Barry Zorthian
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![]() Barry Zorthian is a specialist in public communications, best known for heading the Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office and the U.S. Information Agency in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. He is now a partner in the public affairs firm, Alcalde & Fay. Previously, he spent twelve years with Time Inc., first as President of Time Life Broadcast and Cable and then as Vice President for Government Affairs. He is a retired member of the New York Bar, a retired U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Colonel and has been listed in Who's Who in America for the past thirty years. VietnamWith the rank of Minister-Counselor, he was in Vietnam between 1964 and 1968. Initially, Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. was his own press officer and restricted Zorthian to USIA operations. Edward R. Murrow, then USIA director, said, in the assignment letter, "When I proposed you to Ambassador Lodge, he was a little concerned about your lack of fluent French"--which was important in Vietnam--"but most important, when he accepted you he wanted you to understand that you would have nothing to do with the media . He's his own press officer, will remain his own press officer . You will run USIS, psychological operations, whatever you want to call it, but no relations with the media ." [1] The existing bad state of press relations was, at that point, generational: Lodge and Lyndon B. Johnson were of the World War II generation, in which the government's word was to be trusted unless proved otherwise. Many of the working reporters, however, assumed the reverse. He observed that while Edward Lansdale had an early role, his small counterinsurgency team was not adequate to deal with the much larger scope after 1964. [2] In June 1964, however, after a meeting between Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, they recommended that Zorthian
Public diplomacyZorthian wrote,
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