BKSH

NO MERRI

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capt 7/18

officially promoted to primary and evil over africa:  6/14

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==

https://www.newsweek.com/heres-where-paul-manafort-did-business-corrupt-dictators-1061470

no lnx pix

WORLD

HERE’S WHERE PAUL MANAFORT DID BUSINESS WITH CORRUPT DICTATORS

BY CRISTINA MAZA ON 8/7/18 AT 3:11 PM

Manafort Trial: Rick Gates Testifies He Committed Crimes With Former Trump Campaign Aide

As the trial against Paul Manafort enters its sixth day, many observers are focusing on his work for Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs and politicians. However, he has had a long history of dealing with unsavory foreign leaders during his decades-long career as a political lobbyist.

Prosecutors in Virginia’s federal court claim that President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager avoided paying taxes on millions of dollars he made working for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine—the Party of Regions of former President Viktor Yanukovych.

Much has been made of Manafort’s connections to figures like Yanukovych, who fled Ukraine for Russia after being ousted from power by a pro-Western uprising in 2014, and Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch whom Manafort offered to brief on the Trump campaign. After all, Manafort’s allegedly illegal activities were revealed after special counsel Robert Mueller began investigating potential links between Russia and the Trump campaign.

Manafort has previously worked in other continents. His first lobbying firm Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly, which he ran with fellow Trump aid and political consultant Roger Stone, has been nicknamed the"torturers’ lobby" for having represented so many political leaders involved in human rights abuses.

“Last year, Kenya received $38 million in U.S. foreign aid, and spent over $1.4 million on Washington lobbyists to get it. Nigeria received $8.3 million and expended in excess of $2.5 million. Whom did both countries call upon to do their bidding before the U.S. government? The lobbying firm of Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly Public Affairs Co., which received $660,000 from Kenya in 1992-1993 and $1 million from Nigeria in 1991,” details a report from the Center for Public Integrity published in the early 1990s.

166202411-594x594

Former Nigerian President General Sani Abacha (right) and his Gambian counterpart attend a summit. Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort worked for Abacha.

“Former Reagan political operative Paul Manafort oversees foreign accounts; his partner, Charles R. Black, was a senior political strategist in the 1992 Bush-Quayle campaign. Their firm's fees to represent Nigeria, Kenya, the Philippines and Angola's UNITA rebel group in 1991 totaled more than $3 million. All four receive U.S. aid and abuse human rights,” the report continued.

The lobbying firm’s work with dictators predates the 1990s, however. Established in 1980, Manafort’s lobbying firm began working for the regime of Ferdinand Marcos, a kleptocratic dictator from the Philippines, in 1985. During the two decades Marcos was in power, around 34,000 people were tortured while he amassed a fortune of at least $10 billion, worth around $22 billion in today's money. His regime paid Manafort’s company almost $1 million a year, or around $2.2 million today. 

Later, in 1998, Nigeria’s former president, the Army Officer Sani Abacha, turned to Manafort’s team to help clean up his public image. Manafort personally handled his account, according to reports. The U.N. noted that Abacha’s regime “carried out widespread repression of human rights advocates, pro-democracy activists, journalists and critics of his government,” and that “extrajudicial killings, torture, assassinations, imprisonment and general harassment of critics and opponents were the hallmark of his administration.”

Meanwhile, former Democratic Senator Bill Bradley, of New Jersey, accused Manafort’s lobbying firm of having lengthened the civil war in Angola by supporting Jonas Savimbi. The firm helped secure support in Washington for Savimbi’s National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), which was trying to oust a Marxist government from power in the 1980s. According to Human Rights Watch, UNITA “used terror as a policy, to obtain supplies and coerce and intimidate civilians. Indiscriminate killings, mutilation of limbs or ears, and beatings were used by rebels to punish suspected government sympathizers or as a warning against betraying UNITA.”

57643400-594x594

Indonesian students hold a rally as they protest against the decision to drop the graft case against former dictator Suharto (right), in front of the Presidential Palace in Jakarta, Indonesia, on May 18, 2006. Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort worked for Suharto.

BAY ISMOYO/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Manafort has also worked for Indonesian military leader and former president Suharto—who has been described as one of the most brutal and corrupt leaders of the 20th century—and forSomalia’s dictatorial leader Siad Barre, whose regime committed widespread atrocities in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Generally, these brutal leaders shared one thing in common: a fierce opposition to communism. Support for figures fighting communist movements was generally in line with the foreign policy goals of the Republican Party at the time. Nevertheless, Manafort’s decision to work with Russians and pro-Russian politicians in the former Soviet Union was a notable departure from his party’s priorities.

According to one of his former employees, Manafort’s work has been characterized by his lack of moral compass and motivation for money and influence.

“I told Manafort it didn’t seem like a promising strategy to march into a murderous dictator’s office and point out to him and his lieutenants that he had a public relations problem. ‘Are we sure we want this guy as a client?’ I asked, in a garish display of naïveté,” K. Riva Levinson, who worked for Manafort early in her career, wrote in an op-ed last year.

“Manafort sounded annoyed, as if I had asked the right question at the wrong time. He waved off my concerns as he settled into his large leather armchair in his spacious corner office overlooking the Potomac River, the walls adorned with photos of past presidents, senators, congressmen and other notables,” Levinson described.

==

==

https://www.newsweek.com/heres-where-paul-manafort-did-business-corrupt-dictators-1061470

no lnx pix

WORLD

HERE’S WHERE PAUL MANAFORT DID BUSINESS WITH CORRUPT DICTATORS

BY CRISTINA MAZA ON 8/7/18 AT 3:11 PM

Manafort Trial: Rick Gates Testifies He Committed Crimes With Former Trump Campaign Aide

As the trial against Paul Manafort enters its sixth day, many observers are focusing on his work for Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs and politicians. However, he has had a long history of dealing with unsavory foreign leaders during his decades-long career as a political lobbyist.

Prosecutors in Virginia’s federal court claim that President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager avoided paying taxes on millions of dollars he made working for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine—the Party of Regions of former President Viktor Yanukovych.

Much has been made of Manafort’s connections to figures like Yanukovych, who fled Ukraine for Russia after being ousted from power by a pro-Western uprising in 2014, and Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch whom Manafort offered to brief on the Trump campaign. After all, Manafort’s allegedly illegal activities were revealed after special counsel Robert Mueller began investigating potential links between Russia and the Trump campaign.

Manafort has previously worked in other continents. His first lobbying firm Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly, which he ran with fellow Trump aid and political consultant Roger Stone, has been nicknamed the"torturers’ lobby" for having represented so many political leaders involved in human rights abuses.

“Last year, Kenya received $38 million in U.S. foreign aid, and spent over $1.4 million on Washington lobbyists to get it. Nigeria received $8.3 million and expended in excess of $2.5 million. Whom did both countries call upon to do their bidding before the U.S. government? The lobbying firm of Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly Public Affairs Co., which received $660,000 from Kenya in 1992-1993 and $1 million from Nigeria in 1991,” details a report from the Center for Public Integrity published in the early 1990s.

166202411-594x594

Former Nigerian President General Sani Abacha (right) and his Gambian counterpart attend a summit. Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort worked for Abacha.

“Former Reagan political operative Paul Manafort oversees foreign accounts; his partner, Charles R. Black, was a senior political strategist in the 1992 Bush-Quayle campaign. Their firm's fees to represent Nigeria, Kenya, the Philippines and Angola's UNITA rebel group in 1991 totaled more than $3 million. All four receive U.S. aid and abuse human rights,” the report continued.

The lobbying firm’s work with dictators predates the 1990s, however. Established in 1980, Manafort’s lobbying firm began working for the regime of Ferdinand Marcos, a kleptocratic dictator from the Philippines, in 1985. During the two decades Marcos was in power, around 34,000 people were tortured while he amassed a fortune of at least $10 billion, worth around $22 billion in today's money. His regime paid Manafort’s company almost $1 million a year, or around $2.2 million today. 

Later, in 1998, Nigeria’s former president, the Army Officer Sani Abacha, turned to Manafort’s team to help clean up his public image. Manafort personally handled his account, according to reports. The U.N. noted that Abacha’s regime “carried out widespread repression of human rights advocates, pro-democracy activists, journalists and critics of his government,” and that “extrajudicial killings, torture, assassinations, imprisonment and general harassment of critics and opponents were the hallmark of his administration.”

Meanwhile, former Democratic Senator Bill Bradley, of New Jersey, accused Manafort’s lobbying firm of having lengthened the civil war in Angola by supporting Jonas Savimbi. The firm helped secure support in Washington for Savimbi’s National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), which was trying to oust a Marxist government from power in the 1980s. According to Human Rights Watch, UNITA “used terror as a policy, to obtain supplies and coerce and intimidate civilians. Indiscriminate killings, mutilation of limbs or ears, and beatings were used by rebels to punish suspected government sympathizers or as a warning against betraying UNITA.”

57643400-594x594

Indonesian students hold a rally as they protest against the decision to drop the graft case against former dictator Suharto (right), in front of the Presidential Palace in Jakarta, Indonesia, on May 18, 2006. Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort worked for Suharto.

BAY ISMOYO/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Manafort has also worked for Indonesian military leader and former president Suharto—who has been described as one of the most brutal and corrupt leaders of the 20th century—and forSomalia’s dictatorial leader Siad Barre, whose regime committed widespread atrocities in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Generally, these brutal leaders shared one thing in common: a fierce opposition to communism. Support for figures fighting communist movements was generally in line with the foreign policy goals of the Republican Party at the time. Nevertheless, Manafort’s decision to work with Russians and pro-Russian politicians in the former Soviet Union was a notable departure from his party’s priorities.

According to one of his former employees, Manafort’s work has been characterized by his lack of moral compass and motivation for money and influence.

“I told Manafort it didn’t seem like a promising strategy to march into a murderous dictator’s office and point out to him and his lieutenants that he had a public relations problem. ‘Are we sure we want this guy as a client?’ I asked, in a garish display of naïveté,” K. Riva Levinson, who worked for Manafort early in her career, wrote in an op-ed last year.

“Manafort sounded annoyed, as if I had asked the right question at the wrong time. He waved off my concerns as he settled into his large leather armchair in his spacious corner office overlooking the Potomac River, the walls adorned with photos of past presidents, senators, congressmen and other notables,” Levinson described.

==

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/10/a_timeline_of_paul_manafort_s_relationship_with_the_trump_world.html

ow that special counsel Robert Mueller has indictedPaul Manafort, the former chairman of President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, the White House has already begun to revive its efforts to distance itself from Manafort and play down the role he had on the campaign. But try as they might, the Trump team can’t change the facts. Manafort worked on the Trump campaign for five crucial months in 2016 and was its chairman from May through August 2016, when he resigned under pressure. Plus, the relationship between Trump and Manafort goes back much further.

When it started to become clear that Manafort was likely in serious legal jeopardy, the White House pushed the idea that his role on the campaign was minimal. In March, Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary at the time, said Manafort was someone “who played a very limited role for a very limited amount of time” during the presidential campaign. Another campaign aide told *Politico* in May that he “wasn’t part of the core campaign team,” and that Trump and Manafort “didn’t have a relationship” until Tom Barrack, a real estate investor and close friend of Trump’s and Manafort’s for several decades, recommended that Trump allow him to join the team as a volunteer. Roger Stone, Trump’s longtime political adviser, also recommended Trump hire Manafort.

After Manafort’s Virginia home was raided by FBI agents in August, Trump said, “I know Mr. Manafort—I haven’t spoken to him in a long time, but I know him—he was with the campaign, as you know, for a very short period of time—for a relatively short period of time. … But I’ve always known him to be a good man.”

The goal of this messaging was clear: Whatever bad stuff Manafort did, Trump barely knew him and his role on the campaign was minimal. That the Trump team was already seeking to disown Manafort suggested they knew more bad news was coming.

But reports from the time Manafort joined the campaign describe him as “firmly in charge of all major aspects of Trump’s campaign,” and “asserting a more active role in shaping the direction of the campaign and the candidate.” Manafort was known to call Trump “Donald,” and one person close to the campaign said about Trump, “He’s calling Manafort like 20 times a day.”

The Trump team has also downplayed how well the president and Manafort knew each other before the 2016 campaign. Manafort himself has said, “Donald Trump and I had some business in the 1980s but we had no relationship until the Trump campaign called me.”

The depth of their relationship pre-2016 isn’t well-known, but it’s clear Trump and Manafort have been operating in close circles for decades. In 1980, Manafort, Charles Black, and Roger Stone (all Ronald Reagan campaign officials) opened a lobbying shop in Washington, D.C. One of their very first clients: Donald Trump, who employed the lobbying firm of Black, Manafort & Stone through the early 1990s.

Plus, both men have mutual close friends, including Barrack and Stone, whom Manafort and Trump have been close with for decades. Both Manafort and Trump were active in the New Jersey political scene in the 1980s, and later, both men were involved in lobbying Capitol Hill on American Indian gaming issues. Since 2006, Manafort has owned a condo in Trump Tower in Manhattan, and around the same time, became involved in the Manhattan real estate scene.

It’s certainly possible both men didn’t know each other well before 2016, but to say they had “some business in the 1980s” does not capture the many ways Trump and Manafort have been crossing paths for decades.

Here is a timeline to help piece together a clearer picture of their connections.

***

1972:Paul Manafort and Roger Stone are active in the College Republicans. Their candidate to lead the group, John “Terry” Dolan, runs against Karl Rove, whose key aide was Lee Atwater. Rove won.

1973:Trump, 27, meets Roy Cohn, a former aide to Sen. Joe McCarthy who went on to become Trump’s lawyer and mentor. At the time, the Justice Department was suing the Trumps for not renting to black people, and Trump hired Cohn, a New York attorney “who representedNew York power brokers, from the Yankees owner George Steinbrenner to the mob boss Carlo Gambino,” to represent them in the matter.

1977:Stone, 25, wins the presidency of the Young Republicans in a campaign managed by Manafort.

Late 1970s:Tom Barrack meets Manafort in Beirut around this time.

“A roommate at Barrack’s Beirut apartment introduced him to Manafort, who represented a firm doing business with a Saudi construction company. They became close friends,” reported the Washington Post.

1979:Roger Stone meets Roy Cohn and Trump.

From the Weekly Standard (Nov. 5, 2007):

Around the time he became northeast chairman of Reagan’s 1980 campaign, [Stone] had another awakening when he started working with the notorious lawyer Roy Cohn, former McCarthy henchman and also a Reagan supporter. “I’m still kind of a neophyte,” Stone admits, “still kind of thinking everything’s on the level. ‘Cause the truth is, nothing’s on the level.” At a 1979 meeting at Cohn’s Manhattan townhouse, he was introduced to major mobster and Cohn client Fat Tony Salerno. “Roy says to Tony, ‘You know, Tony, everything’s fixed. Everything can be handled.’ Tony says, ‘Roy, the Supreme Court’ Roy says, ‘Cost a few more dollars.’ ” Stone loved Cohn: “He didn’t give a s— what people thought, as long as he was able to wield power. He worked the gossip columnists in this city like an organ.

Around 1980:As the Guardianreported, “There are multiple versions of how Trump and Manafort met.” The most widely reported version is that Cohn introduced Manafort to Trump around the same time he introduced Stone to Trump.

1980:Manafort, Stone, and Charles Black (all Reagan campaign officials) open their lobbying shop in Washington, D.C.

From Vanity Fair:

Their first client, Stone recalled, was none other than Donald Trump, who retained him, irrespective of any role Manafort might have had in the firm, for help with federal issues such as obtaining a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers to dredge the channel to the Atlantic City marina to accommodate his yacht, the Trump Princess.

Stone described the lobbying work he did for Trump on Frontline, saying Trump had a number of small but important issues.

For example, the Treasury Department is rewriting the currency transaction rules as they pertain to casinos. He has an interest there. He’s built a couple of skyscrapers that are five feet taller than the FAA-allowed limit. He needs a waiver there. He buys the Trump Princess from [Saudi businessman Adnan] Khashoggi, but it’s too big to come into the Atlantic City harbor without dredging. He needs dredging permits. Those usually take three years. We got them for him in a couple months.

Stone oversaw Trump’s business at the lobbying firm, but as Franklin Foer wrote in ***Slate*, “Manafort didn’t own the Trump account at the firm. But one of his former partners told me that he would dispense advice and pitch in, winning Trump’s trust.”

1987:Tom Barrack, Manafort’s close friend at this point, meets Trump.

“Barrack received a phone call to come to Trump Tower to meet a rising star in New York real estate,” the Washington Post reported. Barrack and Trump become close friends.

1988:According to Stone, Trump first met Manafort at the 1988 Republican National Convention in New Orleans. From U.S. News and World Report:

Manafort was the deputy convention manager for Vice President George H.W. Bush. Trump was in town and curious to see how a convention was really run; Manafort thought it’d be neat to get his picture with The Donald. The two convened in a trailer outside the Louisiana Superdome during a steamy weekday for a friendly chitchat.

1989: A New York Times article from May 1989 covers the scandals enveloping the New Jersey governor’s race, where Black, Manafort, Stone & Kelly (Peter Kelly, a top Democratic political adviser, joined the firm later) are working for the Republican candidate Jim Courter. Manafort’s controversial involvement in obtaining a $43 million grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development for a development project in Seabrook, N.J. (in which he later became a 20 percent partner), threatens to derail Courter’s campaign. The spokesman for the Democratic candidate says Courter’s relationship to Manafort and Stone’s lobbying firm “could be dangerous because the firm also represents powerful special interests, including the developer and casino owner Donald J. Trump.”

1991: Burson–Marsteller, the large public relations agency, acquires Black, Manafort, Stone & Kelly.

October 1993:Trump and Stone testify before the House Native American Affairs subcommittee on Indian Gaming. “Black Manafort has represented Trump for years, providing advice on housing matters,” wrote the Hartford Courant at the time.

Asked why he even needed someone to help him around town, Trump laughed.

“I don’t know if this lobbying does anything,” he said, “but they’ve represented me over the years, and I’m very loyal.”

Black, Manafort, Stone & Kelly are heavily involved in Indian gaming issues on Capitol Hill. In addition to Trump, they also represent the Casino Association of New Jersey and MGM Grand.

1996: Manafort has a new consulting firm called DMS in Virginia.

1999: Stone is working for Trump as chief political adviser as he toys with running for president. By that time, Manafort has accumulated significant experience in presidential campaigns.

Early 2000s:Manafort begins working for Donbas billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s richest oligarch.

2001: Paul Cohen and Julius Nasso launch Manhattan Pictures International, a New York-based motion picture distribution and production company. Manafort is part of the team behind the new company. Nasso is arrested in 2002 by federal agents, and pleads guilty in 2003 for using Gambino family mob enforcers to extort money from the actor Steven Seagal. He spends more than a year in prison.

Nasso was friendly with Trump. In a story in the New York Post from December 1999, Nasso says he asked Trump’s opinion of Abe Hirschfeld before deciding to do business with him on the film The Prince of Central Park.

“I checked him out with Donald Trump. Donald said he was a nice guy,” Nasso told the paper.

Julius Nasso has an uncle who is also named Julius Nasso. The elder Nasso owned the Julius Nasso Concrete Company, which, in 1975, entered into a joint venture with the S&A Concrete Company, owned by Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno, boss of the Genovese crime family, and Paul Castellano, boss of the Gambino family. Cohn was Salerno’s lawyer. At the time, most of Manhattan’s major development projects had mob involvement, Trump’s included. S&A Concrete “suppliedbuilding material to the Trump Plaza on Manhattan’s East Side.”

2004: Viktor Yanukovych, the Ukrainian politician, hires Manafort as a political consultant following the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine. He wants to save his political career after Viktor Yushchenko is elected president.

2005: Manafort starts a new firm called Davis Manafort Partners Inc. with Rick Davis. It has staff in the U.S., Ukraine, and Russia.

2006:Manafort reportedly begins working for Russian aluminum billionaire Oleg Deripaska, who has close ties to Vladimir Putin. The Associated Press reportedthat Manafort signed a $10 million contract with Deripaska in 2006 to “influence politics, business dealings and news coverage inside the United States, Europe, and former Soviet republics to benefit President Vladimir Putin’s government.” A spokesman for Deripaska has denied this.

November 2006: Manafort buys a condo in Trump Tower for $3.7 million through an LLC called John Hannah. John is Manafort’s middle name, and Hannah is the middle name of his then–business partner, Rick Davis. This is the first of several multimillion-dollar real estate deals Manafort does between 2006 and 2012, often all in cash.

Foer in ***Slate*: “When Manafort took an apartment in Trump Towers in 2006, he would kibitz with his old client when they’d run into one another on the elevator.”

2007: Barrack helps Manafort, “loaning Trump’s future campaign manager $1.5 million to refinance a home in the Hamptons. Barrack said the loan was repaid in 14 months and was the only financial transaction between the two,” the Washington Post reported.

March 2007: Manafort and his partners (political consultant Rick Davis and lobbyist Rick Gates) set up a private equity fund, Pericles Emerging Market Partners, to buy smaller Ukrainian firms and merge them into larger ones and then sell them. The fund is registered in the Cayman Islands. Also involved in the business are Konstantin Kilimnik, who worked for Manafort in his Kiev political consulting operation since 2005, Ukraine political consultant Philip Griffin, and Party of Regions flack Alexander Balanutsa.

Deripaska, the aluminum oligarch and one of Russia’s richest men, transfers $18.9 million to the fund so that it could purchase Black Sea Cable, a Ukrainian telecommunications company. The money disappears. As Bloomberg reported:

It’s not clear what became of the money that Deripaska provided for the venture. Years after the deal, Deripaska’s company sued, seeking an accounting of how the money was spent. The details are now even more clouded because lawyers for the men have since agreed to resolve the matter outside court — and outside public view, according to one of the people.

2008: Rick Davis arranged for Deripaska to meet then–presidential candidate John McCain at an international economic conference in Switzerland. At the time, Davis was McCain’s campaign manager, having taken a leave from his company with Manafort.

June 2008:CMZ Ventures, described as “one of the more bizarre development teams ever assembled in the city,” forms and attempts to buy the Drake Hotel in Manhattan for $850 million. CMZ was made up of Manafort, Arthur G. Cohen, a former top developer in the city, and Brad Zackson, who had served as a right-hand man to Fred Trump Sr. Zackson had been “the exclusive broker and manager for Fred Trump of the original Trump Organization.”

Zackson gained “access to society’s inner circle through the Trumps.” According to the Commercial Observer, Zackson had wanted to buy a property in the Bahamas, but needed help navigating the bureaucracy there, so he teamed up with Cohen and Manafort.

The Real Deal reported:

Manafort and Zackson were neighbors in the Hamptons, and soon became friends and business associates. Zackson says he invested in Manafort’s film production business, Manhattan Pictures, best known for the 2005 film The Dying Gaul.

Manafort had “an uncanny ability to conjure investors, such as Ukrainian billionaire gas king Dmitry Firtash, for projects,” the Commercial Observerreported in 2011.

Mr. Manafort then met with Ukranian billionaire Mr. Firtash, a part owner of Eural Transgas, in Kiev, and secured the promise of an initial $112 million for the project, but that fell apart when Mr. Firtash became distracted by an investment in troubled Bank Nadra back home. Grasping, Mr. Zackson wrote in an email in March 2009: “I have an idea to bring [Donald] Trump in on the Drake. I think it solves a lot of issues right away.”

Court documents show Deripaska was also “set to make a $56 million investment in the Drake,” through the Pericles fund.

But the company, designed to be a billion-dollar fund to buy distressed luxury real estate, never made a single purchase.

Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko allegedin a lawsuit that “Firtash used CMZ as a front in order to hide income illegally skimmed from his natural gas company RosUkrEnergo,” but a judge ultimately dismissed the suit.

2010: Manafort helps elect Yanukovych as president of Ukraine.

2014:Yanukovych is forced to flee Ukraine for Russia in the face of widespread public protests.

2014:Deripaska dissolves the private equity fund being managed by Manafort. He accuses Manafort in a Cayman Islands court of taking nearly $19 million.

Feb. 29, 2016:Manafort reportedly reaches out to Trump via their mutual friend Tom Barrack with two memos, which laid out the case for why he’d be a good fit for the campaign. These memos were reported on by the New York Times in April 2017. In one of them, Manafort “refers vaguely to work he performed, years ago, to clear noisy airspace over Mr. Trump’s Florida resort.” He stresses that he’ll work for free.

The*Washington Post:* “ ‘I really need to get to’ Trump, Manafort said, according to Barrack. He told Barrack he wanted to work as Trump’s convention manager, helping him navigate what they expected would be a contentious affair.”

March 2016: Manafort meets Barrack at the Montage hotel in Beverly Hills to talk about joining the Trump campaign.

March 28, 2016: Trump campaign hires Manafort to work unpaid.

May 2016: Konstantin Kilimnik, who worked for Manafort in his Kiev political consulting operation since 2005, and Manafort meet.

May 19, 2016: Manafort is named chairman of the Trump campaign.

July 2016:Manafort reportedly offers private briefings on the campaign to Deripaska over email.

Aug. 2, 2016: Manafort and Kilimnik meetat the Grand Havana Club, an upscale cigar bar in Manhattan, to talk “caviar,” which is believed to be a reference to earlier payments made to Manafort by Deripaska.

August 2016: A phone belonging to one of Manafort’s daughters is hacked and hundreds of her text messages are eventually posted on a darknet website. The texts reveal Manafort’s daughters were worried about the work he did in Ukraine and that someone had tried to blackmail him, suggesting they could reveal a secret meeting Manafort had supposedly arranged for Trump in 2012 with a Yanukovych ally.

Aug. 19, 2016:Manafort submits his resignation from the Trump campaign.

January 2017: The Steele dossier is published. Manafort calls “Trump’s chief of staff, Reince Priebus, to push back against the mounting controversy” and the claims made in the dossier. Conversations between Trump and Manafort reportedly continued after the president took office.

More from Just Security:

Facebook Users Have the Right to Know How They Were Exposed to Russian Propaganda

==

1992 dec

==

THE TORTURERS LOBBY

:{:{}:

}:

http://cloudfront-files-1.publicintegrity.org/legacy_projects/pdf_reports/THETORTURERSLOBBY.pdf

With the fall of communism and the end of the Cold War, nations such as Nicaragua, Angola and

the Eastern European countries, once caught in the struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union,

have begun the long hard march toward democracy. Indeed, the world celebrates this tide of democratic

freedom and self-determination. Yet. oppression and human rights abuses persist around the globe.

Consider Guatemala, the homeland of this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner, Rigoberta Menchu, a

human rights activist who fled her country in the mid 1980s. Security forces tortured and murdered most

of her family for their efforts to gain respect for the rights of Guatemala's indigenous population. Menchu

does not know if she will return to live in Guatemala now that she has won the Nobel. She continues to

receive death threats.

In November 1989. Diana Ortiz, an American nun teaching in Guatemala, was kidnapped, taken to

a secret detention center, tortured and raped. A few months later, Michael DeVine, an American who was

an innkeeper in rural Guatemala, was abducted, tortured and executed by members of Guatemala's security

forces. The human rights situation has not substantially improved in Guatemala -- last year, hundreds of

political executions were reported.

Although the U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala was recalled, and U.S. military aid and commercial

arms sales to Guatemala were suspended in December 1990, the country was given nearly $91 million in

U.S. assistance in fiscal year 1991.

To keep those dollars flowing in, and to refurbish its dismal human rights image, Guatemala spent

more than $650,000 for Washington lobbyists and public relations experts. No one in Washington received

more money from Guatemala than Patton, Boggs and Blow, the powerful firm that took in $220,000 from

Guatemala in 1991. One of its assignments: prepare a status report on the Michael DeVine murder.

On a different continent, both Kenya and Nigeria have widely criticized human rights records. Last

year, Kenya received $38 million in U.S. foreign aid, and spent over $1.4 million on Washington lobbyists

to get it. Nigeria received $8.3 million and expended in excess of $2.5 million. Whom did both countries

call upon to do their bidding before the U.S. government? The lobbying firm of Black. Manafort, Stone

and Kelly Public Affairs Co.. which received $660,000 from Kenya in 1992-1993 and $1 million from

Nigeria in 1991.

Former Reagan political operativePaul Manafort oversees foreign accounts; his partner, Charles R.

Black, was a senior political strategist in the 1992 Bush-Quayle campaign. Their firm's fees to represent

Nigeria. Kenya, the Philippines and Angola's UNITA rebel group in 1991 totaled more than $3 million.

All four receive U.S. aid and abuse human rights. A spokeswoman for Black, Manafort, Stoneand Kelly

told the Center that the firm does not "attempt to explain away" concerns about human rights. Instead,

she said, "we try to open a dialogue."

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.

Torture in Turkey is widespread. According to the State Department, "credible reports indicate that

high-pressure cold water hoses, electric shocks, beating of the genitalia, and hanging by the arms are

methods commonly employed."

:{:{}:

}:

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's favorite Washington firm: Hill and Knowlton,

which received $1.2 million from November 1990 to May 1992. Frank Mankiewicz, a Vice Chairman of

the firm and former aide to Robert Kennedy, has worked with others on that account. Thomas Hoog.

another Hill and Knowlton Vice Chairman, advised President-elect Bill Clinton during the 1992

presidential campaign and continues to advise him informally during the transition to the White House.

Against a backdrop of budget cutbacks in domestic spending programs, U.S. taxpayers are indirectly

supporting the activities of lobbyists, lawyers and public relations firms who were paid more than $24

million in 1991-1992 to represent foreign interests that are persistent abusers of human rights. Collectively,

their clients receive billions of dollars in U.S. aid and other benefits.

A year-long investigation by the Center for Public Integrity reviewed hundreds of pages of documents

filed at the Justice Department by "foreign agents" - lobbyists, lawyers and public relations firms

representing overseas interests.

It examined 10 major U.S. foreign aid recipients, all associated with serious human rights abuses,

that pay Washington lobbyists to press Congress for increased aid. They are Turkey, Nigeria, Morocco.

Kenya, the Philippines, Indonesia, Egypt, Israel, Guatemala and UNITA. All commit tenure and other

atrocities, according to human rights groups, the State Department or both.

Two other aid recipients with poor human rights records — Colombia and Peru — hire Washington

lobbyists to boost their image or lobby on their behalf for favorable trade and commercial treatment.

Three other nations identified as abusers of human rights — China, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait — receive

no U.S. aid but have close political and commercial relationships with the United States; they too pay

foreign agents big fees to lobby Congress and the executive branch.

The Center's study found that the company paid the most by human rights abusers was the public

relations firmHill and Knowlton, which received more than $14 million.

Kuwait was the biggest individual spender,doling out more than $12.5 million in fees to lobbyists,

lawyers and public relations firms.

Other firms paid more than $1 million dollars by U.S. aid recipients identified as abusing human rights

were Sawyer Miller Group; White & Case;Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly;Edward Aycoth & Co.;

and International Advisers. Inc.

Many of the foreign agents representing countries showing little respect for human rights are

Washington insiders who have ties to both Republicans and Democrats in Congress and the executive

branch, the study found.

For example. John Raffaelli, former tax and trade counsel to Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Tex.), was hired

by Turkey, which received $804 million in foreign aid during 1991. The Turkish government has been

known to torture citizens who are merely suspected of political crimes. Raffaelli's firm, McAuliffe, Kelly

and Raffaelli, was paid $200,000 by the Turkish government during 1991.

Ed Rollins, the former GOP operative briefly hired as a campaign adviser to Ross Perot, made two

trips to Colombia and the Philippines and gave political advice to leaders in both countries. The State

Department reported that Colombia's army and police participate in human rights abuses including

massacres, kidnapping and torture; numerous human rights violations have been reported in the Philippines

as well. Rollins did not register as a foreign agent, saying his trips had nothing to do with the firm's public

relations accounts.

Graeme M. Bannerman, a former staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has

represented Egypt and the Philippines. In a recent report, Middle East Watch described a pattern of torture

by Egypt's security forces. During 1991 Egypt received $2.2 billion, making it the second-largest recipient

of U.S. after Israel.

Critics say these lobbyists are undermining a crucial U.S. policy objective -- promoting human rights

abroad. U.S. taxpayers pay millions or billions of dollars in foreign aid to countries that abuse human rights

and employ Washington lobbyists to keep the aid flowing.

"The system stinks," said Makau Mutua, project director of Harvard Law School's Human Rights

program. "It's morally objectionable, all this influence-peddling. There's no doubt several of these

countries couldn't afford these lobbyists without the help of the American taxpayers."

Mutua said one remedy might be for Congress to consider proposals to prohibit foreign-aid recipients

from hiring foreign agents, or putting a cap on the amount of fees that countries can pay lobbyists.

Some congressional staffers who are lobbied by foreign agents seeking increases in federal aid for

foreign governments said lobbyists subvert the appropriations process. "These lobbyists make it more

difficult for legislators to link U.S. aid to human rights concerns," said one congressional aide who asked

not to be identified.

But another congressional staffer disagreed. "Foreign governments need representation to play the

game." said Adonis Hoffman, a former lobbyist who is staff director of the House Foreign Affairs Africa

Subcommittee. "I don't think I could support an outright prohibition on anyone hiring lobbyists. It's

contrary to the way Washington works."

Other critics say the White House and Congress are ignoring a provision of the Foreign Assistance

Act that bars military and economic aid to countries whose government "engages in a consistent pattern

of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights," which is defined to include torture.

"No objective person could deny that torture is systematic in Turkey," said Kenneth Roth, Deputy

Director of Human Rights Watch. "The blame lies at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, at the White

House and Congress."

---

Foreign Agent Country Fees, in Millions

1 • Hill and Knowlton Republic ofIndonesia $3.05 (11/90-5/92)

2. Hill and Knowlton Israel$1.05 (1991-1992)

3. Hill and Knowlton Republic of Turkey $1.1 (1991-1992)

4. Sawyer Miller Group Colombia $3.1 (1991)

5. White & Case Republic of Indonesia $2.8 (1991-1992)*

6. International Advisers, Inc. Republic of Turkey

$875,000 (1991)

$600,000 (1992)

7. Edward Aycoth & Co. Nigeria $1.0 (1991)

8. Black, Manafort,

Stone and Kelly

Nigeria $1.0 (1991)

*The firm claims these are "legal fees and expenses."

TOP FIVE FIRMS RECEIVING THE MOST MONEY

FROM THETORTURERS' LOBBY, 1991-1992*

Firm Countries Fees, in Millions

1. Hill and Knowlton

Kuwait, China, Turkey, Peru,

Israel, Egypt, Republic of

Angola, Indonesia

$14.0

2. Geary, Gottlieb,

Steen and Hamilton

Kuwait $6.1 **

3. White & Case

Indonesia, Nigeria,

Turkey, Morocco

$3.4

4. Black, Manafort,

Stone and Kelly

Nigeria. Kenya

UN1TA***.

$3.3

5. Sawyer Miller Group Colombia $3.1

---

Foreign Agent Country Fees, in Millions 1 • Hill and Knowlton Republic of Indonesia $3.05 (11/90-5/92) 2. Hill and Knowlton Israel $1.05 (1991-1992) 3. Hill and Knowlton Republic of Turkey $1.1 (1991-1992) 4. Sawyer Miller Group Colombia $3.1 (1991) 5. White & Case Republic of Indonesia $2.8 (1991-1992)* 6. International Advisers, Inc. Republic of Turkey $875,000 (1991) $600,000 (1992) 7. Edward Aycoth & Co. Nigeria $1.0 (1991) 8. Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly Nigeria $1.0 (1991) *The firm claims these are "legalfees and expenses." TOP FIVE FIRMS RECEIVING THE MOST MONEY FROM THE TORTURERS' LOBBY, 1991-1992* Firm Countries Fees, in Millions 1. Hill and Knowlton Kuwait, China, Turkey, Peru, Israel, Egypt, Republic of Angola, Indonesia $14.0 2. Geary, Gottlieb, Steen and Hamilton Kuwait $6.1 ** 3. White & Case Indonesia, Nigeria, Turkey, Morocco $3.4 4. Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly Nigeria. Kenya UN1TA***. -Mnmrro X 9 A/'/.' f>f> ' i e_s $3.3 5. Sawyer Miller Group Colombia $3.1

---

 URL: http://tbo.com/news/nation-world/2008/jul/02/na-top-mccain-adviser-is-ultimate-insider-ar-155651/

Top McCain Adviser Is Ultimate Insider

By William March

Despite John McCain's carefully cultivated image as a maverick who puts principle over politics, his top campaign adviser is a Washington lobbyist who has been the consummate Republican political insider for decades, known for sometimes representing unsavory clients.He has worked for the nation's largest and most powerful corporations and politicians, but also for controversial figures ranging from dictators in developing nations to a Medicare-defrauding Florida health management company.

Recently, Charlie Black, a University of Florida graduate, made headlines of his own.He told a magazine interviewer that a terrorist attack on the United States would help McCain win. That's a straightforward political calculation, but not something candidates or advisers can say aloud.McCain disavowed the comment and Black apologized. But it's the kind of thinking that's commonplace among those accustomed to the pragmatic realities of politics.That certainly describes Black.Black, 60, has been intimately involved in nearly every Republican presidential campaign, and many major Florida campaigns, for decades.In this campaign, he is widely credited with reviving McCain's campaign when it seemed moribund last summer, reaching out to conservatives for support and setting the strategy that focused on winning New Hampshire."In every election, he's been associated with one of the major candidates, and sometimes when his guy didn't win, he'd end up working for the other guy. It's not easy to carry that off," said former Florida Gov. Bob Martinez, for whom Black has done political work.He attributed it to Black's astute political sense, his long list of key contacts and "an instant likeability factor" projected by the soft-spoken Southerner."Some consultants win and are hot for a while, but then disappear," Martinez said. "Charlie Black has had staying power."

In 1984, Black founded a lobbying firm, Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly, that became one of Washington's go-to firms for those seeking to influence Republican politicians.In 1996, the firm was subsumed in a merger to form BKSH & Associates, with Black as chairman.In March, after criticism over the number of lobbyists involved in his campaign, McCain let several go - but Black resigned his BKSH post and stayed with the campaign.In its heyday, Black, Manafort reaped millions representing foreign clients including Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, dictator Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire and Jonas Savimbi, an Angolan insurgent who won U.S. backing for a civil war against that nation's Cuban-backed government but inspired international disgust at his brutal tactics. Those activities have made Black the target of a MoveOn.org Internet ad urging that McCain fire him.The McCain campaign said Black couldn't be made available for an interview. A McCain campaign spokesman did not respond to a request to discuss Black's role.Black has told other interviewers the firm cleared its foreign clients with the U.S. State Department and refused to serve them if it wasn't in U.S. interests.

The firm, he says, dumped Marcos and Sese Seko when they refused to accept election results and hung onto their offices, opposing U.S. wishes.Still, in 1992, the government watchdog group Center for Public Integrity listed the firm fourth among the top five firms in what it called the "Torturer's Lobby" - firms that got big lobbying fees from governments accused of human rights violations.In addition to Marcos and Savimbi, the center cited the firm's work for the governments ofGeneral Ibrahim Babangida in Nigeria and President Daniel arap Moi in Kenya.In the 1980s, the firm represented developers involved in Department of Housing and Urban Development scandals involving use of political influence in getting housing grants.

Black's partner, Paul Manafort, openly described one deal as "influence peddling" in congressional testimony.The scandals led to criminal convictions of numerous HUD officials, but no accusations of illegality against the firm.

Other controversial clients of Black, Manafort and BKSH include:•Miguel Recarey of Miami, founder of International Medical Centers, who used lobbying influence - including that of Jeb Bush - to obtain permission to serve large numbers of Medicare clients in his HMO. He fled the country in 1988 after being charged with bribery and fraud, and investigators found $200 million or more in tax money missing.

•Ahmed Chalabi, former Iraqi government official and head of an Iraqi exile group. Prior to the Iraq war, it provided information to U.S. intelligence agencies - much of it later called false - linking Saddam Hussein to weapons of mass destruction.

•Blackwater USA, a private security firm accused of use of excessive force in Iraq.

One Black, Manafort member and longtime ally of Black, political strategist Roger Stone of Miami, is a legendary political dirty tricks artist, who has jokingly referred to himself as "the prince of darkness." His history dates to Richard Nixon's Committee to Re-Elect the President, best known for its involvement in the Watergate break-in.

Another member was Lee Atwater, a GOP political consultant known as Karl Rove's mentor in attack campaigning.Their presence lent the firm an image as the bad boys of conservative Republican politics.It also had ties to Democrats through firm member Peter Kelly, a high-level Democratic fundraiser and Bill Clinton loyalist.Black, Atwater and Stone were part of a generation of very conservative Republican young people who went against the grain of the student leftism of the 1960s and '70s and became known as young Turks in the party - a generation that included Rove, right-wing political operative Terry Dolan and others.

A North Carolina native,  Black has said he fell in love with politics as a high school student during the 1964 Barry Goldwater campaign.Prior to earning his bachelor's degree in political science in 1969, he and a group of conservative students at UF took over the student Republican organization from a comparatively moderate Youth for Rockefeller group, according to a New York Times profile. Black then worked on Nixon's 1968 campaign.After law school at American University, Black got involved in a bitter 1973 fight for national chairman of the College Republicans, a fight that continued until it was settled by George H.W. Bush, then chairman of the national Republican Party.

The winner was Rove. Black's candidate, Dolan, later joined him and Stone in founding the National Conservative Political Action Committee, which quickly became known for harsh, heavy-spending attacks on Democratic members of Congress.From then on, Black was a national-level player in GOP politics.He became one of the first paid staff members of Ronald Reagan's unsuccessful 1976 presidential campaign, then was a senior adviser on both of Reagan's winning 1980 and 1984 races.

In 1988, Black began the election cycle as campaign manager for Congressman Jack Kemp, but after Kemp's primary loss, he became a prominent figure in Bush's campaign.Black later worked as chief spokesman for the Republican National Committee in 1990; principal public spokesman for Bush's 1992 campaign; and a senior adviser and spokesman for George W. Bush's 2000 and 2004 campaigns.But the McCain campaign has raised Black's political profile as high as it has been in years, as the public face of the campaign, appearing regularly in interviews and on Sunday morning political talk shows.In fact, in February, when McCain was defending himself after a controversial New York Times story about his ties to lobbyists, the man who went on "Face The Nation" to defend him was Black - the lobbyist.

==

From: Reclaim The Streets rts@gn.apc.org

BURSON-MARSTELLER: PR FOR THE NEW WORLD ORDER

By: Carmelo Ruiz

The public relations (PR) business is one of the fastest growing industries in the global market economy. In order to face perils like labor unions, organized consumer activists and environmental groups, governments and corporations have come to rely more on slick PR campaigns. The peril to popular democracy posed by PR firms should not be underestimated. Using the latest communications technologies and polling techniques, as well as an array of high-level political connections, PR flacks routinely "manage" issues for government and corporate clients and "package" them for public consumption. The result is a "democracy" in which citizens are turned into passive receptacles of "disinfotainment" and "advertorials" and in which critics of the status quo are defined as ignorant meddlers and/or dangerous outsiders.

Burson-Marsteller (B-M)is the world's largest PR firm, with 63 offices in 32 countries and almost $200 million in income in 1994. Although its name is unknown to most people-- even to many in activist circles-- B-M is fast becoming an increasingly important cog in the propaganda machine of the new world order.

Human Rights, Anyone?

On the human rights front, B-M has represented some of the worst violators of our age. These include:

• The Nigerian government during the Biafran war, to discredit reports of genocide.
• The fascist junta that ruled Argentina during the 70's and early 80's, to attract foreign investment.
• The totalitarian regime of South Korea, to whitewash the human rights situation there during the 1988 Olympics.
• The Indonesian government, which got into power through a CIA- sponsored bloodbath. (It should be pointed out, however, that B-M denies that it is handling the issue of genocide in East Timor)
• Ideological barriers are no object. B-M also represented the late communist Romanian despot Nicolae Ceaucescu.
• Other third world human rights violators that have been represented by B-M include the governments of Singapore and Sri Lanka.

Doesn't this bother the consciences of B-M's executives? Not at all. Commenting on his firm's work for Argentina's fascists, B-M founder Harold Burson said that "We regard ourselves as working in the business sector for clearcut business and economic objectives. So we had nothing to do with a lot of the things that one reads in the paper about Argentina as regards human rights and other activities".

Corporate Environmentalism

For years B-M has been involved in major environmental issues all over the world, not hesitating to give polluters a helping hand when confronted by activist groups and/or government regulations. Many transnational corporations have turned to B-M for help in the creation of a pedantic, elitist and corporate-oriented brand of environmentalism. It is the hope of entrepreneurial sectors and neoliberal demagogues that this type of safe and harmless environmental activism will displace the more militant and agressive grassroots groups.

B-M's environmental services have benefited industrial polluters, such as the following:

• Babcock & Wilcox, when its nuclear power plant in Three Mile Island had its famous mishap in 1979.
• Union Carbide, to handle the public relations crisis caused by the Bhopal tragedy in 1984.
• Exxon, to counter the negative press coverage it got in the wake of the Exxon-Valdez oil spill in 1989.
• Ontario Hydro, an industrial concern, headed by Earth Summit secretary general Maurice Strong, which is the biggest source of CO2 emissions in Canada. This corporation is currently selling nuclear reactors to Argentina and Chile.
• The Louisiana-Pacific (L-P)logging company, famous for its union- busting, clear cutting of old growth forests and support for anti- environmental front groups. L-P hopes to convince its employees and the public that rural unemployment in North America is caused by environmental extremists and opressive government regulation and not by unsustainable logging practices or the relocation of s awmills to low-wage countries like Mexico.
• B-M formed the British Columbia Forest Alliance (BCFA), a Canadian front group which has L-P among its founding members. BCFA is campaigning against restrictions on logging and is actively working to smear and discredit environmentalists. Other BCFA members include Mitsubishi and Weyerhaueser.
• B-M is a key player in the nuclear industry lobby. According to Canadian journalist Joyce Nelson, B-M has for years "represented top nuclear power/nuclear weapons contractors such as General Electric, AT&T, McDonnell Douglas, Asea Brown Boveri and Du Pont. In fact, Canada's first Candu [nuclear] reactor sale to Argentina in the early 1970's was later renegotiated during the reign of the military junta, for whom Burson-Marsteller did an image-cleanup from 1976-1981". In addition to this, since 1993 B-M subsidiary Black, Manafort, Stone & Kelly (see sidebar) has been representing Nordion International, a newly-privatised subsidiary of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., Canada's state-owned nuclear power company.
• B-M coordinated the oil industry's campaign to discredit and destroy president Clinton's proposal for a BTU tax.
• A B-M executive sits on the board of Keep America Beautiful, a front for the packaging and waste hauling industries that lobbies against mandatory recycling laws, especially the passage of a national bottle bill in the US.
• B-M's most powerful and influential 'environmental' client is the Business Council for Sustainable Development (BCSD), an eco-capitalist outfit founded by Swiss banker Stephan Schmidheiny. A leading theorist and advocate of neoliberal dogma and corporate environmentalism, Schmidheiny agressively combines entrepreneurship and statesmanship. He is a board member of NestlE9, and a director and shareholder (5% owner) of B-M client Asea Brown Boveri. BCSD's original task was to act behind the scenes at the 1992 Earth Summit, which was chaired by the current head of B-M client Ontario Hydro Maurice Strong, to neutralize and silence any voices critical of the irresponsible behavior of polluting corporations. In the words of Joyce Nelson, "With the able assistance of public relations giant Burson-Marsteller, a very elite group of business people (including B-M itself) was seemingly able to plan the agenda for the Earth Summit with little interference from NGO's or government leader s". Nowadays BCSD is advocating free markets and unfettered corporate activity as the only salvation of the environment. Its members include the CEO's of Asea Brown Boveri, Browning Ferris Industries, Ciba-Geigy, Dow Chemical, DuPont, BCFA member Mitsubishi, Maurice Strong's Ontario Hydro, Royal Dutch-Shell, and companies from Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Spain, India, Kenya, Nigeria, Thailand and Venezuela.

Dirty Tricks and Front Groups

B-M was hired by the pharmaceutical corporation Eli Lilly and Monsanto subsidiary Nutra Sweet to promote the use of the genetically-engineered synthetic bovine growth hormone rBGH. This hormone, which increases milk output in cows, is strongly opposed by dairy farmers and consumer and environmental activist groups. Their two main arguments are that 1) There is already a milk glut in the US. To bring more of it into the market would depress prices so severely that small dairy farmers would be run out of business; and 2) the use of rBGH has already been linked to severe health problems in cows and to calves born with grotesque birth defects.

B-M's campaign to neutralize the opposition to rBGH included the use of spies to penetrate activist groups. This fact became public when University of Vermont spokesperson Nicola Marro admitted that a mole had been placed in an anti-rBGH ad-hoc group headed by Jeremy Rifkin, a well- known critic of biotechnology and author of several books. Participants in the group singled out a woman named Diane Moser as a suspect. Moser, who attended a Washington DC meeting of the group, avoided small talk and read a paperback during the meeting. Vermont state representative Andrew Christiansen, who a ttended the meeting, told journalist John Dillon that "She said she represented housewives concerned about BGH...I had suspicions immediately. I've never seen anybody with a paperback coming to a me eting like that". When the activists called the number she left in the sign-up sheet, it rang in the Washington DC offices of Burson- Marsteller. B-M executive Timothy Brosnahan acknowledged that Moser was a B-M employee but denied knowing of any snooping on her part.

A freedom of information act (FOIA) request by activists Tim Atwater and John Stauber, who were then with Rural Vermont and the Foundation on Economic Trends respectively, uncovered a broader pattern of espionage against foes of rBGH. Atwater and Stauber's FOIA request uncovered documents of the quasi-governmental, farmer-funded National Dairy Board (NDB), which promotes rBGH. These documents revealed that the NDB hired the PR firm of Creswell, Munsell, Fultz & Zirbel (CMF&Z). This firm is a subsidiary of communications conglomerate Young & Rubicam (Y&R), which happens to be B-M's parent company. Given that Y&R represents rBGH backer Monsanto, Stauber concluded that "The day-to-day work is done out of Burson-Marsteller and CMF&Z. But I'm sure there's overall coordination with Young & Rubicam". Stauber is now editor of PR Watch, a newsletter that provides critical reporting on the PR industry, and is co-author, along with Sheldon Rampton, of Toxic Sludge is Good for You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry (Common Courage Press, 1995).

B-M works for Hydro-Quebec (H-Q) promoting the James Bay 2 project. If the final stages of the construction of James Bay 2 are finished, it will become the most destructive hydroelectric project in the history of North America, disrupting the ecological balance of an area the size of France and permanently displacing the Cree and Inuit indigenous populations in the area. To undermine grassroots opposition to James Bay 2, B-M created a phony group of concerned citizens called the Coalition for Clean and Renewable Energy (CCRE), which was headed by Harvey Schultz, former head of New York City's department of environmental protection. According to John Dillon, "Schultz, Burson-Marsteller, and (CCRE) have hosted briefing sessions for academics, and business and community leaders-- opinion makers who can carry the good word about Hydro-Quebec back to their institutions".

The state of Vermont has proved particularly reluctant to buy electricity from H-Q because of pressure from local activists. In order to counteract this threat, B-M hired the Vermont law firm of Sherman & Kimbell to lobby the state government in favor of electricity purchases from H-Q. This law firm registered as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires America n lobbyists to list their foreign clients and how much they're being paid to represent them. However, since B-M itself has refused to register as a foreign agent for H-Q, most of its work for the James Bay 2 project remains a secret.

Selling NAFTA

In 1990 the Mexican government hired B-M to sell NAFTA to the American public, media and politicians. B-M subcontracted this job to one of its subsidiaries, The Brock Group (TBG), a consulting firm that has done work for American Express, Bell Atlantic, Bacardi, Toyota and the Taiwanese government. TBG is headed by former senator, Republican National Committee chairman, US trade representative and labor secretary William Brock. He was certainly qualified for the job. As US trade representative, Brock engineered the Caribbean Basin Initiative and the US-Israel Free Trade Agreement, and began the negotiations that would eventually culminate in the signing of the US-Canada Free Trade Agreement.

William Brock co-chairs the Multilateral Trade Negotiations (MTN) Coalition, which was founded in 1990 to 'educate' the public-- and lobby for--the now-completed Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The coalition's members include American Express, General Motors, IBM, General Electric, Cargill, Citicorp, Procter & Gamble and other companies and trade associations. According to Malaysian activist Martin Khor Kok Peng, the MTN Coalition had a big influence on the 1990 G-7 Summit meeting held in Houston, USA, in which GATT figured prominently. At the Houston Summit, MTN held a high- profile press conference and released a report by an 'eminent persons group' on world trade.

The Contra Connection

One of TBG's top executives happens to be former Miami businessman and ambassador to Venezuela Otto Reich. During the Reagan administration, the Cuban-born Reich headed the US state department's Office of Public Diplomacy (OPD), whose task was to disseminate disinformation about the Sandinistas and discourage reporting critical of the contras. This outfit, whose operations were later found to be illegal by the US General Accounting Office, was staffed with five psychological warfare specialists from the 4th Psychological Operations Group of Fort Bragg. According to John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, "the OPD...helped spread a scurrilous story that some American reporters had received sexual favors from Sandinista prostitutes in return for writing slanted stories". In 1987, after the US Congress shut down the OPD, congressman Jack Brooks called it "an important cog in the (Reagan) administration's effort to manipulate public opinion and congressional action".

Interestingly enough, the OPD was conceived at an August 1983 meeting between then CIA director William Casey and a small group of PR industry executives. The meeting, whose purpose was to create a propaganda strategy for the Nicaraguan contras, was attended by B-M senior vice- president Kenneth D. Huszar and Philip Morris publicist James Bowling, who later moved to B-M. Their advice to Casey included the creation of a communications function within the White House, a recommendation that led to the creation of the OPD.

B-M, Mexico and the Neoliberal Project

B-M's success in insuring the passage of NAFTA encouraged the Mexican governing elite to retain the firm's services. It now has a luxurious office in the posh Colonia Anzures district on Mexico City that caters to customers like the Council of Businessmen, the National Stockbrokers' Association, the ministry of commerce and industrial development, and the Office of the President of the Republic. In addition to this, B-M parent Young & Rubicam rakes in over $100 million every year from Mexican clients. It is not an exaggeration to say that the credibility of the neoliberal project in the western hemisphere hinges on Mexico. Businessmen, politicians and neoliberal ideologues all over the hemisphere have touted Mexico as a symbol of capitalist success because of its privatization policy and its faithful adherence to the economic formulas prescribed by multilateral development banks (a.k.a. the Bretton Woods institutions). After the massive expenditure of political energy in getting NAFTA passed, business elites in both Mexico and the US are hard-pressed to put on a convincing performance in order to give credibility to future trade agreements. Bringing Guatemala and Chile into NAFTA has already become an agenda item.

However, neoliberal designs for Mexico are endangered by a series of crises, including the blatantly fraudulent elections of 1994, the embarassing collapse of the peso, revelations of drug-related corruption that compromise the Mexican elite all the way up to the president's office, a spate of political assassinations that seems to be beheading the ruling political party's leadership, and the popularity of the EjE9rcito Zapatista de LiberaciF3n Nacional (EZLN). B-M has a lot of work to do in Mexico. In the words of reporter Jon Reed, who investigated B-M's activities in Mexico, "Burson-Marsteller and other Mexican and transnational PR firms have demonstrated their effectiveness by working behind the scenes-- gauging public opinion, counseling government and corporate leaders, shaping media coverage, and facilitating elite-to-elite communications-- in short, guaranteeing that the inevitable upheavals in an authoritarian and unjust society do not interrupt business as usual".

Destroying Health Care

One of NAFTA's most nefarious consequences will be the dismantlement of Canada's government-run health care system. Since it places very strict limits on what domestic or foreign corporations can do, its more progressive features--such as compulsory licensing in order to control drug costs-- will eventually be challenged as barriers to trade. Once the Canadian system is gutted by NAFTA's notoriously secretive and undemocratic dispute resolution mechanisms, Canadian citizens will have no choice but to turn to the 'free market' for medical services and insurance.

However, American and Canadian pharmaceutical and insurance companies that want to crack open the Canadian market are frustrated by the fact that Canadians are very happy with their health care system. Worse yet, more and more Americans, especially in Vermont, are now calling for the introduction of single-payer health insurance in their country--a step in the direction of a Canadian-style system. This presents a grave problem for neoliberal demagogues, since it exposes the basic conflict between capitalism and democracy.

Enter Burson-Marsteller's health care unit, whose staff includes "a medical doctor/physician; former FDA (Food and Drug Administration) commissioner; former hospital administrator; former pharmaceutical communications executives; former non-profit communications chiefs; grassroots specialists, and former reporters" according to the senior editor of O'Dwyer's newsletter, which monitors the PR business.

B-M has plenty of experience in matters of public health. On behalf of client Philip Morris, B-M created the National Smokers' Alliance (NSA) to fight against smoking restrictions. According to John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, the NSA "is a state-of-the-art campaign that uses full- page newspaper ads, direct telemarketing, paid canvassers, (toll free) numbers and newsletters to bring thousands of smokers into its ranks each week. By 1995 NSA claimed a membership of 3 million smokers". The NSA is headed by B-M vice-president Thomas Humber and its members include B-M executivesPierre Salinger and Kennetz Rietz, as well as Peter Kelly,senior partner of B-M subsidiary Black, Manafort, Stone & Kelly (see sidebar). In addition to this,B-M was hired by the A.H. Robbins company when its Dalkon Shield IUD contraceptive injured thousands of women who used it, and it is now currently promoting the 'virtues' of Eli Lilly's anti-depressant wonder drug Prozac.

The winners of the health care debate in the US were beyond any doubt the pharmeceutical transnational corporations (eleven of which are B-M clients) and the major insurance companies (which include B-M clients Met Life, Equitable Life, Aetna, State Farm and Mutal of Omaha). Now both businesses are vertically integrating themselves into superconglomerates known as health maintenance organizations (HMO's). According to Joyce Nelson, "During 1994 both the pharmaceutical industry and the private insurance industry consolidated into even bigger players on the health care scene, with B-M playing a major role in arranging the mergers among its clients". HMO's are not required to cover all illnesses or people, but can instead discriminate against elderly citizens and/or people with health problems in order to reduce operating costs.

What can we do?

The awesome power of the 'manufactured consent' of the mass media, created in no small part by PR firms like Burson-Marsteller, can be discouraging to many politically aware citizens. However, despair is what the PR business sells: despair from even the smallest possibility of positive social change from below. If we are to believe that organized citizens cannot effectively challenge corporate and government power, then the PR flacks will have truly triumphed. But, as Rampton and Stauber say in their book, "The fact that corporations and governments feel compelled to spend billions of dollars every year manipulating the public is a perverse tribute to human nature and our own moral values".

The author is a Puerto Rican journalist living in Vermont, where he is a guest lecturer and research associate at Goddard College's Institute for Social Ecology.

Recommended reading:

PR Watch. This quarterly newsletter, edited by John Stauber, provides a progressive and critical perspective on the public relations business. 3318 Gregory Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53711, USA.

Sources:

• Center for Public Integrity. Private Parties: Political Party Leadership in Washington's Mercenary Culture. 1992.
• Center for Public Integrity. The Trading Game: Inside Lobbying for the North American Free Trade Agreement. 1993.
• Deal, Carl. The Greenpeace Guide to Anti-Environmental Front Groups. Odonian Press, 1993.
• Dillon, John. "Burson-Marsteller: Poisoning the Grassroots" Covert Action Quarterly: Spring 1993.
• Greenpeace. The Greenpeace Book of Greenwash. 1992.
• Khor Kok Peng, Martin. The Uruguay Round and Third World Sovereignty. Third World Network. 1990.
• Nelson, Joyce. "The Time of the Hangman" Adbusters: Winter 1989-1990.
• Nelson, Joyce. "Burson-Marsteller, Pax Trilateral and the Brundtland Gang vs. The Environment" Covert Action Quarterly: Spring 1993.
• Nelson, Joyce. "Dr. Rockefeller Will See You Now" Z Magazine: May 1995.
• Nelson, Joyce. "NAFTA's Nuclear Agenda" Z Magazine: June 1995.
• Parry, Robert. Fooling America: How Washington Insiders Twist the Truth and Manufacture the Conventional Wisdom. Morrow, 1992.
• Rampton, Sheldon & Stauber, John. Toxic Sludge is Good for You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry. Common Courage Press, 1995.
• Reed, Jon. "Interview with the Vampire: PR Helps the PRI Drain Mexico Dry" PR Watch: fourth quarter, 1994.

1995?

http://home.intekom.com/tm_info/ge_bm.htm

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http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Blackwater_PR_firm_aided_Chalabi_Works_1022.html

The firm that "coached" Blackwater CEO Eric Prince for a Congressional hearing previously represented Iraq intelligence launderer Ahmed Chalabi and is now working with AT&T to repair their image in the wake of their involvement in President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program.

The communications firm BKSH, a subsidiary of public relations giant Burson-Marsteller, is run by a man with extremely close ties to the Bush Administration.

The founder and current head of BKSH is Charlie Black, whose ties with the Bush family go back to 1972, when he and Karl Rove were jockeying for control of the College Republicans in a campaign so dirty that George H.W. Bush, then head of the Republican National Committee, had to step in and sort matters out. Black then worked for Ronald Reagan's and George H.W. Bush's presidential campaigns from 1976 to 1992. He served as an adviser to George W. Bush's campaigns in 2000 and 2004 and is often quoted in news stories as an unofficial White House spokesman.

BKSH was representing Iraq exile Ahmed Chalabi as early as 1999 and continued doing so until the invasion of Iraq. An international con-man found guilty in absentia in Jordan for bank scams, Chalabi is most widely known for being one of the key pre-Iraq war intelligence propagandists who supplied skewed information to support the Pentagon's ultra-secretive Office of Special Plans and the now-discredited pre-war reporting of Judith Miller for the New York Times. During 2004, Francis Brooke of the Rendon Group, which had represented Chalabi since the early 90's, was working on contract in Baghdad for BKSH. Then in the summer and fall of 2005, Lincoln Group, which had been tasked by the Pentagon with providing pro-US stories to Iraqi media, was subcontracting the work to BKSH, as the same time as BKSH was registered to represent the government of Iraq as its US lobbyist.

Because of Black's personal ties to the Bush administration, it seems reasonable to wonder whether his lobbying assignments might be selected as much to help his friends there as his nominal clients.

Black is currently working with AT&T in its lobbying campaign to be given retroactive immunity against lawsuits for having assisted the administration in its warrantless wiretapping program.

==

B-M has plenty of experience in matters of public health. On behalf of client Philip Morris, B-M created the National Smokers' Alliance (NSA) to fight against smoking restrictions. According to John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, the NSA "is a state-of-the-art campaign that uses full- page newspaper ads, direct telemarketing, paid canvassers, (toll free) numbers and newsletters to bring thousands of smokers into its ranks each week. By 1995 NSA claimed a membership of 3 million smokers".The NSA is headed by B-M vice-president Thomas Humber and its members include B-M executives Pierre Salinger and Kennetz Rietz, as well as Peter Kelly, senior partner of B-M subsidiary Black, Manafort, Stone & Kelly

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harper's:

Although there are distinct limits to what they can achieve, lobbyists are the crucial conduit through which pariah regimes advance their interests in Washington. “It’s like the secret handshake that gets you into the lodge,” as one former lobbyist told me. Occasionally, firms will achieve spectacular successes for a client: one particularly remarkable piece of lobbyist image management, for example, occurred in the mid-1980s, when the firm of Black, Manafort, Stone & Kelly helped refashion JonasSavimbi, a murderous, demented Angolan rebel leader backed by the apartheid regime in South Africa, as a valiant anti-communist “freedom fighter.” Savimbi visited Washington on numerous occasions, where the lobby shop had him ferried about by limousine to meetings with top political leaders, conservative groups, and TV networks. Black, Manafort checked repeated threats by members of Congress to cut off aid to Savimbi’s rebel group, which was burning and raping its way through Angola with the help of American taxpayers.[fought by Cubans? brought down Apartheid? DN 7/21/15]

Generally, though, lobbyists’ victories are more discreet. In 2004 six former members of Congress served as “election observers” in Cameroon and offered an upbeat assessment of President Paul Biya’s overwhelming reelection victory, which a local Roman Catholic cardinal described as “surrounded by fraud.” It turned out that the firm of Patton Boggs, which worked for the Cameroonian government, had arranged the trip of allegedly independent observers, whose expenses were paid by the Biya regime. Between 1999 and 2000, the Carmen Group received more than $1 million from the government of Kazakhstan to help “establish President [Nursultan] Nazarbayev as one of the foremost emerging leaders of the New World.” The lobby shop sent four writers—syndicated columnist Georgie Anne Geyer, Providence Journal associate editor Philip Terzian, R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. of The American Spectator, and Scott Hogenson of the Conservative News Service—on all-expenses-paid trips to Kazakhstan, and upon their return all wrote stories, ranging from critical but sympathetic to slavishly fawning, which the Carmen Group circulated on Capitol Hill.¹1.The most notable entry in the latter category came from Tyrrell. Despite traveling to Kazakhstan soon after a presidential balloting that was widely condemned as rigged, he wrote that the country “has at least four highly competitive political parties . . . the freedoms of our Bill of Rights, and commendable tolerance.”

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Legally, there are two firms. Black, Manafort, Stone & Kelly, a lobbying operation, represents Bethlehem Steel, the Tobacco Institute, Herbalife, Angolan "Freedom Fighter" Jonas Savimbi and the governments of the Bahamas and the Philippines.

Black, Manafort, Stone & Atwater, a political-consulting firm, has helped elect such powerful Republican politicians as Senator Phil Gramm of Texas and Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Jesse Helms.

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BKSH & Associates Worldwide

From SourceWatch

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BKSH & Associates is "a Washington-based bipartisan firm providing government relations services to a select number of domestic and international clients. The firm, a part of the Burson-Marsteller family, is led by Charles R. Black, Jr., who is best known as one of America's leading Republican political strategists, having served as senior advisor to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and as a spokesman for the Republican Party. 

The firm's lobbyists, lawyers, communications professionals, foreign affairs specialists and researchers design and execute programs to help shape public policy. Clients include Fortune 100 companies, multinationals, small and mid-sized companies, trade and industry associations, foreign governments, state governments and municipalities." [1]

"BKSH is the name of leading-edge government relations consultancy for the 21st century. Created by the world's largest communications agency, Burson-Marsteller, it enables clients to mount US, pan-European and transatlantic campaigns. Wherever in the world BKSH operates, clients can rely on the same commitment: the promise of efficiency, effectiveness and excellence," the company boasts on its website.

BKSH & Associates Worldwide was formed in May 1996 as a result of the merger of Black, Kelly, :{Scruggs & Healey (BKSH) with with another lobbying firm, Gold & Liebengood.^[1]}:

Joint venture

"Part of public relations giant Burson-Marstellar, BKSH & Associates lobbied in 2002 for TRM donors AT&T and Philip Morris. BKSH Chair Charles Black and senior counselor J. Warren Tompkins were political advisors to President [Ronald] Reagan and the first and second President Bush. Both men are elite George W. Bush fundraisers, as is Black’s lobbyist wife, Judy Black. BKSH and Stonebridge International recently launched a joint venture, Civitas Group LLC, which specializes in homeland security consulting. Joe Allbaugh and Jim Francis, one of Bush’s Texas Public Safety Commissioners, sit on the group’s advisory board," Texans for Public Justice reported October 11, 2004.

Iraq work

The New Yorker magazine reported in Feburary 2004 that Black was considering setting up an office in Baghdad. "The problem in Iraq so far is it's slow, and very confusing for people to figure out how to do business there ... One week you go to Baghdad, and they say the decisions are being made at the Pentagon. Then you go to the Pentagon, and they say the decisions are being made in Baghdad. Only Halliburton is making money now!," he told New Yorker. "Is there too much cronyism? I just wish I could find the cronies," Black said.

In July 2005 O'Dwyers PR Daily reported that BKSH had been hired by The Lincoln Group "one of three firms selected last month by the U.S. Special Operations Command to wage psychological warfare on behalf of the Pentagon in Iraq and other hot spots."

"BKSH has experience on the Iraqi front earned from work for Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress.Col. James Treadwell, director of the Joint Psychological Operations Support Element, said TLG was selected to develop 'cutting-edge types of media,' including radio/TV ads, documentaries, text messages, Internet spots and podcasts for the U.S. military. The Pentagon expects to spend $3M in the first-year as a 'test,' and could spend up to $300M over five years if the 'psyops' operations conducted by TLG, SYColeman and Science Applications International Corp are deemed successful," O'Dwyers reported.

In February 2006 O'Dwyers PR Daily reported that BKSH & Associates, "has added the Republic of Iraq to its client roster," reports O'Dwyer's. "The Washington, DC-based firm had worked for the [U.S.-funded] Iraqi National Congress opposition group during the reign of Saddam Hussein." [2]

BKSH & Associates parent company, Burson-Marsteller has already "helped the deputy military attache do outreach to key media outlets," including the Wall Street Journal and CNN, and has contacted the U.S. State Department and National Security Council on behalf of the Iraqi Embassy. The firm's Iraq contract also includes setting up editorial board meetings, placing op/ed pieces, and strengthening "ties with organizations like the American Enterprise Institute, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Council on Foreign Relations and Business Council for International Understanding."[3]

Clients

Disclosure of lobbying activities under the Foreign Agents Registration Act reveals clients include:

• Government of Colombia: "The registrant provided advice and counsel relating to communications activities, developed communications materials and worked with media organizations to advance the interests of the foreign principal," the company disclosed. In the six month period ending June 1, 2002 the company was paid $232,500.00. [4]

• His Excellency Ibrahim Saminu Turaki, Governor Jigawa State, Nigeria: "The registrant met with U.S. Government officials and congressional staffers regarding the gum Arabic project in Nigeria," the company disclosed. [5]

• Agency for Humanitarian Technologies: "The registrant monitored news articles and political statements of interest to the foreign principal. The registrant also contacted congressional staffers and U.S. Government officials to provide an update on Ukraine following parliamentary elections and to discuss the status of U.S.-Ukraine relations," it disclosed. For this it was paid $110,000.00 for January 1 to June 30,2002. [6]

Other clients include:

• The Alliance for Abundant Food and Energy, a front group supporting subsidies for ethanol fuel, with member companies including Archer Daniels Midland and Monsanto. ^[2]
• Blackwater USABKSH was hired through a personal relationship with Blackwater to help with Erik Prince's October 2, 2007 testimony in front of Congress. [7] Handling the case for BKSH was former State Department official, Robert Tappan. [8] [9]
• General Electric "to handle trade and foreign relations issues" [10]
• General Motors Corporation
• Government of Haiti [11] [12]
• Government of Greece - in January 2007 signed "a six-month contract for strategic advice and intelligence gathering" with BKSH, including "executive branch monitoring and House and Senate advocacy" [13]
• Iraqi National Congress and its head Ahmad Chalabi
• Radio Sedaye Iran (Radio Voice of Iran), the Beverly Hills-based network that advocates regime change in Iran. [14]
• U.S. Chamber of Commerce on tort reform[15]
• YukosSibneft Oil Company (a.k.a. Yukos Oil) [16]
• Values First, a "non-profit and non-religious" group, on "federal initiatives regarding 'character education.'" According to O'Dwyer's, Values First "believes the infusion of values (responsibility, honesty, hard work, fairness and concern for others) into the nation's schools will cultivate better leaders for tomorrow." [17]

According to records of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, BKSH & Associates is registered to represent 90 clients. (Accessed December 14, 2005.)

Personnel

• Charles R. Black, Jr. Chairman
• Gardner Peckham

Contact

President and Chief Executive Officer

BKSH & Associates

1801 K Street, N.W.,

Suite 901-L

Washington, D.C. 20006-1201

U.S.A.

Tel: +1 202 530 0500 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              +1 202 530 0500      end_of_the_skype_highlighting

Fax: +1 202 530 4800

Jeremy Galbraith

Chief Executive Officer

BKSH Europe

37 square de Meeus

1000 Brussels

Belgium

Tel: +32 2 743 6611 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              +32 2 743 6611      end_of_the_skype_highlighting

Fax: +32 2 733 6611

URL: http://www.bksh.com

Articles and resources

Related SourceWatch articles

• Charles R. Black, Jr.
• John McCain: U.S. presidential election, 2008
• Regulating lobbying

References

1. ↑ "History of BKSH & Associates Worldwide", BKSH & Associates Worldwide, accessed March 2008.
2. ↑ "BKSH Protects Ethanol Subsidies," O'Dwyer's PR Daily (sub req'd), September 25, 2008.

External resources

External articles

• "B-M promotes INC", O'Dwyer's PR Daily, April 17, 2003. (Sub req'd)
• "Big Business uses BKSH for tort reform", O'Dwyer's PR Daily, April 29, 2003. (Sub req'd)
• "Taiwan hires BKSH", O'Dwyer's PR Daily, August 8, 2003.(Sub req'd)
• A Guide to Effective Lobbying of the European Commission: Based on a survey of senior Commission Officials, Burson-Marsteller and BKSH, Spring 2003.
• "Livingston gets Iraq gig: BKSH eyes Baghdad digs", O'Dwyer's PR Daily, February 11, 2004.(Sub req'd)
• Jane Mayer, "Contract Sport: What did the Vice-President do for Halliburton?", New Yorker, February 16-23, 2004.
• "BKSH tunes into radio Iran", O'Dwyer's PR Daily, May 11, 2004.(Sub req'd)
• "BKSH rolls out top guns", O'Dwyer's PR Daily, May 21, 2004.(Sub req'd)
• "BKSAH & ASSoc helps Haiti", O'Dwyer's PR Daily, July 20, 2004.(Sub req'd)
• "Kosmos picks BKSH", O'Dwyer's PR Daily, November 24, 2004.(Sub req'd)
• "B-M guides Western media for Yukos Oil", O'Dwyer's PR Daily, December 20, 2004.(Sub req'd)
• "GE hires BKSH", O'Dwyers PR Daily, December 22, 2004. (Sub req'd)
• "B-M Firm Hired by Pentagon's 'Psyops' Firm", O'Dwyers PR Daily, July 22, 2005.(Sub req'd)
• "BKSH Reps Iraq", O'Dwyer's PR Daily, February 9, 2006. (sub req'd)
• "BKSH Launches 'Values' Drive," O'Dwyer's PR Daily (sub req'd), July 25, 2006.
• "BKSH Gets Greece," O'Dwyer's PR Daily (sub req'd), January 18, 2007.
• Muriel Kane, "Blackwater PR firm aided Chalabi; Works to polish AT&T's image," The Raw Story, October 23, 2007.
• Nikolas Kozloff, "Charlie Black's Play Book: 'McCain Needs Another 9/11 Attack'," CounterPunch.org, June 24, 2008.
• Glenn R. Simpson, "McCain Adviser Had Russian Ties," Wall Street Journal (sub req'd), September 8, 2008.

Retrieved from "http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=BKSH_%26_Associates_Worldwide"

Category: Lobbyists

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Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly

From SourceWatch

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Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly is a Washington D.C. lobbying firm.

An internal 1993 budget review document for the Philip Morris group of companies pencilled Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly in with a preliminary budget line item of $117,500.

The document described the reason for the consultancy as being "Charlie Black, former Republican National Committee Chairman and Bush operative, is principally working to buttress our access to Republican Senators".[1]

External links

Philip Morris, "Corporate Affairs: corporate cost review, Bates No 2046996735, July 1993 (estimated), page 4.

Charlie Black, John McCain Aide and Super-Lobbyist

John McCain's primary defender in the Lady Lobbyist Scandal* is a man named Charlie Black. As a senior adviser to...

By Jonathan Stein | Fri Feb. 22,2008

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John McCain's primary defender in the Lady Lobbyist Scandal* is a man named Charlie Black. As a senior adviser to the campaign who is doing McCain's damage control right now, Black has to explain to the press that John McCain didn't have a romantic relationship with lobbyist Vicki Iseman, didn't treat Iseman's clients with undue favoritism, and isn't too close to lobbyists in general despite his years of anti-lobbyist rhetoric.

Black, of course, is a lobbyist. In fact, as the head of the extremely influential lobby shop BKSH and Associates, he's one of Washington's most powerful influence-peddlers. In the *Washington Post* story [1] today about the lobbyists that populate the upper ranks of McCain's campaign (here's another guy [2]), Black is listed as working forAT&T, Alcoa, JPMorgan, and U.S. Airways. He works and has worked for far more companies than that, however.

After the jump, every company BKSH has worked for since 1998, along with the total value of their contracts, as provided by the Center for Responsive Politics lobbying database.

Accenture - $780,000

ACCURAY- $120,000

Accuray Inc - $60,000

Accuray Incorporated - $60,000

Advertising Co Art-Eria - $200,000

Agency for Humanitarian Technolgoies - $120,000

Alcoa - $100,000

Amerada Hess Corp - $80,000

American Financial Group - $80,000

American Hotel & Lodging Assn - $460,000

American Hotel & Motel Assn - $240,000

American Kidney Fund - $20,000

American Management Systems - $80,000

American Medical Response - $840,000

American Psychological Assn - $940,000

AMR Corp - $280,000

Arc Enterprises - $40,000

Asoex Chilean Exporters Assn - $40,000

Assn of American Medical Colleges - $420,000

AT&T - $1,185,000

AT&T Inc - $720,000

Authentix - $210,000

Baxter International - $60,000

Bethlehem Steel - $540,000

Biochem Resources - $20,000

Bristol-Myers Squibb - $690,000

California School Employees Assn - $40,000

Carlton Co - $20,000

Cavendish Digicom - $40,000

Center of the Development of Information - $50,000

CGI Group - $80,000

Chenega Corp - $120,000

ChevronTexaco - $140,000

Childrens Memorial Medical Center - $470,000

Chilean Salmon Farmers Assn - $100,000

CintasCorp - $95,000

Citizens for Liberty in Cuba - $40,000

City of Chesapeake, VA - $10,000

City of Muncie, ID - $60,000

City of Muncie/Delaware County, ID - $160,000

City of Napoleon, OH - $120,000

City of Sunnyvale, CA - $70,000

Coca-Cola Co - $380,000

Colombian Textile & Apparel Industry - $80,000

Comasa, de la Optica - $80,000

Commonwealth of Puerto Rico - $2,400,000

Compusa - $60,000

Conservation Trust Fund of Puerto Rico - $240,000

Contran Corp - $505,000

Cook Childrens Health Care System - $660,000

Cummins Engine - $140,000

Cummins Inc - $1,300,000

DaimlerChrysler - $20,000

Dairy Fresh - $20,000

DARE America - $80,000

Dayton Advocacy Consortium - $120,000

Dayton Chamber/Miami Valley Reg Commis - $160,000

Delaware North Companies - $580,000

Digene Corp - $815,000

Dominican Republic-US Business Council - $40,000

Education Finance Council - $100,000

Egan & Assoc - $20,000

Eistream - $56,000

El Pomar Foundation - $50,000

Emergent BioSolutions - $80,000

Energy Finance Team - $10,000

EntergyCorp - $60,000

Featherlite Inc - $70,000

Federation of State Medical Boards - $420,000

First Transit - $60,000

Fort Lauderdale Downtown Devel Authority - $180,000

Freddie Mac - $820,000

General Electric - $680,000

General Motors - $570,000

Geovox Security - $20,000

Glaxo Wellcome Inc - $40,000

GlaxoSmithKline - $590,000

Global Strategies Group- $180,000

Goodman Corp - $20,000

GTECH Holdings Corp - $980,000

Harper, Meyer et al - $180,000

Harris Corp - $40,000

Health Industry Manufacturers Assn - $80,000

Honeywell International - $220,000

Importers Service Corp - $540,000

Impulso 2000 - $80,000

Indiana Dept of Transportation - $20,000

Insors - $330,000

Instinet - $440,000

Institute for Democratic Strategies - $10,000

International Franchise Assn - $290,000

International Org/Masters/Mates/Pilots - $80,000

International Steel Group - $20,000

International Tire & Rubber Assn - $50,000

Intl Assn of Convention & Visitor Bureau - $20,000

Intl Council of Shopping Centers - $680,000

Ion America - $80,000

Iprivacy - $20,000

Johnson & Johnson - $280,000

JP Morgan & Co - $140,000

JP Morgan Chase & Co - $724,000

Kosmos Energy - $40,000

Lincoln Group - $40,000

Liquidnet Inc - $60,000

Lockheed Martin - $487,500

Lucent Technologies - $20,000

Lumenos - $100,000

MacAndrews & Forbes - $180,000

Magellan Systems International - $350,000

Mariner Post Acute Network - $20,000

Maxxam Inc - $430,000

McTigue & Brooks - $20,000

MDA International - $320,000

Medactinium Inc - $40,000

Medtronic Inc - $40,000

Methodist Health Care System - $500,000

Michigan State University - $320,000

Microbran Products - $140,000

Mortgage Bankers Assn of America - $140,000

Morton International - $180,000

MtbeLitigation Inc - $20,000

M-unit - $20,000

National Assn of Home Builders - $20,000

National Assn of Mortgage Brokers - $60,000

National Assn of Rocketry $50,000

National Assn of Trailer Manufacturers $60,000

National Auto Dealers Assn - $320,000

National Automobile Dealers Assn - $200,000

National Football League - $100,000

National Foreign Trade Council - $40,000

National Mentoring Partnership - $150,000

National Propane Gas Assn - $80,000

National Renal Administrators Assn - $640,000

National Restaurant Assn - $760,000

National School Transportation Assn - $400,000

Natl Assn of Classified School Employees - $300,000

Natl Assn of Passport & Visa Services - $60,000

Natl Center For The American Revolution - $30,000

Natl Conf of State Historic Preser Offcs - $360,000

Nec Corp - $695,000

Neopath/Tripath Imaging - $140,000

Nielsen Media Research - $240,000

North Americas Supercorridor Coalition - $440,000

Northeast Utilities - $40,000

Occidental Petroleum - $1,650,000

Occidental Petroleum - $1,650,000

Ocean Duke Corp - $20,000

Oryxe Energy International - $170,000

Osmose Holdings - $40,000

Pacific Supreme - $20,000

Par Technology - $70,000

Partners for Democratic Change - $40,000

Payne Shea & Assoc - $180,000

PCS Health Systems - $20,000

Peter NG Schwartz Management Co - $100,000

Pharmanex - $20,000

Philip Morris - $1,292,500

Policom Inc - $140,000

Popular Democractic Party - $260,000

Psi International - $20,000

Public Broadcasting Service - $385,000

Puerto Rico Highways & Transp Authority - $270,000

Radio Sedaye Iran - $37,500

Repeal PUHCA Now Coalition - $160,000

Rhoads/Weber Shandwick Govt Relations - $10,000

Roaring Fork Railroad Holding Authority - $220,000

Roaring Fork Transportation Authority - $200,000

Roche Group - $360,000

Rolls-Royce - $320,000

Safety-Kleen Corp - $810,000

SafeView Inc - $80,000

Sanborn - $165,000

Santa Clara County - $100,000

Santa Clara County, CA - $1,403,752

Santa Clara Valley Transportation Auth - $1,070,000

SAP America - $440,000

Screening for Mental Health - $30,000

Securicor Gray - $40,000

Shaw Group - $20,000

Silverleaf Resorts - $30,000

South Carolina Dept of Health/Human Srv - $40,000

South Carolina Judicial Dept - $20,000

Space Imaging Inc - $605,000

Stand Up for Steel - $120,000

State of Indiana - $120,000

Strategy Group International - $40,000

Sybase Inc - $100,000

Tam Bay Partnership - $20,000

Teck Cominco American - $100,000

Texas Childrens Hospital - $320,000

Thales - $1,055,000

Tobacco Quota Warehouse Alliance - $120,000

Travel Business Roundtable - $1,860,000

Travel Industry Assn of America - $180,000

Trilogy International Partners - $40,000

Tripoli Rocketry Assn - $50,000

United Motorcoach Assn - $20,000

United Network for Organ Sharing - $460,000

United Parcel Service - $50,000

United Technologies - $570,000

US Airways Group - $180,000

USEC Inc - $240,000

UST Inc - $1,360,000

Ust Public Affiars - $60,000

Values First - $30,000

Values Government Relations - $20,000

Vietnam Assn of Seafood Exporters & Prod - $340,000

Viohl & Assoc - $220,000

Visiting International Faculty Program - $40,000

Vladeck, Waldman et al - $20,000

Washington Group International - $20,000

Washington Metro Area Transit Authority - $440,000

Washington Mutual - $20,000

Webb County, TX - $40,000

Western Wireless Corp - $435,000

Williams Companies - $140,000

Wolf, Block et al - $60,000

WPP Group - $200,000

Wye Oak Technology - $10,000

Yukos Oil - $155,000

Total - $57,426,252

*Lady Lobbyist Scandal is a derivation of a phrase first used [3] by Michael Scherer of Time magazine.

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Source URL: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2008/02/charlie-black-john-mccain-aide-and-super-lobbyist

Links:

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/21/AR2008022101131.html?hpid=topnews

[2] http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/02/7290_mccain_campaign.html

[3] http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/02/mccain_moves_on.html

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Civitas Group, LLC, a "new consulting firm that will offer a full range of advisory services to private sector and government clients in the homeland security field," was launched on July 17, 2003. "Civitas is a joint venture between Stonebridge International LLC and BKSH & Associates, a WPP operating company. ... Civitas will offer a spectrum of services including strategic business guidance, facilitation of business partnerships, issue monitoring, executive recruitment, advocacy as well as government and corporate marketing and procurement assistance. ... Civitas also has established a strategic partnership with Good Harbor Consulting, LLC." [1]

Leadership

• Michael J. Hershman
• Samuel R. Berger, Co-Chairman; Chairman of Stonebridge International
• Charles R. Black, Jr., Co-Chairman; Chairman of BKSH & Associates

Board of Advisors

• Warren Bruce Rudman (R-NH); U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century / Hart-Rudman Commission; former Chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board
• Richard A. Clarke
• Joe M. Allbaugh, former FEMA Director under President Bush
• Kenneth A. Minihan, former Director of the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency and a Principal in the Paladin Capital Homeland Security Fund
• Jim B. Francis, Chairman of the Texas Public Safety Commission
• Kurt Campbell, Director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
• Robert H. Swindell, former Managing Director and head of U.S. Technology at Lehman Brothers

Contact

Civitas Group LLC

1801 K Street, NW Suite 901-L

Washington, DC 20006

Phone: (202) 530-0765

Fax: (202) 530-4790

email@civitasgroup.com

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merged with

Gold and Liebengold was a lobbying subsidiary of Burson-Marsteller.

A 1993 internal budget review document for the Philip Morris group of companies had Gold & Liebengold with a preliminary budget allocation of $406,000.

Describing the project, the document states, "Howard Liebengold is one of the best Republican lobbyists in town. His partner, Marty Gold, is an expert parliamentarian. He is subcontracting and "FOB", Paul Berry, at our request. The firm has good depth in the health care area."

Clients

In the early 1990's Burson-Marsteller and its subsidiary, Gold & Liebengood, were working for Dow in an attempt to re-habilitate silicone breast implants. [1]

Following the death of Liebengood in early 2005, the Washington Post listed the company clients as:

• Chemical Manufacturers Association
• Federal Express
• Fiat USA
• Martin Marietta;
• the Hopi Indian tribe[2]

External links

• Philip Morris, "Corporate Affairs: corporate cost review, Bates No 2046996735, July 1993 (estimated), page 6.
• John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, "Confidence Game: Burson-Marsteller's PR Plan for Silicone Breast Implants", Volume 3, No. 1, First Quarter 1996.
• Matt Schudel, "Lobbyist, Senate Aide Howard Liebengood Dies", Washington Post, January 16, 2005.

Category: 

• Lobbying firms