This article focuses on the attempt by the United States government to sue tobacco companies to recover health-care costs. America's federal government charges its top cigarette makers--Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson (an arm of British American Tobacco that is now merging with Reynolds), Lorillard and Liggett Group--plus a British arm of BAT, with lying to the public about the hazards of smoking, of trying to fiddle or hide the scientific evidence, of deliberately getting people addicted to nicotine, of selling knowingly to people below smoking age, of pushing low-tar cigarettes as safer than others, while knowing they were not. In 1998, the four biggest reached a deal--the "master settlement agreement" (MSA)--with 46 state governments that accused them of pushing up the states' health-care costs. They agreed to pay $206 billion over the first 25 years, via a levy that is by now almost 50 cents a pack. Problem solved. Not so. The Clinton administration soon launched a federal suit, heavily reliant on a law meant to help the government recover health-care costs if someone injures a soldier. The judge threw out this part of the case, but left in another, based on the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act of 1970. This law, originally aimed at the mob, makes normal business a crime when it is part of an illegal conspiracy. That is what the tobacco men were up to, says the government, when they met on December 15th, 1953 in a doubtless smoke-filled room in a New York hotel, and schemed to mislead the public about the risks of smoking. And lo, Philip Morris has volunteered the cigarette makers to pay the cost--but only in return for FDA regulation. And Philip Morris would not weep at a ban on cigarettes that appeal to the young: Brown & Williamson and R.J. Reynolds have invested in sweet-flavored brands, which do just that.