Act III, Scene 6: The Dark View Ahead
"A skillfully orchestrated coalition...will press the federal
government to place additional restrictions on cigarette advertising...The
major theme of the protagonists will be that cigarette marketing uses youth
appeal and health assurances to attract teenagers, who become addicted."
Kendrick Wells, memo on "B&W's
Public Issue Environment,"1985 . 2132.02, p. 2
Whistle-blowers
like former B&W executive Jeffrey Wigand and caches of once-secret
internal documents like those you're now reading have vastly expanded what
we know about the cigarette companies and have kept the five federal grand
juries now investigating them pretty busy. The industry, which is worth
a quarter of a trillion dollars worldwide, faces a future that is more uncertain
than at any time since that historic meeting at the Plaza Hotel in 1953.
No one knew that better than Kendrick Wells, one of B&W's top corporate
lawyers, who wrote an uncannily accurate analysis (the memo cited above)
of what he thought the next five years would bring - expensive, difficult
days in court and oppressive government regulation. One thing Wells doesn't
predict is that Americans will stop smoking - or that his industry will
ever stop selling them cigarettes.
return to
Smoke In The Eye
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