Leaked Memo Describes Wilson as ‘Pro-Tobacco’

Continuing its long-running battle with Gov. Pete Wilson over funding of tobacco control programs, an anti-smoking group on Monday released an internal Philip Morris Cos. memo in which a company lobbyist described Wilson as “pro-tobacco.”

The memo was released by Americans for Nonsmokers Rights in an effort to embarrass Wilson over his repeated efforts to channel tens of millions of dollars away from tobacco control to other state programs.

But Wilson press spokesman Sean Walsh denied that Wilson is “pro-tobacco” and said the governor’s record belies the claim. Walsh said Wilson has taken a number of anti-smoking actions, and he described the governor’s critics as “zealots.”

Since 1992, anti-smoking groups, including Berkeley-based Americans for Nonsmokers Rights, have filed six lawsuits to stop Wilson and the Legislature from diverting tobacco tax funds away from programs to fight smoking. The diversions have been ruled illegal under Proposition 99, the voter-approved measure that earmarked 25% of tobacco tax receipts for anti-smoking education and research.

The Wilson administration has argued repeatedly, but unsuccessfully, that it has legal authority to shift a portion of the anti-smoking funds to other health and medical programs.

Anti-smoking groups claim that the diversions are a payback to tobacco supporters such as Philip Morris, the world’s largest tobacco company, whose former vice president, Craig Fuller, was chairman of Wilson’s failed presidential campaign.

Americans for Nonsmokers Rights, which has filed some of the lawsuits against Wilson, also has mounted a series of commercials to portray the governor as an industry stooge. Last summer, for example, when Wilson was stumping in Iowa, the group ran radio spots there asking if Wilson was trying to become president or “the next Marlboro Man.”

The Philip Morris memo, leaked anonymously to the anti-smoking group and provided to The Times, concerns a fund-raiser in New York in 1990, when Wilson was a U.S. senator and running for his first term as governor.

Dated April 24, 1990, the memo concerned Wilson’s decision to return about $16,000 of the $100,000 raised at the event--including checks “he received from either a tobacco company or anyone working directly for a tobacco company, i.e. Hamish Maxwell, Mrs. Ehud, Bill Murray,” the memo said. At the time, Maxwell was chairman of the board of Philip Morris, Ehud Houminer was president of Philip Morris USA and William Murray was Philip Morris vice chairman.

Wilson “apparently . . . has also done this with other ‘controversial’ industries such as lumber, chemical, and others,” explained the memo by James W. Dyer, then Philip Morris’ director of Washington relations, to Kathleen “Buffy” Linehan, another company official.

The decision to return the checks “was Wilson’s alone, and in response to a wave of negative campaigning in California that not only attacks the candidates, but those who give to them as well,” the memo said.

“You will be pleased to know that Pete called Hamish to explain that he was doing this to protect Hamish as well as himself,” the memo went on. “You will also be pleased to know that Pete is still ‘pro-tobacco.’ ”

Dyer, currently staff director for the House Appropriations Committee, failed to return phone calls, and Philip Morris officials would not discuss the memo.

“As a matter of policy, we don’t comment on activities by our lobbyists,” said Darienne Dennis, director of communications for Philip Morris.

But Wilson press spokesman Walsh denied that Wilson is “pro-tobacco” or had told Dyer that he was. “It sounds like a lobbyist trying to cover his fanny,” Walsh said.

Walsh also said Wilson’s record belies the claim he is sympathetic to the industry.

For example, Wilson in 1993 signed an executive order banning smoking in all buildings owned or leased by the state, and the following year signed into law AB 13, which banned smoking in most indoor workplaces.

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Walsh also noted that Wilson opposed Proposition 188, the 1994 initiative sponsored by Philip Morris that would have repealed local anti-smoking ordinances.

“If that’s what’s considered being pro-tobacco, then I think someone’s got a skewed version of what being pro-tobacco is,” Walsh said.

Further, Walsh said, while Wilson has made a practice of returning contributions from tobacco interests, he has not followed the same policy with lumber and chemical interests--contrary to the assertion in the Philip Morris memo.

Passed by voters in 1988, Proposition 99 imposed a 25-cent-a-pack cigarette tax increase, while earmarking 20% of the receipts for anti-smoking education and another 5% for tobacco research. Raids on the funds have become a staple of the annual budget process, as Wilson and the Legislature have repeatedly sought to channel part of the money to a variety of medical programs.

Although the anti-smoking forces have consistently won in court, their victory has not been total. For one thing, a portion of the anti-smoking funds have either gone unspent or were diverted before the court challenges.

For another, the Wilson administration still hopes to win on appeal--and is planning new diversions from next year’s budget.

While the American Cancer Society and heart and lung associations have allied themselves with Americans for Nonsmokers Rights, Wilson has rallied unusual bedfellows to his side. Californians for Smokers’ Rights, the California Medical Assn. and liberal legislators seeking funds for medical services for poor women and children also have supported diverting part of the tobacco control funds.

Wilson has put these lawmakers “between [a] rock and a hard place,” complained Fred Woocher, a Santa Monica lawyer who has filed some of the lawsuits on behalf of Americans for Nonsmokers Rights. Wilson’s message to lawmakers has been, “If you ever want money for these programs, it’s going to come from the tobacco money, so you better get it while you can,” Woocher said.

The governor “is absolutely in bed with the tobacco industry, and I think they’d rather see this money thrown off the Golden Gate Bridge than spent” to fight smoking, said Julia Carol, executive director of Americans for Nonsmokers Rights.

But Walsh said a portion of the funds the governor has sought to divert would teach expectant mothers about the risks of smoking. “Those folks are just being zealots when they complain about these types of diversions,” he said.

Times staff writer Paul Jacobs in Sacramento and researcher Rebecca Andrade contributed to this article.