Tobacco is deadly, exec says

Unprecedented turn: Liggett's chief testifies in flight attendants' suit.

BY MARTIN MERZER
KnightRidder News Service

MIAMI In an unprecedented spectacle, the chief executive of an American
tobacco company raised his right hand Monday, swore to tell the truth and
then testified that cigarettes are addictive and produce deadly diseases.

Overcoming a withering flurry of objections from lawyers paid by his own
industry, Bennett LeBow, the maverick Miami executive who owns the Liggett
Group, said he now agrees with tobacco's most strident critics.

``We believe, for many people, smoking is very addictive,'' LeBow told a Dade
County circuit court jury. His company makes Chesterfields, L&Ms, Larks,
Eves and more than 100 discount brands of cigarettes.

He was asked: Does smoking cause lung cancer, heart and respiratory disease
and emphysema?

``The answer,'' LeBow said, ``is yes.''

LeBow testified as a witness for flight attendants who say they developed lung
cancer and other serious illnesses through constant exposure to secondhand
smoke on jetliners. Claiming to represent 60,000 nonsmoking colleagues, they
are suing the industry for $5 billion.

The industry denies all the charges, but never before has it been required to
block and attack the testimony of one of its own chief executives. Once a
valued member of the tobacco fraternity, LeBow is now an outcast.

``They don't talk to me these days,'' he said.

Nevertheless, he testified, he is comfortable with his new alignment with
tobacco's opponents. Liggett recently began printing warnings on its cigarette
packages that are sterner than required by law. One of those messages:
``Warning: Smoking is addictive.''

``I am very proud,'' said LeBow, 59, stocky and tan, a onetime smoker who
quit 27 years ago. ``I'm absolutely sure we did the right thing, and I'd do it
again in a second.''

LeBow testified that, in 1995, industry leader Philip Morris offered to pay about
$10 million a year in legal fees for his debtridden firm. He accepted the offer,
but the deal lasted less than six months.

He was asked: Why would a competitor do that?

Tobacco company executives blocked LeBow from responding, but out of the
jury's hearing, the attendants' lawyers asserted that the industry sought to buy
LeBow's silence.

``At the time, they were obviously concerned about what he was going to say,''
attorney Susan Rosenblatt told Circuit Judge Robert Kaye. ``That was a means
of buying his cooperation so he wouldn't be a spokesman for the opposition,''
said Stanley Rosenblatt, her husband and law partner.

LeBow was subpoenaed by the Rosenblatts precisely because he has broken
ranks with the rest of the industry. In March, Liggett and its parent company,
the Brooke Group, settled lawsuits filed by dozens of states seeking to recover
Medicaid funds spent on sick smokers.

The smallest of the five major cigarette producers, Liggett agreed to pay
onequarter of its pretax profits during the next 25 years. The problem: Liggett
is in financial trouble and no one knows if it will earn any profits. LeBow also
agreed as part of the settlement to cooperate in legal attacks against the
industry.

Judge Kaye prohibited testimony about Liggett's settlement, or last month's
$368.5 billion national settlement between the tobacco industry and 40 state
attorneys general, which is undergoing review and requires approval by
Congress.

Industry officials have sought to portray LeBow as a financial opportunist who
simply wanted to get a better deal from the attorneys general.

The testimony marked a dramatic turn of events for LeBow. As recently as
1993, he joined other industry executives in denying that tobacco was addictive
or dangerous in any way.

On Monday, LeBow suggested that his change of heart was based on new
science and high ideals, rather than more practical financial concerns.

``After reviewing the scientific evidence and the popular press, we have now
come to totally different conclusions . . . '' he said. ``This is something we
really believe in.''

Published Tuesday, July 22, 1997, in the San Jose Mercury News