Diplomacy for Hire

Bob Dole pulled no punches in his op-ed piece in the Boston Globe. Slobodan Milosevic, he wrote, should be indicted as a war criminal for his brutality in the Balkans. The tag line at the end of the piece identified Dole as a former Senate majority leader and past presidential candidate. What it didn't say, however, is that Dole works for the powerful Washington lobbying and law firm Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson, and Hand. The company represents -- in addition to numerous corporate clients -- the government of Slovenia, a former Yugoslavian republic and NATO ally. The Balkans are not the only place where governments have figured out that the best path to US officials and op-ed pages is through the spin cycle. Countries on every continent use American PR firms to attract investment or to burnish their image among Washington elites.