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to creatt a htalthler image for smoking. The memo was described in a 

 March 11. 1988 article In the Washington Post : 



"For 20 years the tobacco Industry used a 'holding strategy' to 

 defend Itself against the charge that cigarette smoking causes 

 disease, according to a confidential memo introduced ... in a 

 smoker-death case. In a 1972 memo, Frederick R. Panzer, a vice 

 president of the Tobacco Institute, said that the 'brilliantly 

 conceived and executed' strategy consisted of: ' Creating doubt 

 about the health charge without actually denying lt. ' (emphasis 

 added) ... Panzer sent the memo to Horace R. Kornegay. then 

 president (and later chairman) of tft Institute. The memo covered 

 the time period during which. In 1953, an experiment by Ernest ! . 

 Wynder showed that condensed tars from smoke, placed on the shaven 

 backs of mice, caused a significant number of tumors and 

 malignancies, and, 1n 1964, the surgeon general released his first 

 report on smoking and health." ' 



According to the Post , Panzer also said In the iMflto that: 



"the Industry deployed the strategy 'on three ^najor fronts — 

 litigation, politics and public opinion.'" On the public opinion 

 front, the Industry wanted to get the public to "accept that 

 'smoking may not be the health hazard that the antis«oklng people 

 say"lt IS (emphasis added) because other alternatives are at least 

 as probable (as causes).' His examples were 'air pollution, 

 viruses, food additives, occupational hazards and stresses.' His 

 chief weapon was to be an elaborate survey. 'If the results are 

 favorable, release them as a book' to counter the annual reports by 

 the surgeon general on smoking and health,' he advised. 'And best 

 of all. It woold only have to be seen -- not read -- to be believed 

 ... just like the surgeon general's report,"" Panzer said. '* 



A Rhode Isltid Mtdlf 1 Journal article notes that the strategy behind the 

 manufacturt Md promotion of lower yield cigarettes ls not only to 

 elliilnate saokirs' health fears but also to increase the number of 

 cigarettes sold by making a product that must be consumed in greater 

 quantities 1n order for a smoker's addiction to bt satisfied: 



"Today, paradoxically, the healthiness of cigarettes has become the 

 dominant theme of advertising ... But there is something even more 

 deceptive in this situation than the obv<ous deception: ... they 



