The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 78: Give That Man a Cigar

Episode Date: October 10, 2017

Eddie was really good at blowing smoke.

The ocean moves us. Surfing a wave or savoring the view. The ocean delights us as playful otters restore coastal cowpores. The ocean connects us. Visit Monterey Bay Aquarium.org slash connects. This is the way I heard it. One day, Eddie sent his uncle a large box of expensive cigars. He did this every few months because Eddie loved his uncle.

And also because Eddie looked forward to those long and length. the thank-you notes. Five thousand miles away, Eddie imagined his uncle opening the mahogany box and smiling as the unmistakable aroma of Cuban tobacco filled his study. The plump, hand-wrapped tubes of temptation would be lined up in two neat rows destined to be picked up, set a fire,

and slowly sucked upon, a destiny that Eddie's uncle could scarcely wait to fulfill. A few weeks later, a 3,000-word thank-you note arrived at Eddie's office in Manhattan, handwritten, single-spaced. In Austria, Eddie's uncle imagined the enthusiasm on his nephew's face as he poured over every word of his latest highly controversial missive. Such was the strange relationship between the nephew and the uncle. Two men with insatiably curious minds, each determined. to unlock the reasons why people do what they do,

but only one with a chronic hankering for cigars. Inspired by his uncle's essay, Eddie returned to the task at hand. The Beechnut Packing Company had a surplus of pigs, and Eddie had been hired to fix the problem. Eddie's solution? Sell more bacon. But how? Eddie commissioned a survey to see what most Americans ate for breakfast.

Answer, coffee, maybe a roll or some cereal. Eddie learned that most Americans ate a very light breakfast. So Eddie asked 5,000 physicians the same simple question, is it healthier to eat a hearty breakfast or a skimpy one? Unsurprisingly, most physicians agreed that a hearty breakfast was far superior for all sorts of logical and obvious reasons. This was not exactly headline news, but Eddie made sure it was treated that way.

He called newspapers all over the country and made sure they had the headline right. Nine out of ten doctors agree, a hearty breakfast will improve your health. Bacon sales soared because Eddie changed the way people thought about breakfast. And Beechnut paid Eddie a fortune. A few months later, Eddie sent his uncle more cigars, and Eddie's uncle sent his nose.

nephew, more thank you notes, and the American Tobacco Company called Eddie to solve another problem. Women, it seemed, simply weren't smoking as much as men. In part, because doing so in public was not only frowned upon, it could get them arrested. Eddie recalled the latest essay from his uncle about the power of transference and the hidden significance of everyday things. Eddie wondered, what do cigarettes really? signify? Answer? Whatever he said they did.

Eddie found a group of fashionable debutants and paid them to puff away during the Easter parade on Fifth Avenue. Naturally, he gave the press a heads up and once again suggested the headlines. New York women light

freedom torches and striking a match for equality. On Eddie's cue, the young women lit up, the flash bulbs went off, And the newspapers rolled out. The images were positively scandalous, young women puffing away like, well, like men. Cigarette sales soared because Eddie had made smoking synonymous with equality. And the American tobacco company paid Eddie a fortune.

This was more than marketing or advertising. This was the conscious manipulation of the human mind. Today, we might call it spin or fake news. But in 1928, Eddie called it propaganda. In fact, he wrote a book by the same title, a book that caught the eye of Adolf Hitler, who used Eddie's techniques to successfully twist the beliefs of millions. After the war, sensing perhaps a troubling legacy around his seminal work,

Eddie came up with another term. the kinder, gentler expression for which he is remembered today, public relations. But Edward Bernays would not have become the father of public relations if he hadn't published his uncle's controversial thank you notes in the American press. And make no mistake, those thank you notes were very controversial. Some of them suggested that our deepest sexual desires were revealed every night in the symbolic nature of our dreams. Others stated that a young boy will subconsciously compete with his father for possession of his mother, while a young girl will compete with her mother for her father's affections.

Today, of course, the interpretation of dreams is a widely respected theory, as is the Oedipus complex. So really, is it so surprising that millions of Americans still associate cigarettes with equality and independence? I mean, if the father of public relations could convince us that cigarettes were cool and bacon was healthy, why couldn't Eddie's uncle use the same techniques to convince us that young men subconsciously desire to have sex with their mothers? One thing's for sure. Eddie's uncle sure did love those cigars. For nearly 60 years, he chained smoked 20 a day, often while telling his patients that their dreams of speeding through long, dark tunnels on fast-moving locomotives, had nothing to do with traveling by train. Of course, blowing that much smoke does come with some risk.

Mouth cancer, for instance, and tumors. tumors that had to be surgically removed, along with most of his jaw, followed by the insertion of a large prosthesis between his sinus and his mandible. All in all, Eddie's uncle endured 33 surgeries, brought about by the Stogies he was never seen without. Even on the day of his death, at 83 years of age, even as he instructed his personal physician to end his son, suffering with a deadly dose of morphine.

Eddie's uncle, better known as the father of modern psychiatry, puffed away on his final Havana, proving once and for all that sometimes, even for Sigmund Freud, a cigar is just a cigar. Anyway, that's the way I heard it. The ocean delights us. Some marvel at the colorful world below the surface.

The ocean feeds us. Others find nourishment in its bounty. The ocean teaches us how our everyday choices impact even the deepest places. The ocean moves us, whether we're riding a wave or soaking in its breathtaking beauty. The ocean connects us. Find your connection at monterey Bay Aquarium.org slash connects.

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