The divestiture goal is to bolster Imperial enough to convince the FTC that it would be a competitive No
What Thurman conveys is the act of undressing the apparent by providing access to social and psychological tensions, which in turn, charge the portraits/self-portraits with the force of a million possibilities (ranging from a performative self-awareness to the liberation of a libidinal energy that mutates into the unpredictable)
When talking about some large spider found there, he notes that "they have two Teeth, or rather Horns and Inch and a half, or two Inches long, and of a proportional bigness, which are black as Jett, smooth as Glass, and their small end sharp as a Thorn
The headaches, the facial pain, the constant That constant urge to clear your throat, the scratchy feeling that never quite goes away, the nagging cough that shows up at night and will not let you sleep
The increasing duty on cigarettes during that period is said to have supported this decline