ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, April 26, 1996 TAG: 9604260064
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: WARREN FISKE STAFF WRITER
First, you drive past the chanting protesters, who hold up a 20-foot-long sign with pictures of several hundred of their honored dead.
Then you pass through a metal detector. Next, you're escorted to a building and issued a pass. Security guards seem to be everywhere. One of them leads you to a large meeting room and reads you the rules: no cameras, no tape players, no leaving the auditorium until the meeting is over.
But you are welcome to smoke.
Welcome to the annual stockholders meeting of Philip Morris Cos. Inc., the Richmond-based manufacturer of 367 billion cigarettes last year.
About 500 shareholders - many wearing orange stickers imprinted "I'm proud to be a Philip Morris stockholder" - attended the two-hour meeting Thursday. There was an air of confrontation as top executives defended the corporation's status as the world's largest cigarette producer and anti-smoking protesters all but accused it of sponsoring genocide.
Chairman and Chief Executive Geoffrey C. Bible made it clear that the company will fight class-action lawsuits filed by more than 60 lawyers, allegations that it manipulated nicotine levels to make cigarettes addictive and efforts by the federal government to classify nicotine as a drug.
"We believe common sense, logic and the law are on our side," Bible said in an opening speech. "We believe that we should prevail. And we believe the best way to respond to the lawsuits is to win them. We therefore have no intention of settling any of the litigation."
Bible said Philip Morris has been maligned by "a campaign of selective leaks and deliberate distortions ... fueled by the lawyers suing us, and by various politicians and bureaucrats and by an entire anti-smoking industry aiming for prohibition as its ultimate goal."
He added, "We have weathered storms like this before, and we shall weather them again."
Bible defended smoking as a matter of choice and sternly denied allegations that the company aims its advertising at youths. "We do not want children to smoke," he said, adding that Philip Morris has "actively campaigned" for state laws establishing a minimum age of 18 for tobacco purchases.
He also reminded investors that "cigarette manufacturing is a wonderful business." Net earnings increased 14.8 percent during the first three months of the year - the company's eighth straight quarter of double-digit growth. Tobacco sales generate 63 percent of the corporation's income.
Not all stockholders were impressed. The meeting was dominated by about a dozen anti-smoking advocates - many of whom hold only one share of Philip Morris stock to gain entry to the meeting - who pelted Bible with questions about the company's ethics. The executive answered icily in a slight British accent.
Some demanded explanations of why the company contributed more than $4.1 million to political candidates last year.
"Let me make it perfectly clear that Philip Morris exercises its legal right to participate in the political process of this country," Bible said. "Our opponents do it, and we intend to do it."
One critic wanted to know how much money the company spent backing grass-roots groups that support smokers' rights. Bible said he didn't know, but the figure was not "substantial."
"Will you get those figures to us?'' the critic asked.
"No, I don't plan to do that," Bible replied.
Lori D. Karan, a Richmond physician, asked what the company is doing to discourage mothers and pregnant women from smoking.
"If mothers and pregnant women smoke, then it's probably best that they follow the advice of their physician," he said.
Another physician accused Bible of evading a question.
Bible replied, "That's the best response you're going to get."
Gregory Connolly, an organizer for the Interfaith Council for Corporate Responsibility, said: "Everyone in this room is going to be stricken by a smoking-related disease - either you or your family. No one will be spared, and all of your profits won't heal the suffering."
For the most part, the stockholders supporting Philip Morris sat quietly. Once, an investor from Illinois broke the tension by musing about an Uncle Herman who "smoked two packs and drank Old Grand Dad every day" and lived to be 98.
When it came time to vote, the pro-Philip Morris investors used their overwhelming numbers to crush a series of anti-smoking proposals.
The protesters were not dismayed. "We'll be back again next year," Karan said after the meeting. "All of this is having an effect. It's raising the public's consciousness and getting people to realize what this company does."
But other stockholders said they will sleep well at night, thank you. Their ranks included Frank Trevillian, a retired phone company worker who quit smoking 30 years ago because of heart disease.
"The majority of people here are interested in one thing: It's not whether cigarettes will kill you, but what the company is going to put right here," he said, patting his back pocket.
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Bible. color.by CNB