FORWARDING MEMORANDUM
Document date: 2008-05-19
Type: deposition exhibit
Collection: Philip Morris Records
Author: Unspecified
Recipient: Unspecified
This is, of course, the most challenging problem our organization has ever faced - and perhaps the most challenging problem that ever faced a great industry, one with annual sales of almost $5 billions at retail, and with economic roots that reach clear back to the farm.
Problem l
The very first problem is to establish some public confidence in the industry's leaders themselves, so that the public will believe their assertions of their own interest in the public health. [...]
Problem 2
To reassure the public, and still instinctive fears, in this interim when definitive facts for giving complete assurance are still lacking) when scientific doubts must remain; and when new "unfavorable" information can emerge from some laboratory at any time, to act as a bomb shell on the whole tobacco industry [...].
Problem 3
How to validate this message of assurance. The men talked to in the cigarette companies tend to:
(a) Think occasionally in terms of trying to "smear" the personal responsibility, motives, judgments, or techniques of Wynder and others supporting him. (But this approach would be most dubious.)
(b) To believe the scientific case can be arguing in the public arena, by leading the layman through elaborate statements which only specialists are really qualified to weigh and debate, in their own scientific councils; for the quest of ultimate causes behind known effects is the specialists' job. (This approach is shown in the documents from Philip Morris and American Tobacco, when they extract quotes from the various Journals, and assemble them for public circulation. But it is extremely doubtful whether anyone could trim such an assembly of quotes in a fashion that would (l) give the smoker absolute psychological assurance, and (2) still leave the compilation a completely honeetstatement of the cancer situation, in a way that would satisfy most scientists at this juncture. Honesty in science requires careful consideration and weighing of all points of view. The cigarette companies cannot hope to sponsor any public debate over cause-and-effect that would satisfy both smokers and scientists. Hence they are bound to lose in this effort regardless of what they night briefly gain.)
(c) To overlook the fact that in this particular instance, the stakes for the public are even larger than for the tobacco manufacturers. (For the public, an issue touching the deepest of human fears and instincts is involved - the issues of uncontrollable disease and death. Hence cigarette companies might not readily be forgiven, if their approach to this problem is stemmed only from eagerness to protect their earnings, and if they twisted the research of medical science (which seeks to save men) into a device to save stockholders. There is no precedent where a great industry has been forced to face such grave issues.
In the past, industry has given little twists to the facts of science, to convert them into sales propaganda, without much risk. The cigarette industry has indeed been doing this for years. We can therefore readily understand its assumptions that the same technique will work now, in devising propaganda. But it is highly important to note that the deep issues of life-and-death that are now involved make highly doubtful the question as to whether the familiar techniques can be relied on. The stakes are too large; the penalties for losing could be too great.)
(d) To assume that agents like science writers can be guided and encouraged to disseminate special "interpretations" of current findings, in ways that would blame lung cancer on everything else but cigarettes - or (even better) in ways that would throw doubt on the validity of statistics showing great increases in lung cancer. If the issue were merely coughs, or sore throats, or warts, this might work. There is serious question as to whether anyone — after due reflection -- would consider such a course useful for long term purposes, in the present circumstances.
Problem 4
We must early decide our own attitude toward the flnding of men like Wynder, Rhoads, Ochsner, et al. We have a choice, as previously indicated, of:
(a) Smearing and belittling them;
(b) Trying to overwhelm them with mass publication of the opposed viewpoints of other specialists;
(c) Debating them in the public arena; or
(d) We can determine to raise the issue far above them, so that they are hardly even mentioned and then we can make our real case.
Problem 5
Problem 5 hitches on to Problem 4 and all subsequent problems. How can we move immediately to identify the tobacco companies completely with concern for the public good? This accomplishment — if we can manage it — would throw everything else into proper focus, and would show the answers to the other various problems.
Problem 6
There is much to indicate that we have one essential job - which can be simply said:
Stop public panic, without ever getting in the position of giving false assurances, or of giving false emphases. The facts for the average man are reassuring enough, without getting into any scientific arguments whatever his chances of getting lung cancer are too infinitesimal to worry about at all. [...] So let the scientists do the worrying for us - that's their business; and meanwhile let us go on eating, and working, and playing, and smoking, and relaxing, and riding in automobiles, and living a good life everyday.
You can count on the cigarette companies (who have obligated themselves to pour millions of dollars into cancer research) to take anything out of your cigarette that is a health hazard, if our science ever really finds any such hazard in the wonderful tobacco leaf. Meanwhile know this: despite the most elaborate attempts, no efforts to give mice a lung illness by making them live days on end in tobacco smoke have ever produced a case of such illness through that kind of exposure.
Develop some understanding with companies that, on this problem, none is going to seek a competitive advantage by inferring to its public that its product is less risky than others. (No claims that special filters or toasting, or expert selection of tobacco, or extra length in the butt, or anything else, makes a given brand less likely to cause you-know-what. No "Play-Safe-with-Luckies" idea - or with Camels or with anything else.)
Proposed letter to the industry by OP McComas, President, Philip Morris
Document date: 1953-08-12
Type: letter
Collection: Philip Morris Records
Author: Unspecified
Recipient: Unspecified
Note: Draft of letter of August 12, 1953 prepared by JS Fones of Philip Morris for the signature of OP McComas, President, Philip Morris, to all tobacco companies. The note refer to "allegations" that the use of tobacco results in adverse effects upon the health of consumers and calls for the creation of an industry's steering committee "to analyze the criticism and decide upon the best method to meet it". A handwritten note at the top of the document reads "Funding med. res."
A serious situation has begun to make inroads into the sales potential of our industry.
As manufacturers of tobacco products, we have been assailed as a group from certain quarters which allege that the use of tobacco - particularly cigarettes - results in adverse effects upon the health of consumers.
No matter how questionable the claims of these allegations, from a scientific point of view, they are nevertheless beginning to play upon the fears and consciences of the public.
It is time, I think, that we recognize the need for originating an Industry Steering Committee (in the nature of a Tobacco Institute, perhaps), open to representation by each producer of a cigarette product, to analyze the criticism and decide on the best method to meet it.
Such a Committee could be expected to accomplish at least these things:
1) Investigate, study, and analyze, in scientific and objective terms, the relationship - if any - between the use of tobacco products and any impairment of health, and;
2) By using modern publicity techniques, to formulate and implement an efficient public relations program for the interpretation of such findings to all media of public opinion.
[...] a preliminary discussion among representatives of the cigarette manufacturing industry might be a desirable and constructive way to step into this project; perhaps some evening at dinner.
Handwritten cover note of letter dated August 12, 1953 "to the industry"
Document date: Undefined
Type: note
Collection: Philip Morris Records
Author: FONES,JS
Recipient: G,W (WEISSMAN,G)
Note: Handwritten cover note of letter dated August 12, 1953 "to the industry", by JS Fones, Philip Morris. This note indicates that the proposed letter was prepared for OP McComas, President, Philip Morris
This is my version of the proposed letter to the industry from Mr. McComas.
Note containing a verbatim quotation of OP McComas, president of Philip Morris
Document date: 1953-10-05
Type: letter
Collection: Brown & Williamson Records
Authors: B&W, B>W, Hartnett-T
Recipients: Imperial Tobacco Co. (of G.B. & I.) Ltd., Imperial Tobacco Co. (of G.B. > I.) Ltd., Sinclair-R
Note: Note of October 5, 1953 addressed to Sir R Sinclair, Imperial Tobacco, UK, containing a verbatim quotation of OP McComas, president of Philip Morris
McComas "I am very much concerned about the publicity being given the speculative opinion of a number of medical men about the effects that cigarette smoking might have upon the development of lung cancer. I think it high time that the cigarette industry take the offensive instead of standing idly by while extremely adverse publicity is given such free play.[...] I know that Liggett and Myers is conducting its own research in respect to the cancer problem but Ben Few, the president of that company, has expressed his willingness to me to form some sort of a trade association group that would sponsor research. Bert Kent of Lorillard has expressed a similar attitude and I intend to talk to Paul Hahn about it when I next see him at some trade or social event."
To members of the planning committee (undated document found in John Hill archives)
Document date: 1953-00-00
Type: memo
Collection: Ness Motley Law Firm Documents
Author: Dakin, Edwin
Recipient: To Members of the Planning Committee
Note: This was probably written in the second half of December 1953
This is, of course, the most challenging problem our organization has ever faced - and perhaps the most challenging problem that ever faced a great industry [...].
The attitude of the men we must directly deal with in the industry is at once interesting, and important for us to understand. That is why notes on the four interviews with "research directors" are given at some length. You'll get from them little real information about lung cancer, pro or con; but you'll find some mighty interesting opinions. One of the men said, "It's fortunate for us that cigarettes are a habit they can't break." Said another "Boy! wouldn't it be wonderful if our company was first to produce a cancer free cigarette. What we could do to competition!"
At the moment, these men feel thrown for a loop. They've competed for years - not in price, not in any real difference of quality - but just in ability to conjure up more hypnotic claims and brighter assurances for what their own brand might do for a smoker, compared to another brand. And now, suddenly, they feel all out of bounds, because the old claims become unimportant overnight; they are suddenly challenged to produce just one, simple fact. Walter Winchell told his own audience the nature of this fact, in brief words: "The burden of proof has shifted. It is no longer up to the scientists to prove that cigarettes cause lung cancer. It is the duty of all concerned to prove that they do not."
And this, of course, is exactly what no individual in the whole world can prove at this juncture; - and until that proof comes in some form, arguments over the logic of some scientist, and criticism of his particular ideas of cause-and-effect, can satisfy neither scientists nor public; or get anywhere. And the days of bright promotion claims, tossed off Madison Avenue heads like Lorelei's locks, are suddenly finished.
"This is the way the world ends - not in a bang but a whimper."
There is only one problem -- confidence, and how to establish it; public assurance, and how to create it -- in a perhaps long interim when scientific doubts must remain. And, most important, how to free millions of Americans from the guilty fear that is going to arise deep in their biological depths -- regardless of any pooh-poohing logic -- every time they light a cigarette. No resort to mere logic ever cured panic yet, whether on Madison Avenue, Main Street, or in a psychologist's office. And no mere recitation of arguments pro, or ignoring of arguments con, or careful balancing of the two together, is going to deal with such fear now.
That, gentlemen, is the nature of the unexampled challenge to this office.
Telegram of December 10, 1953 from EA Darr, president of American Tobacco proposing a meeting of the heads of cigarette companies
Document date: 1953-12-10
Type: deposition exhibit
Collection: Philip Morris Records
Authors: RJ REYNOLDS TOBACCO CO, DARR,EA
Recipient: Unspecified
Note: The telegram was sent to RJ Reynolds Tobacco, Liggett & Myers Tobacco, Lorillard, Philip Morris, Brown & Williamson, Benson & Hedgesand to Mr. JB Hutson "as representative of tobacco growing interests".
In view of the highly publicized claims of certain medical men not sponsored by any duly accredited scientific medical organization charging serious danger to health from smoking, I suggest for your consideration a meeting of the heads of all those cigarette companies that have manifested active interest in scientific research and are therefore informed as to the true facts. The objective would be an industry response to these charges exposing their lack of scientific foundation. The method would be such as the meeting might determine including use of advertising media. I believe that the very fact that it was a statement having complete industry support would in itself carry strong conviction.
Draft of recommendations for cigarette manufacturers by Hill & Knowlton
Document date: 1953-12-22
Type: report
Collection: Ness Motley Law Firm Documents
Author: Unspecified
Recipient: Unspecified
Note: Draft of recommendation to cigarette manufacturers dated December 22, 1953 prepared by John Hill of Hill & Knowlton
Because of the serious nature of the attacks on cigarettes and the vast publicity given them over the air and in the daily press and in magazines of the widest circulation, a hysteria of fear appears to be developing throughout the country.
There is no evidence that this adverse publicity is abating or will soon abate. [...]
This publicity has given rise to a situation which makes it imperative for the cigarette makers to inform the public regarding the facts. A large majority of the industry has decided upon joint action.
The following name is submitted for the Committee: Cigarette Research and Information Committee. It is believed that the word "Research" is needed in the name to give weight and added credence to the Committee's statements. However, the word cannot be used unless the industry is prepared to back it up with genuine joint research action and support. The research to be sponsored by the Committee would be of two kinds, namely (a) medical research to be financed jointly and (b) editorial and statistical research in all phases of the cigarette problem to be carried on through public relations counsel.
Continuing Public Relations Research. There should be set up at the headquarters of the Committee, a continuing research project to collect, coordinate and disseminate (where practical) all available information on various medical research activities bearing on every phase of cigarettes and health.
Initially, this project would cover such subjects as:
a. Research into statistics [...]
b. Research of lung cancer and cigarette consumption statistics in certain other countries, including England and France. Hill and Knowlton, Inc. is prepared to handle this assignment, if desired, through its associated public relations firms in England and on the Continent.
Historical research. The Committee should research and issue a historical background study on the number of human ills attributed to tobacco over the centuries.
Memorandum from T.V. Hartnett, Brown & Williamson, for discussion at industry meeting
Document date: 1953-12-14
Type: other
Collection: Brown & Williamson Records
Author: HARTNETT, TV/X
Recipient: Unspecified
Note: "Our job, like a coin, has two sides"
At the moment a highly vocal minority has taken the initiative in public1ing its admittedly inconclusive studies of the effects of cigarette smoking. Excessive care, it seems to us, must be used at this time in the methods we adopt to counteract these claims. Some of the doctors whose names have recently made the headlines are men of unquestioned integrity and sincere in their belief that their findings are significant. The problem is to challenge these findings ethically and effectively without rancor -- to win friends rather than to create enemies.
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Our job, like a coin, has two sides. The first, of course, is unstinted assistance to scientific research. That is both a given and an accepted obligation of the already overworked medical profession and potentially a life-blood need of the cigarette industry. [...] But cancer research, while certainly getting our every support, can be only half an answer. [...]
The other side of the coin is public relations.>
Public Relations:
(a) is basically a selling tool and the most astute selling may well be needed to get the industry out of this hole.
(b) is the only fast, even the only present answer.
(c) can, given the fact that millions upon millions now derive real pleasure from smoking, fill a real need for the facts on both sides - more accurately, for all the facts,
(d) Nevertheless, conventionally applied can be our undoing.
It isn't exaggeration that no public relations expert has ever been handed so real and yet so delicate a multi-million dollar problem.
Tobacco Industry Meeting, New York, December 14, 1953
Document date: 1953-12-14
Type: deposition exhibit
Collection: Philip Morris Records
Author: Unspecified
Recipient: Unspecified
Note: Seven tobacco companies and the Bright Tobacco Growers association were present at the meeting, which was chaired by P. Hahn, American Tobacco The tobacco companies were represented by their top executives.
Mr. Hahn served as chairman and the meeting was opened with a general discussion of the recent attacks on cigarette smoking which have been widely publicised. It was the feeling of those present that the industry could most effectively face this problem by jointly engaging a public relations counsel. The task was considered of such a specialised nature that an advertising company could not deal with it with the delicacy that is required. Several recommendations were made and the firm of Hill and Knowlton was considered to have the necessary qualifications of high caliber and integrity and the experience to handle the assignment.