Wensday, November 12 2003: How did Nastase Sullied the American Press With Public Money

You really miss like crazy the face of Adrian Nastase – the Wonder Prime Minister! It’s morning in Washington/ It’s Washington in the morning and back home they might be just broadcasting some news. Across the ocean you pine for it. Your family, your friends and colleagues have the privilege of seeing the prime minister’s face on all channels. On Romania 1, on Romania 2, and on Acasa, in some interview taken at Cornu. And this happens right after, early that morning, they imbibed the face pictured in the issued newspapers. Newspapers also issued out of his benevolence. But the ones from the States have their chance too. We give you a hint: you can stumble over an interview accompanied by Adrian’s picture in the American newspapers. Don’t be too surprised, it is no hazard. No way! They paid big money for Adrian’s picture to cross the Ocean. Around 151 thousand and 67 dollars from the peoples’ money. The money was paid to the American company DCS Group in Washington. In 2002, for six months, the American company provided the services stipulated in the contract concluded with the Romanian Prime Minister. The contract stipulated as only task of the American company “setting interviews with the media” for the beneficiary, meaning the Prime Minister Nastase.
The first instalment of 40 thousand dollars was paid in April 2002, before effectively starting to execute the contract. For this money the DCS Group was to provide the following “public relations services for the beneficiary; will set up meetings with political leaders of the United States”. The second instalment of $ 111,067 is reported as paid on October 31. DCS Group stated that, for this money, didn’t do anything but “arranging interviews with the media”, for six months. The same beneficiary – Prime Minister Nastase.

Let me explain it! Based on “Foreign Agents Registration Act”, which was adopted in 1938 (12 years before Prime Minister Nastase was born), the American General District Attorney introduces to the American Congress, twice a year, a detailed report on “the nature, the source and the content of all informational materials disseminated and distributed by agencies to foreign beneficiaries, previously registered under the incidence of this Act”. Briefly, the report made for the American Congress lists all lobby contracts concluded by Governments, parties or other official institutions outside the US, with American companies or individuals. Among the hundreds of contracts executed in 2002, the report also contains the contracts registered as no 5493, detailed above, concluded by DCS Group in Washington and the Romanian Prime Minister.

Relax, the above-mentioned contract is not the only one concluded in 2002 by Romanian officials with American PR companies. There mere another six contracts, that we are going to enumerate right on. William J. Burshop from Washington has got between March-September 2002 80 thousand dollars to discuss with members of the Congress and their staff on Romania’s access to NATO. Cosmos Inc. from Bethesda hadn’t reported yet the amount it had got in the context of the contract concluded with the National bank of Romania. Dutko Group Companies, the mother company of DCS Group, is on the list too. The Romanian Government was the partner of Dutko, for unreported amount and activities. Mc Guire Woods Consulting cashed also 150 thousand dollars from the Romanian Government. The object of the contract was “contacting members of the Congress and their executive staff” to support Romania in its adheration to NATO efforts. The company also prepared a summit to take place in Bucharest, by arranging at the same time meetings between members of the Congress and members of the Government. The same company prepared the visit made by Prime Minister Nastase at the end of October 2002. Orion Strategies LLC discussed with officials of the American Government on the NATO’s enlargement and the transformations to take place in Romania. For all this they cashed over 100 thousand dollars. The Romanian National Tourist Office from New York got almost 140 thousand dollars from the Ministry of Tourism to promote tourism in the USA. If we add all the existing figures, we can see that, in 2002, the Nastase Government spent in the USA over 300 thousand dollars for hurrying American tourists and 150 thousand dollars for hurrying drunk filed to interviewing Prime Minister Nastase. Therefore, the Prime Minister’s image is situated, from the importance point of view, somewhere between Romania’s image and the issue of adhering to NATO.

Let’s go back to Romania. Searching the e-library of normative acts of the Ministry of Justice does not point out the existence of any contract concluded with DCS Group for promoting the Prime Minister’s image in 2002. It’s even weirder, as there are enough governmental contracts for internationally promoting Romania’s image.

We’ll go even further! The secret around the contract concluded with DCS Group can be explained simply enough. In accordance with the Anticorruption laws, officials are forbidden to use public resources for promoting their personal image or for obtaining/gaining private profit. The same Law no 161/2003 stipulates this very clearly in its article 114. Obviously, the Law 161 can’t be applied retroactively, but if the last year’s activity of the Prime Minister was under the incidence of this law, how can we expect the anticorruption law to be ever put into practice? We have to add that few months ago there was a similar case, regarding the printing of “Quo Vadis, Europa?” – written by Adrian Nastase, out of public founds. Afterwards, the Prime Minister found himself a private sponsor to cover all expense related to publishing the book, and returned the money to the Government.
We have tried foolishly to contact the DCS Group in Washington and we learnt that this company ceased to exist. It was shut down on October the 1st, and all its employees were transferred to Ogilvy as stipulated by an agreement with the Dutko Group, the mother company. We were insisting and we reached Mr. Stephen Brown, vice-president of Dutko. He told us he had no more contacts with the former employees of DCS and that he could not break under any circumstances the confidentiality of the contracts he had concluded with its former client, the Romanian Government.

This means we got it right! But not in the right place! Because we met the same lack of transparency in all discussion we had with Prime Minister’s spokesman. Despina Neagoe became more and more expeditive, from one phone conversation to another, in the end asking us to submit an official request regarding the details of the contract concluded with DCS Group. Our request hasn’t got any answer so far. Actually, things are pretty simple and we could suggest Mrs. Neagoe the following press release: “While hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on lobby and PR activities to promote Romania’s image abroad, the Prime Minister considered to be also necessary promoting his personal image in the American press. Indirectly, he paid the American mass media to interview him. A typical PR activity, which got evident profit for the personal image of Adrian Nastase. For this purpose there were spent a cartful of money. Out of your money! It was an action profoundly immoral, if not illegal, because of which the Prime Minister resigns!”

Stefan Cândea, stefancandea@crji.org
Sorin Ozon, sorinozon@crji.org