FORT WASHINGTON, Pa., Feb. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- The following article written by Jack Paller, CEO of Biosonics Inc., and published in Philadelphia Forum magazine's, February 8, 1996, issue, was released by both.

As a former employer of Jeffrey S. Wigand, I was interested to read in a recent Wall Street Journal that Wigand "may be one of the biggest threats cigarette makers have ever faced." On the surface, the reason for this description seems obvious: Wigand, who was fired as research chief at the Brown Williamson Tobacco Corporation in March 1993, has in the past three months become the tobacco industry's highest-ranking defector.

This suddenly celebrated whistle-blower burst into public view last November after CBS, fearful of a lawsuit, made a controversial decision not to broadcast an off-camera "60 Minutes" interview with him. Shortly thereafter, Wigand's identity and a transcript of that interview were leaked and published in the New York Daily News. As a result, CBS decided to air the broadcast after all, which you may have seen on "60 Minutes" this past Sunday.

Brown Williamson, in turn, has sued Wigand for fraud, theft of company secrets and breach of contract, alleging that he violated a confidentiality agreement he signed upon leaving the company in exchange for severance benefits. The company has also tried to undermine Wigand's credibility by revealing, for example, that he was once accused of shoplifting; that his first wife sued him for unpaid child support, and that his second and current wife once filed charges of spousal abuse against him.

Like most Americans, I have watched this drama unfold with a certain fascination, for on the surface the script seems to come straight out of an old Frank Capra movie: In one corner, Wigand portrays himself as a lone courageous white knight who lost a $300,000-a-year job over a principle - his refusal to accept Brown Williamson's refusal to develop a safer cigarette - and continues to fight on against the tobacco industry, whatever the personal cost. (Wigand now teaches high school in Louisville, Kentucky, at $30,000 a year.) In the other corner, Wigand would have you believe, is the power and wealth of a large and malevolent institution whose minions will use whatever old dirt they can find from his life in order to destroy him.

Sophisticated students of human nature understand that every large organization, like every individual, has its imperfections. We also know that people or institutions under attack instinctively defend themselves by spotlighting the flaws in their attackers. To an outside observer who knows nothing of Wigand or of Brown & Williamson, it's impossible in a situation like this to know whom to believe.

In such a case most of us tend to believe the side that reflects our own beliefs - which in this case means that most of us will believe Wigand rather than the tobacco companies. Or we tend to trust the media which instinctively tend to trust the underdog - so much so that whenever an individual confronts a giant institution, the institution is the real underdog when it comes to receiving a fair hearing from the public.

As is often the case, when you look beneath the surface you find the real truth. I knew Jeffrey Wigand personally. For nine months in 1987 before he was forced to resign, Wigand was president and chief operating officer of my company, Biosonics Inc. And based on that experience I find myself in the politically incorrect situation of empathizing with Brown Williamson. The Jeffrey Wigand I knew was indeed well-educated, articulate and charming when it suited his purposes. But his behavior was also characterized by vindictiveness and by the seeming pleasure he took in causing pain and disruption. These are precisely the characteristics I see repeating themselves in his comments and testimony against Brown Williamson.

Biosonics, based in Fort Washington, is a publicly traded biomedical company which I founded in 1980 in partnership with Dr. Henry Brenman, who was then working on a device to counter male impotence. Today the company also markets a number of other devices that utilize electrical stimulation to alleviate physical conditions, such as incontinence and the inability to salivate normally.

Although I have been the company's chief executive since its inception, in January 1987 Wigand was hired as our president and COO, based on a strong recommendation from a national search firm. But within a few months it became clear that his people skills were negligible. He was abrasive and denigrating to everyone, especially women, whom he seemed to delight in driving to tears. On one occasion he conducted a meeting by placing his subordinates at one end of a room and shining a spotlight on them while he sat behind the spotlight at the other end, interrogating them.

Within a matter of months the company's senior staff came to me as a group to demand Wigand's removal. It was an "Either he goes or we go" situation. I sympathized with them fully, especially since my own wife had experienced Wigand's bullying managerial tactics: Although she handled bookkeeping for ten different companies, he told her she didn't know how to keep books and reduced her to tears in the process. Say this much for Jeffrey Wigand: He didn't suck up to the boss's wife.

A special meeting of Biosonics' board of directors was called for October 5, 1987, for the sole purpose of firing Wigand. Since Wigand was himself one of the company's four directors, this created an awkward situation: Although any officer can be fired by the board, a director can be dismissed only by the company's shareholders.

After a motion was made and seconded to fire Wigand, a recess was called to give Wigand the opportunity to resign. Wigand agreed to do so and submitted a one-sentence letter which was duly entered in the corporate minutes. In its entirety it read: "I hereby resign as President and Chief Operating Officer of Biosonics, Inc. and as a member of the Board of Directors of Biosonics, Inc."

Of course this arrangement was fine with us: All we wanted was Wigand's removal from the company, not his humiliation. In such situations companies usually agree to face-saving severance arrangements rather than publicly air their internal squabbles and mistakes - in this case our misguided choice of a president.

So you can imagine my surprise when at the end of this past November, the Wall Street Journal asked me to comment on the allegations Wigand had made about Biosonics in his letter of resignation. As I noted above, Wigand's resignation letter consisted of one sentence. The Journal however, informed me that it had a resignation letter in which Wigand said he was resigning because of improprieties at the company that he could no longer tolerate.

At my request, the Journal faxed me a copy of the purported resignation letter Wigand had provided to them. Instead of the one-sentence letter which is recorded in Biosonics' corporate minutes, I found myself looking for the first time at a four-paragraph letter in which Wigand attributed his resignation to "my deep concern over the manner in which the company conducts its business and scientific affairs." The letter called for "an independent investigation into the manner in which the principals conduct interactions with stockholders, brokers, potential investors and governmental agencies," and it charged: "I have made numerous attempts to investigate these issues but have been precluded in each instance."

This was news to me. I knew of no such attempts by Wigand, nor had I ever seen such a resignation letter.

This letter, incidentally, was dated October 5, 1988 -- a year after the resignation took place. I can only surmise that Wigand concocted this letter and perhaps altered the date of his resignation - in order to cast himself in a more favorable light when applying for future jobs. (I subsequently obtained a recent resume of Wigand's on which he claims to have served as Biosonics' president from December 1986 to June 1988 -- a more respectable tenure than the nine months he actually served.)

The striking thing about this episode is how remarkably our experience with Wigand parallels that of Brown & Williamson. In both cases Wigand was forced to resign from a high-level job; in both cases he received a severance package; and in both cases he subsequently retaliated against his former employer by claiming he had been fired for exposing or opposing unethical behavior.

I can't vouch for Brown Williamson, of course. But on its face Wigand's claim that he left a $300,000 job because B&W wouldn't let him make a safe cigarette strains credulity. Did he imagine he was going to work for a health-foods company?

In any case, I can attest that Wigand did resign from Biosonics on October 5, 1987 -- not 1988, as his purported letter claims - and that his one-sentence resignation - not four paragraphs - was entered in our corporate minute book, which is a matter of public record and open to public inspection.

Why am I blowing the whistle on this whistle-blower? First, simply to set the record straight. Second, to spare future employers the incivility and disruption Wigand caused us during his nine months in our employ. Third and most important, because Wigand's recent efforts to reconstruct his reputation have cast aspersions on my own company's reputation. I must speak up to prevent my company from further victimization in the court of public opinion. If I don't, a small company like mine could be trampled in the media frenzy, even though we are an innocent bystander in the confrontation between Wigand and B&W.

I hasten to note, incidentally, that I hold no brief for tobacco companies. I have not smoked since 1963. My office, my home and my car are all smoke-free. It brings me no joy to provide ammunition which I know the tobacco companies will seize upon. But sometimes it's necessary to rise above the issues of the moment and stand up for the truth. For me, and for my company, now is such a time.

Jack Paller is chairman and chief executive of Biosonics Inc., headquartered in Fort Washington. He lives in Society Hill.