Few in Congress have ever stood up to the tobacco industry… Senator Robert F. Kennedy was one of the first

“Every year cigarettes kill more Americans than were killed in World War I, the Korean War, and Vietnam combined; nearly as many as died in battle in World War II. Each year cigarettes kill five times more Americans than do traffic accidents. Lung cancer alone kills as many as die on the road. The cigarette industry is peddling a deadly weapon. It is dealing in people’s lives for financial gain…”

— SENATOR ROBERT F. KENNEDY in his keynote address at the First World Conference on Smoking and Health, New York, September 11, 1967

INTRODUCTION

In her 1963 book, SMOKE SCREEN: Tobacco and the Public Welfare, Senator Maurine B. Neuberger (1907-2000), Democrat from Oregon, wrote

  • Though I ceased believing in witches and goblins and the like when I was a young girl in Tillamook, Oregon, I confess that my study of the tobacco problem has greatly shaken my disbelief. How is one to explain the extraordinary frequency with which some unidentified force has intervened to prevent the public from learning about the hazards of smoking, without concluding that the tobacco industry is protected by a benign fairy godmother?

Senator Neuberger didn’t just expose the obfuscatory tactics and deceptive advertising of the tobacco industry, she also laid bare the fear and foot-dragging of elected officials, mass media corporations, and organized medicine in addressing the rising toll of disease and death caused by cigarette smoking. Although she left the Senate to return to teaching after her single elected term (1961-1967), she made her mark as Congress’ foremost consumer advocate and foe of the tobacco industry. Other Democratic senators, including Warren Magnuson of Washington (1905-1989), Frank Moss of Utah (1911-2003), and Joseph Clark of Pennsylvania (1901-1990), supported her efforts such as by co-sponsoring her bill to require warning labels on cigarette packaging.

But upon her retirement, it was the junior senator from New York, 42-year old Democrat Robert F. Kennedy (1925-1968) who took over the fight against cigarette smoking and its promotion, introducing the toughest bills to that time aimed at restricting cigarette advertising and improving ways to educate the public about the harmfulness of smoking. This was all the more remarkable because New York was the home of  three of the six largest cigarette manufacturers (Philip Morris, P. Lorillard, and American Tobacco), most of the tobacco industry’s advertising agencies and public relations firms, the three major TV networks, two of the three major newsweekly magazines, and several of the nation’s most influential newspapers. Kennedy was the logical choice to deliver the opening plenary address at the First World Conference on Smoking and Health at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City on September 11, 1967. He continued to make curbing the ravages of smoking one of his top issues — striking fear in the hearts of tobacco industry executives and incurring the wrath of fellow Democratic Senator Sam Ervin from the tobacco-growing state of North Carolina — until his assassination on June 6, 1968 after winning the Democratic presidential primary in California.

Alan Blum, MD
Director, The University of Alabama Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society
August 1, 2025

1964: Senator Maurine Neuberger attacks a cynical tobacco industry (00:37)

Excerpted from “CIGARETTES: A COLLISION OF INTERESTS”

CBS Reports documentary
Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS Television Network)
April 15, 1964

“I’m most concerned about the cynical attitude of the tobacco industry that they don’t want the Federal Trade Commission to issue any regulations that are going to interfere with the economy, as they call it, of the industry. Well, I admit everywhere that this is a big multi-billion-dollar industry in our country. But nevertheless I think it’s a pretty cynical attitude if we don’t take a certain amount of consideration for the fact that the health and welfare of 190 million Americans is at stake.”

Senator Neuberger would introduce the first Senate bill mandating health warnings in cigarette advertisements and on each pack, Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act of 1965.

Outtakes of the news report by Jules Bergman (1929-1987), ABC-TV science editor (1961-1987), on the opening day of the First World Conference on Smoking and Health, September 11, 1967 (09:55)*

Approximately 500 scientists, government leaders, physicians, and journalists from 34 countries attended the three-day meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. This ABC-TV news footage features excerpts of plenary addresses by United States Surgeon General Luther Terry and New York Senator Robert Kennedy.

Senator Kennedy: “If the cigarette industry’s economic power were as miniscule as that of the marihuana industry, cigarettes would surely be illegal now and their sale subject to severe penalty as a health hazard…There is in fact no safe cigarette, and there is no expectation that one will be developed in the near future. The public must not be allowed to believe otherwise…read more.

Dr. Terry: “The wide representation of scientists and educators gathered here gives me great hope that the solution to the smoking problem is not too far away. Your presence at this conference is evidence that responsible people the world over recognize the very real threat of cigarette smoking and want to do something about it… read more.

*

“ADDRESS BY SENATOR ROBERT F. KENNEDY
WORLD CONFERENCE ON SMOKING AND HEALTH
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York City
9:30 a.m. September 11, 1967″ (5 pages)

Transcript of Senator Kennedy’s presentation, released by his office
Identified in the Tobacco Industry Documents Library
https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=lkmd0131

“I am honored to address this distinguished group today, For I believe your conference to be one of the most important meetings ever held to discuss a health problem. Your presence indicates your agreement with that statement. For this is truly a world conference, and it is a conference of the highest order as well. You represent some 34 nations, and it does honor to the conference that so many countries have sent such distinguished delegations of officials.

“Nor is it surprising that you attached enough significance to the problem to come here from so far away. All of you face mounting death rates from charette smoking, some more serious than in the United States. Great Britain, for example, has a higher death rate from lung cancer than we do: And all of you share with us a distressing lack of knowledge about how to convince people — particularly young people — not only that cigarettes may kill them, but that they should do something about it.”

“World Conference on Smoking & Health: A SUMMARY OF THE PROCEEDINGS” (17 pages)

Published by the National Interagency Council on Smoking and Health
1968

Conference Program: “….to compare experiences and to exchange ideas, to report on new medical and scientific findings and to recommend programs of research, education, and public and citizen action against cigarette smoking” 

“The Scientific Background:
1.World Costs of Cigarette Smoking in Disease, Disability and Death
2.Cigarettes and Cardiovascular Disease
3.Cigarettes and Cancer
4.Cigarettes and Respiratory Disease
5.Problems in Conducting Smoking Research
The British and Norwegian Experiences
Influencing Smoking Behavior
Psychological Aspects of Smoking
Work Groups:
1.Addiction, Habituation, Pharmacology
2.Behavioral Problems and Progress
3.Towards a Less Harmful Cigarette
4.School Programs
5.College Programs
6.Teacher Education
7.Giving up Cigarette Smoking
8.Role of Physician and Other Exemplars
9.Government Action and Legislation
10. Communications — The Media”

17-page program summary identified in the Tobacco Industry Documents Library

“A TIME FOR ACTION” (8 pages)

Typed presentation delivered by former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Luther L. Terry, Chairman, World Conference on Smoking and Health, at the opening general session
Monday morning, September 11, 1967
Identified in the Tobacco Industry Documents Library
https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/docs/#id=fngc0002

“…We have come to the end of one era in the smoking and health field. The period of uncertainty is over. While science will continue to probe the reasons why, there is no longer any doubt that cigarette smoking is a direct threat to the user’s health. We know for certain that lung cancer which is climbing to almost epidemic proportions throughout the world is directly associated with cigarette smoking. We know that the rising number of deaths from heart disease among men and women in the prime of life is related to cigarette smoking. We know that the toll from bronchitis and emphysema can be traced to cigarette smoking. And we know that a considerable amount of other chronic disability is resulting annually from cigarette smoking.

“…There was a time when we spoke of the smoking and health ‘controversy.’ To my mind the days of argument are over. Today, armed with facts that come from careful scientific inquiry, we are on the threshold of a new era, a time of action. A time for public and private agencies, community groups and individual citizens to work together to bring this hydra-headed monster under control.

“…We now have available to us more accurate information on the specific age groups which are affected. The report indicates that cigarette smoking is associated with as much as one-third of all deaths among men between 35 and 60 years of age.

“… Let this conference be the starting point for a concerted world wide attack on this menace which is taking far too great a toil of valuable human resources.”

“KENNEDY TO LAUNCH ATTACK ON CIGARETTE INDUSTRY”

Transcript of news story read over radio station WQXR, New York City, September 11, 1967, 7:30 a.m.
Transcribed by Radio TV Reports, Inc. for its client Ruder & Finn, Inc
Identified in the Tobacco Industry Documents Library
https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=jhxb0131

“NEWSCASTER: Senator Robert Kennedy is planning to launch a legislative drive against the cigarette industry. He says he plans to introduce three bills in the Senate tomorrow because the industry, as he puts it, is peddling a deadly weapon…”

Curator’s note: Ruder and Finn (now RuderFinn) is a public relations company founded in 1948 in New York City. From the 1960s through the 1990s, the firm helped craft the defiant response by cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris, maker of  the fastest growing cigarette brand, Marlboro, to the growing evidence linking cigarette smoking with death and disease. In the early 1980s Ruder and Finn also represented the American Academy of Family Physicians until pressure by AAFP members in the medical activist group DOC (Doctors Ought to Care) led the AAFP to drop the firm because of its ties to a tobacco company.

“KENNEDY URGES CIGARETTE CURBS
Will Offer Senate Bills to Extend Advertising Rules and Establish Tax Scale
MAKERS ARE ASSAILED
Senator Scores Companies’ Regulation — Industry Says It Meets Responsibility”

News article by Jane E. Brody
The New York Times
September 12, 1967
Identified in the Tobacco Industry Documents Library

“Senator Robert F. Kennedy charged the cigarette industry today with ‘peddling a deadly weapon . . . for financial gain.’ He said he would introduce three bills in Congress today to make up for what he called the industry’s ineffective attempts at self-regulation…

“Senator Kennedy outlined his bills before the opening session of the First World Conference on Smoking and Health, being held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

“The New York Democrat accused the cigarette companies of demonstrating a ‘total inattention to public responsibility.’

“‘Each year,’ he said, ‘cigarettes kill five times more Americans than do traffic accidents. Lung cancer alone kills as many as die on the road. The cigarette industry is peddling a deadly weapon. It is dealing in people’s lives for financial gain.’

“Describing the industry’s attempts at self-regulation as a ‘charade,’ the senator said that one of his bills would authorize the Federal Communications Commission to regulate the times and types of programs on which cigarette advertising may appear, as well as the total amount of cigarette advertising that the broadcasting media may carry…”

“PARTICIPANTS
The World Conference on Smoking and Health was attended by 511 persons from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Czechoslovakia, Den- mark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ice- land, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, Venezuela, Yugoslavia, and from 42 states of the United States” (15 pages)

World Conference on Smoking & Health: A SUMMARY OF THE PROCEEDINGS
Published by the National Interagency Council on Smoking and Health
1968

Summaries of Reports of Work Groups 1 to 7
World Conference on Smoking and Health (30 pages)

Excerpted from a 93-page document in Tobacco Industry Documents Library
https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=qtwc0002

“The School Crisis”/”The 7 Minute Cigarette. What makes it tick?”

Front cover story/Back cover advertisement by the American Tobacco Company for Pall Mall Gold 100s cigarettes
Newsweek
September 25, 1967

“Interested in the ‘tar’ in your cigarette?
This is the one they’ll have to beat.
Carlton found lowest in ‘tar’
Of 39 brands tested by an independent laboratory

Advertisement by the American Tobacco Company for Carlton cigarettes

**

“Interested in the ‘tar’ in your menthol cigarette?
Montclair menthol has reduced ‘tar'”

Advertisement by the American Tobacco Company for Montclair Menthol Tip Extra Mild cigarettes

**

“Something’s happened to Robt. Burns!”

Advertisement by General Cigar Co. for Robt. Burns Panatela cigars

**

“1.Look this fellow straight in the eye.
2.Now honestly say:
‘I have not smoked a cigarette in at least a year.'”

Advertisement by State Mutual of America for the company’s non-smoker life insurance plans and disability income insurance

“How to Stop Smoking” (2 pages)

Medicine section article
Newsweek
September 25, 1967

“Nobody had to put up a ‘No Smoking’ sign in the gilded Sert Room of New York’s Waldorf-Astoria last week. Most of the 511 physicians, educators and government officials gathered there have long been personally convinced that cigarette smoking was a leading cause of death and disability. Now, as delegates to the World Conference on Smoking and Health, they were concerned about how to convince the addicted rest of the world to quit smoking.

“It is a formidable job. To be sure, thirteen years of steady propagandizing on behalf of cigarette abstinence has made some inroads: the U.S. Public Health Service estimates that a million Americans a year kick the cigarette habit, but these defections are balanced by the 1 million teen-agers who join the ranks of 49 million adult smokers each year…

“At last week’s meeting, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy accused the tobacco industry of ‘peddling a deadly weapon.’ The New York senator announced that he would file one bill requiring that cigarette advertising include a strong health warning that goes beyond the message on cigarette packs. He also suggested that the FCC [Federal Communications Commission] be given statutory power to regulate the times of day cigarette advertising is broadcast, as well as the type of program involved, in order to reduce the number of children viewing it (limiting TV commercials,  for example, to the hours after 9 p.m.). Finally, he described a third bill which would impose a sliding tax scale on cigarettes according to their tar and nicotine content…”

“Tobacco Institute Replies
to RFK Charge of Industry
‘Inattention to Responsibility”’ (3 pages)

Media release by The Tobacco Institute
September 11, 1967
Identified in the Tobacco Industry Documents Library
https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=fgjp0125

“…It is quite surprising that such an astute person as Senator Kennedy would make a charge that the tobacco industry has shown ‘inattention’ to ‘public responsibility.’ The tobacco industry has not only been attentive to the responsibility, but has invested its time, talent and funds in an effort to meet that responsibility.

“Other actions which the industry has taken which demonstrate its good faith and deep concern with the questions which have been raised about smoking and health include:

1. The industry has pledged $10 million — without strings to the American Medical Association’s Education and Research Fund. In a recent news release on this smoking and health project, the AMA said: ‘Much of the support for the research project was furnished by the tobacco industry itself, which pledged $10 million over a five-year period. Industry interest was in settling once and for all the question of whether smoking is or is not the cause of certain diseases. Furthermore the industry wanted to know if smoking was implicated in disease, was it due to some specific agent or agents in the tobacco which could be removed. from the smoke.’

2. The industry has granted more than $12 million for basic research on smoking and health through The Council for Tobacco Research — U.S.A. Since the Council was formed in 1954, grants have been made to some 300 independent scientists working at more than 150 hospitals, universities and research institutions. To date, nearly 6oo scientific papers reporting the research have been published by grant recipients. All of this money, too, is made available to the scientists totally without strings.

3. The voluntary Cigarette Advertising Code has made a major contribution in meeting the industry’s responsibility in the area of advertising, charges by Senator Kennedy notwithstanding. Cigarette advertising is not directed at young people, nor is it directed at persuading anyone to smoke. A careful reading of the Code text would have shown the Senator that the Code is making a useful contribution…”

Day 1

“INFORMATIONAL MEMORANDUM
Subject: World Conference on Smoking & Health
September 11, 1967″ (2 pages)

Memorandum prepared by Hill and Knowlton, Inc., public relations firm for The Tobacco Institute, sent to Earle Clements (1896-1985), president of The Tobacco Institute (and former U.S. Representative and Senator from Kentucky, Governor of Kentucky, and executive director of the United States Senate Democratic Camoaign Committee), the general counsel of The Tobacco Institute, and cigarette company public relations representatives
Identified in the Tobacco Industry Documents Library
https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=xngc0002

“…George Moore, Director of Research, New York State Health Department, followed with a very short talk on ‘Cigarettes and Cancer.’ A copy of Moore’s talk was not available, but he began by praising Kennedy and implying that most of the ideas had been borrowed from Moore. However, Moore said he wished to take issue with Kennedy’s assertion that the cigarette industry has been inattentive. He cited an occasion in 1965 when Senator Vance Hartke had repeated back to Moore something Moore had said in ‘a quasi-private meeting.’ Therefore, Moore concluded that the cigarette industry does ‘monitor practically everything we say and do at these meetings.’

“From the sponsors’ standpoint, the first day of the conference was highly successful. The Sert Room of the Waldorf was filled to overflowing, and it was difficult for late arrivals even to get near the door. Press and TV coverage was apparently total, and the press room was so crowded that there was no place to sit. Kennedy held a poorly organized press conference following his speech. He stood in a corner with reporters’ notebooks in his face and mumbled answers to questions which nobody but the questioners could hear…”

Day 2

“INFORMATIONAL MEMORANDUM
Subject: World Conference on Smoking & Health, Second Day (Tuesday), New York City
September 12, 1967″ (2 pages)

Memorandum prepared by Hill and Knowlton, Inc., public relations firm for The Tobacco Institute, sent to Earle Clements (1896-1985), president of The Tobacco Institute (and former U.S. Representative and Senator from Kentucky, Governor of Kentucky, and executive director of the United States Senate Democratic Camoaign Committee), the general counsel of The Tobacco Institute, and cigarette company public relations representatives and chief executives
Identified in the Tobacco Industry Documents Library
https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=jxgf0115

“Attached is a copy of the Keynote Address, ‘Influencing Smoking Behavior,’ by Surgeon General William H. Stewart, which opened the second day of the Conference. The tone of the speech led a well-known anti-smoking writer to characterize it as ‘an olive branch held out to the cigarette industry.’ On page 5, Dr. Stewart states that industry competition in reducing ‘tar’ and nicotine has helped the public: ‘The 1966 cigarette is, on the average, substantially safer than the 1960 cigarette; it contains about two-thirds as much tar and nicotine. ‘This competitive response to public concern has resulted in positive public benefit. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for the 100 millimeter barrage … ” On page 9: “For the tobacco industry and its advertisers there are a number of productive courses of action awaiting only the decision to help society cope with a problem that cannot bewished away. Among these are a sincere and wholehearted effort to develop a cigarette that is both as low in hazard and as acceptable to the smoker as science and technology can make it… The door to cooperation has always been open. It remains open.’

“Attendance at the meeting Tuesday continued high. An analysis of the advance registration list partly confirms the official description of the registrants as ‘scientists, educators, physicians and government officials.’ In addition there are a large number of paid administrators and volunteer workers representing the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, National Tuberculosis Association, and other constituents of the Interagency Council at state and national levels. Press and TV interest on Tuesday was noticeably diminished.

“Following Dr. Stewert, Dr. Daniel Horn, director of the USPHS National Clearinghouse for Smoking and Health, led a panel discussion on “How Did Society Get Into the Cigarette Mess? Why Is It So Hard To Find A Way Out?” Dr. Horn took a somewhat philosophic view toward smoking, devoting most of his talk to a review of man’s search for stimulants and tranquilizers: ‘Throughout history people everywhere have searched for natural products in their environment which would provide them not only with sustenance and shelter but certain pleasurable effects as well. In his search for gratification man has experimented. with things to drink, sniff, smoke, chew or swallow — coca leaf, betel nut, tobacco, alcohol, mushrooms, poppy, hemp and. cactus plants, among others … We must face up to the fact that the cigarette caught hold because it fulfilled certain functions that needed to be fulfilled for a great many people. The cigarette offered an accessible, inexpensive way to deal with a variety of problems… If there were no harmful consequences it would have served mankind well. We simply had the rotten luck to have discovered after all these years that the harmful effects are overwhelming …The problem is complex … A variety or human reactions are tied up in the smoking habit, and a variety or control methods will be needed to solve it.’

“…The consensus of these professional psychologists was that people smoke for a variety of reasons and no single, simple method can persuade all of them to stop smoking. This attitude provoked a certain amount of hostility from the floor, some members of the audience advocating a tough ‘educational’ policy. The panelists’ rejoinder was stated. by Dr. [Richard L.] Foster [a District School Superintendent, California]: ‘We have learned from experience that the evangelistic approach simply does not work. It has a reverse effect.”’

Day 3

“INFORMATIONAL MEMORANDUM
Subject: World Conference on Smoking & Health, Third and Final Day (Wednesday), New York City
September 13, 1967″ ((4 pages)

Memorandum prepared by Hill and Knowlton, Inc., public relations firm for The Tobacco Institute, sent to Earle Clements (1896-1985), president of The Tobacco Institute (and former U.S. Representative and Senator from Kentucky, Governor of Kentucky, and executive director of the United States Senate Democratic Camoaign Committee), the general counsel of The Tobacco Institute, and cigarette company public relations representatives and chief executives
Identified in the Tobacco Industry Documents Library
https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=zrwc0002

“The final day of the Conference was devoted to drafting the recommendations of the various Work Groups. Copies of the recommendations are attached,

“…Of special. interest are the recommendations of the following Work Groups: 3, ‘Research Towards A Less Harmful Cigarette. Does a Filter Protect?’; 9, ”Results of Government Action and Legislation: What Other Government Action is Needed?’; 10, ‘Communications — The Media.’

“Following reading of the recommendations, a. group of’ panelists commented. A new face on the panel and at the Conference was Senator Frank Moss of Utah, who gave a blanket endorsement to all the recommendations for legislation. However, he added that he particularly :favored government action in the fields of ‘education and full disclosure.’ Prohibition or similar coercion would not work, Moss said. He specifically mentioned that he favored the Magnuson and Kennedy bills to require a. warning in advertising. Moss did not mention the other two Kennedy bills, but he did commend the FCC for its equal time ruling in regard to cigarette advertising.’

“It was reported that at the Work Group session on ‘Government Action and Legislation,’ John Banzhaf, III, New York attorney who precipitated the FCC’s ‘fairness doctrine,’ reprimanded the Conference for not giving his position legal support…”

“INTRODUCTION OF AMENDMENTS
TO THE CIGARETTE LABELING
AND ADVERTISING ACT” (4 pages)

Remarks by Senator Robert Kennedy
Congressional Record
Proceedings and Debates of the 90th Congress
May 17, 1967
Identified in the Tobacco Industry Documents Library
https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=qxvg0147

“Mr. President, I am, glad to cosponsor, Senator MAGNUSON’s bill again this year. Requiring the disclosure of the tar and nicotine content of cigarettes: will, I think, encourage the development of lower tar, lower nicotine cigarettes. And, since the amount of tar in a cigarette is associated with the incidence of cancer, and the amount of nicotine ls related to heart disease, encouraging the development of lower tar, lower nicotine cigarettes ls a worthwhile endeavor… read more.

“MR. GEORGE WEISSMAN (SECRET)
SUMMARY OF PROPOSALS WITH RESPECT TO CIGARETTES MADE BY SENATOR KENNEDY SINCE MAY, 1967″ (28 pages)

Point-by-point rebuttal by the president of Philip Morris
September 11, 1967
Identified in the Tobacco Industry Documents Library
https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=hxcp0042

“Senator Kennedy’s proposal: ‘There should be an experimental one-year ban on all cigarette advertising on radio and television.’

“[Response:] ‘There are several points which should be carefully considered by those industry critics who advocate a ban on cigarette advertising on radio and television. Cigarette advertising is preeminently brand advertising. It is designed to persuade persons who already smoke to buy one brand rather than another. A prohibition on advertising would largely destroy competition; it would furnish security to the larger companies in their present market position and permanently condemn smaller companies to an inferior status.’

“‘There is another aspect of this matter which should be of concern to persons who advocate efforts to develop ‘less hazardous’ cigarettes. What incentive would there be for a cigarette manufacturer to spend the large sums of money required to “improve” a product if he cou1d not then effective1y advertise and promote it?'”

**

“Senator Kennedy’s proposal: ‘ a). The airlines should stop distributing free cigarettes to their passengers. b) The government should consider forbidding smoking on facilities operated by it.’

“[Response:] ‘These proposals smack of prohibition. There is no basis for the government’s depriving anyone of the right to make the personal decision whether or not to smoke, and there is certainly no basis for inflicting such a restriction on special classes of individuals, such as servicemen,  federal civil servants, or persons wishing to transact business with their government. Airline passengers are free to accept or to reject cigarettes offered to them. Why should the airlines be prohibited from satisfying the desires and convenience of passengers who desire to smoke?'”

“The Tobacco Institute believes
Every thoughtful adult American will
Want to read every word of this
Front-page editorial in BARRON’S —
One of America’s most responsible publications”

Advertisement by The Tobacco Institute
The Dallas Morning News
October 18, 1967
(Among many other publications, including The Saturday Evening Post, November 18, 1967)

“Dangerous Lengths
The Federal Crusade Against Smoking Has Gone Too Far”

“Senator Robert F. Kennedy (D., N.Y.) is pushing a bill to tax cigarettes according to their tar and nicotine content. The FCC [Federal Communications Commission] has just reaffirmed a ruling which holds that…television broadcasters must give the foes of smoking air time free of charge if not exactly equal. FTC, in turn, relentlessly presses a campaign to force the industry to warn its customers: ‘Cigarette smoking is dangerous to health and may cause death from cancer and other diseases.’ Someday it aims to ban all cigaret advertising.

” What began a few years ago as a seemingly well-intentioned, if disturbing effort to brainwash the citizenry into kicking the habit thus has spiraled into a crusade as menacing and ugly as Prohibition…

“…Since publication in 1964 of ‘Smoking and Health,’ which through a kind of guilt by statistical association, condemned the use of cigarets (but not cigars or pipes), officialdom has done its best to pick a fight. Armed with such dubious ‘proof,’ the Federal Trade Commission promptly sought to foist its own uncompromising slogans on the industry, a move that led to a more tolerant Congress to pass the Federal Cigaret Labeling And Advertising Act. The law, which allowed manufacturers to put a milder warning on each pack of cigarets, has merely goaded the anti-smoking zealots to greater lengths. Thus, Senator Robeert Kennedy, who yields to no man in his hot pursuit of demagoguery, has introduced a bill that would tax cigarets on the basis of their tar and nicotine content, as measured by the FTC in a laboratory newly equipped with a federal smoking machine.

“…Meanwhile, the Johnson Administration, which never gave the anti-smoking campaign its seal of approval, quietly continues to support the price of the filthy weed wit taxpayers’ money, and, for the benefit of foreigners, who presumably neither know better nor care, to extol the virtues of U.S. tobacco…

“This is the classic rationale of tyranny, the perennial cry of the mob. The public interest, as we have said before, covers a multitude of sins, from the venial to the deadly. Smoking may be a minor issue, but contempt for due process of law looms large. Cigaret advertising, however disagreeable, constitutes an exercise in freedom of speech. Big Brother doesn’t take over all at once, he closes in step by step. Here’s a chance to draw the line.”

“INFORMATIONAL MEMORANDUM
SUBJECT: News Summary on Industry Meeting With Senator Robert F. Kennedy, October 31, 1967″ (15 pages)

Transcripts by Radio TV Reports, Inc. of news story on the CBS-TV Evening News with Walter Cronkite and other stations, as well as newspaper articles about this story) sent to client Hill and Knowlton, Inc., the public relations firm for The Tobacco Institute
November 17, 1967
Identified in the Tobacco industry Documents Library
https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=sjhb0040

“PROMISE FROM CIGARETTE PRODUCERS”

“WALTER CRONKITE: Senator Robert Kennedy, who wants a federal law governing cigarette advertising standards, got a promise from the cigarette producers today. After a Washington meeting with Kennedy, a spokesman said the industry will consider broadening its ban on commercials on programs attracting a large number of young viewers.”

“Smoke signals
from the Hill
Tobacco-industry leaders
meet with Senator Kennedy
on cigarette advertising”

News article
Broadcasting
November 6, 1967
Identified in the Tobacco Industry Documents Library
https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=lykn0049

“The chief executive officers of nine cigarette companies, the head of the Cigarette Advertising Code and the director of the Tobacco Institute held a top-level conference with cigarette-advertising foe Senator Robert F. Kennedy (D-N. Y.) last week, and advance speculation was that the meeting could mark the beginning of the end for cigarette advertising on television…

“Robert Meyner, the former New Jersey governor who now heads the Cigarette Advertising Code Inc., said tobacco advertising served interbrand competition and was not aimed at persuading youngsters to smoke. Former Kentucky Governor and U.S. Senator Earle Clements, president and executive director of the Tobacco Institute Inc., said that it had long been the industry’s view that the decision to begin smoking ‘was an adult decision,’ and that advertising was so oriented.

“Top Tobacco Men

“In addition to Senator Kennedy, Governor Meyner and Senator Clements, the meeting was attended by Michael Pertschuk, Senate Commerce Committee aide; David Hardy, Kansas City, Mo., attorney and consultant to the Tobacco Institute and to the tobacco companies; Edwin P. Finch, president, Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp.; Milton E. Harrington, president of Liggett & Myers Tobacco Co.; Joseph F. Cullman III, chairman, Philip Morris Inc.; Alexander H. Galloway, president, R. J. Reynolds Co.; W. B. George, chief executive officer, Larus & Brother Co.; Louis A. Bantle, president, U. S. Tobacco Co.; Manuel Yellen, chairman, P. Lorillard Co.; Robert B. Walker, chairman, American Tobacco Co., and Constantine Stephano, president, Stephano Bros.

“Also attending were Dr. Daniel Horn of the National Clearinghouse for Smoking and Health of the U. S. Public Health Service and Dr. Kenneth Endicott, director of the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health.”

“December 4, 1967 WASHINGTON: Sen. Sam C. Ervin, D – N.C., at a news conference here 12/4, insisted that links between cigarettes and health hazards have not been proven. Ervin outlined a rebuttal to Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, D – N.Y., [who will] propose stringent ‘health’ controls on the tobacco industry.”

Associated Press wire service photograph
December 4, 1967

“SENATOR S. J. ERVIN’S (D.-N.C.) ADDRESS BEFORE U.S. SENATE December 4, 1967” (4 pages)

Tobacco (industry trade weekly)
December 23, 1967

“I want to discuss an allegation which is becoming more and more frequent — that smoking is all that stands between men and immortality. This proposition is being paraded before the American people with all of the pomp and certitude of Madame Curie’s discovery of radium… read more.

“Ervin to take tobacco
fight to Senate floor”

News article
Tobacco (industry trade weekly)
December 8, 1967

“WASHINGTON, D.C. — Sen. Samuel J. Ervin, Jr., (D – N.C.) has revealed plans to take his case against the alleged health hazards of smoking to the Senate floor.

“He said he is preparing a speech in rebuttal to what he called aims of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy of New York to ultimately outlaw cigarette smoking…”

“SMOKERS HAVE FIRM SUPPORTER IN SENATOR ERVIN” (5 pages)

Five 1-page transcripts by Radio TV Reports, Inc. of news reports on Senator Ervin, December 4, 1967, sent to its client Hill and Knowlton, public relations firm for The Tobacco Institute
Identified in the Tobacco Industry Documents Library
https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=tzmw0217 (one of several)

“STEPHEN GARY: ‘Senator Sam Ervin has charged the United States Surgeon General with spreading propaganda on the hazards of cigarette smoking. The North Carolina Democrat called a news conference to take issue with advocates of cigarette restrictions and prohibition. Ervin likened cigarette critics to the forerunners of the prohibition era of the Thirties. Ervin contends that no proof exists linking cigarette smoking with lung cancer. He said Surgeon General William Stewart is as much in the dark about a causal relationship as are leading doctors around the country.

‘Ervin called Senator Robert Kennedy a leading prohibitionist. He challenged a recent Kennedy speech in which the New York Democrat asserted that cigarette smoking leads to lung cancer.’”

“DRIVE ON CIGARETTES
IS OPPOSED BY ERVIN”

News article
The New York Times
December 6, 1967

“WASHINGTON, Dec. 4, (UPI) — Senator Sam J. Ervin, Democrat of North Carolina, insisted Monday that links between cigarettes and health hazards had not been proved.

“Mr. Ervin cited testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee and extensive documentation prepared for the Congressional Record as proof that no one now knew the cause of lung cancer or other malignancy.

“In a news conference, Mr. Ervin outlined a rebuttal to Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Democrat of New York, who has proposed stringent ‘health’ controls on the tobacco industry…”

“SMOKING and HEALTH ( a potpourri of industry thought)”
Tobacco Reporter asked manufacturers, growing representatives and distributors to suggest ways the industry might combat anti-tobacco propaganda on ‘smoking and health.'” (4 pages)

Analysis
Tobacco Reporter
December 1967

“Flue-cured tobacco growers had only just recoiled from having tobacco prices plummet — coinciding pointedly with publicity generated by Senator Robert Kennedy’s cigarette restriction bills — and having their market turned upside down by increased demand for low nicotine tobacco, presumably generated by government activities, when Surgeon General William Stewart visited tobacco country.

“In North Carolina to dedicate a 500-acre trace in the Research Triangle, the Surgeon General seated flatly he felt the tobacco economy of North Carolina of little consequence compared with lives ‘lost’ because of cigarette smoking. It is ‘no longer debatable,’ he said to the North Carolina audience, whether a connection exists between smoking and health. Tobacco growers are furious.

“Among the proposals currently being discussed on unofficial and some official levels is a major saturation public relations and advertising campaign to re-establish the smoking and health controversy. This campaign may be backed up with the most extensive research campaign ever undertaken by the industry. Among initial efforts in this campaign…[is] the advertisement run by [The] Tobacco Institute, reprinting a lead artic le recently published by Barron’s magazine…

“This was the second paid ‘institutional’ advertisement ever run by the industry. The first was run when the Council for Tobacco Research was set up [in 1954].” [Curator’s note: another such advertisement by The Tobacco Institute was published in 1959.] Read more…

Letter by Priscilla S. Meyer, Editor, Tobacco Reporter, to Mr. H.H. Ramm, Vice President, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company
December 21, 1967

“Apparently an article in the December issue of Tobacco Reporter has caused some comment within the industry. The article is entitled, ‘Smoking and Health (a potpourri of industry thought.)’ and I am enclosing a copy.

“I would greatly appreciate your frank views on this article — whether you feel the subject matter is appropriate for an industry trade journal, on the relative value of the article from your standpoint, on its fairness to all sides of the question, whether you feel the article went too deeply into industry policy (although a number of the interviews were not at the policy level), and if you feel it lost value because individuals were not identified.

“This information would be very helpful to me in determining whether to do future articles of this sort. (The large number of interviews for this kind of article is costly to a publication of this size, if the end result is not of value.) I would also like to publish all or parts of your reply if you will allow this. If you do not want to be quoted please make this clear; I would still very much like to hear what you have to say.

“The article was an experiment, and your help as vice president of one of the major cigarette firms will be very useful in determining whether we do future articles of this type…”

Letter from William J. Kloepfer, Jr.,
Vice President-Public Relations, The Tobacco Institute, Washington, D.C.
to Miss Esther Kartiganer
CBS News Election Unit, New York
December 27, 1967 (4 pages)

Identified in the Tobacco Industry Documents Library
https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=nxpb0115

“…there have been those including former U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry and Senator Robert Kennedy, who have compared the number of deaths annually from lung cancer with annual auto fatalities…

“The two figures are just not comparable for several reasons, but the most important reason is that lung cancer is a cause of’ death chiefly of older aged people, while most auto accidents take young lives .

“More than half of the annual auto fatalities involve people under 35 years of age. Among total lung cancer deaths, only six-tenths of one percent are among people under 35 . .

“About three-quarters of those killed in auto accidents are under age 55. Of total lung cancer deaths, about one-fifth are under 55.

“It is obvious which is the greater destroyer of useful man-years. This is not to minimize lung cancer as a serious problem but only to put some perspective on the relative risk to total human life involved between lung cancer and auto fatalities.”

“What Bobby Kennedy
Wants for tobacco” (2 pages)

Column by Lloyd M. Hampton
Tobacco Reporter (industry trade monthly)
October 1967

“Declaring that the time has come for strong action to curb cigarette smoking in the U.S., Sen. Kennedy underscored in his address that between 4-5000 American children start to smoke each day. He also claimed that a million children now in school will die before their time of lung cancer, if present rates continue…

“In Sen. Kennedy’s judgement, ‘industry self-regulation of advertising has been totally inadequate.’
**

“Looking behind Bobby, and to 1969” (3 pages)
News analysis by Priscilla S. Meyer
Tobacco Reporter
October 1967

“There was a lot of noise and five new legislative proposals emerged from anti-tobacco camp last month (Sen. Kennedy’s three bills in the Senate, two echoed by Rep. John Moss in the House). However, consensus seems to be that there will probably be no Congressional activity on any of the proposed anti-tobacco legislation until next spring, at the earliest.

“Congress is now tieing up loose ends for 1967, and it appears that hearings on the numerous cigarette bills may come, but not until the 1968 session of Congress convenes….”

“ROBERT KENNEDY” (18 pages)

Cover painting by Louis Glanzman (1922 – 2013)
TIME
June 14, 1968

“ONCE again the crackle of gunfire. Once again the long journey home, the hushed procession, the lowered flags and harrowed faces of a nation in grief. Once again the simple question: Why?

“The second Kennedy assassination — almost two months to the day after the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. — immediately prompted, at home and abroad, deep doubts about the stability of America. Many saw the unleashing of a dark, latent psychosis in the national character, a stain that had its start with the first settlement of a hostile continent. For the young people, in particular, who had been persuaded by the new politics of Robert Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy to recommit themselves to the American electoral system, the assassination seemed to confirm all their lingering suspicions that society could not be reformed by democratic means.

“…Lyndon Johnson, who has more than once brooded late into the night with friends on the subject of violence, seemed shaken and visibly disturbed by the shooting in Los Angeles. He did what he thought had to be done. He promised the stricken family any help that the Government could provide, appointed a commission to study the causes of violence, and called, in the most vigorous language at his command, for an end to the ‘insane traffic’ in guns — a trade, as he observed, that makes instruments of death as readily purchasable as baskets of fruit or cartons of cigarettes…”

Curator’s note: In his column, “A letter from the PUBLISHER,” in the June 14, 1968 issue of TIME, James R. Shepley (1917-1988) noted that this was the sixth cover portrait of Robert F. Kennedy, who had been murdered on June 6 at age 42. “The relatively brief career of Robert F. Kennedy commanded a remarkable share of the public’s attention,” he wrote. “His restless energy seemed a daily part of the news…..In our first cover story on him, when he was the campaign manager for his brother [President John F. Kennedy], we assessed him as ‘a you g man of brutal honesty and impeccable integrity.’…Later in his service as Attorney General, he was the cover figure for his role in the desegregation of the University of Alabama, and he was praised for ‘his shrewd tough abilities for detail-by-detail planning’… In 1966, as he passed President Johnson in popularity polls, the cover story reported that ‘a strong streak of fatalism runs through him.'”

Epilogue… or Prologue?

Curator’s note: CSTS invited Donald Shopland to comment on governmental efforts to tackle tobacco problems following the First World Conference on Smoking and Health. Shopland was a member of the staff of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General, which produced the landmark report on smoking and health in 1964. Over a career in the Public Health Service that spanned five decades, he served as an editor of 17 reports of the Surgeon General on smoking and health, interim director of the Office on Smoking and Health, and advisor on smoking and health at the National Cancer Institute. He replied by including this Associated Press story by Carla Johnson from April 1, 2025:

  • “Employees across the massive U.S. Health and Human Services Department received notices Tuesday that their jobs were being eliminated, part of a sweeping overhaul designed to vastly shrink the agencies responsible for protecting and promoting Americans’ health.
  • “The cuts include researchers, scientists, doctors, support staff and senior leaders, leaving the federal government without many of the key experts who have long guided U.S. decisions on medical research, drug approvals and other issues.
  • “’The revolution begins today!’ Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote on social media as he celebrated the swearing-in of his latest hires: Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the new director of the National Institutes of Health and Martin Makary, the new Food and Drug Administration commissioner. Kennedy’s post came just hours after employees began receiving emailed layoff notices. He later wrote, ‘Our hearts go out to those who have lost their jobs,’ but said that the department needs to be ‘recalibrated’ to emphasize disease prevention.”

“How apropos that this occurred on April Fool’s Day, except that they weren’t fooling. In addition to the estimated 10,000 HHS workers who took an early buyout, Sec. Kennedy confirmed the termination of another 10,000 employees across a wide spectrum of health agencies, including FDA, CDC, NIH and others. In addition to the reduction in FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, and those employees most focused on regulation of vaping and e-cigarettes, the cuts will essentially eliminate the US Office on Smoking and Health (OSH) as an entity. In March I received a text from a former colleague who was working for OSH and has over 35 years of federal service, in which he wrote that his position was being eliminated.

“The OSH and its predecessor agency, the National Clearinghouse for Smoking and Health, have a long and tortured funding history. During the 1960s and early 1970s a tobacco-industry-friendly Congress repeatedly attempted to reduce its already meager $2.3 million budget. In 1974 Dr. David Sencer, at that time the director of the Center for Disease Control (now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), made the decision to move the Clearinghouse from its Washington, DC location, housing it in two small houses off the main CDC campus in Atlanta, and eliminated most of its programs and staff (the Clearinghouse staff was reduced from 43 FTE’s [Full Time Equivalents] to just 5) and used those positions and budget to establish a newly created Bureau of Health Education at CDC. The Bureau spent the first year of its existence mostly trying to define what constituted ‘health education.’

“However, when Department of Health, Education, and Welfare Secretary Joseph A. Califano, Jr. was named to the post by President Carter in 1977, he made smoking prevention a cornerstone of his national health agenda and established OSH. Unfortunately, his outspoken stance on smoking put him in the crosshairs of the tobacco-growing states and their many supporters in the US Congress, and Carter fired him in August 1979. Two years later, the Reagan administration proposed eliminating OSH, but at the eleventh hour it was rescued by Department of Health and Human Services Secretary (DHHS) Richard Schweiker, albeit with a reduced budget and staff. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, appointed by President Reagan, greatly energized public concerns about smoking and health throughout the 1980s, and most subsequent secretaries of DHHS, regardless of political party affiliation, were generally supportive of OSH, its programs and mission.

“But in 2025 under DHHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the Office on Smoking and Health, the lone government entity that continuously fought for over 60 years to reduce the largest single cause of premature death and disability in the US, was eliminated.

“Although I did not hear Senator Kennedy’s speech at the first World Conference on Smoking and Health in person, I wondered why he decided to take up this politically fraught issue. Then a colleague shared the story of  being in the Senator’s office when he was hosting a meeting with cigarette company executives. One of them asked him why he chose this battle. Senator Kennedy pointed to a photograph of his 11 children and said, ‘Because of them.’”

Few in Congress have ever stood up to the tobacco industry… Senator Robert F. Kennedy was one of the first

Logo

Curated by Alan Blum, MD

Professor and Endowed Chair in Family Medicine
Director, Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society
College of Community Health Sciences
The University of Alabama School of Medicine, Tuscaloosa

Designed by Bryce Callahan

Undergraduate student majoring in computer engineering
Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society
College of Community Health Sciences
The University of Alabama School of Medicine, Tuscaloosa

Acknowledgments

*Gregory Connolly DMD MPH

Former Director of the Massachusetts Tobacco Control Program, 1985-2004,
for donating the video of the ABC-TV news report on the opening day of the First World Conference on Smoking and Health, September 11, 1967

Paul Goldberg

Editor and Publisher, The Cancer Letter,
for providing insights into the history of efforts by the federal government to reduce the toll taken by cancer