James Harff

James Harff was Director of the Washington-based PR firm Ruder Finn Global Public Affairs. He directed the company's efforts in representing the Yugoslavian republics seeking to secede: Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo (Albanians).

James Harff

Harff on PR for the Yugoslavian Republics

In April 1993 Jacques Merlino, associate director of French TV 2, interviewed Harff in his role as director to Ruder Finn Global Public Affairs, a PR firm that had been hired by the Republic of Croatia, the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the parliamentary opposition in Kosovo. There follows a transcript of part of the interview.

Harrf: For 18 months, we have been working for the Republics of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as for the opposition in Kosovo. Throughout this period, we had many successes, giving us a formidable international image. We intend to make advantage of this and develop commercial agreements with these countries. Speed is vital, because items favourable to us must be settled in public opinion. The first statement counts. The retractions have no effect.

Marlino: How often do you intervene?

Harff: Quantity is not important. You have to intervene at the right time with the right person. From June to September, we organized 30 meetings with the main press agencies, as well as meetings between Bosnian officials and Al Gore, Lawrence Eagleburger and 10 influential senators, among them George Mitchell and Robert Dole. We also sent out 13 exclusive news items, 37 last-minute faxes, 17 official letters and eight official reports. We placed 20 telephone calls to White House staff, 20 senators, and close to 100 to journalists, editors, newscasters and other influential people in the media.

Marlino: What achievement were you most proud of?

Harff: To have managed to put Jewish opinion on our side. This was a sensitive matter, as the dossier was dangerous looked from this angle. President Tudjman [of Croatia] was very careless in his book "Wastelands of Historical Reality". Reading this writtings, one could accuse him of of antisemitism. In Bosnia, the situation was no better: President Izetbegovic strongly supported the creation of a fundamentalist Islamic state [there] in his book "The Islamic Declaration". Besides, the Croatian and Bosnian past was marked by a real and cruel anti-semitism. Tens of thousands of Jews perished in Croatian camps. So there was every reason for intellectuals and Jewish organizations to be hostile towards the Croats and Bosnians. Our challenge was to reverse this attitude. And we succeded masterfully.

At the beginning of August 1992, New York Newsday came out with the affair of [Serb] concentration camps. We jumped at the opportunity immediately. We outwitted three big Jewish organizations - B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and the American Jewish Congress. We suggested to them to publish an advertisement in the "New York Times" and to organize demonstrations outside the United Nations.

That was a tremendous coup. When the Jewish organizations entered the game on the side of the [Muslim] Bosnians, we could promptly equate the Serbs with the Nazis in the public mind. Nobody understood what was happening in Yugoslavia. The great majority of Americans were probably asking themselves in which African country Bosnia was situated. But by a single move we were able to present a simple story of good guys and bad guys, which would hereafter play itself. We won by targeting Jewish audience. Almost immediately there was a clear change of language in the press, with the use of words with high emotional content, such as "ethnic cleansing", "concentration camps", etc., which evoked images of Nazi Germany and the gas chambers of Auschwitz. The emotional charge was so powerful that nobody could go against it.

Marlino: But when you did all of this, you had no proof that what you said was true. You only had the article in "Newsday"!

Harff: Our work is not to verify information. We are not equipped for that. Our work is to accelerate the circulation of information favorable to us, to aim at judiciously chosen targets. We did not confirm the existence of death camps in Bosnia, we just made it known that "Newsday" affirmed it.

Marlino: Are you aware that you took on a grave responsibility?

Harff: We are professionals. We had a job to do and we did it. We are not paid to be moral.

Further History

YAF background

From the YAF (Young Americans for Freedom) website, there is a discussion of the organisation's history from 1960 to 1967:

As we've seen, YAF and Barry Goldwater had long been intertwined. As the Arizona senator became more interested in his party's Presidential nomination, YAF members worked harder to convince him that he should try to capture that nomination In July, 1963, hundreds of YAFers from across the nation attended the Draft Goldwater Rally in Washington, D.C. YAF -Director Donald Shafto was the rally's coordinator and did a brilliant job. In September, a Youth for Goldwater group was formed. YAF member James Harff was appointed director while Carol Bauman, editor of The New Guard, was named executive secretary. Five members of YAF's board of directors were appointed to the national steering committee of Youth for Goldwater.

Ethics board fine - December 2005

OfficeMax Inc. and its lobbyist James Harff were fined $2,000 by the Wisconsin Ethics Board for registering late. Lobbyist Harff was required to register by Sept. 29, 2005, but did not do so until Dec. 19, 2005, Ethics Board lobbying administrator Erik Hayko said. The penalty has been paid.