Free Republic

PR executive Doug Goodyear voluntarily steps down after past ties to Burma are revealed.

Around noon today, the powers-that-be at NEWSWEEK posted "A Convention Quandary" on our website. In the story, investigative ace Michael Isikoff reported that the man chosen by John McCain's presidential campaign to run this summer's GOP convention--Arizonan Doug Goodyear--was causing some headaches within the ranks. The problem? Goodyear is CEO of DCI Group, a consulting firm that earned $3 million last year lobbying for ExxonMobil, General Motors and other clients--not the most convenient association for a candidate who's already struggling to reconcile his reputation as an anti-special interests crusader with the sizable number of lobbyists on his senior staff. Further...

Currently VCIOM is the largest research organisation is Russia, engaging in socio-economic, socio-political and marketing research through mass polling, omnibuses, expert and elite studies, in-depth interviews and focus groups and other methods. The Centre provides a full technological cycle of research work - from planning research programmes to presenting analytical reports.

In the furore over the Richard Gott affair (letters, December 13, 16, 20), insufficient attention has been paid to one significant feature – the inability or unwillingness of the Security Service, MI5, to counter the activities of agents of influence. The Times has done more than most to highlight the difference between two wholly distinct types of KGB agent: the intelligence (or espionage) agent, and the agent of influence. The former were spies passing Western secrets to Moscow, whilst the latter were propagandists feeding Moscow disinformation to the West. Both forms of activity are subversive but, since they are not...