Thank You for Smoking

"Yes ma'am," Nick said.

She instantly warmed. "You needn't call me ma'am. I'm not the queen. It must have been quite ghastly."

"Well, it wasn't fun," Nick said. "But nothing like what you've been through."

"We have something in common, then. We know that terrorism must never, ever, be countenanced."

"You bet," Nick said. "However, Lady Bent, our people are very concerned that this group — which is still very much at large — might target you, and we would obviously feel awful if anything happened. So I've come to ask that in all your public and even private statements, you absolutely refrain from mentioning tobacco. Or, God forbid, from saying anything positive about it."

She drew herself up like an aroused lioness and fixed him with a withering look. Nick thought, it sure must have been fun to be in her cabinet and face that look across the table.

"Mister Naylor," she said, like an arctic wind, "I have never been one to shrink from principle out of fear for my own personal safety."

"Of course not," Nick said. "And I certainly didn't meant to imply that you were. It's just that we feel—"

"If we let terrorists dictate what we do not say, then we are as good as letting them dictate what we do say. And when we do that, we are finished as a civilized people."

"Nicely put," Nick said. "Still, I must insist that you not mention tobacco. You don't want to get these people mad. I don't know about the IRA, I know they're bad news bears and all — and that was a terrible thing they did to your dogs — but things can get pretty nasty in America."

The color rose in Lady Bent. She stood, signaling that their interview was at an end, and proffered her hand. She said tersely and without smiling, "Good to see you," and with the viceroy following, walked out of the room, whose doors opened as if by magic.

Two days later, back in Washington, Nick was getting ready for his trip out to California when BR called him in.

"You see this?" he said, tossing him The Wall Street Journal.

Nick hadn't. He read:

After the dinner at the Pierre, Lady Bent spoke for an hour and twenty-five minutes, lengthy even by her standards. The theme of her speech was free enterprise in the post — Cold War era. It surprised no one at the dinner, consisting largely of business and international commerce officials, to hear the former British Prime Minister issue a ringing defense of open trade and a stinging attack on protectionism; she also included an unusually passionate endorsement of the right of American and British cigarette companies to compete in Asian markets.

Lady Bent serves on the board of Agglomerated Tobacco, which has been especially aggressive in trying to break down Pacific Rim trade barriers to U.S. tobacco products. In an informal exchange with a reporter after the dinner, Lady Bent said that her remarks on tobacco were unrelated to her connection with Agglomerated. "My views on the tobacco business are the same as my views on the ice cream business," she said, "and they have been consistent throughout my career." She went on to rebuke the anti-smoking movement for being "anti-business."

"I don't know what you told her," BR said, "but it sure worked. I've been instructed to give you another raise. To two-five-oh." Nick ran into Jeannette in the hallway. She was all smiles. "We still never talked about Inhale!" she said.

"I have to go to California tomorrow."

17