Andrew Whist (Doc Index)
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Andrew Whist (aka Ulf Andreas Whist) was probably the most devious of the tobacco industry executives operating at the interface between the tactical and strategic planning levels of the global industry. He was employed by Hamish Maxwell on advice from some associates at the Melbourne Club (the seat of Australian political power at that time) and before long he held the position of Assistant to the Managing Director of Philip Morris Australia. Geoffrey C Bible was the CEO of the Australian company for a while.
Later, when Maxwell, Bible and Bill Murray came to head the International company, they began importing Australian executives who had a more cosmopolitan outlook than the US executives. Whist was personally selected by the CEO/chairman of the international company to shift to New York as head of External Affairs, then head of Corporate Affairs. He then joined the English-led Australian cabal of executives who by-passed the UK Tobacco Institute, established the international lobbying arm (INFOTAB - also under Australian control of Bryan Simpson) and developed new relations and marketing opportunities in Europe and Asia
Whist clearly had a talent for the dissemination of disinformation, and an expertise in political lobbying and scientific corruption, so he fitted well into the Australian cabal who controlled Philip Morris at this time, and they virtually controlled the global tobacco industry when it came under pressure from all sides over health and environmental problems.
| THINK-TANKS & SOCIETIES RUN BY WHIST |
|---|
| Andrew Whist and Andrew Whist's deposition |
| Libertad |
| New York Society for International Affairs (NYSIA) |
| American-European Community Association (AECA) |
| Institute for International Health & Development (IIHD) |
| Hungarian-American Chamber of Commerce |
| Spain-US Chamber of Commerce Inc |
| US-Spain Council |
Contents
Puff piece
1999 July Whist's retirement piece: he had been caught out in his deposition, and the Australian CEO of Philip Morris had arranged an Executive Exchange deal with Australia's Telecom (Whist still owned a cattle property in Australia0. He apparently gives generously of his time to the Arts (including jazz), Wildlife preservation (the Dingo and Brush Turkey), and tennis (Marlboro Australian Open). And out of the goodness of his heart he served as chairman of the AECA, NYSIA, IIHD and Libertad. [2]
Organisations Whist was involved in
- American European Community Association (AECA) Started 1980 - Whist started US in 1981.
- Business Council for International Understanding (BCIU) Whist says PM funding from 1992.
- Business Council for the United Nations
- The Conference Board
- New York Society for International Affairs (see 1982)
- The American Scandinavian Foundation
- Spain/US Chamber of Commerce
- American Scandinavian Foundation (started in 1906) Whist was either VP or President in US.
- Cervantes Institute Whist is on the Board
See Deposition [3]
Other boards and committees: [4]
- The American Council onGermany,
- The Foreign Policy Association,
- The U.S. Council of the International Chamber of Commerce,
- The U.S. Chamber of Commerce
- The Philippine American Chamber of Commerce
- The U.S.-Russian Business Council.
- U.S. Rep. of the International Vienna Council & Austrian Board of Directors.
- advisory board of the Jazz & Contemporary Music Program at the New School in New York City,
Documents & Timeline
1949 Graduated from Ullern College in Oslo [5]
He previously held executive positions in Europe, Africa, Asia and Canada
He is said to have been a Certified Public Accountant. [6]
1965 ? Prior to joining Philip Morris, Mr. Whist was a member of the Board of Directors of the General Shoe Company of Australia, responsible for the marketing of Hush Puppies for its subsidiary, British Walkers Company. [7]
1966 Jun 22 Whist is first employed by Philip Morris in Melbourne Australia as a Marlboro brand manager. In another document he says he joined Phillip Morris Australia in August 1968 at the expressed request of Hamish Maxwell. (This possibly refers to company name changes from PM Limited, to 'PM Limited Australia', to PM Australia) See his deposition [8]
1969 Whist was now Assistant to the Chairman of Philip Morris Limited, James R. Fawke. See his deposition [9]
1970 Mar 3 Alex Holtzman, the general counsel for Philip Morris in New York is corresponding with Andrew Whist, the key disinformation expert with Philip Morris Australia. The American's were then dealing with the results of Auerback 'Smoking Beagle' study: Dr Oscar Auerback had kept half a group of beagle dogs breathing tobacco smoke (via a tube inserted into their throats) and found that those breathing smoke had a range of health consequences. This research established fairly conclusively that there was an association between cigarette smoking and lung cancer, bronchitis. and emphysema.
Holtzman has been sending out corrupt scientists (Rune Cederlof and Lars T Friberg, etc) to Whist who used them on conducted media tours in Australia. They were always expected to claim that there is no justification for anyone having concern about the health effects of tobacco smoke - either with heart disease, or with lung-cancer. [The question of secondhand smoking by non-smokers, hadn't then emerged as an issue.]
Holtzman has just learned that Sheldon ('Charlie') Sommers, the Acting Research Director at the Council for Tobacco Research (CTR) is planning to visit Australia in June -- and he has agreed to ...
"devote part of his time to participating in whatever activities you might arrange."
Lauren V Ackerman, Professor of Pathology at Washington University, St Louis and a good friend of ours [who] has an international reputation in the cancer field [might also join Sommers.] "He has a wider reputation than Sommers, and is the associate editor of the American Cancer Society's (ACS) journal, Cancer so his objectivity could not be questioned."
Unfortunately for the industry, Ackerman believes that smoking ...
"might be implicated in some cases of lung cancer, but that its contribution to lung cancer overall is fairly small.
I hesitate to make a strong recommendation on Ackerman since as you and I know from the Cederlof/Friberg situation, it can be difficult to handle two scientists who have somewhat divergent views.
Ackerman is entirely willing to leave the discussion of smoking and health questions in Sommers hands and to make only such remarks on this subject as might be considered helpful. Also, he is very critical of the Auerbach [smoking beagle] study and will be in a very good position to discuss its shortcomings.Sommers' visit, incidentally, would be entirely under his own auspices without any support from the industry. (He was coming anyway, and already being paid by the CTR) As to Ackerman, we would have to arrange to pay his expenses, but I am certain that many academics in Australia would be anxious to arrange speaking dates for him.
Holtzman also suggests a number of other compliant scientists: John P Wyatt (Chairman of Pathology, Uni of Manitoba, Winnipeg -- later headed the Tobacco Research institute at Kentucky University) and Ray Rosenman (a San Francisco researcher who believe personality factors were the primary cause of heart disease.) [both fully in the industry pay]
Finally, I am enclosing a very recent article by Dr Carl C Seltzer of Harvard University which represents an excellent criticism of the scientific information in relation to cigarette smoking and heart disease.
- This triggered Seltzer's later career as the main international travelling salesman for doubt about smoking and heart attacks. He promoted the idea that the determining factor as to whether you got heart disease was genetics (the 'constitutional hypothesis') not whether you smoked.
- Lauren Akerman was willing to compromise his personal views in other ways. He remained in touch with Holtzman and kept him informed about the progress of Auerbach's Beagle Dog study as it moved through the peer-review process towards publication. [10] [11]
1972 Became Director of Corporate Affairs at Philip Morris Ltd, in Melbourne Australia. [12]
1972-73Whist now joins the board of Philip Morris Limited in Australia. He was also now Director of Corporate Affairs. See his deposition [13]
1977 Sep 20 Whist has replied to Jim Bowling, the assistant to the then CEO of Philip Morris (Joe Cullman III). Bowling has been offering to send him Carl C Seltzer for another of Whist highly successful series of media tours where he toted scientists around Australia to meet journalists, appear on the TV and radio, etc. Whist had already made an approach to Seltzer when he was in Boston during 1976. He only wanted Seltzer to come in response to some problem they might be having, and at that time they weren't having any. He reveals that over the years they had had visits from:
- Sheldon C Sommers (aka 'Charlie') a pathologist who became Scientific Director of the industry's own Council for Tobacco Research (CTR) which specialised in funding spurious research from dubious scientists under secret accounts.
- Lars T Friberg & Rune Cederlof who had done the Swedish Twin Study at the Karolinska Institute (comparing smoking and non-smoking twins). They both accepted an all-expenses tour of Australia with return via a luxury cruise-ship and a stop-over in Hawaii -- in addition to the generous funding they had received for doing the study to the CTR's satisfaction originally.
- William B Ober, a pathologist at the Knickerbocker Hospital in New York, and also the director of its laboratories. He was an Associate Professor of Pathology at the New York Medical School who didn't find any evidence that smoking caused lung disease. He was also a research fellow at the National Cancer Institute, and regularly gave evidence for the tobacco industry in hearings and court cases.
- John P Wyatt (aka 'jack'), a pathologist at this time with the St Louis University School of Medicine
- Eleanor J Macdonald - a notorious Uni of Texas medical academic who worked for the tobacco industry over many decades.
1978 Oct 19 Whist is still Director of Corporate Affairs for Philip Morris in Australia. Jules M Hartogh (PM Switzerland) invites him onto the international lobby ICOSI team to help them attack the Stockholm World Council on Smoking & Health (WCS&H) conference due in June 1979 because of his combat experience". The tobacco companies are still not united behind the ICOSI activities. He is also very impressed with Bryan Simpson (who took over ICOSI and converted it to INFOTAB) [14]
1980 Whist maintains that the AECA (American European Community Association) was started by Lord Jenkins (President of the European Commission) and Sir David Nicholson (Chairman of British Airways) [15]
- He admits later in the deposition that Nicholson was also the Chairman of Rothmans International.
1980 Dec Whist had served as Vice President, Corporate Affairs in Australia until December 1990. He was then relocated to New York where he became Vice President of Corporate Affairs, for Philip Morris International. He first reporting to Hamish Maxwell - later to Bill Murray, then Dick Snyder, then Geoff Bible. See his 1998 Deposition [16]
1981 Whist says he started the US end of the AECA after meeting Sir David Nicholson's son. He says he may have met Lord Jenkins in 1980 ?? (He only arrived from Australia in December!) [17] He says PM started funding the AECA "probably a year or two after I became involved" at his request because "it's a worthy cause"... "to foster transAtlantic dialogue and free trade".
He maintains: ...
- his involvement in the AECA was not in his capacity as an employee of PM, but as a Norwegian/European citizen.
- It was never used to promote the interests of Philip Morris.
- It held an average of 12 meetings in the USA with an average attendance of 50-60 people.
- the Board of the AECA included some top company men from New York businesses
- The AECA has a permanent office in London, another in Brussels with a salaried staff of three overall + himself in the USA
- Whist is Chairman but doesn't attend many of the European meetings.
1982 Whist maintains in his deposition that David Morse, ex ILO chief, and himself created the New York Society for International Affairs this year in order to serve the interests of minorities and labor organisations as well as management. Morse was Chairman, Whist was President and on the board. He says that David Morse funded it initially, then later Philip Morris began making contributions ("In excess of 50%" of total budget). The office of the NYSIA was in his apartment in New York city. His assistant at PM, Kevin D Callahan, helps run it.
1985 OctWhist inaugurated The Philip Morris Jazz Grant which created the Superband Series (225 jazz musicians visiting 74 cities in 32 countries on 5 continents). [18]
1986 David Morse and Andrew Whist incorporated a new international 'freedom to advertise" organisation with the name LibertAd (a play on words - a Spanish revolutionary slogan). Whist maintains in his deposition that Morse founded it to help "on human rights and freedom issues", and asked him to go on the Board. He travels and spreads the message about freedom and freedom of expression on ex Communist countries.
During the deposition in June 1998 he is shown a document which shows the above to be a lie. It specifies the use of Libertad to block government action against the tobacco industry's use of sports sponsorship (to maintain advertising at sports venues) .. and the need to expand it beyond France and Australia into a global organisation. [19]
1987 Mar Move up from VP of Corporate Affairs PMI to Senior Vice Presiden of Corporate Affairs. [20]
1991He staged a concert of the Philip Morris Superband with Ray Charles and B.B. King at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. [21]
1992 Whist became Senior Vice President of External Affairs for Philip Morris USA (the domestic company) reporting to William Campbell, President of PM USA. [22] The company name changed again and he became Senior VP External Affairs for Philip Morris Companies, Inc.
1992 /E In his deposition Whist says this was the approximate time he became involved in the Philip Morris funding of the Business Council for International Understanding at his recommendation, It's president was the Vice Chairman of American international General, the country's largest insurance company. [23] He said he "dealt with them virtually daily" but that PM provided only "One or two percent" of their total funding.
1993 Oct -97 Chairman of the Spain-U.S. Chamber of Commerce from 1993-1997. Assisted in the tour of the U.S. by Their Majesties King Don Juan Carlos II and Queen Sophia of Spain.[24] [25]
1995 Whist was the official host to King Harald V and Queen Sonja of Norway
1996 King Harald V of Norway bestowed a Knighthood, First Class, Royal Order of Merit for his service to Norway in the United States.[26]
1997-99Chairman Emeritus of the Spain-U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
1998 King Juan Carlos I of Spain bestowed the Order of Civil Merit for his contribution to Spain-U.S. Relations.[27]
1999 June Retired to Australia in Executive Exchange with Australian Telecom (privatisation lobbying). [28]
Post retirement
Mr. Whist and his Australian wife, Mary Gwendolyn, reside in Clinton, Dutchess County, New York. Mary and Andrew Whist also operate a farm at Benjeroop, North West Victoria, Australia, where they raise Hereford cattle. [29]
