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ELMO ROPER exn ASSOCIATES 30 ROCKEFELLER PLAZA • NEW YORK 20, N.Y. September (1, 1957 Mr. George Weissman Philip Morris, Inc. 100 Park Avenue New York 17, New York. I had lunch with Dad and Paul Lazarsfeld the other day. Dad raised with Paul the idea of possibl'y getting the American Statis- tical Association to make an independent analysis of the American Cancer Society's statistical study on the alleged relationship between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. Paul said that the Association itself was not set up to con- duct such a study, but that he thought it would be possible to put .together a committee of fellows in the American Statistical Association, and that they could make such an analysis providing the American Cancer Society cooperated and someone woul'd pay the necessary fees to the committee members for their time. He mentioned that there was precedent for this in that just such a committee was formed to make an analysis of Kinsey's raw data. Paul estimated that the fees for such a venture would run between $2,000 and $3;000 depending on what state the raw data was in. As I understand it, the approach would be that this committee would represent themselves, not as an official committee of the A. S. A. but rather as an independent committee of men who are fellows in A. S. A. They would request the data from A. C. S., explaining that they had been commissioned to conduct such an analysis by Philip Morris or T. (. R. C. or whoever the sponsor might be. - It seemed to us a worthwhile enough want to consider it. Cord'i a l ty, idea so that you might Burns W. Roper BWR:hgI