Lawrence Krigler was in his late sixties, tanned and fit, well dressed and quick in step. He was the first witness without Doctor stuck to the front of his name since the video of Jacob Wood. He lived now in Florida, where he'd retired after he left Pynex. John Riley Milton rushed him through the preliminaries because the juicy stuff was just around the corner.
An engineering graduate of North Carolina State, he'd worked for Pynex for thirty years before leaving in the midst of a lawsuit thirteen years earlier. He'd sued Pynex. The company'd countersued him. They settled out of court with terms being nondisclosed.
When he was first hired, the company, then called Union Tobacco, or simply U-Tab, had shipped him to Cuba to study tobacco production down there. He'd worked in production ever since, or at least until the day he left. He'd studied the tobacco leaf and a thousand ways to grow it more efficiently. He considered himself an expert in this field, though he was not testifying as an expert and would not offer opinions. Only facts.
In 1969, he completed a three-year, in-house study on the feasibility of growing an experimental tobacco leaf known only as Raleigh 4. It had one third the nicotine of regular tobacco. Krigler concluded, with a wealth of research to support him, that Raleigh 4 could be grown and produced as efficiently as all other tobaccos then grown and produced by U-Tab.
It was a monumental work, one he was quite proud of, and he was devastated when his study was at first ignored by higher-ups within his company.
He slogged his way through the entrenched bureaucracy above him, with disheartening results. No one seemed to care about this new strain of tobacco with much less nicotine.
Then he learned that he was very wrong. His bosses cared a great deal about nicotine levels. In the summer of 1971 he got his hands on an intercompany memo instructing upper management to quietly do whatever possible to discredit Krigler's work with Raleigh 4. His own people were silently knifing him in the back. He kept his cool, told no one he had the memo, and began a clandestine project to learn the reasons for the conspiracy against him.
At this point in his testimony, John Riley Milton introduced into evidence two exhibits-the thick study Krigler completed in 1969, and the 1971 memo.
The answer became crystal clear, and it was something he'd come to suspect. U-Tab could not afford to produce a leaf with markedly lower nicotine, because nicotine meant profits. The industry had known since the late thirties that nicotine was physically addictive.
“How do you know the industry knew?” Milton asked, very deliberately. With the exception of the defense lawyers, who were doing their best to appear bored and indifferent, the entire courtroom was listening with rapt attention.
“It's common knowledge within the industry,” Krigler answered. “There was a secret study in the late 1930s, paid for by a tobacco company, and the result was clear proof that the nicotine in cigarettes is addictive.”
“Have you seen this report?”
“No. As you might guess, it has been well concealed.” Krigler paused and looked at the defense table. The bombshell was coming, and he was thoroughly enjoying the moment. “But I saw a memo-“
“Objection!” Cable shouted as he rose. “This witness cannot state what he may or may not have seen in a written document. The reasons are plentiful and are set out more fully in the brief we filed on this point.”
The brief was eighty pages long and had been argued over for a month now. Judge Harkin had already ruled, in writing. “Your objection is noted, Mr. Cable. Mr. Krigler, you may continue.”
“In the winter of 1973, I saw a one-page memo summarizing the nicotine study from the 1930s. The memo had been copied many times, was very old, and had been slightly altered.”
“Altered in what way?”
“The date had been deleted, as had the name of the person sending it.”
“To whom was it sent?”
“It was addressed to Sander S. Fraley, who at that time was the president of Allegheny Growers, the predecessor of a company now called ConPack.”
“A tobacco company.”
“Yes, basically. It calls itself a consumer products company, but the bulk of its business is manufacturing cigarettes.”
“When did he serve as president?”
“From 1931 to 1942.”
“Is it then safe to assume the memo was sent prior to 1942?”
“Yes. Mr. Fraley died in 1942.”
“Where were you when you saw this memo?”
“At a Pynex facility in Richmond. When Pynex was still Union Tobacco, its corporate headquarters were in Richmond. In 1979, it changed its name and moved to New Jersey. But the buildings are still in use in Richmond, and that's where I worked until I left. Most of the company's old records are there, and a person I know showed me the memo.”
“Who was this person?”
“He was a friend, and he's now dead. I promised him I'd never reveal his identity.”
“Did you actually hold the memo?”
“Yes. In fact, I made a copy of it.”
“And where is your copy?”
“It didn't last long. The day after I locked it in my desk drawer, I was called out of town on business. While I was out, someone went through my desk and removed a number of things, including my copy of the memo.”
“Do you recall what the memo said?”
“I remember very well. Keep in mind, for a long time I'd been digging for some confirmation of what I suspected. Seeing the memo was an unforgettable moment.”
“What did it say?”
“Three paragraphs, maybe four, brief and to the point. The writer explained that he had just read the nicotine report that was secretly shown to him by the head of research at Allegheny Growers, a person who went unnamed in the memo. In his opinion, the study proved conclusively and beyond any doubt that nicotine is addictive. As I recall, this was the gist of the first two paragraphs.”
“And the next paragraph?”
“The writer suggested to Fraley that the company take a serious look at increasing the nicotine levels in its cigarettes. More nicotine meant more smokers, which meant more sales and more profits.”
Krigler delivered his lines with a fine flair for the dramatic, and every ear soaked up his words. The jurors, for the first time in days, watched every move the witness made. The word “profits” floated over the courtroom and hung like a dirty fog.
John Riley Milton paused for a bit, then said, “Now, let's keep this straight. The memo was prepared by someone at another company, and sent to the president of that company, right?”
“That's correct.”
“A company that was then and is now a competitor of Pynex?”
“That's correct.”
“How did the memo find its way to Pynex in 1973?”
“I never found out. But Pynex certainly knew about the study. In fact, the entire tobacco industry knew about the study by the early 1970s, if not sooner.”
“How do you know this?”
“I worked in the industry for thirty years, remember. And I spent my career in production. I talked to a lot of people, especially my counterparts at other companies. Let's just say that the tobacco companies at times can stick together.”
“Did you ever attempt to obtain another copy of the memo from your friend?”