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Berger contributed a chapter to [[Robert D. Tollison|Robert Tollison]]’s industry-commissioned book, ''Smoking and Society'', in which he (Berger) did disclose his affiliation with the industry. In his chapter, titled "A Sociological View of the Antismoking Phenomenon," Berger described the anti-smoking movement as a "health cult" in which doctors were the "priests" and hospitals the "sanctuaries."[Tollison, R D (editor), 1986. Smoking and Society: Lexington Books.] By 1988, Berger was listed as a participant in the tobacco industry’s ETS (Environmental Tobacco Smoke) Consultant Project.[http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/urj34e00]
===Ideology and Activities===
Berger reminds you of the immortal line in ''Casablanca'' where the crooked cop orders his subordinates to "Line up the usual suspects."
In Bergers life, his associates are the usual suspects, and like Berger since 1982, they have received grants paid through the lawyers [[Special Account #4]] which was designed to hide any payments and block court-room disclosure. [http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/yev99d00/pdf]
Berger's associates in the archives are mostly 9well-documented0 semi-professional promoters of the tobacco industry or scientists who claim to be independent but turn up regularly in the tobacco archives getting grants, giving evidence, or corrupting the science. He also allies himself with far-right-wing organisations, and business front-groups.
He regularly associates with:
* The [[Manhattan Institute]] which houses [[Peter Huber]], [[John Olson]] and others.
* [[Social Affairs Unit]] from the UK with [[Digby Anderson]].
* [[Arron Wildavsky]] [http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/nfd03e00/pdf]
* [[Petr Strabenek]] of Trinity College, Dublin
* [[Irving Kristol]] the guru of the neo-con movement.
* [[Robert Tollison]]
* [[American Enterprise Institute]] (AEI) [http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/fuo83c00/pdf]
He also appeared in a "denial" film for Philip Morris [http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/mnw39e00/pdf] and reported back to the company on the Winnipeg 5th World Conference on Smoking and Health and he says: <blockquote><i>" I understood my assigment to be an overall assessment of the conference, with special emphasis on institutional dynamics [ie. how well the anti-s wee organised] and ideological themes, using my report on the Stockholm conference (1979) as a "base line."</i></blockquote>
He then reveals that "the conference was exhaustively monitored by industry observers..." indicating that he was personally acquainted with most of the 50 or so tobacco staff who infiltrated the main meetsing snd work-group sessions.
His article on smoking regulation [http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/mwr84f00/pdf] reveals a strong conservative ideology, and he says that <blockquote><i>"the Clinton health plan represen the most ambitious power grab yet in the short history of this rising class [the knowledge elite.</i></blockquote>
He sees it as his task to psychoanalyse the anti-tobacco forces and impute motives to the various organisational forces: WHO, government regulators and anti-smoking groups are lumbered together as "bureaucratic interests" (implying that they do it for money or merely as part of the government workforce), and he also sees the <u>"ideological linkage in the case of women is with feminism"</u> which was the standard American Red-neck mantra at that time.
Questioning the motives and trying to discern some underlying Freudian psychosis of people in the anti-smoking movement gave Berger his tobacco ''raison d'etre'' [http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/oyp19e00/pdf]
He was also recruited for:
* [[Libertad]] for a hedonistic junket to Australia with [[Bernard Levin]] and [[R Emmett Tyrell]] Jr. [http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/llq39e00/pdf]
* For an [[ICOSI]] project [http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/vvp87e00/pdf]
===Current employment===
As of September 2005 Peter Berger was a professor of sociology and theology at the College of Arts and Sciences and School of Theology at Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts. A description of his professional accomplishments (listed under the staff description section of Boston University’s web site) lists the institutions where Berger has taught, the books he has written and the awards he has received, but contains no mention Berger’s past affiliations with the tobacco industry, nor any of the work he has done on their behalf.[http://www.bu.edu/sth/faculty/staff/berger.html]
