Death Comes to "Larry King Live"
Buckley, Christopher
Death Comes to "Larry King Live" In a send-up of a hot Washington TV ritual, the tobacco lobby's point man takes to the airwaves to make his pitch—and gets a killer call BY CHRISTOPHER...
...I'm out of Innocent," she said...
...I tell you something Larry, and Mr., sorry, I don't know your name, there in Herndon, I wouldn't let one of those things get near my skin...
...Balance," Nick muttered...
...Nick stopped...
...This isn't Oprah...
...Such as...
...Why...
...And then I developed these like, lumps...
...What's that...
...They have to huddle in doorways in the dead of winter...
...Like the report that just came out showing that tobacco smoke is replenishing the ozone that has been lost due to chlo-roflorocarbons...
...Larry was basically too polite to accuse his guests of being shameless liars...
...Who's lying now...
...But if I could steer us a little away from the anecdotal and toward the more scientific, the fact is 96 percent of heavy smokers never get seriously ill...
...For this guy to claim that we're saying it's all right to smoke is just beyond immorality...
...The doctor who told me that was a young fellah and I think he just told me that to get me to give up...
...There's no rise in pneumonia...
...Stoma...
...It is extremely dangerous...
...Naylor...
...But abuse does seem to be the lot of the modern-day smoker...
...It's gonna be fine...
...It is the number one preventable killer in the United States...
...They're scorned, victimized, shunned—if they're lucky they're shunned, most of them are actively abused...
...It's very interesting that you say that," said the voice...
...I think he's a criminal, Larry...
...And Tawny Blush highlight...
...Trust me, you won't have to be in the same room at the same time, I promise...
...I give up, Larry, I can't listen anymore, I'm going to get violent...
...Have you got Innocent Bisque...
...Larry, has anyone ever announced that they're going to kill someone on your show before...
...Good evening everyone, I'm Larry King...
...Good to see you...
...He used to smoke three packs a day...
...Let me ask you something, Nick...
...individual is trying to create...
...From the National Institutes of Health, right here in Bethesda, Maryland...
...Christopher Buckley is the editor of Forbes FYI and the author, among other books, of The White House Mess...
...Fuming, Nick took his seat...
...My doctor told me I could either go on smoking or die...
...I smoke and it hasn't made me sick...
...We're just here to provide the scientific facts...
...I have really enjoyed talking with you...
...Talk about your tyranny of the majority...
...It's grotesque...
...Nick, care to comment...
...Look, it's not a setup, Larry wanted you on, then Atlanta said he had to put someone else from the other side on after, for balance...
...They get colds and, you know, headaches and the normal sort of things, bunions"—Bunions?—"but they don't get seriously ill...
...Heart attacks...
...My first guest tonight is Nick Naylor, chief spokesman for the tobacco lobby here in Washington, D.C...
...Well, maybe I should take it up again, do my part for the ozone hole...
...He was going to need a session with Dr...
...Isn't that a little hard to believe...
...But you're in the right ballpark...
...This is excerpted from Thank You For Smoking, © 1994 by Christopher Buckley...
...I gave instructions...
...Actually, I would have thought they would have been pleased by our announcement that our industry is prepared to spend five million dollars on a very high-level campaign to keep underage kids from smoking...
...I will certainly be careful with them...
...Yes it is...
...Are you nutsl" "You're not on with anyone...
...And your question...
...Ironically, it was Nick who had talked Total Tobacco Company management out of suing him for breach-of-faith, on the grounds that it would do no good to the industry's image to sue a dying man with three kids and 12 grandchildren, especially since his croaky pleas to the nation's youth not to smoke had made him a media darling (at least with the broadcast media since they couldn't accept cigarette ads anyway...
...Smoking is bad for you right...
...Oh, absolutely...
...Or worse...
...It was probably why Ross Perot liked him so much...
...Yes, Larry...
...Maybe, thought Nick bitterly, he could trot out this pathetic little detail in his defense tonight...
...said Larry...
...The one in the throat...
...Spokane, Washington, you're on the air...
...No one has a question tonight...
...Oh yes, please, let's do shift this steaming pile away from ourselves...
...While it may be true that as many as 96 percent of smokers never get seriously ill, it simply does not follow that smoking is not dangerous...
...That is news," Larry shrugged...
...You bet it is, Larry...
...Herndon, Virginia...
...I don't think the lumps had anything to do with smoking...
...Yes, that's what we hear...
...the indisputable fact that it retards the onset of Parkinson's disease...
...Yes, I smoked for many, many, many years...
...Lot of calls...
...No, Larry, actually that's not true...
...It's never too late to take it back up again," Nick said...
...Apparently, Larry...
...Doctors tend to have their own agendas...
...Blue Hill, Maine, you're on the air...
...I used to smoke like a chimney," she said...
...Where does that figure come from...
...He's lying through his teeth, Larry...
...We're going to take some calls...
...Well, Larry, we don't advocate that anyone should take up smoking...
...As long as he was at it, he threw in: "And from the Centers for Disease Control, in Atlanta, Georgia...
...We're gonna have a good show tonight...
...You're on Larry King Live...
...Nick cleared his throat...
...Jesus, the Tumbleweed Man...
...It's all fixed...
...There should be a death penalty for what he does...
...Uh-huh," Larry said...
...Hoh...
...Lot of money, five million...
...Larry looked over at Sammy in the booth, who gestured to say that they'd said they had questions...
...Then this is your lucky day, because I'm here to tell you that within a week, we're going to dispatch Mr...
...I better check with my doctor first...
...I understand Lome Lutch is on the second segment," Nick said...
...Kind of rare, isn't it...
...All right...
...Thanks for coming...
...Not the cancer kid...
...Too bad...
...You have a very nice show...
...Frankly, sir, we at the Academy of Tobacco Studies are a little concerned about these things...
...I would like to ask your guest how he can live with himself...
...Atlanta, Georgia"—Nick's gut went into Condition Red—"you're on the air...
...Hello...
...Sammy was hovering, as if she didn't trust him not to flee down the fire stairs with his makeup bib still on...
...Larry King was very welcoming...
...Larry said...
...Reprinted by permission of Random House...
...So we should wait till we're 65 and then start smoking like crazy...
...But—" "Well there you go...
...Tell you something, though...
...Undoubtedly...
...People have been dropping dead all over as a result of these patches...
...Death Comes to "Larry King Live" In a send-up of a hot Washington TV ritual, the tobacco lobby's point man takes to the airwaves to make his pitch—and gets a killer call BY CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY Christopher Buckley's new novel, Thank You For Smoking, tells the story of Nick Naylor, chief spokesman for the fictional Academy for Tobacco Studies (the smoking lobby...
...Emotional issue," Larry said...
...Let's face it, sir, you and your ilk have turned one-fifth of the population of the United States into lepers...
...Sammy Najeeb, Larry King's producer and a force of nature, six-foot-something, big, hearty, came to fetch Nick in the reception area and take him to makeup...
...He's a fan...
...Oh-oh...
...Really...
...Well," Nick said, "your typical cigarette delivers a relatively minute amount of nicotine into your system, a very minute amount...
...If this gentleman wants to debate the science, I'm all for it...
...bring on the data...
...I'll tell you what made me sick is drinking Milwaukee public water...
...I don't know what the incidence of heart disease is in the King family...
...But I guess politics got in the way...
...I wouldn't be comfortable discussing your medical history, Larry...
...No," said Larry, "but we do get a lot of angry calls...
...Even our previous caller, Dr...
...Must be Greek, right...
...His trapezius muscles were hypercontracting...
...Yeess," said a man's voice with a nervous air to it, "I have a question for Mr...
...Thank you, Larry...
...Who...
...Larry shrugged...
...It's two completely different segments...
...Not really, Larry...
...And now the secretary of Health and Human Services and the surgeon general are calling for you to be fired, I understand...
...With any luck, no one from NIH or CDC would be watching...
...Nick...
...Naylor for all the pain and suffering he's caused in the world...
...Hi there," said the makeup lady...
...I'd also like to call to your attention the report last week that smokers who are clerical workers tend to get less carpal tunnel syndrome, you know, the wrist thing, because they take more breaks...
...I take it you don't approve of what he does...
...Wait a minute," Larry said, "are you threatening him...
...Whereas one of these deadly little Band-Aids—" "Hold on," Larry said, "you said 'deadly...
...What...
...It's Lome Lutch...
...By the way, who's on the second segment...
...By the way, you know what that hole is called...
...Okay, we need a question...
...No...
...Larry loved what you did on Oprah...
...You don't want to know," Sammy said...
...Wheat right now...
...But Indigo is close...
...I would like to ask him his opinion of these nicotine patches that so many people are wearing...
...Uh, yes, hello...
...Of course," Nick said, "neither Secretary Furioso nor the surgeon general, both of whom continue to refuse to debate with me on the merits of the issues, want you to know that or their budgets will go down...
...And the doctor said it was from smoking, so I gave it up, but the lumps still didn't go away, so I'm thinking about taking it up again...
...Doom down there in Atlanta, would admit to that...
...I'm on with the Tumbleweed Man...
...And you know something, I still miss it...
...I'm certainly happy that you're feeling better...
...There are a lot of things," Nick sighed in a world-weary way, "that the government doesn't want people to know about tobacco...
...I know, but what can you do...
...Do you have a question...
...Now he was breathing through a hole in his throat and with every breath he had left—which was not many, thank God, according to Gomez O'Neal, the head of the Academy's intelligence unit—paving his way to the Pearly Gates by warning everyone about the evils of smoking...
...Oh...
...Let NIH deny it tomorrow...
...Good question," Larry said...
...I used to smoke like a chimney and I had three heart attacks and bypass surgery...
...Wheat soon...
...There was a click...
...He should be locked up...
...There's something else the quote medical science establishment unquote doesn't want you to know about...
...Well," Nick said, "it's a little difficult to carry on a rational discussion while being verbally abused...
...I used to smoke three packs a day," Larry said...
...For over 20 years the very symbol of America's smoking manhood in the saddle, his rugged, granite face on the back cover of every magazine, on billboards, on TV, in those happy bygone days...
...tomorrow people would be on to the next thing, Bosnia, tax increases, Sharon Stone's new movie, Patti Davis's latest novel about what a bitch her mother was...
...Interesting...
...Good evening, Nick...
...That guy is lower than whalecrap...
...Very emotional issue...
...I thought I was going to die...
...Who...
...There was an awkward pause...
...He's a nice guy...
...Sad, but true...
...Okay, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, you're on the air...
...Here, just after an interview on "Oprah " in which Naylor was confronted with a boy dying of cancer linked to secondhand smoke, he goes on "Larry King Live " to try to repair the damage...
...Our attitude has always been...
...I mean...
...Larry, there has been an extraordinary increase in this ghastly, life-threatening disease, well documented by medical authorities, thank you very much, and it's happen- ' ing because smokers are being forced out-of-doors in freezing temperatures...
...Thanks...
...I work for the Centers for Disease Control and I would like to try to correct the extraordinary misimpression that this...
...Emotional issue," said Larry...
...Well those two aren't exactly unbiased when it comes to tobacco...
...Nick screwed in his earpiece...
...They dispense nicotine into the system, same as cigarettes, and your position is that cigarettes aren't bad for you, right...
...I would like to ask the gentleman from the CDC, if that's really where he's from, about the recent rise in the cases of pneumonia—" "What rise in pneumonia...
...He could use a session with Dr...
...Pleasure," Nick said tightly...
...Yes...
...Good evening, Larry...
...I read that some people who have kept on smoking after they started wearing the patches had heart attacks," said Larry...
...A couple of days ago you were on the Oprah show and stirred up quite a fuss, right...
...There have been so far over 60,000 studies since the 1940s showing the link between smoking and disease...
Vol. 27 • January 1994 • No. 6
