Tobacco Documents Online

~., PHILIP MORRIS COMP~ANIES INC. C.. INTER-OFFICE CORRESPONDENCE 120 PARK AVENUE, NEW YORK, N.Y. 10017-5592 DISTRIBU ON DECEMBER 12, 1990 TO: '~ jVt C ElVED THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY UL SUBJEC?: ---------------------------------------------L.uidl~~sJ H. VVAV. PM M-SINC----- At the invitation of Morris Offit, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of The Johns Hopkins University, Jack Nelson, Chuck Wall and I attended a meeting of the University's Committee:on Tobacco on December 10, 1990. We spent a little over an hour with the Committee. Attached is a list of those persons connected to the University who were invited to the meeting. Not all attended and at least one person not mentioned, the General Counsel, did attend. We did not attend the meeting from its inception and we believe the Deans of the School of Hygiene and Public Health and the School of Medicine presented an affirmative case for divestment before we entered the meeting. FROM: 3 \ '1 1990 N DO FRIE On the whole the atmosphere was friendly and we were treated most courteously. We were asked to comment on various issues most of which were covered in the remarks we had prepared for the meeting (see copy attached). The Trustees had been wrestling with the issue of divestment for some time and are well aware of and troubled by the "slippery slope" argument. They are aware that Eastman Kodak and Kimberly Clark, for example, are suppliers to the tobacco industry. In fact one of the Trustees stated that if it weren't for the "slippery slope" problem, he would vote for divestment in a minute. We were asked questions about the placement of warning labels on our cigarette packages overseas and about our advertising to the extent it might be directed toward youth (We were specifically asked whether we made Camels.) The Trustees seemed to be under a misapprehension as to the extent of labeling requirements overseas and we attempted to set the record straight. The argument for divestment was stated most cogently by one of the Trustees who is from Virginia and not an enemy of the tobacco industry. After describing the Johns Hopkins preeminence in medical education and indicating that medical education was the "special charge" of the University as a whole, he asked how the University could profit from cigarettes which one of its alumna (the Surgeon General) describes as "the most preventable r.., ............ ...... ~., . ~ N O N W N N W O

Memo to Distribution Re: The Johns Hopkins University Page 2. cause of death" (we were told not to contest the 390,000 annual death claim). In fact he said that if he were a Trustee of the University of Michigan, for example, he would not even consider divestment (See also the attached letter to Harold Brown). We were requested to supply additional factual information with respect to warning legends and a statement of our advertising policy. We were also asked to supply any additional arguments against divestment which we could develop. We agreed to do so in time for the next meeting of the Committee on Tobacco which is scheduled for the second or third week in January. DF ssf Distribution: M. H. Bring W. I. Campbell M. Firestone M. Kenny D. M. Kirby H. Maxwell H. Millington J. A. Murphy W. Murray S. Parrish G. L. Smith IV H. G. Storr G. Weissman- cc: J. Nelson C.` Wall JohnsHop.mem