Tobacco Firms at Deaver Trial Feud Over Their Korean Clout

Two Philip Morris Inc. officials testified Tuesday that former White House aide Michael K. Deaver was paid $250,000 to counteract false lobbying charges made by another ex-White House aide on behalf of rival cigarette-maker R.J. Reynolds.

The testimony at Deaver’s perjury trial in federal court touched off angry denials from the Reynolds’ lobbyist, Richard V. Allen, who is a former national security adviser to President Reagan. Allen, like Deaver, left the White House to form a consulting firm.

Philip Morris official Richard Snyder testified that Allen, in the fierce battle to gain U.S. access to the lucrative South Korean cigarette market, told the South Korean government in 1985 that Philip Morris was “a troublemaker.”

Moreover, Snyder said, Allen was “incorrectly characterizing our company as a Democratic company whereas his company was a Republican company, and therefore Korea should deal with his client.”

Had the ‘Clout’

Duck Song, a Philip Morris representative in the Far East, testified Deaver was hired because his personal ties to President and Mrs. Reagan made him the only person with “the clout of a Dick Allen.”

Song wrote glowingly to his superiors that Deaver had been given “a royal welcome” on a July, 1985, trip to Korea, including the use of a Mercedes limousine and a long meeting with President Chun Doo-hwan.

“Even Richard Allen had not been able to see Chun,” Snyder said Tuesday. Not only that, Deaver attorney Stephen Braga suggested in questioning Snyder, Deaver had done his work for less money than Reynolds paid Allen.

And in another jab at Allen, Snyder and Song both testified that Deaver had told them he was responsible for forcing Allen out of his White House job in 1982, following disclosures that Allen had accepted watches in return for providing Japanese journalists access to Mrs. Reagan.

In an interview, Allen denied that he had bad-mouthed Philip Morris on behalf of R.J. Reynolds.

‘Would Be Unseemly’

“I have always believed that the best way to conduct business is in a positive spirit and not disparage competitors,” he said.

He also maintained that, “I have seen the president of Korea whenever I wanted to see him.” But in a thinly veiled criticism of Deaver, he added: “I have never raised a particular matter on behalf of a client. I feel it would be unseemly.”

Allen said he was “surprised and sorry” to hear that Deaver supposedly takes credit for pushing him out of the White House. “My only feelings are genuine sorrow at his problems,” he said.

Allen also said he was paid less, not more, than Deaver was for his Korean work.