Daily Doc: TI, Jun 27, 1977: Hysterical airline message
Daily Doc: Hysterical airline message
Title: An Urgent Message
TI, Jun 27, 1977
Bates #: 01254556/4557
March 5, 2000
As U.S. airlines began grouping smokers into separate smoking sections on airplanes in the late 1970s, alarm increased within the tobacco industry, and so did the industry's attempts to reverse these actions.
We now have the advantage of viewing this letter in its historical perspective. First, notice how the near-hysterical tone seems so out of proportion to the "problem" at hand. After all, the airline wasn't even banning smoking... it was merely providing a separate smoking section on its planes. The tone of the message reveals the depth of the industry's fear and anger about clean air efforts in general. Secondly, it is not remarkable that mankind held a drug-taking behavior in such high esteem? Consider this: If there had been space shuttle missions in 1977, do you think smoking would have been allowed on board? The atmosphere outside at 35,000 feet can support life no more than the atmosphere in which the space shuttle flies. That we ever allowed what little, precious air there exists on board a commerical aircraft to become polluted with cigarette smoke in order to accommodate a drug addiction seems completely insane. And yet the industry held the bizarre position that this situation should persist!
Remember that this is the same industry that is now fighting to keep citizens from getting safe indoor air in other locations. Let's hope that it's only a short time until those efforts are looked upon as being as absurd as this letter....
CITATION
Title: An Urgent Message
Type of Document: Letter
Author: Horace Kornegay, President and Executive Director of the Tobacco Institute
Date: 19770627/E
Site: Lorillard Document Site http://www.lorillarddocs.com/ Page Count: 2
Bates No. 01254556/4557
URL: h ttp://www.lorillarddocs.com/getallimg.asp?DOCID=01254556/4557
QUOTES
AN URGENT MESSAGE
Eastern Airlines has entered an unconscionable agreement with Prohibitionist "consumer groups" to squeeze travelers who enjoy tobacco into the rear third of its flight cabins. The agreement was reached was privately in spite of its implications of potential second-class citizenship for 55 million Americans! As of today, it's on file at the U.S. Civil Aeronautics Board where the airline and the anti-tobacco activists are pushing for its approval.
One of these activists, the self-appointed head of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), says his groups caught Eastern Airlines in violation of federal regulations about smoking in airplanes, to the point where Eastern was faced with more than $20,000 in fines. In an effort to settle for $10,000, the airline volunteered to set aside two-thirds of its seats for non-smokers and to reduce its back-of-the-plane smoking sections to only a third of the available seats. Apparently, that's inviolate, even if two-thirds of the passengers want to smoke!
Right now there is something you can do.
First: Decide whether you think this agreement is in the total public interest. Think of its implications, its potential for precedent in successful attacks on the personal freedoms of other groups of citizens--on yourself as an individual.
Second: Express your view -- whatever it is -- to Eastern and those in our government who are in a position to heed it.
Use the addresses on the back of this message. And thanks for your citizenship!
This service is brought to you by the American Lung Association of Colorado ( http://www.alacolo.org/) and Smokescreen ( http://www.smokescreen.org)
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Anne Landman, Regional Program Coordinator
American Lung Association of Colorado, West Region Office
Grand Junction, CO
(970) 245-2120
afoxland@gj.net
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