Copyright 1991 The Washington Post  
The Washington Post
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November 14, 1991, Thursday, Final Edition
SECTION: FIRST SECTION; PAGE A1

LENGTH: 2238 words

HEADLINE: Tobacco's Hold on Women's Groups;
Anti-Smokers Charge Leaders Have Sold Out to Industry Money

SERIES: Occasional

BYLINE: Marjorie Williams, Washington Post Staff Writer

BODY:
As female state legislators from around the country gather in San Diego this weekend for a high-powered political conference, one of their number is quietly planning an insurrection. Ann Seibert, a Democrat from Vermont, plans to challenge the forum's financial support from Philip Morris Cos. Inc. and RJR Nabisco Inc., pulling into the open a controversy that has long been denied by the women's movement: its deep-rooted addiction to tobacco.

Not to the weed itself, but to the money that flows from it.

Philip Morris, RJR Nabisco and the tobacco industry's lobbying arm, the Tobacco Institute, have aggressively courted women leaders for more than a decade.

They donate money to or sponsor events for scores of groups, associations, clubs and foundations that serve women -- especially organizations that promote women's leadership in business and politics.

Anti-smoking activists charge that the industry has bought off the leadership that might otherwise militate against smoking in one of tobacco's prime markets: young American women.

"One thing it's buying is innocence by association," said Michael Pertschuk, co-director of the Advocacy Institute, which supports several anti-smoking organizations.

"And another thing is silence. ... Those organizations that care about women would be very angry if they looked at this issue straight and clear. The money just sort of blurs their vision."

Smoking will kill roughly 146,000 women this year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control -- 51,000 of those through lung cancer, which recently surpassed breast cancer as the fatal cancer most prevalent among women. [Story on Page A16.]

Tobacco industry critics also point out that the cigarette companies aggressively target women as a market, playing on two seductive themes: women's fears of growing fat, and the association of smoking with independence -- "You've come a long way, baby," in the words of Philip Morris's Virginia Slims slogan.

"These firms try to project an image that they are friends of women, when in fact they are exploiting women and manipulating women and capitalizing on the women's movement for their own financial gain," said Seibert.

While appropriating the imagery of feminism, the tobacco industry has rewarded the women's movement with hundreds of thousands of dollars. Among the most prominent groups receiving tobacco contributions in the past few years are the National Women's Political Caucus, the Women's Campaign Fund, the Women's Research and Education Institute, the American Association of University Women, the American Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs, Wider Opportunities for Women, the League of Women Voters Education Fund, the Center for Women Policy Studies and Women Executives in State Government.

And this only a partial list. "We could be here until next week," to borrow the words of Philip Morris Media Relations Manager Posie DiSesa, who declined to recite the name of every women's group the company gives to -- not because it was a secret, but because it would take too long.

Women leaders point out that the amounts of money they receive are small when weighed against the tens of millions of dollars the tobacco companies give away each year in their efforts to buttress an image that has been under attack since 1964, when the surgeon general first publicized the risks of smoking. Tobacco money is everywhere: in medical research and the National 4-H Club, in the D.C. schools and the Joffrey Ballet. Sources close to the tobacco industry confirm that the amounts given to women are dwarfed by the amounts that go to minority groups and high-profile philanthropy such as arts funding.

But the amounts in question are important, sometimes crucial, to the groups that receive them -- in some cases, it is as much as 5 to 10 percent of their annual funding.

For relatively small outlays, the tobacco interests reap a great prize in gratitude and good publicity. A typical example is this weekend's forum for women state legislators, organized by the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. The organization's officials did not respond to repeated inquiries about the level of the industry's funding, but they have told Vermont's Seibert that Philip Morris is a "principal sponsor," and RJR Nabisco a sponsor at a lower level of support. Philip Morris will host the opening reception for the forum, which is expected to draw more than half of the nation's 1,359 female state legislators.

Seibert hopes to force the issue of tobacco funding onto the front burner at the conference, by offering a resolution calling on the organizers to reject the money in the future and to lead women's groups in developing other sources of funding.

The tobacco industry denies that its contributions are an attempt to subvert women's leadership groups. "It's just that we like to see ourselves as -- and we are, I believe -- a responsible corporate citizen," said Philip Morris's DiSesa.

In turn, women leaders deny that the funding has any effect on their opinions or activities. "There are absolutely no strings attached," said Betty Dooley, executive director of the Women's Research and Education Institute, which each year receives more than $ 100,000 in tobacco funding. "It's been a very good, positive relationship."

Even leaders who don't solicit tobacco funding say they are reluctant to criticize the majority of their sisters who do. A rare exception is Molly Yard, president of the National Organization for Women, which stopped taking tobacco contributions in the late '80s. "I understand why they take it, but I think it's contemptible," she said. "It is, after all, a form of prostitution to take money for something that is going to kill women."

The Fund-Raising Paradox

Most of the well-heeled women leaders who raise funds from tobacco don't smoke, and belong to a different social and economic world from women who do. Today, women with no education beyond high school are 2.4 times more likely to take up smoking than women with some college education. And by the year 2000, epidemiologists say, fewer than 10 percent of college graduates will smoke -- compared with more than 30 percent of those who have not been educated beyond high school.

Almost every woman's organization mentioned here forbids smoking in its offices; almost every woman leader interviewed was a nonsmoker, and most expressed vehement dislike of smoking. Thus, tobacco funding of women's groups brings to mind a bitter old debate, in which the women's movement of the '60s and '70s was charged with elitism. "It does raise that issue," said the Advocacy Institute's Michele Bloch, a physician who has focused on women and smoking. "That they're willing to take the money but it's not killing them."

Tobacco sponsorship covers a broad range of groups and sums (see story, Page A16). As part of its larger practice of funding minority groups the industry gives widely, though mostly in small amounts, to groups that represent minority women: The National Coalition of 100 Black Women, the Mexican American National Women's Association, the U.S. Hispanic Women's Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women's Clubs are just a few examples.

But the organizations the industry cultivates most are the women's leadership groups, usually based in Washington, that form the networks nurturing young women legislators and other future leaders. These pragmatic groups, oriented toward gains in electoral politics, have increasingly assumed the forefront of the women's movement. They are funded out of the tobacco companies' corporate offices here; much of the funding is designated by the same people who supervise the firms' lobbying activities and political action committee contributions.

Leaders of the groups express deep gratitude to the tobacco industry, in comments reminiscent of women tennis players' loyalty to Philip Morris for its long-running support of the Virginia Slims tour. Women's groups face enormous difficulties in fund-raising, their leaders point out. For many years, corporate givers were particularly resistant. Tobacco was the notable exception. "They were there for us when nobody else was," said Jane Danowitz, executive director of the Women's Campaign Fund. "They legitimized corporate giving to political women's groups, from my perspective."

While a few women leaders said their organizations had debated the ethics of accepting tobacco money, most said they look on it the way they do any other corporate funding: gratefully. Said Harriett Woods, president of the National Women's Political Caucus, "There's no connection ... as far as I can see, between their products and what we do and our positions. It's [the tobacco industry's] choice to support our efforts, and if they're willing to do that, it's not my job to try to run tests on their products."

A Matter of Silence

There are signs that some women's groups that receive funding have a closer than arm's-length relationship with the industry. Los Angeles Times reporter Myron Levin obtained a 1986 Tobacco Institute memo to field staff referring to "intensive discussions with representatives of key women's organizations." The memo said, "Most have assured us that, for the time being, smoking is not a priority issue for them."

"I think with all groups that we work with, or help fund, they certainly know where we're coming from," said Tobacco Institute spokesman Thomas Lauria.



Almost none of the women's groups receiving tobacco money have campaigned against smoking by women. Women leaders protest, with some reason, that they have full agendas already. They point to the erosion of abortion rights, to the continuing legislative battles over such longtime goals as parental leave. Why should they be expected to address women's smoking habits?



They have shown a growing willingness to weigh in on a host of other health issues, however, ranging from infertility research to AIDS, from breast cancer to osteoporosis. There is widespread agreement among women leaders that health issues form the movement's next major front. "There's no doubt that women's groups' agendas are overflowing," said Anne O'Keefe, vice president of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights. "But if you want to address the issue of women's health -- if that matters at all to you -- this is the single most critical issue to women's health of our time."

Some anti-smoking activists contend that the funding has also discouraged women members of Congress -- many of whom receive financial and logistical support from women's groups, as well as political action committee donations from the tobacco industry -- from focusing on smoking as a health issue.

The Congressional Caucus on Women's Issues this year introduced the Women's Health Equity Act, a package of 22 bills including six that deal with prevention. None of them explicitly addresses smoking. "It's a poignant omission," said Bloch, who has tried for several years to create an advocacy network to combat smoking among women. "A poignant and telling omission."

Caucus co-chair Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.) typifies legislators' ambivalence on the issue of smoking. She has made gestures toward leadership, firing off a scathing letter to R.J. Reynolds last year when news leaked of the company's plan to target a new cigarette toward young blue-collar women. But she has also participated in tobacco-sponsored events, and sits on the advisory board of the National Women's Political Caucus, a major recipient of tobacco funding. Her office has twice employed a Philip Morris Cos. Fellow, funded through the Women's Research and Education Institute (WREI). And in 1989 she presided, with caucus co-chair Rep. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and former representative Bella Abzug, over the awarding of a NWPC "Good Guy Award" to George Knox, a vice president of Philip Morris.

"They're getting a charitable deduction for it, but that's the end of it," she said of the industry's donations. "We take Revlon money too. We take money from pantyhose." Why does she think the tobacco industry is so generous to women's causes? "I don't know why they do it," Schroeder said. "I assume, their desire to be good citizens."

A very few women leaders were able to point to high-profile positions they had taken that actively defied their tobacco sponsors. The Center for Women Policy Studies, which receives $ 25,000 a year from Philip Morris to support internships, recently endorsed a tough anti-smoking bill, sponsored by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), that includes measures vehemently opposed by the industry. But there are only five other women's organizations -- none of them tobacco fund recipients -- among the 115 groups urging passage of the bill.

In the end, those who take tobacco money always circle back to the perennial poverty of women's groups. "We're very grateful to the tobacco companies for helping us," said Betty Dooley of WREI. "And when people complain to us that we accept tobacco money, we say, 'Would you like to help us out?' "

"I don't have any replacement money for this," said O'Keefe of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights. "Nobody does," she said, acknowledging the women's groups' fund-raising difficulties. But it's blood money. ... You can tell yourself it doesn't matter, but we all know it does."