Servicing The Corporate Underbelly
you may not have heard its name but Burson-Marsteller ( bm ) is the world's largest public relations firm, with 63 offices in 32 countries and a turnover of almost us $200 million in 1994. It is fast becoming an increasingly important cog in the propaganda machines of the new world order, representing international organisations, agencies and regimes with dubious records of human rights violations and environmental destruction.
For years bm has been involved in major environmental issues across the world, not hesitating to give polluters a helping hand when confronted by activist groups and government regulations.
Human rights, anyone? Ideological barriers are of no concern. bm has also represented the late communist Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu. Doesn't this bother the consciences of bm 's executives? Not at all. Commenting on his firm's work for Argentina, bm founder Harold Burson said, "We regard ourselves as working in the business sector for clear cut business and economic objectives. So we had nothing to do with a lot of the things that one reads in the paper about Argentina as regards human rights and other activities.'
The business of corporate environmentalism bm's environmental services have benefited quite a few industrial polluters. To list a few:
• Babcock & Wilcox; when the mishap occurred at their nuclear power plant in Three Mile Island, usa, in 1979.
• Union Carbide; to handle the public relations crisis caused by the Bhopal gas tragedy in 1984.
• Exxon; to counter the negative press coverage it got in the wake of the Exxon-Valdez oil spill in Alaska in 1989.
• Ontario Hydro; an industrial concern headed by Earth Summit secretary general Maurice Strong, which is the biggest source of co 2 emissions in Canada.
• Louisiana Pacific; the logging company famous for its clear cutting of old growth forests and support for anti-environmental front groups.
bm has also formed the British Columbia Forest Alliance ( bcfa ), a Canadian front group which campaigns against restrictions on logging and is actively working to counter environmentalists. bm is a key player in the nuclear industry lobby. According to Canadian journalist Joyce Nelson, bm has for years "represented top nuclear power/nuclear weapons contractors'
bm coordinated the oil industry's campaign to discredit and derail us president Bill Clinton's proposal for a tax on the oil sector. A bm executive sits on the board of Keep America Beautiful, a front for the packaging and waste hauling industries, which lobbies against mandatory recycling laws in us .
bm 's most powerful and influential