Jan. 11, 2007
 
COMMENTARY: PR Profiteering in Wartime
 
By Joseph J. Honick
 
Bainbridge Island, WA (HNN) -- A little more than 45 years ago, one of America's greatest war heroes and, later, a two-term president, warned the nation of an emerging "military-industrial complex". Specifically, his caveat was: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
 
He went on to say: "The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded."
 
Dwight D. Eisenhower, the then retiring president of the United States, had no political agenda to sell. He recited his concerns on the eve of his transferring power to John F. Kennedy, and would then retire to his farm and memoirs after more than half century of service to the nation. However, his warnings stand today as if he had seen the future with amazing clarity.
 
All wars have generated their shares of profiteers, legitimate and otherwise, whose specialties were so necessary to the war effort as to bring them huge fortunes from government budgets. But few would have conceived the public relations industry as being among those profiteering from the prosecution of military actions and political policies associated with them.
 
Suddenly, PR has come under the probing eyes of Congressional and media investigators. Nor should it come as any surprise, given the report of the non partisan Government Accountability Office that this administration has let 343 contracts totaling more than $1.6 billion just through the second quarter of the fiscal 2005, with more on the way. So it should be no wonder that the influential Financial Times of London published a less than flattering column that wondered about all this action.
 
Of course, some of those funds have gone to promote health, education and safety, but the reality also is that hundreds of millions have been cited in these pages for far more controversial purposes.
 
Let it be said that no one should question the right of industry to respond to the allure of Requests for Proposals that can bring important business to legitimate PR and advertising companies. If the fruit is hanging on the tree, you might as well pick it and enjoy the results.
 
What is at question is how or whether a profession that makes no products to fight a war a preponderant sector of the public questions can be seduced into selling those policies on the tab of the American taxpayer and becomes a profiteer from the activity.
 
Some have claimed an Administration in power has every right to promote its policies and goals. That is not of concern, and every Administration has done so. It is only when political powers invest the public funds to propagandize for political ends that Eisenhower's warnings rise to the top for review as they now have.
 
Beyond this, most former administrations have sought out top flight private PR types and journalists for political appointments who returned to their former livelihoods as times and their bosses changed. The huge amount of outsourcing today is unprecedented.
 
The New York Times on February 15 [subscription req'd] added more fuel with an article headlined: "Quick Rise for Purveyors of Propaganda in Iraq." No one can contest the truth of that headline. Whether mysteriously or opportunistically, companies whose names are now frequently published here seem to dominate the marketplace for wartime promotion, but the atmosphere has changed radically. In other times, publicists, entertainers and all sorts of promoters were working to engage the public to invest financially through war bonds or holding block parties to celebrate those going off to war or returning.
 
Today, PR and advertising firms are marketing the war itself and profiting well from it. It is to be expected that the thesis of this commentary will be attacked by those benefiting most from current opportunities. Moreover, space here does not permit a complete essay on this subject that challenges the industry and the government that is nurturing a particular sector of it. Suffice to say it is not arguable anymore that the opinion development profession has become in fact a part of the military industrial complex and that Eisenhower's retirement warnings were dead on target.
 
The question that must pop to the top at this point may well be either "so what" or "what now"? "So what" would not be the professional kind of question. "What now" should at least suggest professionals consider whether we have been captured by the government in a way that does not augur well for the future and whether many have a vested interest in helping to perpetuate the claims of the governmental clients as they pertain to the war and related matters.
 
In the latter case, for some it could mean hundreds of millions of dollars of business, which brings us back to the late and insightful President Eisenhower's warnings and whether he and Santayana might have been on to something.
 
One would hope that the leaders of the industry might at least consider this grist for discussion.