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Ruder Finn is an United States public relations firm founded in 1948 by David Finn and William Ruder.

Ruder Finn is a privately held, family-owned company that employs more than 600 people. Its public relations cover healthcare, technology, consumer, interactive, media, arts and culture, and environmental programming.

Since 1978, Ruder Finn has maintained an executive-training program, which approximately 20% of Ruder Finn employees have participated in to date.

In the 1960s, Ruder Finn hired S. Neil Fujita to create a design division, Ruder, Finn & Fujita.

Clients

Ruder Finn's first client was actually Perry Como, and was followed by celebrity clients such as Dinah Shore, Frankie Laine, The Mills Brothers, Jack Lemmon and Rosalind Russell. Other clients have included Philip Morris, Novartis, Travel Alberta, Twinings Tea, glaceau, and Air France.

Controversy

1960s through late 1990s - While representing long-time client Philip Morris (now Altria), Ruder Finn was instrumental in crafting the public relations campaign that disputed the evidence tobacco smoking is hazardous to health.

1998 - Caught in conflict of interest as discoveries of financial dealings of Swiss authorities post-World War II surfaced which involved some of their Jewish clients.

2005 - Pro bono work done for the UN raised speculation when Kofi Annan's nephew, Kobina, worked as an intern at the firm.

The former Yugoslavia, working against the Serbs

• On 12 August 1991, the Croatian government hired the American public relations firm Ruder Finn Global Public Affairs to "develop and carry out strategies and tactics for communication with members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate as well as with officials of the U.S. government including the State Department, the National Security Council and other relevant agencies and departments of the U.S. government as well as with American and international news media". On 12 November 1991, Ruder Finn's contract was renewed to include lobbying in relation to diplomatic recognition, sanctions, and embargoes, as well as briefings for officials of the first Bush administration and preparation of special background material, press releases, both reactive and proactive articles and letters to the editors to appear in major newspapers, briefings for journalists, columnists, and commentators. In January and February 1992, Ruder Finn organized trips to Croatia for U.S. Congressmen. The United States recognized Croatia as an independent state on 7 April 1992

• On 23 June 1992, Izetbegovic's government in Sarajevo in turn signed a contract with Ruder Finn in order to promote a stronger leadership role for the United States in the Balkans. To this end, the agency undertook an impressive array of actions, notably setting up a "Bosnia Crisis Communication Center" in contact with American, British, and French media; media appearance coaching for Bosnian foreign minister Haris Silajdzic; sending press releases to U.S. Congressmen and "Fax Updates" on developments in Bosnia-Herzegovina to over 300 addresses, including the most important world media and parliamentarians; writing 17 letters to be signed by Izetbegovic and Silajdzic and addressed to top world representatives at international conferences; organizing personal contacts between Silajdzic and Al Gore, Margaret Thatcher, and other influential personalities, including 17 U.S. Senators; placing articles on in the editorial pages of the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and so on.

• Eighteen months after taking the Croatian contract, Ruder Finn was able to boast to having "developed a reputation as the international public relations agency with the greatest experience and involvement with the crisis in the Balkans. Our work has helped put Ruder Finn on the map in Washington, DC, and internationally." The agency claimed to have gained "dozens of close contacts in Congress and among the news media".

• In October 1992, Ruder Finn took up the job of public relations for the ethnic Albanian separatists in the Serbian province of Kosovo.

• In April 1993, French television journalist Jacques Merlino visited the Washington headquarters of Ruder Finn Global Public Affairs to interview the man in charge of the Balkan contracts, James Harff. Merlino asked Harff what he considered his proudest achievement in this operation. The answer: "Having succeeded in putting Jewish opinion on our side." The image of both Croats and Bosnian Muslims risked being tarnished by their involvement in the persecution of Jews during World War II. "Our challenge was to turn that around", Harff told Merlino, and this had been done thanks to the "camps" story.

In the first days of August 1992, the Long Island newspaper Newsday published reports from its Bonn correspondent Roy Gutman, based on interviews in Zagreb, telling of horrendous conditions in Serb-run internment camps in Bosnia. Seeing the potential impact of comparison with Nazi "death camps", Ruder Finn immediately contacted three major Jewish organizations, the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and the American Jewish Congress, suggesting they publicly protest. They did. This launched the demonization of Serbs as the new Nazis. In 1993, Ruder Finn was awarded the Silver Medal of the Public Relations Society of America in the category "crisis communication". __________

See the facts:Franjo Tuđman,Ustaše,Ante Pavelić,Jasenovac concentration camp,Jadovno concentration camp,Operation Storm,Independent State of Croatia,Ante Gotovina,Glina massacre,

• Had Tuđman lived longer, he would have been possibly brought up on war crimes charges by the UN Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague. Graham Blewitt, a senior Tribunal prosecutor, told the AFP wire service that "There would have been sufficient evidence to indict president Tuđman had he still been alive." The Tribunal's indictment of Croatian generalAnte Gotovina lists Tuđman as a key participant in a "joint criminal enterprise" aimed at the "permanent removal of the Serb population from the "Krajina" region by killing, force, fear or threat of force, persecution, forced displacement, transfer and deportation, appropriation and destruction of property other minority belongings & means.,

References

1. Grimes, William (October 27, 2010). "S. Neil Fujita, Innovative Graphic Designer, Dies at 89". The New York Times. Retrieved October 27, 2010.
2. Ruder & Finn, Inc., "Project “B”: an alternative proposal to project “A”″, September 1995, Tobacco Institute, Bates no. TIMN0004276/4299 Template:WebCite
3. Ruder & Finn, Inc., "Public Relations Study for Philip Morris, Inc.", January 1968, Philip Morris, Bates no. 2021280871/0957 Template:WebCite
4. Ruder & Finn, Inc., "Preliminary Proposal for a Corporate Affairs Programme", February 1991, Philip Morris France, Bates No. 2500120377/0438 Template:WebCite
5. 1,247 documents linking Ruder Finn and Philip Morris at the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library at the University of California, San Francisco Template:WebCite
6. Leading PR firm caught in fray between Swiss, Jewish clients
7. Questions surface about Annan's nephew Template:WebCite

External links

• Ruder Finn website
• Ruder Finn Israel website
• RFI Studios website
• Ruder Finn Interactive Blog
• The involvement in the former Yugoslavia, interview

• Public relations companies of the United States