Discredit Line

I RECENTLY received a handwritten note in the mail. The message was simple: “After reading your article ‘Just How Bad Is Secondhand Smoke?’ [NR, May 16] and seeing the ad for Benson & Hedges on the back of the magazine, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize you and your kind have an agenda to push.”

Rather than question the plausibility of this reader’s implicit accusation, let’s assume that it’s true: Philip Morris, NR, and I conspired to place my article in the same issue as a Benson & Hedges ad. Furthermore, I wrote the article because I secretly work for Philip Morris. Would that affect the truth of what I wrote?

JS

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Jacob Sullum

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I RECENTLY received a handwritten note in the mail. The message was simple: “After reading your article ‘Just How Bad Is Secondhand Smoke?’ [NR, May 16] and seeing the ad for Benson & Hedges on the back of the magazine, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize you and your kind have an agenda to push.”

Rather than question the plausibility of this reader’s implicit accusation, let’s assume that it’s true: Philip Morris, NR, and I conspired to place my article in the same issue as a Benson & Hedges ad. Furthermore, I wrote the article because I secretly work for Philip Morris. Would that affect the truth of what I wrote?