Publisher Description

The classic US struggle between the public interest and corporate interests is perhaps nowhere better illustrated than in the decades-long struggle between the tobacco industry and advocates for public health. The failure of the ""global settlement"" legislation is now viewed by many public health experts as a historic missed opportunity, and in this text Pertschuk describes the forces brought to bear. A lifelong public health leader and tabacco control advocate, Pertschuk provides insight into the movement and its opposition. Questions that reveal themselves here can be applied to public advocacy as a whole. How can movement leaders gauge and best employ popular support? Who has legitimacy to speak on behalf of a particular public cause? How is it possible for those whose cause is a moral one to strike political compromise?

Back Cover

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Author Biography

Michael Pertschuk has had a long and distinguished career in public health advocacy: as consumer counsel and ultimately chief counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, from 1965 to 1976; as chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, from 1977 to 1984; and as co-founder and co-director of the Advocacy Institute. His previous books include Revolt against Regulation, Giant Killers, and, with Wendy Schaetzel, The People Rising.

Table of Contents

Foreword ix Introduction 1 Part I. Leading toward Settlement 1 Thinking the Unthinkable 13 2 Why Matt Myers? 21 3 Sinking the Unthinkable 28 4 The Search for Common Ground Begins 36 5 Why Stan Glantz and Julia Carol? 40 6 "Everyone" Agreed! 49 7 The Real Leadership? 53 8 A Suspect Consensus 59 9 Guess Who's Coming to Dinner 64 10 Day One: Four Meetings, Two Directions 70 11 One Stays, One Stays Out 78 Part II. The Settlement 12 Progress 89 13 Betrayed? 94 14 Slings and Arrows 103 15 With Friends Like These . . . 110 16 The Line Hardens 113 17 A Divorce in the Family 119 18 The Nicotine Fix 123 19 "I Say It's Immunity, and I Say the Hell with It" 131 20 "When to Walk Away" 142 viii Smoke in Their Eyes 21 The Two Ks to the Rescue 146 22 The Deal Is Struck--and Stricken 153 Part III. The Rise and Fall of the McCain Bill 23 The Struggle for Clinton's Nod 161 24 Unity under Clinton's Umbrella? 173 25 Things Fall Apart--the Center Cannot Hold 176 26 The Moving Kessler-Koop Line 186 27 The All-Inclusive Anti-Immunity Club 194 28 McCain to the Rescue 201 29 A Cliffhanger on Liability 207 30 Not Good Enough 211 31 Worse Than Nothing! 217 32 Guess Who's Not Coming to Dinner 220 33 The Window of Opportunity Slams Shut 226 Part IV. Lessons from the Settlement and Its Aftermath 34 What Was Gained? What Was Lost? 237 35 And the Rest of the Globe? 249 36 Thirteen Ways to Lead a Movement Backward 255 37 The Wrong Leaders for the Right Moment 280 38 Engaged in the Work of Democracy 285 Conclusion: With a Little Bit of Luck 293 Afterword: Lessons of the Tobacco Wars 299 Epilogue 305 Chronology of Key Events 311 Acknowledgments 313 Index 317

Review

Nobody has a broader or clearer understanding of the worldwide antitobacco movement than Michael Pertschuk. His inside analysis of how its brightest hour suddenly turned into its darkest moment is an urgent object lesson, teaching that even those firmly on the side of the angels can be consumed by righteousness and self-importance. In this case, the good guys let themselves be blinded to the hard realities of the political process always lurking in the shadows. The U.S. public health community's failure to seriously blunt the perils of smoking--the nations most destructive drug--when it had the tobacco industry reeling is a national tragedy that needed to be chronicled.
--Richard Kluger, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Ashes to Ashes
Certainly the best-written piece of nonfiction in its genre I have ever read. Pertschuk has a gift for taking what could be just another 'Washington insider' story and transforming it into the true overarching moral/political/human drama it actually is--and all of it infused with a sense of tremendous social consequences for each one of us, which it also is.
--Brock Evans, Executive Director, The Endangered Species Coalition

Long Description

The classic American struggle between the public interest and corporate interests is perhaps nowhere better illustrated than in the decades-long struggle between the tobacco industry and advocates for public health. The failure of the "global settlement" legislation is now viewed by many public health experts as an historic missed opportunity, and in this extraordinary book, Smoke in Their Eyes, Michael Pertschuk brilliantly describes the forces brought to bear.

Review Quote

Nobody has a broader or clearer understanding of the worldwide antitobacco movement than Michael Pertschuk. His inside analysis of how its brightest hour suddenly turned into its darkest moment is an urgent object lesson, teaching that even those firmly on the side of the angels can be consumed by righteousness and self-importance. In this case, the good guys let themselves be blinded to the hard realities of the political process always lurking in the shadows. The U.S. public health community's failure to seriously blunt the perils of smoking--the nations most destructive drug--when it had the tobacco industry reeling is a national tragedy that needed to be chronicled. --Richard Kluger, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Ashes to Ashes

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