Beard, Donald I.
Dunn, William L., Jr.
In 1974 the Ford Motor Company started a voluntary program to determine to what extent education could help company employees modify their lifestyles to reduce their risk of cardiac disease. Naturally, most of the at-risk employees participating in the program were smokers, and part of the program included offering employees counseling to help them quit smoking.
Dr. William Dunn, senior scientist at the Philip Morris tobacco company, found out about Ford's program and generously offered to supply Ford with low-tar and low-nicotine cigarettes at a reduced price for smokers in the program who found it hard or impossible to quit.
In this letter, Ford's cardiac intervention program coordinator writes to Philip Morris to refuse the company's "kind offer," saying:
"As to your offer to supply cigarettes to those in the program who find it hard or impossible to quit at reduced prices with varying levels of tar and nicotine, I believe that you have misunderstood the purpose of the program. The intent is not to provide volunteers with alternative ways of maintaining those habits which elevate ones probably risk of heart disease. Our goal is to extinguish such habits."