- WASHINGTON - When U.S. troops
go into a war zone, John Rendon is rarely far behind.
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- He was in Panama in 1989 for the brief invasion that
toppled strongman Manuel Noriega. He was in Kuwait when allied forces took
it back from Saddam Hussein in 1991, making sure that citizens had little
American flags to wave for the conquering troops and television cameras.
He has worked in Haiti and in the Balkans, and is now fully engaged in
the war against terrorism.
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- But John Rendon is not a military officer, government
adviser, diplomat, spy or journalist. He is, to use his own words, "an
information warrior and a perception manager."
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- Rendon makes images, manipulates scenes and manages news.
He advises politicians and spreads propaganda.
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- Rendon and his public-relations firm, The Rendon Group,
have many clients, but none bigger--or more loyal--than the U.S. government.
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- Shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Pentagon
gave Rendon a $100,000-a-month contract to track foreign news reports and
offer advice on media strategy. Rendon also worked for the Defense Department
in the Balkans, according to a Pentagon spokesman.
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- The State Department, Central Intelligence Agency and
foreign governments also have turned to Rendon in recent years for help
in relaying and shaping messages for the mainstream, according to government
officials and federal records. Rendon has beamed radio broadcasts into
hostile countries, helped design leaflets for distribution in war-torn
areas, and designed Web sites and run PR campaigns to give the U.S. spin
on world events.
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- When the Pentagon earlier this year wanted to create
an Office of Strategic Influence to spread its own version of the news
in foreign lands, it asked Rendon for advice.
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- President Bush ultimately nixed the office after a storm
of protest over reports that it planned to spread false information through
foreign news outlets. But the controversy raised even more questions about
the government's need to pay someone to manage its image, and about the
man hired to do the job.
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- Over two decades of navigating Washington's inner circles,
Rendon has built a unique business. While maintaining his political and
public-relations credentials, he also has channeled his energies and staff
into the murky bog of intelligence and defense work.
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- In the course of that career, Rendon has garnered contracts
worth millions of dollars, a good bit of it, government sources say, from
classified work. "I have a feeling that The Agency helped make him,
filled his coffers," said one former senior CIA official.
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- The Rendon Group's current Pentagon work is just one
part of a multifront, multimedia assault the Bush administration is waging
against terrorism. While propaganda, war and presidents have always gone
together, the Bush White House is especially attuned to the public-relations
side of military conflict.
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- Last fall, the White House named advertising executive
Charlotte Beers undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public
affairs, and she is developing a full-fledged campaign to sway minds abroad.
And the administration has been quick to send top officials to appear on
Al Jazeera, the Arabic television station.
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- "Our own government propagandizing its position--it's
not like it didn't happen before," said John R. MacArthur, publisher
of Harper's Magazine and author of "Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda
in the Gulf War." "But this is a sophisticated, mass-market approach
to it."
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- Rendon's admirers say he's perfect for that job.
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- "He is very knowledgeable, a chess player in the
sense that he understands how the bad guys think," said Chuck de Caro,
a National Defense University lecturer.
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- Hard to judge effectiveness
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- Others in the public-relations business say the secretive
work of The Rendon Group, or TRG, makes it difficult to judge its effectiveness.
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- "They're very closemouthed about what they do,"
said Kevin McCauley, an editor at O'Dwyer's PR Daily. "They do media
monitoring, getting an image of how the U.S. is perceived in the Muslim
world. And they're big into video news releases. It's all cloak-and-dagger
stuff."
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- While Washington's public-relations firms usually relish
attention, Rendon keeps a low profile. He declined to be interviewed for
this story and won't discuss his government-paid work. The company's Web
site did offer an expansive list of clients and activities, but for unknown
reasons it is no longer available on the Internet.
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- Rendon's view of his business, however, can be gleaned
from his numerous talks to college groups and think tanks.
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- "I am an information warrior and a perception manager,"
he told a group at the U.S. Air Force Academy in February 1996.
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- That wasn't always Rendon's calling. He came to Washington
from Massachusetts with President Jimmy Carter, and a colleague described
him as a logistics specialist who made the campaign run on time. He then
became political director of the Democratic National Committee.
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- With Carter out of office in 1981, Rendon and his brother,
Rick, formed a political consulting business. In 1985, the Rendons went
international with a new client, the Christian Democratic Party on the
tiny Caribbean island of Aruba.
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- By 1989, TRG was wading into the civil strife in Panama,
where Guillermo Endara, a soft-spoken attorney, had emerged as the opposition
candidate challenging the sword-waving, tough-talking Noriega. Endara,
who eventually became Panama's president, said Rendon advised him on how
to act with crowds and on television.
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- "He tried to help me with the common things of campaigns,"
Endara said. "He made emphasis on how I should give interviews, how
I should speak when I go out to the voter."
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- Endara was less certain about who paid for Rendon's work,
though he said payments were made through the Dadeland Bank in Miami. Carlos
Rodriguez, a party leader, was then a partner in the bank. Press reports
at the time noted that the U.S. government openly contributed $10 million
to the Panamanian opposition, but it's not clear whether any of that money
made it to Endara.
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- According to The Rendon Group's promotional materials,
Rendon's company would offer similar services five years later to Jean-Bertrand
Aristide, the embattled Haitian president who in 1994 returned to reclaim
the post he lost in a 1991 military coup. Ira Kurzban, Haiti's general
counsel, said Aristide's government paid Rendon directly from an account
in Washington.
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- In May 1991, then-President George Bush signed a "finding"
that gave the CIA authority to conduct covert operations to undermine Iraqi
leader Saddam Hussein. But many in the administration were lukewarm about
the order, and the CIA faced the challenge of carrying out an edict that
did not seem to have real support inside the Bush White House, or in the
administration of his successor, Bill Clinton.
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- "The feeling was, `The White House isn't behind
it, there's a lot of money, what do I do with this money?'" a former
CIA officer said. "There was a lot of money to spend."
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- A good bit of that money went to The Rendon Group, which
was hired by the CIA in 1991, according to former CIA officials and Iraqi
opposition groups.
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- One of Rendon's chief contacts at the CIA then was Linda
Flohr, then a CIA covert operations veteran and now a top anti-terrorism
official at the White House's National Security Council. At one point,
Flohr actually left the CIA and took a contract job with Rendon before
returning to the government.
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- TRG quickly ramped up its covert effort to vilify Hussein.
The company found office space on a street called Catherine Place in London,
near Buckingham Palace. Its propaganda included a regular anti-Hussein
radio program beamed into Iraq, an exhibit of photos displayed throughout
Europe that depicted victims of Iraq's military regime, and video feeds
for newscasts that included burning oil wells. Several front organizations
were formed, including one called the Coalition for Justice in Iraq.
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- Spending draws concern
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- But CIA officials became concerned about Rendon's spending,
knowledgeable sources say. CIA auditors were assigned to investigate, arranging
with Rendon to enter his offices at night because most TRG employees were
not supposed to know they were working for the CIA.
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- While The Rendon Group's contract remains classified,
a former employee confirmed that the terms were generous. TRG was paid
an annual management fee and 10 percent of the entire contract price, which
remains classified. CIA officials involved in the work said it was between
$20 million and $40 million. The government, the employee said, also covered
all overhead costs.
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- "It was nothing but gravy," said the former
Rendon employee. "And in this particular case, we had a very expensive
program going."
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- Former CIA officials familiar with Rendon's work would
not discuss specifics but said those terms were generally accurate. Frederick
Hitz, then CIA inspector general, confirmed Rendon's accounts came under
review but declined to disclose the investigation's results, which he said
were classified.
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- Rendon's government business, though, continued apace.
TRG found new work at the Pentagon and State Department, both embroiled
in budding military action in Kosovo. The Defense Department hired Rendon
to run the Balkan Information Exchange, a news-driven Web site. The U.S.
Agency for International Development awarded TRG a $400,000 contract to
promote privatization, according to USAID records.
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- The Rendon Group has since grown out of its simple brick
townhouse into a modern suite of offices near Washington's Dupont Circle.
Two years ago, Rendon and his wife, Sandra Libby--the firm's chief financial
officer--bought a $1 million house in Washington's elegant Kalorama neighborhood,
according to public records.
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- When the Sept. 11 attacks occurred, the Pentagon's office
of Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence offered TRG a four-month,
$400,000 contract that has since been extended indefinitely.
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- Lt. Col. Ken McClellan, a Pentagon spokesman, said TRG's
work includes monitoring news reports abroad and devising possible responses,
such as broadcasting messages to select populations in Afghanistan or composing
language on leaflets.
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- Until February, TRG had done the job with its customary
low profile. Then came word that it was advising a new Pentagon operation,
the Office of Strategic Influence. TRG's duties there, according to a Pentagon
source familiar with the new office, were going to be the same as its earlier
Defense Department work--collecting foreign news reports from 79 countries
and shaping responses.
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- Though Rendon's assignment at the Office of Strategic
Influence was short-lived, his work with the Pentagon, a Defense Department
source said, will continue for the foreseeable future.
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