Day 024 - 15 Sep 94 - Page 64
1 extended to us on July 7th of 1986 by telling them what we
2 were doing. I read them the April 24 letter, as reflected
3 in that transcript, and I also read to them the press
4 release that is at page 125 of the court's binder. That
5 too -- I have referred to the press release earlier.
6 I have never, or not recently, at any rate, seen the
7 original. This is something typed up by someone other
8 than the Attorney General of Texas. As I pointed out, it
9 misspells the press secretary's name. I do not believe
10 that she would have done that.
11
12 It is possible that I read that to them at their request.
13 I would not have called and said: "Listen to what we are
14 fixing to say about you". If they had asked for it, I
15 probably would have directed them to our press office and
16 asked them to get the information from them. As I said, I
17 do not recall having had the press release at the time or
18 even since then.
19
20 MS. STEEL: But, as you said, you did not phone them and say:
21 "Here is the press release"?
22 A. I did not, no.
23
24 Q. There was a section on page 51 where Mr. Horwitz was asked
25 about your views on nutrition and the sort of food that
26 people should eat. He said that his impression from
27 having dealt with you face-to-face was that the type of
28 foods that McDonald's served are bad foods, and you gave
29 an example, hamburgers, meat products, things which have
30 saturated fats in them or fats in them, and he went on to
31 say that was your preference like that of other Attorneys
32 General who he had dealt with who were vegetarians, and
33 that their view was that you would be better -- that
34 McDonald's would be better off selling things other than
35 hamburgers. Is there anything that you would want to say
36 in response to that?
37 A. I am not now, nor have I ever been, a vegetarian.
38 I have nothing against McDonald's. I have nothing against
39 the types of foods that McDonald's manufactures and
40 sells. I, on occasion, have (and still do) take my
41 children to McDonald's and eat there myself. This is not
42 about me. What I choose to eat is not of relevance to me,
43 or was not of relevance to me, as prosecutor. My job, as
44 I said earlier, was to determine what the entire consuming
45 public, or a significant proportion of the consuming
46 public, wanted to hear and to learn and to ensure that
47 where the law required that they got the information
48 affirmatively, and that, as the law required, they did not
49 get deceptive information for them to use in making their
50 purchasing decisions.
51
52 There are people who do not want to eat at McDonald's;
53 there are people who do not eat hamburgers. I am not one
54 of them. But people who do not want unhealthy foods
55 should not be given false information to assuage their
56 concerns so they do eat those very unhealthy foods,
57 believing them to be, if not healthy, then at least less
58 unhealthy. In other words, so you can eat more of them in
59 your diet than they had been eating.
60
