On the subject of smoking, Jimmy Carter was a paradox. On the one hand, two of his best appointments were former Lyndon Johnson aide Joseph Califano, Jr. as Secretary of Health Education and Welfare and Harvard pediatrician Dr. Julius Richmond as Surgeon General and Assistant Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. The Surgeon General’s Report of 1979 was the most comprehensive to that point, and the report on the health consequences of smoking for women published a year later made front-page news and had a major impact. Carter’s other significant contribution to fighting smoking was his appointment of Dr. Vincent DaVita. to head the National Cancer Institute. Under DaVita and another caring individual, the late Joe Cullen, the NCI changed course from trying to find a safer cigarette to studying and promoting ways to get people to stop smoking.
Ultimately, though, Carter’s foremost, albeit inadvertent, contribution to anti-smoking was his firing of Califano, best summed up in the headline, “Carter fired Califano for doing his job”
(https://news. google.com/newspapers?ntF2002&daF19790729&id:nB4vAAAAIBAJ&sjid:pNoFAAAAIBAJ&pg:3 544,5659924) The author of this column was conservative William
Buckley, no friend of Democrats but a great admirer of Califano and his role in rousing the nation on tobacco. Even Ronald Reagan, who stated before assuming office that he would be too busy to deal with such things as smoking, unknowingly made a far greater contribution than Carter to ending the tobacco pandemic by his appointment of Dr. C. Everett Koop as Surgeon General.
Of course, that brings up other revisionistic matters, since virtually every public health and medical organization in the nation, most notably the American Public Health Association, vehemently opposed Koop’s
nomination because of his opposition to abortion.
In fairness to Carter, in September 1985, nearly five years after leaving office, he convened a Camp David-like “conflict resolution retreat” at Calloway Gardens, Georgia, to which he invited the heads of major health organizations, tobacco state agriculture commissioners, and executives of the tobacco industry. (The only tobacco company person who attended was Michael Kerrigan, a public relations operative for snuff-maker United States Tobacco Company). It was perhaps the first time that face-to-face discussions were held between pro-tobacco interests and anti-smoking groups. This exhibition features documents from that three-day event.
Participants unanimously agreed on two issues: that the farmer wasn’t the problem and that America’s teenagers needed better education on the harmfulness of tobacco. An article by Carter aide Dayle E. Powell in the Negotiation Journal summarized the symposium, which led to a subsequent summit in Washington and the passage of a ban on TV advertisements for smokeless tobacco..
Unfortunately, since then Presidential Library and Center has ever done little at curbing the global tobacco pandemic. Offered the first opportunity to host an exhibition in 2014 to commemorate the 50th
anniversary of the publication of the Landmark Surgeon General’s Report, the director of the carter Presidential Library declined.The Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library hosted the exhibition.
“CARTER WINS: Ford Vows His Support In Conceding”
Front page
The Atlanta Journal
November 3, 1976
“Carter Is Sworn In As 39th President: Urges New Spirit of Unity and Trust”
Front page
The Atlanta Journal
January 20, 1977
[BC: Separate this 4-page pdf into three items. Presidential Documents is 2-page pdf; other two items are single pages]
“Hot Issue: HEW’s Califano Ends His Anticigaret Drive; Burns Up Many People; He Is Attacked by All Sides But Also Wins Support; Is Carter Hurt in South?”
Front-page portion of article by Rich Jaroslov and Douglas R. Sease
The Wall Street Journal
May 1, 1978
PRESIDENTIAL DOCUMENTS: Informal Question-and-Answer Session with Reporters
Winston-Salem, North Carolina
March 17, 1978
“ANTI-SMOKING CAMPAIGN
“Q: You spoke favorably of North Carolina as a tobacco-producing state. Does this mean you’re calling off Secretary Joseph Califano off the anti-smoking campaign?
“THE PRESIDENT: No. Joe Califano has a responsibility, as Secretary of HEW, to protect and enhance the health of American people…
“Tobacco, in some instances, is damaging to our Nation’s health, particularly among very young children and those who have respiratory diseases. We have only a $30 million budget on tobacco in HEW. This is all that Joe Califano asked for, and I think that’s what he’ll get. Two-thirds of that budget is for research. And I don’t think that anyone who grows tobacco in Winston-Salem or North Carolina or Georgia or other States that produce tobacco would say that the research program in recent years has not been beneficial…
“So, I would say there’s a well-balanced campaign to protect the health of our Nation, which is Joe Califano’s responsibility, on the one hand, and to preserve the health and stability of the tobacco industry, which is under Bob Berglund, Secretary of Agriculture, and myself.
“I don’t think there needs to be any concern about that, and nobody need fear the facts about tobacco use. Certainly, no one need fear the emphasis on research that will make the use of tobacco in the future even more safe than it has been in the past.”
“President to Visit Tobacco Country to Attempt to Bolster Candidates”
Article by Wayne King
The New York Times
August 5, 1978
“Just how much damage Mr. Califano’s antismoking campaigns are doing to President Carter’s popularity… appears to have been forcefully brought home to President Carter.
“Tomorrow, the President will visit Wilson, a town of about 30,000 people…in the heart of tobacco country.
“The President will make what a White House aide…called a ‘symbolic visit’ to Growers Warehouse, the site of the world’s biggest bright leaf tobacco auction.”
Letter from President Jimmy Carter to Alan Blum, MD inviting him to be a participant at the Conflict Resolution Symposium on Tobacco (2 pages)
July 1, 1985
Letter from Dayle E. Powell, JD to Alan Blum, MD listing final arrangements for the Conflict Resolution Symposium on Tobacco (2 pages)
July 25, 1985
“Creative Approaches to Resolution of Conflict in Modern Society: Tobacco”
Cover of participants’ packet for the conflict resolution retreat on tobacco at Calloway Gardens, Georgia, autographed by Jimmy Carter
THE CARTER CENTER OF EMORY UNIVERSITY
September 8-10, 1985
“Agenda for Symposium on Creative Approaches to Resolution of Conflict in Modern Society: Tobacco” (3 pages)
September 8-10, 1985
Objectives of the Carter Center on Conflict Resolution with sketch of Jimmy Carter by Alan Blum, MD
September 9, 1985
Issues for Discussion [BC: use only second page of this 2-page pdf; discard page one]
“Defining the Issues: Small Group Sessions” (8 pages)
The Carter Center Symposium on Conflict Resolution in Modern Society: Tobacco
September 8-10, 1985
List of Participants at Carter Center Conflict Resolution Symposium on Tobacco (3 pages)
September 8-10, 1985
Letter from Jimmy Carter to Alan Blum, MD expressing appreciation for attending the Conflict Resolution Symposium on Tobacco
September 20, 1985
Letter from Alan Blum, MD to President Jimmy Carter expressing appreciation for having been invited to participate in the Conflict Resolution Symposium on Tobacco
October 7, 1985
Letter from Dayle E. Powell, JD, Assistant to President Carter, to Alan Blum, MD, expressing appreciation for participating in the Conflict Resolution Symposium on Tobacco
October 16, 1985
“I Have Chance to Be Great President, Carter Says”
Article by James MacCartney
The Miami Herald
January 28, 1977
“Conflict Resolution Symposium Derails a Potential Tobacco ‘War'” (4 pages)
Article by Dayle E. Powell
Negotiation Journal
January 1989, pages 75-82
“President Carter decided to focus on tobacco as the inaugural work of the [Carter] Center’s program on conflict resolution…”
“The goal of these meetings—which were staffed by a group of mediators skilled in conflict resolution processes—was not to resolve, or even attempt to resolve, the many issues related to the tobacco controversy. Participants in these meetings maintained positions that were unchangeable, and convert from one position to another were highly unlikely, Rather, the purpose of the session was to empower the parties themselves to work toward resolution of those issues that could be negotiated, and to do so through negotiation processes that may be more cost-effective and timely than litigation, lobbying, and traditional bargaining.”
“Jimmy Carter, Mr. President”
Front page
The Miami News
November 3, 1976
“It’s Carter and Mondale”
Front page
The Miami News
July 15, 1976
“Ford and Carter Fight It Out On Jobs, Pardon, Tax, Budget”
Front page
The Miami Herald
September 21, 1976
“Carter a new Nixon, GOP attack claims”
Front page
The Miami News
August 9, 1976
“Ford, Carter race nearly dead heat”
Front page
The Miami News
November 1, 1976
“Demos Pick Carter; Mondale VP Choice”
Front page
The Atlanta Journal
July 15, 1976
“NATION CASTS UNEXPECTEDLY HEAVY VOTE IN CLOSE FORD-CARTER RACE FOR PRESIDENT”
Front page
The New York Times
November 3, 1976
“JIMMY CARTER: ‘IF KENNEDY RUNS I’LL WHIP HIS ASS'” (2 pages)
Front page
Back page (sports) with advertisement by the American Tobacco Company for Carton cigarettes (“17 packs of Carlton have less tar than 1 pack of Kent. Carlton is lowest.”)
The New York Post
June 12, 1979
“The ‘never before’ menthol.” / “Dixie Whistles A Different Tune: Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter”
Back cover advertisement by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company for Vantage cigarettes, cover photograph of Governor Jimmy Carter
TIME Magazine
May 31, 1977
“it doesn’t do much for my ego. that’s the breaks.” / “ENERGY BATTLE: HIS FIRST BIG TEST”
Back cover advertisement by Philip Morris, Inc. for Benson & Hedges 100s cigarettes, cover photograph of President Jimmy Carter
April 22, 1977
“B & H, I like your style.” / “Running Tough: “A Choice Between Two Futures'”
Back cover advertisement by Philip Morris Inc. for Benson & Hedges Lights cigarettes, cover photograph of President Jimmy Carter
TIME Magazine
August 25,1980
