Lakhota
Diamond Member
By Jason Cherkis and Zach Carter
WASHINGTON -- As the Soviet Union splintered in the early-1990s, Sushovan Ghosh packed his colleagues into a van and chugged across the collapsing nation, hitting depressed towns and famished cities, busted up factories and lonely kiosks. In each ragged destination, they stopped long enough to interview cigarette smokers.
Ghosh plied the citizenry with free cigarettes and, sometimes, McDonalds hamburgers.
They were pursuing a lucrative target: determining what Russian smokers wanted out of a cigarette -- specifically, a Western cigarette. "We had to develop a brand the Russians would smoke," Ghosh explained to The Huffington Post. For one study, they interviewed more than 1,000 smokers. "We stopped the bus and offered them cigarettes. And they all queued."
Ghoshs work for cigarette companies was chaotic, unbridled and, ultimately, deadly. To Mitt Romney and his colleagues at Bain & Co., it was a chance to rake in money. Ghosh said he reported directly to Romney, who was excited about the Russian market. "He was my boss," Ghosh said.
Much More (interesting read): Mitt Romney's Bain Made Millions On Big Tobacco In U.S., Russia