ABOUT THIS BOOK

The classic American struggle between the public interest and corporate interests is perhaps nowhere better illustrated than in the decades-long struggle between the tobacco industry and advocates for public health. The failure of the "global settlement" legislation is now viewed by many public health experts as an historic missed opportunity, and in this extraordinary book, Smoke in Their Eyes, Michael Pertschuk brilliantly describes the forces brought to bear.

A lifelong public health leader and tobacco control advocate, Pertschuk provides uncommon insight into the movement and its opposition. Questions that reveal themselves here can be applied to public advocacy as a whole: how can movement leaders gauge and best employ popular support? Who has legitimacy to speak on behalf of a particular public cause? And perhaps most crucially, how is it possible for those whose cause is a moral one to strike political compromise? With a narrative as compelling as the issues it raises, Smoke in Their Eyes will be of great interest to everyone from students of public advocacy and political science to general readers.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Michael Pertschuk served as chairman of the Federal Trade Commission from 1977 to 1981, and he cofounded the Advocacy Institute. He is the author of Smoke in Their Eyes: Lessons in Movement Leadership from the Tobacco Wars and The DeMarco Factor: Transforming Public Will into Political Power (both published by Vanderbilt University Press) and three other books.

REVIEWS

Certainly the best-written piece of nonfiction in its genre I have ever read. Pertschuk has a gift for taking what could be just another 'Washington insider' story and transforming it into the true overarching moral/political/human drama it actually is--and all of it infused with a sense of tremendous social consequences for each one of us, which it also is.
--Brock Evans, Executive Director, The Endangered Species Coalition— -

Nobody has a broader or clearer understanding of the worldwide antitobacco movement than Michael Pertschuk. His inside analysis of how its brightest hour suddenly turned into its darkest moment is an urgent object lesson, teaching that even those firmly on the side of the angels can be consumed by righteousness and self-importance. In this case, the good guys let themselves be blinded to the hard realities of the political process always lurking in the shadows. The U.S. public health community's failure to seriously blunt the perils of smoking--the nationís most destructive drug--when it had the tobacco industry reeling is a national tragedy that needed to be chronicled.
--Richard Kluger, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Ashes to Ashes— -

Certainly the best-written piece of nonfiction in its genre I have ever read. Pertschuk has a gift for taking what could be just another 'Washington insider' story and transforming it into the true overarching moral/political/human drama it actually is--and all of it infused with a sense of tremendous social consequences for each one of us, which it also is.
--Brock Evans, Executive Director, The Endangered Species Coalition— -

Nobody has a broader or clearer understanding of the worldwide antitobacco movement than Michael Pertschuk. His inside analysis of how its brightest hour suddenly turned into its darkest moment is an urgent object lesson, teaching that even those firmly on the side of the angels can be consumed by righteousness and self-importance. In this case, the good guys let themselves be blinded to the hard realities of the political process always lurking in the shadows. The U.S. public health community's failure to seriously blunt the perils of smoking--the nationís most destructive drug--when it had the tobacco industry reeling is a national tragedy that needed to be chronicled.
--Richard Kluger, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Ashes to Ashes— -

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Table of Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Part I: Leading toward Settlement

1. Thinking the Unthinkable

2. Why Matt Myers?

3. Sinking the Unthinkable

4. The Search for Common Ground Begins

5. Why Stan Glantz and Julia Carol?

6. “Everyone” Agreed!

7. The Real Leadership?

8. A Suspect Consensus

9. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

10. Day One: Four Meetings, Two Directions

11. One Stays, One Stays Out

Part II: The Settlement

12. Progress

13. Betrayed?

14. Slings and Arrows

15. With Friends Like These...

16. The Line Hardens

17. A Divorce in the Family

18. The Nicotine Fix

19. “I Say It’s Immunity, and I Say the Hell with It!”

20. “When to Walk Away”

21. The Two Ks to the Rescue

22. The Deal Is Struck—and Stricken

Part III: The Rise and Fall of the McCain Bill

23. The Struggle for Clinton’s Nod

24. Unity under Clinton’s Umbrella?

25. Things Fall Apart—the Center Cannot Hold

26. The Moving Kessler-Koop Line

27. The All-Inclusive Anti-Immunity Club

28. McCain to the Rescue

29. A Cliffhanger on Liability

30. Not Good Enough

31. Worse Than Nothing!

32. Guess Who’s Not Coming to Dinner

33. The Window of Opportunity Slams Shut

Part IV: Lessons from the Settlement and Its Aftermath

34. What Was Gained? What Was Lost?

35. And the Rest of the Globe?

36. Thirteen Ways to Lead a Movement Backward

37. The Wrong Leaders for the Right Moment

38. Engaged in the Work of Democracy

Conclusion: With a Little Bit of Luck

Afterword: Lessons of the Tobacco Wars

Epilogue

Chronology of Key Events

Acknowledgments

Index