Wholly Smokes Read online

  May 5. Read a few cables in the morning and sent off replies. In the afternoon, I took a brisk walk with Mr. Hatney. He says he lost over £750 to Count Waldiz. The Count had bet he could seduce Fräulein Diesl before we landed. This morning, Hatney had seen her come out of Waldiz’s cabin. I wonder about Waldiz. Is he really a count, and not some kind of swindler who preys on airship passengers?

  In the evening, Count Waldiz again drank absinthe. He was up to no good. First he bet me a thousand dollars he could name more cigar types than I. This he didby cheating. After I had named the Claro, Corona, Corona Gorda, Double Corona, Figurado, Giant, Grand Corona,

  Long Corona, Lonsdale, Maduro, Panatela, Perfecto, Petit Corona, Pyramide, Robusto, Simple Corona, Toro, Torpedo, and Triangular, he named the Valdez.

  “The Valdez?” I asked.

  “Named after my family. Valdez is the Spanish version of Waldiz,” he explained.

  After I paid up, he showed me a pistol and suggested a sporting game of Russian roulette. When I refused, he suggested we try “taking the bridge.” We could force the captain to make the ship do some “dives and loops and things. Great fun, what?” I again refused.

  “But LeRoy, my old friend, does it not drive you mad, all these German rules and regulations? Do you not feel like doing something, making something happen? I mean, here we have to sit in this room to enjoy a smoke. It is an insult to you as a cigar tycoon! Don’t you feel like having a cigar in your cabin?”

  I said yes indeed, and I had hidden a box of matches for that very purpose.

  “Capital! And did you do it? Did you smoke a cigar in your cabin?”

  I explained that I was afraid the steward would smell the smoke or find the ash.

  “Afraid of the steward. LeRoy, you have a sad case of German-itis! But I will think of some cure, fear not.” There was a mad gleam in his monocle. I’m glad we land tomorrow.

  May 6. Towards evening, we approached our destination, Lakehurst, New Jersey. I had not seen Count Waldiz all day. Then all at once he popped up in the corridor and grabbed my lapels. “LeRoy, my old friend, come and have a final cigar. I’ve found a place where the steward won’t bother you!” He indicated the ladder leading aloft, to the gas envelope – an area expressly forbidden to unaccompanied passengers. I murmured something about seeing to my suitcases.

  The Mad Count leaned towards me, his breath reeking of absinthe (I will henceforth forever hate licorice). “LeRoy, my old friend, you must not be a coward! Imagine, a tobacco czar, afraid to light up! Come up and have a last smoke with me!”

  I followed him up the ladder to the dimly-lit corridor. We found ourselves on a catwalk running the length of the air-ship, past these rows of great cylinders of oiled silk – the gas bags.

  “Just think, LeRoy! These big sausages contain the clouds of hydrogen that hold us up in the sky! Marvelous!” Waldiz bit the end off a grand corona. “Got a light?”

  I did not feel like a smoke myself, but I handed him my matches. He was about to light it, when a crewmen appeared. “Verboten. This deck is off-limits to passengers! What do you make here, gentlemen?”

  Waldiz looked at him. “We came up because I smell gas.”

  The crewman started, then smiled. “You make a joke, sir. Hydrogen gas has no smell. No smell at all.”

  “Not for ordinary people, but I have a very sensitive nose.” The Count pointed to his nose, which was red and bulbous. “Years of absinthe have sharpened my senses. I tell you, I smell gas! There is a leak!”

  The crewman chuckled indulgently. “Really? Where is this so-called gas leak?”

  Count Waldiz pointed to a dark corner between two gas bags. “Over there, I believe. Let’s have a closer look.”

  He struck a match and lunged forward.

  That’s all I recall until this moment. I am lying on the ground, and my leg seems to be broken. There’s burning stuff falling all around me – falling, I fear, from the mighty Hindenburg. The ship itself is still intact in the air above me, though ablaze.

  Miraculously, my journal and fountain pen have fallen with me, so I can continue my chronicle. No sign of Count Waldiz. Not that I want to see him again. [No one ever did see the Count again]. Damn him! He’s created a disaster! There go all our hopes for a decent, upmarket stogie!

  I’d better wind this up now, for the Hindenburg seems to be falling towards me! Evidently if the hydrogen burns up, the darned thing can’t stay aloft! It sinks to earth as surely as a ship sinks to the bottom of the sea! I wish I’d paid more attention in chemistry class. If only –

  LeRoy was crushed to death by a piece of the falling wreckage. Near as anyone can tell, it was a giant tail fin, emblazoned with a swastika.

  Sophisticated Ladies, Satin Dolls, and Brothers Who Could Spare a Dime

  Throughout the 1930s, the advertising department set to work developing a cigarette with a completely new image. As their report saw it, people wanted to escape from the harsh world of the Depression into a fantasy of wealth and sophistication:

  Our new cigarette, X, must be closely identified with the modern young aristocrats: men and women who are rich and suave, tough and coolly sophisticated.

  For example, the man who smokes X might spend the day hunting foxes, then put on evening clothes to go to a boxing match, ending up at a low dive in Harlem where all the waiters know him.

  Or the man who smokes X might return from hunting big game in Nairobi, then spend a season relaxing at Monte, where he enjoys making substantial bets – a king’s ransom on a turn of the wheel.

  Let us not forget the woman who smokes X. She might spend the day racing her own plane, then give a dinner party for a select circle of friends including the Prince of Wales.

  Or the woman who smokes X might play a chukker of polo, then get up a theatre party to see the Lunts in a new Noel Coward play. Later she would include the Lunts and Coward in her party, as she moved on to the newest nightclub.

  The name we choose for X must suggest something English and aristocratic, such as those used by our competitors: KingEdward, Prince Albert, Chesterfield, Tareyton, &c. Possible candidates are Lord Byron, Ring James, Ivanhoe, Montrose, or aristocratic place names like Hampshire, York, Lancashire, Kent, Marlborough, Somerset, Devonshire.

  A major obstacle to this change was Augustus Badcock, who saw no reason to modernize. Augustus was a formidable bully. Lady Fantasy had been his idea originally, and now he was reluctant to let her go. Augustus was still the president, and he resisted all change at General Snuff and Tobacco. His reply to the memo fairly snorted at the idea of “Lord Fauntleroy stuff” selling tobacco. The image of poloplaying women was also repugnant to him. He responded to the famous memo by firing the entire advertising dep artment.

  There followed a stormy board meeting:

  AUGUSTUS: We don’t need no Lord Fauntleroys or polo popsies in tight breeches. We can always count on our old standbys, Lady Fantasy, Bull Pouch, and Cairo.

  BOARD MEMBER (laughs): Just look at the sales figures. No one still smokes Lady Fantasy but a handful of old veterans – half of them missing a lung.

  AUGUSTUS: That’s from poison gas! You can’t blame cigarettes for lung problems!

  BOARD MEMBER: Maybe not. Nevertheless, the public associates our products with broken-down, bronchitic invalids. Is that what we want? As for Bull Pouch tobacco and Cairo Cut Plug, nobody uses them but a few old-timers out west. Is that the kind of image we want? Tom Mix trying to hit a spittoon? We don’t need to call up the ghosts of sunburned yahoos with dirty necks, squatting around a campfire. No sir. The fact is, cowboys are dying out, and if we don’t move with the times, so are we.

  AUGUSTUS: Death! Damn you, I know all about death. Lost my son to this High Society nonsense. Le-Roy just had to get on the damned Hindenburg and mingle. Well, I’m not going to suffer any further losses. Damn it, I’ll die out myself before I let you tarnish the good name of General Snuff and Tobacco!

  So saying, Augustus angrily bit off a lar
ge chaw of Cairo Cut Plug. It was a huge bite, more than he could chew. Somehow Augustus sucked some of it back into his windpipe and began to choke.

  The other board members looked at one another. No one moved. We’ll never know why they hesitated. Did they want him to choke? Or were they simply afraid to step up and slap him on the back?

  Either way, from that day forward, Augustus Badcock was no longer an obstacle to progress.

  Lord Chamberlains

  Augustus was succeeded by his nephew Horace (“Boomer”) Badcock, a man with more experience of the modern world, and especially of the Great Depression. As a young man, Horace took a summer off and tramped the country. He lived the life of a hobo, riding the freight trains, standing in soup lines, sleeping outdoors – and drinking antifreeze. “I wanted to get in touch with real people,” he explained later. The episode earned him the nickname, “Boomer,” which he bore proudly the rest of his days.

  Horace felt he knew what ordinary people wanted in a cigarette, namely an escape into elegance. “They don’t enjoy living in dirt, and poverty, and ugliness,” he said. “They want beauty and sophistication. They want class and plenty of it. We need to make our products as exciting as the movies. When people light up, they ought to feel they’re sharing in the lives of the famous, the glamorous, the wealthy. They ought to feel it’s like sipping that first martini.”

  He rehired the advertising department and cautiously endorsed the new campaign. The company prepared to launch a new cigarette with an English name.

  The name itself was a problem. A number of English names were considered and rejected, for various reasons. Some were too hard to pronounce (Cholmondely, Leicester, Featherstone-haugh). Some simply had a comical sound (Stoke-on-the-Wold, Horsleydown, Cuthbert Harrowing, Wrangthorn, Plimsoll). Some sounded faintly risqué (Marquis of Bath, Knight of the Garter, and Lord Privy Seal).

  The final choice was Lord Chamberlain, a name sufficiently aristocratic, suave, and worldly. No one knew that, in Britain, this was only the title of a dull official whose chief job was censoring plays. In America the name itself would play well –on Broadway or anywhere else.

  The drift of the campaign was clear in magazine ads from prestigious 1930s magazines like New Yorker and Vanity Fair. Each ad featured a glittering aristocrat.

  In one ad a society lady is shown in two poses: in aviator suit, climbing from the cockpit of her own plane; in evening dress she welcomes guests to a dazzling dinner party. Always and everywhere, she smokes Lord Chamberlains.

  “I serve them to my guests between courses,” she explains. “Nothing aids digestion like Lord Chamberlain.”

  “For a recent dinner party at our house in Newport, I really depended upon Lord Chamberlain,” she says. “I serve them to guests after every course – everyone knows they aid digestion – and they make the conversation flow and the occasion simply sparkle.” She laughs. “My friends are all sold on Lord Chamberlain. It’s the modern thing to do!”

  Lord

  Chamberlain –

  It’s the

  Modern Thing to Do!

  To the rest of the world, she’s the Baroness du Champs-Elysée, very much a part of the glittering haut monde, dashing back from an Alpine skiing holiday to catch the New York season, before she flies her monoplane out West to visit her rancho. Then it’s off to Deauville or the south of France.

  But to her friends, she’s just Sally, the fresh-faced, girl who’s always ready for a lark – like going to Harlem in sables and pearls. And when she smokes, it’s always

  Lord

  Chamberlain

  Another ad shows a tall, slim man in full evening dress, under the canopy of a Harlem nightclub. He wears a bright scarlet-lined cape and a bright blue order (the color reproduction of the time could not manage much more than red or blue). His hair and naval beard are bright orange-red, and his eye (the one not hidden by a monocle) vivid blue. He has just stepped out of a limousine and paused to remove his gloves and take a reflective pull at his cigarette.

  King Edilvik of Ruritania says: “I like to prowl in strange places. I find I can take Lord Chamberlain anywhere. My constant companion, it’s at home on safari in Nairobi, or racing my favorite car at Daytona, or just relaxing at the Cotton Club. Wherever I go, Lord Chamberlain helps me get more out of life.”

  These days there was a plentiful supply of exiled Ruritanian and other aristocrats, thanks to the turmoil in Europe. How long before America got into it? For GST, a new World War might mean new markets – and brand new rules.

  “Keep ‘Em Smoking!”

  Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on a Sunday. On Monday, Horace Badcock called an emergency meeting of the board.

  HORACE: You heard Mr. Roosevelt. It’s war, boys, and we’ve got to pitch in.

  BOARD MEMBER: Well of course, every company is expected to do its patriotic duty.

  HORACE: I’m not talking about the war with Japan and Italy and Germany. I’m talking about the war with our rivals, the makers of Lucky Strike, Camel, and Chesterfield. This is real war! No quarter will be asked or granted, no prisoners taken, and no holds barred! It is, quite simply, a battle to the death!

  BOARD MEMBER: Isn’t that a little strong? I mean, we’re all gentlemen. Businesses all have to pull together for the good of the country.

  HORACE: Damn the country! We are fighting for our lives! For room to live and breathe! Our products need living space, and we can only give it to them by taking that space away from our enemies!

  BOARD MEMBER (skeptical): How are we supposed to begin?

  HORACE: We need to begin with a sneak attack. With anew brand of cigarettes – Hits! Hits will be tough, no-nonsense, a fighting man’s smoke. In a plain brown pack.

  Hits was a patriotic blunderbuss (every ad featured American flags and Minutemen) that nevertheless failed to hit its target. According to a marketing memo, it lacked the right touch:

  The problem is not the cigarette. Hits is essentially the right product for our times. Consumers no longer want to identify with monocled aristocrats in red-lined capes. That fancy-pants stuff is strictly for the birds. What they want is patriotism and teamwork and the common man just rolling up his sleeves and doing the job. We have to aim at that common man.

  What’s more important, we have to aim at the common woman too. Women are now flooding into the war plants, taking up jobs like welding and riveting. They work like men and they want to smoke like men. This can be a massive new market.

  Our new brand, Hits, ought to be perfect for this new women’s market, but so far it isn’t doing well. Women just don’t care for that dull brown packaging. The fact is, no matter how tough Rosie the Riveter is, she wants a cigarette pack that matches her lipstick. We need to change the packaging color to red as soon as possible.

  We suggest announcing the change with an ad slogan: “Hits Brown has Gone to War.” The ad copy will go on to explain that brown dye is now needed for uniforms or camouflage paint or something patriotic. Let the wordsmiths hammer it all out. But the ad should finish up something like this: “Hits is helping Uncle Sam. You can help too, by buying War Bonds. Keep ‘Em Flying! Keep ’Em Smoking!”

  With this campaign, Hits sales became brisk, but other tobacco companies were fighting too for bigger shares of the market. GST fought back hard. Its radio ads hinted that other brands might cause “tired lungs.”

  Did you know the cigarette you smoke can make a difference to the war effort? Some brands cause tired lungs. You feel too rundown and tired to do your job. You can’t give Uncle Sam a hundred percent. And Uncle Sam needs a hundred percent from everybody, so he can give Hitler and Tojo a kick in the pants.

  Of course, Hitler and Tojo would like it fine if you had tired lungs. So don’t make it easy on the enemy. If you’ve got tired lungs, give Hits a try. Remember, Hits is helping Uncle Sam. You can help too! Buy Bonds and Keep ‘Em Smoking!

  For a time, GST sought an endorsement from General Douglas MacArthur. Horace began trying to
look like MacArthur – wearing dark glasses and a crushed hat, smoking a corncob pipe – hoping to ingratiate himself with MacArthur. Seemingly this had no effect.

  General Horace

  Badcock Smoking His

  Famous Corncob Pipe

  Horace then planned a campaign in which MacArthur would appear in an ad saying he was giving up his famous corncob pipe and switching to Hits. When the general refused to cooperate, Horace wrote:

  I’m not disappointed. Why should we bother with an endorsement by the man who lost the Pacific war? No, we need to think bigger, aim our sights higher. Find what brand FDR smokes in his cigarette holder over at the White House. If it’s not ours, see what he will take to change to our brand. By God, there’s an endorsement worth having!

  GST magazine ads featured heroic paintings of fighting men and working women smoking.

  One ad showed what was supposed to be a naval gun crew after a battle, their faces gleaming with sweat and grime, puffing with pleasure on Hits as they rested near the powder magazine. Another showed what was supposed to be a bomber crew over Germany, flipping back their oxygen masks to light up.

  Neither radio nor print ads were working well enough. Horace called a meeting and laid down the law to his marketing people: “To hell with tired lungs. To hell with Uncle Sam. We need something direct, something with punch. Before the war ends, I want us to be Number One! No excuses! Number One! And somebody for God’s sake get me a drink!”