Table of Contents
PRAISE FOR DAVID KESSLERSA QUESTION OF INTENT
What a rarity, a book about public policy that turns into a completely compelling story. David Kessler didnt go to Washington intending to do battle with Americas most treacherous industry, but that is what happened, and soon the reader is rooting for him all the way. A Question of Intent gives us an inside look at some of the seamiest aspects of American political culture, and the story of this public servant shows that, at moments anyway, character can prevail.
Tracy Kidder
A Question of Intent recounts an important moment in history. Dr. Kesslers story is one of outstanding service, good judgment, and courageous leadership that will inspire anyone who dares to confront the hard issues in public life.
President Jimmy Carter
One of the best federal government insider books ever published ... gripping.... Kesslers intelligence and humanity leap off the pages.Legal Times
Part personal essay, part jeremiad, and part cloak-and-dagger story, A Question of Intent is an intensely compelling account.... Although he has a medical degree from Harvard and a law degree from the University of Chicago, Kessler clearly possesses the soul of a journalist.... His ability to make a ... report about the nuances of government regulation into a gripping tale of intrigue and high-stakes morality puts him in the league of such muscular nonfiction writers as J. Anthony Lukas and Tracy Kidder.The Boston Globe
[A] passionate memoir ... a shocking narrative of the anti-tobacco crusade ... stirring ... the story is riveting.The Washington Post Book World
Grippingly told.... In Kesslers deft telling the search for intent becomes a moral, scientific, political, and administrative detective story ... with informers, false leads, threats, dead ends, and revelations.Jack Beatty,The Atlantic online
[A] heartbreaking account of the federal governments inability to protect public health in the face of corporate pressure.... Kesslers account is infused with as much urgency and breathless excitement as a well-crafted thriller, and is just as compelling. Yet the legal and ethical quandaries with which he is confronted ... make the book intellectually rigorous as well.The Associated Press
Such tales should be required reading for law students.National Journal
Moves forward like a detective story ... a great book about a major and divisive fight inside this country.The Indianapolis Star
Kesslers account ... is indispensable in many ways. He tells how companies produce and promote a product that is lethal and addictive. He explores the difficulties of regulating rich, powerful corporations. And he provides a practical guide for any executive seeking to turn around a troubled organization and advance a controversial agenda.... He entered a netherworld of legal ambiguity and corporate secrecy, and what follows is an engrossing ... detective drama.
The New York Times Book Review
David Kessler ... clearly changed the world in which the tobacco industry does business.... Well crafted.British Medical Journal
A richly detailed history ... Some of this narrative reads like a John Le Carr novel ... compelling ... chilling.Journal of the American Medical Association
The controversial David Kessler will surely delight his fans and further infuriate his foes ... [with] this gripping book, which reads like a detective novel.
Harvard Law Review
His valiant crusade comes to life in his compelling book.
Nancy Snyderman,Good Housekeeping
When Kessler became its commissioner in 1990, the [FDA] had been limping along for years and was a tired institution facing major challenges ... but Kessler and a group of activist staff members resolved to commit themselves to this battle.... Kesslers self-portrait of an aggressive bureaucrat at work shows that bold administrative action, appropriately directed, can make a difference.
The Federal Lawyer
In understated, lucid language, he details how his interest in smoking as a public health issue grew into a full scale investigation of the tobacco industry ... important. Publishers Weekly
Agency bureaucrats are not normally thought of as being skilled storytellers. But David Kessler ... is the exception.... Through its taut narrative and straightforward storytelling, Kessler makes a good case for government moves against the industry. Corporate Counsel
David Kessler ... is a hero.... In A Question of Intent, he gives readers a behind-the-scenes look at the political, legal, and investigative struggles in the battle against the tobacco industry. The writing is clear and succinct, scenes and characters come alive, and drama builds.Trial
Details the FDAs tobacco investigation in detective-story fashion.
The Los Angeles Times
To Paulette
With whom all things are possible
For Elise and Ben
The guilty have a head start, and retribution Is always slow of foot, but it catches up.
The Odes of Horace, BOOK 111, ODE 2
VERITAS
I called him Veritas, and he was a mystery to me. Veritas spoke cautiously, using code words and elliptical phrases, a habit he had developed after many years in the upper levels of the tobacco industry.
Mazes within mazes, he said. People get lost in mazes.
I had no idea what he was talking about, but I nodded to keep him going.
See the movie The Name of the Rose, he suggested. The blind librarian. Theres a parallel.
A parallel with what?
It was life in the notebooks, he said. Big, black notebooks. They were three-ring binders, and they looked innocent enough, but those books ... it was our Bible.
We sat facing each other in the lounge of a private club in downtown Washington. There was an air of shabby gentility to the place, the residue of better days. Veritas had made anonymity a condition of the meeting, and except for one waitress, we were alone in the room. I waited for him to explain, although such restraint did not come readily to me.
There was a paradigm. Veritas pursed his lips, and made a noise like a buzzer. They trained you ... b-z-z ... they programmed it into you ... b-z-z ... you had to study it like the Catechism ... b-z-z.
He intended the odd buzzing noise to mimic a conditioned reflex. I asked cautiously, Those notebooks, did they actually exist?
Three-ring binders, he said. They were real. Everything was scripted. The script was etched in stone.
His use of the word script brought the code words and phrases into focus, and I began to understand what he was getting at. Veritas was talking about the tobacco industrys strategy. Of course, there was a script, I thought to myself. Why hadnt I seen that earlier?
When we began our investigation of tobacco at the Food and Drug Administration, we had no idea of the power wielded by the tobacco companies, but we soon learned why the industry was for decades considered untouchable. Tobacco employed some of the most prestigious law firms in the country and commanded the allegiance of a significant section of the Congress. It also had access to the services of widely admired public figures, ranging from Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to Senator Howard Baker. With its limitless resources and a corporate culture that was aggressively defensive, the industry perceived threats everywhere and responded to them ferociously.
