Firm Counters Ex-Executive on Safer Cigarette

LOUISVILLE, Ky. â€”  Brown & Williamson lawyers confronting tobacco whistle-blower Jeffrey Wigand at his deposition Tuesday produced records suggesting that work on a safer cigarette was sidetracked by technical problems rather than by legal concerns as Wigand has claimed.

Wigand, formerly B&W;’s vice president for research and development and the highest-ranking defector in the history of the tobacco industry, is undergoing exhaustive questioning by B&W; in its lawsuit accusing him of fraud and breach of contract.

Testimony on the second day of his deposition concerned “Project Airbus,� a program to develop a safer cigarette that was underway when Wigand joined B&W; in January 1989. Like the Premier and Eclipse alternative cigarettes test-marketed by R.J. Reynolds, the B&W; product would have heated, rather than burned, tobacco, thus delivering nicotine and tobacco flavor but little smoke or tar.

Wigand has said he was ordered to halt work on less hazardous cigarettes after a meeting in Vancouver with other tobacco scientists in the fall of 1989 because of fears that safer cigarettes would increase liability for conventional smokes.

But B&W; lawyer Bruce G. Sheffler presented minutes of research meetings attended by Wigand in February, March and September 1989 that described the alternative cigarette as “technologically impossible.�

According to the minutes, efforts to make an Airbus prototype were shelved and basic research on the project was transferred to the Southampton, England, research labs of BAT Industries Inc., B&W;’s corporate parent.

According to Sheffler, Wigand had said the project was killed “because of litigation concerns after the Vancouver meeting of 1989. That’s false, isn’t it?� he asked.

“I don’t believe so,� Wigand replied.

“There’s no basis to claim that that was canceled due to litigation concerns, was there?� Sheffler repeated.

“Yes, there is a basis,� Wigand said. He said he had been referring to “multiple projects� when he spoke of being ordered to halt work on safer cigarettes.

And Wigand insisted that the basic research “was transferred overseas so it [would not be] discoverable� in future legal proceedings in the United States.

Wigand, who was fired by B&W; in 1993 under disputed circumstances, has appeared on “60 Minutes,� is a consultant to attorneys who are suing tobacco companies and is considered a key witness in several federal civil and criminal investigations of the tobacco industry. Once paid about $300,000 a year by B&W;, he now teaches high school science and Japanese for about one-tenth his former salary.

B&W; sued Wigand in the fall, accusing him of violating a series of confidentiality agreements by talking to “60 Minutes,� leaking documents to other news organizations and offering himself as an expert witness to anti-tobacco lawyers.