service of "placing the strident claims of the pitchman ahead of the unobtrusive quest for truth." Nothing that PHS has said or done since has changed our view. On the contrary, the anti-smoking forces, putting their worst foot forward, lately have sought to escalate from persuasion to coercion. As inveterate non-smokers, we freely concede that cigarets do one no good. As to the body politic, however, the unchecked arrogance of bureaucracy is invariably fatal. When the choice lies between living dangerously or toeing the party line, we (like most Americans, evidently) would rather fight than switch. [The phrase "rather fight than switch" was later popularized in a cigarette advertisement.]

Since publication in 1964 of "Smoking and Health," which through a kind of guilt by statistical association, condemned the use of cigarets (but not cigars or pipes), officialdom has done its best to pick a fight. Armed with such dubious "proof," the Federal Trade Commission promptly sought to foist its own uncompromising slogans on the industry, a move which led a more tolerant Congress to pass the Federal Cigaret Labeling and Advertising Act.

...

"Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive." From the outset, as a few bold scientific spirits insisted, "Smoking and Health" failed to prove that cigarets cause lung cancer or any other of the many ills to which the flesh is heir. With the passage of time, its findings have grown increasingly suspect. Last year Barron's cited the critique of Professor K. A. Brownlee of the University of Chicago, who faulted the Surgeon-General's Report for inadequate and possibly biased sampling methods, as well as for the arbitrary dismissal of conflicting views. This year the medicine men have undercut their own dogma. For, contrary to their previous findings, which exonerated nicotine as a health hazard, the witch doctors, in a remarkable if little-noted change of mind, are now pointing the finger of suspicion at it.

Meanwhile, the Johnson Administration, which never gave the anti-smoking campaign its seal of approval, quietly continues to support the price of the filthy weed with taxpayers' money and, for the benefit of foreigners, who presumably neither know better nor care, to extoll the virtues of U.S. tobacco.

...

This is the classic rationale of tyranny, the perennial cry of the mob. The public interest, as we have said before, covers a multitude of sins, from the venal to the deadly. Smoking may be a minor issue, but contempt for due process of law looms large. Cigaret advertising, however disagreeable, constitutes an exercise in freedom of speech. Big Brother doesn't take over all at once, he closes in step by step. Here's a chance to draw the line [emphasis added]. {2120.08}


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Emerson Foote had been chairman of the McCann-Eriksen agency, where he had handled the Lucky Strike cigarette account, and now headed the National Interagency Council on Smoking and Health, which was pressing for anti-tobacco education, including a warning label in cigarette advertising.

In a letter dated October 26, 1967, J. W. Burgard, B&W's vice president for advertising, marketing research, and public relations, wrote to Tiderock's Rosser Reeves:

The Barron's ad turned out very well. To me, perhaps the most important thing about this ad was that for the first time we have gotten the industry to take a step forward together, and it was a great opportunity to get them together. I would hesitate, however, to attach too much importance to what could be accomplished by the repeated exposure of such an ad. {2101.06, p. 1}

Reeves responded:

I agree with you that the Barron's ad turned out very well. I also agree with you that we should not attach too much importance to what can be accomplished by the repeat exposure of one ad. One advertisement is really one raindrop in a rainstorm ... and we need more than a rainstorm, we need a hurricane.

I also agree with you that the main issue is to make widely known the facts relative to scientific research on the subject of smoking and health.

Before we ran the Barron's ad we had Ted Bates and Company do 2,000 interviews among smokers and nonsmokers in 20 top markets. (So far as I know this is the first research that has ever been done on what the public thinks about this controversy.)

The results were somewhat shocking:

 

1.

The public at large thinks the Government should assume an active role in warning people against cigarettes. Two-thirds in fact believe that the Government has not done enough.

2.

The majority are convinced cigarette smoking causes health problems.

3.

The majority believe that cigarette advertising is bad.

On the other hand:

 

4.

The public is opposed to legal prohibition of the sale of cigarettes.

5.

The public believes that it's up to the individual to make his own decision about smoking.

6.

The public believes cigarette manufacturers are not to blame.

7.

Forty percent of the public believes the manufacturers should argue their case in public.

We are giving the True article [discussed below] much thought. What we do with it will be woven into our complete program which we hope to present privately to the Senator [probably Earle Clements, a former Kentucky


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senator with strong ties to the White House, who was president of the Tobacco Institute] within the next ten days and to all of the Tobacco Institute within the next three weeks [emphasis in original]. {2101.07, pp. 1–2}

This interchange illustrates the thoroughness with which the tobacco industry was approaching its public relations effort. Not only did it quietly generate support, which was then represented as "independent," but it also used this material in paid advertising.

The True Magazine Article

The publicity regarding the dangers of smoking was accelerating in the popular press following publication of the Surgeon General's report. In January 1968 an article entitled "To Smoke or Not to Smoke—That Is Still the Question," by Stanley Frank, a widely read sports writer, appeared in True magazine. Frank stated that he had reviewed the evidence and found it contradictory and inconclusive; he concluded that "the hazards of cigarette smoking may not be so real as we have been led to believe." The tobacco industry's role in generating and disseminating this article and other articles is summed up in the instructions to the law firm hired to analyze the Brown and Williamson documents (see chapter 1):

TRUE AND NATIONAL ENQUIRER ARTICLES : Documents discussing the True and National Enquirer articles. Joseph Field, a public relations agent for Brown & Williamson, arranged for Stanley Frank to write a smoking and health article entitled, "To Smoke Or Not To Smoke—That Is Still The Question." The article was published in the January 1968 issue of True . Tiderock, TI's [Tobacco Institute's] public relations agency, arranged to run an advertisement promoting the article. Tiderock also purchased and distributed reprints of the article. Stanley Frank later wrote a similar article entitled, "Cigarette Cancer Link is Bunk" for the National Enquirer under the pen name Charles Golden. John Blalock was one of the Brown & Williamson employees involved. {1001.01, p. 13}

Frank did not disclose that he worked for Hill and Knowlton, the public relations firm that created the Tobacco Industry Research Committee and the Tobacco Institute {1902.05} (see chapter 2); that he had been paid on behalf of the tobacco industry to write the article; or that tobacco interests had reviewed the article prior to publication (4). Tiderock Corporation also played a role in creating and placing the True article. This information was later revealed in a series of investigations by the Wall Street Journal, Consumer Reports , and US Senator Warren Magnuson (D-WA).


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The role of the tobacco industry at the highest levels in the generation and dissemination of Stanley Frank's article in True magazine is outlined in detail in a confidential memo dated March 28, 1967, from J. V. Blalock, director of public relations at B&W, to Addison Yeaman, then B&W vice president and general counsel:

According to Joe Field, True Magazine has asked Stanley Frank for a formal outline of his projected article. This is tantamount, except in the rarest of cases, to a guarantee of publication.

We will receive a copy of the outline. If it is unfavorable, we can exert sufficient influence to change the "tone" before the final article. I need not emphasize, however, the strategic importance of the proper guidance of Frank prior to the writing of the outline. We are assured by Joe that Frank has the desired point of view.

They both intend to talk again this week to Ed Jacob [a lawyer at Jacob and Medinger] in order to amplify the Roswell Park angle. Perhaps you will want to alert Ed to this intention. Certainly, this can be an extremely important part of the article.

As to our financial agreement:

We will pay Frank $500.00 for his time and expenses in preparing the article. This is a firm obligation whether he sells it or not.

If True buys the article, our full obligation is satisfied. The magazine pays $1,750.00 for material of this type.

Should True turn down the article, and Frank does not subsequently sell it to another publication, we will pay him $1,250.00 to make up the difference between our guarantee of $500.00 and the anticipated magazine payment of $1,750.00 [emphasis added]. {2101.11}

Not only did Tiderock place the article with True , but it paid the author and guaranteed him his fee in the event that the deal fell through with True . The fact that this article was essentially a work for hire for the tobacco industry was not disclosed. The tobacco industry distributed 600,000 copies of the True magazine article with a letter from "the editors" to physicians, the media, and business and political leaders without any public acknowledgment that the tobacco industry was distributing it or that tobacco interests had a financial relationship with the author. Not until this arrangement was exposed by the media did the public become aware of it (4).

Using The Same Technique In The 1990s

The tobacco industry's practice of reprinting "independent" articles and statements that favor its position has continued into the present. The subject matter, however, has largely shifted from active smoking to pas-


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sive smoking. For example, after the Environmental Protection Agency released its 1992 report concluding that environmental tobacco smoke is a known human carcinogen that causes lung cancer in adults and respiratory problems in children, the tobacco industry reprinted articles that criticized the report (5). R.J. Reynolds ran a full-page ad in the nation's major newspapers with the headline "If We Said It, You Might Not Believe It" (figure 5.2). The ad featured an article by Jacob Sullum, at the time managing editor of Reason magazine, which had originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal and was highly critical of the EPA report. A longer article by Sullum, originally published in Forbes Media Critic , was featured in advertisements by Philip Morris. Philip Morris paid for four straight days of full-page ads to reprint Sullum's article in its entirety (figure 5.3). The result has been that the public has received far more exposure to criticisms of the EPA report than it has to the report itself. None of these advertisements disclosed the fact that Sullum's employer, The Reason Foundation, received a $10,000 donation from Philip Morris or that Sullum received $5,000 from R. J. Reynolds for the rights to use his writings in its advertising campaign (6–9).

Similar attacks have been directed against the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, for considering rules to protect nonsmokers in the workplace; against the Food and Drug Administration, for considering the regulation of cigarettes as drug delivery devices; and against the prospect of higher tobacco taxes.


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