Quantifying Deception: How Philip Morris Refined a Speech Through Four Drafts
When Words Become Weapons: A Computational Analysis
In 1996, Philip Morris CEO Geoffrey Bible faced a crisis. Whistleblowers were coming forward, the FDA was investigating, and a major tobacco company had just broken ranks to settle lawsuits. He needed to address employees worldwide. What he said mattered—but more importantly, *how* he revised what he said reveals the machinery of corporate manipulation.
Brooke Heller's Discovery: Deception Through Revision
In her 2007 Master's thesis, linguist Brooke Heller made a remarkable argument: **you cannot find deception in individual words, but you can find it in the pattern of crafting and re-crafting text across drafts.**
Heller analyzed four sequential drafts of Bible's April 9, 1996 speech using discourse analysis techniques. She examined semantic changes (how meaning shifts on the page) and pragmatic changes (how meaning shifts in real-world context). Her findings were striking:
What Heller Found Through Close Reading:
**Systematic Omissions:**
- The word "addiction" appeared in early drafts but vanished by the final version
- Acknowledgments of being "slow to respond" were deleted
- References to stock price impacts from the Liggett settlement disappeared
**Strategic Evasions:**
- Discussion shifted from whistleblowers as credible scientists to dismissing their "statements"
- "Addiction" was replaced with the euphemism "to keep people smoking"
- Focus redirected from defending against accusations to attacking the accusers
**Language Softening:**
- "Dead wrong" became "In truth"
- "Destroy significant value" became "temporarily erode significant value"
- "Must continue to expect further trouble" became "can expect more leaks"
**Dehumanization:**
- "Three individuals who have given these affidavits" → "the three who have given these statements" → "former employees"
Heller applied Galasinski's typology of deceptive language (omission, evasion, explicit commission, implicit commission) and Grice's maxims of cooperative conversation. Her conclusion: the editing process itself reveals intentional manipulation.
But Heller's analysis was qualitative—close reading of selected passages. Could we validate her findings quantitatively?
My Experiment: Counting the Changes
I wanted to test Heller's thesis computationally. If the revision process really did show systematic manipulation, it should be measurable.
**Method:**
1. I took Draft 1 (GB1) and the Final Version (GB4)
2. I ran both through a word counter using the Harvard General Inquirer dictionary
3. The General Inquirer categorizes words into psychological and sociological categories (Hostile, Virtue, Strong, Weak, etc.)
4. I calculated the difference: which word categories increased and which decreased from first to final draft.
The Results: Stunning Confirmation
### Words REDUCED from Draft 1 → Final Draft:
The top categories that decreased:
1. **Hostile** (-7): Aggressive language toned down
2. **NegAff** (-6): Negative emotional words reduced
3. **Strong** (-5): Strong words in aggressive contexts removed
4. **Weak** (-4): Language suggesting weakness eliminated
5. **Vice** (-3): Morally negative terminology decreased
6. **Submit** (-3): Language of subordination removed
7. **If** (-3): Some conditional hedging reduced
8. **Fail** (-3): Failure language eliminated
9. **Negate** (-3): Negative statements reduced
10. **Legal** (-2): Certain legal terminology decreased
### Words INCREASED in Final Draft:
The top categories that increased:
1. **If** (+9): Conditional statements dramatically increased (!)
2. **Yes** (+8): Affirmative language strengthened
3. **Strong** (+7): Strong words in confident contexts added
4. **PosAff** (+5): Positive emotional language increased
5. **Virtue** (+4): Moral and ethical language added
6. **IAV** (+4): Interpretive Action Verbs increased (belief, understanding)
7. **Persist** (+4): Determination language strengthened
8. **Know** (+3): Certainty language added
9. **Begin** (+2): Initiative language increased
10. **Active** (+2): Active voice strengthened
## What This Reveals: The Anatomy of Manipulation
The quantitative data perfectly validates Heller's qualitative findings. Here's what the numbers show:
### 1. The Emotional Arc Transformation
Draft 1: Defensive → Hostile → Vulnerable
Final Draft: Confident → Virtuous → Determined
The speech underwent a complete emotional reframing. Hostile and negative language was systematically removed, while positive, virtuous, and confident language was added.
### 2. The Legal Protection Strategy
Notice the **"If" paradox**: conditionals both decreased (-3) and increased (+9) substantially. How?
- **Removed**: Defensive conditionals that admitted vulnerability ("if our stock has taken a beating")
- **Added**: Protective conditionals that create legal wiggle room ("if we cannot get an impartial opportunity")
This is sophisticated legal defensiveness masked as reasonableness.
### 3. The Moral Reframing
The increase in **Virtue** (+4) and **PosAff** (+5) wasn't accidental:
- Added: "We are an ethical company"
- Added: "We are principled people who are honest and straight-dealing"
- Added: "We believe kids should not smoke"
This moral positioning counters the accusations without directly addressing them.
### 4. The Power Dynamics Shift
**Submit** (-3) and **Weak** (-4) decreased while **Persist** (+4) and **Strong** (+7 in confident contexts) increased. Philip Morris edited out any language suggesting they were reactive, constrained, or defensive, replacing it with language of determination and agency.
### 5. The "Strong" Paradox Explained
"Strong" appears in both the decreased AND increased categories. This reveals sophisticated reframing:
- Strong-aggressive words removed (hostility toward opponents)
- Strong-confident words added (assertiveness about their position)
Same intensity, different target—from attacking to asserting.
## Specific Examples That Match the Data
Let me show how the quantitative patterns manifest in actual text changes Heller documented:
**Hostile (-7) & NegAff (-6):**
- Draft 1: "Dead wrong"
- Final: "In truth"
- Draft 1: "hypocritical politicians"
- Final: "some hypocritical politicians"
**Weak (-4) & Submit (-3):**
- Draft 1: "I know that some of you have felt that we have been a little slow on this one and, perhaps, we have been"
- Final: [Deleted entirely]
**Fail (-3):**
- Draft 1: "destroy significant value"
- Final: "temporarily erode significant value"
**Virtue (+4) & PosAff (+5):**
- Draft 1: [Not present]
- Final: "We are an ethical company... principled people who are honest and straight-dealing"
**If (+9) - Conditional hedging:**
- Draft 1: "We can not be shooting back wildly"
- Final: "Sometimes that will mean an immediate response. Other times it will mean waiting..."
**IAV (+4) - Interpretive Action Verbs:**
- Added: "We believe" "We understand" "We know"
- These verbs control interpretation—they frame what things "mean"
## Why This Matters
This analysis proves that **deception operates at the level of process, not just content.**
Individual sentences in the final speech might seem reasonable. But the *pattern* of revision reveals intentional manipulation:
1. **Systematic removal** of vulnerability markers
2. **Systematic addition** of confidence markers
3. **Consistent direction** across multiple linguistic dimensions
4. **Strategic coherence** in the editing choices
This isn't random refinement—it's calculated reconstruction of reality.
## The Broader Implications
### For Tobacco Control Research:
Rather than searching documents for smoking-gun admissions, researchers should analyze *drafts* of key documents. The editing process reveals intent more clearly than final text.
### For Detecting Corporate Deception:
This method could be applied to:
- Political speech drafts
- Corporate crisis communications
- Legal document revisions
- Financial disclosures
- Any high-stakes persuasive text
### For Understanding Manipulation:
The combination of:
- Qualitative close reading (Heller's approach)
- Quantitative categorical analysis (this computational approach)
- Creates a powerful method for detecting deceptive intent in iterative documents.
## The "Manipulation Vector"
What we've created here is essentially a **manipulation vector**—the direction and magnitude of change across emotional and rhetorical dimensions:
- **Direction**: From defensive/negative → confident/virtuous
- **Magnitude**: Substantial changes in 20+ linguistic categories
- **Consistency**: All changes serve the same strategic goal
This vector points unambiguously toward calculated manipulation.
## Conclusion: The Machine Behind the Message
Geoffrey Bible's final speech sounds reasonable, even principled. He expresses concern about youth smoking, defends the company's ethical standards, and promises to fight fairly in court.
But the four drafts tell a different story. They reveal a systematic process of:
- Removing evidence of vulnerability
- Erasing acknowledgment of problems
- Adding moral self-justification
- Creating legal protection through careful hedging
The quantitative analysis confirms what Heller discovered through close reading: **deception isn't in the words—it's in the pattern of revision.**
When Philip Morris said "we are right," they meant it. But the drafts show they knew exactly what they needed to hide, soften, and reframe to make that claim believable.
The machine behind the message is now visible. And it's no less damaging for being well-oiled.
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## Methodology Notes
**Heller's Approach:**
- Four sequential drafts of April 9, 1996 speech
- Discourse analysis (semantic and pragmatic)
- Galasinski's deception typology
- Grice's conversational maxims
- Paragraph-by-paragraph comparison using Draft Analysis Program
**Computational Approach:**
- Harvard General Inquirer word categorization
- Raw frequency counts across 180+ categories
- Difference calculation (GB1 - GB4)
- Top 10 increases and decreases identified
- Pattern analysis across emotional/rhetorical dimensions
**Data Validation:**
The quantitative findings independently confirmed Heller's qualitative analysis, suggesting robust patterns of manipulation visible through multiple analytical lenses.
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*Brooke Heller's complete thesis: "Manipulative Language in Corporate Discourse: A Case Study of Deception in a Major Tobacco Industry Speech" (University of Georgia, 2007)*
*Source documents available through the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library*
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