When Will Castro's Advocates File Disclosures?

at 11:31 AM Saturday, September 10, 2011

Does the last sentence sound familiar?

A must-read article in today's Wall Street Journal:

Advocate for Libya, Syria Failed to File Disclosures

The public-relations firm Brown Lloyd James posts an extensive client roster on its website, including composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, the charity Autism Speaks, Carnegie Mellon University and the state of Qatar.

Unacknowledged on its website client list is its work for the regime of Libya's Col. Moammar Gadhafi and the wife of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. It submitted required notices to the U.S. government in those cases this summer after inquiries about its efforts.

The communications company, headed in New York by former Beatles confidant and society figure Peter Brown, is one of dozens of public-affairs firms that foreign governments turn to when they want to burnish their U.S. reputations. The firm helps with media relations and special events, drawing on Mr. Brown's extensive New York social and business network [...]

Brown Lloyd James helped Col. Gadhafi's regime in 2009 and 2010 and Mrs. Assad with a magazine profile last winter without registering with the Justice Department. It also filed for the first time details of work for the governments of Gabon in 2010 and 2011 and Morocco in 2011 [...]

"In hindsight, it is easy today to criticize any work done in a country such as Libya or Syria," Mr. Holtzman said. The firm "worked in the belief that change was coming and that helping to open up these countries and exposing their leaders and their people to the West would facilitate dialogue and greater understanding," he said.