
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, June 12, 1990                   TAG: 9006120375
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CHESTER WICKWIRE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

HOOKS, HESBURGH TARNISHED BY APPEARANCE IN PHILIP MORRIS ADS

THE REPUTATION of Benjamin Hooks, executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was diminished when he permitted his photo and quote to be used by Philip Morris in its full-page ads exploiting the upcoming 200th anniversary of the Bill of Rights.

Did he or the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, president emeritus of Notre Dame University and past chairman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, whose face and blurb also appear in Philip Morris ads, seriously consider the ethical issues involved?

One cannot accuse Hooks of being naively unaware that Philip Morris is running the ads to make money, or that his participation is read as an endorsement of America's largest purveyor of addictive and lethal nicotine.

Although Hooks chose not to respond to a call to his office to discuss the ads, surely he knows that 400,000 Americans die each year from smoking cigarettes, and that passive smoking is increasingly proven to be a serious health threat.

How can anyone associated with human rights be insensitive to the voices of African-Americans who are now becoming more aware that tobacco endangers their right to life? They are protesting cigarette ads directed to their communities.

One prominent black American, Louis W. Sullivan, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, is speaking out about the deadly risk in cigarette smoking in the United States. He has appealed for a state ban on cigarette vending-machines that sell to kids, and for the licensing of tobacco retailers.

Antonia Novello, U.S. surgeon general, says that if current smoking rates continue, "5 million of the children now living in this country [will] die of smoking-related disease." Harvard University and City University of New York are divesting their stocks in tobacco. Derek Bok, president of Harvard, says that his university does not want to be associated with "companies engaged in significant sales of products that create a substantial and unjustified risk of harm to other human beings."

Harvard and City University of New York grew in stature when they put ethics above accounting. Hooks and Hesburgh tarnished their proud records in human and civil rights when they joined those who invite untimely death rather than the right to healthy life.

by CNB