Act III, Scene 2: Deadwood
"I suggested that Earl have the documents indicated on
my list pulled, put into boxes and stored in the large basement storage
area. I said that we would consider shipping the documents to BAT when we
had completed segregating them. I suggested that Earl tell his people that
this was part of an effort to remove deadwood from the files and that neither
he nor anyone else in the department should make any notes, memos or lists."
Wells memo, "Document
Retention," 1/17/85; 1835.01, p. 2
By the late eighties, several major law firms were at work sorting research,
letters, and other material according to how dangerous it would be if discovered
in a lawsuit - the same cataloguing process that paralegal Merrell Williams
was engaged in when he began smuggling out documents. The files were to
be cleansed of "deadwood," such as the Project Janus studies on
the biological effects of cigarettes, and these studies were to be shipped
to England, where the company hoped they would be out of reach of American
lawsuits (Wells
memo, "Document Retention,"1835.01)
If this document is what it seems - and we don't know for sure if it
was carried out - it amounts to an order to get rid of incriminating files.
See also 1000.01,
especially pp. 45, 51, 53. This document explains to workers how
to rank material in the files according to how bad it could make B&W
look in lawsuits.
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