INDICT THE LIARS

FOR decades, tobacco executives fudged the facts, trimmed the truth,
pussy-footed and prevaricated. They pretended not to know about the health
consequences of smoking, or the addictive power of nicotine. And they
claimed, under oath before congressional committees, that they never ever
tried to sell underage kids on cigarettes. That suave party animal, Joe
Camel, was aimed at adults, they said.

Now R.J. Reynolds has been caught in a big fat lie. It's time to indict the
liars for perjury.

Company memos released Wednesday show the nation's number two cigarette
maker targeted teen-agers with advertising, including Joe Camel, and a new
brand, Camel Wides.

A 1973 memo suggested using ``comic strip type copy'' to lure ``younger
smokers'' -- defined as 14- to 24-years-old -- away from Philip Morris'
Marlboros, the most popular brand among teen-agers.

``The 14-24 age group . . . represent tomorrow's cigarette business,'' said
a 1975 memo. Ninety percent of smokers start before the age of 18.

Camel Wides was developed to attract ``13-24-year-old male Marlboro
smokers,'' a 1987 memo stated. (The company now claims ``13'' is a typo,
and should read ``18.'')

The Joe Camel cartoons ``will be directed toward using peer
acceptance/influence to provide the motivation for target smokers to select
Camel,'' a 1986 memo explained.

Before the Joe Camel campaign began in 1987, Camel was the choice of less
than 3 percent of teenage smokers, according to the Federal Trade
Commission. That tripled to 8.9 percent in the cartoon character's first
two years, and hit 13.2 percent by 1993. Joe Camel was dropped last year as
part of the settlement deal, which including a bar on the use of cartoon
characters in marketing cigarettes.

In 1994, RJR President James W. Johnston told a House subcommittee, under
oath, ``We do not market to children and will not,'' and said, ``We do not
survey anyone under the age of 18.''

The documents cite a survey of the smoking habits of 11,000 teenagers 14 to
17 years old.

RJR said the memos were taken out of context.

The company handed over the internal documents as part of a settlement of
California lawsuits accusing Joe Camel of trying to hook teenagers. They
were made public by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, who urged Attorney
General Janet Reno to consider perjury charges against Johnston.

The Justice Department already is looking into charges against tobacco
company executives who testified before Congress, and last week named Brown
& Williamson Tobacco Co. as co-conspirator in a criminal plan to grow
high-nicotine tobacco secretly in Brazil and smuggle it into U.S.
cigarettes.

To President Clinton, the documents ``show more than ever why it is
absolutely imperative that Congress take action now to get tobacco
companies out of the business of marketing cigarettes to children.''

The $368 billion settlement ending state lawsuits against the tobacco
industry requires a congressional vote. The deal restricts cigarette
marketing and protects the industry against most new lawsuits.

But the documents make it even more difficult to trust industry promises
that they'll stop doing what they still claim they're not doing.