Day 024 - 15 Sep 94 - Page 55
1
2 That means that it is not part -- it is part of a balanced
3 diet, but only if you choose to have one meal that has
4 negative attributes and have to scrimp at either end of
5 the spectrum. If you eat three meals and one of them is a
6 McDonald's meal, you have to be very careful in the other
7 two meals as to what you eat.
8
9 Q. Going on then, when you replied to this letter -- I do not
10 mean you personally -- I am not sure whether you wrote the
11 reply or not.
12
13 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is 164.
14
15 MS. STEEL: Or Exhibit 9. You did not go into detailed
16 answers. Was there some reason for that?
17 A. Yes. As a general enforcement matter, we do want to
18 make companies aware of our concerns and we do try to
19 resolve our concerns short of litigation. We do not,
20 however, feel it is incumbent upon us as the prosecutor to
21 argue with the company. If they want to resolve a
22 conflict, as McDonald's did by agreeing to stop printing
23 the ads, then they can, but we do not find it very useful
24 to engage in the give and take, gainsaying each other's
25 positions. We learned that that was not a way to resolve
26 the conflict. You have to presume that two sides have
27 differing opinions and approaches to the matter.
28
29 It did not matter to me that McDonald's wanted to put
30 forth publicly that they did differ with our conclusions;
31 that was fine with me. It did not behove us, in order to
32 resolve it, to sit back and start arguing with them. On
33 rare instances that we had been drawn into such arguments,
34 we had found it only prelonged the resolution and usually
35 resulted in litigation. That would have been why the
36 response to Mr. Califano was as brief as it was, as
37 reflected in the May 1987 letter that I signed.
38
39 But I do draw the distinction. With this one I remember
40 specifically that, contrary to the usual course of action,
41 when Attorney General Mattox got Mr. Califano's letter,
42 the May 4th letter, he telephoned me -- he being in
43 Austin, me being in Dallas -- and told me: "You write
44 Califono and you say this" and this letter is, though
45 directed to be sent by me, and though fully agreed with by
46 me, was Attorney General Mattox's wording. I may have
47 said: "Thank you for your consideration", I might have
48 stuck that on at the end, but otherwise this is what
49 General Mattox told me to say to the former secretary in
50 Human Services.
51
52 Q. That would be a fairly standard way of dealing with this;
53 you would try to avoid getting drawn into long arguments
54 which could just delay the resolution of the matter?
55 A. Yes. That is why I say I agreed fully with it; of
56 course I did, this was my boss telling me to do it, but
57 had I had second thoughts those second thoughts would have
58 confirmed this approach. That is the way I do it as
59 well. I do not want to argue with companies about why we
60 are right and they are wrong. The choice they had was to
