Tobacco Executive Endures 4 Hours of Tough Questioning

Philip Morris chairman Geoffrey C. Bible, testifying Monday in a landmark anti-tobacco case, said he still does not know if smoking causes disease, although he acknowledged all reputable scientific organizations say it does.

Bible, who runs the biggest tobacco company as well as the largest consumer products firm in the world, came under four hours of intense questioning, as Minnesota’s mega-case against the tobacco industry began its seventh week.

His testimony will continue today in the case, in which the state and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota are seeking to recoup $1.77 billion in health care costs for sick smokers, along with damages for alleged violations of state consumer protection and anti-trust laws.

After getting Bible to assert he would not “set money above public health,” Michael Ciresi, the lead attorney for the state, placed before him a recent annual report proclaiming: “Our one all-consuming ambition is to create wealth for the owners of Philip Morris.”

It was like that through part of the morning and all afternoon as Ciresi, confronting Bible with a flurry of internal documents, sought to portray the silver-haired executive as fixated on the bottom line and indifferent to industry promises dating back to the 1950s to put health above profits.

Bible, who frequently said he was not familiar with company documents or the events and people they described, asserted that he was more interested in reaching accommodation with health authorities than in dwelling on the past.

The 60-year old Bible, who began his career at Philip Morris in the 1960s, acknowledged that he could not name a single reputable scientific organizations that disputes the causal link between smoking and deadly diseases. As for himself, Bible said he thought smoking “may” cause illness, “but I just don’t know.”

When Ciresi asked him what he would do if “10 or 20 or 30 eminent physicians or scientists” tried to persuade him, Bible said he would probably “like to talk with those people. . . . and have them show to me or prove to me . . .that they were right.”

In the face of Ciresi’s indignant and sometimes sarcastic queries, the executive remained composed and polite. He managed to get in several indirect plugs for the nationwide tobacco accord now pending before Congress, creating an impression of addressing two juries: the one here as well as the 435 lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

His testimony was a reminder of the competing pressures imposed by the trial and the industry’s coveted goal of permanent relief, through the tobacco deal, from immense lawsuits like this one.

In the Minnesota case and similar ones pending throughout the country, cigarette makers are denying the risks of smoking have been proven, which is crucial to the claim that they did not knowingly market a lethal product. Meanwhile, to appease Congress, the companies have presented themselves as constructive and candid about the risks and the importance of halting youth smoking.

As head of Philip Morris, Bible presides over an empire of world-renowned brands, including Marlboro, the world’s largest selling cigarette, and Kraft foods, Miller beers and Oscar Meyer meats.

His tenure as company chairman has seen a shift from defiance to appeasement as the industry seeks relief from crippling litigation. Once described as tobacco’s “Crocodile Dundee” for his Australian heritage and blunt defense of tobacco, Bible had vowed upon taking the helm not to let the industry be a punching bag.

In remarks in 1996 to Philip Morris employees in Richmond, Va., Bible pledged never to settle lawsuits and compared the industry’s fight against legal assaults to the Allies’ drive against the forces of darkness in World War II, according to an account of the speech in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

But the following year, Bible led the company into the intensive negotiations that produced the proposed $368.5 billion settlement, which would eliminate the threat of class action suits if ratified by Congress.

In questioning Bible, Ciresi asked him to square the “all-consuming ambition” to increase profits with the industry’s now-famous “Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers,” published in 1954 in hundreds of U.S. newspapers.

“We accept an interest in people’s health as a basic responsibility, paramount to every other consideration in our business,” according to the statement, in which the industry pledged to get to the bottom of the smoking and health controversy.

Had the industry ever retracted the statement? Ciresi asked. Bible acknowledged it had not.

When Ciresi asked a question about the work of Ernst Wynder, the pioneering researcher who in the early 1950s first induced tumors on lab animals painted with tobacco tars, Bible said he did not recognize Wynder’s name.

Ciresi also introduced the transcript from a “Face the Nation” telecast 13 years later, in which Philip Morris Board Chairman Joseph F. Cullman III declared that “if any ingredient in cigarette smoke is identified as being injurious to human health, we are confident we can eliminate that ingredient.”

Said Bible: “I think time has shown we were unable to” do that.

Under questioning from Ciresi, Bible said the company could be liable if his predecessors had twisted the truth about smoking, but he said “I would be horrified if they did do that.” And he proclaimed a “solemn undertaking” that no such thing would happen on his watch.

Earlier Monday, jurors viewed the videotaped deposition of James Morgan, taken just before his retirement last year as CEO of Philip Morris’ domestic tobacco business.

Morgan repeatedly denied the company targets underage smokers, and said litigation focused on that claim has so depressed its stock price that no amount of youth smoking could make up the difference.

“We are paying a tremendous price” because of public misconceptions about youth targeting, Morgan said.

“The last day that the last underage kid lights up a cigarette will be the happiest day in my life.” Kids “are incidental to our business, and they’re causing us all kinds of problems.”

However, Morgan appeared startled when confronted with a series of internal documents from the 1960s and 1970s reflecting the firm’s interest in the smoking habits of kids 17 and under.

“I’m frankly embarrassed,” said Morgan, adding that the memos were an “anomaly” and the company didn’t implement strategies aimed at customers under 18.

Said Morgan: “One should not read documents and assume that that’s what the company did.”