How a Public Relations Firm Helped Start the War

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How a Public Relations Firm Helped Start the War

Postby nomo » Wed Jun 14, 2006 4:44 pm

<!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://peterrost.blogspot.com/2006/06/how-public-relations-firm-helped-start.html">peterrost.blogspot.com/20...start.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Peter Rost, M.D., former Vice President for the drug company Pfizer became well known in 2004 when he emerged as the first drug company executive to speak out in favor of reimportation of drugs. His fight for lower priced drugs was covered by radio and television broadcasts, among them “60 Minutes,” and many newspaper articles, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Star Ledger and Los Angeles Times.<br></em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>How a Public Relations Firm Helped Start the War<br></strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br>I have been one of the few Huffington Post writers who has not written about the Iraq invasion. I figured I would stick to stuff I knew, such as healthcare and a few odd stories about lightly dressed women.<br><br>That was before I discovered that the Rendon Group had <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter-rost/am-i-crazy-paranoid-_b_22812.html">taken a keen interest in my blog</a><!--EZCODE LINK END-->, and before I discovered what the Rendon Group was. In the last 24 hours my jaw has literally dropped as I have assimilated this new knowledge and I figured I should share some of what I've learned.<br><br>First you should know something. I never believed the story about "weapons of mass destruction" hidden inside Iraq. My wife believed it was possible that Hussein's missiles were transported around on moving trains, and we had many heated discussions before the war on this topic. The reason I never believed the story about WMD was that the "evidence" was so fluffy every time it was presented and as a former executive I have some experience smelling a rat when the story isn't quite there. But my wife would tell you that I simply got lucky.<br><br>Anyway, what I didn't know anything about until yesterday was the Rendon Group's role in selling the world on war.<br><br>So here's what I've learned.<br><br>The Rendon Group is one of the most secretive and well connected public relations firms in Washington. Back in 2001, Pentagon awarded this group a $16 million contract to target Iraq and other adversaries with propaganda.<br><br>This Group had already made a fortune off government contracts since 1991, when the firm was hired by the CIA to help create the conditions to remove Hussein from power. At that time, the Rendon Group assembled a group of anti-Saddam militants, and named them "the Iraqi National Congress," and then served as their media advisor in their job to engineer a coup against Saddam. Rolling Stone wrote, "It was as if President John F. Kennedy had outsourced the Bay of Pigs operation to the advertising and public-relations firm of J. Walter Thompson."<br><br>"They're very closemouthed about what they do," says Kevin McCauley, an editor of the industry trade publication O'Dwyer's PR Daily. "It's all cloak-and-dagger stuff."<br><br>The Rendon Group was built by John Walter Rendon Jr. According to Pentagon documents that were obtained by Rolling Stone, the Rendon Group is authorized "to research and analyze information classified up to Top Secret/SCI/SI/TK/G/HCS." This is an extraordinarily high level of clearance granted to only a handful of defense contractors. "SCI" stands for Sensitive Compartmented Information, data classified higher than Top Secret. "SI" is Special Intelligence, very secret communications intercepted by the National Security Agency. "TK" refers to Talent/Keyhole, code names for imagery from reconnaissance aircraft and spy satellites. "G" stands for Gamma (communications intercepts from extremely sensitive sources) and "HCS" means Humint Control System (information from a very sensitive human source).<br><br>In response to the Rolling Stone article, the Rendon Group issued a letter in which it objected to some statements in the article, but not to these ones, so I think we can take it as an admission that the Rendon Group really does enjoy access to the most secret information in our country.<br><br>Amazing.<br><br>But it is even more interesting to learn how this secretive propaganda group operates.<br><br>Back in December, 2001, CIA used a lie detector to find out if Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri, a forty-three-year-old Iraqi, was telling the truth. This was a guy from Kurdistan who really wanted to bring down Saddam Hussein.<br><br>He claimed that he was a civil engineer who had helped Saddam secretly bury tons of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. These illegal arms were supposedly hidden in subterranean wells, private villas, and even stashed beneath the Saddam Hussein Hospital, which is the largest medical facility in Baghdad.<br><br>Unfortunately, the polygraph indicated that it was all a complete lie. The CIA concluded that al-Haideri had made up his entire story, perhaps in the hopes of securing a visa.<br><br>But the tale didn't stop there. The Rolling Stone claims that in an operation directed by Ahmad Chalabi (the guy the Rendon Group helped install as leader of the INC), al-Haideri was brought to Thailand, and met with the group's spokesman, Zaab Sethna, who was well trained to coach defectors on their stories, and preparing them for polygraph exams. Sethna in turn got his training from the Rendon Group. And according to Francis Brooke, who represents INC in Washington, and is also a former Rendon employee, the goal of the al-Haideri operation was straightforward; to pressure the US into attacking Iraq and to kick out Saddam Hussein.<br><br>So instead of the story ending in Thailand with a failed lie detector test, the INC now contacted two journalists who had worked with the INC in the past and offered them an exclusive on this tale of Saddam planning Armageddon with his cache of weapons of mass destruction.<br><br>For the worldwide broadcast rights Sethna contacted Paul Moran, an Australian freelancer who frequently worked for the Australian Broadcasting Corp. The Rolling Stone quote Sethna saying, "We were trying to help the Kurds and the Iraqis opposed to Saddam set up a television station. The Rendon Group came to us and said, 'We have a contract to kind of do anti-Saddam propaganda on behalf of the Iraqi opposition.' What we didn't know -- what the Rendon Group didn't tell us -- was in fact it was the CIA that had hired them to do this work."<br><br>The INC's selection of a journalist for the worldwide print exclusive was even more noteworthy. Chalabi supposedly contacted Judith Miller of The New York Times. We have all read how Miller cuddled with the Bush administration, and how she was "used" by them to spread their propaganda.<br><br>So Miller flew to Bangkok to interview the guy who hid Saddam's WMD and later reported that unnamed "government experts" called his information "reliable and significant." Her front-page story, on December 20, 2001, used the headline: AN IRAQI DEFECTOR TELLS OF WORK ON AT LEAST 20 HIDDEN WEAPONS SITES.<br><br>So suddenly, thanks to Miller's story, and the people the Rendon Group had organized, the Bush administration could do an end run around the CIA data which had discredited the defector, and they had "proof" of Saddam's ominous intentions.<br><br>The story was backed up by Moran's on-camera interview with al-Haideri and the White House made the most of this propaganda triumph with every newspaper and television station around the world repeating this mind blowing story.<br><br>Let's state right now, that as these stories unfold, we can only safely assume one thing: We are watching the tip of the iceberg and the most powerful men in the world are doing what they can to make sure we don't see the rest.<br><br>We don't know all the details about the Rendon Group's involvement in this affair, nor do we know the details about their involvement in overthrowing other governments. But we have some indications and some of what John Rendon has said himself, gives us a good idea of what he's been up to. In a speech to at the U.S. Air Force Academy he said, "I am not a national-security strategist or a military tactician. I am a politician, a person who uses communication to meet public-policy or corporate-policy objectives. In fact, I am an information warrior and a perception manager." He added, "When things turn weird, the weird turn pro." He also told the Rolling Stone about the importance of his firm's efforts in US covert operations: "We've worked in ninety-one countries," he said. "Going all the way back to Panama, we've been involved in every war, with the exception of Somalia."<br><br>Huh?<br><br>Yesterday 80% of the respondents in my poll didn't think I was crazy when I worried about the Rendon Group's motivation for monitoring my blog. After reading this, perhaps the remaining 20% understand why I'm worried. But who knows, maybe those 20% were just votes sent in by the Rendon Group to confuse everyone . . .<br><br>You think that's crazy?<br><br>You think it is crazy that perhaps a group like the Rendon Group might be monitoring blogs on the Huffington Post, and perhaps actively participating in swaying the responses?<br><br>If you do think that is crazy talk, read this:<br><br>Thomas Twetten, the CIA's former deputy of operations, claims Rendon virtually created the INC. "The INC was clueless," he said. "They needed a lot of help and didn't know where to start. That is why Rendon was brought in."<br><br>"The reason they got the contract was because of what they had done in Panama -- so they were known," according to Whitley Bruner, former chief of the CIA's station in Baghdad.<br><br>What did the Rendon Group have to do? They had to use the media to turn Hussein into a supporter of terrorists and the greatest threat to world peace in modern time. Each month, $326,000 was sent from the CIA to the Rendon Group and the INC via a number of front groups. The Rendon Group received a management fee of ten percent above what it spent on the project. According to certain reports, the Group made close to $100 million on this contract.<br><br>The Rendon Group also received money from the Kuwaiti government, after they'd been pushed into exile by Iraq. They paid $100,000 a month. Here's what the Rendon Group did:<br><br>Problem was that Americans were dying in Kuwait and Iraq, while the wealthy family of sheiks were having a ball in nightclubs around the world. So, the Rendon Group responded by having "grateful Kuwaitis mailing 20,000 personally signed valentines to American troops" all of this duly reported by the press, but arranged by the Rendon Group.<br><br>And you don't think this group may try to influence polls and responses on the Huffington Post? Of course they could. In a heartbeat!<br><br>Question is would they bother?<br><br>In fact this is what John Rendon said himself: "Did you ever stop to wonder how the people of Kuwait City, after being held hostage for seven long and painful months, were able to get hand-held American, and, for that matter, the flags of other coalition countries?" After a pause, he added, "Well, you now know the answer. That was one of my jobs then."<br><br>And of course, the Rendon Group's influence exploded in Washington after 9/11.<br><br>"The events of 11 September 2001 changed everything, not least of which was the administration's outlook concerning strategic influence," according to one Army report. "Faced with direct evidence that many people around the world actively hated the United States, Bush began taking action to more effectively explain U.S. policy overseas. Initially the White House and DoD turned to the Rendon Group."<br><br>So already three weeks after the 9/11 attacks, according to documents the Rolling Stone obtained from defense sources, the Pentagon awarded a big contract to the Rendon Group. At about this time, Pentagon also created a secret organization called the "Office of Strategic Influence."<br><br>The objective of the Office of Strategic Influence was to coerce foreign journalists and plant false information overseas. Secret briefing papers also said the office should find ways to "punish" those who convey the "wrong message." One senior officer told CNN that the plan would "formalize government deception, dishonesty and misinformation."<br><br>"It's sometimes valuable from a military standpoint to be able to engage in deception with respect to future anticipated plans," Vice President Dick Cheney said when he explained this operation. But even senior military officers found the new unit unnerving. "When I get their briefings, it's scary," a senior official said at the time.<br><br>February 2002 came around and now the New York Times reported that the Pentagon had hired Rendon to help the new "Office of Strategic Influence." The Rendon Group denies this and claimed they were reporting directly to the J-3, which is the head of operations at the Joint Chiefs of Staff.<br><br>According to Rolling Stone's Pentagon documents, the Rendon Group was charged with creating an "Information War Room" to monitor worldwide news reports at lightning speed and respond virtually instantly with counterpropaganda.<br><br>"Rendon would use his media analysis to conduct a worldwide propaganda campaign, deploying teams of information warriors to allied nations to assist them "in developing and delivering specific messages to the local population, combatants, front-line states, the media and the international community." Among the places Rendon's info-war teams would be sent were Jakarta, Indonesia; Islamabad, Pakistan; Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Cairo; Ankara, Turkey; and Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The teams would produce and script television news segments "built around themes and story lines supportive of U.S. policy objectives."<br><br>And here comes the really interesting part about the Rendon Group, for Huffington Post bloggers and readers:<br><br>The Rendon Group also took over the responsibility to conduct "military deception" online from the Office of Strategic Influence.<br><br>Read that sentence again.<br><br>The company has been contracted to monitor Internet chat rooms in and "participate in these chat rooms when/if tasked." They would also use web sites and e-mail to plant a variety of propaganda, including false information.<br><br>You still believe just "regular readers" are roaming the Huffington Post???<br><br>Holy sh-t! I had no idea what I got into when I started blogging for this site . . .<br><br>"It was not just bad intelligence, it was an orchestrated effort," said Sam Gardner, a retired Air Force colonel. "It began before the war, was a major effort during the war and continues as post-conflict distortions."<br><br>And of course the Bush administration spent lavishly on the Rendon Group. Between 2000 and 2004, the Pentagon documents demonstrate, the Rendon Group received at least thirty-five contracts with the Defense Department, worth a total of $50 million to $100 million.<br><br>The irony of the story, on a more personal level, is that the journalist Moran, who had lived a double life, reporting for Australian Broadcasting and other news organizations, while operating as an agent for the Rendon Group and enjoying what his family called his "James Bond lifestyle," was one of the first journalists killed in Iraq by a roadside bomb, while he was covering the war for ABC.<br><br>The Rendon Group participated in his funeral and also organized a memorial service in London.<br><br>Meanwhile, in January 2003, Miller again reported in the New York Times that Pentagon "intelligence officials" were telling her that some of the most valuable information had come from al-Haideri. Miller claimed that his information, "ultimately resulted in dozens of highly credible reports on Iraqi weapons-related activity and purchases."<br><br>But in the end that whole story blew up in both the Bush administration's and Miller's face. In 2004 al-Haideri was taken back to Iraq by the CIA. He was asked to point out exactly where WMD were hidden, but could not identify a single site.<br><br>And now the Bush administration is running for cover and using the propaganda machinery they built with the help of private contractors like the Rendon Group to defend themselves.<br><br>According to a secret Pentagon report personally approved by Rumsfeld in October 2003 and obtained by Rolling Stone, the Strategic Command is authorized to engage in "military deception" which is defined as "presenting false information, images or statements." The seventy-four-page document, titled "Information Operations Roadmap," also calls for psychological operations to be launched over radio, television, cell phones and "emerging technologies" such as the Internet.<br><br>Yep, they could be right here, reading right now. Perhaps now I finally got the answer to another question I have had. Why does the U.S. Department of State also show such an interest in my blog and why are they an almost daily reader? I guess I finally hit the sweet spot.<br><br>For the full story on the Rendon Group, see the <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/8798997/the_man_who_sold_the_war/">Rolling Stone article</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--> and the <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.rendon.com/letter.php">Rendon Group's Response</a><!--EZCODE LINK END-->. Please note that the Rendon Group objects to several narrowly defined assertions in the article, some of which I may have repeated, but doesn't contradict most of the story. After all, what could be better PR for the Rendon Group than such an article? <p></p><i></i>
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Re: How a Public Relations Firm Helped Start the War

Postby chiggerbit » Wed Jun 14, 2006 5:27 pm

Could this place be the source of some of those weird wringer emails that promote hate and divisiveness? <p></p><i></i>
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Re: How a Public Relations Firm Helped Start the War

Postby chiggerbit » Wed Jun 14, 2006 11:54 pm

This reminds me of the "babies thrown from incubators by Saddam's soldiers" story in the run-up to the the Persian Gulf war, a public relations story fabricated by another public relations company, Hill & Knowlton.<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://mediafilter.org/caq/Hill&Knowlton.html">mediafilter.org/caq/Hill&Knowlton.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Public Relationships:<br>Hill & Knowlton, Robert Gray,<br>and the CIA<br>by Johan Carlisle<br>from the Spring 1993 issue of CAQ (Number44)<br><br><br> Public relations and lobbying firms are part of the revolving door between government and business that President Clinton has vowed to close. It is not clear how he will accomplish this goal when so many of his top appointees, including Ron Brown and Howard Paster, are "business as usual" Washington insiders. Ron Brown, who was a lobbyist and attorney for Haiti's "BabyDoc"Duvalier, is Clinton's Secretary of Commerce. Paster, former head of Hill and Knowlton 's Washington office, directed the confirmation process during the transition period and is now Director of Intergovernmental Affairs for the White House. After managing PR for the Gulf War, Hill and Knowlton executive Lauri J. Fitz-Pegado became director of public liaison for the inauguration.<br><br><br>The door swings both ways. Thomas Hoog, who served on Clinton's transition team, has replaced Paster as head of H&K's Washington office.<br><br><br>Hill and Knowlton is one of the world 's largest and most influential corporations. As such, its virtually unregulated status, its longstanding connections to intelligence agencies, its role in shaping policy, and its close relationship to the Clinton administration deserve careful scrutiny. <br><br>In Turkey, "in July 1991, the same month President George Bush made an official visit there, the body of human rights worker Vedat Aydin was found along a road. His skull was fractured, his legs were broken, and his body was riddled by more than a dozen bullet wounds. He had been taken from his home by several armed men who identified themselves as police officers. No one was charged with his murder." De- spite hundreds of such "credible reports" acknowledged by the State Department, documenting use of "high-pressure cold water hoses, electric shocks, beating of the genitalia, and hanging by the arms," Turkey reaps the benefits of U.S. friendship and Most Favored Nation status. "Last year Turkey received more than $800 million in U.S. aid, and spent more than $3.8 million on Washington lobbyists to keep that money flowing." Turkey paid for U.S. tolerance of torture with its cooperative role in NATO, and its support for Operation Desert Storm; it bought its relatively benign public image with cold cash. Turkey's favorite Washington public relations and lobbying firm is Hill and Knowlton (H&K), to which it paid $1,200,000 from November 1990 to May 1992. Other chronic human rights abusers, such as China, Peru, Israel, Egypt, and Indonesia, also retained Hill and Knowlton to the tune of $14 million in 1991-92. Hill and Knowlton has also represented the infamously repressive Duvalier regime in Haiti.<br><br>On October 10, 1990, as the Bush administration stepped up war preparations against Iraq, H&K, on behalf of the Kuwaiti government, presented 15-year-old "Nayirah" before the House Human Rights Caucus. Passed off as an ordinary Kuwaiti with firsthand knowledge of atrocities committed by the Iraqi army, she testified tearfully before Congress:<br><br>"I volunteered at the al-Addan hospital...[where] I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where 15 babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die."<br><br>Supposedly fearing reprisals against her family, Nayirah did not reveal her last name to the press or Congress. Nor did this apparently disinterested witness mention that she was the daughter of Sheikh Saud Nasir al-Sabah, Kuwait's ambassador to the U.S. As Americans were being prepared for war, her story- which turned out to be impossible to corroborate -became the centerpiece of a finely tuned public relations campaign orches- trated by H&K and coordi- nated with the White House on behalf of the government of Kuwait and its front group, Citizens for a Free Kuwait. <br><br>In May 1991, CFK was folded into the Washington-based Kuwait-America Foundation. CFK had sprung into action on August 2, the day Iraq invaded Kuwait. By August 10, it had hired H&K, the preeminent U.S. public relations firm. CFK reported to the Justice Department receipts of $17,861 from 78 individual U.S. and Canadian contributors and $11.8 million from the Kuwaiti government. Of those "do- nations," H&K got nearly $10.8 million to wage one of the largest, most effective public relations campaigns in history. <br><br>From the streets to the newsrooms, according to author John MacArthur, that money created a benign facade for Kuwait's image: <br><br><br>"The H&K team, headed by former U.S. Information Agency officer Lauri J. Fitz-Pegado, organized a Kuwait Information Day on 20 college campuses on September 12. On Sunday, September 23, churches nationwide observed a national day of prayer for Kuwait. The next day, 13 state governors declared a national Free Kuwait Day. H&K distributed tens of thousands of Free Kuwait bumper stickers and T-shirts, as well as thousands of media kits extolling the alleged virtues of Kuwaiti society and history. Fitz-Pegado's crack press agents put together media events featuring Kuwaiti "resistance fighters" and businessmen and arranged meetings with newspaper editorial boards. H&K's Lew Allison, a former CBS and NBC News producer, created 24 video news releases from the Middle East, some of which purported to depict life in Kuwait under the Iraqi boot. The Wirthlin Group was engaged by H&K to study TV audience reaction to statements on the Gulf crisis by President Bush and Kuwaiti officials. "<br>All this PR activity helped "educate" Americans about Kuwait-a totalitarian country with a terrible human rights record and no rights for women. Meanwhile, the incubator babies atrocity story inflamed public opinion against Iraq and swung the U.S. Congress in favor of war in the Gulf.<br><br>This free market approach to manufacturing public perception raises the issue of: <br><br><br>whether there is something fundamentally wrong when a foreign government can pay a powerful, well-connected lobbying and public relations firm millions of dollars to convince the American people and the American government to support a war halfway around the world. In another age this activity would have caused an explosion of outrage. But something has changed in Washington. Boundaries no longer exist.<br>One boundary which has been blurred beyond recognition is that between "propaganda"-which conjures up unpleasant images of Goebbels-like fascists-and "public relations," a respectable white collar profession. Taking full advantage of the revolving door, these lobbyists and spinmeisters glide through Congress, the White House, and the major media editorial offices. Their routine manipulations-- like those of their brown shirted predecessors--corrode democracy and government policy. H&K's highly paid agents of influence, such as Vice President Bush's chief of staff Craig Fuller, and Democratic power broker Frank Mankiewicz, have run campaigns against abortion for the Catholic Church, represented the Church of Scientology, and the Moonies. They have made sure that gasoline taxes have been kept low for the American Petroleum Institute; handled flack for Three Mile Island's near-catastrophe; and mishandled the apple growers' assertion that Alar was safe. They meddle in our political life at every turn and apparently are never held accountable. Not only do these PR firms act as foreign propaganda agents, but they work closely with U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies, making covert operations even harder to control. <br><br>In the 1930s, Edward Bernays, the "father of public relations," convinced corporate America that changing the public's opinion--using PR techniques--about troublesome social movements such as socialism and labor unions, was more effective than hiring goons to club people. Since then, PR has evolved into an increasingly refined art form of manipulation on behalf of whoever has the large amounts of money required to pay for it. In 1991, the top 50 U.S.-based PR firms billed over $1,700,000,000 in fees. Top firms like Hill and Know- lton charge up to $350 per hour. <br><br>PR firms manipulate public and congressional opinion and government policy through media campaigns, congressional hearings, and lobbying. They have the ability and the funds to conduct sophisticated research for their clients and, using inside information, to advise them about policy decisions. They are positioned to sell their clients access and introductions to gov- ernment officials, including those in intelligence agencies. Robert Keith Gray, head of Hill and Knowlton's Washington office for three decades, used to brag about checking major decisions personally with CIA director William Casey, whom he considered a close personal friend. <br><br>One of the most important ways public relations firms influence what we think is through the massive distribution of press releases to newspapers and TV newsrooms. One study found that 40 percent of the news content in a typical U.S. newspaper originated with public relations press releases, story memos, or suggestions. The Columbia Journalism Review, which scrutinized a typical issue of the Wall Street Journal, found that more than half the Journal's news stories "were based solely on press releases." Although the releases were reprinted "almost verbatim or in para- phrase," with little additional reporting, many articles were attributed to "a Wall Street Journal staff reporter." <br><br>While some PR campaigns are aimed at the general pub- lic, others target leadership, either to persuade them or to provide them with political cover. On November 27, 1990, just two days before the U.N. Security Council was to vote on the use of military force against Iraq, while the U.S. was extorting, bullying, and buying U.N. cooperation, Kuwait was trying to win hearts, minds, and tear ducts. "Walls of the [U.N.] Council chamber were covered with oversized color photographs of Kuwaitis of all ages who reportedly had been killed or tortured by Iraqis. ...A videotape showed Iraqi soldiers apparently firing on unarmed demonstrators, and witnesses who had escaped from Kuwait related tales of horror. A Kuwaiti spokesman was on hand to insist that his nation had been `an oasis of peaceful harmony' before Iraq mounted its invasion." This propaganda extravaganza was orchestrated by Hill and Knowlton for the government of Kuwait. With few exceptions, the event was reported as news by the media, and two days later the Security Council voted to authorize military force against Iraq. <br><br>THE INTELLIGENCE CONNECTION The government's use of PR firms in general, and Hill and Knowlton in particular, goes beyond ethically dubious opinion manipulation. It includes potentially illegal proxy spying operations for intelligence agencies. "H&K recruited students to attend teach-ins and demonstrations on college campuses at the height of the Vietnam War, and to file agent-like reports on what they learned," according to author Susan Trento. "The purpose was for H&K to tell its clients that it had the ability to spot new trends in the activist movement, especially regarding environmental issues." Richard Cheney (no relation to former Secretary of Defense Cheney), head of H&K's New York office, denied this allegation. He said that H&K recommends that its clients hire private investigative agencies to conduct surveillance and intelligence work. But, Cheney admitted, "in such a large organization you never know if there's not some sneak operation going on." <br><br>Former CIA official Robert T. Crowley, the Agency's long-time liaison with corporations, sees it differently. "Hill and Knowlton's overseas offices," he acknowledged, "were perfect `cover' for the ever-expanding CIA. Unlike other cover jobs, being a public relations specialist did not require technical training for CIA officers." The CIA, Crowley admitted, used its H&K connections "to put out press releases and make media contacts to further its positions. ...H&K employees at the small Washington office and elsewhere, distributed this material through CIA assets working in the United States news media." Since the CIA is prohibited from disseminating propaganda inside the U.S., this type of "blowback"- which former CIA officer John Stockwell and other researchers have often traced to the Agency-is illegal. While the use of U.S. media by the CIA has a long and well-documented history, the covert involvement of PR firms may be news to many. According to Trento: <br><br><br>"Reporters were paid by the CIA, sometimes without their media employers' knowledge, to get the material in print or on the air. But other news organizations ordered their employees to cooperate with the CIA, including the San Diego-based Copley News Service. But Copley was not alone, and the CIA had `tamed' reporters and editors in scores of newspaper and broadcast outlets across the country. To avoid direct relationships with the media, the CIA recruited individuals in public relations firms like H&K to act as middlemen for what the CIA wanted to distribute.<br>This close association and dependence upon the intelligence community by reporters has created a unique situation which has shielded PR executives and firms from closer scrutiny by the media and Congress. According to Trento, "These longstanding H&K intelligence ties and CIA-linked reporters' fears that Gray might know about them might partially explain why Gray has escaped close media examination, even though he was questioned about his or his associates' roles in one major scandal after another during his long Washington career." <br><br>Over the years, Hill and Knowlton and Robert Gray have been implicated in the BCCI scandal, the October Surprise, the House page sex and drug scandal, Debategate, Koreagate, and Iran-Contra. In October 1988, three days after the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was indicted by a federal grand jury for conspiring with the Medellin Cartel to launder $32,000,000 in illicit drug profits, the bank hired H&K to manage the scandal. Robert Gray also served on the board of directors of First American Bank, the Washington D.C. bank run by Clark Clifford (now facing federal charges) and owned by BCCI. Gray was close to, and helped in various ways, top Reagan officials. When Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger's son needed a job, Gray hired him for $2,000 a month. "And when Gray's clients needed something from the Pentagon, Gray and Co. went right to the top." Gray also helped Attorney General Ed Meese's wife, Ursula, get a lucrative job with a foundation which was created by a wealthy Texas client, solely to employ her. <br><br>ROBERT KEITH GRAY- PRIVATE SPOOK? Robert Keith Gray, who set up Hill and Knowlton's important Washington, D.C. office and ran it for most of the time between 1961 and 1992, has had numerous contacts in the national and international intelligence community. The list of his personal and professional associates includes Edwin Wilson, William Casey, Tongsun Park (Korean CIA), Rev. Sun Myung Moon, Anna Chennault (Gray was a board member of World Airways aka Flying Tigers), Neil Livingstone, Ro- bert Owen, and Oliver North. <br><br><br>"Most of the International Division [of Gray & Co.] clients," said Susan Trento, "were right-wing governments tied closely to the intelligence community or businessmen with the same associations."<br>In 1965, with Gray's help, Tongsun Park, had formed the George Town Club in Washington. According to Trento: <br><br>Park put up the money and, with introductions from Gray and others, recruited "founders" for the club like the late Marine Gen. Graves Erskine, who had an active intelligence career. Anna Chennault became a force in the club. Others followed, and most, like Gray, had the same conservative political outlook, connections to the intelligence world, or `congressional overtones.' Gray's ties to right-wing Asians like Chennault and Park had deep roots. Gray had been critical of Eisenhower [when he was appointments secretary for Eisenhower] for never being partisan enough. Perhaps that is why Gray embraced wholeheartedly the powers behind the China Lobby. One reason Gray was attached to the lobby was that they had long been behind the funding of Richard Nixon's various campaigns. <br><br>Tongsun Park was an "agent of influence," trained by the Korean intelligence agency, which was created by and is widely regarded as a subsidiary of the CIA. The George Town Club has served as a discrete meeting place where right-wing foreign intelligence agents can socialize and conduct business with U.S. government officials. <br><br>Robert Gray has also been linked with former CIA and naval intelligence agent Edwin Wilson, although Gray denies it. In 1971, Wilson left the CIA and set up a series of new front companies for a secret Navy operation-Task Force 157. Wilson says that Robert Gray "was on the Board [of Directors]. We had an agreement that anything that H&K didn't want, they would throw to me so that I could make some money out of it, and Bob and I would share that." <br><br>THE GRAY AREA BEHIND HILL & KNOWLTON Gray's connection to Iran-Contra has never been fully examined. Notably, the Tower Commission, Reagan's official 1986 investigation, all but ignored it. In 1983, Texas Senator John Tower had declined to seek reelection thinking he had a deal with Reagan to become Secretary of Defense. After Weinberger decided to stay on in the second Reagan term, Tower found himself without a job. In 1986, his friend Robert Gray offered him a position on the board of directors of Gray and Co. Shortly thereafter, Tower was asked to head the presidential inquiry. Not suprisingly, the Tower Commission kept Gray and Co. out of the investigation, in spite of the facts that several key players in the scandal had worked for Gray and Co., and Gray's Madrid office was suspected of involvement in the secret arms shipments to Iran. <br><br>Despite large gaps in the official inquiry, it has been established that Robert Owen, Oliver North's messenger and bagman, worked for Gray and Co. after leaving then-Senator Dan Quayle's staff in 1983. Owen worked primarily with Neil Livingstone, a mysterious figure who claims to be a mover and shaker in the intelligence world but who is described as a "groupie." Livingstone worked with Ed Wilson, Air Panama, and as a front man for business activities sponsored by the CIA and Israeli intelligence. Owen and Livingstone traveled frequently to Central America to meet with the Contras in 1984. An interesting footnote to Iran-Contra is that in 1986, Saudi Arabian arms broker Adnan Khashoggi hired Hill and Knowlton and Gray and Co. to milk maximum publicity out of his major donation to a $20.5 million sports center, named after him, at American University. <br><br>THE FOURTH BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT The pattern of influence peddling and insider abuse is clear. The potential for real reform is less obvious. Despite his stated intention to restrict the influence of lobbyists and PR manipulation, Clinton's reforms are viewed with cynical amusement by those in the know. Although newly restricted from directly lobbying their former agencies, retiring government officials can simply take jobs with PR firms, sit at their desks, and instruct others to say "Ron, or Howard, sent me." Nor does the updated Foreign Agents Registration Act have real teeth. The act-legislated in 1938 when U.S. PR firms were discovered working as propagandists and lobbyists for Nazi Germany-is rarely enforced. While it requires agents of governments to register, it omits requirements for agents of foreign corporations, who often serve the same interests. <br><br>And if loopholes for lobbying are comfortably large, public relations activities remain totally unregulated and unscrutinized by any government agency. Given the power and scope of PR firms, their track records of manipulation, their collusion with intelligence agencies, and their disregard for the human rights records and corporate misdeeds of many of their clients, this lack of oversight endangers democracy. Careful regulation, stringent reporting requirements, and government and citizen oversight are essential first steps in preventing these giant transnationals from functioning as a virtual fourth branch of government. <br><br><br> <p></p><i></i>
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