Hollywood hails a tobacco whistleblower

The Insider, directed by Michael Mann, from Touchstone Pictures. On general release

The Insider, from Disney's Touchstone Pictures, tells the story of how Jeffrey Wigand (played by Russell Crowe), a former executive of Brown and Williamson Tobacco, blew the whistle on the company's knowledge about the addictive properties of cigarettes. The other key player in the story is Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino), a television producer on the programme 60 Minutes, who helped persuade Wigand to tell his story. The film tells how the corporate brass at the CBS television network persuaded Bergman's bosses, including the celebrated correspondent Mike Wallace (Christopher Plummer), to kill the story, only to permit its resurrection after a nasty internal battle.

The drama revolves around Bergman's efforts to persuade Wigand to speak publicly about Brown and Williamson's knowledge of nicotine addiction, its manipulation of the drug, and its refusal to remove a carcinogenic substance from its pipe tobacco. Wigand fears that violating his confidentiality agreement will place him at personal risk and jeopardise the medical insurance benefits he receives under his severance agreement-including expensive coverage for one of his children who suffers from a chronic illness.

The film's poignant portrayal of Wigand is more faithful to actual events than its representation of Bergman, whose story of rebellion and resignation from CBS is overstated. The drama depicts the difficulties faced by Wigand, who was threatened by Brown and Williamson's chief executive, Thomas Sandefur (Michael Gambon), and followed by shadowy figures on several occasions. He even found a bullet in his mailbox. His position becomes more precarious after he has given an interview to CBS and the company decides not to show it because of fears that Brown and Williamson may sue, which might jeopardise CBS's anticipated multibillion dollar purchase by Westinghouse.

The film is enthralling, but it should not be mistaken for reportage. Its adverts proclaim: "Ordinary men of uncommon courage risk all to speak out and change everything." However, for those who have participated in shaping the recent legal measures against tobacco companies in the United States and who know the chain of events of the past five years, The Insider oversells the relative importance and impact of its story, which is simply one chapter in a longer tale.

It may not be any consolation to Brown and Williamson that, by the time the real Jeffrey Wigand went public, most of his information had already been exposed. Even his painful experiences were not unusual, as they were experienced in various guises by other whistleblowers and anti-tobacco activists, as told in the forthcoming book Civil Warriors: The Legal Siege on the Tobacco Industry by investigative reporter Dan Zegart. What concerned the tobacco companies-fast becoming America's preferred defendants-were the legal ramifications of the fact that Wigand could recite the damnable facts as a former high level executive. This may help to explain Brown and Williamson's reaction to the movie's release. The company accused Disney of stretching the truth-an ironic claim from a cigarette manufacturer-and warned that it might sue. It also commissioned a survey of movie patrons, evidently designed to support its predictable allegation, as part of any libel action, that the movie inflamed public prejudice against the company and caused it financial harm.

To briefly correct the film's view of history, the shot that launched the revolution was actually an award winning investigative piece by another 60 Minutes producer, Walt Bogdanich, then with ABC News, who in February 1994 exposed tobacco manufacturers' secret manipulation of nicotine to addict smokers-more than a year before Wigand was interviewed. Bogdanich's exposé featured an interview in silhouette of the premier whistleblower, a former employee of RJ Reynolds codenamed "Deep Cough." The startling report galvanised the US Food and Drug Administration to open its historic investigation of tobacco, prompted Congress to convene the hearing in which seven tobacco chief executives swore that nicotine was not addictive, and led to the filing of the first ever class action litigation on behalf of injured smokers-events that helped inspire Wigand to come forward.

So it seems oddly banal when Pacino's self righteous Bergman exclaims to his superiors, as if by revelation, "Big Tobacco is a story!" Ultimately, however, the film's failure to tell the complete tobacco story does not diminish the power of its message. As bad as CBS looks, Big Tobacco fares worse. Perhaps the foremost impression is-in best Disney style-the tobacco bosses' personification of evil. Brown and Williamson's Thomas Sandefur verily drips the stuff.

By fuelling public revulsion, the film should help speed the growing cultural tide against the tobacco industry and its lethal product-a valuable contribution by any measure.

Clifford Douglas, president, Tobacco Control Law and Policy Consulting,

Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA


studentBMJ 2000;08:131-174 May ISSN 0966-6494