Paul E Feffer
Paul E. Feffer (President, Feffer & Simons Inc.) A member of the National Strategy Information Center. Feffer was appointed to to draft a set of policy recommendations on the 'Book Gap', this was a percieved situation whereby the US National Security Council and the US Information Agency (USAID) felt that American books needed to combat the ideas and philosophies of other societies, particularly the then Soviet Union. Feffer chaired a study of 40 US publishers, librarians, lawyers and government officials under the auspices of the Helen Dwight Reid Educational Forum (HDRF) sponsored by USAID.[1]
Evron Kirkpatrick (Husband of Jeane J. Kirkpatrick) was president of HDRF and, according to a Sourcewatch profile, was part of CIA plans for a domestic "national psychological warfare program" as a part of the US cold war strategy.[2]Jeane Kirkpatrick helped establish the Coalition for a Democratic Majority and both husband and wife were involved in the American Enterprise Institute.[3]
With a foreword by, then Ambassador, Kirkpatrick, the eventual report on this was summarised in William M. Childs and Donald E. McNeil (Eds.) (1986) American Books Abroad: Toward a National Policy, published by the Helen Dwight Reid Educational Foundation.[4]Childs has been active for many years with USIA international publishing activities and in the 1980s was an advisor to the American Enterprise Institute.
Feffer was a publishing consultant and the chief executive of Feffer & Simons Inc., which was a publishing company in New York. A large international exporter of periodicals and books, in the mid-80s it tried to convince Chinese officials to import more consumer magazines through a chain of stores in China called 'Friendship Stores', where foreigners can shop with American dollars.[5]
According to an online biography Feffer was a director of Recoton (wireless monitoring systems etc.) and Chairman of Feffer Consulting Co., Inc., an international media consulting firm, since 1991 and a consultant to Merck & Company's publishing division. He founded Feffer and Simons Inc. in 1955, which was eventually sold to Doubleday & Co. in 1962 (where he remained as President of the subsidiary Feffer and Simons until 1986) and was Chairman of Baker & Taylor International, a subsidiary of W. R. Grace & Co., from 1987 until 1991. Feffer & Simons and Baker & Taylor specialized in international publishing and book and magazine distribution and development of overseas markets for U.S. publishers.[6]
According to the New York Times[7]Feffer was president of Hampton Arts International, a company involved in cultural exchanges between Eastern Europe and the US.
Notes
- ↑ Hendrik Edelman (1986) Book Review, Publishing Research Quarterly.This notes that:"Paradoxically, the report's leitmotif involves subsidizing the export of American books to get exposure for their free-world political and economic philosophy."
- ↑ http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Evron_Kirkpatrick
- ↑ Bill Van Auken (2006) Jeane Kirkpatrick: from “social democrat” to champion of death squads.
- ↑ Hendrik Edelman (1986) Book Review, Publishing Research Quarterly.
- ↑ Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management (1985) China beckons Western magazines; PRC's liberalization and continued thirst for technical knowledge keep interest high among publishers.
- ↑ http://www.zoominfo.com/people/Feffer_Paul_93989074.aspx
- ↑ Enid Nemy (1990) New Yorkers, etc. New York Times, May 20.
