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Tobacco men who are pained by such advertisements can blame one man. He is John F. Banzhaf III, the 28-year-old lawyer who, almost singlehanded, is responsible for all the free air time given to the antismoking messages. It was Banzhafs "citizen's complaint" to the FCC about cigarette ads that prompted the commission to dust off the fairness doctrine. Banzhaf had almost idly come across that "little loophole," as he calls it, while working at a Manhattan law firm. He was astonished at the response from the FCC, which ordered broadcasters to make room for antismoking ads. "All it took was a letter—there were no hearings," says Banzhaf. "Suddenly, I created a $75 million business"—which is what the free air time given to the antismoking messages is worth.
Banzhaf quit his law firm (one of its clients was Philip Morris) and moved to a Washington flat five blocks from the headquarters of the Tobacco Institute, the industry's Washington lobby. He organized a nonprofit foundation called ASH (for Action on Smoking and Health), which monitors radio and TV to see that antismoking ads are shown and distributes information on smoking and health. Bachelor Banzhaf is authorized to draw a salary of $20,000 a year but manages to get by without it, living on his salary as an instructor at George Washington University Law School. He won a court test on the fairness case last fall, and ASH will provide the $25,000 or so that he figures he will need to fight the industry's Supreme Court appeal in the fall.
Prospects for Congress
The immediate task of Congress is to determine what to do when the cigarette-labeling law's pre-emptive clause runs out in June. Congressmen can take any one of three courses:
I) They can extend the present law.
The cigarette industry is lobbying for that because the law would block further action by the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission. One measure of the industry's diminished power on Capitol Hill is that the best it can hope for is a continuation of what it fought so adamantly in 1965. In the House of Representatives, 29 Congressmen have sponsored bills to extend the law.
2) They can pass new laws regulating the sale or advertising of cigarettes. Bills calling for more controls have been put forward by 54 sponsors in the House. Most of the bills are similar to a measure sponsored by the leading opponent of cigarettes in the House, California Democrat John Moss. He would toughen the cigarette label and order it into all ads, as the FTC urges, and he would also empower the commission to limit the length of cigarettes. That would probably shorten the future of the new 100-mm. cigarettes, which generally have more tar and nicotine than the king-sized brands.
3) They can simply do nothing. If the labeling law's pre-emptive clause expires, the FCC and the FTC would be free to take almost any action they wish. This possibility particularly excites the critics of cigarettes. No cigarette bills of any kind are pending in the Senate, where sentiment against smoking is even stronger than in the House. Washington's Warren G. Magnuson, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, and Utah's Frank Moss, head of the subcommittee on consumer affairs, promise that no bills will appear.
On the Defensive