The Philip R Lee Page

The Kennedy Administration

Philip R. Lee was a member of the Physicians Committee for Health Care for the Aged Through Social Security, which was created to lobby for Medicare and disbanded after they succeeded. Other members of the organization included Dr. Martin Cherkasky, Leona Baumgartner, and Dr. Michael DeBakey. Its chairman was Caldwell B. Esselstyn, father of Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr., Skull & Bones 1956. (Memo from Harry R. Hinton of the American Medical Association, to Earle Clements of the Tobacco Institute, re Physicians Committee for Health Care for the Aged Through Social Security- 1962, and their current positions; May 22, 1969.) Medicare is the government program that made cardiologists rich. It was the single largest cause of the steady increase in health care costs which began in 1965.

"'Florence's [Mahoney] role in that period,' according to Russel Lee's son, Dr. Philip R. Lee, then serving at the Agency for International Development (AID), was to facilitate meetings with people who could help one another, like White House aides and department officials. 'She introduced me to Ted Sorensen, for example,' Kennedy's advisor and speechwriter, 'and we had a long discussion one afternoon sitting out on Florence's lawn. She basically said to Ted that she thought he ought to meet me because I was working for the president, too, although at a lower level. And when I was asked by Wilbur Cohen to come to HEW in '65, Florence arranged for me to have dinner with Senator Hill.' (From Noble Conspirator, Florence S. Mahoney and the Rise of the National Institutes of Health. By Judith Robinson. The Francis Press 2001.) She was also the political mentor of health fascist Sen. George S. McGovern.

Setting up the Joint Committee on Tobacco and Health (NCI, AMA, and CTR)

"Conference between Secretary Wilbur J. Cohen, Dr. Philip R. Lee and Surgeon General William E. Stewart and Senator Earle C. Clements, Paul Smith and H.H. Ramm," Apr 1, 1968. "Mr. Ramm also said that the industry has information which he believed reliable to the effect that the Surgeon General's Advisory Committee had wanted to include an entire chapter in its 1964 Report devoted to setting forth the gaps of knowledge which existed and further research that needed to be done but that this chapter was not included because the then Surgeon General took the position that its inclusion would go beyond the scope of the report that the committee was to make."

"Persons who attended meeting... May 2, 1968," on establishment of the Joint Committee on Tobacco and Health by NCI Director Kenneth M. Endicott. "In his opening statement, Dr. Endicott referred to a recent meeting between HEW officials and cigarette industry executives who 'agreed that there are gaps in our knowledge about tobacco and health.' He said that as a result of the meeting, 'it was decided that a group of experts be asked to identify these gaps,' and that this was the mission of the new committee."

Florence Mahoney correspondence

Philip R Lee was a correspondent of Florence Mahoney, Mary Lasker's closest associate, from 1964 to 1972.

The Institute for Health Policy Studies was created by Gov. Ronald Reagan

"The Institute for Health Policy Studies (IHPS) was established in 1972 within the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine as the Health Policy Program, under the leadership of Philip R. Lee, MD and Lewis Butler, LLB. In 1977 IHPS was awarded a five-year grant as the national Health Services Policy Analysis Center by the National Center for Health Services Research, Department of Health, Education and Welfare.... IHPS activities are supported by University, government, and foundation funding." Its faculty includes the anti-smoking warhorses Lisa A. Bero and Stanton A. Glantz.

Regents of the University of California when it was established: Gov. Ronald Reagan was an ex officio Regent, along with Ed Reinecke, his lieutenant governor, Allan Grant, as president of the State Board of Agriculture; William B. Keene, as President of the Alumni Association; Bob Moretti, as Speaker of the Assembly; and Wilson Riles, as Superintendent of Public Education; Norton Simon; Edward Hellman Heller and Elinor Raas Heller; and:

W. Glenn Campbell, Harvard 1946, PhD 1948. Appointed by Governor Reagan, 1968-1984 and Governor Deukmejian, 1984-1996. "Has held seven appointments under five U.S. Presidents. Advisor to President Reagan. Director, Hoover Institution, 1960-present."

John E. Canaday (1905-1987), former public relations manager and corporate director of public relations and vice-president, Lockheed Aircraft Corporation since 1939; Director: First Surety Corporation, Surety Savings and Loan Association, California Institute for Cancer Research; a Regent from 1958 to 1974.

Edward W. Carter (1911-1996), a Regent from 1952 to 1988, President of Broadway-Hale Stores, Inc., since 1946; director of Northrop Corp., Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Co., So. Cal. Edison Co., United Cal. Bank, Western Bancorporation; Trustee of Occidental College, Stanford Research Institute, and the Brookings Institute.

William K. Coblentz, AB UCB 1943, LLB Yale 1947, Consultant to U.S. Secty. of State, Jan.-May, 1962. Dir.: Bay Area Urban League; Bay Area Educational Television

Frederick G. Dutton, special assistant to President Kennedy for intergovernmental and interdepartmental relations, 1961-62, and Assistant U.S. Secretary of State for Congressional Relations, 1962-64;

William E. Forbes, a former executive of the Columbia Broadcasting System and Young & Rubicam;

Catherine C. Hearst (Mrs. Randolph A. Hearst), a Regent from 1945-76.

De Witt A. Higgs, from Idaho, on the advisory board of Scripps Memorial Hospital;

Charles Johnston Hitch, President of the University 1967-75; was the first American Rhodes Scholar to be a don at an Oxford college when he was elected a Fellow of Queens College in 1935, a position he held thirteen years. He was also a visiting professor at Yale. During World War II, he was with the first Lend-Lease mission in London and the Office of Strategic Services. From 1948 to 1961, he was head of the Economics Division of the RAND Corporation and Chairman of its Research Council, then an Assistant Secretary of Defense and Comptroller during the Kennedy Administration.

John H. Lawrence: "Lawrence, John H., b. Jan. 7, 1904, Canton, S.D., d. Sept 7, 1991. Appointed by Governor Reagan, 1970-83. Education: University of South Dakota, 1926; M.D., 1930, Harvard University. Career: Conducted pioneer research in using artificial radiation in treating cancer patients; dir. of the Donner Laboratory at Berkeley until appointment as Regent; had been with Donner Lab since its beginnings in 1935; brother of Ernest O. Lawrence."

Joseph A. Moore, Jr., ex officio Regent as President, Mechanics Institute, 1969-74; appointed by Governor Reagan, 1974-90.

Robert O. Reynolds, Stanford 1936, appointed by Governor Reagan, 1969-86; President of the California Angels baseball team, 1960-74 and Vice President of the L.A. Rams, 1965-7.

William French Smith was Gov. Reagan's personal attorney. Reagan appointed him to his first term from 1968-86 and Gov. Deukmejian reaapointed him for 1986-90.

Dean A. Watkins, CEO of Watkins-Johnson, Co.; appointed by Governor Reagan, 1969-84, and by governor Deukmejian, 1984-96.

William A. Wilson, President of Web Wilson Oil Tools, Inc., 1955-61, appointed by Governor Reagan, 1972-88; Trustee of President Reagan's Personal Trust.

The Institute for Health Policy Studies is also the administrator of the Health of the Public program, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Steven A. Schroeder was the original director of the program in 1986; he left in 1990 to become President of RWJF.

Children's Television Workshop

Lee was a member of the Advisors and Task Force of "Feeling Good," a series of 26 hour-long programs by the Children's Television Workshop, which aired on 250 Public Broadcasting Service TV stations in 1974-75. Joan Ganz Cooney, now a director of Johnson & Johnson, was president of CTW, and Ruby Hearn of the Robert Wood Johnson Founbdation was director of content development. Other Advisors and Task Force Members included Lester Breslow; Douglass Cater of the Aspen Institute; Jacob Feldman, then at the Harvard School of Public Health (and numerous others affiliated with HSPH); Charles LeMaistre; Bayless Manning, president of the CFR; Robert Manning, editor of the Atlantic Monthly; Gerard Piel, publisher of Scientific American; future Surgeon General Julius Richmond; Steven Schroeder, former head of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, then Medical Director of the George Washington University Health Plan; Victor Weingarten, director of the President's Committee on Health Education; and Ernst Wynder of the American Health Foundation.

Addiction Research Foundation

Lee was on the National Advisory Council of the Addiction Research Foundation, founded by Avram Goldstein in 1974 "to discover the physiological causes of Narcotics and Tobacco Addiction" [sic]. Actually, Golstein's past experience was in narcotics and the facility did not have a nicotine lab. But Goldstein expected the tobacco industry to give him the $400,000 he said he needed to create one, and then to fund his endeavor to portray smoking as the same as heroin addiction. Other members of the National Advisory Council included Mrs. Douglas [sic] Cater [elsewhere identified as Libby Cater, the name of President Johnson's Special Assistant Douglass Cater's wife); Sen. Alan Cranston; former FDA Commissioner and Assistant Secretary for Health Charles D. Edwards; Art Linkletter; Mrs. Florence Mahoney; Mrs. Nan Tucker McEvoy, former Presidential appointee to UNESCO and heir of the San Francisco Chronicle. Directors included Martin E. Packard, Corporate Vice President of Varian Associates and former trustee of the San Francisco Foundation (founded by Lasker Foundation trustee Daniel Koshland Jr.); and Wilbur Watkins, former Executive Administrator of the Palo Alto Medical Clinic, founded by Lee's father.

National Conference on Smoking Or Health, 1981

Lee was the leader of Work Group 5, "High Priority Federal Government Initiatives," which included John Banzhaf III of ASH; Michael F. Jacobson of the Center for Science in the Public Interest; Charles A. LeMaistre; J. Michael McGinnis; Michael Pertschuk of the Federal Trade Commission; Mary Lasker's lobbyist Nathaniel Polster; former Surgeon General William H. Stewart; Kenneth E. Warner of the University of Michigan; and Sen. Birch Bayh and former Rep. Paul G. Rogers.

Californians for Nonsmokers Rights

Lee was a member of the Board of Directors of Stanton Glantz's group, Californians for Nonsmokers' Rights and the California Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation in 1984. (Californians for Nonsmokers Rights "Update" 1984 Summer;3(2).) The newsletter boasts of the broadcast of the hate propaganda film, "Death in the West," by public broadcasting stations nationwide, including Maryland Public Broadcasting, Arkansas Educational Television, KNME; WQED in Pittsburgh; WHHY Philadelphia; Idaho Public Television; the South Dakota Network; and WTTW Chicago.

Lee was a member of the US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary James B. Wyngaarden's Council on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention in 1989, along with anti-smoking warhorses Theodore Cooper, former Director of the National Heart and Lung Institute, later CEO of Upjohn; former Surgeon General Julius B. Richmond; Alan W. Cross, Skull & Bones 1966; and Robert Rodale, Chairman of Rodale Press.

Appointment by President Clinton to Assistant Secretary for Health, DHHS, Mar 12, 1993.

Age 68 at time of appointment. "Since 1972, director of the Institute for Health Policy Studies, School of Medicine, University of California at San Francisco. Since 1969, professor of social medicine in the UCSF School of Medicine and during 1969-1972, UCSF Chancellor. During 1965-1969, Dr. Lee was deputy assistant secretary for health and scientific affairs, U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Between 1955-1968, he worked at the New York University School of Medicine, the Stanford University School of Medicine, the Palo Alto Medical Clinic in California and as director of health services, Office of Technical Cooperation and Research, Agency for International Development."

"Healthy People 2000" propaganda, Sep 15 1993

HHS Assistant Secretary for Health Dr. Philip R. Lee headed the Public Health Service, which coordinates the year 2000 program.

Tobacco Institute memo, Mar 16, 1994 re House hearings on FDA budget

"Although FDA Commissioner David A. Kessler's prepared testimony did not deal with tobacco issues, subcommittee Chairman Richard Durbin engaged Kessler in a lengthy discussion of potential regulation of tobacco by the FDA. Philip R. Lee, M.D., assistant secretary for health in the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), also participated in this discussion... Dr. Lee noted that HHS had recently 'referred to the Department of Justice information that we asked them to investigate regarding the possibility that the tobacco companies were in fact adding nicotine to cigarettes.' Dr. Lee also stated that the Centers for Disease Control is preparing a report to Congress on cigarette ingredients, which will be submitted to his office 'in the very near future.'"

"The clarification indicates that while HHS has discussed the issue with the Department of Justice, 'This should not be construed as a formal referral for action to the Department of Justice."  (Tobacco Institute memo on Lee HHS "clarification," Mar. 17, 1994.)

HCFA Oral History Interview, Nov. 27, 1995

Lee originally worked for Howard Rusk, who was a friend of his father, after his military service ended in 1951. His 1965 conversation with DHEW Secretary John W. Gardner at the Bohemian Grove, legendary hotbed of conspiracy, and his father's "old boy network," as well as his pro-Medicare position led to his appointment as Assistant Secretary for Health in the LBJ Administration. Howard Rusk got his dad appointed to the President's Commission on the Health Needs of the Nation in the Truman Administration, and he and Lester Breslow mostly wrote the report. (Interview with Dr. Philip Lee in his office at the Humphrey Building, Washington, DC, on 27 November 1995. Interviewed by Prof. Edward Berkowitz, for the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA).)

Declaration of Olympia on Nutrition and Fitness

Lee and President Carter's former Special Assistant for Health Affairs, Peter G. Bourne, were among the developers of the food fascist "Declaration of Olympia on Nutrition and Fitness" at the Third Annual Conference on Nutrition and Fitness in 1996. This group is also associated with Artemis P. Simopoulos, who chaired the Nutrition Coordinating Committee at the National Instittutes of Health from 1978 to 1982. She was also a consultant to Ester Peterson, Special Assistant for Consumer Affairs to President Carter from 1978 to 1980 and a delegate to the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization.

Laying the Foundation for Healthy People 2010 (1997)

"The Department of Health and Human Services is currently laying the foundation for the Year 2010 national health promotion and disease prevention objectives. The development activity officially began at the annual meeting of the Healthy People 2000 Consortium in New York on November 15, 1996. Some 200 members of the Consortium from the private, voluntary, and business sectors came together with Federal and State representatives..."

"To guide the Healthy People 2010 process, a Secretary's Council on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Objectives for 2010 was established (Federal Register, October 21, 1996). This council will be chaired by the Secretary with the Assistant Secretary for Health as the vice chair. The Council is comprised of former Assistant Secretaries for Health and the heads of the agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services.

"To prepare for the development of the objectives, the Healthy People 2000 Consortium has been expanded. Dr. Philip R. Lee, Assistant Secretary for Health, invited representatives from State mental health, substance abuse, and environmental agencies to join the Consortium... These agencies, together with the public health departments of the States and territories, will help to guide the draft objectives and in turn translate the national framework to State and local priorities."

"Dean Bronzan Accepts Position"

"He will serve at IHPS (the UCSF Institute for Health Policy Studies) as a senior scholar on health policy, working closely with Philip R. Lee, MD. Former director of IHPS, Lee most recently served as assistant secretary for health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, but resigned the post in January to return to UCSF as an emeritus professor."

The Pew Trusts

Lee and the usual suspects (Jo Ivey Boufford, Roz Lasker, Steven A. Schroeder of RWJF) served as the "Policy Experts with Whom Health and Human Services Program Staff Consulted." RWJF Vice President Paul Jellinek was also a member. Pew Trust HHS Director Maureen K. Byrnes had a 2000 budget of $41,238,000. They call this, "Public Voices, Public Choices."

"UCSF Professors Honored By The Association of American Medical Colleges"

With bio, including: "Throughout his career, he has served (officially and unofficially) as advisor and mentor for countless fellows and students who have gone on to important policy making positions in government, academia, and the private sector." (Roz Lasker's remarkably rapid ascent to the position of Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health Policy Development, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health in DHHS comes to mind.) The award, which includes a $10,000 prize, is co-sponsored with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Lee praises Roz Lasker's book, "Medicine and Public Health"

"The social contract as defined by Bismarck and Beveridge has to be redefined. Just as the New York Academy of Medicine provided the vision of social medicine 50 years ago, the Academy has given us a new vision with the publication of Medicine and Public Health: The Power of Collaboration in 1997," by Roz Lasker. (The future of social medicine. PR Lee. J Urban Health 1999 Jun;76(2):229-236).

Medicine & Public Health

Medicine & Public Health Initiative National Committee Members List, as of Sep. 28, 1999. The National Committee includes William H. Foege, Jeffrey P. Koplan, Roz D. Lasker, Philip R. Lee, and David Satcher. [dead link http://www.sph.uth.tmc.edu/mph/acrobat/NationalCommitteeListsep99.pdf]

Physicians for Social Responsibility Board of Sponsors 2000

With William H Foege, Gilbert S Omenn, Julius B Richmond, and Louis W Sullivan.

Lee praises Stanton Glantz's book, "Tobacco War," 2000

"Institute of Medicine Honors Former Chancellor Philip R. Lee," Oct 10 2000

With bio, including: "Lee played a distinguished, prominent health policy role in Washington in the mid-1960s, a time that saw the greatest expansion and improvement in personal health services in US history [sic]. He was one of a handful of physicians who supported the establishment of Medicare," which endeared him to Mary Lasker because physicians who would publicly support it were hard to find, and was probably a deciding factor in his appointment to "reform health care" during the Clinton administration. The award includes a $25,000 prize.

Extensive US DHHS biography of Lee, undated

Including: "Dr. Lee served on the board of trustees of several California-based organizations representing a variety of public interests: the Henry J. Kaiser Foundation, Jenifer Altman Foundation, World Institute on Disability, and the Glide Foundation of the Glide Memorial United Methodist Church. Also, from 1971 to 1979, Dr. Lee served on the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Foundation of New York. Dr. Lee was a member of the editorial boards of the health policy journal Milbank Quarterly and of The Annals of Internal Medicine until assuming his recent Public Health Service responsibilities," which include the NIH, CDC, FDA, HRSA, SAMHSA, and Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, the office of the Surgeon General, the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, and others. "Dr. Lee also advises and assists HHS Secretary Donna Shalala on health policy and on all health-related activities of the department. He has played an active role in the health care reform task force."

UCSF IMAP ("Integrating Medicine and Public Health") Advisory Board

Research!America Advocacy Awards "gala"

Research!America rewards its lackeys in Congress, Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Bill Young, with their 2001 Edwin C. Whitehead Award for Medical Research Advocacy; their crony Dr. Isadore Rosenfeld for Impact on Public Opinion Through the Media, for thought control activities as medical editor of Parade magazine, medical consultant to Fox Cable News Network, medical correspondent to CBS Morning News and health columnist for Vogue magazine; and other stooges. Philip R. Lee was one of the chairs of the dinner at the National Academy of Sciences, Mar 20, 2001.

MEDICC

Lee is a member of the Advisory Board of Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba (MEDICC), the outfit that lobbies for ending the US trade embargo of Cuba. Peter G. Bourne, former Special Assistant for Health Affairs to President Carter, is its chairman. Its Advisory Board also includes Mohammad Akter, the Executive Director of the American Public Health Association; James Curran, Dean of the Rollins School of Public Health; Noreen Clark, of the University of Michigan School of Public Health; and former Surgeon General Julius Richmond.

Commonwealth Fund Monitoring Committee

With Edward R Brandt; Jo Ivey Boufford; and George Lundberg, editor and chief of Medscape, 5-18-01; without Brandt 1-22-02.

Mayo Clinic Foundation

Lee is an Emeritus Public Trustee of the Mayo Clinic Foundation, along with former Cummins directors Hanna H. Gray and J. Irwin Miller; former Assistant Secretary for Health Philip R. Lee; J. Willard Marriott Jr., who spun off Caterair to Fred Malek who seated George Bush on its board in return for the domestic airline smoking ban; anti-smoker arch-conspirator Newton N. Minow; former Scientific American publisher Gerard Piel; and former Honeywell CEO Edson W. Spencer.

Philip R. Lee's father, Russel Van Arsdale Lee

Russel V. Lee co-founded the Palo Alto Medical Foundation in 1924.

Russel V. Lee was physician to the family of President Herbert Hoover.

Florence Mahoney corresponded with Russel Lee from 1961 to 1974 (Florence Mahoney papers collection). "Mahoney in 1962 had prevailed upon AID to reverse a decision cancelling the appointment of Dr. Russel Lee as an international consultant. Among other matters, he was to study population problems. 'He called me and told me they had decided against his trip,' said Mahoney. 'I was so mad because it had all been arranged with AID.' Soon after that she found herself sitting next to AID Administrator Fowler Hamilton at the home of Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham. 'I talked to him all during dinner about how awful I thought it was that they had cancelled Russel Lee's trip. Finally Fowler said to me, 'If you'll be quiet about' Lee's advocating population control -- 'we don't want it intimated' that he is pushing that through AID -- 'I'll see what I can do.' True to his word, Fowler called Lee back, 'and off he went!'" And Philip Lee said: "Few people had more influence on that subject than Florence -- more so than Margaret Sanger." Leona Baumgartner formulated the Johnson administration's position on population control. (From: Noble Conspirator, Florence S. Mahoney and the Rise of the National Institutes of Health. By Judith Robinson. The Francis Press, 2001.)

Russel V. Lee papers collection (1895-1982) at Stanford University: 5 boxes on RV Lee's association with the US AID program; the American Social Hygeine Association (eugenics movement), 1938-1950; National Health Council 1953-1954; correspondence with Bernard Baruch; Leona Baumgartner; David Burns; Gen. William H. Draper; John Gardner; Mike Gorman; John F. Kennedy; Sen. Ted Kennedy; Howard A. Rusk.

Russel V. Lee and Michael E. DeBakey were on the Advisory Board of Medical World News in 1978.

cast 07-27-07