Tobacco Documents Online

® 97 1ent, I, aid E like. Imong ne. Cbs k+c.. S+ Wcsl S'st""N ,r,.~t N.w.ront00I9 TA $rseoso C,n,f 1Mo«W.vIsA.rc:6S B-axjsi Gra+D CBST NM'Vrk c15Eneruamnr. CqS Sc»ns CC5%0«5 66'tj , 5 , .i ~v. glad t-e an- CDS'e+•aw+n Subn's Cas R+ee ject, causes hity fo l 2 •Dear Er'., Secretary: February 17, 1978 I have read your letter of January 14 and your speech at the Fational Inter-agency Council on Smoking and Health with interest and with some surprise. Some years agoy when special legislation banned cigarette advertising from broadcasting while permitting it in all other communications cedi'a, it was argued that this would reduce tobacco eonsuw.ption. This discriminatory approach has obviously failed. Your recent speech, while characterizing cigarette smoking as "Bublic Enemy 19umber One in the United States," does not suggest that other media be prohibited from accepting such advertising voluntarily. Indeed, neither your letter nor your speech includes any request to the print media to do any counter-advertising. Thus, it appears that the government has concluded that the one medium legally prohibited from advertising cigarettes should also be the only one arguing against smoking -- and that the government should attempt to dictate vhich public service announcements deserve priority on the air. In qour speech you say that, in cooperation with the Federal Trade Cozaissiony, you "will petition the Federal Communications Comvission to review its policies on public service announcements, so that mor•C,such announcements will be aired throughout the entire broadcast ds~" This, it seems to me, is an espousal of the principle that the ~ government can and should tell broadcasters what to broadcast. ~ You seek to mandate top priority for anti-smoking commercials. WhatD is to stop another agency of government from deciding that public -~ service messages relating to its particular area of concern deserve l the same or even higher priority? What is to keep the goverrment _ from preempting virtually all public service time that now goes to ~ volnntary groups for literally hundreds of other valuable voluntary endeavors? The independence of free broadcasting from government- nandated messages is a vital freedom not merely for broadcasters but for the informed American public. :

As you know, CBS is currently carrying anti-smoking messages on both radio and television. Such messages, along with public seri~ ~ announeements we broadcast for many other vital public causes, ~4 . account year after year for many millions of dollars worth of air a time. We cannot, however, acquiesce to any agency of government taking upon itself the dictation of broadcast content or priority,~ i t . Joseph~ ~A'.al3fano, Jr. S#cretary, partment of Health, Education, and Welfare 330 Independence Avenue S.W. Washington, D.C. 20201 ° t fl sA aP su ~'7 a t.