A Smokin' Marlboro Man

Geoffrey C. Bible is expounding upon some of his fonder habits. "I'm a drinker," he says. "I like ice beers very much, and I just spent my holiday sampling them all." Smoking? He takes a long drag on his Marlboro. "I smoke more menthol [Marlboros] than I do these," he says. If it seems strange in these health-conscious times for the CEO of a multibillion-dollar corporation to be lavishing so much attention on the virtues of booze and butts, remember that Bible is the new CEO of Philip Morris Cos., the $61 billion tobacco, food, and beer giant. Who better than the boss to be a walking advertisement for the company's products?

Unlike his predecessor, Michael A. Miles, a lanky, stolid Midwesterner who made his career in the domestic food business and gave up smoking years ago, Bible is short and tough, a gregarious executive who served in the Australian infantry for five years and doesn't have any mixed feelings about selling or smoking cigarettes. For a company that earned $5.2 billion on $16.4 billion in tobacco sales last year, you could almost argue that a CEO who puffs his way through a pack a day as Bible does is setting a good example.