“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
[In Truth Tobacco Industry Documents]

“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…”