RJR led the cigarette industry in soliciting doctors to help promote its products. Its ads claimed that “more doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette!” but internal documents from the tobacco industry suggest there was much left unsaid:

“Buried in the questionnaire was the key question which ran something like this: Doctor, do you smoke cigarettes? If the answer was positive: would you mind telling us what kind you smoke? Is that the kind you have with you? A large number apparently did have Camel cigarettes on their person.

Unbeknownst to the people who read the ads based on these claims, was the fact that the interviewers had placed in the doctors' hotel rooms on their arrival cartons of Camel cigarettes. The chances are that the doctors ran out of cigarettes on arrival, and conveniently put a pack of Camels into their own pockets.”

Litton, B., Memo, “Re: Research by Biow Company (PMI),” January 8, 1954, Bates No. 9570.

Source: Trinkets and Trash