To people in the arts, two of the best words in the English language for more than a generation have been Philip Morris, and never mind if the money comes from tobacco. The $61 billion maker of cigarettes, food and beer has been one of the nation's biggest supporters of culture since 1958, and unlike many companies, Philip Morris has generally given lots of money and asked nothing in return.
Until now. Late last month, writhing in dismay over strong anti- smoking legislation pending before the New York City Council, Philip Morris executives telephoned arts institutions that had benefited from their largess and asked them to put in a good word with Peter F. Vallone, the City Council Speaker. The requests were only a small part of a much larger lobbying campaign Philip Morris has mounted against the bill, which at one point led to threats, later retracted, to move its headquarters out of New York City.
If Philip Morris were to move, a great deal of its arts support would move with it. The requests to voice support for the company -- which this season alone is sponsoring the "Origins of Impressionism" exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum, the Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and an exhibition called "Talking Pictures" at the International Center of Photography -- put arts groups, which generally try to stay away from politics, into a difficult position. Do they stand aside and risk offending their most generous benefactor, or do they violate tradition -- and perhaps offend many individual patrons -- by telling the City Council what to do?
"This has put all of my clients into a tailspin," a consultant to several arts organizations said last week. "They have been so shocked that they didn't know how to react."
The arts groups say they were not asked to lobby directly against the bill, which would ban smoking in nearly all restaurants and public places, but only to let the City Council know how important Philip Morris money is to the cultural life of the city.
"But the message was clear," said an official of one of the groups underwritten by Philip Morris. "We were telling the City Council that it was in the best interests of the arts in New York City that Philip Morris money stay in New York City." And for Philip Morris money to stay in New York, the company had to be kept happy, and that, in turn, meant defeating the anti- smoking legislation.
The company, for its part, maintains that it did not intend to drag arts groups into the political maelstrom, but only to contend, as Philip Morris has done repeatedly, that smoking restrictions might affect tourism and hence the revenue of cultural institutions.
Many of the groups sent messages to the City Council in which they explained that they were taking no position on the anti- smoking bill as such, but wished to go on record "as telling the City Council how much Philip Morris does for the city," in the words of one museum official who said he agreed to make a telephone call to Mr. Vallone's office. "That much I was willing to do, since there is no question that we would take a terrible hit if Philip Morris were to leave the city."
An official of a performance group long supported by Philip Morris said, "We were not lobbying on behalf of Philip Morris; we were lobbying on behalf of ourselves and the money pool." The official added: "I don't think we've ever gotten a call like this before. It's a very tricky situation."
That official, like most people who received requests from Philip Morris, would speak only on condition of anonymity. So powerful is the company in the cultural world that no official or board member of any organization supported by the company would speak for attribution when asked about the lobbying efforts on the anti- smoking legislation, or even allow the name of his or her organization to be used. In the arts world, offending Philip Morris is the equivalent of crossing the National Endowment for the Arts.
"Arts organizations don't have the luxury of turning down money from any source," said Randall Bour scheidt, executive director of the Alliance for the Arts, an umbrella organization that assists many New York institutions. Some of the alliance's projects have been underwritten, in part, by Philip Morris.
"There have been such serious reductions of both public and private funding that generosity as large and as widespread as Philip Morris's has a major impact on New York and the country," Mr. Bourscheidt said.
Arts organizations have struggled for years with the question of accepting what are, in effect, tobacco profits to support the arts. But no one has rejected Philip Morris's money, or called it tainted. "I don't smoke and I hate people smoking, but Philip Morris is a great supporter," said the spokeswoman for a New York dance company, who calls Philip Morris "our largest corporate supporter."
"I say thank God for sinners: they're the only people to support the arts," she concluded.
Her remark underscores the clearest benefit Philip Morris gets from its arts philanthropy: a positive image among people who would normally have few kind things to say about a cigarette, food and beer maker. The company's aggressive corporate style is a world apart from that of the arts groups it assists, and through the arts it reaches audiences unlikely to pause before a Marlboro ad.
The request that arts groups join, however subtly, in Philip Morris's lobbying effort against the City Council bill seems to have done little to diminish the chances of the bill's passage, which is still considered virtually certain, though revisions in the text to modify some of the more stringent provisions may now be more likely.
The lobbying effort has also tarnished Philip Morris's relationship with many of its grantees, who until now had considered the company to be the ultimate corporate patron. Unlike most corporate donors, which hand over a check and disappear, Philip Morris has a large cultural affairs staff that operates like a major foundation, reviewing grant proposals and dispensing funds. Neither Stephanie French, who directs the cultural affairs staff, nor any of her associates responded to calls for comment on the company's lobbying efforts. The calls were returned instead by a member of the corporate public relations staff.
While Philip Morris has never revealed the amount of its arts philanthropy, it is known to be in the millions each year: its grant for the Met's Impressionism show alone was $1 million, and the current grant for the Next Wave Festival is $500,000.
The company offers other kinds of support as well, like assistance with audience development and advertising, and it often pays for lavish opening-night parties at which the Philip Morris cigarettes at every table are the only obvious sign of corporate sponsorship. (There was so much smoking at the opening of the Impressionism show that the Temple of Dendur was enveloped in a cloud of smoke, something that will be prohibited if the legislation pending before the City Council is passed.)
The company has established long-term relationships with many of the groups to which it gives money, in particular dance groups. "Dance is the least commercial field out there, and they've really dedicated themselves to it," said David White, who heads the Dance Theater Workshop, on whose board Ms. French served until recently. Company executives sit on the boards of many arts institutions that receive Philip Morris money, including the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Alvin Ailey dance troupe.
Indeed, such is the status of Philip Morris's arts program that grants from the company often have the same kind of leverage effect as grants from the National Endowment of the Arts: Philip Morris money represents a kind of stamp of approval that can bring other grants in its wake. The company is noted for an unusually supportive attitude toward the kinds of avant-garde exhibitions and events that most large corporations shy away from: Philip Morris has provided the bulk of the Next Wave's corporate support for seven years.
"It is not easy to get support for something like the Next Wave," says Harvey Lichtenstein, the president of the Brooklyn Academy of Music. "In this country there is no company as generous and as forward-looking. What we're worried about in this whole business is that they might leave the city, and we've seen other corporations do that and stop their support of the arts."
What does the company say about that? George L. Knox, Philip Morris's vice president for public affairs, said: "We will continue to give willingly and with great enthusiasm to the arts: the question is not whether, but where. Right now, leaving New York is not under active consideration, but the only permanent fixtures in New York City are Grand Central Terminal and the Empire State Building."
