Luther Terry was elevated to the post of Surgeon General, the spokesman for all matters relating to public health in America, around the same time as scientific evidence was coalescing around the link between smoking and diseases. He rode that evidence to a formal declaration of the hazards of cigarette smoking, and eventually to the warnings on cigarette packs we see today.

On this day, January 11, 1964, the Surgeon General’s Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health, of which Terry was the chairman, issued their “Smoking and Health” report, which said smoking caused bronchitis and lung cancer. It also linked, though without statistical proof, smoking to emphysema, heart disease and cancer. It was the first formal government acknowledgement of the health dangers of cigarette smoking.

Notably, most of the committee members were themselves smokers. Their report did not go so far as to call tobacco smoking an addiction, choosing instead to explicitly call it a “habit.” This distinction proved crucial to the cigarette manufacturers in their later legislative fights with the federal government.