The tobacco economists network - or how the Tobacco Institute recruited over 100 American economics professors. Part 19 of many

Overview of previous posts here

Requesting an economist

Dwight R. Lee

After a while, the regional lobbyists must have known who the "best" economists were. Even though in 1987 he did not perform well, the training must have worked and in 1990 Bill Trisler simply requested Dwight R. Lee

Lee attended thehearing. Dwight Lee is the economist who by far attended the most legislative hearings, and Lee seems to have been the last core member active (until at least 1998).

Regional director Bob Pruett's wrote a thank you to letter in 1988 to Lee 

The same day, Pruett wrote another interesting letter 

Dwight R. Lee might not have been paid directly by RJ Reynolds, but the Tobacco Institute paid Lee $3,000. R.J. Reynolds was one of the companies funding the Tobacco Institute. Technically Lee did not lie.  

Someone else not lying was Fred S. McChesney, who testified for the Tobacco Institute in 1984.

In 2002 Fred McChesney was heard in a trial against Philip Morris

Of course McChesney's 1984 testimony was during a hearing on taxes, not a hearing on a tobacco company. Technically McChesney's answer was correct.

Michael L. Davis

In 1990 William Orzechowski wanted to use economist Michael L. Davis

Before the tour Davis participated in a Texas Tax Strategy Meeting held by the Tobacco Institute and indeed he did accept touring for the Tobacco Institute

A summary of the tour shows they talked with many editors from newspapers.