British Paper Details U.S. Anti-Smoking Defense

WASHINGTON — It was a covert fact-finding expedition: In 1964, with American cigarette manufacturers reeling from lawsuit threats and government warnings about the health dangers of smoking, two British tobacco researchers came to this country to investigate how their counterparts were protecting themselves.

They were granted unparalleled access to United States tobacco executives and later marveled that their reception “was most friendly” wherever they went. Returning to England, they put their impressions on paper. The findings remained secret for 32 years, long enough for both authors to die.

On Tuesday, a congressman--who received their report from an anonymous source--turned it over to the Justice Department, saying it provides the “smoking gun” for a federal inquiry into whether the tobacco industry deliberately kept the public in the dark about the risks of smoking.

The 37-page document made public by Rep. Martin T. Meehan (D-Mass.) provides details of how lawyers for the tobacco industry assumed control of smoking-and-health research in the mid-1960s, concentrating their efforts on ways to fight lawsuits instead of developing safer cigarettes.

While previously released internal tobacco memorandums have made similar allegations, the British analysis goes further, describing a high-level “policy committee” of attorneys for six tobacco companies who worked in concert.

“This committee is extremely powerful,” the report said. “It determines the high policy of the industry on all smoking and health matters--research and public relations matters, for example, as well as legal matters, and it reports directly to the presidents. The committee is particularly concerned with possible congressional legislation.”

So dominant were these attorneys, the researchers wrote, that executives of the three smallest tobacco companies--who believed that the lawyers had too much authority--”were neither powerful enough nor sufficiently sure of themselves to say anything about it.”

The analysis also looked at the tobacco executives’ views on the importance of nicotine--a matter that has generated considerable public attention since July 1994, when seven of the nation’s top tobacco executives swore before Congress that nicotine was not addictive.

By contrast, the British researchers said that William Blunt, then-president of Liggett & Meyers--now Liggett Group Inc.--”firmly held the view that people smoked because of the nicotine.” On Tuesday, Liggett officials declined comment.

The authors of the report spent about a month in the United States, from Sept. 10 to Oct. 15, 1964. They are identified only by initials--PJR and GFT. Cliff Douglas, a tobacco industry expert who has consulted with Meehan’s office, identified them, however, as Sir Philip Rogers and Geoffrey Todd, senior officials of the British Research Council.

In some respects, the document is like a crystal ball, providing an uncanny glimpse into the future. Now, as then, the tobacco industry is facing legal threats. Now, as then, it is facing government regulation. Now, as then, warnings about the health dangers of smoking dominate the news.

Given such a climate, it is not surprising that lawyers would work together, says Michael York, an attorney for Philip Morris USA. York dismissed Meehan’s “smoking gun” remark as “an act of desperation,” and he said there was nothing untoward about the committee of lawyers described in the report.

“I can tell you right now, today, that the lawyers for the companies work together all the time to try to coordinate defenses and litigation strategies,” he said.

U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno’s office is conducting several grand jury investigations into the conduct of the tobacco industry, including one that looks at whether the industry executives lied to Congress about the addictive nature of nicotine and another that is examining whether the Council for Tobacco Research has claimed nonprofit status fraudulently while defending the industry.

Times staff writer Myron Levin in Los Angeles contributed to this story.