MarylandQuitter

Matt Myers is Executive Vice President and General Counsel of the National Center for Tobacco Free Kids, a Washington based anti-tobacco lobbying group. As a private lawyer in the eighties, he lobbied Congress and won a doubling of the per pack cigarette tax. In 1996 the National Center on Tobacco Free Kids was created with private donations from groups such as the American Cancer Society and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. It launched an intensive anti-smoking campaign to reduce smoking among children. While Myers was working at the FTC on warning labels, he enlisted the support of then Congressman, Al Gore and it was this connection that made Myers a central player in the settlement debate. As negotiations began, the White House insisted Myers be part of any talks to ensure that the public health perspective was included (the very first meeting between the Attorneys General and a Tobacco Industry Emissary, Phil Carlton, took place at Myers' offices in March of 1997.) As a longtime critic of the tobacco industry, Myers confounded his fellow health advocates when he joined the negotiations. "One of the best examples of the fact that the tobacco industry knew long before the Surgeon General, just how deadly it's product is, is by looking at how they had clearly, carefully planned. When the Surgeon General's report came out in 1964, tobacco industry members of Congress were already situated in key position in each and every committee of the Congress of the United States." Q. Matt, you are a veteran of the tobacco wars. Give me an idea back three or four years ago, before all this started in a way, of the power of the industry. Its political and legal power. Myers: It is remarkable, when you consider that it has been over 30 years since the Surgeon General found that without any doubt, tobacco was the number one preventable cause of premature death and disease in this country. If it had been any other product that caused 1/1000th of that sort of problem, we as a nation would have acted and acted decisively. This industry wouldn't continue to exist if it was any other product. Q. How did they do it? Who worked for them? I mean, to people who don't know how powerful they were, what did they look like to you? Myers: The tobacco industry has used its political power and financial muscle to tie Washington up in a way that no other industry ever has done before. If you look back to 1964, Surgeon General, President of the United States declare this to be the number one cause of premature death and disease. Causing one of the worst deaths we know. Lung cancer. And yet, when the Federal Trade Commission proposed simply to put strong health warnings on it, Congress swooped in and literally cut them off at the knees. The Federal Trade Commission as an agency didn't recover for decades to the swipe they took. It was so bad, frankly, that the person who was the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission in 1964, when confronted with a report in 1980 by the staff of the FTC, recommending stronger health warnings said, "I will never vote against the tobacco industry again in my entire life. You have no idea what it is like to go up to the Congress of the United States and face those people under those circumstances." Fifteen years later that man was still terrified of stepping out and doing what was right against this industry. Q. Who did they have working for them? I mean, lawyers, politicians, who was on their side? Myers: You know, one of the best examples of the fact that the tobacco industry knew long before the Surgeon General, just how deadly its product is, is by looking at how they had clearly, carefully planned. When the Surgeon General's report came out in 1964, tobacco industry members of Congress were already situated in key positions in each and every committee of the Congress of the United States. So when the federal government proposed action, it was a tobacco state senator or representative who was presiding over the committee that said, "No how, no way, not now, not ever." They knew it was coming and they were the first of the industries, long before we had this with any other industry, to recognize that the key to continuing your action was to get your members of Congress in the right place. To make the right political contributions at the right time. And to organize your constituency back home in a way that would have been sophisticated for 1980, let alone 1964. It is one of the real worst examples of pure corporate power used to undermine sound public policy. Q. Just so I understand, we now know that these various different companies met together and conspired together? Myers: The documents that have come out in the last four years are incontrovertible. These companies sat down in a room together and devised an orchestrated scheme to deceive the American public about what they knew about their product. And undermine the will of Congress in terms of taking on the industry in a way that they would have if it was any other industry. Q. You are an attorney. It sounds illegal. Myers: I think it was illegal. It was certainly immoral. Q. What was your reaction when you heard that the State of Mississippi had filed a Medicaid suit. Myers: I have to admit my initial reaction was skepticism until I began looking at the legal theories that were behind the lawsuit. And it was only after spending time carefully analyzing the case that I began to realize that this might be something truly different. Q. And when you first met Mike Moore and Dick Scruggs, what did you make of them? Myers: You know when I first met Mike Moore and Dick Scruggs, I was struck by a couple of things. That Mike was a charismatic figure who had an ability to carry off things that others probably underestimated. And the last thing that Dick Scruggs was, was some hick lawyer. This was a bright guy with broad visions. And that this was the sort of guy the tobacco industry ought to be afraid of. Q. Because? Myers: Because Dick Scruggs had the experience and the breadth of vision to mount a challenge against the tobacco industry, unlike any other that they had seen before. From his experience in asbestos, where he was one of the lead lawyers in bringing down the asbestos industry, it was clear he really had a sense for the jugular. And in this case it was clear that he had a better understanding than those who had been close to the tobacco litigation for years, of the weaknesses in the traditional cases, and the type of claims that could well strike a very different and more responsive cord in juries. Q. Your organization is, describe it, what does it do? Myers: The National Center for Tobacco Free Kids is slightly less than two years old. We were created out of a number of foundation grants and grants from voluntary public health organizations to be the nations largest non-profit organization fighting the tobacco industry. Our primary focus on public policy changes that will reduce tobacco use among children, but not to the exclusion of trying to reduce overall tobacco use. Q. So when you got a call, I assume, from Dick Scruggs or Mike Moore in March of '97 that the tobacco industry, some guy named Phil Carlton, wanted to talk. That the White House wanted to meet with them, what was your reaction? Mike said to me that he had gotten a call from a fellow by the name of Phil Carlton who I had never heard of. That Carlton wanted to meet and wanted to enter into a series of discussions on behalf of the tobacco industry. And Mike said to me that he wasn't going to do so. And just wanted to make sure that we were on the same wavelength. That he knew that I had been contacted. He had been told that I had been contacted. And he, for the first time, told me that somebody from the Costano Group, the class action lawyers in Louisiana had also been called. And that he had been talking to them. And at least on behalf of the Attorney Generals, Mike's inclination was not to have a meeting. He didn't think it would be productive. That he thought it was a side show at that point in time. And so, if I was comfortable with that posture, they were just going to go ahead and continue to prepare for trial. Q. So Mike Moore contacted you after this initial meeting with Mitchell's partners and said he had been contacted, but he didn't believe it. He thought it was hot air. So what changed his mind? As I understand it, they all met in your office. Myers: Well Mike would have to be the one who tells you that because I didn't get the call. What I understand happened is that Bruce Lindsay from the White House and Mike Easely, the Attorney General from North Carolina called Mike and said, each in their own way, we would really like you to at least have an initial meeting. You don't have to have a second meeting, but at least have one. And so Mike called me and said he had received these calls. That he thought out of respect to the individuals who had called that we had to have the meeting. Was I willing to do so? He suggested he thought it would be better if we met together and could we do it in my offices? So I said yes. And it was literally the next afternoon the meeting took place in my office, with Mike Moore, myself, a representative from the Costano Group in Louisiana, Dick Scruggs and Phil Carlton. Q. What was going on in your mind when you are sitting down to a meeting with somebody from the tobacco industry who says we are going to change. Myers: My view at that point was that it was still nothing more than a smokescreen. That this was exactly what they had always done before. Anybody who had followed the history of this would see that every four years or whenever they were in deep trouble, a key tobacco representative would stand up and say, we recognize that we need to make change and we are prepared to do it. We want to live like honorable citizens in the United States. And I thought this deserved the same credibility that every one of those other statements deserved. That was my personal view at the time. At the same time, my view was that you didn't have a choice about whether you listened or not. That it was simply wrong not to listen and then make an independent evaluation. Q. So in March when you are having your first meeting with Phil Carlton, you already know that some of your colleagues aren't going to be happy, that you even had that meeting. Myers: Now, we had done other things since the November meeting had broken down. After the November meeting broke down, we engaged in a series of discussions with the CEOs of a number of voluntary health organizations and other major health organizations. Saying to them, we still need try to come up with a set of principles. We have go to be ready because we won't be able to withstand an effort to come up with a compromise. If we don't set forth a solid agenda that makes sense, the White House and the Congress simply isn't going to listen to, no, not without regard to what is on the table. We simply won't deal with those people. We have got to be able to make a case and to do that we have got to have an agenda that makes sense. Because otherwise we won't be listened to and that is what has happened to the public health community every time in the past. And if we are going to influence the outcome, we have to be substantive, we have to be focused. Q. You can't just be nay sayers. Myers: You just can't be nay sayers. That works for people for whom tobacco is their whole life. It doesn't work for members of Congress. It doesn't work for the press. It doesn't work for the public and it won't work for the White House. And so if we are going to want to be able to say no, we had better know what it is that what we want and what we don't want. And if we are going to push the White House to do the right thing, we had better know substantively what that is as well. It is the only way to be a key player in which will clearly be something that is going to happen, whether we like it or not. Q. In your mind, when you are going into that first meeting, what is going on? Myers: Well, my mind was actually pretty clear. I thought I was going to one meeting. That the meeting would relatively rapidly break down and the it would be business as usual. I had a very hard time envisioning any situation where the industry would really make an offer in enough detail to make it worthwhile to continue to participate in discussions with them. That was 100% my mind set. I couldn't envision this being anything more than one afternoon. Q. You go in. You sit down. George Mitchell comes in, as I understand it. Myers: I was late. I mean the great irony, the only person who doesn't have a case. I was late to the meeting because I was coming from the Hill. And I had trouble finding a parking place. They were already seated. George Mitchell. Phil Carleton had apparently introduced everybody. When I walked into the room they were already seated there. People stopped when I came in. The thing that struck me about it actually, more than anything else, was Goldstone and Bible coming up to me and very personally commenting about how pleased they were to meet me. And how they thought that I would be surprised, what they were going to have to say. So I sat down in the room. The room has probably been described to you already. Mitchell finished his talk which, frankly, said nothing. And... Q. George Mitchell was the greeter. Myers: Yes. That is exactly what he was. The greeter. He had no substantive role whatsoever. His job was to use his name and reputation to bring people into the room and then do nothing else. And I was struck by that. I was struck by it with a phone call to me. I was struck by the role he played that day. And then he turned it over to Bible and Goldstone. Q. When in the meeting did you have a flicker that maybe these guys were serious? Myers: Bible and Goldstone spoke. They are both very persuasive individuals, but they only spoke in platitudes. So, you know, my thought... My reaction was if you were hearing them for the first time, if you didn't know anything about the tobacco industry, this would have been pretty persuasive stuff. Although there was no meat to it. My reaction to it was, these guys are good. But whether there is anything here yet, is still to be seen. After they spoke, the meeting broke. They left with George Mitchell. And then their lawyers came back and going through the agenda that the state Attorney Generals had laid out, item by item, made general representations about things that they were willing to do. The general representations were concrete enough to be different. But general enough to not be certain how different. Concrete enough that it demanded a reply to try and draw them out and see how much more was there. What was clear from the very get-go was their demands of what they wanted were completely outrageous and totally unacceptable. Q. They wanted immunity. Myers: They wanted immunity from everything. I mean they wanted... They, you know, their request was for peace now and forever. They never wanted to walk into another courtroom again. They didn't want to face criminal immunity, they didn't want any civil... Q. Civil prosecution. Myers: Criminal prosecution. Yes, that is right. They didn't want to face criminal prosecution. They didn't want to face any more lawsuits. They weren't willing to say, but they said they were willing to pay a lot of money to do that. And willing to change every aspect about how they do business. You couldn't listen to that and say, immediately, that is so far off the charts. That is so beyond the realm that it is impossible. Q. These are the people that you been trying to beat, put out of business, if you will, for decades. Myers: These are people I have called the greatest mass murderers in the history of mankind. People who have no moral gyroscope. I believed that when I walked into the room, I believed that after I listened to them. And I ultimately said to myself, and this is something I had thought about beforehand so whether it was right, wrong or what have you. Maybe it is the training as a trial lawyer. But the ultimate goal here can't be dominated by the extent to which I despise those people and what they have done. The ultimate goal really has got to be focused on what can we do to change how tobacco is marketed and sold in this country. The number of people who have died in this country from tobacco. And do it in a way that meets basic principles with moral and social justice. Q. Who is Steve Parrish? Myers: Steve Parrish has been the mouthpiece of Philip Morris for a decade. Yes. But it may be hard for you to see, but I went into the meeting with the conscious thought that I had to separate personal feelings about the individuals from the public policy goals that we needed to achieve. That is not an easy thing to do. Q. Isn't it in the back of your mind that your colleagues, your allies are saying he is doing that in secret if they found out you were meeting with the enemy in secret and they didn't know. Weren't you taking your life work in your hands? Myers: In some respects, yes. I did some things to try to decrease that risk. That very night I had the President of the organizations I work with set up a conference call with the CEOs of a number of the major health organizations. The Cancer Society, The Heart Association, AMA Academy of Pediatrics. I believed at that time, The Lung Association as well then. I will have to go back to double check exactly. I didn't set up the conference call. So that within a day we would be in a position to at least let the leadership of those organizations know that there were conversations going on. But the other question, the one that you raised, is one that I really only began to focus on over the week-end. This conversation, first conversation took place on a Thursday afternoon, if my recollection is correct. There was another meeting on Friday afternoon. And enough energy just went into preparation for focus on those meetings. It was really only over the weekend where you had a chance to step back a bit and say, okay, now... And try to figure out where you are in all that. And, that juncture, I recognized full well that if this went wrong, that this would make it very difficult for the work I had, you know, committed to doing with a large number of people. Q. Well some people say that you got carried away. That you had not right to negotiate on their behalf. Myers: And I didn't negotiate on their behalf. There are two ways to look at it. There is three ways to look at it. And in the different perspective, each had merit. I told Goldstone, Bible and everybody else I wasn't there on anybody's behalf. That if they wanted me to be there on somebody's behalf then they had to give me permission to go and consult with all of them to do that. Q. Why did they have to give you permission? Why didn't you just say, hey, I can't negotiate with you guys, I am just one person. I have to go talk to my people. Myers: Well, but I did that. Because in the very first conference call with the very CEOs, I raised the issue of whether there ought to be other people there. And whether they had suggestions of who it ought to be and whether they wanted other people there. And the conclusion they reached at the time was that they hoped I would be willing to keep going for a while, while they figured out the answer to that question. By the time that the discussions became public, which was really less than two weeks later, we had already begun talking seriously about trying to insert other public health representatives into the process. And immediately after they became public... Q. But you were there on June 20th, you endorsed the settlement. Myers: I did not endorse the agreement. I did not sign the agreement. Q. You said it was a great step forward. Myers: And it was. It was. I said the agreement was flawed but it provides the best opportunity for change that we have ever had. Q. Here is what your critics say. This is the draft proposal. They tell me, look to page 37. Title 7, paragraph C. $500 million dollars shall be spent annually in such multi-media campaigns. That is, public education campaigns... Myers: Right. Q. ...Designed to discourage and deglamorize the use of tobacco products. To carry out such efforts, an independent non-profit organization, made up of prestigious individuals and leaders of the major public health organizations shall be created, etc. And they shall contract or make grants to non-profit, private enterprises who are unaffiliated with tobacco manufacturers or tobacco importers. Who have demonstrated a record of working effectively to produce tobacco product use and expertise in multi-media communications campaign. What the critics say is, this is your organization. That this was a payoff to your organization, directly. Myers: I wrote those words. I wrote those words. I'll take direct responsibility for them. I wrote those words based on the best of what we know you have to do to produce an effective counter- advertising campaign. I wrote those words based upon the comments of many of those same people about what was wrong with the advertising campaigns in states like California and Massachusetts in an effort to insulate it from public political pressure. I also said that the National Center wouldn't accept one penny of that money so that there would never be a question that that was designed to enhance our organization. Q. How do you explain that your colleagues, who you worked with so many years were so bitter about your participation in this deal? And, in fact, in the deal even being announced. Myers: This agreement and all that it has led to has provoked the most fundamental passions, many of which for good reason. It moves us forward so far in answering fundamental questions. Questions that were just literally hypotheticals only a year ago. What really are the ultimate policies we want to enact in this country? What are our real goals with regard to the tobacco industry? What are the moral questions about political trade offs of this magnitude? They should have and they did provoke the deepest most passionate feelings. Feelings that have been an undercurrent but you didn't have to get to. As long as you were only tinkering at the edges of this problem. And that is what we were doing before now. This agreement has provoked the deepest, most important public policy debate about tobacco that this nation has ever had. And anybody, in any single position with regard to it is going to be subject to some level of criticism. I knew that when we at the National Center decided to participate that I was taking a serious risk. You know, I got into this business for one reason and that was that this country's history of reining in the tobacco industry is beyond deplorable. I think it is one of the great tragedies of this century. And if there was an opportunity to do something to make a fundamental change, I was willing to take a risk to do that. Q. Well, but your colleagues would say, they were on the ropes. They were going to get wiped out by these Medicaid suits. They may still get wiped out in Minnesota as we speak. And you were providing them a way out. A way to survive. Myers: I guess there are a couple of answers to that question. They were on the ropes, but we have to ask to what end and at what risk? The outcomes of those lawsuits was, and remain, uncertain. Having worked with those Attorney Generals, I know that the vast majority of them were prepared to settle their cases before and will be prepared to settle them in the future. Having studied those cases and looked at the law, you can't get away from the fact that those cases bear substantial risk and that those courts are not likely to order fundamental wholesale change. Bankruptcy ultimately isn't going to be an answer. Q. You don't believe that you, in a sense, have been outsmarted by the industry. I mean I have a document from 1980 from British American Tobacco that basically outlines a deal. Let's change our policy. Let's stop youth smoking. Let's not try to get more young people to smoke. We have got the wrong strategy in the United States. And it concludes that the problem to date has been a severe constraint of the American legal position. This problem has made us seem to lack credibility in the eyes of the ordinary man on the street. Somehow we must regain this credibility. By giving a little, we may gain a lot. By giving nothing, we stand to lose everything. Myers: If we accept them giving a little, then we will have lost. That is why it is so fundamental important that we focus on what it is we, as a nation, want. Not what the tobacco industry wants to give. If we demand from Congress that they enact the right policies, policies that go far beyond anything the tobacco industry was prepared to give, even in those negotiations, then we have an opportunity to bring about the sort of fundamental change that we are not otherwise going to see. Q. So are you saying that what you did on July... Are you saying that what you did on June 20th was, in a sense, make them think you endorsed the deal but actually outsmarted them because they can never go back? Myers: What I think we did throughout the process is change the debate about what is possible and that the June 20th agreement was the starting point for the public and Congressional debate. Now only history will tell us whether they outsmarted us or we outsmarted them. But what I do know is that without that agreement, we wouldn't be having the debate today in Congress or in the public about what to do with the tobacco industry along these lines. We wouldn't have legislation being seriously considered of the threat, toughness and expanse that we have today. There has been a sea change in Congress on which side to be on of this debate, since June 20th, that is unprecedented in the 20 years before it. Q. What do you mean? Myers: There are members of Congress now that are supporting tough action against the tobacco industry who never voted with us. Never voted with us before. We have members of Congress who have endorsed the most stringent regulation by the food and drug administration. Who, only a year and a half ago, signed a letter to the FDA urging them not to assert jurisdiction over tobacco. We have members of Congress sponsoring legislation with the toughest possible controls on the tobacco industry who, only last summer, voted not to give the Food and Drug Administration enough money to enforce simple youth access restrictions. This debate has forever changed how members of Congress are agreeing to deal with the tobacco industry in an extraordinarily positive way. Q. Then why are some of your colleagues so worried that the tobacco industry will slip out of their clutches, if you will, in Congress? Myers: I share those concerns. I mean there is no other way to put it. I share those concerns and that is why the public debate, I think, has been so constructive. Congress' history of tobacco is a history of failure and backroom deals that were bad for the American public. You can, however, say that we have the tobacco industry on the brink of oblivion, with wholesale public attitudes change and not also recognize that that could well give us an opportunity to do something in Congress that we couldn't do before. If we do it right. You can be frozen into inaction by past mistakes or you can learn from them and try to make change. Q. Is it really a done deal already because there is so much money involved? Myers: Fortunately, the answer is no. It is not a done deal precisely because of the passions that it has provoked. For once this is not going to be a deal that is done behind closed doors without people paying attention. Q. Well let me ask you about what you are willing to give them. Are you willing to give them immunity from punitive damages? Myers: First and foremost, my role in this process has changed. I am no longer sitting in a room negotiating with the tobacco industry. The debate has moved beyond June 20th to the halls of Congress. What Congress has got to decide is not what the tobacco industry wants, but what is good public policy. As an advocate for the public health, my job is to make sure that Congress does the best possible job. Q. Okay. What is the best possible job? What are you going to trade for all this public health money, for all these reparations, for all these payments, for all these education campaigns. Will you give them, would you advocate giving them immunity from punitive damages. Myers: I would never advocate giving them immunity for anything. I didn't advocate it in the June 20th agreement. I didn't accept it in the June 20th agreement. I wouldn't advocate it now. Whether there will have to be a trade off at the end is something that is impossible for me to predict. If we in the public health community do our job, there shouldn't have to be a wholesale trade at the end. Q. If the tobacco industry is willing to put up $60 billion for past punitive damages, would you give them a buy on past punitive damages. If they are just going to pay $60 billion up front? Myers: It is a question I can't answer for you. My initial inclination is that the issue of past punitive damages is one of the most difficult ones. I objected to the negotiations about past punitive damages throughout the negotiations. The agreement on past punitive damages, as everyone knows, was made on a day that I wasn't at the negotiations. Q. You do agree, however, that $500 million should be paid to an organization or organizations that are involved in public education against smoking? Myers: I agree and everyone in the public health community agrees that a well funded independent public education campaign is a crucial part of any comprehensive plan whatsoever. I also have agreed that our organization has said from the get-go that we wouldn't accept that money, so that there would never be any question about our motives. Q. Do you agree with the view that giving them immunity from class action suits is actually giving them nothing because existing precedents are you can't sue in a national class action anyway. Myers: I put it differently. I happen to believe that the law of class actions means that they are not likely to be a powerful tool for the public health. But I think that is a reason why they shouldn't be given immunity from them. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/settlement/

Blakey is a former federal prosecutor and the author of the federal RICO statute, which has been used to prosecute members of the mob. He was hired by Ronald Motley to develop the civil racketeering portion of the Texas and Florida Medicaid cases. Both states ended up settling their cases, but the racketeering element of the cases threatened the tobacco companies with bankruptcy. Below are excerpts from the interview with Blakey in which he expresses his opinions, and compares the structure of the cigarette industry to the structure of the Mafia and recommends using RICO laws to criminally prosecute the industry. He is currently a Professor of Law at Notre Dame University. This interview was conducted in 1998. Interviewer: How has the tobacco industry changed? Robert Blakey: The tobacco industry morphed in 1953 from a legitimate industry to an illegitimate industry and it became a front for the selling of a drug, not cocaine, not heroin, but nicotine. In 1953, studies came out that cigarettes cause cancer and it was now like scientifically established and the reaction of the industry was not let's clean the product up and do it right, it was to treat it as a public relations problem, cover it up. And they knew now that if used as directed --it killed, and instead of stopping it or cleaning it up, they covered it up. They morphed from a legitimate industry into a front for the sale of a, of a illicit drug, in the sense that it is a lethal drug and when they lie about its character, they become a front for the sale of drugs. Interviewer: They would say, 'what we did was try to examine what this scientific research was. People already knew they were coffin nails, they weren't necessarily good for you, that there was risk involved.' Robert Blakey: What you've just said to me is part of the propaganda they created. Science has standards about how you investigate it, how you analyze it and how you make it public. They didn't do that. When the Surgeon General came to them in '64 and said, tell me what you know about tobacco, they didn't tell him. They hid it. They treated it as a public relations question, designed by the lawyers to avoid legal responsibility, rather than, this is a common problem that all Americans have, with the health of a product. If they had been open and candid, we have a product here that we think there's a problem in and we're trying to clean it up, these are the risks. If you want to use it, these are the risks, assume them, that's one thing. But what they did is they created a bogus scientific controversy. The research that they were doing, they didn't tell anybody about. At least initially, it looked like they thought they could clean it up and the more search they did, they found out they couldn't clean it up. Did they come clean? Did they make a safer product? No, the lawyers told them, don't make a safer product because that's an admission that your existing product is unsafe. They engaged in a complex scheme to defraud the American people. It's just that simple. Interviewer: Over a 40 year period? Robert Blakey: Beginning in 1953. They are today a $45 billion- $50 billion industry that causes $60, $65 billion worth of damage. As many as 450,000 die each year using this product, as directed. They must replenish the people from whom they do it and this is the sinister problem about it. We talk about drug pushers. The only really drug pushers in this country are the tobacco industry. They have to addict as many as 3,000 people a day. The statistics show that a majority of those people, over 50% of those people are addicted at under age 18. This industry targeted young people and induced them into using nicotine products and nicotine addiction is harder to break than heroin addiction. Interviewer: When you say racketeering, people think of organized crime, the Cosa Nostra. Why do you believe this industry is like them and how widely is RICO applied? Robert Blakey: In the early 1930s, the families of le Cosa Nostra, the mob, put together a national organization to coordinate their illegal and legal activities. In 1953, the cigarette industry put together a similar organization, headed by the lawyers, headed by a bogus scientific research group and a public relations group and if you just look at the structure of the national syndicate of organized crime and look at the structure of the national syndicate of the tobacco industry, you'll see how they are the same, hand in glove. Interviewer: Now, you say the lawyers, that's the committee of counsel. What is the committee of counsel? Robert Blakey: The particular scheme to defraud that the industry put together was, in fact, designed, implemented, structured, by the lawyers. The ligation in Florida that I was involved in established in court hearings that these lawyers were not performing as lawyers, providing traditional legal services. In fact, they engaged in what in the law is known as a crime fraud exception... The lawyers, not the scientists, designed the research. The lawyers decided what was to be disclosed publicly about the research. Now, there's nothing wrong with legal advice. Lawyers should do that, but there's a difference a lawyer and the house counsel for the Mafia. These law firms, just as the industry morphed, these law firms morphed into providing criminal advice, criminal advice to the industry. They orchestrated a fraud and a crime and that's precisely what we established in Florida. It-- normally, the lawyer client privilege is sacrosanct. There's an exception to that. If you can establish prima facie, that is, on first face, that the behavior of the lawyers is not advancing a legitimate industry in a legitimate way, but rather, a crime fraud, you can get the disclosure of the conversations between the client and the lawyer and we got those documents in Florida under precisely that standard. Interviewer: This group of lawyers was known as the committee of counsel? Robert Blakey: That's correct, which were lawyer representatives of each of the major firms in the tobacco industry. Interviewer: But, some people would say many industries do that. It's their First Amendment right to do that. Robert Blakey: Well, it's your First Amendment right to say, in public, whatever you want to. It's not in your First Amendment right to counsel the commission of a crime. Justice Holmes once said, you can't yell fire in a crowded theater and the same thing is, you can't tell a person falsely that a product is not addictive if it is addictive. You can't tell him that it's not lethal, you know, if it is lethal. You can't induce children with sophisticated advertisement to think that it's an adult thing to smoke. You can't target children when the sale of tobacco to children is illicit. And that's what that industry did. The first Amendment rights were abused by engaging in a scheme to defraud and there's a difference between saying what's on your mind and lying and lying is illegal. Interviewer: But lying, sir--there are very serious charges you're making. People can lie, industries can lie. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're breaking the law. Robert Blakey: If in fact, an industry systematically misrepresents the nature of its product in an effort to sell that product to a child and that product is addictive and lethal, that's a federal felony. Interviewer: Do you believe you could prove this beyond a reasonable doubt? Robert Blakey: I've been a federal prosecutor, a staff member in the House and the Senate and a teacher of the federal criminal law for 30 years. I didn't do anything in Florida for Attorney General Bloodworth, I didn't do anything in Texas for Attorney Morales that I couldn't do for Attorney General Reno. I could design a federal criminal RICO case and the evidence here is sufficient to pass muster beyond a reasonable doubt. Interviewer: And you came to the conclusion that this is a racketeering enterprize? Robert Blakey: I sat down and went over the evidence with the staff in Florida and we put together the RICO count. I drafted the Florida RICO statute in 1977. Know it cold. And you could just take the evidence on each of the elements and it just fit. What you need to do is don't think of a cigarette as tobacco, aimed at your tongue. Think of it like a syringe and it's going to put the drug not in your vein, it's gonna put it in your lung and go right to your head. All, all cigarettes are is a delivery system for nicotine and nicotine is addictive and also happens as a byproduct of it, to be lethal. Interviewer: But it's legal. Robert Blakey: It's not legal when you sell it to kids under 18. It's unlawful to advertise it to kids, it's unlawful to sell it to kids and the statistics indicate that adults don't take up cigarettes. Adults don't take it up. Kids do. These people are pushers for an illicit, illegal, lethal drug for children. It's just that simple and once you're addicted, that addiction continues into adulthood. Interviewer: The Justice Department has a special tobacco task force, at least, apparently 11 attorneys, 9 FBI agents full time. They've chosen not to do RICO. Why? Robert Blakey: If you can do a conspiracy to defraud and they tell me they can do that, I can do it as a RICO and I'll tell you, while it may impose on you, the paradox is it permits you to do what you do more effectively and it radically changes the nature of the trial. More evidence will come in. The American people will see more of the story. They won't just see the fraud, they'll see the organization behind the fraud and the remedies that you get are the end are more significant. You could get forfeiture, you get long term imprisonment and you get, as a parallel remedy to the criminal case, civil sanctions, modeled on antitrust and just as DuPont was required to divest themselves of ownership in General Motors, because it was a monopoly, you could great up the cigarette industry and require them too become what they were in 1952, a legitimate industry. Clean your product up or don't sell it. If you do sell it, sell it only to knowledgeable adults. Don't sell it to children. Interviewer: What is 1001? Robert Blakey: 1001 is 18 USC, which is volume 18 of the United States Code and it's Section 1001 and basically what is says is don't tell a material lie to the government. And if you submit written documents or oral documents to the government and they are materially false, it's a felony. Interviewer: We have heard that the Justice Department is focusing on submissions of the tobacco industry to the FDA during the comment period. That would qualify? Robert Blakey: Absolutely, but those same submissions, in all likelihood, were mailed and if they were mailed, part of a national conspiracy, originating in the early 50s, to obfuscate the issues, to hide from the American people or to confuse the American people, about addiction and about the lethal character of cigarettes, that's also a scheme to defraud. A scheme to defraud that's been in operation, orchestrated by the lawyers, participated in by the major figures in the industry from 1953 to today. Show me the organization of the industry, show me that it has an enterprise in it, show me that the scheme to defraud has been orchestrated for this period of time, you just showed me a RICO. If they can make that case, 1001, I can make a mail fraud. If I can make a mail fraud, given what I know about the organization of the industry, I can make a RICO. If I can make a RICO, I can come in civilly and reorganize the industry. Interviewer: What are the criminal violations that you see? And what's the evidence that you've reviewed about the tobacco industry? Robert Blakey: The easy one's are false statements to the government. Which is 18USC 1001. And when you have false statements to the government, you would also have mail fraud. That is, were the false statements sent through the mail? Or, were their statements sent through the mail part of a scheme to defraud. You have wire fraud. Which is to say, is if it's sent through, ah, fax as opposed to a letter it's federally something that you can take cognizance of. This is at heart a fraud that involves lying and cheating. And, and more so, it's a fraud that, that targets children. And thus you potentially have the interstate transportation of, of what's federally called an immoral product. Immoral, in this context, because selling cigarettes to children, ah, is immoral. Interviewer: In your opinion, tax fraud? Robert Blakey: There is some indication that some of the documents filed by organizations had false statements in them about the nature of the organizations. So that you'd have false statements, ah, to obtain tax exemptions. And those kinds of things. If you look at this case, for example, as perjury before Congress and you focus on a single line in the statement by the CEO before the Waxman committee. Is it perjury? Is it prosecutable as perjury? And the answer is probably not. Because it was lawyered. If you step back and stop looking at the trees and look at the forest and ask, what was it done? When was it done? Why it was done? You've got a classic scheme to defraud. If you bring, for example, psychologists in to analyze the advertisement and ask, who is this advertisement aimed at? When they, for example, put in Teenage magazine, don't smoke. That's an adult thing. Literally it means, don't smoke. But advertising executives will tell you, psychologists will tell you, children want to be adults. By telling them not to do it, because it's an adult thing, you're really telling them to do it. And if you target your advertising at kids that's illegal. Particularly, if you publicly say, we don't target kids. Interviewer: In your opinion, can they make a conspiracy to defraud, looking at the forest and at the trees, when they have to deal with these lawyered statements? Robert Blakey: The answer is yes. Get the documents. And parallel them out. This is what they're saying publicly. This is what the documents are saying privately. Is there a difference? Why is there a difference? If there is a substantial difference between what you say publicly and what you say private, that's an [inditia] of an attempt to defraud. If you say you're making a safe cigarette or safer cigarette publicly, and privately you know you're not, that's an [inditia] of a scheme to defraud. If you say you're not targeting children publicly, and your internal studies are of what do we have to do to get access to the youth market, that's an [inditia] of a scheme to defraud. Put all that together, you'll make your scheme to defraud. It requires imagination and understanding of the industry. If they won't take the time...if justice won't take the time and trouble to master the documents and understand the crisis the industry faced in fifty-three...they had a product that potentially was lethal, and as they got into it, they found out it was lethal and addictive. They had to either clean it up or get out of the business. And they were making too much money to get out of the business. So they covered up the nature of the product. They lied to all the regulatory people in an effort to prevent themselves from being regulated. They came to the congress to get cigarette warnings on the labels. Why? Because they wanted to be honest with us? Give me a break. What they wanted in that legislation was to pre-empt state claims for relief. So that private people couldn't sue them in state courts. Pull all of that out of their records. Put them on the stand. Ask them questions to explain this. Contrast their public statements before congress to their private statements. Put that before an American jury. And there's not an American juror in the world that will believe that these people are still honest business men. Just because lawyers...I don't say this intentionally...blow smoke, it doesn't mean that American people have to have smoke in their eyes...that got common sense. Read it with common sense. Stop being a lawyer. And start using common sense. Present to the jury the whole story and this is eminently a scheme to defraud. Interviewer: So you're saying you believe that these tobacco executives and their companies should be held accountable criminally for this conduct? Robert Blakey: I believe that they should be held accountable personally to the people that they have injured. And that means civily. I think they ought to be held accountable to the tax payers of the United States both federally, and all of the states, who have paid for the poor people who have suffered and died because of these cigarettes. And to the degree that you can identify individuals in the companies and lawyers in the law firm that have participated in the fraud, yes. I think that the law ought to be equally applied on Mulberry street to the mob, on Wall street to illicit industries, and on tobacco row to people who morf from a legitimate industry into an illicit industry. Why shouldn't they be held accountable just like everybody else? Because their shirts are white? Ah, the white collar offender is not responsible like the blue collar offender of the guy who can't wear a shirt? Yes. Civily and criminally. Personally and institutionally responsible. We have not enough responsibility in this society today. Interviewer: The national settlement, however, could get in the way of a criminal case? Robert Blakey: That's true. And a criminal case could get in the way of the national settlement. That's just one of those things we have to work out. I don't know why we have to give up the criminal case to get a national settlement. These people need the national settlement. We need the national settlement. Maybe what they do is, they do what a lot of people do. They plead guilty. And they work out a settlement. What they'd like to do now is work out a settlement and not plead guilty. That's not the American way. What you do is you confess responsibility. Accept responsibility. And then you work out your rehabilitation. They want the rehabilitation before they accept responsibility. Interviewer: But just recently Geoffrey Bible said, in testimony in Minnesota, I'm horrified at these documents. I don't know where they came from. I don't know anything about them. I don't even know about the committee of counsel. Robert Blakey: All I can think of is Claude Raines in "Casablanca" saying, I'm shocked. There's gambling in this casino. Interviewer: But the Mafia--that's racketeering, prostitution, murder...And this is a legitimate industry. Robert Blakey: In fact, it's not a legitimate industry. This is an outline of the Rico statute. You have to have a corporations up here, that's the first thing. The second thing you have to have is an enterprise. And what you saw previously, was the organization of organized crime. This is the organization of the tobacco industry. Now, what do they do over here. A pattern of racketeering activity. Let me show you that pattern. This is the industry's scheme to defraud. Here's the statute again. Person, enterprise, pattern of racketeering activity. And here it is, the intentional sale of a defective product that's both addictive and lethal. The failure to market a safer product. And you can go down this list at each stage, taken collectively, these are the trees of the forest to show that this product was no longer legitimate and legitimately marketed. It's illegitimate and illegitimately marketed. And in particular, targeted to the children. Despite the fact that in fifty states the sale of cigarettes to children is illegal. This is not a legal product when it's sold to children. It's the same thing functionally as cocaine or heroine. This is a drug industry. Not a tobacco industry. Rico was designed to deal with the drug industry. And that's exactly what it does in this situation. It's just that the drug, instead of heroine and cocaine, is nicotine. The form of it is not wholly illicit. The form of it is front. A legitimate industry behind which it is in fact selling drugs to our children. And it is the beauty of their success for so long that they've convinced us that they are the legitimate industry that they were before nineteen fifty-three. After nineteen fifty-three, they morfed into this...what amounts to a Rico enterprise. A scheme to defraud to addict our children and to kill our children by selling a product unlawfully. Interviewer: I can see people out there saying, give me a break. We've got Fortune 500 companies; we've pension funds that are invested in their stock...the idea of prosecuting them as a racketeering criminal enterprise... Robert Blakey: This is exactly what the attorney general in Florida did using this theory. It's exactly what the attorney general in Texas did using exactly this theory. These are exactly the allegations that appear in both of those complaints. And this is exactly the basis on which they settled for over ten billion dollars in Florida and over fifteen billion dollars in Texas. Rather than try this case, they settled. Interviewer: Now if we were to go and interview a member of the lawyers....the Committee of Counsel, someone who was in those meetings, what should we ask him? Robert Blakey: You want to ask him point by point, paragraph by paragraph, whether the complaints in Florida were true, whether the complaints in Texas were true. And if they weren't true, why did they settle the case? Interviewer: So, in summary, why do you believe that it's the role of lawyers, consigliaries if you will, that is key to keeping this racketeering enterprise going? Robert Blakey: Lawyers can do both legal advice that's lawful, and legal advice that's unlawful. Some of the lawyers here gave legal advice that was lawful. But a core of lawyers orchestrated the fraud. One of the things proven in Florida was precisely that these lawyers and their communications were not confidential, that they should be disclosed because of the crime fraud exception that was found after an adversary hearing in Florida. We broke the chain of silence, or the lawyer client privilege, by establishing the fact of fraud. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/settlement/

Professor Glantz has been a long-time critic of tobacco and is a leader in the anti-tobacco public health community. In 1994, more than 4,000 pages of secret internal tobacco industry documents mysteriously arrived at Glantz's office at the University of California. They were sent by a secret source, "Mr. Butts." Dr. Glantz posted them on the Internet, as well as compiled them into a book, "TheCigarette Papers." In California, Glantz has lobbied extensively for reform of cigarette laws and he and other local activists are responsible for the recent passage of the ban on cigarette smoking in bars. Glantz is opposed to a national settlement and believes that the cigarette industry can never be trusted to comply with any national deal. Q. When the Brown and Williamson documents arrived, what was your reaction when you opened the box and started reading? Glantz: Well, my initial reaction when I opened them was that I'm going to send these to Dick Daynard. Because I up until then had been working on issues around secondhand smoke and local clean indoor air laws, and was really not that interested in the litigation aspect of tobacco and nicotine pharmacology and cancer and all that. And, and so--I kind of knew what they were because they'd been floating around for some time and I'd heard about them. But my initial reaction was "well, I'll look through these for a few minutes and ship them off to Dick because he's the guy who's really doing litigation." But as I started to look through them I just got sucked in. I mean it was like an archaeologist stumbling into a new, you know, tomb or some kind of archaeological site. Because after working for years against the tobacco industry and listening to the absolutely ridiculous public statements that come out of the Tobacco Institute and their other spokesmen, to have a window into the industry and to see how they were really thinking--intelligent, motivated, sharp people--was just in, incredible and it sucked me in. Q. Sucked you in how? Glantz: I just realized I wanted to read all this stuff and I wanted to write about it. There was just an important story that needed to be written about and you know, I work in a university, it's publish or perish. So I decided to publish something. Now we had no idea, or I had no idea when I started this that we'd end up writing a book. I was expecting writing maybe an article for a medical journal. But it just, it's, it's, it's--I recruited some of my colleagues to work on the project and we got into it--the thing just grew and turned into, into the book we wrote. Q. Now you say you heard about the documents, for a while some of your colleagues knew about the documents, but they wouldn't go near them. Glantz: Yeah what I had heard was there was a group of highly secretive internal industry documents that were floating around out there, that they'd gone to a variety of the health groups and other people and no one would touch them. That that was everything I knew till the story broke in May of 1994. Q. What do you mean "no one would touch them"? Glantz: I just heard that no one wanted them. I mean, I didn't--I wasn't paying that much attention. I mean I was working on secondhand smoke and trying to get local clean indoor air laws passed. Q. Dick Daynard, Nader's people, we understand through Merrell Williams he went to Daynard, he went to Nader's people, he went to Morton Mintz and everybody acted like this is radioactive. Why would they do that? Glantz: Well, the tobacco industry is very litigious, they're very nasty, they have an infinite amount of money so they don't need to have a good case. They'll just bring a case to torture you. I mean they're trying to do that to me at the University of California right now. And I mean it's a baseless case but they'll spend thousands of dollars just to keep us busy. And I think people just were frightened of them. I don't know, I haven't talked to them about why. Q. Is this one of the reasons why Dick Scruggs and Mike Moore are important, that they weren't scared? Glantz: Yeah. I mean I think--when you look at what Dick Scruggs and Mike Moore and Humphrey and the others that came in to the Cerisi--the lawyers who come into this case have done the public a great service, because they've come in and had the courage and the wherewithal to take the industry on on its own terms. And I think that the activities of these lawyers really points to the really inadequate job that the public health community's done on this issue for the last forty years. They've talked about tobacco a lot, but they've never been willing to put the resources into taking the industry out. If you go back and look at the--back to 1964 when the Surgeon General's report first came out and read the Brown and Williamson documents and other things that have come out, the industry was terrorized of the public health groups, especially the Cancer Society, that they were just going to come in and squash them. And they didn't, you know? Instead of coming in and smashing the tobacco industry they decided that they would keep kids from smoking. They're making--the same mistakes they're making now. It's just right now you see history repeating itself. But if the public health community had been willing to demand the kind--and commit the kind of resources that it took, there--pardon me. If the public health community had been willing to commit the kind of resources that they, that they could have, they could have wiped out the tobacco industry in the sixties as a public health problem. But it wasn't until Scruggs and Moore and, and all these other lawyers, Motley, uh, Humphrey, Cerisi, came along and started to take the industry on seriously. And you know, these guys are very sharp and they spend a moderate amount of money, but it's not an astronomical amount of money, it's not money that the health groups couldn't have spent if they'd wanted to. But the tobacco companies not only have worked hard at influencing government, they've worked hard at influencing the public health community and keeping them frightened, and trying to convince them that if you did anything meaningful your donations, uh, would go down and it would be controversial. And one of the things the industry understood very early on was groups like the Cancer Society and the Heart Association, the Lung Association , were terrified of controversy. So every--because they thought it would hurt their donations. And so any time those groups started to move toward doing anything effective, which generally meant something in the political arena, the industry would yell and scream and jump up and down, they would get their, their toadies to yell and scream and jump up and down, and these groups generally backed off. And it was a strategy that worked for years and years and years. I mean the thing I've learned is that when the industry tries to make something controversial, you should run straight at it. Because that's what matters, you know. You don't see the industry complaining about reducing youth smoking because they know that the strategies aimed at just reducing youth smoking won't hurt them in the long run. You don't see the industry complaining about smoking cessation because they know it isn't very effective. But clean indoor air, meaningful restrictions on advertising and promotion, things designed to hold them responsible for the costs they impose on society--those are the things the industry's scared of. And those are the very things that these health groups have been very slow, to take up. Q. So Moore, Scruggs, they were the father of Dr. Butts at least, or Mr. Butts, right? Glantz: No one's ever told me where it came from. Q. You've never asked? Glantz: No. why, what's in it for me? Just make my life more complicated. Q. If you knew who it was who changed you life for the last four years? Glantz: I'll find out when I get to a nursing home. It's a lot simpler to just leave that door closed. Q. When you first heard of this lawsuit in Mississippi, the idea of suing for Medicaid, the third party suits like that, what was your reaction? Glantz: Oh, it was a great idea. Q. Most people we've talked to said it was a crazy idea. Didn't have a chance in the world. Glantz: No, I thought it was a great idea. I mean, the taxpayers get stuck with these costs, the industry's been lying to the public for decades, why shouldn't they try? Q. Were you suspicious of these personal injury lawyers? These guys with their jet planes and their big yachts and their swashbuckling attitude? Glantz: No more than you should be. I mean, my attitude toward the lawyers was they had their lawyers and--they had their greedy lawyers on horseback and now the public health people had their greedy lawyers on horseback. And that was fine. The big problem that we've had with the lawyers has not been with the lawyers. The lawyers are acting like lawyers. The big problem that we've had is that the public health community and, and the politicians, who should be serving the public interest and keeping the lawyers under control, effectively being the clients, have tended to let the lawyers tell them what to do, and, and have tended to let the lawyers set the agenda. Rather than asserting the public interest and keeping the financial pressures on these lawyers in balance by the public interest. I mean in the end the lawyers who brought these cases are going to make a lot of money, whether they settle, whether they go to trial, or whether Congress bails out the tobacco industry. And I frankly don't begrudge them the money. I think they've done a--done the public a great service in getting this process going. But right now these same lawyers are pushing a deal in Congress which is not in the public interest. And, and I think that the interest of the lawyers and the public health community have to some extent diverged. And one of the things that I think the public health people never understood in the--as this thing unfolded was there was a period of time when the interests of the lawyers bringing these cases and the public health interests were quite congruent but they weren't identical. And what's happened in the last few months is those interests have diverged. Q. Well let me take you back to 1996. By then you've got Wigand, you've got Merrell Williams, you've got Bennet LeBow, you've got a growing number of states suing. Glantz: Right. Q. And word is out that there is an attempt to develop a settlement. What was your reaction then? Glantz: I thought it was horrible. I thought it was premature, I thought it was a sellout, I thought that this was the beginning of the divergence of the public interests and the interests of these lawyers, and that it was a mistake. Again, the power--the, the, the power to fight the tobacco industry, the proper place to fight the tobacco industry is not in the United States Congress. If you were the Starship Enterprise and you searched the entire universe for the place where the tobacco industry had the most power, it would be the United States Congress. Particularly this Congress, which was put there in no small measure by tobacco industry money and influence. So you want to stay away from that. If you're in a war with a well-armed enemy you don't rush into their citadel to fight with them; you try to get them to fight on your terms. And what's happened with the tobacco control movement, particularly with regard to clean indoor air, is we've learned that the communities is where you can beat them. And what the AG's did with all of these suits is they distributed the problem all over the country into many different venues with different sets of rules, environments where the industry had not historically been so strong. And that's where we should keep the fight because we can win there. We have won there. So I--so the idea of some big blowout settlement, of pulling the whole thing back into the United States Congress, never appealed to me. And if you go back--and I thought, and, and they were asking for way too little. I remember Dick Scruggs when the first proposals came out, I think it was four billion dollars or six billion dollars. He was going around saying "this is the best we're ever going to do. This is the best we can do. You better take it. If you don't take it now they're going to take it away and we're going to never get anything." Well, that has only gone up by a factor of fifty or sixty since then. That the three hundred sixty eight billion dollars they're talking about now is only about five cents on the dollar. So it's still a great deal for the cigarette companies. Q. What do you mean, five cents on the dollar? Glantz: The tobacco industry costs America, just in health costs and lost wages, about a hundred or a hundred and ten billion dollars a year in just direct damages. The settlement would only produce about twelve billion a year. And it's tax deductible so it's really only five. So the deal that the AG's made is something that would, if it had been implemented as written, would have reimbursed the states pretty nicely for their Medicaid expenditures, which was the original motivation for those suits. But the other ninety five percent of the smoking-related costs, which the industry should be held liable for, were just blown off. You know, the, the deal that was negotiated and released last June, it, it took great, it took good care of the tobacco industry, it took reasonable financial care of the states, in terms of their Medicaid expenses, and it left the public out in the cold. Q. Up to that point, June twentieth, the tobacco industry had never admitted anything. Glantz: Yeah. Q. You didn't see that as a great step forward? Glantz: No, no. I think that the industry could read the handwriting on the wall. The history of this issue--and we're having very much a replay of the sixties. In the sixties, when the original Surgeon General's report came out, there was a tremendous amount of action against the tobacco industry going on all over the country. All over the country there was chaos from their point of view. And they went to the United States Congress and they pretended to compromise. And they gave a little bit on warning labels and later they gave a little bit on advertising restrictions, and got bailed out for thirty years. And that's, and that's what's going on again here. I think the way to beat the tobacco industry is to beat the tobacco industry. You know, it's not easy but it's possible, and you do it one step at a time. And the fact that these suits are distributed all over the country in many different venues under many different sets of rules and all the AG's and the other lawyers are cooperating with each other--to me, that's a recipe for long term disaster for the industry, which is what I'd like to see happen. I mean these people have killed ten million Americans since that 1964 Surgeon General's report. And they should not be allowed to just go on. The tobacco industry has killed ten million Americans since the 1964 Surgeon General's report, and they should not be allowed to buy their way out of taking responsibility for their actions. I mean we have a civil and criminal justice system to impose reasonable conduct on businesses, and the tobacco industry should not be allowed to buy their way out of their responsibility for five cents on the dollar. Or for even a hundred cents on the dollar. I mean, they should have to take responsibility for what they've done. And I think we're making very good progress in doing that. While I think the deal in Congress is, is a, almost complete victory for the tobacco industry, and particularly the June twentieth agreement was masterfully negotiated by their lawyers. Because they produced something that looked good, but when you get down and look at the nitty-gritty details of it on every little thing, on anything that mattered the industry won. And on anything that didn't matter they gave. And they sure think--the reason is very simple. They, I mean they'd been planning on this showdown for thirty years. I mean you can find things in the Brown and Williamson documents where they were talking about what should we do if we start really facing the chance of losing these suits? And they said we should establish a superfund that will give us immunity. And that's just what they're trying to do. Q. So they've outsmarted the public health community, they've outsmarted the Attorneys General. Glantz: Yes, absolutely. Q. Now, you say the devil's in the details. Let's go over a couple of details. Glantz: Okay. Q. You don't like the immunity that the deal provides. Why not? Glantz: Because the tobacco industry's killed ten million people. Because they've committed a huge fraud on the American public. And because they should be held accountable for that. They should be held accountable to the same rules of corporate and individual behavior as everybody else. It's very simple. Q. The immunity issue threatens their survival. They wouldn't want it unless they were worried about surviving. Glantz: No, that's correct. The issue of liability is what has driven this industry for the last fifty years. If you read the doc--the Brown and Williamson documents, if you read any of the documents that have come out, you'll see that this is an industry who is--whose whole thinking and behavior has been dominated by avoiding responsibility for their actions. ... They want to be released from responsible corporate behavior. And I think that's a mistake. Q. You know what the problem is when I'm listening to what you say it sounds like you want to wipe them out completely. Glantz: Well that wouldn't be a bad thing, to have the tobacco industry disappear. You know, if we go back to the, the--the tobacco industry as it exists in this hypermalignant form today, it, it always wasn't that way. If you go back to about 1890 or 1900, per capita cigarette consumption in this, in the United States was a couple of cigarettes a day, maybe, if that. And it was only with the advent of mass marketing that we got, uh, this huge monstrosity we have today. And yeah, I'm a public health person. I'd like to get rid of tobacco. I'd like to get rid of cancer. I'd like to get rid of heart disease. And I think that if the industry were forced to accept the same kind of financial responsibility for its actions that any other business would have to take, that would force a radical restructuring of how it functions, in a way that would lead to less smoking. Now exactly how that would play out isn't clear to me. [I]f they get stuck paying out billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars every year, then they're--at the very least going to have to raise their prices, which will discourage smoking. But if they can--in doing that they also have to be looking over their shoulder for their continuing liability--for their fraud, for their anti-trust actions, for their deceitful marketing tactics, maybe they'll change the way they do the marketing. Maybe Phillip Morris will decide they'd rather sell cookies and crackers and beer rather than cigarettes, and just get out of the business. Q. So you're basically a prohibitionist. Glantz: No, no. Q. You want to wipe them out? Glantz: No, no, that's different from being a prohibitionist. A prohibitionist says "I'm going to make it illegal for you to, to sell or smoke cigarettes. I'm not, I'm just saying I want them to have to play by the same rules as everybody else does. And that will force them to behave very very differently. Like when you say someone who wants to do this is a prohibitionist, that's like saying the people who used the legal system to force to make cars where the gas tanks didn't explode were prohibiting exploding gas tanks. Q. There's a difference. This is a product which, used as directed, will kill you. Glantz: That's right. Q. So there is no way out. You will either--from your logic. Glantz: Well I think that if the tobacco industry were forced to play by the same rules as everybody else, we would see a radically different tobacco industry. Q. The reality is, though, Stan, that what you would minimally do, according to industry, according to economists and everyone else, is you would drive them into bankruptcy. And bankruptcy, as you know, doesn't mean you're going to get what you want. Glantz: One thing that's clear, one group that would definitely be worse off if the industry went into bankruptcy, are the private lawyers. Because they wouldn't have a direct claim on any assets, and so they would be far down the list of people to get paid. So they would make less money. But whether the public health would be worse off if a bankrupt--if the industry went bankrupt, it's hard to tell, but probably they would. Because if the industry goes into bankruptcy--and there's one of two possibilities. One is what's called the Chapter Seven Bankruptcy where they just dissolve. Well, if the industry just dissolves then we don't have this huge malignant corporate entity out there pushing cigarettes. So that would be okay. The other possibility is what's called a Chapter Eleven Bankruptcy where the reorganize to try to manage their debt. But one of the things they have to do in such a reorganization is they have to be able to say that they will be financially solvent in the future. And you will get the other big corporate bankruptcies, like the asbestos bankruptcies, which were brought on by litigation. In every single one of those cases the company had to stop doing the things that generated the bankruptcy. And so while there's a lot of uncertainties in bankruptcy, I think the downside for the industry in doing it is much larger than the potential downside for public health. Q. But aren't you ignoring the fact that there are fifty million people who are addicted to smoking, that other people will get in the act of supplying those cigarettes, and other companies will rise up either from the ashes of the bankrupt companies or substitute for them? And they won't be liable for the damages of the past. Glantz: They won't be liable for the damages of the past. But they will be liable for their future behavior. And they'll be forced to operate in a very different environment, in a very different political environment and legal environment than the existing companies are. And you know, it's, if, if you're a businessman looking out there and saying "oh, these huge multinational corporations just got stakes driven through their hearts selling this product," I mean you don't see people rushing out to sell asbestos or silicone breast implants because there's a new market available. You know I think, you know, the other thing is, is that the kind of people who have been attracted to the tobacco industry are a special breed of people who can sleep at night knowing they're killing a lot of people. And there aren't a lot of people out there like that. And you know maybe what we would end up with is a situation where the government would--you know, we had like Amtrak for smokers. Where the government was making available plain cigarettes in plain packages for people who just couldn't stop smoking. I mean we've shown here in California that an aggressive anti-tobacco education campaign can triple the rate of decline of cigarette use. If Pete Wilson hadn't come in and wrecked the campaign because of his pro-tobacco ties, we'd have taken the percentage of adults who smoked in California from about twenty eight percent to about five percent in under ten years. You know, if the tobacco industry was out of the way politically, and--what I would do is I would figure out some way to take care of the addicted smokers, to get them their cigarettes without any active marketing whatsoever, and run a big tobacco control program and in ten years we could be rid of the problem. Q. [I]f the Congress of the United States says you paid the sixty billion dollars up front for punitive damages, so no one can sue you any more for punitive damages for the past (they could in the future), are you against that? Glantz: Yes. Q. Why? Glantz: Because it's not fair. 'Cause it's letting the industry off for pennies on the dollar. Q. You're against immunity for the industry. Glantz: Yes. Q. If in March of last year Dick Scruggs had called you up and said "Stan, come to Washington. I'll send a jet to pick you up. We're going to negotiate with these guys. They seem to want to give up." Would you have gone? Glantz: No. Because they won't give up. Q. You wouldn't have listened. Glantz: They won't give up. They never give up. They don't. I mean, I've fought these guys for twenty years. I've seen how they work all over the world. They may pretend to give up, but they don't give up. They're not stupid. And, and I don't think you can negotiate with them, at least at that level--at that venue. Obviously the state settlements are the results of some negotiations. And those worked out, I think, reasonably well. But there was no immunity. The important thing about the state settlements is they settle those cases. They don't take anybody else's rights away. Which is what the immunity would do. They don't foreclose anybody else's options. And the state settlements represent, I think, reasonable and just compensation to the states that have settled, together with good compromised by the industry which are getting better with each of the state settlements. And in doing that, it doesn?t give--take anybody else's rights away, and it doesn't foreclose any options. Q. Let's get specific again about the issue of what you call immunity. In fact the state settlements settle the Medicaid suit. The state cannot sue any more, ever, in the future. Glantz: On Medicaid. That's correct. Q. Okay, so that's a settlement. Glantz: Right. But the important thing is, if you look at what the states were suing for, it was for recovery of the Medicaid costs. And if you look at the amount of money that the states are getting, they're getting essentially a hundred cents on the dollar or better. And so into, into perpetuity in the future. And so they're reasonable suits. The state brought an action to recover its Medicaid costs; the industry is paying those costs. So the state doesn't need to sue again. Q. But the settlement, as I understand it, as proposed on June twentieth and also as getting tougher in terms of how it's perceived in Congress or what's going to be presented, only allows the industry off on punitive damages and class action suits. Glantz: Right. Q. You could still sue. Glantz: No, but the point is when you look at why the tobacco industry--well, there's a couple of problems. The first thing is the amount of money that the states got in the individual state settlements is what they're owed. The amount of money that people are talking about in the national deal is about the same amount of money. But it covers everything, you see? Medicaid costs are about five percent of the total smoking-induced costs. And so if the state settles a Medicaid suit for the Medicaid costs that's reasonable. But that still leaves the other ninety five percent. Q. But your numbers are cooked. Glantz: No they're not. Q. Well, people disagree about how much money it costs every year and? Glantz: We're using, the CDC's numbers. Q. Has anyone ever won a class action suit or gotten it certified in the United States against the tobacco industry? Glantz: No one's won one yet, but they did--oh wait, wait, but they did, they did the Mangini case here in San Francisco. Q. It's settled. Glantz: It's settled. But that's okay, it was settled on very favorable terms. Q. I'm asking you did anyone ever win one that went to trial? Glantz: Not yet. Q. Has anyone collected any punitive damages against the tobacco industry? Glantz: Not yet. Q. Has anyone got an award against the tobacco industry through trial that's been upheld on appeal? Glantz: Uh, yeah. Q. An award at trial? Glantz: The case, I believe--well, there was a case about the Kent Micronite Filter here in San Francisco that was won, and the industry agreed to pay the damages. Part of it's being appealed. But we're very early in this process. You know, we just, this is just getting going. And it's going very well, and all the signs are very good and why stop? Q. Tell us, once you had the documents, how did you get them out, and what impact did that have? Glantz: When I started reading these documents, I mean, I just got sucked into them. And I mean it was an amazing story of the realities of the tobacco industry from the inside. And I realized we had to write something about this.' And so I assembled a team of experts, and we started analyzing these documents, and writing about them. And that ultimately led to a series of papers in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Which happened to come out about the time Clinton was deciding whether to let the FDA move forward, which was just sheer luck. But that helped convince Clinton to let the FDA go forward. And we subsequently wrote a book about them, called The Cigarette Papers. And that book has become the bible for all these lawyers. I mean, when we wrote the book, I did the index for the book, which was very tedious. But it, the book has three indexes. It has the document index. It has a subject index, and it has a name index. And that name index I wrote for the lawyers. Particularly for the Justice Department. You know? And that book and the work we did in putting the documents up on the World Wide Web, despite a lawsuit brought by Brown & Williamson against the university, I think, helped us light the afterburners on this whole process. But you know, when we did that, we knew it would be important. But I'll tell you in hindsight, we did not appreciate how important it was. Or would be. And I don't think we still understand how important what we did is. And that's why I say the one thing you should never do is foreclose the future. You've got to let this thing unfold. You've got to have some patience to solve the problem. And you know, when the tobacco in -- when I got the documents, and the word got out that I had them, and the tobacco industry sued the University of California to try to keep us from putting them up on the World Wide Web, the university didn't try to cut a deal with the industry. Or look for some easy, fast way out. The university beat the tobacco industry. And when the tobacco industry sued the university over our research which showed that smoke-free bar laws don't affect revenues, and the industry sued the university trying to shut me up and to discredit our study, the university didn't say, "Okay, we'll only let Glantz talk to reporters on Saturday." They beat the tobacco industry. And that's what we need to continue doing. One victory at a time. Are we going to win every case? No. But we'll win more than we'll lose. Q. You said you had a name index in the book for the Justice Department. What are you talking about? Glantz: Well, I think there's been a lot of criminal activity on the part of the tobacco industry. I think that they've engaged in antitrust activities, fraud, covering things up. They've abused the legal system, abused the attorney-client privilege. I think there's evidence in there of a whole variety of misbehavior on the part of the industry. And the Department of Justice has read our book very carefully. I've met with them several times. Q. You've met with attorneys there? Glantz: Yes. Q. What have they said to you? What have they asked you? Glantz: They asked me not to tell people what they asked me. But I can tell you they've asked very pointed, intelligent questions. They're doing their homework. And I can't wait for them to finish. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/settlement/

Huber was a scientific researcher for the tobacco industry for many years. His emphysema project at Harvard was paid for directly by the tobacco law firm of Shook, Hardy and Bacon. When Ron Motley approached Huber with internal documents that described his project as a public relations ploy, Huber became a witness in the Medicaid cases against the tobacco industry. His story outlines how the tobacco industry controlled and manipulated scientific research. Q. What did you do for the Tobacco Industry? Huber: I don't think I did anything for the Tobacco Industry. They came to us initially when I was at Harvard and asked us if we would do research with Industry support. This was in the 1970's and we said no. Q. You said no. Huber: Well, we eventually said no and they were very persistent and they kept coming back and we already had support from NIH and we had a program going and we mistrusted them and initially we said no. I'm a chest physician and I sat day after day in the chest clinic taking care of patients with emphysema and chronic bronchitis and lung cancer and I couldn't help them. They had diseases that by the time they came to us for medical help, there was very little I could do for them. I could make them comfortable but I couldn't fix the problem. I thought about it. I thought these people wouldn't be here if they didn't smoke. So I thought we have to find solutions. The problem was growing and we needed solutions. This was an industry who made a product that caused disease and if we were going to do anything about it I thought we had to work with that industry. Q. So you were working on specifically the link between smoking and lung cancer and emphysema? Huber: Mostly emphysema. Q. So, step back for a minute, with what you know now, how do you see your role in their strategy-- why they were coming to you or what they did.... Huber: It's amazing. Because if you would have asked me that question a year or two ago, I would have given you a different answer but I think the opportunity to see the liberated documents, as they are sometimes called, has changed my perception of the Harvard Project and what was meant by it. Q. And so you see yourself now as? Huber: I asked a colleague of mine that was at the Harvard Project that recently. I said: "How could we have been fooled? We're supposed to be half-way intelligent, smart people and we were used. We were lied to. How could we let that happen?" And he gave the analogy of a card game. We were scientists, we were clinicians. We were trying to find answers to a very serious problem. We came to the table playing by, what I would say, were honest rules. We wanted to find answers. They had a product. We wanted to work with them to understand it and it was like a card game where we had our cards and they had theirs but they knew every card in the deck. They knew which cards we had. They knew the cards that were going to be played and every now and then they would give us a card. It was a plan and it was not honest. Q. You were a pawn in their grand strategy? Huber: We were used. I think we were used in a strategy. Within the past year, for example, no one had induced emphysema in animals and that was one of two or three of the primary points of the Harvard Project, to develop experimental animals. And we worked night and day for years and we did develop emphysema in animals and then I learned, 25 years later that they had already done this within the industry. And done it before the Harvard Project started and didn't tell us about it. We spent hundreds of hours of independent research and good scientist time chasing rabbits down blind alleys that we didn't have to do. So that's what I mean by were used. Q. They say the public knew all the risks concerned with smoking. They say the public health community knew and you're saying they already had research far beyond what anybody else outside had? Huber: Absolutely. Research that was not shared with the outside community. Research was not shared with the very investigators that they funded. Q. So they lied when they say that? Huber: Well, we knew the risks. That's why we started the research. As I said,I saw patients with emphysema and I couldn't help them. I felt they wouldn't be there if they didn't smoke and people kept on smoking. So we wanted to understand this process and get a solution. Could we intervene somehow sooner in this disease? Could we find a way to help these people. Q. I guess what I'm getting at, I want to make sure I understand. You are saying they spent in the end, millions of dollars assisting your research in various ways and particularly in the Harvard Project looking for a cause between smoking and emphysema. What was the mechanism there? Huber: Right. Q. And they already knew. Huber: Correct. Q. But they never told you? Huber: No. Q. Now that you know in hindsight and you reflect on what lawyers may have told you from the tobacco industry, do you now understand what was going on? Huber: Not totally. We'll never know totally all of the internal documents. In this past year or two, so many of them have come out it's been like a tapestry. New pieces are put into place and a much different final picture emerges. They knew things that they didn't share with the outside world not just us, NIH, hundreds of millions of federal dollars working on nicotine addiction, working on cardiovascular diseases, emphysema, cancer and so on. They had information in their internal documents and internal research labs that was 15 years ahead of the outside world and they let us and they let others, Federal Government, go forward and spend hundreds of millions of dollars, countless hours in research that didn't need to be done if they had opened their doors. And the tragedy of that is a lot of money and a lot of wasted research time and careers. But the real tragedy is all the lives that have been lost. Q. You met with one of the architects of the legal strategy. Who was he and what did he tell you? Huber: Well when we were initially approached by the Industry to do research there were no lawyers. We went to the Harvard administration and they encouraged us to do this. There were other initiatives by Harvard for other industry programs and so we went forward and before it really began the lawyers entered and it was primarily the lawyers from Kansas City from Shook, Hardy and Baccon. The senior lawyer was David R. Hardy and he's been considered by many the architect of the grand strategy. Q. And he explained it to you didn't he? Huber: Well to a degree. Things would come out from time to time he would talk about buying time. We heard some of the executives talk about buying time and we didn't quite know what they meant initially, but bit by bit some of this has come out and again the internal documents have really helped understand this. Q. They said buying time in what context? Huber: I think different things. They wanted to buy time with the labels. They wanted to pass the liability from the Industry onto the consumer. That was a transition that took several years. Q. They talked about that? Huber: They talked about that in the early 1970's. Today in liability litigation every consumer knows the risks as they say. It's right on the label. They know that tobacco causes cancer and emphysema and so on. Q. And they told you their strategy was let's get rid of our liability by putting a label on the package therefore the consumer assumes the liability. Huber: With time. And they had to buy time for that to take effect. And time for other things. Time to divert, diversify their profits into other non-tobacco industries. Time to diversify their markets overseas in the third world, time to adjust. Q. David Hardy talked to you about this? Huber: Yes. Q. He was part of or you were familiar with the Committee Of Counsel as I understand it. Huber: Yes. Q. How did you become familiar with Committee Of Counsel and maybe you could describe what it was in your understanding. Huber: Well, when I first met Hardy I got a lecture. He had an enormous ego and took great satisfaction in being a leader, explaining how things worked. For example in the Harvard Project he said, "Not all the companies will sponsor it because we have to worry about anti-trust litigation. So one company will drop off." He said it's the same way with the Committee of Counsel. The same way with the Tobacco Institute. It's the same way with all our other organizations. One company is always not officially there although they can have an adhoc membership. Q. To give the appearance that they weren't conspiring. Huber: Right to avoid the anti-trust. Q. So that was all a setup? They just made sure one company, one lawyer wasn't there and then they could say -- Huber: They took turns. It ended up it was American's turn to sit out on the Harvard Project but in the end they wanted to be part of it so I think the Harvard Project may be one the very few things that they all sponsored or all took part in. Q. And in the course of your relationship with them, did you ever meet Steve Parrish? Huber: Well throughout the Harvard Project the lawyers were frequently there. And then more often than not it would be David Hardy himself or some of his colleagues. But in the course of that, yes I did meet Steve Parrish. Q. And did he ever tell you he was a member of the Committee of Counsel or that he was involved in any way, what was his role? Huber: No. My interaction with him was minimum. We were asked to come out there and we were invited to a Sunday School class and that was about the interaction I had with Steve Parrish. Q. You were invited to a Sunday School class? Huber: He taught a Sunday School class and we were there over the weekend and we went to a Sunday School class. Q. So it wasn't tobacco related? You don't remember having any scientific or -- Huber: Not extensively, no. One thing I learned which was amusing and a little bit offensive but it came out somewhere recently that every scientist that the Industry had any contact with had a keeper, within the Industry, a lawyer, and they funded a lot of research around the country and it was millions of millions of dollars but apparently every scientist in any one of their research projects had a keeper and Steve Parrish was not my keeper. Q. Oh, he was not your keeper. Who was your keeper? Huber: My keeper was David R Hardy. Q. The big guy. Huber: The big guy. Q. Because you were Harvard, you were a thoracic surgeon-- Huber: A chest physician. Q. --chest physician. You were legitimacy from their point of view. Huber: I guess so. Q. But when they paid you they sent the checks-- Huber: Well, they never paid me. They've always paid, we've had grants from them. Research support. I've never worked for the Industry. I've never worked for the law firms. They've paid the universities that I've worked for about 25 years ago at Harvard the checks came in made out to me and Harvard University jointly. It was so unusual. We kept records of those and even Harvard asked that we photograph them because it was new to their experience. The checks would come in and I would have to go over and sign the checks over and then Harvard University would deposit them. We would use them for our research effort. Q. It would say Gary Huber Harvard University. Huber: Exactly. Q. And then later on you find out there was a method to this unusual madness. Huber: Apparently. I was subpoenaed to give a deposition and they claimed proprietary rights to my mind, my opinions and everything back to 1972. I found that rather amazing and shocking but that was part of it. Q. And they produced the check that they paid for the rights to your mind-- Huber: Well they produced things for the court and I didn't get an opportunity to see all of those but they claimed the right to my mind back to 1972. Q. Because you endorsed these checks. Huber: Yes. I guess so. Q. You said that you never worked for them. You worked for the institution, Harvard University. The money came from a law firm? Huber: No. The money I think was treated like an NIH grant or any other research support. We had more money from NIH in the end than we had from the Industry but with grants a certain percentage of your time and effort and so on is maybe paid for by a grant but the funds came to Harvard from each individual company through Shook, Hardy and Bacon. Q. So, the companies made sure that you were paid by a law firm correct? So we assume now that's because they were going to assert attorney-client privilege correct? Even though you are also getting support from the federal government at the same time correct? Huber: And we were publishing the results in the public domain and scientific period literature. Q. Did they ever ask you to comment on things? Huber: In more recent years to a very, very limited extent, and I mean a very limited extent, they might ask that but basically no. Q. But they were fond of quoting you or sending people to you for interviews-- Huber: With lawyers. Q. What do you mean with lawyers? Huber: Well, no one ever came without a lawyer. I mean it was just, in my experience in academia it's unparalleled and unprecedented. Every time someone came up to see us there would always be a lawyer present. Q. Did you ever ask why? Huber: Sure, of course. I mean it was so unusual we asked why and that's just the way it was. That was the response, "This is what we have to do." Q. You mean when a reporter would come to talk to you or a writer or -- Huber: Yeah, sure. We would talk to people on our own and, but you know if it had to do with a project or whatever and they got wind of it there was a lawyer present. Q. Why have you in a sense changed sides. I mean you were supported by them directly or indirectly over a number of years. They liked you. You had a long-term relationship, in fact didn't you have a relationship with at least one of the CEO's at one point in one of the tobacco companies? Huber: Well, we had a long-term relationship and I stuck with them longer than I wish I had. But I was still trying to find the answers. People are still dying in greater numbers than ever before from tobacco related diseases. There were two things. I attended an open meeting at Duke University on the Eclipse nicotine delivery device. It's a new cigarette that doesn't burn. And I sat there quietly in the audience and it dawned on me that a lot of time had been lost, by the ending of the Harvard Project, ten or fifteen years of scientific progress had been set back when I saw that presentation. And then very shortly thereafter I got a call from Ness Motley and they said we have internal documents from the Tobacco Industry we would like to show you. I'd never met them before and they came up and visited us and brought us down to Charleston. My family and I were going to go on a vacation and we couldn't, it was our only chance to go on a vacation with our children that year and we went down there and I agreed to give them four or five hours of time looking at these documents. My wife made the comment that she'd never seen me like this. I read these documents. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat. I couldn't laugh with the children. I was stunned. In shock. Many of these documents still haven't reached the public domain. I saw documents that characterized the Harvard Project as a public relation effort, not a research effort. I saw documents that characterized the Harvard Project as part of a legal strategy for the industry, not as a research project. It's the card game. They were using different cards than we were playing by. We were doing our best to find answers and they had another agenda and at that point I knew what I had to do. I had to come forward and express what I knew and put these things in some perspective. Q. Somebody sitting out there watching this program would say; "Now wait a second. This was last year that this happened? It's 25 years since the Harvard Project started? You've seen all the publicity since then in the intervening 25 years. What was so different about this than say the Merrell Williams documents or Wigand or all the other revelations that have taken place?" Huber: We didn't trust them from day one at Harvard. We setup an independent oversight committee that had nothing to do with the Project. The were clear that they would use us and we knew that. We understood that. We went forward because we needed an answer, we needed a solution to a very difficult problem. We have a tobacco epidemic. There are over a billion people now smoking in the world. It's projected that there will be ten million tobacco-caused deaths a year. That somebody will die every three seconds from a tobacco-related disease today. That's more so than it was in 1972 and for these 25 years I've stuck with it, beyond now which longer than I wish I would have knowing what I know, trying to find a solution. What was different about Charleston was an appreciation of the utter magnitude of deceit. The organized magnitude of deception. ....Going back to 1972. Chief Executive Officer, Chief Scientist writing memoranda about the Harvard Project that I'd never heard of, never seen. Imagine! Fifteen faculty members, a team of forty or fifty technicians working every day, seven days a week, on a project trying to find an answer that they already had an answer to before we started and didn't share with us. We were used. We were used, we were misled, we were duped. Q. You were part of their legal and public relations defense strategy. Huber: That's what the internal documents said. We were using funds to study children in the 1970's. We were trying to find out how we could better intervene, at age ten, age fourteen, to prevent people from smoking. We had projects that were doing this. We now have documents from that very same period of time with market strategies from the Industry, how to find, how to addict 14 year-old children to nicotine. At the same time we were making our best efforts to do these things, looking at these problems, in part with their support, they were at the same time in what are now liberated documents, plotting strategies to do just the opposite. Q. Steve Parrish. You go to his Sunday school class. You thought these were good people. Huber: I always very much wanted to believe that somewhere within this industry there were good people who, ah, were responsible, who wanted answers, who were committed to doing the right thing. Q. And then you discovered that they weren't being straight with you. Huber: Absolutely. Yes. Some of the very people, we trusted, that we thought were doing the right thing, as you now see the documents they were at the Committee of Counsel. That's, where some of these things were being, ah, planned. Ah, ah, they were telling us one thing and really planning another. Q. Now, was it just lawyers who came to visit the Harvard project of did the owners? Did the CEO's come? Huber: Ah, the CEO's, their scientists, and their lawyers came. Ah, the CEO's and scientists never without their lawyers. They all came. Q. And did they see that you were progressing towards a link, for instance, between smoking and emphysema? Huber: There was, there was no hidden or secret research. We shared everything with the external scientific community and with them. We showed them our research on animals developing emphysema. We showed them our research on nicotine, ntitration and addiction. We showed them our work on, ah, ah, coronary arteries disease and hardening of the arteries. We showed them everything we had. Q. Were you, in a sense, willfully blind? Some people would say, were you, in a sense, willfully blind until you finally got approached by an attorney who might in fact make you testify? Q. No, not at all. I think, ah, we had mistrusted these people from the beginning. I think it was being hit with a sledgehammer and realizing that, ah, no matter how hard we tried, ah, we were not going to be able to work with this industry under the leadership it's had, to solve the problem that's still there. You have to understand, the problem is bigger today than it's ever been. Ah, we have more emphysema, we have more, ah, cardiovascular disease world wide, we have more lung cancer than we've ever had before, linked to tobacco. Q. You were trying to take money from the people who are profiting from spreading this illness, to find a cure? Or to find the link? Huber: No, no, no. No. We were using research fundin to try and find answers that would make a difference. And I think...thought, I felt...I still do, but I, there has to be some kind of new, new rules. Because every rule we've ever tried hasn't worked. I felt they had a responsibility to find answers. And they needed to fund research to do this. So we accepted it. Q. And what they were getting out of it was this delay? Huber: I think the delay is extraordinary. I think, not just in my view but leaders at NIH have said the same thing. They bought ten or fifteen years of scientific--arrested ten or fifteen years of scientific progress,by funding research in such a way that, uh, disinformation was generated and that confusion and controversy were developed and perpetuated. Bought time. Q. So that they could deny something that seemed obvious to everyone, that smoking caused cancer. Huber: Well, I think worse than that. Not just deny. I think create disinformation. They could go on one hand to Congress and say "look, we're funding research, we're trying to get answers." They could go to the public and say, you know, "we don't know, we're trying to find answers." But they were really, I think , funding research in different ways, the outcome of which would create confusion and disinformation. Unequivocally. Q. And again, we're not talking just about their lawyers. Their executives knew what was going on. Huber: I asked Ron Motley "how could this occur?" How could that many people for that long hide that much? I mean, there are boxes of documents that angry spouses have delivered, whatever. That had been sitting around for years. Um, how could they go home at night knowing that? How could they fund research programs like ours, knowing they already had answers that they didn't share with us. How could they let the government, NIH, researchers around the country, go down these blind alleys? How could there be that many people who could do that? His answer was money. I find that hard to believe. I find that there must have been people in there, a few, uh, Jeff Wigand, Merrell Williams, whatever, there must have been a lot more that, that had a great deal of difficulty going home at night knowing this. I mean I've seen documents written in the nineteen fifties that would have made a huge difference to the outside research community if we'd had them. Documents in the sixties, seventies, eighties. How could there be that many people who kept all this under wraps for so long? I don't know the answer. I don't know the answer to that, but when I saw it, it was a magnitude of shock that, uh, I'd never experienced before. Q. When you read these documents and you had this devastating reaction, is it part guilt? Huber: Stupidity for being fooled. More, though, the cost in lives. My own father died of emphysema. And I think the magnitude of the cost in illness and suffering and death, uh, that could have been avoided with full disclosure and with honesty didn't occur. Q. The obvious question to people in the audience is you had a long career but it sounds like you think that a large part of it was wasted. Huber: That was a closing question to me in, in my deposition. "Doctor, have they wasted your career?" No. I've published a hundred and fifty peer-reviewed journals. I've had a, a good, uh, professional and personal life. It would have been much different, uh, we would have achieved the goals we were trying to, uh, to reach in helping people if they had been honest. Uh, but whatever my answer is personally pales, pales in comparison to the loss of life of individuals who had diseases from smoking. Q. You're angry. Huber: It's beyond anger. It's beyond anger. This is a level of irresponsibility that, uh, um, when I first saw it I could not comprehend. We have let them get away with this. I was used; I became a part of it. It has to stop. Q. So if you had a warning to Congress, to the President, to the Vice President, what would it be? Huber: Do not trust them. They cannot be trusted. You know, their new chief executives have come forward and said "trust us, we're different." Same lawyers are still there. Chief executives have come and gone; same lawyers are still there. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/settlement/

Dr. Kessler is the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration under both Presidents Bush and Clinton. He began looking into the regulation of nicotine as a drug and was instrumental in convincing Clinton to enact tough federal regulation of tobacco. The tobacco industry fought this in a North Carolina court and the FDA won. Kessler has been generally opposed to settlement with the tobacco industry and supports tough legislation against advertising to children. In July 1997 Kessler became the Dean of the Yale University School of Medicine. Interview conducted in March 1998. Q. How difficult an adversary was the tobacco industry, let's say, in 1992? Kessler: No matter who you asked, anybody you asked whether you can take on tobacco. You get the same answer. You can't do that. It'll be hard. It's impossible. It's a fool's errand. No matter who you asked you got the same answer. You can't do that. They're just too powerful. You can't take on the tobacco industry. Q. Politically you can't take them on? Legally? Anyway? Kessler: In 1991 and 1992 people asked a very simple question. Why doesn't the federal government regulate tobacco? Very simple question. Everyone you asked would give you the same answer. You can't do that. You get your head handed to you. It would be political suicide. You would put not only yourself but an entire agency in jeopardy. It would be a fool's errand. Q. You were in the Bush administration during that period of time. You couldn't do it then, why? Kessler: We weren't ready to do it. We didn't, we had not thought through what it would take. We hadn't done our homework. It took us 2 to 3 years to write a simple three page letter. We issued that letter in February, 1994. That letter turned out to be a critical turning point. It was the first time that the Federal government it would consider regulating tobacco products. First time in 30 years since the Surgeon General's report in 1964 that linked smoking and cancer. The Federal government it would consider regulating tobacco products if there was evidence that the nicotine in cigarettes and smokeless tobacco were drugs under the federal law. Q. How important was it that Bill Clinton was president of the United States when you did that. You got to step back. Kessler: What happened here was we had to ask the right questions. Is nicotine a drug? You and I think we know the definition of drug and we know that a definition of a drug in common parlance, but the legal definition of a drug is different. It goes to what a company knows, what a company intends by an agent. And no one went to look before at what the companies knew about nicotine. So, the first part was finding out whether nicotine was a drug under the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act. It required us to figure out, to look for the first time and ask the question of what the companies knew. What the companies did. Q. But if everyone in Washington, everyone you had gone to in the past said, if you go after tobacco it's suicide, political suicide and you're the head of the FDA in Bill Clinton's administration, didn't you have to check with them before you issued a letter? Kessler: No, in fact we didn't wait until the Clinton administration. We, in fact, started looking at that question in the Bush administration. We started thinking about how could we approach that question. When we issued that letter in February of 1994 no one asked the White House permission. Q. You didn't give them a heads up that you were about stir up the most powerful political lobby in Washington. Kessler: About a year later a number of people in the White House said how did this start. But, in fact, I told the Assistant Secretary for Health, I told Phil Lee, my boss, but no one really focused on it. We issued... it was a very simple 3 page letter. It said that we would consider regulating nicotine if we could establish that the companies intended nicotine's pharmacological effects. Q. So, it was a year before the White House said anything to you about it. Kessler: We asked a question and we went to look at the facts and we asked what the companies knew. What the companies were doing and no one had really gone to look before. We see 30 years worth of sophisticated research, highly sophisticated work on nicotine. We saw how they measured how fast nicotine gets to the brain. It identified specific receptors in the central nervous system. We were able to see what they knew, I mean for years, that, in fact, nicotine was an addictive drug. And it was that evidence, it was that evidence which was absolutely critical. Without that evidence we couldn't have gone anywhere. Now that evidence... just having evidence is not necessarily going to get you where you want to get to. It's one thing when a regulator goes out and says nicotine is a drug. It's another thing when a regulator and a President of the United States makes that statement. Q. So, how important was the backing, let's say, of Vice President Gore or Clinton in what happened next? Kessler: The Vice President was absolutely critical. The Vice President, in the end, made this happen. We went to the Vice President. We told the Vice President what we knew, what we found, what our conclusions were. We told him what we were ready to do and he carried it to the president. Q. And what were you ready to do? Kessler: We made a decision that nicotine was a drug under the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act. That was our decision. We didn't ask for permission to make that decision, we didn't ask for clearance on that decision. But we did as is normal policy, have to get a clearance on any regulation. So we brought the regulation through the normal channels, but in the end it was the Vice President going into the President. Q. Did you have a face to face meeting with the Vice President? Kessler: It was a face to face meeting with the Vice President. My... one of the people closest to me went in and saw the Vice President. Q. And briefed him. Kessler: Ten minutes. Q. I guess what I'm trying to figure out now... we have an industry up until this point that is described as being politically bulletproof. Big tobacco, big tobacco. You sitting there in your agency come up with this policy. You do your study. You walk in... you send an emissary to the White House and the Vice President says sure we'll do it. Something must have changed. Kessler: The Vice President said that he would carry it into the President. What you saw was evidence that came out almost on a daily basis in floods of evidence. Thirty years worth of evidence that was always there, but no one had gone to look. And it was that evidence, evidence that they knew that nicotine was an addictive drug. Long before FDA knew that nicotine was an addictive drug and also the fact that they marketed it to young people. That they marketed to children and adolescents. It's one thing... you can talk about nicotine manipulation. You can talk about what they say about smoking and health. But when you read the documents of what they... how they marketed their products to children and adolescents that's where, I think, the debate has changed. Q. How important was Jeffrey Wigand to helping you figure out what was going on? Kessler: I was sitting there in my conference room and I was talking to one of the most important people we would talk to during our investigation. I knew him only by his code name. I knew him as research. And I was sitting there one day and I'm looking at documents and I'm saying who's this person, who's that person. Then I go who's Jeffrey Wigand? And he looks at me and he says I'm Jeffrey Wigand. Jeffrey Wigandd was among the most senior people to come out. Not... surprisingly there were not a lot of people. Maybe it's not surprising. Maybe when you think about it and you look at how... the costs of coming out for the people who came out. Certainly if you look at what Jeff Wigandd went through you understand why a lot of people haven't come out and talked. But the one thing that was clear when we talked to people who knew what the industry knew, who had worked for the industry, there was one thing that united them all. They were very scared. They were very frightened. They knew what the industry's modus operandi was. They knew the kind of force that unlimited resources could have on you. They understood the kind of legal proceedings that you could face. Not only today and tomorrow. But for years. Imagine having unlimited resources to hire any lawyer, any number of lawyers you want and have them come after you. And that was generally understood to be how the industry operated. So it's maybe not surprising that there weren't a lot of people who came forward. But we didn't know that the industry had spent millions of dollars researching genetically bred high nicotine plant. We didn't know that the industry understood the effect of using certain chemicals that, in essence, were the same as free basing. We didn't know that. We learned that through people who worked in the industry. We learned it from people like Jeff Wigandd. Q. And if I remember correctly, back in May and June of 1994, when you first meet Jeffrey Wigand and some of your people go and talk to the various tobacco industry and gather information in North Carolina, in Richmond, Virginia and they go to Louisville and ask questions and it's at that point, isn't it, that you discover that they are lying? Kessler: We received... Jeff Wigand told us. I knew him only by his code name, Research. Research told us to look at patents filed in foreign countries. Didn't say here it is. But he led us down that path and we found the patent filed in Brazil, written in Portuguese, held by Brown and Williamson for a high nicotine, genetically bred tobacco plant that had twice the concentration of nicotine that normal tobacco has. We traced one of the individuals limit... we traced one of the individuals that was listed as one of the inventors to a small genetic engineering firm in New Jersey and began to piece together a rather remarkable story. She told us that her company had been hired by Brown and Williamson to produce a special version of this high nicotine plant. A version of the plant that was sterile, so it couldn't be stolen by other competitors and she told us that she had actually been to Souza Cruz and seen Y-1 growing in the fields. Q. Souza Cruz is the Brazilian subsidiary? Kessler: She told us that she had been Souza Cruz of Brazil and had seen Y-1 growing in the fields. But that didn't mean that it came back into the United States. It certainly didn't mean that it was used in American cigarettes. We sent an FDA inspector... I remember it was literally he had just come over to the agency. It was his first day on the job and he had come over from customs and I called him up and I said come up to the Commissioner's office. I need you to go see if there's evidence that Y1 had been brought into the United States. And he literally went up and down the ports of call on the Southeast coast. Do you have any idea how many millions of entries, each day, come into this country? And I remember the phone call when he found that one invoice on page 25 of one of the manifests. There it was in small type. From Souza Cruz to Brown and Williamson. It said your order, Project Y1. It was illegal at the time to ship seeds outside of this country unless there was an export permit. We weren't interested in the tobacco seed export laws. We were interested in understanding whether nicotine was a drug. And under the law, an article is a drug if a company intends its pharmacological properties, if it intends its effect on the body. So what we were interested in is whether a company manipulated or controlled nicotine levels. That's what we were interested in, because the issue of control and manipulation went to the question of a company's intent. Here was research being conducted. Millions of dollars being invested in a high nicotine, genetically bred plant to boost the level of nicotine. It was the most blatant example of control and manipulation that we had seen. But they say they only use nicotine as a blend for taste. They don't use it to manipulate for addiction. The... if you look, look at patents, you will see patents held by the tobacco companies that call for the use of certain chemicals to mask the harsh flavor of nicotine. Nicotine is a very bitter, harsh chemical. Look it up in the Merck index. See what it says. See what it's taste is. And it's very harsh. It's very acrid. Q. Over and over again they say we do not independently manipulate nicotine, right? They say it under oath. They say it in submissions to your agency. Kessler: That's correct. Q. They say it publicly. Kessler: That's correct. Q. You're saying they're lying. Kessler: I am saying there is evidence that the tobacco companies manipulate nicotine. What they did. Understand what they did. If you put a filter in front of a cigarette what's going to get taken out? It's going to filter out the tar. It's also going to filter out the nicotine. Why do people smoke? They smoke for the nicotine. If you take out the tar and you take out the nicotine and you take out too much nicotine people are not going to smoke. So what do you have to do? You have to up the nicotine levels and that, in fact, is what we saw. We saw an industry that was manipulating the level of nicotine in the low delivery cigarettes. And the vast majority of cigarettes sold in this country are low delivery. Light cigarettes are light in what? They're light in tar. They're light in nicotine. We sent light cigarettes to our laboratory and found the light cigarettes have a higher concentration of nicotine than the regular cigarettes. How does that happen? That can't happen without manipulation and control of nicotine. At least I don't know how that can happen without some form of manipulation and control. Look at three brands of Merits. Look at three brands of Merit. Merit regular. Merit Light. Merit Ultra Light. Merit Ultra Lights has the highest concentration of nicotine in that cigarette. I don't know how that can happen without some form of manipulation and control. Q. The Council on Tobacco Research announced in the 1950's that they would do independent research to determine the health effects and pharmacology of tobacco. What is their role? Kessler: The Council... It's interesting, CTR was set up by Hill and Knowlton, one of the largest PR firms. In fact, what CTR ended up funding, they funded a lot of stuff, that was on the periphery. They funded what caused cancer but it stayed away from what people really would like to know. What are the effects of tobacco? It didn't fund critical research on pharmacology and cancer. Now that research was done and it was done by the tobacco companies and when you look you see all three companies have highly sophisticated research programs on nicotine but that wasn't done by CTR. CTR was simply a PR operation. Q. Run by lawyers apparently. Kessler: Well there was a part of CTR that was run by scientists that gave out grants and those grants investigated a lot of things. But they didn't investigate central questions about tobacco. They looked at a lot of things but they stayed away from questions about tobacco. And then there was another arm of CTR that really was designed to defend against cases. And that's where the lawyers took over and that's what the lawyers controlled. Q. Don't they have an obligation under the law to tell the FDA the truth? To be open about what they know? Kessler: You can't submit a document... you can't make a statement to a federal agency that's false or misleading. That would be a violation of federal law. Q. Of the things that they submitted to you, that they said to you, were they truthful or were they misleading? Kessler: They said they don't manipulate nicotine. Everything I've seen suggests that they manipulate nicotine. Those two statements just don't jive. Q. To someone listening to what you just said, it sounds like they were lying. Kessler: The ultimate question... It's not up to me to determine whether they were lying. That's a question for the department of justice. Q. I want to take you back to April or May of 1994 when you issued this letter and the tobacco industry has just sued ABC News... Kessler: And they sued ABC maybe, in part, as a signal to us. It was a shot across the bow. It was the day before I was going to testify in front of the house committee. Tell me it wasn't just coincidental. Q. And then the seven CEO's get up at the same time and say we don't believe nicotine is addictive. You didn't feel threatened politically? You didn't see your career going down the tubes? Kessler: What would you have done? This wasn't about careers or risks to individuals. We asked a question and we started looking at the evidence and once we started down that path it was evidence that we saw that just was overwhelming. And that's what persuaded us. Q. Did the White House ask questions and try to find out what the political cost of these regulations would be? Kessler: The White House did conduct polls to see what the public thought of controlling tobacco use. In some ways, for years taking on tobacco was thought of impossible. For years if you went near it it would be highly controversial. People thought we had lost our minds. Speaker of the House, in fact said it, and said it in those exact words. But what people didn't realize was this wasn't controversial at all. Nobody wants vending machines out there that kids 11, 12, and 13 buy cigarettes from. Nobody wants kids exposed to these cartoon characters when they walk to and from school. Some people needed polls to see that. But it was there all the time. In fact, there was very strong support for what we did. Q. Was it a surprise to you that the industry wanted to negotiate in the end? That they wanted to come to the bargaining table? Kessler: Confronted with the choice of bankruptcy, it wasn't surprising at all. Q. Did you know negotiations were in the works? Kessler: There were many different attempts at negotiations. There were numerous attempts of negotiations here and negotiations there. Q. Let me take you back to something else. The Medicaid suits by the states. Kessler: Right. Mike Moore, Dick Scruggs came to my house one day in April, May of 1994 after we sent out this letter and they told me what they were thinking of doing. Q. And what was your reaction? Kessler: What was important, in some ways, was we kept our eye on the ball ahead of us. We were asking very different questions. And we went down to roads. We, looking at the question of whether nicotine was a drug. They, looking at the question of whether they could win in court against the tobacco companies for all the health, Medicare, Medicaid expenses that the states incur. Q. But when they first came to you with this idea no one had ever tried that before. What was your... You're an attorney as well as a medical doctor. What was your reaction? Kessler: They were basing their theories in some ways on similar, but not exactly, what we were looking at. We were focusing on nicotine manipulation. They were focusing on what the industry knew but never said. So, in some ways, we were on similar paths, looking at similar questions. But the approach was very different. We were focusing on federal regulation. They were focusing on state suits. I still believe that without a settlement we've only begun to scratch the surface of potential liability suits. The notion that you, the tobacco companies, fooled me, a 65 or 70 year old person with lung cancer into smoking in front of a jury, especially in this country where we believe in personal responsibility. I'm not sure you're going to win that case. Sure there may be documents that would make that jury angry. And in some ways, it's the same with the state's Attorney General cases. You fooled me into smoking and therefore you're responsible for paying all my Medicaid expenses. The jury can go either way. That's not where the industry is most vulnerable. The case where the industry is the most vulnerable is a case that says you targeted my 11 year old. You knew that that was illegal and yet you went ahead and did that. I would take that case any day. Q. That's essentially the criminal case. Kessler: No, the criminal case, as I understand it, is you lied. You lied to federal authorities. You lied to the FDA. You lied to the Congress. You committed conspiracy. Q. To defraud the United States Government? Kessler: To defraud the United States Government. Q. And you think they did? Kessler: I cannot reconcile their statements with the evidence. I'm not going to sit here and say they perjured themselves. I am not going to sit here and say that they lied. I'm going to tell you what the evidence looks like to me. And I see evidence of actions that just do not square with their conduct. I'm not sorry I didn't do that right. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that they committed perjury. It's not for me to do. That's for a US. attorney to do. But I can sit here and tell you that I saw things that they did, that they manipulated nicotine when they said, and they said it to federal authorities, that they did not. Q. When the negotiations began in earnest in March of last year, actually April 3 when they actually sat down at the table, you were invited to the table weren't you. Kessler: I was invited to join the settlement talks. Q. You chose not to? Kessler: I decided not to go to the negotiating table. Q. Why? Kessler: I didn't want to be captured. I wanted to be able to evaluate it for what it was. I wanted to have some distance to be able to look at it and see whether I thought it would be in the public interest. Q. What about advertising? The courts have held, as I understand it, that the industry has a right to advertise. It's a legal product. Kessler: You don't have a legal right to promote an illegal use. You don't have the right to deceptive advertising and in fact, if the government has significant public health interest and you take actions that are narrowly tailored. If you focused on kids, what could be more of a significant governmental interest and you focus on kids, that certainly permissible under the First Amendment. The Securities and Exchange Commission requires tombstone advertising. Three thousand kids starting everyday and a thousand going on to die is not as legitimate substantial government interest as the Securities and Exchange Act, I just don't know what is? Q. Let me ask another question about FDA jurisdiction of it as a drug. So you get jurisdiction? What do you do with it? Kessler: What the agency did was to look and say that this product was an unsafe product. It's a product that 50 million Americans use. Prohibition won't work. So how do you reduce the use of an unsafe product? The focus on children and adolescents wasn't because there was apple pie and motherhood. It wasn't because who could object focusing on children and adolescents. The reason we focused on children and adolescents is if you really can get children not to start, 20 years from now very few people are going to be smoking. Because very few people begin to smoke after the age of 18. That's what the industry knew. Q. But my understanding is that in the June 20th settlement the industry agrees to fund $500 million a year in advertising and tobacco control activities to reduce that. Kessler: The real question here is whether, for the first time, this country is going to break the hold that the tobacco industry on our elected representative. Whether for the first time in half century the real power of the industry over the Congress is going change. Whether for the first time Congress can enact a law without asking the industry for permission. That, in and of itself, may be more important than any single provision. Breaking that whole... Q. What does that FDA control really mean? Control over the level of nicotine that's in cigarettes? Control over advertising? Kessler: What FDA said in it's regulations was that it would assert control over the way cigarettes were sold, whether the way they are advertised, whether over the way they are promoted. That's what FDA focused on in it's ruling. Q. But as of today, in that federal court decision in North Carolina, you have control over nicotine, but you don't have control over advertising and promotion? Kessler: The federal district court judge upheld FDA's classification of nicotine as a drug. Upheld the restrictions on limiting access, making it harder for young people to buy. He said that the Food and Drug Act did not give FDA the ability, under the section that we use to control advertising. Q. Now the June 20th settlement gives FDA, and the proposal in general, limits advertising. The industry gives up that control. What they won... Kessler: The June 20th settlement is, in fact, that. The June 20th settlement is, in fact, just that. It's a settlement. It's a deal. It's a deal between state attorney generals and the tobacco industry. That's not the same thing as passing a law. The Congress of the United States doesn't pass laws by doing settlements. The Congress of the United States can pass a law that's in the public interest without asking the industry, without asking the industry whether it has it's permission. Q. The Congress of the United States, as I understand the law, or as been expressed to me, does not have the power to stop the industry from advertising a legal product. Kessler: That's absolutely false. The Congress of the United States can pass a law that restricts the ability to advertise. It does it in the Securities and Exchange Commission. It certainly... There are certain rules, there are certain ways you can do it. Perhaps you can't ban all advertising, but you certainly can ban advertising that causes an increase in young people to smoke. Of course you can do that under the First Amendment. You can't go yell fire in a theater. Not all commercial speech is protected. You go down your street and see ads for controlled substances. Of course there are rules and regulations that govern the form of some advertising. Q. So you foresee that the FDA, having regulations that have now been upheld, do everything that's in the settlement without the settlement? Kessler: There's no reason why... the Congress doesn't have to make a deal. It can accomplish everything in that settlement without giving the industry special legal protections. It can accomplish everything in that settlement without any quid pro quo, without giving the industry... The industry would love you to think that, gee, you have to give us immunity. We're not going to give that up. One of the lawyers for the tobacco industry said... It was one of the most remarkable statements that I've seen reported. He said if you don't give us immunity, if you don't give us limited liability, we just may bring back the cartoons. I thought I had heard and seen just about everything. Q. Do you see the June 20th settlement, though, as, in a sense, a watershed? That something was actually accomplished? Kessler: I give the state AG's a lot of credit. If I were in their position I certainly would have considered settling also. But that's a settlement. Their in a preceding where the tobacco industry is on the other side of the table. We're not, in this country, in a position where the tobacco industry is on the other side of this table. That's not the way we enact the laws. I didn't, in 1994, when we went out a three page letter say, gee, what does the tobacco industry think. Q. But you said it yourself, earlier. You said the industry was facing bankruptcy. The industry, in the face of everything we know today, facing bankruptcy primarily from the state attorney generals and their lawsuits... Kessler: And all the lawsuits that are potential down the road. Q. Possibly, but the reality that we're facing where the state attorneys general, three of them became 20. Twenty became 40. Kessler: When Mike Moore sat in my living room, it was Mike Moore. And then it was Mike Moore and Florida and then it was three of them and then it was 5 of them and then it was virtually all of them. It was very powerful force and in some ways that's what it took. It took all the state law enforcement officials to send a very clear signal to the industry that the world in which they've been operating has begun to change. Q. But it's these same people who pushed the industry to the wall who are now saying O.K., let's have some constructive settlement of this. Kessler: Why a settlement? Why not enact legislation? Why not enact comprehensive legislation that's aimed at reducing the number of young people who smoke? Why do you need a settlement? Why do you need to give the industry immunity? Why do you need to give the industry limited liability? Q. Well they're saying they're not giving the industry immunity across the board. Kessler: They're certainly giving the industry forms of limited liability. That's certainly forms of immunity. Q. Their argument is no one has been able to certify a class action that's gotten a judgment anywhere, from their perspective. So they're giving them the ability to get out of the class actions. Kessler: Why? Why do you have to give them that. Why does this industry deserve special protections that no other industry has? Q. The alternative is to go back into the trenches and fight it out state by state. Go on for years and years. They'll continue to spend their $600 million a year on lawyers and more kids will keep smoking every day, more kids will die and you'll just have a bigger and bigger war and the original problem will never be addressed? Kessler: Maybe there are people that don't believe that you really can pass legislation without permission of the industry. Many people really do think that the industry still has controls and powers. Maybe it still is big tobacco, maybe not quite as big, but I think in the end... I think if you ask the average person out there whether they want their elected representatives giving special protection, special legal protections to this industry, especially in light of everything that's come out... I certainly wouldn't want to go home as a member of Congress and say that I voted to give this industry some form of special legal protection. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/settlement/

Former chief strategist to President Clinton, Dick Morris was once described in Time magazine as the most influential private citizen in America. He has worked in election campaigning for over twenty years and was political advisor to Clinton in 1978 when he was Arkansas governor. As special advisor to President Clinton, Morris met with him on a regular basis in the Treaty Room at the White House. Morris had worked with Richard Scruggs on asbestos litigation. When Scruggs told him of his intention to sue tobacco companies, Morris conducted a poll in Mississippi to weigh public reaction. Morris had personal reasons for wanting to sue the tobacco industry. In September 1993, Morris' mother, a lifelong smoker, died of cancer. Morris was also born two pounds 11 ounces premature and almost died because his mother chain-smoked during her pregnancy. Morris asked Scruggs for help in convincing the President that this was a good issue. Scruggs paid for a poll in the five tobacco states (North Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee). It showed that the public was strongly against teen smoking and tobacco was a major health concern. After seeing the poll data, President Clinton decided to act. He proposed new anti-tobacco regulations that would restrict marketing to children and give the FDA the authority to determine if nicotine was an addictive drug. FRONTLINE interviewed Dick Morris in January 1998. Q. Could you explain, given your political expertise and background, how dangerous was it before, let's say 1994, for a politician, someone like Mike Moore to take on the tobacco industry. Morris: I believe that there were three sort of protected industries in America that everybody agreed you don't touch. The Mob, the tobacco companies and the beer companies. The beer companies still are sacrosanct, they get away with it. Reagan was very aggressive in cracking down on the Mob and the other--and that's followed. But tobacco enjoyed a charmed life in American politics until about the mid-1990s and the assumption was that you could never take them on. That they were absolutely the giants of American politics. You just didn't mess with heavyweights. Remember the old stuff about Jim Brown. You don't spit on Superman's cape--you know walk on Superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind, you don't mess with the Lone Ranger, you don't fool around with Jim. Well, that's how people I think felt about the tobacco companies. And the irony of that was that it took a--a pygmy to take them on because the giants were too scared. That is the courage of Mike Moore to do that. Q. So to politicians, the tobacco industry was Darth Vader? Morris: Yes. It was the source of a vast amount of money, an incredible amount of advertising. Erskine Bowles told me when we were considering the tobacco initiative, "Don't pick on somebody that spends six billion a year in advertising." And you know that was--that made some good sense. Q. So it took a pygmy as you put it. The pygmy is Mike Moore. Morris: The giants turned away and it took one man who believed that he could use the court system to bring about justice. The beauty of our court system is that anybody can enter the court and sue. Uh, you have to be appointed to be in the Executive Branch. You have to be elected to be in the Legislative Branch, but anybody can go into court. And Mike Moore basically said, "I'm anybody, and I've got basically a free lawyer in Dick Scruggs who's willing to front all the money that's required and all the time and all the energy and uh I'm willing to do it." And the beauty of this, the amazing thing about it is this was such a incredibly courageous idea and it took me so long personally to understand what he was doing. That he was suing over Medicaid. It was just uh, a very unusual idea. And he really singlehandedly brought about the changes that are going on the country today. And he did it, not as Attorney General. He did it as just a regular plaintiff. Q. You said you had a hard time understanding it at first. Do you remember when it was explained to you? Morris: I had been working with Scruggs on some of the asbestos litigation he had been doing and uh, he called me and he said, "I'm going to go after tobacco." And I said, "Well, great. But what's, but, most people are losing in these smoker lawsuits. They don't believe that the cigarette companies have liability about people who have died as a result of smoking." He said, "No. We have a new theory. The State of Mississippi is going to sue and to say that the tobacco companies owe us money for the people who we've been treating for lung cancer and emphysema and heart disease and that the cigarette companies should pay for that treatment." And I said, "You mean actually charge them for the treatment?" And he said, "Yeah." And I said, "Under what theory?" And he said, "Well, the theory of any liability, that their misbehavior, and their selling products that kill people caused this liability and that they should be required to pay for it." And it was a fascinating theory. So I said, "Well, I don't know if anybody's going to buy that, but that's incredible." And he said, "Well, why don't you do a poll on it?" So I did a poll in Mississippi and I outlined it to people. And at first blush we got 55 that agreed and 40 that opposed. Q. Fifty-five that agreed to what? Morris: We had 55 percent that said that tobacco companies should pay and 40 percent that said that they shouldn't. And after we went through the argumentation on both sides, pro and against-- Q. In your poll. Morris: In the poll. Q. So you went down to New Orleans to do what? Morris: Well, Scruggs asked me to meet with all of the anti-smoking lawyers, to test the viability of this weird idea of suing over Medicaid. And I went to them and showed them the poll that we'd done in Mississippi. And the poll showed that about 55 percent of the people, off the first blush would vote for the plaintiff's position that the tobacco companies would have to pay, and that with some arguments on both sides for and against, you could get it up to 65 percent. And I said, "Hey, if you need three-quarters of a jury to win this, maybe you can." Because there clearly is good, solid public consensus. And the data showed that the people really believed--number one that smoking caused these diseases; but number two, they also believed that these cigarette companies were targeting kids. They had absolutely no doubt that the purpose of cigarette advertising was to go after the kids and that was a very, very important element of it, of making this whole case work. Q.What was your sense of Dick Scruggs? Morris: I thought that he was a regular lawyer, litigating to make money and that he had this really good thing going because there were so many people that were sick from asbestos in this--the area of Mississippi where the shipyard was. You know, he was doing very well financially. But then as he became more involved in tobacco, I began to realize that this was not a profit-making thing on his part. This was a holy crusade. This was sort of something he was dedicating his life to. And uh, I really believe, and came to believe that if he didn't make a penny out of this uh, it would be fine for him. I think he made all the money he would need for the rest of his life in the asbestos litigation. And I think he basically decided he would dedicate it to fighting tobacco. I think Dick Scruggs is probably one of the most idealistic people I know. He puts the rest of us to shame. Q. This is coming from hard-nosed Dick Morris. What can--was there an incident, something happened that convinced you that this guy wasn't in it for the money or just to win? Morris: Well, a lot of times as we talked about the proposed tobacco settlement, I would say I thought a real vulnerability here was the attorneys' fees and--because they were pretty large. And I said, "The tobacco companies and people will pick on that aspect of it, and, and they'll pick it to death." And he said, "Well, look, as far as I'm concerned, I don't care if I make a dime off of this. I don't care if I lose money, for the millions that we've put out in this thing. I'm just determined to see this through." And at first I just thought that was a speech. But then, the more we talked about the formula and who would get what and how that would work, it became very clear that he literally was willing to make nothing from it. Literally. Q. So you believe that Dick Scruggs is in it for the issue? Morris: Yeah, idealism isn't fashionable in America these days and it certainly is suspect. But I think that he is one of the truly publicly spirited people around. I think that he decided that he made a lifetime's worth of money off of the asbestos stuff, that he was just going to basically spend the rest of his life fighting tobacco. And if he got money for it, fine. If he didn't get money for it, fine. But he was going to go after it. And you know, he put his whole law practice on hold. He uh, basically stopped taking any other cases. He focused all of his energies and resources on this tobacco litigation. And he didn't have all that good a chance of success. I mean, if he was a pragmatist, he was a pretty stupid pragmatist. There were a lot of better targets he could have--you know, people get hurt in automobile accidents every day. He could have focused on that. Q. So, you took this, in a sense--by the time you went back to the White House, 95... Did you talk to them about this litigation? Did you talk to the President about it? Morris: Yeah. Starting around January or February of 95, I raised with the President the tobacco issue, because I thought Henry Waxman, the Congressman from California had done a very fine job of focusing attention on the issue. But then there was kind of the assumption that with the Republican victory that the deregulation, anti-regulation forces were in the driver's seat. And I knew from my polling in Mississippi how strongly people in what's after all is the most conservative state in the country, felt about that issue. So I told the President that I thought this could be a really good issue for us to focus on. Q. Give me a sense of the conversation. You're in his living room, the Oval Office, where are you? Dick Morris: We would meet in the Treaty Room it's called, which is in the President's residence. And it's his office. And there's this huge picture on the wall with William McKinley settling the Spanish American War and behind you there's a picture of Abe Lincoln, an original oil painting of Lincoln and Admiral Farragut and General Sherman and General Grant on a river boat settling the Civil War strategy. And then there's his desk and then there's his book case of his personal book collection. So it's really a heady and a very intimate kind of atmosphere. Q. Subject of the day was? Morris: Well, it was part of our weekly meetings. We'd meet every week, initially alone and then with others. It became kind of a strategy meeting. and I said, "You know, we ought to look at tobacco down the road as an issue we could focus on. And he just kind of grunted. He looked at me and, you know, just nodded and it was kind of lightly and in passing. Then we were looking for issues that we could take the offense on. We were playing defense on school lunches, defense on Head Start, defense on Medicaid, defense on Medicare, defense on education, defense on environment. And we were looking for something--I was looking for something where we could take the offense. Where we could really go out with a new proposal. And as the President was beginning to move towards the center on the balanced budget and stuff like that, I thought just strategically, it would be a good idea to have an issue where we were really going out left. Where we were really being very aggressive and very active. And then, I guess, two influences combined in my mind. One was that I knew from my work with Scruggs how incredibly deeply the American people felt about this stuff. And in September of 1993, just about a year and a half before all this happened my mother died of cancer after a lifetime of smoking and that affected me. And I also personally was born two pounds 11 ounces, premature and almost died and my mother chainsmoked during my pregnancy and had no idea in 1947 that that caused premature birth. So tobacco almost killed me and it killed my mother. So I took it personally. Q. Well, there is this way in this issue, whether you're Hubert Humphrey, with his father, and other people, that there's a personal connection to this issue. Morris: Yeah. And, and I felt it, and I felt that it was politically good. But that really wasn't enough to make it work. That was just kind of the beginning of the process. Q. And this is at the time that the FDA is getting ready to propose regulation of cigarettes? Morris: The FDA's thinking about it. And, um, we're now around March or April or May. Then, um, in early July, the President gave a speech at Georgetown University where he really talked about a values agenda in our politics. He said that we need to basically move from an exclusive focus on dollars and cents to something where we're really focusing on values. And I think that that gave the whole anti-tobacco thing a new spark in terms of the thinking that kind of catalyzed it. Because I think that it--that he was very clear that the anti-tobacco stuff would be kind of the one of the centerpieces of that new agenda. So I think that was, an important part of the calculus. Q. But did he bring up the fact that, "Hey, Dick, tobacco. They're the Darth Vader of politics"? Morris: Well, he was scared to death of losing Kentucky and losing Tennessee because he felt it could get tight in the electoral college when the reelection came. And he felt that this would absolutely wipe him in those two states. And he was a little worried about Georgia, Virginia and North Carolina, but he pretty well figured he wouldn't win those states anyway. But I kept telling him that even in those states, there was a strong probably a strong majority in favor of banning tobacco companies' efforts aimed at kids. You see, at that point, the anti-tobacco cause had not really distinguished adults from children. They had focused on smoking as a whole as being a health issue in general. And the contribution that, I guess, I perhaps had the most to do with was to say that, that voters felt one way about kids and teenagers and another way about adult smoking. When you talk about restrictions on adult smoking, you basically had about 40-50 disagreement--45 on one side, 45 on the other. It was a real split community. But when you talk about restrictions on teen smoking and on advertising to kids and of targeting kids, you have about 80 percent that wanted to crack down hard. And the the funny thing about it, the amazing thing about it is people that have never smoked didn't switch, they were always anti-tobacco. People who had smoked and quit, were always anti-tobacco. So they didn't switch. The difference was smokers, people who were now smoking were almost unanimous against restrictions on adult smoking, but 70 or 80 percent in favor of restrictions on teen smoking. Because they were hooked and they were basically say that "I know that I smoked when I was 12 years old and they were not very sentimental about the process." They are flipping. They gave you the votes that made this politically viable. Q. So Scruggs tells us that you called him at one point and asked him "can you do a poll in the tobacco states, because I need the information for my discussions with Clinton." Morris: That's right. Q.Tell me how that happened. Morris: Well, as it turns out the--I did the poll. Voters absolutely felt that cigarette companies were targeting kids. We asked them in one question, "Do you think cigarette companies advertise to get people to switch brands, to get people to smoke more or to get children to start smoking?" And 80 percent said "children to start smoking" and only 20 percent said the other two answers or weren't sure. They got it. They knew what Joe Camel was about and the Marlboro Man and all that. But the President said, "Okay, well this'll be the issue. But I'll lose two states. I'll get killed in these two states." I remember he once said to me, he said, "I'm going to get a one-day story and I'll lose two states." So I said, "Well--" Q. Was he laughing? Morris: No. He wasn't laughing. He was deadly serious. Because he felt that you know, he would get a nice one-day story and it would look good, and then he'd get killed in two states that he absolutely had to win. So I did a survey in five states... in North Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, which were the five tobacco states. And we asked people, "Who are you voting for?" And then we said--we talked about the anti-smoking stuff being aimed at kids, and we said, "If Clinton backs this would you vote for him? And we found that in every single one of these states he gained by taking this position, as long as it was aimed at kids, at teenagers. And uh, he was shocked by that. He was absolutely blown away by that. Q. What'd he say? Morris: He was shocked. He said, "In other words, it's not adult smoking, it's teen smoking?" And I said, "Yeah, this is--as far as their concerned, smokers see it as a subset of the drug issue." You know, not the civil liberties issue, and not seatbelts and that kind of stuff. They see it as basically a drug issue and a character issue and it was a whole new perspective for him in that sense. So that was significant, and I think that was very important. But the absolute key intervention was Gore. Because Gore was from Tennessee. And, I remember at the seminal meeting when he really decided to go ahead in early July. We were pondering it and he was thinking about it. Erskine, who usually--Erskine Bowles the current Chief of Staff--who usually was an ally of mine, was here against it because he's from North Carolina. He favored it in principle but he was scared to death of the tobacco companies. He said, "Let's don't go against somebody that spends a billion dollars in advertising." And the President turned to Gore, he President was sitting in a wing chair, in front of the table and Gore was sitting at the edge of the couch, right over here and he turned to Gore after everybody had spoken and he said, "Al, what do you think?" And you know, Gore always speaks like he's giving a Supreme Court opinion. And he said, "Well, Mr. President, the history of this issue goes back, blah-blah-blah and he was, you know, like writing for the Court majority. And he said, "Listen, early in my political career, an issue came up about labeling on the cigarette packs to say this--the health warnings that you see." And he said, "I had to vote on that, and I decided to vote in favor of that. And I thought I was ending my political career." From Tennessee voting in favor of that. And he said, "I would go before tobacco farmers and I would say, "I voted for this because I don't want your kids to smoke. Do you want your kids to smoke?" And he said, "None of the tobacco farmers wanted their kids to smoke. And they really identified with it. They understood it and they voted for me, even though it hurt their economic interests. Because it was their children." And he said, "Mr. President, I am deeply convinced that if you do this, it's not going to hurt you politically, it's not going to cost you Tennessee. It's not going to cost you Kentucky and it's going to be a very important advance for public health." And I think that decided Clinton. Because he wanted to do it anyway, but when the former Senator from Tennessee was saying it's not going to cost you Tennessee, that I think was the decisive moment with him. Q. That's when he let Commissioner Kessler issue his regulations. Morris: Yes. When he endorsed those regulations I think that he--there ensued a couple of weeks there where he was talking with Governor Hunt of North Carolina and was, I think, hoping for a negotiated solution with the tobacco companies. But I think he understood that he wasn't going to get that and that he should go straight ahead. Morris: When Clinton decided to take on tobacco it was really very close to the absolute low point of his presidency. Uh, his popularity was very far down, he had been battered by the Republican Congress which had passed a lot of its programs and um, this was a, this was an act that was taken by a president who was looking at the face of extinction. Uh, whatever you think of Bill Clinton, it's clear that this was the single most courageous moment of his presidency. The single most courageous moment. Q. His willingness to take on the people no one else would ever take on? Morris: Exactly, his willingness to take on this mass collection of power and money and uh, and political clout that the tobacco industry represents. He took on the NRA. The NRA is probably a tenth as potent as the tobacco companies were. He took on the pro-life people. They're probably a tenth as potent as tobacco. To take on the tobacco was just extraordinary. And the interesting thing about it, it is that while he probably came to believe that maybe this wouldn't cost him two states, he sure didn't believe this would help him. Because he didn't really believe that America would get energized about tobacco. It wasn't a national issue. It wasn't a big deal. Nobody was talking about it back then. And, uh, he was kind of rescuing the issue from the dust heap. It had fallen by the way side. Q. Now during this period of time, according to Dick Scruggs, you are the Prime Minister, as he put it. You were talking to Trent Lott. Who was, at one time, or was still your client as well. Morris: At one time was my client, right. Q. Yeah. What was Lott's reaction to all this? Morris: Well, Trent had a weird relationship with Scruggs. Uh, he would always refer to Scruggs as "my no good scum-suckin' brother-in-law." And when I met with him in the future and I wanted to refer to Scruggs, I would say he's the "NGSSBIL" the initials of that "no good scum-suckin' brother-in-law." So he kind of saw Scruggs as this crazy Liberal who he was related to by marriage. Who he liked a great deal. He had a very real affection for him. But Trent uh, didn't and I think that he really was sensitized on that issue. And I think he was really uncomfortable with the tobacco industry and I think that one of Scruggs's key aces in the hole here is his relationship with Trent. Q. Is that why Scruggs turned up in Trent Lott's suite at the 96 Republican Convention? Morris: Okay. Well, the sisters are very close, Trent's wife and Dick's wife are very close and Dick's wife is very involved in this and feels very passionately about it. Q. During this period of your being the Prime Minister-- Morris: That's your phrase not mine. Q. Well, that's Dick Scruggs's phrase. Morris: Okay. Q. The go-between between Lott and [Clinton], right? Morris: Yeah. Q. What stands out as sort of your feeling that these guys really were together actually on this issue? Morris: Well, most of the time I--I didn't really deal with Trent on tobacco very much until April or May of 96 when Scruggs told me that the tobacco companies were suing for peace. That they had reached out to him and said they were interested in settling these lawsuits. And at that time it seemed that it was very possible for that to happen in 1996. And uh, as I mentioned, Trent had kind of designated some people to help put this together, and those were the negotiations that were going on. So I kept the President closely informed of what Scruggs was doing and Scruggs kept Trent closely informed of what he was doing. And uh, I kept the President aware of the fact and constantly focusing on the fact that Trent was probably moving with Scruggs and that therefore he probably could count on helping Congress and getting this thing done. It was the willingness of Lott and the Republicans to be part of the process uh, that gave it sense of political reality to it. As opposed to pie in the sky. Q. Did the President ever say, "I want to settle because I want to show them we've accomplished this."? Or, was he reluctant to settle and say, "Listen. We wounded em, we better kill em."? Morris: The President was thrilled at the idea that this could be settled. He was absolutely euphoric about it. Q. Did he jump out of his seat or what? Morris: He said, "You mean they really could do this? I mean we really could bring this about?" Just, he was just excited about it. Uh, and constantly, whenever I would brief him on the talks and stuff he would say, "That's great. Great. Let's just keep going. Keep going, that's terrific." Gore was apprehensive about it. Gore is much more-- read the fine print and pay attention to the details. And Gore had a very cynical view of the tobacco industry, and felt that they couldn't possibly mean anything in good faith, and that if they were going to give you a concession then there was something that they had in the back of their mind that you didn't know about. They were smarter than you were. And that they had some-- Q. Did he say that? Morris: Yeah, in effect. And that they had some marketing gimmick that they would pull out of the hat at the last minute and would screw it all up. And he told me early on that he would look to three people to give him advice on this. Uh, Kessler, Waxman and, Myers from the smoking coalition, the anti-smoking coalition. And, um, I relayed that back to Scruggs and that's the time when Scruggs reached out to Myers from the Coalition Against Smoking to get him into these talks and these negotiations because he would be so influential with Gore. Um, so the state of play really in the White House in the April, May, June, July, August of 1996 period was eager anticipation of the possibility of a tobacco deal by the President and tremendous concern and caution on the part of the Vice President. Q. And then the trial balloon, or the week in September destroyed the whole process? Morris: Derailed it for this time. There was no longer a chance of getting it through before the election. Q. Okay. And then we have from Scruggs and from Moore the history of the deal progressing. You know they backed away and then--what do you think brought the tobacco industry back to the table. Back to, you know--? Morris: Well, the macro of any negotiation is that the only time you can cut a deal is when both sides are hurting. If either side is, is well and feeling happy, you can't get a deal. Then they go for victory. You need--if they're willing to settle for things the other side can live with, it's because they're hurting a little bit. And the tobacco companies at the beginning of this process weren't hurting at all. They were winning everything, that they encountered. Then they began to see their vulnerability with these Medicaid lawsuits, when state after state after state followed Mississippi's model and filed these lawsuits, uh they, the potential liability piled up and they were really scared. Uh, frankly, if they lose two or three of these lawsuits they're going to go broke, and this is a very serious issue for them. Q. Scruggs and Moore, once they announced their deal in June of 97, uh, in their words, "descended into the swamp of Washington." They say they learned a lot of lessons. They really did not realize that it was a town where people told you one thing in private and then something else in public. Morris: Right. Q. Did they talk to you about that? Morris: Yes. I think that Scruggs and Moore were so used to fighting the tobacco companies that they were unused to fighting a two-front war, with the tobacco companies in front of them and the public health companies in the rear. Because the public health community basically said, "Thanks for the gains, now get lost. We want to kill these guys. We don't want to make a deal with them." And whereas the President strongly believed that this should be limited to stopping teen smoking, the public health community wants to wipe out cigarette companies entirely and make everyone that smokes not have cigarettes anymore. I mean that, that's their goal and it's laudable, but impractical. So, um, Scruggs and Moore I don't think were prepared for the splash on the Left over this issue, and I think they were shocked by it. And then, I think they expected Clinton to stand up and deal and tame the Left and get a deal going. But I think Clinton basically took the position of, "Why should I do this when the courts are going to do it? The courts are probably going to rule against the FDA. If they do then that'll give me the ammunition to put a deal together." But then I think Clinton also realized because he's a marvelous student of the practical, that if the courts ruled in favor of the public health groups and against the cigarette industry that no force on earth was going to constrain them. Then there was just going to be rout, and frankly I don't think Clinton weeps over tobacco companies. I don't think he cares much if those companies die. Uh, he's not going to be too grieved about that and at that point, you know, the Huns sack Rome. And then who knows where it goes? Uh, but I think that his feeling was that he would only attempt to impose a deal when there was a reason to do it, which is that it was the only way he could get FDA jurisdiction. Q. One last question. You placed this issue, this whole thing on a macro level that is beyond belief in terms of what the politics can accomplish and all of this came out of a bunch of guys in Mississippi in Pascagoula? Morris: When the history of the 20th century is written, there are going to be some pretty obscure people who are entitled to sainthood. And they're not going to be well-known. Nobody is going to know their names, and um, I don't know if they'll go on to do anything else in their lives. I don't know what their futures hold. But Scruggs and Moore have earned their place in heaven. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/settlement/

Bennett LeBow is the CEO of the Brooke Group which owns Liggett Tobacco, the smallest of the six major tobacco companies. Considered a relative newcomer to the industry and a Wall Street operator, LeBow stunned his counterparts at Philip Morris, Brown & Williamson, RJR Nabisco, Loews and Lorillard when he broke ranks and announced he would settle the Medicaid suits brought by forty state attorneys general. In this February 1998 FRONTLINE interview, LeBow also revealed that he was cooperating with the Justice Department in its criminal investigation of the tobacco industry. Q: What was the tobacco industry's legal strategy in essence? Lebow: Then it was fight every lawsuit. Wear them down. Spend all the money in the world because the cigarette companies had all the money in the world to spend. Just wear the other side down, and they'll go away. And they were going away. The strategy seemed to have been working. Q: When did you begin to question that strategy? LeBow: Well, honestly, for about eight, nine years, I just followed the strategy. We had a group of lawyers, about six or seven outside attorneys that just did, year after year, this tobacco litigation. Then the major companies led the way, so to speak. And back in 1995, about three years ago, a couple of strange things happened. This group of outside attorneys that we had were doing most of the tobacco litigation for Liggett and their law firm was dissolving for other reasons. And they came to me, and they said we want to go to another major law firm in New York. I said, your law firm is dissolving, I know this other smaller law firm that specializes in product liability...they're experts in it, why don't you go to that law firm. I'll put you there, and we'll use them because they're experts in this. And I don't know this other law firm. They called me up the next day. They said, "Mr. LeBow, you let us go to this big law firm, Philip Morris will pay all of your legal fees." I said, "What? They want to pay my legal fees. My competitor wants to pay my legal fees." I know we're in the joint defense thing, but it didn't sound right. So I started to smell something wrong there. This is now, I think we're talking about September of '95. I said, "Go ahead and go there, because I'm busy with some other things. Go there. They want to pay my legal fees. I won't right now look a gift horse in the mouth. We'll take the money." But I really started to smell something. Q: In effect these were bargain attorneys? Lebow: Yeah, well, free. Q: Free lawyers. Free. . .? Lebow: Free lawyers. I mean, you know, how can I turn it down. It really got my. . . the bells going off. Q: What kind of money are we talking about in terms of your legal fees? Lebow: It was running about eight million dollars a year at the time. Q: So, Philip Morris is willing to give you a legal defense fund at eight million dollars a year, no questions asked. Lebow: Right. Providing my lawyers go to one of the firms they like, not my firm. Q: And so then, you get into the attempt to leverage. Lebow: And so then, I get involved with some other share holders and am attempting to. . . recommending to RJR that they spin off Nabisco. They take their three businesses and separate it from the tobacco business. Q: You own Liggett, your holding group and you then want to try and take over a larger company, RJR, which also obviously has a big tobacco component. Lebow: And make money in stock that we've bought in RJR. And the obvious way was to separate the two businesses, the tobacco business and the food business. The food business in this case being Nabisco. So, myself and other shareholders, we started an action doing that, and we won. All the shareholders voted for this to be done. Q: Now, why did you want to split them up? Lebow: So, the share values would go up. Q: And what was your sense of the Medicaid suits? Lebow: Well, let me finish. They came out and said, "Mr. LeBow, we can't split these two companies up because there is too much litigation." I said, "What litigation?" I've been told for eight, nine years that there's no litigation. There's a couple lawsuits, you know, Medicaid and a few other individuals. There was some class actions then, which everyone has said, "No problem. We win everything. There's no issue." Now, I've got two things happening. I have Philip Morris paying my legal fees. I've got RJR saying they can't do this spin off or split up because of all the litigation possibility. I really got suspicious. So, then I authorized the new law firm. We're now talking three months after Philip Morris' overtures to the other side. I really want to find out what's going on now. Q: Talk to the other side in what? Lebow: Meaning the plaintiffs, meaning the Attorneys Generals, meaning the Castano case class action lawyer. Q: So, both the class action lawyers and the Attorney Generals like Mike Moore. You authorized the new lawyers, not part of this big firm. Lebow: Not part of those guys. In secret. Q: In secret, to talk to the plaintiffs. Unheard of before. Lebow: Never been done before. No tobacco attorney ever talked to any of these other attorneys in thirty years. So, the first time in secret talking to them in late December, '95, they had some secret meetings to explore what's going on. Because I want to find out what's going on. And the easy way to find out is to talk to the other side. Instead of trying to read papers, let's hear the other guy's view point. The lawsuit, which I didn't quite understand at the time. There are these class action lawsuits, and the big issue is nicotine. Nicotine, never disclosed by the tobacco companies that they really believed that nicotine's addictive. And also in the back of my mind, remembered everybody getting up in Congress and swearing, "No, nicotine is not addictive. We don't believe it is. Etcetera, etcetera." Q: Tell me about when you first talked to the other side. LeBow: But then in '95 when all these other things are happening, I'm starting to think something's wrong here. See after meeting with these AG's, we had to have two months of secret meetings not telling any of the attorneys, not telling anyone. The only person I told was the new president of Liggett at the time, and myself, and the new attorneys. We then negotiated...the settlement in the March of '96. Q: This is called Liggett One?. Lebow: Liggett One, with five Attorneys General and the Costano class action suit attorney. Q: Did you notify the people who were paying your legal fees or any of their friends, or RJR that you're about to do this? Lebow: No. Q: You didn't tell them that after thirty or forty years of a united front, that you were about to defect? Lebow: Absolutely not. They all read about it in The Wall Street Journal. I didn't tell anyone because I honestly, you know, I can't tell my attorneys, they're being paid by the other tobacco companies. So, I can't. . . I don't say, I don't trust them, but it wasn't right. The only attorneys who knew worked with a new law firm. Q: You didn't trust your own attorneys? Lebow: Not in this place. Now, needless to say, when that came out, they came and fired me, my attorneys. Q: Wait, they fired you? Lebow: They fired me. Q: Because? Lebow: Because I didn't confer with them in this negotiation, I suspect. You'll have to ask them why they fired me. It's pretty obvious. So, in this Liggett One, in March of '96, everybody goes crazy. Wall Street says, "What did you do? This is insane." Etcetera, etcetera. And the truth of all this, I didn't believe the strategy these tobacco companies are following. I mean none of the strategy made sense. Intellectually, I just didn't believe it. You have to win every lawsuit. There's nothing here. We're never going to lose. And also recognize that Liggett is the smallest of all the tobacco companies. From a financial point of view, I also said to myself, we can't afford to lose even one lawsuit, one Medicaid case. We go neatly bankrupt. So, from a financial point of view, at this time, I figured it was the right thing to do, to make a settlement. Why stay in court the rest of your life? The other companies have this scorched earth policy that we're going to spend, and spend, and spend, and spend, and spend, and win and win and win. And I didn't want to become a satellite of Philip Morris with them paying my legal fees, or a subsidiary of them. When we did this, everybody went berserk. Q: Didn't you ever doubt what you were doing? Lebow: No, I never did. Not for once. I knew it was the right thing to do. I really did have this sense, call it a gut feel, call it what you want, it was the right thing to do. Talking on a personal level, I also see a tobacco company standing up and saying, "Well, cigarettes don't cause any harmful effects." What kind of a statement is that? Cigarettes are not addictive... what kind of a statement is that? How can they keep doing this? Then, let me tell you what then happened. I got fired by my old law firm. I told my new lawyers, let's get these documents everybody is talking about. I want to see these documents. We had not looked at any of these documents, because I didn't want to confer with my previous attorneys at the time. My new lawyers then took the documents away from the old lawyers, and spent about four or five months studying. And by the end of '96, the middle of '96, they came to me and said, Ben, there's some serious things in these documents. There's some issues of crime and fraud and all kinds of things, and it's well known that smoking is addictive, and all these types of things in these documents. I said, "That's it. I don't want to talk about it anymore. Let's get in touch with all the Attorneys General, all the attorneys involved in this thing, and try to negotiate a new settlement for us." Which we did. Q: You mean a new broader settlement? Lebow: A new, broader settlement. And by this time, more Attorneys General had filed lawsuits. Q: And by then there were 23 states. Lebow: Originally there were only four or five. Now more had come in, and it had broadened the whole situation. Then, we took about four to six months negotiating. We now come to March of '97 when we announced a new, broader settlementt with 21 states. Now we're up to 26 states that have settled with us. Q: And you've agreed at this point, not just on a financial deal, but also to do what? Lebow: To admit to everything, admit to smoking being addictive, admit to all the health hazards of smoking, to turn over all of our documents, to waive all of our attorney-client privilege. Turn all of our documents over which we did. Immediately, that very day, RJR ran to a North Carolina court to stop me. . . to try to stop us from turning over documents. And we had turned them over to the courts in escrow for the judges to decide whether there is anything in these documents that represents crime or fraud and whether attorney client privilege should be waived, etcetera, etcetera. So, we did all this. And lo and behold, two weeks later, all the attorneys, all the other companies show up at the door of the Attorneys General to negotiate a broader, more comprehensive settlement for themselves. Q: Let me take you back, again. You indicated then--I'm talking about Liggett One -- that you were not doing this out of altruism. You were doing this to help you take over RJR. Lebow: RJR was saying they couldn't do a spin off, they couldn't take out Nabisco and so forth, because of all of these lawsuits. One obvious motive I had was, okay, let's settle the lawsuits and solve that problem for the shareholders. That's what got me started looking into it. To really find out what's going on here, what the problems are. But the more I look. . . And then after the lawyers fired me, and then we got the documents, I mean it was obvious we were doing the right thing. And then the whole thing changed in that regard. Q: What do you mean? Lebow: All right, there were two elements to it. First of all, admittedly, the first time we started looking at it, I had economic motivations going into this. And one economic motivation was to get a better deal for Liggett, a better economic deal. Now, in theory I had the idea that if Liggett got a better economic deal...if the other people had to pay more and Liggett had paid less, we'd have a competitive advantage and be able to survive. And at this point, bear in mind that Liggett is going down. Q: What was happening to your stock? Lebow: Well, our stock and our sales are going down. And especially, after I did something like this in Liggett One and Liggett Two, the other companies are coming after us, I mean competitively. So, we had to have some sort of economic life preserver to survive, to survive all this onslaught. The other issue they're talking about is the RJR issue. At the time, back in '95, '96, we were involved in this proxy fight, and RJR was saying they can't do the spin off because of litigation. So, the most obvious thing for a business man to do, okay, is settle the litigation. There's no more problem, and we can do this spin off and everybody makes money. So, I was sort of flabbergasted that when we did this, all the shareholders are, "What are you doing?" "This is crazy" But we have the right to spin her off. And as it turns out, a lot of the shareholders also hold Philip Morris stock, own Philip Morris and RJR. And they saw this as possibly hurting Philip Morris more than it would help RJR. Q: Who are these shareholders? Lebow: Institutions, major institutions. Q: Like Fidelity Magellan. Lebow: Every major institution in the United States you can think of, you know, owns stock in both companies. Q: Like public employee funds. Lebow: Yeah, state funds, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Q: So, these are the big heavy hitters in the marketplace? Lebow: Right. Q: What I've been told by the negotiators, Scruggs, Moore, and others, is that when they brought up the Liggett deals, RJR said, "That's a deal breaker." We are not giving -- they wouldn't mention your name -- we are not giving them anything. And Philip Morris' lawyers' eyes just rolled up to the ceiling. Lebow: Well, it's not up to them, it's up to the President and the Congress to do what's right here. It's not up to the tobacco industry. I mean, they don't make the laws in this country. Yeah, I've heard they've threatened to walk away from any settlement, tobacco settlement, that Liggett got, the contracts we have. Nothing special. We're not asking for anything special...all we're asking for is that our contracts be honored. The deals we negotiated. Q: They're paying hundreds of millions of dollars. Lebow: They're not paying a penny. They're paying nothing. Let's get it straight. They're raising their prices to cover it. The poor addicted smoker and the U.S. taxpayer is paying. So, don't yell at me that we're only paying a couple of million dollars out of our pocket, I don't see them paying a penny yet. Q: They're not paying up front out of their own cash in Mississippi and Florida? Lebow: They're raising the prices to get the money back. Q: And they're already raising the prices. Lebow: They already did. They did it last year. they've already done it. . .with the new settlement. Q: I mean, I was amazed that things have changed so fast. Lebow: Yeah, I was too. I knew it would change. I felt it would change. I thought it would take a little bit longer. But they had the trials coming up, that was the impetus. The Mississippi trials, and the Florida trials coming up. And they should have really done it six months earlier. Because it turned out they didn't have time. Q: What do you mean? Lebow: Well, they really should have settled, I think, a year earlier than they did. Started the negotiations a year earlier, because they're under the gun with the trials, the Mississippi trials and the Florida trials. They had to go settle with really big numbers, you know, a lot different than it probably would have been a year earlier. And they knew the schedule, they knew these trial schedules. These are all public knowledge. So my opinion is, they should have started the negotiations to settle these things a year earlier. And they could have had time to get it through Congress. Q: Your perspective was, you guys might lose in court. LeBow: I started to understand. I never understood before, but I do now. Yeah, there are warning labels on the cigarettes, have been for many years, since 1967 or so. But there was a never warning label that smoking is addictive. That one warning label was not there. You know, when I really focused on it a few years ago, when I heard the Medicaid cases from the Attorneys General, they had a good case...maybe. But why fight? Why not try and work out a reasonable settlement and do the right thing. Q: But you're a businessman. You're not going to pay somebody a lot of money or make such a settlement that will cause all this havoc, unless you were making a bet that they could win. Lebow: Obviously I was making that bet, yes. Absolutely. I believe they had a strong case. And I believe sooner or later, they're going to win. And I wanted to settle quickly. Obviously the first person is going to get a better deal. Q: But once you admit that it does all these things, aren't you admitting that you're selling consumers something that could very well kill them? Lebow: Well, A, it's legal. But, B, they're fully informed. Consumers now have full information about everything. All of our documents are released. We've waived our attorney client privilege, etcetera, etcetera. I mean, that's the way it is, that's the way it's going to be going forward. And not sold to children, that's the important thing. And by the way, another thing we've said publicly which is important. We've said this publicly, and I'll say it again now, that in 25 to 30 years, we sure will be out of business. Because by definition, if you're really, really not going to sell to children, they're not going to have any customers in 25 or 30 years. So, I'd like to hear the other companies make that statement that they intend to be out of business in 25, 30, whatever, a generation. If they're really, really not selling to children, we're all going to be out of business. Q: You're known as a hard dollars and cents guy. Lebow: Liggett could not afford to lose one Medicaid case. Because we can't even afford to post a bond to appeal it. Even though we thought we were right, we had economic motivations in that regard to make a deal, no question about it. But after seeing the documents and understanding these things, I couldn?t just from a moral point of view couldn't go forward and keep saying that smoking is not addictive. Q: What did your attorneys tell you? Lebow: My attorneys told me that these documents became serious evidence, a crime, fraud, obstruction of justice, etcetera, etcetera, and we turned these documents over to the various courts. And so far, three courts have found the same thing. So it's obviously true. I mean a court in Florida, a court in Minnesota, and even another court I believe, came out with the same type of informations saying these documents have serious problems in them. Q: And have you turned these documents over to the Department of Justice criminal investigation? Lebow: Yes. Q: They've come here and gotten copies?. Lebow: Yes. They got them from either our attorneys or from the courts we turned them over to. There's no issue there. Q: Have they come here and questioned people? Lebow: Not to my knowledge. Not that I know have. Q: No one from Liggett, as far as you know, has been subpoenaed or brought to Washington to testify? Lebow: I don't know if I can answer that question because I'm not sure of the legalities. So, I'd rather not answer that. I'm sure some of the people have testified. Q: So, this could get serious. I mean beyond money, even if you're willing to reform. Lebow: Well, it's well known that the Justice Department is investigating, has some grand jury investigations going. That's well known. There was, one plea on the nicotine plant issue last week. So, I suspect there's other things going on. We'll see what the Justice Department does. Q: But in the background of all of these discussions about public health and how much in damages and how to change marketing, there still looms this cloud of potential criminal charges. Lebow: That's correct. Q: Do you think that's motivating anybody in the settlement? Lebow: My understanding is during their settlement negotiations, they do have criminal attorneys present. They're trying to get some criminal immunity without totally taking it off the table. So, I'm sure that's part of the motivations the companies have. We have no concerns over it at Liggett. I mean, I have no personal concerns. And we're cooperating completely with the Justice Department. Q: So, when you say, you're in a sense turning over evidence to the Attorney General, you're also turning over evidence to the Attorney General of the United States. Lebow: Oh, yes, absolutely. Q: What about the so-called stealth amendment -- the fifty billion dollar tax deduction if they had to make these settlement payments. Lebow: Right. Instead of 368 billion, it would be 50 billion. Everybody in Washington just went crazy over that. And it was 96 to 4 in the Senate. The vote was completely lopsided. You don't do those things in secret like that. You know, it just shows. . . Q: It was a stealth amendment. Lebow: It was a stealth amendment. Q: They showed their power. Lebow: They tried to show their power, and I think lost a lot of power because of it. I think Congress and the White House -- they've wakened to the fact that this is not the way things should be done. Things should be done correctly, and I believe that Congress and the White House will do the correct thing going forward. Q: Let me change the subject on you a little bit, just because we're focusing to a certain extent on the attorneys general and what happened. When you first met Dick Scruggs and Mike Moore, what did you make of them? Lebow: I thought they were really crusaders. Q: Moore was a crusader? Lebow: Absolute crusader. He was crusading for something he believed in. And I was very impressed by his record. And it turns out he was a hell of a crusader...General Moore. It turns out he was right all along. And I was impressed. Q: Not your average politician? Lebow: No, not your average politician. Q: Why not? Lebow: He had a focus. He and Dickey Scruggs wanted to accomplish something, and they went for it, you know, all the way. And they did it, and they deserve all the credit that they get. Q: In a nutshell, what was the importance of these suits by the attorneys general in your mind? Lebow: I think they're very important, and I think it's obviously been proven true. They led the way. It's gotten people really started thinking. And also they were major in numbers. I mean the amount of money that they were demanding, asking for was quite large. Florida, for example, passed a special statute which took away a lot of tobacco's traditional defenses. So, I think they were very, very important in the scheme of things. Q: They, if you will, check-mated the industry. Lebow: Yeah, as you saw, all the class actions got thrown out. Most of them got thrown out. So, it's strictly the large lawsuits, the attorneys general lawsuits, that worry the industry. The industry is never afraid of one individual lawsuit. They could always pay, you know, a million dollars here or a half million dollars there, wherever it may be. But the attorney general lawsuits also included RICO charges and punitive damage potential, which really got the industry thinking. Q: Is it a lesson for other corporations, for other industries? Lebow: Yeah, I think it should be a lesson. I think all these lawsuits and all this litigation should be a lesson that people should do the right thing and not withhold information. Not withhold over years and years, all these types of things. You sit back and you look at it, it's kind of ridiculous. We all know cigarettes cause problems. We all know it's addictive. So, why don't we disclose all this stuff. Why were all these secret things being done. I mean just on an individual basis, sitting back and looking at this, I don't understand why they did it. Q: I don't think I've ever talked to a businessman before who says that he hopes that his business will go away. Lebow: Well, I hope it goes away. I really, truly hope it goes away. I hope I'm around to see it go away even, at my age. But I really hope it goes away. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/settlement/

Steven F. Goldstone is the Chief Executive Officer of RJ Reynolds, the second largest cigarette maker in the United States. Goldstone joined RJ Reynolds in 1995 after having been a corporate attorney in New York for 25 years. Q. You’ve been quoted in newspapers as saying that under your stewardship, you intend to make Reynolds uh–to instill a new sense of corporate culture in Reynolds. Do you recall making that statement? A. Actually [talk over each other]. Q. Well, is it true? A. Uh, Mr. Miley, I think that managers today at Reynolds understand that, that company has to accept responsibility uh and conduct itself in a responsible manner and to that extent, I’m satisfied that they are doing that today. Q. Mr. Cosco, do you agree that in the past Reynolds managers, not under your helm, have made mistakes that have impacted adversely on public health? A. I can’t say that, Mr. Miley. The only thing I–and I know you were going to go through a lot of this, but in fairness to me, really, I’ve been in this company a year and a half. I know there are lawsuits surrounding the conduct of this company. I talked to my lawyers about it a lot. I understanding there are ranging debates in these cases, including this one you have in Florida, but I, I don’t have judgments to make. I’m not interested in the past. That’s something for you and the judges and the juries to figure out. For me, it’s going forward in the future and how we conduct ourselves in the future. Q. Well, if you’re going to conduct yourself differently in the future than obviously you’re going to make some changes, correct? A. What is said to you is that we’re going to conduct ourselves responsibly. I’d like to think our company conducted itself responsibly in all circumstances in the past, but that is what the subject of this litigation in Florida’s all about. Q. As the calls came [unintelligible]? A. Well, it’s a, it’s a complicated question for me, uh, and I hope you’ll give me a second. Q. You take all the time you want, sir. A. Answer that one for you, because um, for myself, and this is just my own personal opinion. I have been in this world for 51 years. I’m not a scientist, but I, I do believe that uh today that uh cigarette smoking play plays a role in causing lung cancer. Um and uh I’m in the job I’m in and I believe that uh, uh the State of Florida, the government of the State of Florida, I think most people on your side of the table, I believe the President of the United States and I believe everyone in Congress and I believe most Americans believe that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer. And all of those people, Florida, the Governor, the President, the Congress, has decided against Prohibition. They’ve decided that American adults, with free information and with good information, ought to be able to make their own choice. Politically, I personally believe in that. I believe in that very much. I think it’s one of the most important principles that we have in this country, but uh, if Mr. Schindler uh–if it became a revelation for him and he decided he shouldn’t uh participate in the business anymore, I could understand completely. But I, I, for me, today, sitting here, if a scientist could connect the scientific gaps, fill in the scientific gaps, that would not be a revelation to me uh that uh cigarette smoking somehow was found to cause cancer. Um, that’s not a shock to me. I don’t think it’s a shock to almost any American today. So, that’s where I am on that. I will tell you this. Um, I was watching on CNN this morning and saw some–one of the universities, uh, one of the scientists thought that they had discovered what it was, the mechanism [unintelligible] cause from smoking to lung cancer. And Lord knows, I hope they do and if they do, um, these tobacco companies damn well better work like lunatics to figure out how to improve their products. I could be, it would great for all Americans to understand cancer more and I think it would be great for all Americans to understand cancer more and I think it would be important for this industry to do that. And the other thing, Mr. Motley on that, is this time, this industry will work hand in hand with the government and will work uh cooperatively on terms of medical research, but um denying basis uh truths, medical truths, is not what the industry will do, at least not what R.J. Reynolds tobacco company will do. Q. I take it, sir, then you do accept that cigarette smoking is a cause of disease in humans?” Goldstone: “I will tell you because I’m not a scientist, and I respect the views of our scientist in our company who very compellingly explained to me why there are gaps in scientific knowledge. But I’ve only been in this company a couple of years. I was a smoker myself at one time, and I have always believed– rightly or wrongly, I have always believed that smoking plays a role in causing lung cancer. What that role is, I have no idea, but I do believe that.” Motley: “So your answer to my question is yes?” Goldstone: “Yes, sir.” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/settlement/

Preston Tisch is the Co-chairman of Loews Corporation, a company that acquired Lorillard Tobacco in 1960. Tisch also currently owns fifty percent of the New York Giants. He and his brother Laurence Alan Tisch have been involved in a number of corporate takeovers including the acquisition of CBS, which they sold to Westinghouse Electric Corporation in 1995. State of Florida v. American Tobacco et al. August 15, 1996 Motley: “Do you believe, sir, that a corporation that makes a product has a moral responsibility to investigate the properties of that property–of that-” Mr. Boffa: (Defense Attorney): “Object to the form of the question.” Tisch: “I believe it is a question that I can’t answer. I’m not capable of answering.” Motley: “You are not capable of answering that… whether a corporation that makes 40 billion cigarettes a year has a moral responsibility to find out whether that product causes harm to their customers?” Mr. Boffa: “Object to the form of the question.” Tisch: “I never thought about it.” Motley: “You never thought about it. Motley: “Now, this letter from the American Cancer Society was addressed to Congressman Kornegay. It is in reference to a press release of January the 3rd. And then about an advertisement that was placed. If you would look, sir, at the letter, Number 10, the first paragraph, where they put in quotes, the “commitments to honest scientific research to help resolve the controversy about smoking and health.” And if you look at the ad, that uses words such as “commitments,” “honest,” “scientific research,” “controversy,” “smoking and health.”Do you see what I am talking about, sir?” Tisch: “Yes, sir.” Motley: “Let’s look at the American — by the way, did you ever meet Mr. Lewis?” Tisch: “No, I did not.” Motley: “You are familiar with the American Cancer Society?” Tisch: “Yes, I am.” Motley: “Have you ever been a participant in its activities –” Tisch: “No.” Motley: “–over your career? Mr. Lewis on behalf of the board of directors of the American Cancer Society, says at paragraph 1, `The controversy about smoking and health continues, largely, because of the energy, time and money spent by the tobacco industry in keeping this controversy alive. Advertisements of the sort you enclose seem to me to have as their major point the reassurance to cigarette smokers that you express in your headline: The question about smoking and health is still a question.’Is that, in fact, the headline of the ad?” Tisch: “Yes, it is.” Motley: “That the question about smoking and health is still a question.In 1971, sir, do you, when you joined the board of directors, do you recall whether the subject about the question about smoking and health is still a question was ever aired, a-i-r-e-d?” Tisch: “I don’t recall, sir.” Motley: “Then he goes down in the paragraph beginning, “Population studies”, number 2, then there is a paragraph that says, “Population studies.” Do you see that, on that –” Tisch: “Yes, I do.” Motley: “Okay. Then he says, “The evidence” — the second sentence — “The evidence of the threat to health has been accepted here and abroad by every medical, scientific, and public health body that has examined the problem and expressed an opinion. The most recent such statement came from London’s prestigious Royal College of Physicians which said ‘Cigarette smoking is now as important a cause of death as were the great epidemic diseases such as typhoid, cholera, and tuberculosis,’ and asked the government to end ‘the present Holocaust- a reasonable word to describe the annual death toll (in Great Britain) of some 27,500 men and women aged 25 to 64 from the burning of tobacco.’ Another in the series of brilliant reports by the United States Public Health Service and the Surgeon General will soon be issued reaffirming the evidence that smoking is a major cause of lung cancer and contributes to heart disease, emphysema and other conditions, and stressing the grave dangers to women in smoking cigarettes.” Now, in regard to that one paragraph, sir, did anyone at Lorillard communicate to you, sir, as the president of Loews at the time, that such a statement was being made, and such information was being imparted, whether it is true or not? Was this the kind of information given to you from ’71 to ’76 while you sat on the board of the Tobacco Institute and the Council for Tobacco Research?” Tisch: “I don’t recall. I don’t believe so.” Motley: “There are some pretty strong words in there, aren’t there? Tisch: “That’s correct.” Motley: “Epidemic is a strong word, isn’t?” Tisch: “Yes, it is.” Motley: “Holocaust is a terrible word, isn’t it?” Tisch: “That is correct.” Motley: “Would you like to have known that people were– AmericanCancer Society is known to you to be a responsible organization, isn’t it?” Tisch: “I assume so. Yes.” Motley: “And would you not liked to have known that someone was using these kind of words to describe the industry that you had just joined?” Mr. Boffa: “Object to the form of the question.” Tisch: “The American Cancer Society wrote this letter, and that’s their opinion and, fine, they wrote it.” Motley: “Well, but it says here that it is not just the American Cancer Society. They are saying the Royal College of Physicians of Great Britain said that — likened it to an epidemic and Holocaust. My point is, would you just like to have known so you could have considered it in making policy decisions?” Mr. Boffa: “Object to the form of the question.” Motley: “Those strong words? Those strong accusations?” Tisch: “I would like to know whatever I can.” Motley: “Yes, sir. Thank you. Now, on page 2 down at the bottom, the last sentence, “The continued promotion and advertising of cigarettes contributes to a grave health program, it also creates a moral problem for your industry.” “You say, I know of no single individual among the hundreds of thousands of tobacco farmers, manufacturing and distribution employees and executives and retailers who believes he is profiting from poison instead of pleasure.” Mr. Lewis writes on behalf of the board of directors of the American Cancer Society, “Belief that a gun is not loaded, when experts reassure you that it is, is hardly an excuse when the gun goes off and someone is wounded or killed.” That’s, again, a strong statement, is it not?” Tisch: “By Mr. Lewis, yes.” Motley: “Yes, it is. And sir, from your public service — I know you have a commitment to the public and the public health, don’t you?” Tisch: “The public–” Motley: “Personally, do you?” Tisch: “The public service, yes.” Motley: “Including public health?” Mr. Boffa (Defense Attorney): “Object to the form of the question.” Tisch: “Anything in public service.” Motley: “And public health?” Boffa: “Object to the form of the question.” Tisch: “If that’s a part of public service.” Motley: “And you feel a moral responsibility for what your company does, do you not?” Tisch: “Yes, I do.” Motley: “Don’t you think, sir, that someone should have brought these things to your attention so you could have made a moral judgment, if not a business one, about what to do about making billions of cigarettes a year?” Boffa: “Object to the form of the question.” Tisch: “They may have. I can’t recall if they did or not.” Motley: “If they did, it didn’t impact on you? You don’t remember?” Tisch: “I don’t remember, sir.” Motley: “Well, can you tell me, sir, have you– have there been discussions at Loews at any time about cigarette smoking and lung cancer?” Mr. Boffa (Defense Attorney): “Object to the form of the question.” Tisch: “Not that I recall.” Motley: “Never been any discussions?” Tisch: “Not that I recall.” Motley: “Have you seen documents, sir, where questions and answers were prepared for management in the event stockholders posed questions about smoking and health issues?” Tisch: “No, I don’t recall.” Motley: “And you don’t recall since 1969, over 27 years, there has never been a word mentioned at the Loews board about tobacco and health?” Boffa: “Object to the form of the question.” Tisch: “I don’t recall.” Motley: “You don’t recall that a single word has ever been said at a board meeting of Loews about tobacco and health?” Boffa: “Object to the form of the question.” Tisch: “I don’t… I don’t recall.” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/settlement/

Laurence Tisch is the co-chairman of Loews Corporation, a company that acquired Lorillard Tobacco in 1960. Tisch and his brother Preston have been involved in a number of corporate takeovers including the acquisition of CBS, which they sold to Westinghouse Electric Corporation in 1995. Q. Well, have you inquired at any board meetings of Loew’s Corporation of any– of Dr. Spears or anybody else in Lorillard what the position of Lorillard is today on the issue of whether smoking causes lung cancer [unintelligible]? A. No. Q. Have you inquired as to what the position of Lorillard is at any time in the 1990s about whether cigarette causing lung cancer? A. No. Q. Have you inquired any time in the 1990s at to whether or not nicotine is an addictive substance? A. Of whom? Q. Anybody in Lorillard. [unintelligible], Dr. Spears, [unintelligible] judge, anybody? A. No. Q. Has the Loew’s board, to you knowledge, every had an agenda item or discussed smoking and health issues, just in general, at any time? Has it ever been an agenda item? A. Not an agenda item. The issue has come up in discussions, various discussions of Lorillard in lawsuits and things of that type. Q. Have you ever asked what position is Lorillard taking in lawsuits with respect to whether cigarette smoking causes lung cancer? A. I haven’t asked that question. Q. Have you ever heard any position being articulated, whether you asked the question or not, as to the position Lorillard is taking in lawsuits about whether smoking causes lung disease? A. No. I will state for the record, that although it is in my area, I think the representation that you previously made as to what the company’s supposed position is, is flatly… http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/settlement/

Geoffrey Bible: Australian-born Geoffrey Bible became the Chief Executive Officer of Philip Morris, the world’s largest tobacco company, in November 1997. Bible is a veteran of Philip Morris, where he had worked as an accountant for nearly three decades. Florida v. American Tobacco Co. August 21, 1997 Ron Motley: “What percentage of the under 18 age cigarette market does Philip Morris enjoy?” Bible: “I have no idea.” Motley: “Have you ever asked?” Bible: “No, I’ve never asked.” Motley: “Do you know that it’s over 50 percent?” Bible: “No, I don’t. But I think it would be fair to say that if there are young people who smoke, since Philip Morris has about 50 percent of the market, that probably we have 50 percent of the cigarettes that young people smoke.” Motley: “Well, in fact, do you know that you have over two-thirds of the youth market?” Bible: “No, I don’t, and I don’t know how anybody could establish that.” Motley: “Have you asked anyone to tell you what percent of the youth market that Philip Morris has?” Bible: “No, I never have.” Motley: “Are you aware that in 1976 Philip Morris executives issued a report called `Why People Start to Smoke’ and then discuss children from the age of ten to the age of 18 and why they start smoking?” Bible: “No, I’m not aware of that. It doesn’t sound sinister to me.” Q. Mr. Bible, would you state your current position with Philip Morris? A. Yes, I’m Chief Executive Office and Chairman of the Board of Philip Morris Companies. Q. In common parlance, that means you’re the #1 guy? A. That would be right. Q. Sir, do you remember making a speech on Thurs–on Wednesday, April 24, 1996 to approximately 2,000 Philip Morris employees? A. Not specifically, no. Q. Do you recall a board meeting of uh, of uh, excuse me, a shareholder’s meeting that was to be held on–in April 1996 in Richmond, VA? A. Yes, that’s when we had our annual stockholders, meeting, uh-huh. Q. Don’t you remember, sir, gathering about 2,000 employees of Philip Morris in Richmond, VA…? A. Right. Q. And making a speech? A. That rings a bell now, yes. Q. And do you recall there was a newspaper article about that speech? A. I don’t specifically recall it, but I guess there would have been, yeah. Q. Yes and do you recall that you compared Philip Morris and the cigarette manufacturers as the Allies in World War II? A. I don’t recall that specific statement, but it could have been said. Q. Do you recall likening Philip Morris and the cigarette industry to Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt of the United States? A. I don’t recall saying that, no. Q. Do you recall describing anti-tobacco uh advocates as the uh Germans and bad guys in World War II? A. No, I never said that. Q. You never said that? A. Not to my knowledge, no. Q. You did not, then compare the cigarette as the Allies and the anti-tobacco, public health advocates as Germans? A. No, I don’t remember saying that at all. Q. Did you recall assuring the 2,000 or so Philip Morris employees that Philip Morris would eventually win over the public health advocates in the cigarette battle? A. I don’t remember saying the public health advocates. I could have–I don’t remember saying that, but I could imagine myself having said that we would win the battle. Q. Win the battle? A. Hmm. Q. And the battle is between the cigarette industry and the public health community? A. No, I think I would say those people who are anti-tobacco, generally. Q. That would include the Surgeon General of the United States? A. Could [unintelligible]. Q. It could. Are you familiar with the Tobacco Institute’s enemies list? A. No. Q. Do you, sir, personally consider the Parent Teachers Association of the United States as an enemy of Philip Morris? A. No. Q. What about the Mormon church? A. No, I certainly wouldn’t. Q. What about the American Cancer Society? A. No, I would not. Q. The American Heart Association? A. No, I wouldn’t say they’re enemies. Q. Do you recall that a verbatim record of your speech to your employees was recorded and turned over to the Richmond Times Dispatch on or about April 24, 1996? A. No. Q. Do you recall making comments, sir about 30 past and present Philip Morris employees having been warned that they were subjects of a grand jury criminal investigation? A. No. Q. You don’t recall making comments about that? A. No, I don’t. I do know that some people were uh called to grand jury, but I don’t remember making any comments about it, no. Q. Do you recall making the precise statement that “You vowed, you, Jeffrey Bible, vowed not to “sit silently as secret research materials are leaked to the media?” A. That rings a bell, yes. Q. Have you ever heard of the Committee of Counsel? A. No. Q. Are you, are you familiar with the name Henry Ramm, R-A-M-M? A. No, never heard the name. Q. Have you seen a document produced by Philip Morris dated October 1964 in which some British scientist described the Committee of Counsel as an organization of lawyers who ran the entire United States cigarette industry, from public relations to marketing to litigation to legislation? A. No, I’ve never heard of that or seen, nor have I heard of the Committee of Counsel, so… Q. So, If there is a Secret Six, it was kept secret from you? A. Well, the [unintelligible] in ’64, is that what you said? Q. Yes. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/settlement/

Dr. Frank Colby is a scientist and researcher who began work for RJ Reynolds in 1951 and has worked for RJ Reynolds ever since. Colby is currently president of Frank G. Colby and Associates, a consulting company funded by R J Reynolds. Q. As you sit here today, do you believe that smoking has caused the death of even one human being? A. I told–I can regurgitate my saying again and again. Q. I’m to repeat the question. As you sit here today, do you believe that smoking has caused the death of even one human being? A. Uh, probably there is one exception. Somebody uses his cigarette to burn his, his home, but not from the point of [unintelligible] health, no. Q. And your position is the same as the tobacco industry’s position, correct? Q. Objection. A. My, my, my position is that the uh connections, allegations of the connection between smoking and health are a matter of controversy. In other words, it is probably no, but we can not deny the possibility it may, there may be a connection. I mean, we regurgitate that for the 15th time. I don’t think there’s any, any need for you–you cannot coerce me into, into lying or whatever you can. Texas v. American Tobacco Co. December 19, 1997 Motley: “All right. But as far as lung cancer and emphysema, you, Frank Colby, in 1997 do not believe that a single American has ever died from lung cancer or emphysema caused by smoking cigarettes?” Colby: “In and by itself.” Motley: “By itself, all right.” Colby: “By itself, the answer is no.” Motley: “Do you know who Jeffrey Bible is?” Colby: “Yes. He is the Goldstone of Philip Morris.” Motley: “He is what?” Colby: “The Goldstone of Philip Morris.” Motley: “He’s the number one man of Philip Morris?” Colby: “That is correct.” Motley: “Do you know agree or disagree with Mr. Bible who testified when I questioned him that up to 100,000 Americans possibly die from lung cancer caused by smoking every year?” Colby: “I don’t believe Mr. Bible nor the Bible.” Motley: “You don’t believe in Mr. Bible or the Bible?” Colby: “That’s correct.” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/settlement/

Alexander Spears is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Lorillard Tobacco Company. Spears spent most of his life at Lorillard, having joined the company after he graduated from college in 1959. State of Texas v. The American Tobacco Co., et. al. July 24, 1997 Edward Westbrook: “Dr. Spears are you familiar with the statistics stating that approximately 3,000 teenagers start smoking every day? Spears: “I’ve seen the numbers in the press recently. That’s all I have.” Westbrook: “What do your marketing people tell you about that?” Spears: “Nothing that I can recall.” Westbrook: “Have you not asked them “Is this true or not true?” Spears: “No.” Westbrook: “Never?” Spears: “I don’t believe we’ve made this study.” Westbrook: “Is it any interest to you whether 3,000 teenagers start smoking everyday?” Spears: “It certainly has not been part of our strategy and therefore I would say it has not been of interest from a marketing perspective.” State of Florida v. American Tobacco Co. August 13, 1996 to August 14, 1996 Motley: “If I asked you to a reasonable degree of scientific probability, in your opinion has smoking cigarettes ever caused a single case of lung cancer in an American, what would your answer be?” Spears: “I don’t know.” Motley: “You don’t know whether it has?” Spears: “I don’t know.” Motley: “How many cigarettes a year does your company manufacture?” Spears: “Currently?” Motley: “Yes.” Spears: “About 40 billion.” Motley: “Forty billion? Spears: “Forty billion.” Motley: “So you continue to turn out 40 billion cigarettes a year not knowing whether cigarette smoking causes lung cancer; is that correct?” Spears: “That’s the same true– that’s true of any disease, or most of these chronic diseases. You don’t know what causes a disease.” Motley: “So you continue to sell 40 billion cigarettes a year, not knowing whether or not it causes heart disease?” Spears: “That’s correct.” Motley: “You continue to manufacture and sell 40 billion cigarettes a year, not knowing whether it causes emphysema?” Spears: “That’s correct.” Motley: “You continue to sell and manufacture and sell 40 billion cigarettes a year saying you don’t– strike that. If it were— if you were to– if some research project –” Spears: “Pick any subject I mean, I still don’t know. I mean any wild speculation wouldn’t…” Motley: “Well, does asbestos cause asbestosis?” Spears: “I think that’s well documented.” Motley: “Based on what?” Spears: “Based upon animal experiments.” Q. Do you think it has been scientifically proven, Doctor, that smoking causes any disease in anyone? A. That’s a very broad statement. I think I would need to know what the specific example is that one is talking about, as to whether it causes any disease in anyone. Smoking, like many other things, can potentially aggravate conditions that exist, so I would need to know more specifically what you’re referring to. Q. Let’s talk about lung cancer. Is it your view that smoking has been proven to cause lung cancer in any individual? A. No, that’s not my view. I don’t it has been proven to cause lung cancer. Q. All right. In your view, has smoking been proven to cause emphysema in any individual? A. No, I do not believe so. Q. Is it your view that smoking has not been proven to cause emphysema in anyone? A. Well, um, I don’t believe the exact cause of emphysema have been determined, other than in a group of people that have a [unintelligible] addiction synonymous with habit forming, uh, I think they are habit forming. Q. So, using that definition, then, you would agree that cigarettes are addictive? Report this ad A. No, I would agree that they are habit forming. I wouldn’t use the word addictive to describe that. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/settlement/

Please see the .PDF file for the 78 page document. It's a must read! tobaccoexplained.pdf

JH63, You are approaching this quit from a place of weakness instead of from a place of authority. You can without a single fail, quit smoking and stay quit for the rest of your life. Instead of saying "I have decide to start my New Year with a new quit attempt", how about "I've made a decision to quit smoking and I pledge to never, ever take another puff of nicotine." Be bold. Speak with intent. You are now accountable to all of us here at the support group. As long as you think that nicotine has a death grip on you - you're admitting defeat. Although it's true that nicotine is very addictive, it has no power over your mind or body. Please lay out your plan to quit smoking so I can take a look at it and perhaps add my two cents. Thanks!

Welcome aboard and congratulations, Carla! Good that you're watching Joel's videos because you'll continue to add to your chest of knowledge as well as keep your mind occupied. Always focus on the positive. Keep your quit separate and protect it from from everything else in your life.

Happy birthday, Doreen!

If you look at the red box, you'll notice a button which takes you to another screen where you can customize the look of the message board. I've created neutral backgrounds that you can choose from and a few other customizations as well.

Enter The rabbit Hole Plandemic THE RABBIT HOLE(2).pdf

Full Documentary - Death In The West: The Marlboro Story 376811460_DeathintheWestFull.mp4

Interview Part II - We sat down with Dr. Mikovits for a second time to hear her response to the impact of part one and to further disclose details of her story. 2016340701_JudyMikovits(secondinterview).mp4

Interview Part I - It all began after a 3 hour interview with whistleblower & scientist, Judy Mikovits. Her testimony shines light on the depth of corruption behind key players in our global healthcare system, after this discussion, there was no turning back. 1313371487_PlandemicPART1_1.mp4

PLANDEMIC INDOCTORNATION - A documentary From the creators of The most viewed and banned documentary of all time. Pland3micIndoctornation.mp4

I can't believe it's November already! NOPE!!

Smoking isn't going to help you relieve your stress, it will only add to it! Once you see that you can get through this situation without smoking, your confidence level will go up and you'll feel like you won this battle. Once you're finished with the attorney, treat yourself to something to celebrate. Rewards work wonders.