CIGARETTE INDUSTRY'S SECRET PAPERS EXPOSED

Subterfuge, 'Monkee' Business Revealed

WASHINGTON As recently as 1990, tobacco industry lawyers were seeking
$100,000 to study "characteristics of children" and how they decide whether
to smoke.

And back in 1967, the industry considered using the Monkees rock group as
part of a "youth heroes" advertising campaign.

The disclosures were part of a historic release of more than 800 documents
that tobacco companies had fiercely fought to keep secret some since
1953 but that a congressional committee put on the Internet Thursday.

A quick review of hundreds of the pages shows the wide control that
tobaccohired lawyers played over the decades as the industry struggled to
refute scientific evidence of smoking's dangers. A Minnesota judge called
the papers evidence of the industry's "conspiracy of silence and
suppression of scientific research."

Lawyers met to review which scientific projects got funded, including the
1990 "adolescent morbidity project" that checked records of California
children. Attorneys pushed to identify and fund sympathetic scientists and
worried that some longtime industry researchers were "over the hill" or
their "eyesight is not good" before awarding them thousands of dollars.

"Maybe the approach ought to be advocacy first and science second,"
industry attorney Sam Witt said in minutes of a 1981 meeting where lawyers
debated how to fund tobacco "special projects."

Giving attorneys scientific information allowed the industry to protect its
data under attorneyclient confidentiality laws, but a Minnesota judge
ruled late Tuesday that the attorneys lost that protection by committing
fraud.

"The lawyers are thus the most powerful group in the smoking and health
situation," Minnesota Judge Kenneth Fitzpatrick wrote, citing one 1979 memo
in which Brown & Williamson counsel Kendrick Wells specifically outlined a
plan to wrap scientific information in attorneyclient privilege.

The documents are the largest cache of industry papers ever released at
once. They come from the files of the Liggett Corp., which turned state's
evidence last year to settle several lawsuits. But Liggett's competitors
had fought to keep them sealed, even moving to appeal Fitzpatrick's ruling.

So Thursday, the head of the House Commerce Committee interceded and put
the papers on the Internet. Rep. Thomas Bliley, RVa., had separately
subpoenaed the documents two weeks ago, arguing it was vital for Congress
to see what the industry knew about smoking's dangers before lawmakers
consider the proposed $368 billion tobacco deal which aims to settle 40
state lawsuits against the industry. The deal would, among other things,
protect companies from future litigation, so Bliley said getting all
potential evidence first was important.

Given a protobacco record that earned him the unflattering nickname "the
congressman from Philip Morris," Bliley is an unlikely challenger to
cigarette makers. The tobacco giant has a big plant near his Richmondarea
district.

One document released Thursday was a 1967 public relations proposal to use
"youth heroes" like the Monkees, the Supremes and sports figures John
Unitas and Carl Yazstremski in commercials about smoking issues.

It should "come as no surprise that the tobacco companies needed and sought
advice of lawyers, given the adversarial environment of the last four
decades," the industry said in a statement Thursday.

Companies insisted the papers were still protected, and declined to comment
on specific pages. Instead, they urged Congress to end "continued
controversy and confrontation" and adopt the tobacco deal.

The URL is (http://www.house.gov/commerce/welcome.html).

Copyright 1997 Houston Chronicle News Services

** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
**