hill&K bak

html stringent

busted on cop 27 egypt

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/un-climate-champions-pr-brunswick-saudi-aramco/

9 22 clean creatives, split from sjr gp?

HILL + KNOWLTON STRATEGIES

Shell / ExxonMobil /OGCI (Oil & Gas Climate Initiative) / Chevron / ANGA (America's Natural Gas Alliance)

HILL + KNOWLTON STRATEGIES / SJR (Subsidiary)

ExxonMobil

amy w

next month, the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP), the annual UN Climate Negotiations Conference, will kick off in Cairo, Egypt. Once again, negotiators and politicians from all over the world will join up to talk through what they're willing to do to stave off human extinction. That sounds dramatic, right?

But that's kind of what we're talking about here. There will be the usual massive contingent from the fossil fuel industry there as well. Last time, in Glasgow, the fossil fuel industry sent more representatives than any one country did. And there's likely to be more of the same in Egypt. The organizers have, in a much publicized and criticized move, :{allowed major global polluter Coca-Cola to sponsor :(style="font-weight:700"):}:the event.

Even worse, they've also hired Coca-Cola's publicist, Hill & Knowlton, to do PR for the conference. If you missed :{season three of Drilled:(style="font-weight:700"):}:, go back and listen. We did an entire episode on Hill and Knowlton founder :{John Hill :(style="font-weight:700"):}:and his work for both the oil industry and the tobacco industry all at the same time.

Hill masterminded the strategy of hiring scientists to say tobacco smoking wasn't bad for you and that the jury was still out on whether it caused cancer. At the very same time, his firm was working for the American Petroleum Institute and some of its member companies. In fact, it was Hill who brought tobacco folks into the American Petroleum Institute. The longstanding relationship between oil and tobacco eventually resulted in the creation of the cigarette filter—a money maker for oil and gas companies looking for a new place to sell petrochemicals and a slight of hand for the tobacco industry looking to convince consumers that they could make smoking less harmful by smoking lighter, filtered cigarettes.

Hill represented Monsanto around the same time too, so no surprise that the chemical industry embraced a lot of the same tactics. Definitely the folks you want strategizing the messaging for your climate conference! I'm sure they won't be reporting directly back to their clients. Cue head banging against wall video.

At any rate, COP isn't just a time for official corporate greenwashing. It's also a period of time that tends to see major spikes in climate disinformation. Social media will almost assuredly be flooded with various memes about the elitists at COP, the failures of renewable energy, and that damn frozen windmill picture that makes the rounds every couple of years.

A coalition of environmental groups has come together under the banner of :{Climate Action Against Disinformation:(style="font-weight:700"):}: to monitor the disinformation that spawns around some of these big inflection points. They initially got organized around COP 26 in Glasgow, and now in advance of COP 27 in Cairo, they've put together :{a report :(style="font-weight:700"):}:full of information aimed at helping journalists and other communicators avoid unintentionally spreading or amplifying mis- and disinformation.

The lead author on that report, Connor Gibson, walked me through it.

"A little bit more savvyness is needed in newsrooms in the modern era in order to not allow that to happen, because certainly disinformers now know how to exploit that tension between editors and journalists in terms of something like viral sloganeering," he told me, talking about how common it is that journalists need to fight within their own newsrooms against some of the bad habits that spread disinformation.

"Climate Gate is the example that I use in this report," he says. "You know, how many major news outlets printed the word ClimateGate? That is the tagline of the climate change denial movement, and just putting that in your headline over and over really  created a sense among news readers that there was guilt and that there was fabrication of data and all of the false accusations that had been made after those climate scientist emails were hacked and taken outta context and released. And you know, the fact checking that came after the investigations and exonerations that came after that didn't spread, that didn't spread nearly as widely as the phrase ClimateGate."

It never does. And that's the sort of thing this report hopes to help journalists avoid doing, but Gibson and the rest of CAAD are well aware of the biggest obstacle in tackling disinformation in general, and climate disinfo in particular: the lack of investment in journalism.

"I think one of the biggest insurmountable feeling trends that I looked at in this report is just the economics of the newsroom. You know, when there is a revenue incentive that is based around clicks, shares, most emailed articles that precludes the type of tone that is actually to stop misinformation from festering. And so the simple capitalist economics of keeping a news outlet functioning actually creates a breeding ground for misinformation as well, and is something that needs to be taken a lot more seriously than it currently is. But unfortunately, because it's about economics, I think that is one of the biggest obstacles that reporters will face when it comes to that tension between the responsibility of a reporter to communicate something accurately without feeding into conspiracy theory or myth, and the responsibility of an editor to keep the newspaper in circulation and  financially healthy.

That's especially true in the years since social media changed the news business. It's increasingly common to see social media promotion that is, itself, wildly misleading even if the article it's promoting isn't.

This report draws on years' worth of research on psychology-based communication techniques from experts like Stephan Lewandowsky and John Cook, and a lot of the collaborators on reports like :{The Debunking Handbook:(style="font-weight:700"):}: and :{The Conspiracy Theory Handbook:(style="font-weight:700"):}:, as well as guidelines from civil society organizations like First Draft, the Data and Society Research Institute, and the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"These folks are really experts on helping people avoid the most basic traps, and this stuff has been around for decades, right? Like Richard Nixon, I'm not a crook. Everybody hears the word crook, right?" Gibson explains. "Or George Lakoff wrote the book :{Don't Think of an Elephant!:(style="font-weight:700"):}: because the only word that sticks in your brain after you say that is the word elephant."

A lot of this stuff has been known for a long time, but Gibson poked around at some headlines from major outlets, and found the same old mistakes happening.

"It's not because people are foolish, it's just there is an amount of faith in the audience when it comes to an honest journalist and editor writing a report and writing a headline that unfortunately just misses the traps that disinformation relies on in order to spread," he says.

"And that's gotta be really frustrating when you're a professional who writes something that's very intellectually honest and yet, it helps misinformation and disinformation  spread. So that's really why we wrote this report."

Gibson says climate journalists were a key target not just because climate disinformation is on the rise and COP tends to bring big waves of it, but also because they dealt with disinformation before any other type of journalist. "The phenomenon of climate change denial I think has made climate change reporters a little more sophisticated in understanding these trends before social media made disinformation such a rampant problem in the last few years," he says. "And just the, the relentless nature in which that community of climate change deniers, you know, has stayed organized. So I would say that most of the people who are in climate reporting are far more sophisticated now than certainly they were in the 1990s or the 2000s when that phenomenon was a little underreported and the cast of characters wasn't as widely known."

"So, you know, we tried to write this report and publish it with acknowledgement that we're not writing it because climate reporters are particularly gullible or anything like that," he continues. "We think it's one of the more relevant fields with which to understand what communication techniques are required in order to mitigate misinformation and disinformation as well as a field where some of that understanding is already a little bit there."

Here are a few key highlights:...

amazonwatch

https://theamazonpost.com/post-trial-brief-pdfs/brief/10PX0528.pdf

no lnx

11 Civ. 0691 (LAK)

PLAINTIFF’S

EXHIBIT

528#

ChevronToxico I Chevron Using Six Public Relations Firms to Discredit Indigenous Groups

THE CAMPAIGNI FOR JUSTIn INI ECUADOR

ABOUT THE CAMPAIGN NEWS & MULTIMEDIA TAKE ACTION

HOME » News and Multimedia

Chevron Using Six Public Relations

Firms to Discredit Indigenous Groups In

$27.3 Billion Environmental Case In

Ecuador

Lobbyists - Mac McLarty, John Breaux, Trent Lott,

Mickey Kantor, Carla Hills and Others - Charged With

Misrepresenting Facts

FRlliTE DE IlERlNlIA

Amazon Defense Coalition

20 November 2009 - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Karen Hinton at 703-798-3109 or

... karen@hintoncommunications.com

Caroline Bennett at 510-520-9390 or caroline@amazonwatch.org

start:]

Washington, DC - Chevron has retained at least twelve public relations firms and lobbyists to

discredit claims of Amazon indigenous groups on the eve of an expected multi-billion dollar

judgment against the oil giant in an environmental lawsuit in Ecuador, according to representatives

of the tribes in the U.S.

Although Chevron is near the top of the list of highest-spending lobbyists in Washington, the

campaign seems to be backfiring. Politico, one of the most influential publications on Capitol Hill,

reported this week that Chevron's lobbying was "drawing fire from environmentalists, media

ethicists, state pension funds, New York's attorney general, members of Congress, and even Barack

Obama when he was a Senator."

The article also quoted Rep. Linda Sanchez (D - CA) as calling Chevron's lobbying "clumsy" and

"very heavy handed". Sanchez - who on Tuesday characterized the Chevron lobbying as "extortion"

in testimony before Congress - said she plans to write three letters to Members of Congress,

blasting what she called the oil giant's "misguided approach" to dealing with the lawsuit from the

indigenous groups.

Separately, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is investigating the company to determine if

it is misleading its own shareholders about the financial risk from the Ecuador case, where damages

are assessed at up to $27.3 billion, Politico reported.

An American legal advisor to the plaintiffs, Steven Donziger, criticized the public relations and

lobbying effort."Chevron is paying huge fees to lobby the U.S. government to inappropriately quash

a legal case brought by indigenous tribes in the country where Chevron asked for the trial to be

held," said Donziger, who has been working on the matter since it was filed in U.S. federal court in

1993.

The case, which alleges Texaco dumped billions of gallons of toxic waste in the Amazon from 1964

to 1990, was transferred from U.S. federal court to Ecuador in 2002 at Chevron's request. The oil

giant filed 14 expert affidavits in the U.S. court praising Ecuador's court system, but later began a

campaign to discredit those same courts once the evidence in the Ecuador trial pointed to its

culpability.

The public relations firms working for Chevron include Hill & Knowlton, which represented the

tobacco industry and - as it did in the debate over tobacco and cancer - has tried to deny a link

between oil contamination and cancer;Edelman Worldwide, which is believed to be preparing a

Wal-Mart-style political campaign against the indigenous groups in anticipation of an adverse court

judgment;Sard Verbinnem, which handles financial press in an effort to stem a budding shareholder

revolt against Chevron management for its handling of the case; Robinson Lerer Montgomery, a

well-highly connected New York-based agency; Sam Singer and Associates, which handles the

matter in the San Francisco area, where Chevron is located; and the Washington-basedCRC

Public Relations, which helped create a pro-Chevron video by former CNN correspondent Gene

Randall to counteract a highly unflattering 60 Minutes segment on the legal case that broadcast

earlier in the year.

The Randall video, which did not mention that it was paid for by Chevron, was blasted by the

Columbia Journalism Reviewfor "blurring the line between public relations and journalism." The

President of CRC, Greg Mueller, spearheaded the Swift Boat campaign against John Kerry and is a

former senior aide to Pat Buchanan.

CVX-RICO-0502246

Plaintiff's Exhibit 528# p. 2 of 4

among Chevron's lobbyists isWayne Berman, former McCain campaign national finance chair who chairs the governmental relations practice at Ogilvy Worldwide; former Senators John Breaux and Trent Lott; Mac McLarty, former chief of state to President Clinton who is lobbying the State Department; Mickey Kantor and Carla Hills, former U.S. trade ambassadors who are lobbying their former agency to cancel Ecuador's trade preferences; 

Peter Romero, who served as U.S. ambassador to Ecuador in the early 1990s under the first Clinton Administration; Brian Pomper, the former staff director toU.S. Sen. Max Baucus; Scott Parvin, a career lobbyist who formerly worked with Kantor at the law firm Mayer Brown; and several members of Chevron's governmental relations office in Washington, headed by William Irwin. Lawyers for the Amazon communities have long said Chevron's public relations and lobbying firms are part of a broader effort by the company to undermine the rule of law in Ecuador in anticipation of an adverse judgment. The company has taken out advertisements in both Ecuadorian and American newspapers attacking lawyers for the communities and various judges who have presided over the case.

The public relations firms and lobbyists also state incorrectly that Chevron was released from further clean-up responsibility in Ecuador by the government in exchange for a limited clean-up in the mid 1990s. But the terms of the release itself expressly exclude the private claims in the current lawsuit and the so-called remediation was a fraud that has led to the indictment of two Chevron lawyers and several former government officials, said Donziger.

:{

}:

Evidence at trial against Chevron includes more than 50,000 chemical sampling results produced by the company itself, which prove that 100% of its former well sites are highly contaminated with cancer-causing toxins, according to an independent court-appointed Special Master who reviewed the evidence in the case and assessed damages. A final decision on liability and damages is expected next year. For more information, become a follower of The Chevron Pit or follow @ChevronPit on Twitter

https://rigged.ghost.io/start/

NO LNX

RIGGED

START HERE: INFORMATION POLLUTION — A BRIEF HISTORY

To understand how each spinmaster, technique, and industry contributed to the current state of disinformation in the U.S., it helps to know the history of how and why the PR industry was created.

LATEST POST

Get 'Em While They're Young

by Rigged

TO UNDERSTAND HOW EACH SPIN MASTER, TECHNIQUE, AND INDUSTRY CONTRIBUTED TO THE CURRENT STATE OF DISINFORMATION IN THE U.S., IT HELPS TO KNOW THE HISTORY OF HOW AND WHY THE PR INDUSTRY WAS CREATED.

In response to a protest, the country’s largest oil company sent in private security teams, who wound up killing several protestors, including women and children. The company’s spokesperson claimed the protestors were hired by a labor union trying to stir up trouble.

Sounds like it could have been written about any of a half dozen recent pipeline protests, right? But these are the basic details of a mining strike in 1914, in Ludlow,Colorado. The mine was owned by Standard Oil, and the Rockefeller family had only a few years prior been raked over the coals by a messy antitrust lawsuit and a series of investigative features about their monopoly on the country’s burgeoning oil industry.

They needed help burnishing their image, so they called on another industry that was just emerging at the time: Public relations.Ivy Ledbetter Lee, the first modern PR guy, came up with that idea that the protestors were hired agitators. Today we would call them “crisis actors” and it’s an accusation thrown at almost every protest, but few people know the whole thing was created by a PR guy working for an oil company back in 1914.

Lee invented all sorts of other tricks of the trade too. The press release, for a start. Before Lee, companies had a pretty adversarial relationship with the press and vice versa. Lee thought businesses would do better to tell journalists more of their story themselves. It was so unusual that when he first began sending press releases to The New York Times, the paper printed them verbatim. On behalf of rail, coal, oil and tobacco clients Lee also created seemingly independent information bureaus, like the Bureau of Railroad Economics, whose experts were regularly quoted criticizing railroad tax proposals. Again, this was more than 100 years ago. And Lee was followed by generation after generation of PR experts, each adding another bell or whistle to America’s disinformation machine—some on behalf of oil, others on behalf of the chemical or tobacco industries, often on behalf of all three at the same time.

For years, the story about disinformation has been that Big Tobacco created it all and then Big Oil copied them. And there's a thread of truth there. Some of the same phony scientists who sold America on the idea that smoking was safe turned around and told them not to worry about climate change. But it’s not the whole story. To get that, we need to look at the context that enabled climate denial to flourish, an information system polluted by 100 years of propaganda. And we need to look at who was hiring those phony scientists—not companies, but PR firms. When people focus on one particular form of science denial, or on one technique that this or that industry copied from another, this is the big picture they miss: the disinformation machine driving everything from QAnon conspiracies to climate denial, vaccine hesitation to white nationalism. It’s bigger than any one industry, but it was built on behalf of all of them, and if we want to have any hope of addressing the large, intersecting, complex problems facing us today, it must be better understood. And then reconfigured, or dismantled altogether.

***

Just as Ivy Lee was building the modern PR industry, the U.S. government realized it needed a bit of propaganda to help sell American citizens on World War I. President Woodrow Wilson had made staying out of the war a key part of his campaign, and now he needed to convince Americans that it was a good idea to join in...without looking like a hypocrite. He tapped George Creel, a journalist turned political campaigner who had helped with Wilson's electoral bid, to build out what was eventually called the Committee on Public Information and generally referred to as The Creel Committee or the Creel Commission. Creel tapped some of the nation's greatest journalists (Ida Tarbell, for one!), filmmakers, artists, and publicity men to create a 360-degree assault on the American public. They made films, created compelling posters, and even launched the world's first "influencers." In cities and towns across the country, Creel and his team found influential members of society and trained them to give 4-minute pro-war speeches before screenings of silent films or big events. They were known as the "4-Minute Men".

Several members of the Creel Committee went on to be major influences on the burgeoning PR industry.One of them was a young publicity agent from the theater, Edward Bernays. Bernays had done some creative promotion of plays with particular social missions and had worked for major ballet companies as well, and his work caught the eye of Creel. It didn't hurt that Bernays's uncle was Sigmund Freud—on both sides, in a bizarre and some might say Freudian twist (Edward's mother was Freud’s sister, and Freud was also married to Bernays’ father’s sister). Bernays grew up in Vienna, hearing all about Freud’s theories on the deeply buried human impulses that drive behavior. While Ivy Lee was not part of the Creel Committee, he handled publicity for the American Red Cross during the war effort, and he and Bernays worked together often through their respective positions. Bernays became a trusted colleague of Lee's during the war, the only other PR guy that Lee thought his equal. It was after WWI thatBernays famously said, “If propaganda could be used so effectively in war, why could we not use it in peace?”

At the time, democracy was still a relatively new idea, and those in power were almost universally terrified of it. Propaganda—which Bernays later renamed “public relations” because “the Germans had given it a bad name”—was created as a reaction to growing public criticism of the titans of industry who had once been hailed as heroes. But it was also created to provide those in power with the tools to manipulate the masses. Bernays, Lee, and a client they both shared—Adolf Hitler—were all close readers of French philosopher Gustav Le Bon, who posited that the public, or as Le Bon put it “the crowd,” could only be both satisfied and safe when it was controlled. Like Le Bon, Bernays had a real disdain for the public, writing in his seminal book Propaganda:

Those who manipulate the unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government, which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested largely by men we have never heard of. In almost every act of our lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by a relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind.

To be clear, Bernays saw himself as part of that “ruling power,” and he relished the role of manipulator.

Ivy Lee died fairly young, in his 50s, and when he did Edward Bernays inherited many of his clients, including both The American Tobacco Company and The American Petroleum Institute, the fossil fuel industry trade group that Lee had helped Standard Oil create as World War I was ending. While Ivy Lee largely focused on shaping and controlling the way the media got information as a way to mold public opinion, Bernays tried to manipulate the masses more directly. His best known trick was obliterating the taboo against women smoking in about six months, a feat he pulled off for American Tobacco.

They tasked Bernays with increasing sales, and he actually went to a psychoanalyst to talk about what cigarettes signified.You guessed it, phalluses. This got Bernays thinking about the “penis envy” women supposedly feel and an emergent push for women’s rights, and boom he had it: he would make smoking a women’s empowerment issue. He convinced a few young women he knew to stage a smoking “protest” in New York, calling cigarettes “freedom torches,” then alerted the press to the protest. It made headlines across the country and within a few months women all over the country were smoking and American Tobacco’s sales were soaring.

So, to recap, PR emerged as a way for industry to deal with a three-pronged threat: the rise of investigative journalism and activism shining a light on the misdeeds of industry, the emergence of regulation (which previously left industry to its own devices), and the expansion of the vote to members of society that had little in common with captains of industry. It was wildly successful. The first wave of PR effectively put a stop to the muckrakers’ early calls for corporate accountability.

Then the Depression hit and once again America’s bosses were the bad guys. Publicists like John W. Hillhelped companies like American Steel paint labor unions, social security, and the New Deal as socialist. Hill paid commentators like George Sokolsky to write op-eds in newspapers and magazines, or join panel discussions on the radio, ginning up fear about these ideas. (At one point, Hill’s firm Hill & Knowlton was paying Sokolsky $40,000 a year to write pieces criticizing Social Security and the New Deal—that's a high six-figure salary in today's dollars). Hill would go on to mastermind the Tobacco Industry Research Committee (TIRC), a hub of science denial around smoking...that sounds an awful lot like the research bureaus Ivy Lee had set up some 40 years before. Not a huge shock given that Hill idolized Lee.

Hill’s client roster also included the American Petroleum Institute, Texaco, and Monsanto during those years, so it's no surprise that you see the same tactics deployed by TIRC then used by oil companies to combat rising concern over "the greenhouse effect" or by agribusiness to combat rising concern over GMOs. In fact Hill would have folks from the tobacco companies and chemical companies join the API, because he spotted ways for all three industries to work together—to lobby together for or against regulation, to trade strategies and ideas, even to create new products together. Without PR firms bringing them together, these industries and companies may have tended to stay in their own worlds, but the type of cross-pollination Hill enabled was hugely influential.

In fact it’s how the cigarette filter came about.

Cigarette filters are one of the reasons oil and gas companies were named defendants in the tobacco litigation of the 1990s. “When tobacco companies needed to assess the toxics in their cigarettes and in cigarette smoke, the people they turned to to do it were the oil companies,” says Carroll Muffett, President and CEO of the Center for International Environmental Law. Oil companies had been testing exhaust and refinery smoke for years because of the Clean Air Act, so they were the ones that had the sophisticated equipment and the knowledge to test for toxins in cigarette smoke.

“And when the oil companies reported back to the tobacco companies on the toxins they were in fact finding in that smoke, you know, what did they do with the information?" Muffett said. "Did they go public and say there's a massive risk here? No. They entered into joint enterprises, joint ventures with the tobacco companies to produce cigarette filters.”

Since the inception of the PR industry, its most expert practitioners have deployed a handful of techniques on behalf of multiple industries and really in service of all industry: to paint business as a good faith member of the community, to sway public opinion, to avoid what infamous PR guy Rick Berman calls "public judgement," and to create political will in their favor. But they weren't operating in a vacuum. In deploying these techniques on behalf of industry, they fundamentally shifted the information ecosystem in America.

Today, it's not just industries that want to avoid regulation or deal with a crisis who use PR techniques, it's everyone from your local county government to your favorite musician to the most earnest nonprofit. It's the filter through which all information flows to the public. Which doesn't have to be a bad thing, but it has certainly led to the information pollution we have in the U.S. today, where trust in journalists and experts is at an all-time low, the public is tremendously confused, people can (and do) just consume "news" that tracks with their opinions, and so on. To clean up that pollution, it helps to know how to spot these techniques. Our hope with this archive and its corresponding podcast is to help people do just that—not to make people even more suspicious of everything they see, or double down on getting their information only from one trusted YouTuber, but to pull the mask off a bit and help people find their way through the filters to the information they need to make important decisions about their lives.

idiot am

1952 Reader's Digest reprint Christian Herald artl on " cancer by the carton"  [vig ventiry bk?] --> JH Hill & K response; tob CEO mtg NYC 12/53: as long as doubt, not proven;  hired biologist  Clarence Cook Little quit U Mich after decry low morals while diddling coed; hereditarian evol --> eugenices 30's; all disease genetic; he was orig of doubt strat?

2002 Luntz memo; "sound sci" debate closing but not yet closed; "conservationists"; gut vs liberal or elitist 206

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_W._Hill

John Wiley Hill (November 26, 1890 – March 17, 1977) was an American public relations executive. He co-founded Hill & Knowlton with Donald Knowlton in 1933.^[1]

Life and career

Hill worked as a journalist for 18 years, eventually becoming an editor and financial columnist. Hill moved to public relations in 1927, opening a firm in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1933, he brought in Donald Knowlton and began their firm. It eventually became the world's largest public relations firm.

Hill was the mastermind behind a plan called Plan White coats^{[citation needed]}, designed to sow doubt in the minds of the public about the threats of tobacco smoking. The campaign paid scientists to publicly counter the claims of other scientists who said that smoking led to lung cancer. These scientists then later falsely testified to that effect in court when they were sued by smokers who were dying or suffering from lung-related illnesses due to smoking.^[2][3]

Hill died in Manhattan of a brain tumor.^[4]

References

1. ^ Miller, Karen S. (1999). The Voice of Business: Hill & Knowlton and Postwar Public Relations. University of North Carolina Press, ISBN 978-0-8078-2439-9
2. ^ "How They Made Us Doubt Everything". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2020-08-09.
3. ^ "Hill & Knowlton - TobaccoTactics". tobaccotactics.org. Tobacco Control Research Group in the Department for Health at the University of Bath. Retrieved 2020-08-09.
4. ^ "JOHN W. HILL, 86, DIES; LED HILL & KNOWLTON; Founder of the World's Largest Public Relations Firm Was a Corporate Confidant". New York Times. March 18, 1977. Retrieved November 30, 2012. (subscription required)

External links

• John W. Hill (r) and Don S. Knowlton, of the public relations firm of Hill & Knowlton, giving testimony before the Senate Civil Liberties Committee on steel company public relations campaign via United States Library of Congress
• John Wiley Hill (1890 - 1977) via Public Relations Society of America

Authority control

BNF: cb17029613q (data) ISNI: 0000 0001 1741 745X LCCN: n92038932 NARA: 10573357 NTA: 070678057 VIAF: 9037553 WorldCat Identities: lccn-n92038932

Categories: 

• 1890 births
• 1977 deaths
• Public relations pioneers
• People from Shelbyville, Indiana
• American business biography, 1890s birth stubs

Hill & Knowlton - TobaccoTactics

tobaccotactics.org › wiki › hill-knowlton

:{:(style="border-color:#70757a;;border-style:solid;border-width:5px 4px 0px;width:0px;height:0px;margin-left:3px;top:7.5px;margin-top:-3px;position:absolute;left:0px"):}:

1.

:{May 22, 2018 — Hill and :{Knowlton:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: is a :{public relations:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: (:{PR:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:) company, owned by :{PR:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: and ... :{John W:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, :{Hill:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, Hill and :{Knowlton's:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: president at the time, said that denying ... that :{Doubt:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: and Uncertainty became 'the industry's collective new mantra'.:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

Tobacco's Pr Campaign : The Cigarette Papers - Los Angeles ...

www.latimes.com › la-xpm-1994-09-18-tm-40179-story

:{:(style="border-color:#70757a;;border-style:solid;border-width:5px 4px 0px;width:0px;height:0px;margin-left:3px;top:7.5px;margin-top:-3px;position:absolute;left:0px"):}:

1.

:{Sep 18, 1994 — (:{Tobacco:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: should) sponsor a :{public relations:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: campaign which is positive in ... a paradox which casts :{doubt:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: upon the alleged role of :{smoking:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: in the ... of Wisconsin by :{John W:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:. :{Hill:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: of Hill & :{Knowlton:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, Inc., the :{public relations:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: giant ...:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

How Tobacco and PR Grew Up Together - SourceWatch

www.sourcewatch.org › index.php › How_Tobacco_an...

:{:(style="border-color:#70757a;;border-style:solid;border-width:5px 4px 0px;width:0px;height:0px;margin-left:3px;top:7.5px;margin-top:-3px;position:absolute;left:0px"):}:

1.

:{Dec 25, 2019 — ... by "creating :{doubt:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: about the health charge without actually denying it, and ... The symbiotic relationship between :{cigarettes:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: and :{PR:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: goes back even ... For help, they turned to :{John Hill:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, the founder of the :{PR:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: megafirm, :{Hill:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: & :{Knowlton:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:. ... Richard :{W:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:. Pollay, "Propaganda, Puffing and the Public Interest," :{PR:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: ...:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

:{:(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:

The Public Relations Industry, Tobacco and Climate Change

climateinvestigations.org › flacking_cancer_flacking_c...

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1.

:{Aug 25, 2014 — I don't remember that I ever asked the :{PR:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: firms representing :{tobacco:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: ... but was actually created to fuel public :{doubt:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: about whether ETS was really harmful. ... :{John W:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:. :{Hill:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, who founded Hill and :{Knowlton:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: in 1927, wrote that :{PR:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: ...:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

Inventing Conflicts of Interest: A History of Tobacco Industry ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov › pmc › articles › PMC3490543

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1.

:{In the conduct of this :{public relations:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: campaign, the :{tobacco:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: industry would ... called upon :{John W:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:. :{Hill:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, the president of the nation's leading :{public relations:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: firm, Hill ... cast :{doubt:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: on the :{smoking:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:–cancer connection even before Hill & :{Knowlton:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: ...:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

by AM Brandt · ‎2012 · ‎Cited by 117 · ‎Related articles

Full article: 'Carry on Smoking': Public Relations and ...

www.tandfonline.com › doi › full

Not only are cigarette smokers more likely to become addicted, they also ... They hired Hill & Knowlton, a leading public relations firm with headquarters in the ... They know that specialists are working in cancer research and no doubt in due ... State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, John W. Hill Papers (hereafter ...

ref

PR soc off bs

during a 50-year career that spanned public relations’ earliest days to its international development, John W. Hill was an inspiration to public relations practitioners for the vision and judgment he brought to client counseling and for his high standards of ethical conduct. His legacy lives on through the New York Chapter’s premier award, the John W. Hill Award, presented by Hill & Knowlton. His philosophy is as relevant today as it was when he began. For example, Hill described three essential requirements for public relations: integrity and truth; soundness of policies, decisions and acts, viewed in the light of the public interest; and the use of facts that are understandable, believable, and presented to the public with imagination. Following 18 years as a reporter, editor and financial columnist, Hill made a career move to public relations in 1927.

That year, he opened the doors of his own public relations office in Cleveland, Ohio, and developed an early clientele of banks, steel manufacturers and industrial companies in the Midwest – a base he actively built upon until his death five decades later. The firm became Hill & Knowlton (H&K) in 1933 when Hill brought in Donald Knowlton, the public relations director of a client’s bank that had closed in the Depression. A year later, Hill moved to New York City to counsel the American Iron and Steel Institute,establishing the company’s headquarters here, while Knowlton maintained the firm’s Midwest office in Ohio.

Despite the poor economic climate, the young firm prospered as organizations sought access to the firm’s track record of success in public relations and John Hill’s wisdom and guidance. H&K’s early move into international markets was the fulfillment of one of Hill’s dreams for the business. H&K was the first American PR firm to establish an office in Europe in order to take advantages of opportunities created by the European Economic Community. He set the direction in establishing H&K as a global firm, and his successors have made it a reality. Hill’s former colleagues and clients talked warmly about his legacy, often referring to him as a pioneer. He emphasized teamwork and strove to create networks of accomplished professionals. He was a deeply likeable man, with a marked aversion to flamboyance. Throughout his life he repeatedly expressed disdain for those he called “the great I-am’s.” Today, John Hill’s core values remain fundamental to the practice of our profession: integrity, quality of service, continual learning, and solid judgment.

drilled 320

john hill, bridge?

 Big Oil invented the cigarette filter, and more crazy stories about the tobacco-oil-plastic triangle

:{

}:

oil corps could test smoke for tobacco reserach

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/1/#inbox/FMfcgxwHMGHzLlQCzGmkXtZQDvQfsdWS?projector=1

no color

hmn

https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Nayirah_(testimony)

Nurse Nayirah was a young Kuwaiti woman who, in the run up to the 1990-91 Gulf war, gave fraudulent testimony to a non-governmental Congressional Human Rights Caucus on October 10, 1990. She was presented as a 15 year old volunteer nursing assistant who needed to hide her identity for security reasons.

In 1992, it was revealed that Nayirah's last name was al-Sabah and that she was the daughter of Saud bin Nasir Al-Sabah, the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States and member of the Kuwaiti royal family who had been sitting just a few feet from her as she gave her evidence. It was further revealed that she was not in Kuwait at the time of the invasion and her testimony was organized as part of the Citizens for a Free Kuwait public relations campaign which was run by the advertising and PR firm Hill & Knowlton for the Kuwaiti government.

• 1 Testimony
• 2 Propaganda resources
• 3 Fraud Unmasked
• 4 See Also
• 5 References

Testimony

In her emotional testimony, Nayirah stated that she had witnessed Iraqi soldiers take babies out of incubators, take the incubators, and leave the babies to die. Though reporters did not have access to Kuwait at the time, her testimony was regarded as credible and was widely publicized. It was cited numerous times by United States senators and the president in their rationale to back Kuwait in the Gulf War and it had a massive impact on both US and Western public opinion about the impending war.

Propaganda resources

US Congressman Jimmy Hayes of Louisiana later estimated that the government of Kuwait funded as many as 20 PR, law and lobby firms in its campaign to mobilize US opinion and force against Hussein.^[1] Participating firms included the Rendon Group, which received a retainer of $100,000 per month for media work, and Neill & Co., which received $50,000 per month for lobbying Congress. Sam Zakhem, a former US ambassador to the oil-rich gulf state of Bahrain, funneled $7.7 million in advertising and lobbying dollars through two front groups, the "Coalition for Americans at Risk" and the "Freedom Task Force." The Coalition, which began in the 1980s as a front for the contras in Nicaragua, prepared and placed TV and newspaper ads, and kept a stable of fifty speakers available for pro-war rallies and publicity events.^[2]

Hill & Knowlton, then the world's largest PR firm, served as mastermind for the Kuwaiti campaign. Its activities alone would have constituted the largest foreign-funded campaign ever aimed at manipulating American public opinion. By law, the Foreign Agents Registration Act should have exposed this propaganda campaign to the American people, but the Justice Department chose not to enforce it. Nine days after Saddam's army marched into Kuwait, the Emir's government agreed to fund a contract under which Hill & Knowlton would represent "Citizens for a Free Kuwait," a classic PR front group designed to hide the real role of the Kuwaiti government and its collusion with the Bush administration. Over the next six months, the Kuwaiti government channeled $11.9 million dollars to Citizens for a Free Kuwait, whose only other funding totaled $17,861 from 78 individuals. Virtually all of CFK's budget - $10.8 million - went to Hill & Knowlton in the form of fees.^[3]

The man running Hill & Knowlton's Washington office was Craig Fuller, one of Bush's closest friends and inside political advisors. The news media never bothered to examine Fuller's role until after the war had ended, but if America's editors had read the PR trade press, they might have noticed this announcement, published in O'Dwyer's PR Services before the fighting began: "Craig L. Fuller, chief of staff to Bush when he was vice-president, has been on the Kuwaiti account at Hill & Knowlton since the first day. He and [Bob] Dilenschneider at one point made a trip to Saudi Arabia, observing the production of some 20 videotapes, among other chores. The Wirthlin Group, research arm of H&K, was the pollster for the Reagan Administration.... Wirthlin has reported receiving $1.1 million in fees for research assignments for the Kuwaitis. Robert K. Gray, Chairman of H&K/USA based in Washington, DC had leading roles in both Reagan campaigns. He has been involved in foreign nation accounts for many years... Lauri J. Fitz-Pegado, account supervisor on the Kuwait account, is a former Foreign Service Officer at the US Information Agency who joined Gray when he set up his firm in 1982."^[4]

Throughout the campaign, the Wirthlin Group conducted daily opinion polls to help Hill & Knowlton take the emotional pulse of key constituencies so it could identify the themes and slogans that would be most effective in promoting support for US military action. After the war ended, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation produced an Emmy award-winning TV documentary on the PR campaign titled "To Sell a War." The show featured an interview with Wirthlin executive Dee Alsop in which Alsop bragged of his work and demonstrated how audience surveys were even used to physically adapt the clothing and hairstyle of the Kuwait ambassador so he would seem more likeable to TV audiences. Wirthlin's job, Alsop explained, was "to identify the messages that really resonate emotionally with the American people." The theme that struck the deepest emotional chord, they discovered, was "the fact that Saddam Hussein was a madman who had committed atrocities even against his own people, and had tremendous power to do further damage, and he needed to be stopped."^[5]

In addition to Republican notables like Gray and Fuller, Hill & Knowlton maintained a well-connected stable of in-house Democrats who helped develop the bipartisan support needed to support the war. Lauri Fitz-Pegado, who headed the Kuwait campaign, had previously worked with super-lobbyist Ron Brown representing Haiti's Duvalier dictatorship. Hill & Knowlton senior vice-president Thomas Ross had been Pentagon spokesman during the Carter Administration. To manage the news media, H&K relied on vice-chairman Frank Mankiewicz, whose background included service as press secretary and advisor to Robert F. Kennedy and George McGovern, followed by a stint as president of National Public Radio. Under his direction, Hill & Knowlton arranged hundreds of meetings, briefings, calls and mailings directed toward the editors of daily newspapers and other media outlets......

MacArthur also noticed another telling detail about the October 1990 hearings: "The Human Rights Caucus is not a committee of congress, and therefore it is unencumbered by the legal accouterments that would make a witness hesitate before he or she lied.... Lying under oath in front of a congressional committee is a crime; lying from under the cover of anonymity to a caucus is merely public relations."^[6]

In fact, the most emotionally moving testimony on October 10 came from a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, known only by her first name of Nayirah. According to the Caucus, Nayirah's full name was being kept confidential to prevent Iraqi reprisals against her family in occupied Kuwait. Sobbing, she described what she had seen with her own eyes in a hospital in Kuwait City. Her written testimony was passed out in a media kit prepared by Citizens for a Free Kuwait. "I volunteered at the al-Addan hospital," Nayirah said. "While I was there, I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where ... babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die."^[7]

Three months passed between Nayirah's testimony and the start of the war. During those months, the story of babies torn from their incubators was repeated over and over again. President Bush repeated the story at least ten times in the following weeks.^[8] It was recited as fact in Congressional testimony, on TV and radio talk shows, and at the UN Security Council. "Of all the accusations made against the dictator," MacArthur observed, "none had more impact on American public opinion than the one about Iraqi soldiers removing 312 babies from their incubators and leaving them to die on the cold hospital floors of Kuwait City."^[9]

"If I wanted to lie, or if we wanted to lie, if we wanted to exaggerate, I wouldn't use my daughter to do so. I could easily buy other people to do it." - Saud Nasir al-Sabah, Kuwait's Ambassador to the United States and Canada (unverified quote in "Toxic Sludge Is Good For You" at PRwatch.)

Fraud Unmasked

Following the war, human rights investigators attempted to confirm Nayirah's story and could find no witnesses or other evidence to support it. Amnesty International first defended the story ("believes there is compelling evidence of large-scale killing of incubator babies" 21st March 1991) and then (13 June 1991) reluctantly "examined the conflicting evidence and concluded that the story did not stand up", condemning as offensive the implication from Alexander Cockburn that financial interests had influenced their impartial advocacy of human rights.^[10]

Nayirah herself has made no comment. "This is the first allegation I've had that she was the ambassador's daughter," said Human Rights Caucus co-chair John Porter. "Yes, I think people ... were entitled to know the source of her testimony." When journalists for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation asked Nasir al-Sabah for permission to question Nayirah about her story, the ambassador angrily refused.^[11]

Hill & Knowlton were are not known to have been subjected to any disciplinary action, since the testimony was not to an official session of Congress or Congressional committee.

See Also

• Dr Rola - An anonymous woman who in 2013 testified about the importance of an attack on the Syrian government

• Radio show about war propaganda, beginning with Nurse Nayirah
• "Toxic Sludge Is Good For You" How PR Sold the War in the Persian Gulf, (Chapter 10 - Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry) by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton.

References

1. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;user-select:none"):}:↑ "H&K leads PR charge in behalf of Kuwaiti cause," O'Dwyer's PR Services Report, Vol. 5, No. 1, Jan. 1991, p.8. Cited in "Toxic Sludge Is Good For You" at PRwatch.
2. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;user-select:none"):}:↑ "Citizens for Free Kuwait Files with FARA After a Nine-month Lag," O'Dwyer's FARA Report, Vol. 1, No. 9, Oct. 1991, p. 2. See also Arthur E. Rowse, "Flacking for the Emir," The Progressive, May, 1991, p. 22. Cited in "Toxic Sludge Is Good For You" at PRwatch.
3. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;user-select:none"):}:↑ O'Dwyer's FARA Report, Vol. 1, No. 9, Oct. 1991, pp. 2. Cited in "Toxic Sludge Is Good For You" at PRwatch.
4. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;user-select:none"):}:↑ O'Dwyer's PR Services Report, Vol. 5, No. 1, Jan. 1991, pp. 8, 10. Cited in "Toxic Sludge Is Good For You" at PRwatch.
5. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;user-select:none"):}:↑ Transcript, "To Sell A War", pp. 3-4. Cited in "Toxic Sludge Is Good For You" at PRwatch.
6. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;user-select:none"):}:↑ MacArthur, p.58. Cited in "Toxic Sludge Is Good For You" at PRwatch.
7. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;user-select:none"):}:↑ MacArthur, p.58. Cited in "Toxic Sludge Is Good For You" at PRwatch.
8. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;user-select:none"):}:↑ ISBN 9780791434611 Appeal to pity: Argumentum ad misericordiam, Chapter:The Nurse Nayirah Case, P771. by Douglas N Walton, SUNY Press June 1997, p.771
9. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;user-select:none"):}:↑ MacArthur, p.54. Cited in "Toxic Sludge Is Good For You" at PRwatch.
10. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;user-select:none"):}:↑ Amnesty International reluctantly retracts allegation "examined the conflicting evidence and concluded that the story did not stand up" London Review of Books, Exchange of letter with Alexander Cockburn. Letters Vol. 13 No. 6. 21 March 1991.
11. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;user-select:none"):}:↑ "To Sell A War," pp. 4-5. Cited in "Toxic Sludge Is Good For You" at PRwatch.

Category: 

• Events

ch 10 toxic sludge

https://www.prwatch.org/books/tsigfy10.html

===

see H&K tag

capthill&knowlton 7/16

==

EDUC

https://www.ecowatch.com/oil-industry-influence-school-2442333774.html

Inspiration for these squadrons sprang from a 1946 study surveying 10,000 Americans, according to the 1990 API history. The document's author wrote that, "the more people knew about the petroleum industry, the more favorable were their feelings towards it." To combat the industry's negative reputation, the study suggested "a well-directed program of public education was the right medicine to bring about a cure."

**Hill & Knowlton**—the public-relations firm that would later help the tobacco industry fend off cancer claims—was brought on to strategize. The firm surmised that the "petroleum industry's legislative difficulties could be traced to misunderstandings by government and the public" and laid out a plan to cultivate '"thought leaders' or 'opinion molders'—educators, editors, columnists, the clergy, business and financial leaders and, of course, key people in government," according to the 1990 document.

In 1960, educators helped revamp API materials that eventually made their way into 25,000 secondary schools. Advertisers were hired to ghost-write scripts hyping oil for popular children's programs like Art Linkletter's "House Party." The widely televised *Odyssey: A Quest for Energy* was among dozens of educational videos made available through API's vast regional network.

The 1982 film examined renewable energy, but made the best case for fossil fuels—urging that offshore drilling be expanded "into deeper waters" and that federal lands be opened for coal mining in promotional brochures sent to some 14,000 schools. Within months, more than 1,300 schools wanted to screen Odyssey. Indiana officials ordered enough kits to show the film to every high-schooler in the state. API's public relations team meticulously tracked "Odyssey's" reach, estimating that at least five million Americans saw the film.

API did not respond to requests for comment.

API's message was amplified with the help of an unlikely ally—the National Science Teachers Association, which boasts some 55,000 members of mostly K-12 educators. The association worked closely with API and utility executives during the 1970s to develop K-12 energy curricula. When federal funding dried up in the 1980s, the association turned to corporate sponsors to cover costs.

As pressure to act on global warming mounted during the 1990s, API ramped up its strategy to quiet critics, including leveraging its relationship with the teachers association. Months after the language of a global climate treaty known as the Kyoto Protocol was finalized in 1997, an internal memo obtained by The New York Times laid out API's plans to infuse doubt about climate change into K-12 materials. Less than a decade later, the association garnered criticism for distributing API's "Fuel-less" film to teachers while API funded the association's educational website for kids.

Some of API's largest corporate members, including Chevron and Shell, remain top sponsors of the teachers association. Evans, who has led the association since 2013, said he was unable to comment on the organization's past, but defended the group's independence today: "It's NSTA that decides what the content should be."

'Win-win'

With only 14 seniors, the class of 2016 came nowhere near filling a gymnasium in Salineville, Ohio—a town of 1,300 about 50 miles west of Pittsburgh. "In this region, there are phenomenal opportunities," said Rhonda Reda, delivering the keynote speech at the Utica Shale Academy graduation. "Go out there and make a difference."

Named after the rock formation that stretches from eastern Ohio to Canada, the tuition-free charter school founded in 2014 promises "real opportunity" outside of "traditional settings." Instead of hitting textbooks, students work on drilling certifications and intern for oil companies. Attendance is flexible: students must spend more than half their time on campus—an increase from a previous requirement of at least 15 hours weekly.

The academy rents space from two high schools. A third location for K-12 students was shuttered last June after just a year in operation. The academy's website prominently displays the logos of corporate partners like Chesapeake Energy, whose executives meet with school administrators to help carve out the curriculum for the year.

One of the academy's most prominent sponsors, the Ohio Oil and Gas Energy Education Program—led by Reda—has stirred up criticism for its pro-drilling message. Like the Oklahoma energy resources board, the Ohio group is industry-funded, state-sanctioned and conducts free teacher workshops. In a meeting with state legislators in 2016, Reda said that 2,700 teachers statewide had attended the workshops since 1997.

Lisa Hoyos of Climate Parents, an affiliate of the Sierra Club that successfully petitioned Radio Disney to sever ties with Reda's group in 2014, criticized educational content that pushes petroleum's benefits but sidesteps its downsides. "They're basically indoctrinating children," she said of the Ohio program. "All the materials [the program is] putting out are about oil and gas, which are the chief culprits, along with coal, in causing climate change."

Before founding the Ohio program in 1997, Reda handled public affairs for the state's Oil and Gas Association. She sits on the communications committee for the Independent Petroleum Association of America, which created Energy in Depth—a website run by a public-relations firm that aggressively disputes industry criticism and news media reports, including investigative work done by the Center for Public Integrity. Reda's program helped launch Energy in Depth's Ohio section in 2011.

Reda declined to elaborate on her relationship with lobby groups, but wrote in an email that her organization "does not utilize any taxpayer dollars" and "does not lobby the legislature or take positions on regulatory or public policy." She added that her program "may elect on occasion to collaborate with other oil and gas groups, educational institutions and other experts on specific projects."

Reda's group has helped develop lessons for the National Energy Education Development Project, or NEED, a nonprofit that publishes thousands of pages of K-12 energy lessons online. A 2015 NEED lesson teaches students how to 'frack' a frozen layer cake using chocolate syrup and a syringe-like turkey injector—not unlike Ohio's demonstration using Twinkies.

Oil and gas companies are among NEED's most prominent backers. ConocoPhillips has sponsored NEED workshops since 2008, exposing educators nationwide to packets like "Oil, Gas and their Energy" and "Exploring Oil and Gas." A 2014 NEED guide tells of Sue Ann, who is a sticky pool of oil waiting to be freed, and Stacey, who wants to follow in her father's footsteps and become a blowout specialist on an offshore rig.

Executive Director Mary Spruill said NEED teams up with industry groups to train future workers, but the groups don't play a substantial role in developing content. "We don't send drafts to our partners," she said.

Like Reda, Spruill does not have an education or science background. Lessons from both their groups have been adapted by the "Arkansas Energy Rocks!" website dedicated to teaching kids about the "thriving oil and natural gas industry." Lessons include, "Just a little oil spill," which uses drops of vegetable oil in a pie plate filled with water to simulate an offshore oil spill, and "Persuasion POWER!" which highlights the legislative process with a congressional press release titled, "Consumers desperate for new natural gas pipelines." It's unclear how many schools are using the materials.

The website is a project of the Arkansas Energy Education Foundation, a nonprofit arm of the Arkansas Independent Producers & Royalty Owners. The program's logo and website are registered to the American Petroleum Institute. Listed as a contact for an all-expenses-paid teachers' workshop in 2015 promoting "Arkansas Energy Rocks!" was the personal email address of Paige Miller, an API public-affairs specialist based in Little Rock.

Spruill works closely with the Independent Petroleum Association of America, sitting on an advisory board for the lobby group's five "Petroleum Academies." IPAA, whose chief executive and lobbyist, Barry Russell, is co-chair of the advisory board, has billed the academies as a "win-win" for high schoolers and oil companies in Houston and Fort Worth.

Students are encouraged to put themselves in industry leaders' shoes by competing for lucrative leasing deals as fictional oil companies and delivering oral presentations on topics like "clearing misconceptions of the oil and gas industry."

Despite the hard sell, some students are unsure of their prospects in the petroleum industry. The ongoing oil-price slump has made jobs in the industry scarce and advancements in automation are expected to accelerate the trend.

Even in a state built on fossil fuels, other career options have grown more appealing. Having interviewed administrators at the academies, the Houston Chronicle reported last year that "students were gravitating more toward climate-friendly subjects like algae-based biofuel and super-efficient tiny houses."

==

==

Inspiration for these squadrons sprang from a 1946 study surveying 10,000 Americans, according to the 1990 API history. The document's author wrote that, "the more people knew about the petroleum industry, the more favorable were their feelings towards it." To combat the industry's negative reputation, the study suggested "a well-directed program of public education was the right medicine to bring about a cure."

**Hill & Knowlton**—the public-relations firm that would later help the tobacco industry fend off cancer claims—was brought on to strategize. The firm surmised that the "petroleum industry's legislative difficulties could be traced to misunderstandings by government and the public" and laid out a plan to cultivate '"thought leaders' or 'opinion molders'—educators, editors, columnists, the clergy, business and financial leaders and, of course, key people in government," according to the 1990 document.

In 1960, educators helped revamp API materials that eventually made their way into 25,000 secondary schools. Advertisers were hired to ghost-write scripts hyping oil for popular children's programs like Art Linkletter's "House Party." The widely televised *Odyssey: A Quest for Energy* was among dozens of educational videos made available through API's vast regional network.

The 1982 film examined renewable energy, but made the best case for fossil fuels—urging that offshore drilling be expanded "into deeper waters" and that federal lands be opened for coal mining in promotional brochures sent to some 14,000 schools. Within months, more than 1,300 schools wanted to screen Odyssey. Indiana officials ordered enough kits to show the film to every high-schooler in the state. API's public relations team meticulously tracked "Odyssey's" reach, estimating that at least five million Americans saw the film.

API did not respond to requests for comment.

API's message was amplified with the help of an unlikely ally—the National Science Teachers Association, which boasts some 55,000 members of mostly K-12 educators. The association worked closely with API and utility executives during the 1970s to develop K-12 energy curricula. When federal funding dried up in the 1980s, the association turned to corporate sponsors to cover costs.

As pressure to act on global warming mounted during the 1990s, API ramped up its strategy to quiet critics, including leveraging its relationship with the teachers association. Months after the language of a global climate treaty known as the Kyoto Protocol was finalized in 1997, an internal memo obtained by The New York Times laid out API's plans to infuse doubt about climate change into K-12 materials. Less than a decade later, the association garnered criticism for distributing API's "Fuel-less" film to teachers while API funded the association's educational website for kids.

Some of API's largest corporate members, including Chevron and Shell, remain top sponsors of the teachers association. Evans, who has led the association since 2013, said he was unable to comment on the organization's past, but defended the group's independence today: "It's NSTA that decides what the content should be."

'Win-win'

With only 14 seniors, the class of 2016 came nowhere near filling a gymnasium in Salineville, Ohio—a town of 1,300 about 50 miles west of Pittsburgh. "In this region, there are phenomenal opportunities," said Rhonda Reda, delivering the keynote speech at the Utica Shale Academy graduation. "Go out there and make a difference."

Named after the rock formation that stretches from eastern Ohio to Canada, the tuition-free charter school founded in 2014 promises "real opportunity" outside of "traditional settings." Instead of hitting textbooks, students work on drilling certifications and intern for oil companies. Attendance is flexible: students must spend more than half their time on campus—an increase from a previous requirement of at least 15 hours weekly.

The academy rents space from two high schools. A third location for K-12 students was shuttered last June after just a year in operation. The academy's website prominently displays the logos of corporate partners like Chesapeake Energy, whose executives meet with school administrators to help carve out the curriculum for the year.

One of the academy's most prominent sponsors, the Ohio Oil and Gas Energy Education Program—led by Reda—has stirred up criticism for its pro-drilling message. Like the Oklahoma energy resources board, the Ohio group is industry-funded, state-sanctioned and conducts free teacher workshops. In a meeting with state legislators in 2016, Reda said that 2,700 teachers statewide had attended the workshops since 1997.

Lisa Hoyos of Climate Parents, an affiliate of the Sierra Club that successfully petitioned Radio Disney to sever ties with Reda's group in 2014, criticized educational content that pushes petroleum's benefits but sidesteps its downsides. "They're basically indoctrinating children," she said of the Ohio program. "All the materials [the program is] putting out are about oil and gas, which are the chief culprits, along with coal, in causing climate change."

Before founding the Ohio program in 1997, Reda handled public affairs for the state's Oil and Gas Association. She sits on the communications committee for the Independent Petroleum Association of America, which created Energy in Depth—a website run by a public-relations firm that aggressively disputes industry criticism and news media reports, including investigative work done by the Center for Public Integrity. Reda's program helped launch Energy in Depth's Ohio section in 2011.

Reda declined to elaborate on her relationship with lobby groups, but wrote in an email that her organization "does not utilize any taxpayer dollars" and "does not lobby the legislature or take positions on regulatory or public policy." She added that her program "may elect on occasion to collaborate with other oil and gas groups, educational institutions and other experts on specific projects."

Reda's group has helped develop lessons for the National Energy Education Development Project, or NEED, a nonprofit that publishes thousands of pages of K-12 energy lessons online. A 2015 NEED lesson teaches students how to 'frack' a frozen layer cake using chocolate syrup and a syringe-like turkey injector—not unlike Ohio's demonstration using Twinkies.

Oil and gas companies are among NEED's most prominent backers. ConocoPhillips has sponsored NEED workshops since 2008, exposing educators nationwide to packets like "Oil, Gas and their Energy" and "Exploring Oil and Gas." A 2014 NEED guide tells of Sue Ann, who is a sticky pool of oil waiting to be freed, and Stacey, who wants to follow in her father's footsteps and become a blowout specialist on an offshore rig.

Executive Director Mary Spruill said NEED teams up with industry groups to train future workers, but the groups don't play a substantial role in developing content. "We don't send drafts to our partners," she said.

Like Reda, Spruill does not have an education or science background. Lessons from both their groups have been adapted by the "Arkansas Energy Rocks!" website dedicated to teaching kids about the "thriving oil and natural gas industry." Lessons include, "Just a little oil spill," which uses drops of vegetable oil in a pie plate filled with water to simulate an offshore oil spill, and "Persuasion POWER!" which highlights the legislative process with a congressional press release titled, "Consumers desperate for new natural gas pipelines." It's unclear how many schools are using the materials.

The website is a project of the Arkansas Energy Education Foundation, a nonprofit arm of the Arkansas Independent Producers & Royalty Owners. The program's logo and website are registered to the American Petroleum Institute. Listed as a contact for an all-expenses-paid teachers' workshop in 2015 promoting "Arkansas Energy Rocks!" was the personal email address of Paige Miller, an API public-affairs specialist based in Little Rock.

Spruill works closely with the Independent Petroleum Association of America, sitting on an advisory board for the lobby group's five "Petroleum Academies." IPAA, whose chief executive and lobbyist, Barry Russell, is co-chair of the advisory board, has billed the academies as a "win-win" for high schoolers and oil companies in Houston and Fort Worth.

Students are encouraged to put themselves in industry leaders' shoes by competing for lucrative leasing deals as fictional oil companies and delivering oral presentations on topics like "clearing misconceptions of the oil and gas industry."

Despite the hard sell, some students are unsure of their prospects in the petroleum industry. The ongoing oil-price slump has made jobs in the industry scarce and advancements in automation are expected to accelerate the trend.

Even in a state built on fossil fuels, other career options have grown more appealing. Having interviewed administrators at the academies, the Houston Chronicle reported last year that "students were gravitating more toward climate-friendly subjects like algae-based biofuel and super-efficient tiny houses."

==

==

http://www.alternet.org/story/50359/how_a_pr_firm_helped_establish_america's_cigarette_century

==

Hill & Knowlton/Defusing 'sensitive' issues

This article was first published asRisky Business: The World According to Hill & Knowlton"in PR Watch, Volume 4, No. 1, First Quarter 1997. The original article was authored by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton and is used here with permission. As with all SourceWatch articles, feel free to edit and revise.

Defusing 'sensitive' issues

"For the last 30 years you and your corporations have been depicted as criminals," complained Hill & Knowlton Chairman and General Manager Thomas Buckmaster. His talk, titled "Defusing Sensitive Issues Through 'Risk Communication,' " was one of the most revealing and well-attended presentations at Key West.

Buckmaster cited a study of prime-time TV programming, which he claimed showed that "businessmen are three times more likely to be depicted as criminals than other people . . . three times as likely to be depicted as too powerful. Sixty percent of the time businessmen are perceived as corrupt. ... We have to work under the cover of darkness because of the bad image of business."

The problem, he said, is that the public has developed an irrational desire "for a risk-free society which is debilitating." Corporations, of course, have risen above this particular disability, but when they attempt to communicate sensibly with the rest of us, they mistakenly tend to dismiss our fears as "dumb or irrational." According to Buckmaster, corporate efforts at risk communication often fail because they underestimate this emotional aspect of "risk perception."

"Do you have difficulty explaining your organization's position on controversial issues to your grassroots members?" he asked. "Do you ever wonder why an illogical, emotionally-driven argument ... can overwhelm a scientifically-sound argument from your organization? If so, this session will show you how to win public support for your issues and how to overcome the fear and anxiety of your grassroots members, stakeholders, and the public at large."

The root of the problem, Buckmaster said, is that "we talk to people wrong." Corporate risk communications is not about winning an argument through science or logic, but about "engaging people, communicating with them."

Risk analysts traditionally define the risk associated with a public health hazard as a function of "magnitude times probability," but Buckmaster argued that public relations professionals should use a different formula. "The hazard plus the outrage equals the risk," he said. The "irrational" factor of outrage "drives crisis situations . . . closes down [the public's] eyes and ears ... and makes it impossible to teach anyone anything--when they are afraid. ... Once people are outraged, they don't listen to hazard statistics, ... don't use numerical risk comparisons."

In fact, Buckmaster said, "managing the outrage is more important than managing the hazard," He cited the example of the Exxon-Valdez oil spill in Alaska where he claimed that public outrage outweighed the actual hazard, which "was unpleasant but manageable."

Buckmaster handed out a card offering H&K's "Axioms of Disaster Survival," which included the following wisdom:

"Keeping the issues and focus tight and small will help us. Colorful and memorable language creates headlines which are impossible to live down. Twenty-five percent of our resources and 50% of our energy go towards fixing yesterday's mistake. Positive, aggressive assertive communication does the following: limits follow-up questions; focuses on the most important aspects of the problem; and moves the public process forward to resolution. There is no question we can be asked about our situation that should surprise us. The same holds for anger. No question asked of us should make us angry. Preparation, rehearsal time, and a certain amount of luck will keep us going and help us win."

In order to defuse an outraged public, Buckmaster advised the audience to "(1) Acknowledge the concerns of the other side; (2) Encourage joint fact-finding commissions; (3) Offer alternatives to minimize impacts; (4) Accept responsibilities, admit mistakes, and share power; (5) Focus on building long-term relationships; and (6) Act in what will be perceived as a trustworthy fashion."

Soothe Me, Scare Me

"Risk communication is about two things," Buckmaster said, "scaring people into action and trying to reassure them into inaction." Although corporate crisis management focuses on "reassuring into inaction," he noted noted that PR firms are sometimes hired to inflame rather than downplay fears.

Sometimes, he said, flacks "have to help people get outraged" about pressing public issues. "Sometimes you have to scare people into action."

These comments precipitated a momentary crisis in Buckmaster's own presentation, when a woman in the audience raised her hand and asked about Hill & Knowlton's role in "scaring people into action" during the months leading up to the Persian Gulf war.

H&K's wartime propaganda on behalf of the Kuwaiti government-in-exile remains notorious, even within the PR trade. Buckmaster's firm engineered the infamous fraudulent testimony in which Iraqi soldiers were falsely accused of ripping Kuwaiti babies out of hospital incubators and leaving them on the floor to die.

As Buckmaster's audience well knew, this "atrocity" never happened, but H&K nonetheless used the manufactured "baby incubator" incident to whip up war hysteria among the American public and politicians.

The woman's question prompted a buzz of anticipation, but Buckmaster managed to dodge the question like a true PR pro. "The Pentagon is the best risk-management group in the business," he mumbled, and quickly changed the subject.

Other SourceWatch resources

• Hill and Knowlton
• Peter Sandman
• John R. MacArthur

-

===

But it goes hand in hand with a strategy that’s very overt in the media, which is to buy—you can’t turn on the TV, except for perhaps this show, where you’re not going to see ads from the natural gas industry. And we’re seeing also editorials and these kinds of things on blog posts seeded to do things to try to discredit the very clear science, and in most cases the science that the industry themselves did. This is following the tobacco industry’s playbook. The tobacco industry for decades sponsored bogus science, went out to try to create doubt in the media as to whether or not the cigarettes were harmful to people. And that strategy was developed by a PR firm called Hill & Knowlton. The America’s Natural Gas Alliance hired the same PR firm in 2009, and we’re seeing that same kind of strategy of creating doubt and of creating a false debate in the media over whether or not this drilling contaminates water.DN josh fox

==

am nat gas trade gp hired to fight for fracking (bought word Gasland on Google) http://vimeo.com/44367635

john hill author of doubt strategy for tobacco co

===

Hill & Knowlton (H&K) is one of the oldest public relations firms in the United States. It was the public relations firm for the tobacco industry from 1953 through 1968.

Global climate change

Hill & Knowlton is representing the Copenhagen Climate Council, the official convenor of the World Business Summit on Climate Change prior to the UN Climate Conference COP15 in November, 2009.[1] ??

Big tobacco

In December, 1953, H&K designed the tobacco industry's strategy for counteracting scientific evidence which linked cigarette smoking to lung cancer. The campaign began with the publication of a full-page newspaper ad called The Frank Statement [2] which was printed in hundreds of newspapers throughout the USA in January, 1954. H&K also helped organize the Council for Tobacco Research [3]. As a result, H&K was named a co-defendant of Philip Morris in numerous tobacco lawsuits.

A H & K employee was also responsible for producing and distributing a 1954 booklet titled Smoke Without Fear, which sought to blunt public fears about the dangers of smoking. A copy of the booklet is available here.

A 23-page paper titled Health and Morality -- Tobacco's Counter Campaign, is a historical account written in 1992 describing the key part that Hill and Knowlton played on behalf of the tobacco industry in obfuscating the link between tobacco use and disease for decades to come.

The 23-page document details the history of John W. Hill, founder of Hill and Knowlton, who helped a panicked tobacco industry stave off a wave of public fear over the allegations that smoking caused lung cancer in the 1950's.With John Hill's deft coaching, the industry published its 1954 "Frank Statement to the Public" and formed the Tobacco Industry Research Committee (forerunner of the Tobacco Institute). A quote from the document is as follows:

Business Week, in an article on the state of public relations in 1960, commented: 'Probably one of PR's best finger-in-the-dike jobs was during the tobacco-lung cancer scare when the tobacco industry brought in Hill and Knowlton. H&K helped set up the Tobacco Industry Research Committee, run by prominent scientists and based on the premise that 'there is no conclusive proof that cigarettes cause cancer, but that the industry has an obligation to get the full facts.'

The document is authored by John W. Hill II, and was sent to Murray H. Bring, top Philip Morris lawyer, who made handwritten notes on it here and there, according to the header. The language used in this piece is quite damning of the industry. Here is one example:

The stakes in this ongoing public relations battle are enormous. On one side of the ledger is the health of more than 200 million teen-agers and adults. One (sic) the other side are (handwritten: the) profits, even survival, of the tobacco industry in dependence on the 55.8 million addicted smokers as of 1988." In an apparent negative reaction to the realization of what he had done, in writing his memoirs, Hill omitted any mention of the part he played in forming the Tobacco Industry Research Committee. Indeed, when he was asked about this topic by a student who was writing a master's thesis on Hill's work, Hill said, "I decline to comment on this matter on the basis that this is an active, highly sensitive account." Furthermore, and to his credit, Hill later broke completely with the industry's tactic of forming front groups to protect profits:

Over time John Hill had stoutly asserted that paper groups established by a client to promote a cause under the guise of being independent should be eliminated from the public relations profession. 'The right of free speech also carries the obligation that the source of it will be open for all to see,' he wrote. 'It is not the work of public relations -- let it always be emphasized -- to outsmart the American public by helping management build profits.' But in fact the TIRC was essentially a front for the public relations work of the industry, created to blunt the growing threat to the cigarette makers' enormous profits.^[1]

Desert Storm

In 1990, H&K went to work for the government of Kuwait, organizing PR in support of the war with Iraq. During the Nayirah affair in the first Gulf war, Victoria Clarke was General Manager of Hill & Knowlton's Washington, DC office. (Clarke would later become Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs for theGeorge W. Bush administration.)

Non-profit work

Hill & Knowlton has also worked for large non-profit groups. In January 2004, the American Heart Association(AHA) announced they had hired the company to launch an awareness and educational campaign - GoRed for Women - to educate women about their risk of heart disease. "We looked to hire a firm with solid consumer and healthcare marketing and public relations experience coupled with creative flair ... We were especially attracted to the company's proven track record in understanding and implementing diversity marketing," vice president of communications, Robyn Landry, told The Holmes Report. [4] The American Heart Association entered into a partnership with Rite Aid Drugstores to promote its GoRed for Women campaign, which turned out to be a highly embarassing move. Rite Aid has had a long relationship with cigarette companies and sells cigarettes (the country's single largest cause of heart disease). For the partnership, Rite Aid claimed that it was "taking a stand against heart disease in women" and placed large red posters touting AHA's "healthy heart" campaign in windows in its stores immediately next to cigarette displays, allowing Rite Aid to promote both cigarettes and health simultaneously. (Photos of Rite Aid's embarassing displays can be seen at http://www.rawbw.com/_{jpk/stand/Pictures.html)}. The move highlighted Rite Aid's corporate hypocrisy, and provoked the public to send letters and emails to AHA asking them to end their partnership with Rite Aid.

Spinning elections

In October 2004, O'Dwyer's PR Daily reported that H&K "is working to allay any voters' concerns in Florida's fourth largest county amid reports that votes were not counted by new electronic balloting machines in an August primary."[5]

After working with **electronic voting machine** manufacturer Hart Intercivic on their unsuccessful bid to obtain the Hillsborough County, FL voting machine contract, the county signed H&K to a $160,000 deal. H&K's job was "to showcase new electronic voting machines and encourage voters to turn out and cast ballots."[6]

H&K also wound up working with the county's Republican elections chief, Buddy Johnson, after it was revealed that 245 votes had been "lost" in a close primary election in August 2004 which was decided by just 130 votes. The votes weren't recorded because "an elections worker mistakenly left a touch screen voting machine in the 'test' mode." Moreover, the "statutory 10-day period for challenging an election" passed with no notice to the public, as Johnson's staff "was still trying to hunt down the missing 245 votes." (The St. Petersburg Times reported, "As it turned out, the 245 votes did not affect the outcome of any Hillsborough race.") [7]

Johnson said he himself did not learn of the vote loss until August 16, when he immediately "notified Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood of the lost votes in a faxed letter." But, according to the St. Petersburg Times: [8]

Johnson did not make the first public disclosure of the lost votes until about 4 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 17, as news organizations were preoccupied with Hurricane Ivan slamming Florida's Panhandle and Tropical Storm Jeanne meandering through the Caribbean. Johnson said he met with two executives from Hill & Knowlton ... to coordinate the news release about the 245 votes.

U.S. government PR contracts

According to the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform Minority Office, Hill & Knowlton received the following amounts per year, for federal PR contracts: [9]

• $286,000 in 1997
• $1,250,000 in 1998
• $1,980,000 in 1999
• $15,702,000 in 2000

According to the Public Relations Society of America's database of Silver Anvil Award winners, Hill & Knowlton's federal contracts have included work for the General Services Administration, on the "Dedication of the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center," in Washington DC. The goal of the campaign was "to generate a positive acceptance of the building and neutralize critics," given the cost over-run andRonald Reagan's controversial political legacy.

Other work

International Monetary Fund

In September 2008, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) retained Hill & Knowlton for one year, to boost the international financial institution's "global outreach." H&K's press release quoted CEO Paul Taaffe as saying, "The IMF plays a crucial role around the world working to stabilize financial markets. H&K's regional expertise and global network means the firm is ideally suited to support the IMF." The contract, for an unspecified dollar amount, is coordinated out of H&K's Washington DC office. Dave Robinson, who heads the firm's Middle East & Africa work, "will lead an H&K team across the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia, while Glenn Schloss, regional director for H&K in the Asia Pacific region, will oversee activity on the IMF program in the Far East." H&K will advise the IMF on "stakeholder outreach strategy for Asia and the Middle East, and on financial sector issues." The firm will also design "customized contact programs with key opinion formers, influencers and the wider financial and economic community." ^[2]

Africa work

In April 2009, H&K announced it was "expanding its presence in Africa with the launch of a new public relations firm in a joint venture with Scangroup, the first and only marketing services company to be quoted on the Nairobi Stock Exchange. ... The new company will operate as Hill & Knowlton East Africa and will cover Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania and will be headquartered in Nairobi." H&K chair and CEO Paul Taaffe called Africa "perhaps the last great emerging market opportunity globally. ... While 2009 sees turmoil in some global markets, all the indicators are very positive for Africa and we will be there to guide and advise clients who want to capitalise on the many opportunities on this growing continent." ^[3]

In May 2005, it was reported that the London office of Hill & Knowlton signed a $600,000 contract with the government of Uganda, "to improve Uganda's image with donors and to help blunt damaging reports from human rights watchdogs that have been highly critical of the government." The AFP report on the Uganda contract noted, "Political activity is now largely restricted in Uganda and plans for multi-party elections in 2006 have been overshadowed by a controversial bid to amend the constitution so President Yoweri Museveni can stand for a third term." [10] Also in May 2005, the New York-based organization Human Rights Watch released a report documenting "recent cases of torture by Ugandan security forces against political opponents, alleged rebels and criminal suspect." [11]

In an interview with The Guardian, Hill & Knowlton associate director James Barbour said, "What we are doing is encouraging dialogue between the Ugandan government and people like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty, Oxfam. It's not about spinning a different version of the truth, its about making sure that the Ugandans are having the right conversations with the right people." [12]

Hill & Knowlton also represents Debswana, a joint venture between De Beers diamond mining companty and the government of Botswana. De Beers owns the rights to mine diamonds in the Kalahari, and through Debswana, has played a role in evicting indigenous Kalahari Bushmen from their land. According to Lord Pearson of Rannoch, a Peer in the British House of Lords, "Many of them (Kalahari Bushmen) felt that they had been evicted because Debswana wanted their land for its diamonds." [13] Hill & Knowlton claims on its website that "an information campaign generated support [for Debswana] among members of Congress, UK Parliamentarians, Members of the Japanese Diet and Members of the European Parliament, as well as numerous media outlets." [14].

Other

H&K represented the Catholic bishops in America in their campaign against legalized abortion, and the Body Shop International when it came under criticism for making false claims about itself and its products.^{[citation needed]}

Political action committee

Hill & Knowlton operate a federal political action committee. [15] According to the Center for Responsive Politics database the company's PAC spent $21,754 for the 2004 election cycle, with 41% of the donations given at that point going to Democrats, and 59% to Republicans. [16] In the 2002 election cycle, the PAC gave 58% of the $35,239 spent to Democrats, and 42% to Republicans. [17] In 2000, 49% of the $47,703 spent went to Democrats, 51% to Republicans. [18] In 1998, 48% of the $59,296 spent was given to Democrats, 52% to Republicans. [19]

Personnel

Senion H&K Staff, as of August 2006, are:

• Paul Taaffe, Chairman and Chief Executive , Hill & Knowlton, Inc.
• Tony Burgess-Webb, Chief Marketing Officer/Director, Worldwide Netcoms Practice, Hill and Knowlton, Inc
• Juan Cappello, President and Managing Partner - Latin America,
• Mike Coates, President and CEO, Hill & Knowlton Canada, Hill & Knowlton Canada
• Elaine Cruikshanks, Chair, Worldwide Public Affairs Practice/Chair and CEO Cont. Western Europe/CEO, Brussels, Hill & Knowlton International Belgium
• Thomas Hoog, Senior Counselor to the Chairman, Hill & Knowlton, Inc.
• Andrew Laurence, Chairman and CEO, Hill & Knowlton Europe, Middle East & Africa, Hill & Knowlton Limited
• Vivian Lines, President and COO, Asia Pacific,
• Norman Mineta, Vice Chairman,
• Joe Paluska, Director, Technology Practice Worldwide, Hill & Knowlton, Inc.
• MaryLee Sachs, Chairman, Hill & Knowlton USA and Director, Worldwide Marketing Communications Practice, Hill & Knowlton, Inc.
• Ellen Shedlarz, Chief Talent Officer, Hill & Knowlton, Inc.
• Mark Thorne, Chief Operating Officer/Chief Financial Officer, Hill & Knowlton, Inc.

Clients

The following list of clients is largely based on O'Dwyers PR Services compilation from public records of H&K's clients. Some have been added from other sources and are referenced as such.

• 321 Studios
• 5-a-Day
• AIG Consultants
• American Heart Association
• Applied DNA Sciences Inc.
• Arby's
• Australia
• Avaya
• Boeing
• Blue Cult
• Botswana
• Bowne Global Solutions
• Brightmail
• Center for International Disaster Information [20]
• Cigar Assn. of America
• Clarinol CLA
• Copenhagen Climate Council
• Cotton Ginny Ltd.
• Debswana
• Diamond Trading Company [21]
• Diamond Works Ltd.
• Embassy of Japan
• Eisai Inc.
• Energem [22]
• Enron Corporation
• Evergreen International Aviation, Inc. [23]
• Factiva
• Florida Hospital Assn.
• GFI Group [24]
• GlaxoSmithKline
• HP ProCurve Networking
• Identrus
• India's National Assn. of Software and Service Cos.
• Illinois Department of Revenue [25]
• Inrange Technologies Corp.
• International Monetary Fund ^[2]
• Kellogg Company
• Kidney Care Partners
• Labatt Breweries of Canada [26]
• Labatt Brewing Co.
• Motorola
• Frank Murkowski, Governor of Alaska
• National Information Program on Antibiotics [27]
• NextWave Telecom
• Nuclear Energy Institute [28]
• O'Melveny & Myers LLP
• Ontario
• PIMCO
• Pasadena Tournament of Roses Assn.
• Play.com ^[4]
• Procter & Gamble [29]
• Project Better Place, [30]
• Purolator
• Reebok [31]
• Samcor
• Sankyo Pharmaceuticals
• Saudi Aramco
• Saudi Basic Industries - a $87,695 per month contract for "media relations, news releases, global media kit development, advertising, conferences, quarterly strategic communications planning sessions, and the cost of a full-time H&K consultant in Riyadh," reported O'Dwyer's PR Daily in August 2007 [32]
• Sino-Forest Corp.
• Sport Englad [33]
• StorageTek
• Teilhard Technologies [34]
• TeleSym
• The Task Force on Modernizing Income Security for Working Age Adults (Canada) [35]
• Uganda [36]
• U.K.'s World Trade Center Disaster Fund
• Unilever Bestfoods
• Victhom Human Bionics
• Vietnam [37]
• Virgin Mobile [38]
• Wal-Mart Stores

During the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike, it was reported that the studio owners' group, the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers, had hired Hill & Knowlton. [39] However, the firm denied working for the studio owners. [40]

Contact details

Website: http://www.hillandknowlton.com/

Articles and resources

Related SourceWatch articles

• Hill & Knowlton Uses Environmentalists to Peddle Coppertone
• Hill & Knowlton/Defusing 'sensitive' issues
• Hill & Knowlton goes to the Maldives
• Hill & Knowlton Defends Fluorinated Gases
• Hill & Knowlton, HUD & The Yes Men
• Hill & Knowlton and the University of California
• Public relations firms
• The Frank Statement original draft

References

1. ↑ John W. Hill II Health and Morality-Tobacco's Counter Campaign Report. 1992. 23 pp. Bates No. 2022849007/9028
2. ↑ ^2.0 2.1 "IMF Turns to H&K for Global Outreach," Hill & Knowlton press release, September 22, 2008.
3. ↑ "H&K Forms Joint Venture to Expand Into East Africa," The Holmes Report (sub req'd), April 19, 2009.
4. ↑ "Press Enquiries", Play.com website, accessed August 2009.

External resources

• PR Watch: Council for Tobacco Research; Tobacco Documents From The Council on Tobacco Research, U.S. House of Representatives.
• Corporate Watch (UK) profile of H&K.
• Tobacco Documents .org.
• Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity: Reference to Victoria Clarke.
• What Really Happened: Hill & Knowlton.

External articles

• Richard W Pollay, "Propaganda, Puffing and the Public Interest", Public Relations Review, Volume XVI, Number 3, Fall 1990. (Refers to John Hill and H&K's early tobacco industry related work).
• Johan Carlisle, "Public Relationships: Hill & Knowlton, Robert Gray, and the CIA," Covert Action Quarterly, Spring 1993 (Number 44).
• John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, "How the public relations industry sold the Persian Gulf War," from Toxic Sludge Is Good for you! Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1995.)
• Election 2001 Predictor, developed by Hill & Knowlton's Public & Corporate Affairs and Netcoms divisions.
• "The PR-Machine of the Bush-Warriors" (German), *Der Spiegel*, March 12, 2003.
• "American Heart Association Taps H&K to Reach Out to Women ", The Holmes Report, January 19, 2004, page 10.
• Thom Weidlich, "ANALYSIS The Agency Business : PR firms look to PACs to add structure to political donations," PR Week (sub. req'd.), October 11, 2004.
• Jeff Testerman, "Lost votes should oust official, opponent says," St. Petersburg Times, October 23, 2004.
• "H&K Works on Florida Balloting," O'Dwyer's PR Daily (reg. req'd.), October 25, 2004.
• Ray Moynihan, "Drug maker urges group to lobby FDA on testosterone for women", British Medical Journal, Volume 329, November 27, 2004, page 1255.
• William Norman Grigg, "War Party's Atrocity Porn", The New American, January 24, 2005.
• Tanya Albert, "Keeping the issue alive: How to keep medical liability in the news: Public relations professionals and organized medicine leaders who have been working at it offer their thoughts on how to make the media stay interested in tort reform", Amednews.com, January 31, 2005.
• Geoffe Earle, "Hastert aide to join Hill & Knowlton," The Hill, February 15, 2005.
• Sarah Robertson, "MS&L helps DTC with ‘integrity’ campaign", PR Week, May 13, 2005. (Sub req'd). (This article refers to work for the Diamond Trading Company (DTC), the sales and marketing arm of De Beers).
• Niall Cook, "Blogging policies and guidelines", Hill & Knowlton, May 19, 2005.
• "Uganda hires PR firm for image makeover," Agence France-Presse, May 21, 2005.
• Jeevan Vasagar, "Uganda hires PR agency to buff up its image", The Guardian, May 21, 2005.
• Mary Massingale, "Better PR sought for lottery: Move follows criticism of ad contract", State Journal-Register (Springfield Illinois), May 21, 2005.
• Alex B. Atuhaire, "Kutesa's Daughter Linked to 1.2b Deal", The Monitor (Kampala), May 26, 2005.
• Alex B. Atuhaire, "London Firm Speaks Out On Kutesa's Daughter", The Monitor (Kampala), May 27, 2005.
• Alfred Wasike, "Rukutana, Lawyers Explain UK Deal", The Monitor (Kampala), May 27, 2005.
• Melanie Béchard, "Forestry stakeholders band together to lobby government", Fort Frances Times Online, July 13, 2005.
• Matt Volz, "Governor spends $3,000 on public relations firm: Move related not to election but to provide "better" information, spokeswoman says", Anchorage Daily News, October 16, 2005. (This is an Associated Press story).
• Karen Howlett, "Opposition cries foul over lobbying post", Globe and Mail, December 8, 2005 Page A18.
• "Hill & Knowlton Selected to Drive Revival of Nuclear Power", Holmes Report, January 16, 2006.
• "To market a drug: Financing a vaccine against cervical cancer may be the right thing to do, but a multinational giant's aggressive campaign has muddied the debate," The Vancouver Sun, CanWest News Service (Canada), May 14, 2007.
• "Saudis Up Pact at H&K," O'Dwyer's PR Daily (sub req'd), August 28, 2007.
• "Here's John's recap of the weekend:," The Circle of Influence blog, April 12, 2006. At Hill & Knowlton, "I spoke to Nathan Drevna, an account executive who specializes in automotive media relations."

---

Citizens for a Free Kuwait (CFK) was a front group established by the Hill & Knowlton PR firm to promote the 1991 U.S. war in the Persian Gulf (Operation Desert Storm).

| Contents   [hide] <ul style="line-height: 1.5em; list-style-type: none; margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Citizens_for_a_Free_Kuwait#History" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none;"><span class="tocnumber">1</span> <span class="toctext">History</span></a><ul style="line-height: 1.5em; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Citizens_for_a_Free_Kuwait#Packaging_the_Emir" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none;"><span class="tocnumber">1.1</span> <span class="toctext">Packaging the Emir</span></a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Citizens_for_a_Free_Kuwait#Suffer_the_Little_Children" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none;"><span class="tocnumber">2</span> <span class="toctext">Suffer the Little Children</span></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Citizens_for_a_Free_Kuwait#Articles_and_resources" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none;"><span class="tocnumber">3</span> <span class="toctext">Articles and resources</span></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-5" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Citizens_for_a_Free_Kuwait#Other_Related_SourceWatch_Resources" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none;"><span class="tocnumber">4</span> <span class="toctext">Other Related SourceWatch Resources</span></a><ul style="line-height: 1.5em; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-6" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Citizens_for_a_Free_Kuwait#References" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none;"><span class="tocnumber">4.1</span> <span class="toctext">References</span></a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-7" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Citizens_for_a_Free_Kuwait#External_Articles" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none;"><span class="tocnumber">5</span> <span class="toctext">External Articles</span></a></li></ul> |

History

On August 2, 1990, Iraqi troops led by dictator Saddam Hussein invaded the oil-producing nation of Kuwait. Like Manuel Noriega in Panama, Hussein had been a US ally for nearly a decade. From 1980 to 1988, he had killed approximately 150,000 Iranians, in addition to at least 13,000 of his own citizens. Despite complaints from international human rights group, however, the Reagan and Bush administrations had treated Hussein as a valuable ally in the US confrontation with Iran. As late as July 25 - a week before the invasion of Kuwait - US Ambassador April Glaspie commiserated with Hussein over a "cheap and unjust" profile by ABC's Diane Sawyer, and wished for an "appearance in the media, even for five minutes," by Hussein that "would help explain Iraq to the American people."

Viewed in strictly moral terms, Kuwait hardly looked like the sort of country that deserved defending, even from a monster like Hussein. The tiny but super-rich state had been an independent nation for just a quarter century when in 1986 the ruling al-Sabah family tightened its dictatorial grip over the "black gold" fiefdom by disbanding the token National Assembly and firmly establishing all power in the be-jeweled hands of the ruling Emir. Then, as now, Kuwait's ruling oligarchy brutally suppressed the country's small democracy movement, intimidated and censored journalists, and hired desperate foreigners to supply most of the nation's physical labor under conditions of indentured servitude and near-slavery. The wealthy young men of Kuwait's ruling class were known as spoiled party boys in university cities and national capitals from Cairo to Washington.

Waging a war to push Iraq's invading army from Kuwait would cost billions of dollars and require an unprecedented, massive US military mobilization. The American public was notoriously reluctant to send its young into foreign battles on behalf of any cause. To sell war in the Middle East, Bush needed to convince Americans that former ally Saddam Hussein now embodied evil, and that the oil fiefdom of Kuwait was a struggling young democracy.

Packaging the Emir

US Congressman Jimmy Hayes of Louisiana - a conservative Democrat who supported the Gulf War - later estimated that the government of Kuwait funded as many as 20 PR, law and lobby firms in its campaign to mobilize US opinion and force against Hussein.72 Participating firms included the Rendon Group, which received a retainer of $100,000 per month for media work, and Neill & Co., which received $50,000 per month for lobbying Congress. Sam Zakhem, a former US ambassador to the oil-rich gulf state of Bahrain, funneled $7.7 million in advertising and lobbying dollars through two front groups, the Coalition for Americans at Risk and the Freedom Task Force. The Coalition, which began in the 1980s as a front for the contras in Nicaragua, prepared and placed TV and newspaper ads, and kept a stable of fifty speakers available for pro-war rallies and publicity events.

**Hill & Knowlton**, then the world's largest PR firm, served as mastermind for the Kuwaiti campaign. Its activities alone would have constituted the largest foreign-funded campaign ever aimed at manipulating American public opinion. By law, the Foreign Agents Registration Act should have exposed this propaganda campaign to the American people, but the Justice Department chose not to enforce it. Nine days after Saddam's army marched into Kuwait, the Emir's government agreed to fund a contract under which Hill & Knowlton would represent Citizens for a Free Kuwait, a classic PR front group designed to hide the real role of the Kuwaiti government and its collusion with the Bush administration. Over the next six months, the Kuwaiti government channeled $11.9 million dollars to Citizens for a Free Kuwait, whose only other funding totalled $17,861 from 78 individuals. Virtually all of CFK's budget - $10.8 million - went to Hill & Knowlton in the form of fees.

The man running Hill & Knowlton's Washington office was Craig L.Fuller, one of Bush's closest friends and inside political advisors. The news media never bothered to examine Fuller's role until after the war had ended, but if America's editors had read the PR trade press, they might have noticed this announcement, published in O'Dwyer's PR Services before the fighting began: "Craig L. Fuller, chief of staff to Bush when he was vice-president, has been on the Kuwaiti account at Hill & Knowlton since the first day. He and (Robert) Dilenschneider at one point made a trip to Saudi Arabia, observing the production of some 20 videotapes, among other chores. The Wirthlin Group, research arm of H&K, was the pollster for the Reagan Administration. ... Wirthlin has reported receiving $1.1 million in fees for research assignments for the Kuwaitis. Robert K. Gray, Chairman of H&K/USA based in Washington, DC had leading roles in both Reagan campaigns. He has been involved in foreign nation accounts for many years. . . . Lauri J. Fitz-Pegado, account supervisor on the Kuwait account, is a former Foreign Service Officer at the US Information Agency who joined Gray when he set up his firm in 1982."

In addition to Republican notables like Gray and Fuller, Hill & Knowlton maintained a well-connected stable of in-house Democrats who helped develop the bipartisan support needed to support the war. Lauri Fitz-Pegado,who headed the Kuwait campaign, had previously worked with super-lobbyist Ron Brown representing Haiti's Duvalier dictatorship. Hill & Knowlton senior vice-president Thomas Ross had been Pentagon spokesman during the Carter Administration. To manage the news media, H&K relied on vice-chairman Frank Mankiewicz, whose background included service as press secretary and advisor to Robert F. Kennedy and George McGovern, followed by a stint as president of National Public Radio. Under his direction, Hill & Knowlton arranged hundreds of meetings, briefings, calls and mailings directed toward the editors of daily newspapers and other media outlets.

Jack O'Dwyer had reported on the PR business for more than twenty years, but he was awed by the rapid and expansive work of H&K on behalf of Citizens for a Free Kuwait: "Hill & Knowlton . . . has assumed a role in world affairs unprecedented for a PR firm. H&K has employed a stunning variety of opinion-forming devices and techniques to help keep US opinion on the side of the Kuwaitis. . . . The techniques range from full-scale press conferences showing torture and other abuses by the Iraqis to the distribution of tens of thousands of 'Free Kuwait' T-shirts and bumper stickers at college campuses across the US."

Documents filed with the US Department of Justice showed that 119 H&K executives in 12 offices across the US were overseeing the Kuwait account. "The firm's activities, as listed in its report to the Justice Department, included arranging media interviews for visiting Kuwaitis, setting up observances such as National Free Kuwait Day, National Prayer Day (for Kuwait), and National Student Information Day, organizing public rallies, releasing hostage letters to the media, distributing news releases and information kits, contacting politicians at all levels, and producing a nightly radio show in Arabic from Saudi Arabia," wrote Arthur Rowse inThe Progressive after the war. Citizens for a Free Kuwait also capitalized on the publication of a quickie 154-page book about Iraqi atrocities titled The Rape of Kuwait, copies of which were stuffed into media kits and then featured on TV talk shows and the Wall Street Journal. The Kuwaiti embassy also bought 200,000 copies of the book for distribution to American troops.

Hill & Knowlton produced dozens of video news releases at a cost of well over half a million dollars, but it was money well spent, resulting in tens of millions of dollars worth of "free" air time. The VNRs were shown by eager TV news directors around the world who rarely (if ever) identified Kuwait's PR firm as the source of the footage and stories. TV stations and networks simply fed the carefully-crafted propaganda to unwitting viewers, who assumed they were watching "real" journalism. After the war Arthur Rowse asked Hill & Knowlton to show him some of the VNRs, but the PR company refused. Obviously the phony TV news reports had served their purpose, and it would do H&K no good to help a reporter reveal the extent of the deception. In Unreliable Sources, authors Martin Lee and Norman Solomon noted that "when a research team from the communications department of the University of Massachusetts surveyed public opinion and correlated it with knowledge of basic facts about US policy in the region, they drew some sobering conclusions: The more television people watched, the fewer facts they knew; and the less people knew in terms of basic facts, the more likely they were to back the Bush administration."

Throughout the campaign, the Wirthlin Group conducted daily opinion polls to help Hill & Knowlton take the emotional pulse of key constituencies so it could identify the themes and slogans that would be most effective in promoting support for US military action. After the war ended, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation produced an Emmy award-winning TV documentary on the PR campaign titled "To Sell a War." The show featured an interview with Wirthlin executive Dee Alsop in which Alsop bragged of his work and demonstrated how audience surveys were even used to physically adapt the clothing and hairstyle of the Kuwait ambassador so he would seem more likeable to TV audiences. Wirthlin's job, Alsop explained, was "to identify the messages that really resonate emotionally with the American people." The theme that struck the deepest emotional chord, they discovered, was "the fact that Saddam Hussein was a madman who had committed atrocities even against his own people, and had tremendous power to do further damage, and he needed to be stopped."

Suffer the Little Children

Every big media event needs what journalists and flacks alike refer to as "the hook." An ideal hook becomes the central element of a story that makes it newsworthy, evokes a strong emotional response, and sticks in the memory. In the case of the Gulf War, the "hook" was invented by Hill & Knowlton. In style, substance and mode of delivery, it bore an uncanny resemblance to England's World War I hearings that accused German soldiers of killing babies.

On October 10, 1990, the House Human Rights Caucus held a hearing on Capitol Hill which provided the first opportunity for formal presentations of Iraqi human rights violations. Outwardly, the hearing resembled an official congressional proceeding, but appearances were deceiving. In reality, the Human Rights Caucus, chaired by California Democrat Tom Lantos and Illinois Republican John Porter, was simply an association of politicians. Lantos and Porter were also co-chairs of the Congressional Human Rights Foundation, a legally separate entity that occupied free office space valued at $3,000 a year in Hill & Knowlton's Washington, DC office. Notwithstanding its congressional trappings, the Congressional Human Rights Caucus served as another Hill & Knowlton front group, which - like all front groups - used a noble-sounding name to disguise its true purpose.

Only a few astute observers noticed the hypocrisy in Hill & Knowlton's use of the term "human rights." One of those observers was John MacArthur, author of The Second Front, which remains the best book written about the manipulation of the news media during the Gulf War. In the fall of 1990, MacArthur reported, Hill & Knowlton's Washington switchboard was simultaneously fielding calls for the Human Rights Foundation and for "government representatives of Indonesia, another H&K client. Like H&K client Turkey, Indonesia is a practitioner of naked aggression, having seized . . . the former Portuguese colony of East Timor in 1975. Since the annexation of East Timor, the Indonesian government has killed, by conservative estimate, about 100,000 inhabitants of the region."

MacArthur also noticed another telling detail about the October 1990 hearings: "The Human Rights Caucus is not a committee of congress, and therefore it is unencumbered by the legal accouterments that would make a witness hesitate before he or she lied. ... Lying under oath in front of a congressional committee is a crime; lying from under the cover of anonymity to a caucus is merely public relations."

In fact, the most emotionally moving testimony on October 10 came from a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, known only by her first name of Nayirah. According to the Caucus, Nayirah's full name was being kept confidential to prevent Iraqi reprisals against her family in occupied Kuwait. Sobbing, she described what she had seen with her own eyes in a hospital in Kuwait City. Her written testimony was passed out in a media kit prepared by Citizens for a Free Kuwait. "I volunteered at the al-Addan hospital," Nayirah said. "While I was there, I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where . . . babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die."

Three months passed between Nayirah's testimony and the start of the war. During those months, the story of babies torn from their incubators was repeated over and over again. President Bush told the story. It was recited as fact in Congressional testimony, on TV and radio talk shows, and at the UN Security Council. "Of all the accusations made against the dictator," MacArthur observed, "none had more impact on American public opinion than the one about Iraqi soldiers removing 312 babies from their incubators and leaving them to die on the cold hospital floors of Kuwait City."

At the Human Rights Caucus, however, Hill & Knowlton and Congressman Lantos had failed to reveal that Nayirah was a member of the Kuwaiti Royal Family. Her father, in fact, was Saud Nasir al-Sabah, Kuwait's Ambassador to the US, who sat listening in the hearing room during her testimony. The Caucus also failed to reveal that H&K vice-president Lauri Fitz-Pegado had coached Nayirah in what even the Kuwaitis' own investigators later confirmed was false testimony. In an opinion column in the New York Times in January 1992, MacArthur wrote that "a Hill and Knowlton vice president, Gary Hymel, helped organize the Congressional Human Rights Caucus hearing in meetings with Mr. Lantos and Mr. Porter and the chairman of Citizens for a Free Kuwait, Hassan al-Ebraheem. Mr. Hymel presented the witnesses, including Nayirah. (He later told me he knew who she was at the time.)"^[1]

If Nayirah's outrageous lie had been exposed at the time it was told, it might have at least caused some in Congress and the news media to soberly reevaluate the extent to which they were being skillfully manipulated to support military action. Public opinion was deeply divided on Bush's Gulf policy. As late as December 1990, a New York Times/CBS News poll indicated that 48 percent of the American people wanted Bush to wait before taking any action if Iraq failed to withdraw from Kuwait by Bush's January 15 deadline.85 On January 12, the US Senate voted by a narrow, five-vote margin to support the Bush administration in a declaration of war. Given the narrowness of the vote, the babies-thrown-from-incubators story may have turned the tide in Bush's favor.

Following the war, human rights investigators attempted to confirm Nayirah's story and could find no witnesses or other evidence to support it. Amnesty International, appears to have participated in this deception, and the opening salvo of the campaign featured an interview with George Bush (Snr) referring to the AI-press alert on "throwing the babies out of the incubators". AI has not issued an apology for its role in this deception. Furthermore, there is an account by Prof. Francis Boyle, a former board member of AI-USA, who describes in detail AI's role in this propaganda campaign.

From an interview with Prof. Francis Boyle conducted by Dennis Bernstein, CAQ, Summer 2002:

As for the allegation about the Iraqi soldiers taking babies out of incubators and putting them on the floor of the hospital where they did, I didn’t know if that was true or not, but it certainly sounded very sensationalist to me. And as a result of that, I made an effort to hold that report back for further review, on those grounds that I gave to you. And indeed I also enlisted a fellow board member for the same reason, and he and I both tried, and I made the point, even if this story about the dead babies is true, it’s completely sensationalist, and it is simply going to be used in the United States to monger for war, and could turn the tide in favor of war. And so you know, we really need to pull back on this, further review, more study.

They wouldn’t do it. It was clear it was on the fast track there in London. This was not AI USA, this was in London. And it had been put on the fast track, they were ramming it through. They didn’t care. Finally, I said look, let us at least put out an Errata report to accompany it on those aspects that are clearly wrong. They refused to do that either. They then put the report out, and you know what a terrible impact that had in terms of war propaganda. Of the six votes in the United States Senate that passed the resolution to go to war, several of those senators said that they were influenced by the Amnesty report. Now I want to make it clear this was not a job by Amnesty International but by London, and what happened then, when the war started, at the next AI USA board meeting, I demanded an investigation. By then it had come out that this was Kuwaiti propaganda put together by the PR firm, Hill & Knowlton, and I demanded an investigation.

Absolutely nothing happened. There was never an investigation, there was total stonewalling coming out of London. They refused ever to admit that they did anything wrong. There has never been an explanation, there has never been an apology. It’s down the memory hole like 1984 and Orwell. My conclusion was that a high-level official of Amnesty International at that time, whom I will not name, was a British intelligence agent. Moreover, my fellow board member, who also investigated this independently of me, reached the exact same conclusion. So certainly when I am dealing with people who want to work with Amnesty in London, I just tell them, "Look, just understand, they’re penetrated by intelligence agents, U.K., maybe U.S., I don’t know, but you certainly can’t trust them."

Nayirah herself was unavailable for comment. "This is the first allegation I've had that she was the ambassador's daughter," said Human Rights Caucus co-chairJohn Porter. "Yes, I think people . . . were entitled to know the source of her testimony." When journalists for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation asked Nasir al-Sabah for permission to question Nayirah about her story, the ambassador angrily refused.

Following the publication of MacArthur's column in the New York Times, Hill and Knowlton at first refused to comment. NPR's Mara Liasson reported on the day the article appeared that the PR firm "did not return repeated calls from NPR".^[2]

Articles and resources

Other Related SourceWatch Resources

• Front groups
• Balkan Action Committee
• Coalition for a Democratic Majority
• Committee for the Free World
• Committee for the Liberation of Iraq
• Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf
• Committee on the Present Danger
• Institute on Religion and Democracy
• Prodemca (Friends of the Democratic Center in Central America)
• Project for the New American Century
• Project for the Republican Future

References

1. ↑ John R. MacArthur, "Remember Nayirah, Witness for Kuwait?", Op-Ed, New York Times, January 6, 1992.
2. ↑ Mara Liasson, "Human Rights Committee Heard Iffy Data on Iraq", All Things Considered, NPR, January 6, 1992.

External Articles

• John R. MacArthur, "Remember Nayirah, Witness for Kuwait?", Op-ed, New York Times, January 6, 1992.
• Mara Liasson, "Human Rights Committee Heard Iffy Data on Iraq", All Things Conbsidered, NPR, January 6, 1992.
• Michael Kingsley and John Sununu, "Agents of Influence in the Gulf War?", "Crossfire", CNN, January 16, 1992.
• "P.R. Firm Had No Reason to Question Kuwaiti's Testimony", New York Times, January 17, 1992.
• Lars-Erik Nelson, "Reward for Spreading a Lie", Newsday (New York), May 17, 1994, page A14.
• Sen. Lauch Faircloth (R-NC), "Kuwait Questions", Roll Call, June 13, 1994.
• John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, "How PR Sold the War in the Persian Gulf," excerpted from Toxic Sludge Is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry (Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press), 1995.
• James Ridgeway, Democrats Pick Iraq Hawk as House Foreign Policy Czar, Mother Jones, November 14, 2006.

Categories:  

• Front groups portal
• Public relations case studies
• Iraq
• Propaganda
• Pro-war fronts

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Frank Mankiewicz is Vice-Chairman of Hill and Knowlton.

• Director, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities ^[1]
• Advisory Committee, Jewish Fund for Justice

Contents

| [hide] <ul style="line-height: 1.5em; list-style-type: none; margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Frank_Mankiewicz#External_links" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none;"><span class="tocnumber">1</span> <span class="toctext">External links</span></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Frank_Mankiewicz#Resources_and_articles" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none;"><span class="tocnumber">2</span> <span class="toctext">Resources and articles</span></a><ul style="line-height: 1.5em; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Frank_Mankiewicz#Related_Sourcewatch_articles" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none;"><span class="tocnumber">2.1</span> <span class="toctext">Related Sourcewatch articles</span></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Frank_Mankiewicz#References" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none;"><span class="tocnumber">2.2</span> <span class="toctext">References</span></a></li></ul></li></ul> |

External links

• Frank Mankiewicz, "Power Failure", Letter to the Editor, Columbia Journalism Review, November/December 2006, page 6. (Not available online). (TheNuclear Energy Institute is one of H&K's clients).

Resources and articles

Related Sourcewatch articles

• Citizens for a Free Kuwait
• Fidelity Investments - worked for

References

1. ↑ Directors, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, accessed September 24, 2008.

| This article is a stub. You can help by expanding it. |

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The New York Times Op-Ed, Monday, January 6, 1992

Remember Nayirah, Witness for Kuwait? i download doc

The New York Times Op-Ed, Monday, January 6, 1992

Remember Nayirah, Witness for Kuwait?

By John R. MacArthur

In his urgent arguments during the fall and winter of 1990 for military action against Saddam Hussein, President Bush made much of the Iraqi leader's cruelty toward the Kuwaiti people. Mr. Bush's allegations of atrocities by Iraqi forces generally went unchallenged. Mr. Hussein's violent disposal of dissident Iraqis was a matter of record, so few politicians, journalists or human rights investigators were prepared to question the President's campaign to paint his opponent as Adolf Hitler reborn.

Some claims were no doubt true, but the most sensational one--that Iraqi soldiers removed hundreds of Kuwaiti babies from incubators and left them to die on hospital floors--was shown to be almost certainly false by an ABC reporter, John Martin, in March 1991, after the liberation of Kuwait. He interviewed hospital doctors who stayed in Kuwait throughout the occupation.

But before the war, the incubator story seriously distorted the American debate about whether to support military action. Amnesty International believed the tale, and its ill-considered validation of the charges likely influenced the seven Senators who cited the story in speeches backing the Jan. 12 resolution authorizing war. Since the resolution passed the Senate by only five votes, the question of how the incubator story escaped scrutiny--when it really mattered--is all the more important. (Amnesty International later retracted its support of the story.)

A little reportorial investigation would have done a great service to the democratic process. Americans would have been interested to know the identity of "Nayirah," the 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl who shocked the Congressional Human Rights Caucus on Oct. 10, 1990, when she tearfully asserted that she had watched 15 infants being taken from incubators in Al-Adan Hospital in Kuwait City by Iraqi soldiers who "left the babies on the cold floor to die." The chairmen of the Congressional group, Tom Lantos, a California Democrat, and John Edward Porter, an Illinois Republican, explained that Nayirah's identity would be kept secret to protect her family from reprisals in occupied Kuwait.

There was a better reason to protect her from exposure: Nayirah, her real name, is the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador to the U.S., Saud Nasir al-Sabah. Such a pertinent fact might have led to impertinent demands for proof of Nayirah's whereabouts in August and September of 1990, when she said she witnessed the atrocities, as well as corroboration of her charges. The Kuwaiti Embassy has rebuffed my efforts to interview Nayirah.

Today, we are left to ask why Mr. Lantos and Mr. Porter allowed such glaring omissions. What made Nayirah so believable that no one on the caucus staff bothered to check out her story?

One explanation might lie in how Nayirah came to the Congressmen's attention.Both Congressmen have a close relationship with Hill and Knowlton, the public relations firm hired by Citizens for a Free Kuwait, the Kuwaiti-financed group that lobbied Congress for military intervention. A Hill and Knowlton vice president, Gary Hymel, helped organize the Congressional Human Rights Caucus hearing in meetings with Mr. Lantos and Mr. Porter and the chairman of Citizens for a Free Kuwait, Hassan al-Ebraheem. Mr. Hymel presented the witnesses, including Nayirah. (He later told me he knew who she was at the time.)

Until he started working on the Kuwait account, Mr. Hymel was best known to the caucus for defending the human rights record of Turkey, a Hill and Knowlton client criticized for jailing people without due process and torturing and killing them. He is also one of the firm's lobbyists for the Indonesian Government, which has killed at least 100,000 inhabitants of East Timor since 1975.

Mr. Lantos's spokesman says that Hill and Knowlton's client list doesn't concern the Congressman, who accepted a $500 contribution from the firm's political action committee in 1988. In fact, Mr. Lantos and Mr. Porter allowed the Congressional Human Rights Foundation, a group they founded in 1985, to be housed in Hill and Knowlton's Washington headquarters. The firm provides a contribution to the foundation in the form of a $3,000 annual rent reduction, and the Hill and Knowlton switchboard delivers messages to the foundation's executive director, David Phillips.

Hill and Knowlton's client, Citizens for a Free Kuwait, donated $50,000 to the foundation, sometime after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990. (The foundation's main supporter is the U.S. Government-financed National Endowment for Democracy.)

Since the gulf war, Hill and Knowlton's collaboration with the Lantos-Porter human rights enterprise has been strengthened by the naming of the firm's vice chairman, Frank Mankiewicz, to the foundation's board in October 1991. Perhaps the Congressmen and directors were impressed by the recent addition of China to Hill and Knowlton's prestigious portfolio of clients. (The firm's clients, Indonesia and Turkey, were notably absent from the foundation's 1990-91 list of human rights "activities.")

Congress and the news media deserve censure for their lack of skepticism about the incubator story. As for Representatives Lantos and Porter, they deserve a medal from the Emir for their work on behalf of the Kuwaiti cause. But their special relationship with Hill and Knowlton should prompt a Congressional investigation to find out if their actions merely constituted an obvious conflict of interest or, worse, if they knew who the tearful Nayirah really was in October 1990.

__

John R. MacArthur, publisher of Harper's Magazine, is the author of Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War and The Selling of "Free Trade."

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At the national level, the permanent organizations that m....

On the fringe of the new corporate politics was a grab bag of dirty

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in a bad light, public relations firm Hill & Knowlton distributed a

memorandum on the letterhead of Earth First calling for activists to

commit violence “to fuck up the mega machine.”...

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Hill & Knowlton (H&K) is one of the oldest public relations firms in the United States. It was the public relations firm for the tobacco industry from 1953 through 1968. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Hill_%26_Knowlton

Nuke pr  Fla election machines

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_&_Knowlton

*Toxic Sludge is Good for You, Lies, Damn Lies and the Public

Relations, 1995.

http://www.io.com/~patrik/gulfwar2.htm

tIES TO cia http://mediafilter.org/MFF/Hill&Knowlton.html recruited students to spy during VN. iran Contra?  Covert Action Qtrly

The Power House: Robert Keith Gray and the Selling of Access and Influence in Washington, recently published by St. Martin 's Press.

susan Trento summary by author:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1316/is_n9_v24/ai_12529888/

video releases used by media cnn

But even friends in the fight places can do only so much to offset a string of bad publicity. Gray signed on the Church of Scientology, and later Time magazine ran a highly critical cover story titled, "Scientology--The Cult of Greed." He also signed a contract with the Catholic Church, agreeing to help change public attitudes towards abortion, a move that prompted severe public criticism as well as internal bickering at the finn. Other clients included the People's Republic of China--after the Tiananmen Square massacre. And then there was Citizens for a Free Kuwait, a client the company may never recover from. (See sidebar, page 16.)

In the wake of so much bad publicity, staffers began abandoning the firm for greener, and possibly cleaner, pastures. The biggest blow came in April 1991, when four top Hill and Knowlton executives publicly and abruptly left to start a competing firm, Capitoline. As more and more top executives left, morale dipped to an all-time low. From a staff of 250 during the Persian Gulf war, the office now had 90 people. Rows of offices now sat empty, and Hill and Knowlton alumni could only laugh when they recalled the fights over who got the offices along the Potomac River.

nyt review

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/08/23/books/darth-vader-of-the-lobbyists.html

Darth Vader of the Lobbyists

By Stephen Labaton;

Published: August 23, 1992

THE POWER HOUSE Robert Keith Gray and the Selling of Access and Influence in Washington. By Susan B. Trento. Illustrated. 430 pp. New York: St. Martin's Press. $24.95.

ACROSS the nation Ronald Reagan has had a lasting impact on taxes, savings and loan associations and defense plants, but in Washington the most visible remnants of his legacy have been those advocates who were behind much of the legislation of the 1980's, namely, the lobbyists.

In the last 12 years, they have proliferated in extraordinary numbers, many cashing in on their brief experience and lasting friendships in places of power by selling their access and expertise. In a year of voter disgust with Washington, lobbyists are widely viewed as the personifications of government's problems. They are disingenuously criticized as bogymen by George Bush and Bill Clinton, who take money from them, and by many in the House and Senate who still manage to share private moments with them over a drink or on the golf course.

To Susan B. Trento, who was formerly the chief staff aide to Representative Harold Hollenbeck of New Jersey, the lobbying industry's Darth Vader is Robert Keith Gray of the public relations firm of Hill & Knowlton. In "The Power House," she tells how Mr. Gray, after unabashedly peddling access for decades, reached the apex of his influence when his friend Ronald Reagan moved into the White House. Throughout the 1980's and into the 90's, as either the head of his own firm or as an executive with Hill & Knowlton, Mr. Gray indiscriminately took on almost any cause, as long as his hefty retainers were paid.

His rogues' gallery of clients has included the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the teamster president Jackie Presser, the disgraced publisher Robert Maxwell, the scandal-riddenBank of Credit and Commerce International (B.C.C.I.), Haiti under the regime of Jean-Claude (Baby Doc) Duvalier and China immediately following the massacre at Tiananmen Square.

An avowed conservative who was an inaugural co-chairman in 1980-81, organizing the glitzy Republican parties that ushered in the Reagan decade, Mr. Gray represented the Marxist Government of Angola. He also worked for Playboy and Penthouse when they were facing a Reagan Administration antipornography crusade led by his friend Attorney General Edwin Meese 3d. Mr. Meese ultimately turned his back on the crusade, Ms. Trento says, because of Mr. Gray's persuasive powers. (She notes elsewhere that Mr. Gray once helped secure a job for Mr. Meese's wife, Ursula.)

For a fee of more than $10 million, Mr. Gray's office at Hill & Knowlton waged a lobbying campaign for Kuwait in an effort to manipulate public opinion in favor of an American invasion. The campaign was effective, although eventually Hill & Knowlton was severely embarrassed: the firm had arranged for a young woman to present emotional testimony before a Congressional panel about Iraqis killing Kuwaiti babies by removing them from incubators. Later, it was revealed that she was really the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador to the United States.

MS. TRENTO'S account makes clear that Mr. Gray has been successful at selling two things: himself and his connections. He has been a genius at self-promotion, able to get flattering portraits in the nation's premier publications and to convince many in Washington that he has strong ties to the city's movers. And years before most others, he saw the potency of marrying public relations to lobbying, creating the kind of expensive lubricant that many companies and foreign potentates still find attractive.

"The Power House" is thorough, almost tediously so, including everything from Mr. Gray's sex life to the interior decoration of his doghouse (wall-to-wall carpeting, an oil painting of a nude woman and a poster of puppies). The book suffers as well from redundancies and from an overreliance on unattributed pejorative quotations that detract from an otherwise richly detailed narrative. (And this is the book that recently made headlines with a footnote about George Bush's alleged holiday diversions.)

The epilogue to the Gray story is that Hill & Knowlton has suffered a dramatic turndown recently. It has faced a storm of bad publicity, a wave of defections and increasing competition from other well-connected firms. Prospective clients of Hill & Knowlton and other big Washington lobbyists would do well to read Ms. Trento's inside account, if only to find out what they might be getting for their money.

--

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Keith_Gray

--

dWIGHT chApin worked for them later

Francis worked for several co, incl BM

"Founded in 1923, Hill & Knowlton (H&K) are an international public relations company...H&K... fabricated the story that Iraqi soldiers had removed 312 babies from their incubators and left them to die on the cold hospital floor of Kuwait City'... The story was first reported to the London Daily Telegraph (September 5th, 1990) by exiled Kuwaiti housing minister and member of CFK Yahya al-Sumait. Because of the high emotional content of the story, it was repeated globally by much of the media, none of whom adequately checked the source... the senior account people on the Kuwaiti account included Craig Fuller, Bush's former chief of staff when Bush was Vice President'. Using this connection, H&K set up a hearing with the Congressional Human Rights caucus on October 10th 1990 where they produced Nayirah', a 15-year Kuwaiti who gave the following statement: 'I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where 15 babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the **:{incubators:(style="background-color:#ed1c24;"):}:**, took the incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die.'..According to MacArthur (1993), H&K 'made a brilliant little video news release out of it, which they beamed all over the world. It was on NBC Nightly News and millions and millions of people saw this'. This story was then presented to the United Nations Security Council during an audio-visual presentation on the 27th November 1990. In addition to Nayirah', seven other witnesses were produced, five of whom 'coached by Hill & Knowlton - had used false names without saying they were doing so' ...Nayirah was, in fact, 'the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador to the United States' (1), and had been coached by Lauri Fitz-Pegado to deliver the testimony which (according to Strauber & Rampton) 'even the Kuwaitis' own investigators later confirmed was false'. Not only had she never seen the atrocity she had alleged to, but had never been to the hospital, much less worked there." Darl Turner, from "Hill & Knowlton: Exporting Propaganda Engineering Warfare through Public Relations"

Tobacco

The Truth Hurts

IN 1952, READER'SDigest ran an influential article titled "Cancer by the Carton." A 1953 report by Dr. Ernst L. Wynder heralded to the scientific community a definitive link between cigarette smoking and cancer. Over the next two years, dozens of articles appeared in The New York Times and other major public publications: Good Housekeeping, the New Yorker, Look, Woman's Home Companion. Sales of cigarettes went into an unusual, sudden decline.

The tobacco czars were in a panic. Internal memos from the industry-funded Tobacco Institute refer to the PR fallout from this scientific discovery as the "1954 emergency." Fighting desperately for its economic life, the tobacco industry launched what must be considered the costliest, longest-running and most successful PR "crisis management" campaign in history. In the words of the industry itself, the campaign was aimed at "promoting cigarettes and protecting them from these and other attacks," by "creating doubt about the health charge without actually denying it, and advocating the public's right to smoke, without actually urging them to take up the practice."

For help, the tobacco industry turned to John Hill, the founder of the PR megafirm, Hill & Knowlton. Hill designed a brilliant and expensive campaign the tobacco industry is still using today in its fight to save itself from public rejection and governmental action.

Hill is remembered today as a shrewd but ethical businessman. In a letter, he once stated, "It is not the work of public relations...to outsmart the American public by helping management build profits." Yet Hill's work to save tobacco in the 1950s is such an egregious example of "outsmarting the American public...to build profits" that Hill & Knowlton is still in court today answering criminal charges. The strategy he prescribed has been described by the American Cancer Society as "a delaying action to mislead the public into believing that no change in smoking habits is indicated from existing statistical and pathological evidence."

Smoke and Mirrors

AT HILL'S SUGGESTION,the industry created a group called the Tobacco Institute Research Committee (TIRC), and ran a full-page ad, titled "A Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers," in more than 400 newspapers. The ad acknowledged tobacco companies had a "special responsibility" to the public, and promised to sponsor "independent research" aimed at "learning the facts about smoking and health."

This pretense of honest concern from a respected figure worked its expected magic. Opinion research by Hill & Knowlton showed only 9 percent of the newspapers expressing opinions on the TIRC were unfavorable, whereas 65 percent were favorable without reservation.

There is no question the tobacco industry knew what scientists were learning about tobacco. The TIRC maintained a library with cross-indexed medical and scientific papers from 2,500 medical journals, as well as press clippings, government reports and other documents. TIRC employees culled this library for scientific data with inconclusive or contrary results regarding tobacco and the harm to human health. These were compiled into a carefully selected 18-page booklet, titled "A Scientific Perspective on the Cigarette Controversy," which was mailed to over 200,000 people, including doctors, members of Congress and the news media.

During the 1950s, tobacco companies more than doubled their advertising budgets, going from $76 million in 1953 to $122 million in 1957. The TIRC spent another $948,151 in 1954 alone, of which one-fourth went to Hill & Knowlton, another fourth went to pay for media ads, and most of the remainder went to administrative costs. Despite TIRC's promise to "sponsor independent research," only $80,000, or less than 10 percent of the total budget for the year, actually went to scientific projects.

In 1963 the TIRC changed its name to the Council for Tobacco Research. In addition to this "scientific" council, Hill & Knowlton helped set up a separate PR and lobbying organization, the Tobacco Institute. Formed in 1958, the Tobacco Institute grew by 1990 into what the Public Relations Journal described as one of the "most formidable public relations/lobbying machines in history," spending an estimated $20 million a year and employing 120 PR professionals to fight the combined forces of the Surgeon General of the United States, the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association and the American Lung Association.

In the 1990s, medical studies estimated 400,000 of the 50 million smokers in the United States were dying each year from tobacco-related diseases, and that smoking was likely to be a contributing factor in the deaths of half the smokers in the country. Tobacco opponents lobbied for public education and strict new regulations to prevent youthful addiction and to protect the public's right to a smoke-free environment.

But despite smoking's bad press, tobacco profits have continued to soar, and the industry is opening new, unregulated mega-markets in Asia, Eastern Europe and the Third World. Even in the U.S., most attempts at serious federal or state regulation or taxation are swatted down by tobacco's skilled army of highly paid Lobbyists.

Stauber & R

http://www.tucsonweekly.com/tw/11-22-95/cover.htm

John W. Hill papers

Donated to the Wisconsin Historical Society

Papers, mainly 1947-1964, of a founder and chairman of the board of Hill & Knowlton, a large public relations firm of international repute that specialized in representing industrial corporations and trade associations. Included are Hill's business and personal correspondence as well as copies of company correspondence and memoranda routed to him; speeches and writings on public relations; and additional correspondence, press releases, and printed material relating to public relations programs prepared for clients such as the American Iron and Steel Institute, the American Butter Institute, Aircraft Industries Association, AVCO Manufacturing Corp., Licensed Beverage Industries, Manufacturing Chemists Association, National Gas and Oil Resource Committee, National Retail Dry Goods Association, and the Tobacco Industry Research Committee.

http://arcat.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?Search_Arg=h...

http://www.herinst.org/envcrisis/greenwash/firms/hill.html

Frank Mankiewicz is Vice-Chairman of Hill and Knowlton.

• Director, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities ^[1]
• Advisory Committee, Jewish Fund for Justice

External links

• Frank Mankiewicz, "Power Failure", Letter to the Editor, Columbia Journalism Review, November/December 2006, page 6. (Not available online). (The Nuclear Energy Institute is one of H&K's clients).

Resources and articles

Related Sourcewatch articles

• Citizens for a Free Kuwait
• Fidelity Investments - worked for

References

1. ↑ Directors, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, accessed September 24, 2008.

Categories:

• United States
• Public relations professionals
• Stubs

Frank Mankiewicz is a vice chairman of Hill & Knowlton’s Washington D.C. office and a senior member of the public affairs practice. In this position, he counsels numerous national and international clients on media strategy and public affairs.

Prior to joining Hill & Knowlton's predecessor, Gray and Company in 1983, Mr. Mankiewicz was president ofNational Public Radio. Under his leadership, the NPR audience increased from two to eight million listeners for a network of nearly 300 non-commercial stations.

Active in politics, Mankiewicz served as press secretary to the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, as presidential campaign director for Sen. George McGovern, and has been active in national and regional political campaigns as a senior advisor to political candidates. In the mid-1960s, he served as regional director of the Peace Corps for Latin America. He is fluent in Spanish and conversant in French.

judi bari

hmn

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

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