At the ripe age of 60, one might think a public-relations practitioner like me would have experienced enough in a life time to have mastered the craft. Not true.
Each day brings something new.
In the bar at the National Hotel in Moscow, six people huddled around two small tables. At one was yours truly, sipping on Ukrainian borsht, and cradling a tumbler of Russian Standard. With me were several colleagues from our Moscow office.
At the adjoining table was a living legend, Harold Burson. He was with his delightful wife, Bette. Harold is 84, his wife, 80. Together this little cabal spent the late evening hours regaling in stories about politics and PR.
It was a fascinating evening.
For the uninitiated, Harold is the Harold Burson of Burson-Marsteller, founder of the company he started more than 50 years ago, and which today is one of the largest and most successful in the world.
Harold, and that is what everyone at B-M calls him, was named PR Man of the Century by PRWeek several years back. That, of course, was for the 20th century. He has a good start on the 21st century.
I first met Harold a few days after I had been named media director for the Washington office of B-M. I had sold my PR/Advertising company in West Virginia to join the prestigious outfit. We passed in the hallway of the office, and I had no idea that this was "THE HAROLD BURSON."
I was then 49, and my only thought on seeing the gentleman - who was a mere 73 at that time - was that thank goodness, at least I wasn't the oldest one in an office and a vocation that tends to hire go-getters in their 20s and early 30s.
Through the years, I have kept up an active correspondence with Harold, and he has been kind to comment on several of my books, even providing a generous blurb of endorsement for my autobiographical "The Flak." (called PRschik in the Russian edition).
So, it was with pride and excitement that the entire contingent at The Willard Group/Burson-Marsteller, received the news about six months ago that Harold would be in Moscow, following a speaking engagement in St. Petersburg. It was his and his wife's first visit to Russia since 1973.
Over two nights - the first evening included a boat trip on the Moscow River with clients and staff - Harold entertained and educated. Not to be too hyperbolic, but it was like having one of the fellows who wrote the Bible telling stories in person.
The one thing that sticks in my mind the most from those cool September evenings was Harold's curiosity. Time has not dimmed either his wit or his wont of knowledge. He was interested in people and places - and most of all in ideas.
For the 50th anniversary of Burson-Marsteller, Harold wrote an autobiography about his career in PR and life, beginning from his days as a reporter for a Memphis, Tennessee. newspaper to his founding of B-M and the international growth of the organization. He is currently working on another book, which he says will take a more critical view of the PR field.
However, it was over the Russian Standard, a sandwich and borsht that I again was reminded why Harold Burson is Harold Burson, the man Coca-Cola calls first if it has a crisis, the man who has mentored so many at B-M. By his own reckoning, more than 15,000 PR professionals have passed through B-M over the years.
But then there was one more story, which was close to my heart, for I come from America's south, and was active in the 1960s in the civil rights movement. It had to do with his old school, the University of Mississippi, known as Ole Miss. It was where my brother Glen had graduated in 1963.
It seems Ole Miss had kept remnants of America's Civil War as symbols - the Confederate Flag and the song, Dixie. Both were seen as negatives by the school's chancellor, making it difficult for the school, among other things, to get approval from the national collegiate honors society, Phi Beta Kappa.
The chancellor called Harold. "Can you come down here and see if you can find a way for us to get rid of these symbols," he asked.
Harold, wanting to help out his Alma Mater, didn't hesitate. He flew to Mississippi and began interviewing faculty as research, before making his recommendations. He finally got around to the football coach.
"Well," the coach said, "we can't recruit the best black players. The first thing our opposing recruiters do is show a film of the last home game, complete with Dixie being sung and thousands of Rebel flags in the stands. The recruiters ask the mamas' and papas' of the potential recruits: 'You wouldn't want your kid going there, would you?"
Harold had his answer. He felt the coach could be instrumental in changing the environment, even at the expense of upsetting long-time supporters, many of whom proudly wore the title "redneck", meaning backwater Southern and proud of it.
The coach refused. Harold flew back to New York to mull possible options. Then, out of the blue, the coach called and said he would do it.
Harold worked with the coach, the student body and the faculty in putting together a coalition that felt it was in the best interest of the University to change its image. And, when it came to the football boosters, they wanted, in the final analysis, winning seasons more than symbols.
During the first home football game, the number of Rebel flags was dramatically reduced. A few games into the season, they were no more.
This example of great PR occurred only a couple of years back. Harold was in his 80s.
I, just edging into my 60s, have much to learn, but then, his wife, a salty and vigorous New Yorker said, "Mike, at 60 you are just a kid."
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