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Wigand, J

==

“lawyers

from

the

big

New

York

firm

Chadbourne

&

Parke

and

Atlanta's

King

&

Spalding,

and

top

New

York

public-­‐relations

adviser

John

Scanlon.

They

are

working

with

the

Investigative

Group

Inc.,

a

leading

Washington-­‐based

detective

firm

whose

New

York

office

is

run

by

a

former

[and

current]

New

York

City

police

commissioner,

Raymond

Kelly.

This

is

the

firm

Ivana

Trump

hired

to

investigate

her

rival

Marla

Maples

and

that

Sen.

Edward

Kennedy

used

to

check

into

an

opponent

in

his

1994

campaign.”105

The adventure of Jeffrey Weigand and the tobacco industry story has been captured in the film The Insider.

Was the film accurate or was the film fiction?

Mike Wallace: Two-thirds of the film is quite accurate. It was dramatized excessively.

How was it watching Christopher Plummer play you?

Mike Wallace: Listen, I could have been a contender if I was that good-looking. He did a good job, I thought, he got some of my tics. But, the basis of the film was that I had lost my moral compass and had gone along with the company and caved in for fear of a lawsuit or something like that. Also, Don Hewitt, who is the Executive Producer of 60 Minutes, but mainly me. That was utter bullshit. It was done for the drama involved. Then finally, at the end, I found my moral compass again, except it was not true.

In a quote from the movie, your character says, "I'm with Don on this." In other words, "Yeah, we should kill it." You didn't do that?

Mike Wallace: Certainly not. In the broadcast that we did do at that time, I did a mea culpa on behalf of CBS. I negotiated it with the people at CBS, which permitted me to say that for the first time in the history of 60 Minutes, for the first time in the history of CBS News, as I know it, I was told not to do something. We weren't going to broadcast something that I had done for fear of a law suit or something of that nature. God, that happily is not my reputation, and it was a lie. But it made it more dramatic.

Well, it's up there on this big screen and people are going to see it all over the country. That must have been very frustrating for you.

Mike Wallace: It was especially frustrating because I had never been contacted to get my side of the story. This is ostensibly history, but no one -- not the writers, not the producer -- called me and said, "Mike, okay, we want to do this. Tell us your version of the story." Nothing of that sort happened.

What is your version of the story?

Mike Wallace: It was difficult to get Jeffrey Weigand to speak. He came to New York on two occasions with his wife. His wife did not want him to speak about it because he had an agreement with the Brown & Williamson Tobacco company that he was not going to talk about that. We tried to persuade him. We were all in this together, the camera crews, the technicians, Lowell Bergman who was the producer, and I. Finally, finally, he decided to sit down and tell his story, which was extraordinary. Now came the fact that unbeknownst to us, Larry Tisch owned and was running the CBS network at the time, was in the middle of negotiations with the Brown & Williamson corporation, which was the corporation involved in this whole business with Jeffrey Weigand. Negotiation about some off-brands or one thing or another. Also, there was a concern that perhaps there would be a major, major lawsuit. We were told by the attorneys at CBS that chances are the lawsuit would be brought against CBS in Kentucky and that conceivably a Kentucky jury, obviously, would go against us and conceivably there could be a levy, if you will or a fine, something in the amount of $15 billion if it came down against us, and that naturally, we would appeal and in order to appeal, CBS would have to put up a tenth of that $15 billion, which is $1.5 billion. Look, I had no idea if it was accurate or inaccurate, but therefore they decided that they were simply not going to permit this thing to be broadcast. Well, you can imagine! As far as we were concerned, we had never had anything like this before.

Meantime, Lowell Bergman is taking careful notes about what everybody was saying. I had no idea why he was taking notes, but in any case...

We finally decided that we were going to broadcast a piece about it, the same piece that we were intending to do, except we would not name Brown & Williamson, Jeffrey Weigand and all of the individuals. So, if you hadn't named the people, you couldn't be sued. I mean, who would sue you? In any case, that was what finally took place. Obviously, we were all not enthusiastic about it because we wanted the real thing on, but all of the information that would have been there would be there, except for the name of the company, the name of the scientist, and the name of the CEO, and so forth.So, we put it on the air, except that I demanded and got the opportunity to tell the audience that nothing like this had ever happened in my decade at CBS. You can imagine, prior to all of this, that there had been fights between the lawyers -- the company lawyers and the outside lawyers and things of that nature.But, we put it on the air and I said, "When it becomes possible, we will broadcast the whole thing." Well, that took not very long because the Wall Street Journal had the story, published the story and obviously, as soon as that was published, they said, "Go ahead because they can't very well sue you and not the Wall Street Journal." So we put it on the air.

But...

Mr. Bergman, with whom I had worked for 13 years, suggested that he had been against putting that sanitized piece on the air, and said that I had caved in and Hewitt had caved in. He leaked that misinformation to The New York Times. What else he leaked, I have no idea. So it came off as though -- I mean Hewitt and I were virtually not speaking because Don had indeed gone along with the company, and I had for a period of maybe about 12 hours and then I said, "Unh-unh, I'm not going to do this." All of this is on the record. It's on the record, what I'm saying. Naturally, I was upset about it and made it apparent that I was upset about it. There was no talk about a movie at that time. Then, I suddenly realized that Mr. Bergman had been forwarding all of this information toMichael Mann, an old friend of his, who was producing and/or directing and/or writing the film. So that, he knew everything that was going on inside our shop.

He was privy to what we knew at the same time that it was happening.

Lowell always felt that he had gotten insufficient attention for his work and he probably had. Producers by and large don't get sufficient attention for their work.

Do you think there was actually a vindictive feeling on his part? If not consciously maybe subconsciously?

Mike Wallace: Not subconsciously. In any case, I asked Lowell to get me a copy of the manuscript. He said he couldn't do it. Couldn't do it! I finally called Michael Mann and got a copy of the manuscript within 24 hours. I pointed out some of the wrongs things in there, just outright dead wrong. Michael Mann corrected those, but he quite candidly said, "Look we need the drama." He didn't say it this way. But, "We need the drama of the fellow who loses his compass and finally gets it back and everything resolves itself." Well, what can you do under those circumstances?

Looking back on that, is there anything you would have done differently, regardless of what the film said?

Mike Wallace: There was nothing that I could have done.

It never occurred to me that this kind of disloyalty -- that's not the right word -- that this kind of connivery would have gone on behind the scenes. I mean Bergman and I had been working together for years and years. He saw a chance to make some money and so forth. Then the amusing thing or the ironic thing, he said that he'd been fired and so forth. He was never fired. He stayed on and collected his salary for two years more, I believe it was. Then he wanted a job on 60 Minutes II and came to my apartment to ask if I would help him get his job back at 60 Minutes II, which I declined...http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/wal2int-5

==

A Tobacco Whistle-Blower's Life Is Transformed

By RICK LYMAN
Published: October 15, 1999

CHARLESTON, S.C.—It was not the first time it had happened. Sitting with some friends in a bar-restaurant, still energized from accepting his first honorary doctorate, Jeffrey S. Wigand noticed a man approaching from the bar.

''He started shouting at me in a very abusive way,'' Mr. Wigand said.

A colleague who was seated with Mr. Wigand said it was all very sudden and threatening.

''The man just went off on Jeff,'' she said. ''He started screaming: 'How does it feel not to be making big money any more? Look at your cheap shoes.' He said to me, 'What's a nice-looking woman like you doing with a loser like this?' ''

The man pointed to a tobacco company logo on his shirt and pulled a wad of bills from his pocket, thrusting it under Mr. Wigand's nose. Big tobacco money! Remember what this looks like?

Only several years ago, few people had heard of Jeffrey S. Wigand, then a high-salaried senior executive at the Brown & Williamson tobacco company in Louisville, Ky., owned by British American Tobacco. But in 1993 Mr. Wigand was dismissed, which he attributed to his resisting the company's use of a potentially dangerous pipe tobacco additive. And he was warned, he said, to abide by the company's confidentiality agreement or face lawsuits and the potential loss of his family's medical benefits.

Nonetheless, despite increasing pressure from the company and anonymous death threats, he said, he decided to cooperate with Federal regulators and anti-tobacco investigators, becoming among the most famous corporate whistle-blowers in America, the man who told a grand jury and ''60 Minutes'' the inside secrets of Big Tobacco.

Mr. Wigand's disclosures played a crucial role in the case brought by the states' attorneys general against the major tobacco companies, which resulted in a $246 billion settlement last year for health claims paid by the states for tobacco-related illnesses, and in the decision last month by the United States Justice Department to seek billions of dollars in additional damages from the tobacco makers.

But being a whistle-blower has not been easy. Indeed, Mr. Wigand said he had never become comfortable with the term ''whistle-blower.''

''I don't even like the word,'' he said. ''To me, it has a negative connotation. And I struggle with what I did with what I knew; I really do.''

Mr. Wigand has drawn his share of critics. He has been cast as a turncoat for spilling company secrets and blasted as someone driven to anti-tobacco zealotry by what has happened to him.

But he said he did not embrace the martyr's cloak, and was not dedicating his life to an anti-tobacco crusade to do penance for his years earning big dollars from tobacco.

''If it's penance, I've paid it already,'' he said.

When he worked for Brown & Williamson, he lived in an 8,300-square-foot house in one of Louisville's fanciest neighborhoods, sent his daughters to the best schools, drove a company-bought Mercedes-Benz, played golf at the country club and took his wife with him on business trips, everything first class.

''I had all the trappings of a successful corporate executive,'' Mr. Wigand said.

Now, he lives and works in an apartment on the outskirts of Charleston -- ''two-and-a-half miles from downtown and two-and-a-half miles from the beach'' -- running a foundation he formed to teach children about the dangers of tobacco. The foundation, Smoke-Free Kids, has a staff of one, he said. Him. There are no more country clubs or first-class living.

''I went from making $300,000 a year -- plus stock options, plus, plus, plus -- to making $30,000,'' Mr. Wigand said. ''Yes, there is a price I've paid. Anybody who got near me paid a price.''

So, the inevitable question, the one he said everyone eventually asked him: Would he do it again?

''Yes,'' he said. ''There is no stuttering here. There is no hesitation. I am at peace with myself. I have a good name now. It's a very good name and I protect it very much. My name stands for integrity. I can't describe to you what it is like to have that feeling.''

His story is the subject of a new movie, ''The Insider,'' to be released by Disney on Nov. 5, directed by Michael Mann and starring Al Pacino as Lowell Bergman, the ''60 Minutes'' producer who prodded Mr. Wigand to go public and then fought to have the interview broadcast, and Russell Crowe as Mr. Wigand.

He has seen the movie and loves it -- ''it was 100 percent on target, at least for me'' -- and acknowledges that he feels more than a tiny bit of vindication. He looks forward to taking his daughters, ages 11 and 13, to the star-studded premieres.

''I want my children to see it with me,'' he said. ''I mean, they're proud. Terribly proud.''

Mr. Wigand said he had received and would receive no money from the film. ''My pay is psychological,'' he said.

Of the future, he said: ''Basically, I would like to have some private life again. I don't want the people around me to feel there is always an impending situation about to happen.''

After he was dismissed by Brown & Williamson, Mr. Wigand taught at du Pont Manual High School in a diverse urban neighborhood in central Louisville. His marriage fell apart.

''I don't really want to go there,'' he said. ''It was very passionate and very bitter, on both sides. It was not an amicable divorce.''

Still, he decided to stay in Louisville.

''My kids were there, and there was a part of me that did not want to run out of the lion's den with my tail between my legs,'' Mr. Wigand said.

It was not all bad, though.

''Some days were good, some were ugly,'' he said. ''Sometimes people would come up and defend me when someone attacked me.''

Then, his ex-wife remarried and moved to Texas. And there continued to be the occasional nasty incident in Louisville. In 1998, when the states' attorneys general settled with the tobacco companies, part of the settlement was an agreement that the companies would drop all of their legal actions against Mr. Wigand. He decided it was time to leave Kentucky.

He picked Charleston, he said, because one of his lawyers had his offices there, and because it was near his father and the ocean. His daughters remain close to him and visit regularly. But he lives alone, save for a dog that one of his lawyers bought him, ''you know, for some company.'' He said he had not felt, until very recently, that he was ready to embark on a new relationship.

''I needed to be able to go around anonymously for awhile, to heal,'' Mr. Wigand said. ''Now, I can relax a little bit. I would like to have a relationship. I'm going through rebuilding my life when I'm 56 years old.''

Some days, he said, he hardly thinks about his former life.

''The fear is gone now,'' he said. ''I think I've been seasoned a bit.''

That made it all the more disheartening when the man verbally assaulted him. It reminded him, Mr. Wigand said, that passions about tobacco are high and that the release of the new movie may stir them up again in some people.

''To get the truth out has been such an effort,'' he said. ''It's still an effort.''

==

Jeffrey S. Wigand (/:{ˈ:(style="border-bottom-width:1px;border-bottom-style:dotted"):}::{w:(style="border-bottom-width:1px;border-bottom-style:dotted"):}::{aɪ:(style="border-bottom-width:1px;border-bottom-style:dotted"):}::{ɡ:(style="border-bottom-width:1px;border-bottom-style:dotted"):}::{æ:(style="border-bottom-width:1px;border-bottom-style:dotted"):}::{n:(style="border-bottom-width:1px;border-bottom-style:dotted"):}::{d:(style="border-bottom-width:1px;border-bottom-style:dotted"):}:/; born December 17, 1942) is a formervice president of research and development at Brown & Williamson in Louisville, Kentucky, who worked on the development of reduced-harm cigarettes. He lectures around the world as an expert witness and consultant for various tobaccoissues, and devotes time to his non-profit organization Smoke-Free Kids Inc, an organization that attempts to help children of all ages make better decisions and healthy choices regarding tobacco use.

Wigand became nationally known as a whistleblower onFebruary 4, 1996 when he appeared on the CBSnews program**60 Minute**s and stated that Brown & Williamson had intentionally manipulated its tobacco blend to increase the amount of Nicotine in cigarette smoke. Wigand claimed that he was subsequently harassed and received anonymous death threats. Wigand discussed the death threats in an interview.[1]

He was portrayed by Russell Crowe in the 1999 film The Insider directed by Michael Mann, which also starsAl Pacino and Christopher Plummer.

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Biography

Jeffrey Wigand was born in New York and grew up in the Bronx and later Pleasant Valley, New York. After a brief time in the military (including a short assignment in Vietnam), he earned a Master's and PhD from theUniversity at Buffalo. He met his first wife Linda in 1970 while attending a judo class.

Prior to working for Brown and Williamson, Wigand worked for several health care companies; including Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson. In addition, he was employed as General Manager and Marketing Director at Union Carbide in Japan, and as Senior Vice President at Technicon Instruments.

Wigand began to work for Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation in January 1989 and wasfired on March 24, 1993. He says that he was fired because he knew that high-ranking corporate executives knowingly approved the addition of additives to their cigarettes that were known to be carcinogenic and/or addictive, such as Coumarin.[2][3] Following this he taught chemistry and Japanese at duPont Manual Magnet High School in Louisville, Kentucky, and was eventually named 1996 Teacher of the Year for the state of Kentucky.

Wigand no longer teaches high school and instead lectures worldwide to a variety of audiences including children, college students, medical and law students and policy makers. He has consulted with the governments throughout the world on tobacco control policies (the list includes Canada, The Netherlands, Scotland, Israel, Italy, Malta, Germany, France, Ireland, Iceland, Japan). Wigand is currently married to Hope Elizabeth May, an American philosopher, author and lawyer [4] who is a professor at Central Michigan University in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, where he now resides. He is a member of the Mount Pleasant Board of Education.[5]

See also

References

  1. ^ Aftermath with William Shatner The Insider: Jeffery Wigand (9 Aug. 2011). imdb.com
  2. ^ http://www.jeffreywigand.com/60minutes.php
  3. ^ Brenner, Marie (May 1996), "The Man Who Knew Too Much", Vanity Fair, retrieved July 2, 2010
  4. ^ A Very Special Wedding. Cwmemory.com (2008-10-19). Retrieved on 2012-06-03.
  5. ^ School Board. Tech.mtpleasant.k12.mi.us. Retrieved on 2012-06-03.

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