“Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man” is episode seven of season four of The X-Files.
A mane enters an abandoned building and a cigarette falls to the floor. It’s the Cigarette Smoking Man and he heads to a window and places a briefcase on a surface. He removes his coat and lights a cigarette with a Zippo on which is emblazoned ‘Trust No One’.
The briefcase contains eavesdropping equipment and he turns it on to hear Mulder and Scully being told that Frohike is close. Frohike is worried about being killed and someone listening in. He’s right to be worried. He wants the CSM-25 to be activated and the CSM’s audio dissolves into static. CSM flips a switch and the audio returns. He hears them say that no electronic surveillance known can cut through the CSM-25. Wrong. CSM smiles. CSM is assembling a sniper rifle on a tripod as Frohike is saying that he has found out about someone. CSM. CSM is looking through the rifle’s scope at the door to The Lone Gunmen.
According to Frohike, CSM was born on August 20th 1940 in Baton Rouge. His father was a Soviet agent who was executed for treason. His mother, a smoke, died from lung cancer before her son spoke his first word. With no family left, he went into the foster system. A loner, who liked to read, he appeared to have vanished. Then appeared again.
October 1962, at the Center for Special Warfare at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. After training, a young man is reading on his bed. Another comes and tells the young man, a captain, that General Francis wants to see him. Another office says his son has just said his first word – JFK. The first, a young CSM, leaves the second, a young Bill Mulder.
There are several men in the general’s office. One asks CSM about a bunch of stuff, all of which he denies any knowledge of. CSM’s father is mentioned as well; he says his regret is that he wasn’t old enough to throw the switch himself. The general says that they can understand having a live eviscerated at the hands of another. He offers a cigarette. CSM doesn’t smoke. The general talks about people and how few are extraordinary. CSM’s father was, by their definition, extraordinary, and he believes it runs in the family. The father had to be executed, because communism is evil.
That’s why CSM is there. The assignment is so classified that, if he accepts and executes it, he will no longer be an officer in the U.S. Army nor will there be any record of his service. The target is an American citizen, and he’s described. The individual brought the country to the brink of nuclear annihilation. A patsy has been arranged. The target, though not stated, is JFK.
Dallas, Texas, November 1963. CSM meets with another man – Lee. Lee is a smoker; CSM tells him studies have shown cigarettes will kill you. Lee, who has been coughing whilst he smokes, agrees. Lee will have a good view of the president. CMS has brought him the curtain rods. Lee is to place those and will be able to leave the country. Lee hands CSM his cigarettes. CSM sets up elsewhere as Lee goes to the Texas School Book Repository. He takes the shots and Lee ends up realising he’s a patsy. He tries to flee but is caught. CSM lights a cigarette.
Some years later and CSM is typing a book and listening to a speech by Martin Luther King. Reverend King says something about the war in Vietnam and CSM seems genuinely upset he did. He meets with a group and says that, if it was just a civil rights thing, he would vote for King for president. He appears sad, considering King an extraordinary man who he greatly respects. However, King is trying to encourage people not to fight in Vietnam. CSM doesn’t think efforts to discredit him are enough. They have a cracker patsy. CSM will do the job himself; he has too much respect for the man.
Mulder and Scully don’t appear as more than voices in this. The entire episode is about CSM. How he didn’t smoke to start with and actually tried nicotine patches at one point. An older CSM is seen with Deep Throat and CSM also takes credit for a number of things, some lesser than others. His desire to become a writer is also new. That is assuming that any of this is correct; CSM has been an unreliable narrator.