The Insider Quotes
A research chemist comes under personal and professional attack when he decides to appear in a "60 Minutes" expose on Big Tobacco.
Lowell Bergman: I fought for you and I still fight for you!
Jeffrey Wigand: You fought for me? You manipulated me! Into where I am now - staring at the Brown & Williamson building, it's all dark except for the tenth floor. That's the legal department, that's where they fuck with my life!
Lowell Bergman: Jeffrey, where are you going with this? Where are you going? (Pause) You are important to a lot of people, Jeffrey. You think about that, and you think about them. (Pause) I'm all out of heroes, man. Guys like you are in short supply.
Jeffrey Wigand: Yeah, guys like you, too.
Jeffrey Wigand: You fought for me? You manipulated me! Into where I am now - staring at the Brown & Williamson building, it's all dark except for the tenth floor. That's the legal department, that's where they fuck with my life!
Lowell Bergman: Jeffrey, where are you going with this? Where are you going? (Pause) You are important to a lot of people, Jeffrey. You think about that, and you think about them. (Pause) I'm all out of heroes, man. Guys like you are in short supply.
Jeffrey Wigand: Yeah, guys like you, too.
[Jeff won't answer the phone, Lowell is on the telephone to the manager of the hotel he is at]
Lowell Bergman: I want you to tell him, in this - in these words: "Get on the fucking phone!"
The Hotel Worker: I can't say that.
Lowell Bergman: No, you can. Tell him to get on the fucking phone!
The Hotel Worker: He told me to tell you to "Get on the... fucking phone!"
Lowell Bergman: I want you to tell him, in this - in these words: "Get on the fucking phone!"
The Hotel Worker: I can't say that.
Lowell Bergman: No, you can. Tell him to get on the fucking phone!
The Hotel Worker: He told me to tell you to "Get on the... fucking phone!"
Tobacco Lawyer: Dr. Wigand, I am instructing you not to answer that question in accordance to the terms of the contractual obligations undertaken by you not to disclose any information about your work at the Brown and Williamson tobacco company, and in accordance with the force and effect of the temporary restraining order that has been entered against you by the court in the state of Kentucky. That means you don't talk! Mr. Motley we have rights here.
Ron Motley: Boy, you got rights... and lefts. Ups and downs and middles. So what? You don't get to instruct anything around here! This is not North Carolina, not South Carolina, nor Kentucky! This is the sovereign state of Mississippi's proceedings. Wipe that smirk off your face! Dr. Wigand's deposition will be part of this record! And I'm gonna take my witness' testimony whether the hell you like it or not!
Ron Motley: Boy, you got rights... and lefts. Ups and downs and middles. So what? You don't get to instruct anything around here! This is not North Carolina, not South Carolina, nor Kentucky! This is the sovereign state of Mississippi's proceedings. Wipe that smirk off your face! Dr. Wigand's deposition will be part of this record! And I'm gonna take my witness' testimony whether the hell you like it or not!
Mike Wallace: "Mike"? Try "Mr. Wallace." We work in the same corporation, doesn't mean we work in the same profession. What are you gonna do now? You gonna finesse me? Lawyer me some more? I've been in this profession fifty fucking years. You and the people you work for are destroying the most-respected, the highest-rated, the most-profitable show on this network!
Jeffrey Wigand: So, what you're saying is it wasn't enough to fire me for no good reason. Now you question my integrity? On top of the humiliation of being fired, you threaten me? You threaten my family? It never crossed my mind not to honor my agreement. And I will tell you, Mr. Sandefur... and Brown & Williamson too - fuck me? Well, fuck you!
Lowell Bergman: You pay me to go get guys like Wigand, to draw him out. To get him to trust us, to get him to go on television. I do. I deliver him. He sits. He talks. He violates his own fucking confidentiality agreement. And he's only the key witness in the biggest public health reform issue, maybe the biggest, most-expensive corporate-malfeasance case in U.S. history. And Jeffrey Wigand, who's out on a limb, does he go on television and tell the truth? Yes. Is it newsworthy? Yes. Are we gonna air it? Of course not. Why? Because he's not telling the truth? No. Because he is telling the truth. That's why we're not going to air it. And the more truth he tells, the worse it gets!
Mike Wallace: And do you wish you hadn't come forward? Do you wish you hadn't blown the whistle?
Jeffrey Wigand: There are times when I wish I hadn't done it. There are times when I feel com... compelled to do it. If you asked me, would I do it again, do I think it's worth it? Yeah I think its worth it.
Jeffrey Wigand: There are times when I wish I hadn't done it. There are times when I feel com... compelled to do it. If you asked me, would I do it again, do I think it's worth it? Yeah I think its worth it.
Lowell Bergman: This news division has been *villified* by the New York Times! In print, on television, for *caving* to corporate interests!
Don Hewitt: New York Times ran a blow by blow of what we talked about behind closed doors! You fucked us!
Lowell Bergman: No, you fucked you! Don't invert stuff! Big Tobacco tried to smear Wigand, you bought it. The Wall Street Journal, here: not exactly a bastion of anti-capitalist sentiment, refutes Big Tobacco's smear campaign as the lowest form of character assassination! And now, even now, when every word of what Wigand has said on our show is printed, the entire deposition of his testimony in a court of law in the State of Mississippi, the cat *totally* out of the bag, you're still standing here debating! Don, what the hell else do you need?
Don Hewitt: Mike, you tell him.
Mike Wallace: You fucked up, Don.
Don Hewitt: New York Times ran a blow by blow of what we talked about behind closed doors! You fucked us!
Lowell Bergman: No, you fucked you! Don't invert stuff! Big Tobacco tried to smear Wigand, you bought it. The Wall Street Journal, here: not exactly a bastion of anti-capitalist sentiment, refutes Big Tobacco's smear campaign as the lowest form of character assassination! And now, even now, when every word of what Wigand has said on our show is printed, the entire deposition of his testimony in a court of law in the State of Mississippi, the cat *totally* out of the bag, you're still standing here debating! Don, what the hell else do you need?
Don Hewitt: Mike, you tell him.
Mike Wallace: You fucked up, Don.
Lowell Bergman: In all that time, Mike, did you ever get out a plane, walk into a room and find that a source for a story changed his mind? Lost his heart? Walked out on us? Not one fucking time. You want to know why?
Mike Wallace: I see a rhetorical question on the horizon.
Lowell Bergman: I'm gonna tell you why: because when I tell someone I'm gonna do something, I deliver.
Mike Wallace: I see a rhetorical question on the horizon.
Lowell Bergman: I'm gonna tell you why: because when I tell someone I'm gonna do something, I deliver.
Mike Wallace: [after watching a preview of the "60 Minutes" Wigand interview that has been edited] Where's the rest? Where the hell's the rest?
[we see Lowell turning to see Mike shouting at the monitors in disbelief]
Mike Wallace: [to Eric Kluster] You cut it! You cut the guts out of what I SAID!
Eric Kluster: It was a time consideration, Mike.
Mike Wallace: Time? Bullshit! You corporate lackey! Who told you your incompetent little fingers had the requisite skills to edit me! I'm trying to band-aid a situation, here, and you're too dim to...
[Mike is suddenly interrupted by Helen Caperelli, who walks up to Wallace and Kluster]
Helen Caperelli: Mike... Mike... Mike...
Mike Wallace: [to Helen Caperelli] Mike?
[there is a long pause]
Mike Wallace: Mike? Try Mr. Wallace. We work in the same corporation doesn't mean we work in the same profession. What are you gonna do now? You gonna finesse me? Lawyer me some more? I've been in this profession FIFTY FUCKING YEARS! You and the people you work for are destroying the most-respected, the highest-rated, the most-profitable show on this network!
[we see Lowell turning to see Mike shouting at the monitors in disbelief]
Mike Wallace: [to Eric Kluster] You cut it! You cut the guts out of what I SAID!
Eric Kluster: It was a time consideration, Mike.
Mike Wallace: Time? Bullshit! You corporate lackey! Who told you your incompetent little fingers had the requisite skills to edit me! I'm trying to band-aid a situation, here, and you're too dim to...
[Mike is suddenly interrupted by Helen Caperelli, who walks up to Wallace and Kluster]
Helen Caperelli: Mike... Mike... Mike...
Mike Wallace: [to Helen Caperelli] Mike?
[there is a long pause]
Mike Wallace: Mike? Try Mr. Wallace. We work in the same corporation doesn't mean we work in the same profession. What are you gonna do now? You gonna finesse me? Lawyer me some more? I've been in this profession FIFTY FUCKING YEARS! You and the people you work for are destroying the most-respected, the highest-rated, the most-profitable show on this network!
Lawyer: The unlimited checkbook. That's how Big Tobacco wins every time on everything, they spend you to death. Six hundred million a year in outside legal - Chadbourne-Park, uh, Ken Starr's firm, Kirkland & Ellis? Listen: GM and Ford, they get nailed after eleven or twelve pickups blow up, right? These clowns have never, I mean EVER...
John Harris: Not even once.
Lawyer:
John Harris: Not even once.
Lawyer:
Lowell Bergman: Alright... ABC Telemarketing Company?
Jeffrey Wigand: ABC...?
Lowell Bergman: ABC Telemarketing Company.
Jeffrey Wigand: A can opener! A $39.95 can opener. I cancelled payment... it was junk. You ever bounce a check, Lowell? You ever look at another woman's tits? You ever cheat a little on your taxes? Whose life, if you look at it under a microscope, doesn't have any flaws...?
Lowell Bergman: Well that's the whole point, Jeffrey. That's the whole point. Anyone's. Everyone's. They are gonna look under every rock, dig up every flaw, every mistake you've ever made. They are going to distort and exaggerate everything you've ever done, man. Don't you understand?
Jeffrey Wigand: What does this have to do with my testimony?
Lowell Bergman: That's not the point.
Jeffrey Wigand: What does this have to do with my testimony? I told the truth! It's valid and true and provable...!
Lowell Bergman: That's not the fucking point, whether you told the truth or not!... Hello?
Jeffrey Wigand: I told the truth... I told the truth... I've got to teach class. I've got to go. I've got to teach class.
Lowell Bergman: And I've got to refute every fucking accusation made in this report before The Wall Street Journal runs... I am trying to protect you, man.
Jeffrey Wigand: Well, I hope you improve your batting average.
Jeffrey Wigand: ABC...?
Lowell Bergman: ABC Telemarketing Company.
Jeffrey Wigand: A can opener! A $39.95 can opener. I cancelled payment... it was junk. You ever bounce a check, Lowell? You ever look at another woman's tits? You ever cheat a little on your taxes? Whose life, if you look at it under a microscope, doesn't have any flaws...?
Lowell Bergman: Well that's the whole point, Jeffrey. That's the whole point. Anyone's. Everyone's. They are gonna look under every rock, dig up every flaw, every mistake you've ever made. They are going to distort and exaggerate everything you've ever done, man. Don't you understand?
Jeffrey Wigand: What does this have to do with my testimony?
Lowell Bergman: That's not the point.
Jeffrey Wigand: What does this have to do with my testimony? I told the truth! It's valid and true and provable...!
Lowell Bergman: That's not the fucking point, whether you told the truth or not!... Hello?
Jeffrey Wigand: I told the truth... I told the truth... I've got to teach class. I've got to go. I've got to teach class.
Lowell Bergman: And I've got to refute every fucking accusation made in this report before The Wall Street Journal runs... I am trying to protect you, man.
Jeffrey Wigand: Well, I hope you improve your batting average.
Mike Wallace: In the real world, when you get to where I am, there are other considerations.
Lowell Bergman: Like what? Corporate responsibility? What, are we talking celebrity here?
Mike Wallace: I'm not talking celebrity, vanity, CBS. I'm talking about when you're nearer the end of your life than the beginning. Now, what do you think you think about then? The future? In the future I'm going to do this? Become that? What future? No. What you think is "How will I be regarded in the end?" After I'm gone. Now, along the way I suppose I made some minor impact. I did Iran-Gate and the Ayatollah, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Saddam, Sadat, etcetera, etcetera. I showed them thieves in suits. I've spent a lifetime building all that. But history only remembers most what you did last. And should that be fronting a segment that allowed a tobacco giant to crash this network? Does it give someone at my time of life pause? Yeah.
Lowell Bergman: Like what? Corporate responsibility? What, are we talking celebrity here?
Mike Wallace: I'm not talking celebrity, vanity, CBS. I'm talking about when you're nearer the end of your life than the beginning. Now, what do you think you think about then? The future? In the future I'm going to do this? Become that? What future? No. What you think is "How will I be regarded in the end?" After I'm gone. Now, along the way I suppose I made some minor impact. I did Iran-Gate and the Ayatollah, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Saddam, Sadat, etcetera, etcetera. I showed them thieves in suits. I've spent a lifetime building all that. But history only remembers most what you did last. And should that be fronting a segment that allowed a tobacco giant to crash this network? Does it give someone at my time of life pause? Yeah.
Mike Wallace: You heard Mr. Sandefur say before Congress that he believed nicotine was not addictive.
Jeffrey Wigand: I believe Mr. Sandefur perjured himself because I watched those testimonies very carefully.
Mike Wallace: All of us did, and it was this whole line of people, whole line of CEOs up there, all swearing.
Jeffrey Wigand: Part of the reason I'm here is that I felt that their representations clearly misstated - at least within Brown and Williamson's misrepresentations - clearly misstated what is common language within the company: "We are in the nicotine delivery business."
Mike Wallace: And that's what cigarettes are for.
Jeffrey Wigand: A delivery device for nicotine.
Mike Wallace: A delivery device for nicotine. Put it in your mouth, light it up, and you're gonna get your fix.
Jeffrey Wigand: You're gonna get your fix.
Mike Wallace: You're saying that Brown and Williamson manipulates and adjusts the nicotine fix not by artificially adding nicotine but by enhancing the effect of nicotine through the use of elements such as ammonia?
Jeffrey Wigand: The process is known as "impact boosting". While not spiking nicotine, they clearly manipulate it. There was extensive use of this technology known as "ammonia chemistry". It allows for the nicotine to be more rapidly absorbed in the lung and therefore affect the brain and central nervous system. The straw that broke the camel's back for me, and really put me in trouble with Sandefur, was a compound called coumarin. When I came on board at B. and W., they had tried the transition from coumarin to a similar flavor that would give the same taste, and had been unsuccessful. I wanted out immediately. I was told that it could affect sales, so I should mind my own business. I constructed a memo to Mr. Sandefur indicating I could not in conscience continue with coumarin, a product we now know and we had documentation was similar to coumarin, a lung-specific carcinogen.
Mike Wallace: And you sent the documents to Sandefur?
Jeffrey Wigand: I sent the documents forward to Sandefur. I was told that we would continue to work on a substitute but we weren't going to remove it as it would impact sales, and that was his decision.
Mike Wallace: In other words, you were charging Sandefur and Brown and Williamson with ignoring health considerations consciously?
Jeffrey Wigand: Most certainly.
Mike Wallace: And on March 24th, Thomas Sandefur, CEO of Brown and Williamson, had you fired. And the reason he gave you?
Jeffrey Wigand: "Poor communication skills."
Mike Wallace: And you wish you hadn't come forward? You wish you hadn't blown the whistle?
Jeffrey Wigand: Yeah, at times I wish I hadn't done it. There were times I felt compelled to do it. If you ask me would I do it again, do I think it's worth it? Yeah, I think it's worth it.
Jeffrey Wigand: I believe Mr. Sandefur perjured himself because I watched those testimonies very carefully.
Mike Wallace: All of us did, and it was this whole line of people, whole line of CEOs up there, all swearing.
Jeffrey Wigand: Part of the reason I'm here is that I felt that their representations clearly misstated - at least within Brown and Williamson's misrepresentations - clearly misstated what is common language within the company: "We are in the nicotine delivery business."
Mike Wallace: And that's what cigarettes are for.
Jeffrey Wigand: A delivery device for nicotine.
Mike Wallace: A delivery device for nicotine. Put it in your mouth, light it up, and you're gonna get your fix.
Jeffrey Wigand: You're gonna get your fix.
Mike Wallace: You're saying that Brown and Williamson manipulates and adjusts the nicotine fix not by artificially adding nicotine but by enhancing the effect of nicotine through the use of elements such as ammonia?
Jeffrey Wigand: The process is known as "impact boosting". While not spiking nicotine, they clearly manipulate it. There was extensive use of this technology known as "ammonia chemistry". It allows for the nicotine to be more rapidly absorbed in the lung and therefore affect the brain and central nervous system. The straw that broke the camel's back for me, and really put me in trouble with Sandefur, was a compound called coumarin. When I came on board at B. and W., they had tried the transition from coumarin to a similar flavor that would give the same taste, and had been unsuccessful. I wanted out immediately. I was told that it could affect sales, so I should mind my own business. I constructed a memo to Mr. Sandefur indicating I could not in conscience continue with coumarin, a product we now know and we had documentation was similar to coumarin, a lung-specific carcinogen.
Mike Wallace: And you sent the documents to Sandefur?
Jeffrey Wigand: I sent the documents forward to Sandefur. I was told that we would continue to work on a substitute but we weren't going to remove it as it would impact sales, and that was his decision.
Mike Wallace: In other words, you were charging Sandefur and Brown and Williamson with ignoring health considerations consciously?
Jeffrey Wigand: Most certainly.
Mike Wallace: And on March 24th, Thomas Sandefur, CEO of Brown and Williamson, had you fired. And the reason he gave you?
Jeffrey Wigand: "Poor communication skills."
Mike Wallace: And you wish you hadn't come forward? You wish you hadn't blown the whistle?
Jeffrey Wigand: Yeah, at times I wish I hadn't done it. There were times I felt compelled to do it. If you ask me would I do it again, do I think it's worth it? Yeah, I think it's worth it.
Mike Wallace: Am I missing something?
John Harris: What do you mean, Mike?
Mike Wallace: I mean, he's got a corporate secrecy agreement - give me a break! I mean, this is a public health issue! Like an unsafe airframe on a passenger jet or some company dumping cyanide into the East River, issues like that! He can talk, we can air it! They've got no right to hide behind a "corporate agreement"! Pass the milk.
John Harris: What do you mean, Mike?
Mike Wallace: I mean, he's got a corporate secrecy agreement - give me a break! I mean, this is a public health issue! Like an unsafe airframe on a passenger jet or some company dumping cyanide into the East River, issues like that! He can talk, we can air it! They've got no right to hide behind a "corporate agreement"! Pass the milk.
Lowell Bergman: [the lawyer demands that Wigand's interview be censored into an alternate version] I'm not touching my film.
Lawyer: I'm afraid you are.
Lowell Bergman: No, I'm not.
Lawyer: We're doing this with or without you, Lowell. If you like, I can sign another producer to edit your show.
Lowell Bergman: Uh, since when has the paragon of investigative journalism allowed LAWYERS to determine the news content on 60 minutes?
Lawyer: I'm afraid you are.
Lowell Bergman: No, I'm not.
Lawyer: We're doing this with or without you, Lowell. If you like, I can sign another producer to edit your show.
Lowell Bergman: Uh, since when has the paragon of investigative journalism allowed LAWYERS to determine the news content on 60 minutes?
Mike Wallace: Do me a favor, will you - spare me, for God's sake, get in the real world, what do you think? I'm going to resign in protest? To force it on the air? The answer's "no". I don't plan to spend the end of my days wandering in the wilderness of National Public Radio. That decision I've already made.
Lowell Bergman: I did not burn you. I did not give you up to anyone!
Jeffrey Wigand: This is my house... In front of my wife, my kids? What business do we have?
Lowell Bergman: To straighten something out with you. Right here. Right now.
Jeffrey Wigand: So, you didn't mention my name? You haven't talked to anybody about me?
Lowell Bergman: Why am I gonna mention your name?
Jeffrey Wigand: How did Brown & Williamson know I spoke to you...?
Lowell Bergman: How the hell do I know about Brown & Williamson?
Jeffrey Wigand: It happened after I talked to you. I do not like coincidences!
Lowell Bergman: And I don't like paranoid accusations! I'm a journalist. Think. Use your head. How do I operate as a journalist by screwing the people who could provide me with information before they provided me with it?
Jeffrey Wigand: [pauses] ... You came all the way down here to tell me that?
Jeffrey Wigand: This is my house... In front of my wife, my kids? What business do we have?
Lowell Bergman: To straighten something out with you. Right here. Right now.
Jeffrey Wigand: So, you didn't mention my name? You haven't talked to anybody about me?
Lowell Bergman: Why am I gonna mention your name?
Jeffrey Wigand: How did Brown & Williamson know I spoke to you...?
Lowell Bergman: How the hell do I know about Brown & Williamson?
Jeffrey Wigand: It happened after I talked to you. I do not like coincidences!
Lowell Bergman: And I don't like paranoid accusations! I'm a journalist. Think. Use your head. How do I operate as a journalist by screwing the people who could provide me with information before they provided me with it?
Jeffrey Wigand: [pauses] ... You came all the way down here to tell me that?
Richard Scruggs: I know what you're facing, Jeff. And, I think I know how you're feeling. In the Navy I flew A-6's off carriers. In combat, events have a duration of seconds, sometimes minutes. But what you're going through goes on day in and day out. Whether you're ready for it or not, week in, week out. Month after month after month. Whether you're up or whether you're down. You're assaulted psychologically. You're assaulted financially, which is its own special kind of violence because it's directed at your kids. What school can you afford? How will that affect their lives? You're asking yourself, "Will that limit what they may become?" You feel your whole family's future's compromised, held hostage. I do know how it is.
Jeffrey Wigand: I have to put my family's welfare on the line here, my friend! And what are you puttin' up? You're puttin' up words!
Lowell Bergman: Words? While you've been dickin' around at some fucking company golf tournaments, I been out in the world, giving my word and backing it up with action.
Lowell Bergman: Words? While you've been dickin' around at some fucking company golf tournaments, I been out in the world, giving my word and backing it up with action.
Debbie: The subheading reads, 'Brown and Williamson has a 500 page dossier attacking chief critic.' It quotes Richard Scruggs calling it, 'the worse kind of an organized smear campaign against a Whistleblower'. 'A closer look at the file and independent research by this newspaper into its key claims indicate that many of the serious accusations against Mr Wigand are backed by scant or contradictory evidence'.
Mike Wallace: Sheikh Fadlallah. Thank you so much for seeing us. Are you a terrorist?
Sheikh Fadlallah: Mr. Wallace, I am a servant of God.
Mike Wallace: A servant of God? Really? Americans believe that you, as an Islamic fundamentalist, that you are a leader who contributed to the bombing of the US Embassy...
Sheikh Fadlallah: Mr. Wallace, I am a servant of God.
Mike Wallace: A servant of God? Really? Americans believe that you, as an Islamic fundamentalist, that you are a leader who contributed to the bombing of the US Embassy...
Sharon Tiller: Get some perspective, Lowell.
Lowell Bergman: I got perspective.
Sharon Tiller: No, you do not.
Lowell Bergman: From my perspective, what's been going on and what I've been doing is ridiculous. It's half-measures.
Sharon Tiller: You're not listening. Really know what you're gonna do before you do it.
Lowell Bergman: I got perspective.
Sharon Tiller: No, you do not.
Lowell Bergman: From my perspective, what's been going on and what I've been doing is ridiculous. It's half-measures.
Sharon Tiller: You're not listening. Really know what you're gonna do before you do it.
