Coke. Citizen coke. Originally i was thinking about citizen cane when i thought about the title of this book and citizen cane was about the problems of american capitalism. Though this book is about coke, i was interested in thinking about how coke was into some of the environmental problems with 20th century american capitalist growth. It is kind of catchy title citizen coke. I was from alabama, i grew up in coke country here in atlanta and i had gone to a school that was heavily funded by coke money in atlanta. I was saying coke has been this good sit in life. Promoting corporate citizenship. Are they good citizens . When we look at their environmental foot print, do they look like a good citizen, or pretty big costs that we havent seen in the past . As you research the book, we are here in atlanta, visibility is everywhere, take us back to the origins of the product. How was it developed . It is a bizarre story. Stranger than fiction. It started literally a couple of blocks from where were sitting right here, by a guy named John Pemberton. He was a pharmacist down on his luck. He had suffered a series of wounds during the civil war. He had stomach aimments and pains and he started taking morphine to deal with these problems. Well, gradually became addicted to morphine. So around the 1880s. He became interested in this new drug that was becoming very popular, cocaine. It may sounds kind of strange now, but he was thinking, wouldnt it be cool if this new drug could help me maybe get off this morphine addiction. So he actually, though coke would hate this to be the story of its origination. He copied this drink that was very popular in france at the time called vin meriani. People loved this drink because it was wine mixed with cocaine. So it was cocainelaced wine. Sigmund freud was drinking it. Ulysses s. Grants was drinking it. Pemberton created this drink that was actually a wine. It was pembertons wine of coca. Cities are beginning to ban alcohol. Hes forced to remove the wine and replaces it with water and you have cocacola. He found this drink that he thought he could copy. If you had a coke from then and today, could you taste the difference . First cocaine in the original cocacola. Maybe after four, six ounce drinks in cocacola, you would have noticed some tingling or numbness in the drink. I that would have been one difference it was taken out. Also more caffeine. The ideas that the secret formula is timeless and been around forever. Caffeine concentration. You almost would have double the caffeine content than you have in the drink today. All of these things would have changed. Also the sugar content was different. Today you have High Fructose Corn Syrup and then it would have been all sugar and more of it. I think you would have tasted a slightly different product at that time. During this time, was it regulated, was the government involved in the development of this product . Yeah. One of the things thats interesting is this close relationship between coke and the government. At first the problem with cocacola was not the cocaine, it was the caffeine, thats what the government was concerned about. In fact, there was a very serious trial that took place beginning in 1911. Led by the bureau of chemistry and harvey wylie, the director of the bureau of chemistry, sake this is an unnatural product. The caffeine in cocacola is processed caffeine made in factories. It is put in this product trying to addict the american public. This trial went on for years. And coke was really concerned. If the government comes down hard on us, will we have to close up shop . Ultimately they win that case. This was a real triumph for coke to prove that processed caffeine added to beverages was a safe thing to consume. Were here in atlanta, give us a sense of coke in atlanta and how it has changed over evolved over the years and its impact on this city and region. Well, having grown up here, one of the things that i always like to note, because theres some things in the book that i guess are surprising about some of the things they have done around the world environmentally, that are maybe not so good. I went to india where cocacola has had a series of bottling plants in regions of the country. In some of the regions, hes bought in plants that have been extracting water that have affected the water table. Theres been allegations that coke should close these plants because they are extracting so much water and things like this. Theres some rough stories in the book. I grew up realizing there was a lot of charitable good produced by coke. You see the city has been built around coke money. Emmer university was given one of the largest grants to a university. My high school, my education was paid for in a lot of ways by coke money. I think you can talk to almost any atlanta citizen and they would say the woodriffe arts center. In some way coke charity has affected their lives. I think in so many ways, academic institutions, the arts, you name it, coke has really built this city. Its rise was really during the industrial revolution, some called it the gilded age, this city was not alone, detroit and new york and chicago seeing tremendous growth in development. Absolutely. I think what was different about coke and i think this guess to the heart of what i was writing about. Unlike u. S. Steel, you think of steel towns and the sugar trusts and these big vertically integrated empires. Coke was very different, it chose not to vertically integrate. The key to success was actually the unique Corporate Structure of outsourcing and franchising. By the end of the 19th century it was all over the country. In every state of the union. The ability to do that through the bottling Franchise System that makes coke really unique in terms of the pace with which it spreads and then of course the globe in the 20th century. Let me ask you about the bottling and the socalled new coke. The formula that was so much attention when . In 1980s and 1985. Whats really interesting about new coke. I traced the ingredients in the book. I talk about water, sugar, caffeine. I decided to focus on just one, coca leaf. They decocoanize it the leaf leave the extract in the beverage. Incredibly secret trade. I went to peru to track this story down and it still goes on, it is a remarkable story. They have this coca leaf extract, it is a flavoring profile in their drink. They have it and nobody else can get it, because it goes back to your story about the Public Private partnership. The federal government oversees this trade between cocacola and these peruvian coca farmer he is. The federal government has said this is restricted. A monopoly being formed in a lot of ways through the help of the federal bureau of narcotics to try and and regulate this. So getting back to your question, that would be one of the secret ingredients, and whats interesting in about new coke, one of the reasons they are trying to reformulate the product is to get rid of this pes pesky coca leaf issue. Trying to crackdown on drug u in the united states, this is something we dont want to have a connection to. The evidence we have now suggests they took out the flavoring leaf extract in that new coke. It was an absolutely fiasco, people calling in and saying you killed the real thing and we want our coke back. They had to go back to the original formula. If they ever thought about removing the coca leaf, i think there was the reality of we have got something here and we shouldnt mess with it. It is one of these things where they really seem to believe, they had done all of these polls and taste tests and some people think it was a gimmick to recreate a brand of loyalty for the coke formula. But they seemed to really believe that consumers wanted a new thing. And at this time, pepsi was doing super as well. When did we start seeing the Mass Marketing and the Advertising Campaigns that are now ubiquitous with 20th and 21st century branding. Right after pemberton creates this product. He gets in partshipship with a candler and he gets in partnership with people familiar with print and they push out tons of promotional campaigns. They give away free samples of coke every way. They are about this idea of creating ubiquity. Whats interesting is that it is all about the curative properties of cocacola. It was pitched as a brain tonic. That was its title. It eliminated brain worry and nervousness and any type of anxiety that you would have. What they came to finds by the early 1900s. This got them into trouble. People would say it doesnt have these properties and it drew the attention of medical experts and these new bureau of chemistry folks are saying, is this a medicine, how should we regulate it . What you see by the 1920s is them getting away from that, focusing on the paws that refreshes catchy phrases that are intentionally designed to not really talk about whats in coke but conjure up feelings of happiness that we associate coke with today. Did the founders realize in the 1890s what they created . I think that John Pemberton unfortunately dies and he never gets to see it. When he dies, hes running out of money. He doesnt know this thing is going to be such a big hit. Were not going to have bottling of coke until 1899. The decision to bottle coke and to spread it to all of these business men around the country is the key to cokes success and i dont think pemberton first saw that. It is a shrub that grows in the andes in peru. It was consumed by the incas and those native to peru for century. And one of the things is whether coke stole this name. Cola was more interesting. Cola was interesting kola. The kola nut which comes from south africa. It was the original source of caffeine. P pimberton believed this would distinguish his product. The problem when you think about Mass Marketing kola nuts dont grow all the way around the world and there was a shortage at that time. He decided to source most of his campaign from waste tea leafs. The tea leafs left on tea exchanges, damaged or broken tea leafs that couldnt be restored. It was incredible to recycle this waste of tea leaves that explains why coke could get caffeine for dirt cheap prices. How many people does it employ today and worldwide reach and profits and revenue . It operates in about 200 countries worldwide. Sells 1. 8 billion servings per day. When you talk about employment, it is very interesting, because again, my book is in part about, well, what to do they own and t salaries do they pay . Cocacola associate, whether mom and pop retailers or somebody with some connection with coke. Talking over 700,000 folks. A lot of people they are employing that way. I think actually on the payroll of cocacola 150,000. They ended up merging a lot of their bottling enterprises and owning for a short time their bottlers. That increased their employment. They are the 22nd most Profitable Company in the united states. As of 2012, they have gone down slightly. Number one brand in the world since 2012. They have since been outpaced by apple. So were talking about a product that has a massive global reach. From alabama to zimbabwe. And that was the question i really wanted to answer, how, this obscure pat at the point medicine created by this morphine addict in my hometown. How did that happen. Finally as you research this topic. Did you have access to the coke files, were they open to showing you how the process worked . It looked at the ingredients. If theres one thing cocacola doesnt like talk being, it is the secret formula and their secret ingredient, and so from the very beginning, coke did not give me access to the Corporate Archives which i fondly drive by on north avenue, what if i could have gotten in there, whats amazing is that robert woodriffe who ran the company from the 1920s to the 1980s. He had stepped down, but he was basically considered the boss for all of these years. He donated all of his personal correspondence, correspondence between president s and executives. Incredible rich collection. With the amazing archiveness there, i was able to unravel the story. Tracing out these stories of how coke was able to get this stuff from around the world. What did you learn that surprised you the most. I think two things. One was the story of the coca leaf. It is somewhat unknown by public. I think it is will be interesting to say when that comes down. That story. I think the other thing that was really striking to me, i thought coke did stop. By that i meant, i thought coke owned all of these things. All that they really sell is syrup. Cocacola company headquartered here in atlanta. Thats how they make their money. It is no the in owning bottlers, it is not buying sugar plantations in cuba, coke maintained a sleek, lean, Corporate Structure, which most firms we think about on the scale that coke is on, we think of a being vertically integrated. I think it was the crazy story of the secret formula of the structure of the firm that was really surprising when i got on this. The author of the book citizen coke. We appreciate you being with us. Thank you very much. Youre watching American History tv. 48 hours of programming on American History every weekend on cspan 3. Follow us on twitter cspan history. About one or two inches. The surface appears to be very, very finegrained a ys you get close to it. One small step for man. One giant leap for mankind. Im going to leave that one foot up there. There you go. Youre about the only person around that doesnt have tv coverage of the scene. Thats all right. I dont mind a bit. How is the quality of the tv . It is beautiful, mike, it really is. Thats great. Is the lighting here for you decent . Yes, it is. They have the lighting up and you can see the stars and stripes. We are at the henry a. Wallace country life center, which is 50 miles south and west of des moines. And this is the birth place home of henry a. Wallace. The patriarch was known as uncle henry and he was the founder of wallaces farmer magazine. His son henry c. Wallace was u. S. Secretary of agriculture under woodrow wilson. His son was born on this farm in 1888. He went on to become editor of wallaces farmer magazine. He was asked by Franklin Roosevelt to serve as u. S. Secretary of agriculture which he did from 1933 to 1941. He was roosevelts vice president. Hes known for the agriculture adjustment act. Which was the first time that farmers were asked not to produce. At first, people couldnt believe the things that he was proposing regarding that, but then as prices went up they started to listen to him. People still refer to him today as the genius secretary of as the genius secretary of agriculture. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] 150 years ago in july of 1864, a Confederate Army of about 12,000 under the command of general early nearly invad