Authors: Richard Kluger
IV Harold Dorn’s large corroborative study is reported in detail in the July 1959
Public Health Reports
, vol. 74, no. 7. See also the findings by Haenszel and Shimkin reported in the
Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI)
in June 1956 and November 1958. The forty-four-month wrap-up of the first giant Hammond-Horn study for the ACS ran in
JAMA
for March 8 and 15, 1958.
V Lilienfeld’s study on the emotional characteristics of smokers ran in
J NCI
, vol. 22 (1959): pp. 259–82. For Horn’s study on smoking among Portland high school students, see the November 1959
American Journal of Public Health, pp. 1497–1511. The text of the Ad Hoc Study Group report was carried in the June 7, 1957
,
Science
. Surgeon General Burney’s statement, the most forthright to that date by a federal official, appeared in the November 28, 1959,
JAMA
. For the proceedings of the September 1960 symposium at the New York State Academy of Preventive Medicine, see
Tobacco and Health
, edited by George James and Theodore Rosenthal.
VI Clarence Little’s April 1955 TIRC memo is among the
Cipollone
documents (plaintiff’s exhibit 8762); typical of his statements arguing that more research was needed before any judgment could be reached on the smoking-health peril is the guest editorial he wrote for the March 1956
Cancer Research
. Darkis’s derogatory remark about the TIRC is on p. 112 of CU’s
Report on Smoking and the Public Interest
. Hill & Knowlton’s July 2, 1959, memo to Bowman Gray was plaintiff’s exhibit 2702A in
Cipollone
. For a discussion of other instances, statements, and opinions dealing with the questionable purpose and legitimacy of the industry-funded research by the TIRC and its successor, CTR, see, for example,
infra
in this section; chapter 8, section
vi
; chapter 10, section
vi
; chapter 11, section
II
; chapter 14, section
I
on the AMA-ERF study funded by the tobacco industry, and section
VIII
; and chapter 16, section
xi
on the CTR’s own study on smoke inhalation by mice.
IX DuPuis’s September 30, 1959, memo to the PM board was plaintiff’s exhibit 320 in
Cipollone.
Chapter 8 : Grand Inquisitors
III The Jerome Brooks quotation is taken from
The Philip Morris Century
, Second Continuation Through 1965.
IV Most revealing of all the industry documents ventilated in
Cipollone
were Philip Morris research director Helmut Wakeham’s memos to the company’s top officers; in calling for development of a “medically acceptable” cigarette, they reveal a sophisticated understanding of the growing scientific evidence against smoking and the obligation of a socially concerned corporation to respond. See in particular Wakeham’s memo of November 15, 1961 (No. 608 among
Cipollone
plaintiff’s exhibits); the October 24, 1963, memo to CEO Cullman re “those areas where the cigarette industry might be most subject to criticism” (exhibit 323); and the November 21, 1963, memo entitled “Project 0100—Objectives for ‘64” (exhibit 610). These and other documents were made available to the public by the Tobacco Products Liability Project at Northeastern Law School, presided over by Richard Daynard. Cullman’s comment that he believed cigarettes would be exonerated of the health charges against them appeared in the November 29, 1963,
NYT
. Whiteside’s articles in
The New Yorker
were collected in his 1971 book,
Selling Death: Cigarette Advertising and Public Health
. Bowling’s PM memo on Dr. Horsfall was plantiff’s exhibit 430 in
Cipollone.
V Kensler’s tardy report on the ciliatoxic properties of smoke ran in the November 28, 1963,
NEJM.
VI Brown & Williamson’s concerns about the health risks of their cigarettes and explorations of a modified-yield product in the 1960s and 1970s were detailed in a series of articles by reporter Philip J. Hilts in the
NYT
of June 16–18, 1994, based on documents apparently stolen from company files by a former employee. These disclosures are not treated at length here because the efforts essentially paralleled those by other companies, which the
Times
virtually ignored when they were revealed during the
Cipollone
trial nearly six years earlier (and discussed elsewhere in these pages). In its July 19, 1995, issue,
JAMA
ran an extensive analysis of the B&W documents by Stanton Glantz and colleagues, who incorrectly state that the purloined papers “provide our first look at the inner working of the tobacco industry during the critical period in which the scientific case that smoking is addictive and kills smokers solidified.” A number of documents that surfaced in
Cipollone
seven years earlier and are widely citied in these notes deserve that distinction, but the B&W documents are surely the largest cache of industry data thus far revealing that what its officials knew about their product diverged widely and perhaps fraudulently from what they were telling the public. The Heimann study on allegedly low mortality rates in the tobacco industry was discussed in the April 12, 1961,
NYT
and drawn in part from “Smoking Habits and Mortality Among Workers in Cigarette Factories” by H. B. Haag and H. R. Hanmer in
Industrial Medicine
, vol. 26 (1957), pp. 559–62. Cornfield
et al
. demolished the industry’s defensive arguments in their January 1959
JNCI
article, the most vigorous indictment of smoking to appear in any scholarly journal until then. Barney Walker’s derogation of the previous American Tobacco management was in the January 19, 1964,
NYT
.
VII The excerpt from Bob Newhart’s famous Sir Walter Raleigh monologue came from a tape provided by the comedian-actor’s office and is hereby gratefully acknowledged; it was included in two recordings he made in 1963—
The Best of Newhart
and
The Button Down Mind on TV
. The files of the Surgeon General’s Advisory Committee at the U.S.
Archives have been rather badly cannibalized. Useful materials were provided by Peter Hamill, whom I interviewed, as well as SGAC members Emanuel Farber, Charles LeMaistre, and Leonard Schuman.
VIII For Joseph Berkson’s objections to the methodology in the epidemiological studies on smoking and lung cancer, see
Proceedings of the Staff Meetings of the Mayo Clinic
for July 27, 1955 (vol. 30, no. 15); the
Journal of the American Statistical Association
, vol. 53 (1958): pp. 28–38;
The Mayo Clinic Proceedings
for April 15, 1959 (vol. 34, no. 8); and his letter in the April 14, 1962,
Lancet.
Chapter 9 : Marlboro Mirage
I Stanley Cohen’s prescient comments on the difficulty of regulating the tobacco industry ran in the November 7, 1963,
Advertising Age
.
II Issued on June 22, 1964, the FTC’s proposed “Trade Regulation Rule for the Prevention of Unfair or Deceptive Advertising and Labeling of Cigarettes in Relation to the Health Hazards of Smoking and Accompanying Statement on Basis and Purpose of Rule” is a persuasive indictment of the industry’s excesses in huckstering; that this bureaucratic initiative was substantially watered down by Congress in the 1965 Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act is a glaring example of legislative spinelessness in response to a clear warning by public-health officials. On this subject, see Fritschler’s 1969 book,
Smoking and Politics
.
IV Wakeham’s February 18, 1964, memo was plaintiff’s exhibit 324 in the
Cipollone
trial.
V Fortas’s remarks at the Justice Department meeting of June 12, 1964, are taken from an internal Lorillard memo by an attending company attorney, dated the following day. See also quotation from same source in the following section.
VI On
Pritchard v. Liggett & Myers Tobacco Co.
, see 295 F.2d (3d Cir. 1961),
aff’d on rehearing
, 350F.2d479 (3dCir. 1965),
cert, denied
, 382 U.S. 987 (1966),
modified
, 370 F.2d 95 (3d Cir. 1966),
cert, denied
, 386 U.S. 1009 (1967).
VII The AMA’s February 28, 1964, letter from Blassingame to the FTC opposing the labeling law was plaintiff’s exhibit 1312 in
Cipollone
. The industry’s efforts to avoid congressional regulation are illustrated by the transcript of hearings before the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce of the House of Representatives, 88th Cong., 2d sess., June 23, 24, 25, 29, and July 2, 1964, and 89th Cong., 1st sess., March 22, 23, 24, 25, 29, and April 1, 2, and 6, 1965.
VIII On the creation of “Marlboro Country” and how it departed from the previous “Marlboro Man” campaign, see the article by Robert Henderson in
The New Yorker
of June 28, 1958, and a simulated article in that same magazine’s November 15, 1958, issue, “The Marlboro Story” by Leo Burnett (in fact a three-page advertisement); “The Higher Meaning of Marlboro Cigarettes” by Bruce Lohof in the
Journal of Popular Culture
, vol. III, no. 3 (Winter 1969): pp. 41–50; “In Search of the Marlboro Man,” a series by Jim Carrier in the Denver
Post
, January 13–27, 1991; and especially Scott Ellsworth’s archive on the Marlboro campaign, an oral history project under the auspices of the Smithsonian’s Museum of History and Technology.
Chapter 10 : Three-Ton Dog on the Prowl
I Robert Wald’s intramural memo was dated December 28, 1965, suggesting how rapidly Lorillard’s disenchantment with Meyner set in.
II The best single source on the sorry performance of the Cigarette Advertising Code and the National Association of Broadcasters’ dealing with the tobacco companies in the 1960s is Warren Braren’s testimony before the House Commerce Committee on June 10, 1969; the published transcript includes the confidential September 1966 report by the New York office of the NAB Code Authority on broadcast cigarette advertising. On John Banzhaf: The chain of events began with his December 1, 1966, letter to WCBS-TV and his formal complaint of January 15, 1967; for the legal record, see
Banzhaf v. FCC
, 405 F.2d 1082 (D.C. Cir. 1968), and
Capital Broadcasting Co. v. Mitchell
, 333 F. Supp. 582 (1971), and on his personality and activities, see March 24, 1969, NIT; the February 5, 1970,
Washington Evening Star;
“John Banzhaf and the Giants” in
Listen
, vol. 21, no. 7; “The Man Behind the Ban on Cigarette Commercials” in the March 1971
Reader’s Digest;
the December 1973
Current Biography;
and “Gadfly and Hound” in the August 31, 1984, Washington (D.C.)
City Paper.
IV For Robert Barney Walker’s efforts to revitalize American Tobacco, see
Forbes
of November 1, 1956, on Harm’s shortcomings, and June 15, 1958, on the Hit Parade brand flop;
BW
of January 11, 1964, on the Carlton debut; and the January 19, 1964,
NYT
personality sketch on Walker; also
Barron’s
of October 5, 1964;
Sales Management
of May 21, 1973; the
NYT
of November 8, 1966; and Walker’s obituary in the January 18, 1973,
NYT.
VI On CTR’s fifteenth-anniversary denial of a “demonstrated causal link” between smoking and any disease, see that organization’s press release of February 3, 1969
(Cipollone
plaintiff’s exhibit 2920B); Wakeham to Roper on December 9, 1965, on the AMA/ ERF’s shortcomings
(Cipollone
plaintiffs exhibit 1315); Wakeham to Clements,
Cipollone
exhibit 923B. On the “special projects” committee of the CTR, see Alvan Feinstein to Edwin Jacob, November 23, 1965
(Cipollone
exhibit 527); Addison Yeaman’s letter of January 3, 1966, with list of “special projects”
(Cipollone
exhibit 538); and the February 11, 1993,
Wall Street Journal (WSJ)
for its front-page expose. Carl Thompson’s instructive memo of October 18, 1968, to the Tobacco Institute’s new press chief, William Kloepfer, is
Cipollone
exhibit 2725. George Weissman’s dismissive remarks about the health peril of smoking appeared in the April 1968
Dun’s Review.
IX, X, AND XI The widest-ranging periodical article on PM in this breakthrough period is “The Marketing Merlins of Philip Morris” in the April 1968
Dun’s Review;
see also
Forbes
for July 15, 1966, November 15, 1968, and July 1, 1969. On the Gallaher takeover failure, see the
Financial Times
of July 9 and 17, 1968; the
WSJ
and the (London)
Times
of July 17 and 19, 1968; the
Daily Telegraph
of July 19, 1968; the
Observer
of July 21, 1968; and
Time
of August 2, 1968.
Chapter 11 : Stroking the Sow’s Ear
I On the smoking beagles episode, see the July 31, 1969,
NEJM
editorial, “Unpublicized Results;” the May 1 and 9, 1979,
NYT
, for Cullman’s blast and the paper’s editorial supporting his request for disclosure of the data; TPs June 23, 1970, release, suggesting that
none of the dogs was stricken, and its October 12, 1970, release, in which TI president Kornegay speculates that the study may have been a hoax.
Nature
of April 30, 1971, has the best concise report. Auerbach provided copies of his exchange with
NEJM
and
JAMA
editors, the letter inviting Sommers’s telegram in response, and the comments by
JAMA’s
reviewers on their concerns about the study. Wakeham’s February 1971 memo was plaintiff’s exhibit 330 in
Cipollone
.