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After leaving the Tory government in the 1950s Sir Alex With Maxwell became the UK industry's top lobbyist as Chairman of the Tobacco Advisory Council (TAC), which was the main UK lobby group of the day. His son, naturally, had a meteoric rise -- first through the tourism area via Thomas Cook & Sons, and then through the International division of Philip Morris. For a while he managed the Australian division of the company, and later he formed a very close coterie with two Australian top executives -- both excellent industry strategists -- [[R William Murray]] and [[Geoffrey C Bible]] who were themselves close friends from Canberra and the nearby Rankin Springs in Australia. They they formed a triumvirate, which ; each gave each the other a leg-ups on up as they moved to the top of the corporate ladder; later . Later they were joined and supported by other Australian executives [[William Webb]] and [[Andrew Whist]]and [[Brian Simpson]] from Rupert Murdoch's Melbourne newspaper (''Herald & Weekly Times'' --and his nephew by marriage) was bought in to run the international INFOTAB tobacco lobbying organisation from Brussels. They were clever clearly all above-average, and since they were able to protect each other's back. and give each other a leg-up, they quickly came over time to control Philip Morris Companies in generalInternational. They then moved on to control the Philip Morris tobacco/food conglomerate, and then dominate finally, by using aggressive tactics, they eventually dominated the lobbying power efforts of the whole global tobacco industry. ===The Thatcher/UK connection===Hamish Maxwell and Geoff Bible both became a close friend friends of Australian publisher [[Rupert Murdoch]] through Andrew Whist and Bryan Simpson, and they put him Rupert on the board of Philip Morris (in charge of the Remuneration Committee which set their salaries and bonuses!) -- and Hamish was the first of the triumvirate from Philip Morris to be given a board position on News Ltd Board position . in exchange. Bible and Murray both received their rewards not long after. On retirement, Bible was hired to act as a mentor for Murdoch's second son, James, after the elder son Lachlan resigned from the company.
The Murdoch had a close relationship with Prime Minister Thatcher and supported her throughout with fierce attacks on the union movement. So the Thatcher consultancy was almost certainly organised by Rupert Murdoch who was on the Philip Morris board from 1990 on. Philip Morris and its food subsidiaries were News Ltd's major advertisers, and Philip Morris appears to have lent money to Murdoch when he had his critical financial crisis (unproven).
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* 1975-79 Leader of the Tory opposition
* 1979-90 Prime Minister
See the '''Margaret Thatcher Foundation ''' web site for access to many more of her records. However searches for Philip Morris, Geoff Bible, Murray Bring and even Mark Thatcher all found nothing, so this is not likely to be a useful resource for real research. [http://www.margaretthatcher.org/archive/]
==Background to the UK Tory/Philip Morris relationship==
'Sandy' Maxwell was the UK's Permanent Under-secretary of the Home Office. During World War II he was in charge of two vital areas -- (1) the UK's internal secret services (including MI5), and (2) maintaining the country's supply of essential materials from overseas. He therefore became the transAtlantic shipping controller, and the UK tobacco czar, controlling the rationing of cigarettes. He made the decision whether the transAtlantic shipping would carry ammunition and aircraft parts, or cigarettes -- and cigarettes were deemed essential goods for morale reasons.
After the war, he remained a Permanent Under-ecretary Secretary of the Home Office -- which left him in charge of tobacco (still rationed) and tourism (the main UK fundraising business) during the reconstruction period -- until he was marginally embroiled in the Philby scandal. He had been in control of MI5 during the war and his 'very close' private secretary (almost certainly his occasional mistress) Jenifer Hart [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/apr/11/guardianobituaries.obituaries] turned out to be a "licentuous communist". After leaving the Tory government in the 1950s Sir [[Alex Maxwell|Alex "Sandy" Maxwell]] became the UK industry's top lobbyist as Chairman of the [[Tobacco Advisory Council]] (TAC), which was the main UK lobby group of the day. ===The rise of Hamish Maxwell==Sandy's son, [[Hamish Maxwell]], naturally had a meteoric rise through corporate ranks -- first through the tourism business of Thomas Cook & Sons, and then through the International division of Philip Morris. For a while [[Hamish Maxwell]] managed the Australian division of the company, and later as manager of PM Europe, he formed a very close coterie with two Australian top executives -- both excellent industry strategists -- [[R William Murray]] and [[Geoffrey C Bible]] who were themselves close companions who hailed from Canberra and the nearby town of Rankin Springs in Australia.
News Limited and Philip Morris had an arrangement which continued over three successive CEOs. Murdoch would be on the PM Board (and in charge of the Remunerations Committee), while the successive CEOs of Philip Morris would get News Ltd board seats. No.3, Geoff Bible was also given a job with News Limited on retirement as the mentor and trainer of Murdoch's sons.
Taiwan, Hong Kong, China and Azerbaijan are featured. Allegations of attempts to circumvent advertising restrictions abound. Some use is made of PM internal memoranda, including one which is supposed to list those areas of the world where Lady Thatcher could be helpful. The conclusion of the programme is that Lady Thatcher has been paid to further views which she did not necessarily espouse when in Government. It even suggests that she is hardly supporting Britain when Phillip Morris succeeds in Azerbaijan against British-American Tobacco. The link here is made with a visit by her son Mark Thatcher. [https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/rkdl0130] </blockquote>
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<b>1993</b>Philip Morris list of corporate consultants and funding committments for the year 1994 lists: [[Margaret Thatcher Foundation]] $122,500 (Civic) <br>
3rd and final payment of a $250,000 grant for an eight week internship for ten Russians.
[http://industrydocuments.library.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/ljfl0000]
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