Ashes to Ashes: America's Hundred-Year Cigarette War, the Public Health, and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris.

Richard Kluger Random House 201 East 50th St. New York, NY 10022 848 pp., $18.

In Ashes to Ashes: America's Hundred-Year Cigarette War, the Public Health, and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris, Richard Kluger, a journalist and the author of several books, details the history of the American tobacco industry and its unmatched facility at deception and conniving.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning book, which weighs in at a hefty 848 pages, provides an intimate look at the growth of an industry that recognized, early on, the power of advertising and the dangers that lurked in a rising consciousness of the adverse health effects of smoking. As Kluger states, the tobacco industry "labored prodigiously to reassure its customers, disarm its foes, purchase allies in high places, and minimize government intrusion into its gravely suspect business."

Only recently has the industry admitted that smoking is not good for a person's health--or that il has an addictive effect. Despite overwhelming scientific and other evidence, the industry stonewalled and denied these truths for decades. Kluger's intricate history, however, demonstrates that the evidence was almost always there.

Christopher Columbus, for example, bemoaned his crews' attraction to smoking as uncivilized but noted that "it was not within their power to refrain from indulging in the habit." In 1604, King James I declared smoking "a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lung, and the black stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horribly Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless." James I attempted to stem the flow of tobacco to England by raising the duty on the product by 4,000 percent. Early in the 17th century, the Pope banned smoking from the basilicas.

Smoking flourished nonetheless. Adopting an "if-you-can't-beat-them-join-them" philosophy, nations quickly learned that tobacco taxes could be a tremendous source of revenue. The same pattern appears present in today's proposed global tobacco settlement. The amount the tobacco companies would have to pay out to government will be reduced if the adult smoking volume, as compared with 1996 levels, falls.

The provision caused Maryland Attorney General Joseph Curran to note: "In order to get the $368 billion, we need to keep people smoking." The deal thus makes government partners with the tobacco companies, despite an objective to reduce smoking altogether.

Even the first medical evidence of a connection between smoking and cancer dates brick to 1761. By the time tobacco became a major American industry, manufacturers were acutely aware of health issues. Companies began to advertise how their blending processes reduced throat irritation. American Tobacco began to advertise that "20,679 physicians say Luckies are less irritating." In the 1920s, the Federal Trade Commission had to step in to end an advertising campaign that suggested smoking was a good way to diet.

Asbestos filters were introduced as "the greatest health protection in cigarette history," with now-obvious disastrous results. In the meantime, cigarette companies attacked studies that linked cigarettes to disease as yet another unwarranted attack that is "as old as the industry itself."

As Kluger writes, Big Tobacco used every means "to dispute, distort, minimize, or ignore the unfolding evidence against it." The companies, often through their attorneys, conducted studies that discarded adverse results and promoted favorable ones. In one instance in the 1980s, a Philip Morris scientist found significant evidence that smoking is addictive. He was ordered to shut down the laboratory, kill his laboratory rats, and destroy his studies.

In a compellingly told chapter on the Cipollone case, where a jury awarded the surviving spouse of a smoker $400,000, only to be reversed on preemption grounds, Kluger shows how the tobacco companies were adept at turning every reversal of fortune into a weapon they could use. Federally mandated warning labels became a preemption device against liability in state courts.

Kluger concludes his tale of tobacco deceit by suggesting the outlines of what is now the proposed global tobacco settlement. One can only conclude that he regarded the taming of the tobacco beast to be an impossibility that required concessions about civil liability and other interests. But his tale, and subsequent events, suggest that Big Tobacco remains in the driver's seat in this settlement. If the industry is really to change, it cannot be trusted with such concessions.

Robert S. Peck is director of ATLA's Legal Affairs Department.