Warren W Furth
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Warren Wolfganf Furth was the Deputy Director-General for Administration at the World Health Organisation at a time (roughly 1965) when Hamish Maxwell, Bill Murray, and Geoffrey C Bible were running Philip Morris Europe's headquarters in Lausanne, just outside Geneva in Switzerland. Their social club was the Geneva Squash Club, built on the grounds of the tobacco flavour manufacturer and distributor, Firmenich. At this time squash was sweeping Europe and elsewhere, and so all the expats in Geneva concentrated here, including many from the UN agencies - including the World Health Organisation and the International Labor Organisation. Bible and Murray had briefly worked for the ILO before transferring to Philip Morris.
The three top Philip Morris European executives eventually went on to run Philip Morris International out of New York, and they hired David A Morse, the ex-head of the ILO (their old boss) to provide legal and lobbying services through his law partnership, Surrey & Morse. He became involved in a number of their scams, (Libertad, NYSIA, AECA, IIHD), working with Andrew Whist, the head of External Affairs. Eventually Morse brought his old associate Francis Blanchard who had taken over as Sec-General of the ILO when Morse left into the corruption group, and later Warren Furth of the WHO offered his services.
Furth was in America with the DirectorGeneral of the WHO and the Director of the Office of Drug Abuse Policy to meet President Carter, when he made contact with Philip Morris through Jim Bowling, the assistant to Philip Morris's then CEO and Chairman, Joe Cullman III.
Quite a few years later he became a lawyer with David Morse's firm Surrey & Morse.
Documents & Timeline
1977 Nov 18 The Daily Diary of President Jimmy Carter records 9:17 to 9:32:
The President met with:
- Dr. Halfdan Mahler, Director-General of the World Health Organization, United Nations (UN)
- Warren Furth, Deputy Director-General for Administration, World Health Organization, UN
- Peter G. Boume, Director of the Office of Drug Abuse Policy {Source unknown]
1977 Oct 17 This is the record of hs first contact with PM's Jim Bowling (assistant to PM's CEO/Chairman Joe Cullman III) (to whom he also gave his card)
During the festivity attendant to the Governor's Conference in Geneva -- I sat one evening at dinner with Warren W Furth Assistant Director-General of the World Health Organization (stat of his card is attached).
| We had a lengthy discussion of WHO's activities in the smoking and health area. He tells me that his boss, the Director-General is increasingly concerned that they are over-emphasizing anti-cigarette activities. He described at some length the attitudes of the Director-General, and it sounded amazingly like the thoughts of Cliff Goldsmith. [Top PM executive] | He said that the Director-General felt that the over-emphasis on smoking could lead to vast "economic dislocation and psychic and sociological disruption,"' |
Furth said that the anti-smoking pressure came from Dr Godber of the UK -- that Godber was unreasonable and fanatical on the subject -- would even leave a room if someone lit a cigarette -- and that the staff was increasingly disenchanted with Godber's vehemence and over-emphasis.
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/hpk28e00/pdf
[Note that Bill Murray's notification of Furth's recruitment through Surrey & Morse didn't come until many years later -- but there is no way he would have ignored this chance to renew an old acquaintance from Geneva.]
1984 Dec /E (Could be Dec 1985) Bill Murray's note to his executives.
The World Health Organization
The activities of the WHO in relation to the tobacco industry pose a very real and immediate threat. Recommendations to governments such as the recent WHO recommendation that taxation, be used as a means of reducing smoking, are potentially very damaging to us. Third world countries are particularly prone to accept recommendations from the WHO in Geneva and we have already had several examples (Venezuela:, the Gulf States, Singapore, Malaysia) where the WHO has been able to reduce our ability to market.
This year we plan to take a major new initiative with regards to the WHO. The Surrey & Morse firm, now Jones and Day, is opening a law office in Geneva. The office will be headed up by Warren Furth, who is today an Assistant Director General of the WHO.
Warren is well known to David Morse, Geoff Bible and myself and, in fact, worked closely with all of us in the 60's when we all worked for the UN. He is respected by people within the WHO, knows how it works and knows who is important. He will be invaluable in advising us as to how to deal with the organization. [2]
- However Furth apparently remained at the WHO for at least another five years (until 1989). So if he was working for Surrey & Morse during these years it was definitely a night-time job, without the knowledge of the WHO.
1991 May 17 Paul Dietrich the anti_WHO tobacco lobbyist who worked with David Morse (and took over the Institute for International Health & Development when Morse died, has written a new article attacking the organisation for running anti-smoking programs when they should have other priorities for the money:
- the article for the International Herald Tribute: WHO: Time to Get Back to the Basics.
Also thee older articles from 1988.
- an article for the Wall Street Journal: WHO's to Blame: Fixing World Health Aid.
- Another WSJ article WHO Spends Money on WHAT?
- A third WSJ article WHO's Budget 'Crisis'
He quotes WHO assistant director general, Warren Furth, who said in 1988 : because of the budget crisis millions of children will not be immunized and many will die.[3] Predictably, Dietrich's article attacks the WHO for wasting time and budget on anti-smoking measures. However the tobacco industry's own report (INFOTOPICS - the newsletter of INFOTAB) records at the time that most Delegates to the WHO's Sixth World Conference "expressed support for WHO's Tobacco or Health program as did the representatives of the IOCU (Int'l Org. of Consumer Unions). IUAC (Int'l Union against Cancer) and Int'; Union against TB and Lung Disease. "[4] See Paul Dietrich's biog and cuttings in the tobacco industry files. [5]
