FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Jacqline Barnes, (410) 295-1028, jbarnes@usni.org

The American military-industrial complex and

accompanying culture are most often associated
with massive weapons procurement programs and
advanced technologies. Images of supersonic
bombers, strategic missiles, armor-plated tanks,
nuclear submarines, and complex space systems
clog our imagination. However, one aspect of the
complex is not a weapon or even a machine, but
one of the world’s most highly engineered
consumer products: the manufactured cigarette.
Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em describes the origins
of the often comfortable, yet increasingly
controversial relationship among the military, the
cigarette industry, and tobaccoland politicians
during the twentieth century. After fostering the
relationship between soldier and cigarette for
more than five decades, the Department of
Defense and fiscally minded legislators faced
formidable political, cultural, economic, and
internal challenges as they fought to unhinge the
soldier-cigarette bond they had forged.

Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em is also a study in

modern American political economy. Bureaucrats, soldiers, lobbyists, government executives,
legislators, litigators, or anti-smoking activists all struggled over far-reaching policy issues
involving the cigarette. The soldier-cigarette relationship established by the Army in World War
I and broken apart in the mid-1980s underpinned one of the most prolific social, cultural,
economic, and healthcare related developments in the twentieth century: the rise and
proliferation of the American manufactured cigarette smoker and the powerful cigarette
enterprise supporting them.

From 1918 to 1986, the military established a powerful subculture of cigarette-smoking soldiers.
The relationship was so rooted that, after the 1964 Surgeon General’s Report warned Americans
that cigarettes were hazardous to health, a further 22 years were needed to advance military
smoking cessation as official policy, and an additional 16 years to sever government subsidies
providing soldiers low-cost cigarettes. The role of wars and the military in establishing and
entrenching the American cigarette-smoking culture has often gone unrecognized. Using the
manufactured cigarette as a vehicle to explore political economy and interactions between the
military and American society, Joel R. Bius helps the reader understand this important, yet
overlooked aspect of 20th century America.

Praise for Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em:

“A fascinating study of the rise and fall of the cigarette in American society and its influence on
the nation's political economy during much the 20th century. Joel Bius clearly establishes the
role of the U.S. Army in helping to create a nation of cigarette smokers during the two world
wars, as well as its later role near the end of the Cold War in bringing to an end big tobacco's
reign over the GI. ” —Peter R. Mansoor, author of The GI Offensive in Europe; General
Raymond E. Mason Jr. Chair of Military History, Ohio State University

“This path-breaking book depicts an overlooked dimension of the military-industrial-political

complex: not the armaments industry but tobacco. With two world wars as turning points, Joel
Bius integrates war, political economy, public health and the environment in innovative and
fascinating ways, tracing an American addiction that was ultimately brought under control.”
—Richard Tucker, Adjunct Professor, School of Environment and Sustainability,
University of Michigan, and author of The Military and the Environment: A Reference
Handbook

“Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em unpacks one of war’s most popular images – that of the cigarette-
smoking G.I. Dr. Bius’ work makes clear the complex interplay between the U.S. military and
the society it served in the rise and fall in the acceptability and popularity of military smoking.
Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em is War and Society history at its best.” —Andrew Wiest, author of
The Boys of ’67 and University Distinguished Professor, University of Southern Mississippi

Joel R. Bius is an assistant professor of national security studies at the U.S. Air Force Air
Command and Staff College. He received his PhD in U.S. history from The Dale Center for the
Study of War and Society at The University of Southern Mississippi.

NAVAL INSTITUTE PRESS

Publication date: 15 October 2018
Military History
6 x 9 in | 328 pp.
Hardcover
ISBN: 9781682473351 | $39.95