Through the Smoke Screen: Another Philip Morris Front Exposed
By Jon Elliston

An election year approaches, and with it another round in the corporate PR campaign to keep democracy in chec. Nobody blows smoke into the American political system better than the tobacco industry, as evidenced by the case of Contributions Watch (CW), a Philip Morris front group that serves as a powerful illustration of how cigarette companies can corrupt the debate over smoking and public policy.

The CW operation, on of the most sophisticated corporate scams ever conducted, was exposed four years ago. Memos and reports prepared at CW and displayed here show how the group’s staff of public relations pros and political consultants masqueraded as a "public interest" group while advancing the big tobacco agenda.

One aspect of the industry’s political power is well understood, that of campaign donations. During the 1996 presidential campaign, the media gave ample attention to Bob Dole’s long-standing ties to big tobacco, focusing on the huge financial gifts cigarette makers lavished on the former senator and the Republican party. The Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington, DC research group, reported that Philip Morris was the top overall contributor for the 1996 campaign season, giving $2,741,659 — 78 percent of which was donated to Republicans.

With publicly reported donations like these, the industry was openly, unabashedly purchasing political influence. But big tobacco’s generous lobbying activities haven’t shielded the industry from criticism and regulation. The cigarette business is still facing attacks from government agencies, doctors, anti-smoking activists and regular citizens. Lawsuits threaten to tap into the industry’s profits. In response, the major tobacco companies have launched a desperate, no-holds-barred effort to shore up public opinion in their favor and to manipulate votes.

It’s not an easy job. Due to years of dishonest advertising about smoking and health, the industry’s statements are received by a highly suspicious public. With their credibility in tatters, tobacco companies now speak through a growing number of deceptive front groups. Though less discussed than traditional lobbying efforts, these surreptitious campaigns have influenced voters in many key political contests.

Many of these efforts go forward under the "smokers’ rights" banner, in reference to the purportedly popular movement concocted by big tobacco. In recent years, the major companies have founded and backed "grass-roots" organizations to agitate against greater government regulations on smoking and higher taxes on cigarettes. The largest of these so-called "astro-turf" groups, the National Smokers Alliance (NSA), works for Philip Morris, which created the group in 1993.

The NSA says it now has over 3 million members, and documents leaked to the media indicate that Philip Morris provides about $7 million of the group’s $11 million annual budget. John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, authors of Toxic Sludge is Good for You!: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry, describe the NSA as "a sophisticated, camouflaged campaign that organizes tobacco’s victims to protect tobacco’s profits."

The links between Philip Morris and the NSA have been extensively reported. Contributions Watch was run in a similar fashion, but managed to hide its tobacco ties with complete success for several months.

The organization was created in early 1996 by the State Affairs Company (SAC), a Reston, Virginia public relations firm under the employ of Philip Morris. CW’s director, Warren Miller, once worked for SAC, and in fact the entire operation was effectively run out of SAC’s office. CW employees were urged to keep quiet about the connection to Philip Morris. Billing itself as an "independent" research group, CW began preparing and issuing studies on the tobacco industry’s number one enemy: trial lawyers. By documenting the political activities of the lawyer lobby, Philip Morris evidently hoped to stem the flow of anti-tobacco lawsuits.
The smoke screen lobby had added a new weapon to its arsenal: the "cut-out." In the jargon of international espionage, "cut-outs" are organizations that serve as a conduit for funds but protect the source of the funds from exposure. With a protective bureaucratic layer standing between Philip Morris and CW, the trail of cigarette money was indeed hard to follow.

At least for a little while, that is. For much of 1996, CW was a hit. The group’s studies found their way into major media reports, with no mention of the Philip Morris agenda behind the work.

Like any good public relations firm, SAC emphasized contacts with news organizations. SAC activities reports obtained by MediaReader show how the firm massaged the media. Pushing the CW data with political reporters, during the summer of 1996 SAC billed Philip Morris (at rates as high as $200 per hour) for "meetings with journalists in Washington to discuss story concepts"; "day to day coordination with journalists preparing stories"; "meeting with editor at The Wall Street Journal"; "extensive preparation and 2 meetings with reporter on Weekly Standard [magazine] project"; and "coordination with Wall Street Journal re: two editorial projects."
The high-price media outreach came to a halt in late September 1996, however, when CW employee Tom Wheeler blew the whistle on the tobacco dollars that footed the bill. Exposés in PR Watch, CounterPunch, and the Washington Post probed the cigarette connection, and in short order CW’s reputation as an "independent" source of information disappeared like smoke in the wind.

SAC officials tried in vain to keep the focus on CW’s reports on lawyers’ political donations. Charles Francis, a partner at the firm, pleaded sarcastically to one reporter: "The fact that the demon tobacco industry has dared count this money does not dispute or undermine the results."
Once the truth about CW went public, Philip Morris was hit with what the company strives to avoid: another damaging round of critical media commentary. The Washington Post editorialized: "It’s best in this new era of advocacy to be extremely wary about the reports, studies and 10-point plans put forth by organizations whose identities are hidden behind titles like ‘Americans for Justice,’ ‘Taxpayers for True Reform’ and ‘Mothers for Peace and Virtue’. . . . The Philip Morris case brings us to a new level. . . . Philip Morris in particular should avoid smoke screens, stop filtering its data through righteously titled fronts and cough up any interesting information on its own letterhead." Liberal populist Jim Hightower urged listeners of his radio show to "beware of this fraud called Contributions Watch — it’s no watch-dog, it’s a lap dog." Even PR Central, an online publication covering the promotions industry, rebuked Philip Morris for the CW scheme, calling it "a moronic attempt to hide a perfectly legitimate exercise."

Moronic, maybe. But even when the method fails, Philip Morris has a legitimate reason to hide its agenda behind phony fronts, and there’s no reason to think the company won’t give it another try during Campaign 2000.

Internal documents for the Philip Morris front are available on-line in Dossier, an archive of materials on covert operations, political scandals and propaganda campaigns:
www.parascope.com/dossier.htm