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From: nemo@cais.com
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy
Subject: Private Presidential Public Relations(hips)
Date: 26 Apr 1996 14:01:14 GMT
Organization: Capital Area Internet Service, Inc.
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> 101525.225@compuserve.com (Steven Littlechild) writes:
> According to a report on German television, the initial reports from
> Kuwait regarding Iraqi atrocities (babies taken from incubators and
> left to die, etc.) were not based on fact but were planted by a PR
> Agency paid by the Kuwaiti government-in-exile. The evidence given to
> the UN by a supposed witness was in fact given by a niece of a Kuwaiti
> official.
>
> The claims and evidence were subsequently used by the UN, President
> Bush, etc. to justify sanctions against Iraq and later Desert Storm.
>
-----------SNIP----------------------------------------------------SNIP-----------
[Private Presidential Public Relations(hips)]
Public Relationships: Hill & Knowlton, The White House, and the CIA
by Johan Carlisle
from the Spring 1993 issue of CAQ (Number44)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
"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."
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.
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.
From the streets to the newsrooms, according to
author John MacArthur, that money created a benign
facade for Kuwait's image:
"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. "
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.
This free market approach to manufacturing public
perception raises the issue of 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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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."
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:
"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."
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."
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.
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.
"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."
In 1965, with Gray's help, Tongsun Park, had formed the
George Town Club in Washington. According to Trento:
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.