Phone hacking scandal deepens

[Peter Lemkin]

Edelman and the tobacco industry

In 1987, Daniel Edelman produced a plan for INFOTAB, the international tobacco industry group made up of the major worldwide tobacco companies and their associated trade organizations.

Perceiving a major threat from the secondhand smoke issue, the global tobacco companies realized that they lacked coordination among themselves, and that they would need to coordinate to uniformly fight public health efforts which were increasing around the world. Thus they formed INFOTAB. According to industry documents, the goals of INFOTAB were to establish an "early warning" system for anti-smoking initiatives worldwide, to "track activities of pressure groups and international consumer unions" and "to take industry programs to the grass roots and municipal levels" to help the industry to prevail over public health. Edelman prepared a presentation for INFOTAB on how the tobacco industry could mount a coordinated, international campaign to fight the secondhand smoke issue around the world. The document is titled INFOTAB ETS Project: The Overall Plan

A 1978 R.J. Reynolds document produced by Edelman Public Relations company, proposes Reynolds begin a comprehensive public relations effort to "slow or reverse the growing negative trends in public opinion regarding smoking." Edelman proposes a number of tactics including a "press event on the passive smoking issue," "a whimsical feature [publication] which seeks to bring out the humor of the smoker vs. non-smoker conflict," "excerpts from some leading civil libertarians and editorialists on the 'freedom' issue," a courteous-smoking appeal to smokers, a "Traveling Etiquette Spokesperson," production of a film on "Smoker and the Non-smoker" that would address "issues that divide them other than the primary health issue," and a Smokers' News Bureau based in New York that would "generate news stories...showing that smoking is not as annoying to the nonsmoker as is widely perceived." Edelman also proposes commissioning a survey by a "nationally famous research organization" that would poll people on the "degree of annoyance of a whole range of obnoxious habits--i.e., body odor, bad breath, whiskey breath, loud talkers, foul language, sneezing, uncurbed dogs, etc. " Edelman says, "The survey would include smoking, but our sense it that it will show that smoking is relatively insignificant as an annoyance compared with scores of other personal practices, against which there are no organized efforts."

Edelman notes that surveys done by both companies (RJR and Edelman) showed that "the smoker himself has no pride, feels guilty, ashamed, is not willing to defend or describe the pleasure he gets from smoking." Edelman seeks to correct this by undertaking a campaign to associate smokers with "elegance, style, class, and intellectual responsibility -- personality traits that can give him pride."

This document, titled Taking the Initiative on Smoking: A Total Program shows how the tobacco industry sought to minimize the health dangers associated with primary and secondhand smoke exposure, and reinforce the social acceptability of smoking, even as public health efforts were ongoing to discourage smoking.