WARNING: This site deals only with the corporate corruption of science, and makes no inference about the motives or activities of individuals involved.
    There are many reasons why individuals become embroiled in corporate corruption activities - from political zealotry to over-enthusiastic activism; from gullibility to greed.
    Please read the OVERVIEW carefully, and make up your own mind.

In relationship to the tobacco documents, this organization is most significant for mounting an attack on the tobacco industry funding of Gary Huber and his associates at Harvard University. They forced them to shift their operations from Harvard to the nearby Beth Israel Hospital.

• CLASP now operates as a general law and policy assistant organisation in all American states. See http://www.clasp.org/

1969: Charles Halpern left Arnold and Porter and co-founded the Center for Law and Social Policy in Washington DC [With Arthur Goldberg, Victor Kramer, and others] This was the nationŐs first public interest law firm.

    While with the Center Halpern served as counsel on a number of important public interest cases including the seminal environmental cases concerning the construction of the Alaska Pipeline [see Wilderness Society v. Morton,1973], and the banning of DDT, [see Environmental Defense Fund, Inc. v. Ruckelshaus, 1971].

1970 Nov 10: TW Braun of Brawn & Company (Los Angeles) are advising RJ Reynolds (a client since 1957) about a new "operation called 'The Project on Corporate Responsibility' It's parent organizations are 'The Center for Law and Social Policy' and 'The Washington Research Project' , both of Washington DC."

    They had apparently been using stockholder proxies against Eastman Kodak and backing civil rights in Rochester, New York, and [shame ... shame] " the Medical Committee for Human Rights in its effort through proxy materials to force Dow Chemical to cease manufacturing napalm."

    The real humor here comes from the fact that the Medical Committee had retained the tobacco industry's favourite law firm, Covington & Burling, to represent it in its Dow battle. The writer is afraid that the same tactics might be used against the tobacco company. Braun sums up the situation:

I'm recommending to you that we undertake preparation quietly and confidentially of a program for meeting an action of the kind I have described. The program should include both legal and public relations plans and materials. If you agree, let me know and we can arrange a mutually agreeable time for a meeting in Winston-Salem to get the project underway.

1973 July 13: Charles Halpern has written to either Harvard University or the Channing Laboratories criticising them for supporting Gary Huber's research program for the tobacco industry. Edward H Kass , the Director of the Laboratory and one of the principle researchers with Huber replies.

1973–74: In the academic year, several of Huber's investigations were forced to move from Harvard Medical School to the Beth Israel Hospital where they continued until 1979

1973 Sep 14: The Tobacco Institute has commissioned this confidential report into Charles R Halpern [ex A&P], of the Center for Law and Social Policy which is based in Washington DC.

Mr Halpern has been incommunication with the Board of Governors and others at Harvard urging that they rescind their work on the tobacco research project at Harvard.

• Arthur Goldberg (Chairman) [Secretary for Labor, then Associated Supreme Court Justice, then from 1965 UN Ambassador]
• Joe Onek , the "active head" of the Center [ex Senator Ted Kennedy's staff]
• Margaret Eddleman
• Pat Wald , wife of Bob Wald.

In discussion with Abe Krash [tobacco lawyer-lobbyist with A&P], he advised that Bob Wald was very, very bright and could have become a partner in their firm.

1973 Oct: Harvard University's independent medical newspaper The Present Illness features an article "Caution: Harvard may be hazardous to your health" It exposed Professor Frederick Stare as a scientific lobbyist for the food chemical and pharmaceutical companies and attacked the support being given to the university scientists by the tobacco industry.

    The magazine contained lengthy discussions of the pharmaceutical, food and tobacco industries in the issues on Drs Ebert, Stare, and Huber respectively.

1974: They established a Women's Rights project.

1975: Charles Halpern founded the Council for Public Interest Law , later renamed the Alliance for Justice , and he subsequently served as a professor at Stanford Law School and Georgetown University Law Center and as a Senior Fellow at Yale Law School.

1976 Aug 21: Article comparing the styles of Nader and Banzhaf also mentions a number of other legal activists including:

• Washington Research Project which focuses primarily on civil-rights issues
• Center for Law and Social Policy, a foundation-funded organisation which trains students from universities such as Yale during part of their law school careers and recently helped win a court order requiring the Department of Transportation to reopen an investigation into certain GM pickup trucks

1979: The Fink report for the tobacco industry also lists another member of A&P who left to join the CLASP — Victor Kramer:

Arnold & Porter

• Abe Fortas left the firm in 1965. (Scandal)
• Joseph Califano , President Johnson's chief adviser for domestic affairs, joined the firm soon after leaving the White House. He left in a year's time—June 1971. He became a name-partner in the firm headed by Edward Bennett Williams. Of course, he is now Secretary of HEW in the Carter Administration.
• Victor H Kramer , was a trial attorney for Justice Department. He was with the firm for about ten years. He left to establish Center for Law and Social Policy.
• Thurman Arnold , was Chief of Justice Department's anti-trust division. Resigned to become Judge of the Court of Appeals; private practice since 1945.
• Paul A. Porter was FCC chairman and head of the wartime Office of Price Administration which gave him wide acquaintance throughout the bureaucracy. Later President Truman sent Porter to Greece as a special roaming ambassador. - In 1961 the Washington office of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind , et al, joined Arnold, Fortas & Porter — there were nine lawyers involved led by Fortas's tax-lawyer wife, Carolyn Agger .

1982: Halpern was named the founding dean of the City University of New York (CUNY) Law School at Queens College (City University of New York School of Law), a law school with a public interest mission and an innovative curriculum.

1982: A report on Future Communications lists"
Center for Law and Social Policy, 1751 N St. N.W. 20036; [872-0670.] James N. Barnes, Duffy Campbell, co-directors.

Public interest law firm representing the interests of previously unrepresented citizens before agencies and courts. Interested in all consumer issues. Health Law Project studies access to health care services for low-income groups and promotes consumer control of health care.

1989: Halpern became the first President and CEO of the Nathan Cummings Foundation , a $400 million grant-making foundation in New York City, a position he held from 1989 — 2000.

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