Edward von Kloberg III, Lobbyist for Many Dictators, Dies at 63

By JOEL BRINKLEY
Published: May 4, 2005


WASHINGTON, May 3 - Edward von Kloberg III, a flamboyant lobbyist here who maintained a high-profile client roster that could easily be found in his Rolodex under "d," for dictator, died on Sunday in Rome. He was 63.

Mr. von Kloberg, whose death was classified a suicide.....

In a town where public relations is nearly a fourth branch of government, Mr. von Kloberg eagerly took on some of the toughest cases: tyrants, dictators and mass murderers whom others refused even to meet. Among them were Saddam Hussein, Nicolae Ceaucescu of Romania, Samuel K. Doe of Liberia and Mobuto Sese Seko of the former Zaire. He once called these and other clients "the damned."


Nevertheless, Mr. von Kloberg also represented less controversial governments and business interests. He was known to be well informed on the substance of foreign policy and was often up to date on the intrigue at foreign embassies and the State Department, in both Democratic and Republican administrations. A frequent host of salon-style dinners, he relished mixing political figures with Washington reporters.

...

For example, after reports that Pakistan had purchased missiles from North Korea in 2003, Mr. Von Kloberg dispatched a letter to The Washington Times in which he said "our so-called ally, Pakistan" - an ally of the Bush administration in its fight against terrorism - "systematically deceived and lied to the United States by engaging in clandestine nuclear exchanges with North Korea."

...

Later, he appeared to be courting Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader, when he wrote another letter in 2001 praising North Korea's efforts to "reunite with the South" and "recognizing North Korea's rightful seat among the community of nations."
more
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/04/politics/04kloberg.html

Among items found on his body was an American magazine cover with a picture of him meeting the first President George Bush.

Italian newspapers said he had been depressed after a failed attempt at reconciliation with his Lithuanian homosexual lover.

His suicide note was reported to include the words: "The last years have been the darkest of my life. Thinking about what was and what is now no longer. The fact that has spoken ill of our affair with others has made me suffer a great deal."
more
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/05/04/wklob04.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/05/04/ixworld.html

in the last few weeks.

ON the morning of Saturday, Feb. 26, a day before the Academy Awards, the actress Carrie Fisher woke up in her Beverly Hills home next to the lifeless body of a gay Republican political operative named R. Gregory Stevens.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/26/arts/01mcdo.html?ex=1115352000&en=97082665a9551974&ei=5070

I guess we ran out of microbiologists.

See you in Hell.

The response was quick, a sign of the new times in Romania, but it didn't really answer the question. The program of Princess Margareta was arranged entirely by the embassy, said Adrian Petrescu in a written statement faxed from Washington. He is the director of the North American desk at the ministry in Bucharest, where he has been this week. Van Kloberg was "not for a moment" involved.
This doesn't quite jibe with van Kloberg's assertion, but lobbyists have been known to stretch the truth in the cause of self-promotion. "Taking account of the political, humanitarian and historical aspects of the visit," Petrescu's statement continued, "I tried to assure a diversity of participants, including representatives of the White House, businessmen, journalists, and not least representatives of the local aristocracy. In this last category, aside from Baron von Kloberg ..." He's also considered an expert on the role of the royal house in the creation of the modern Romanian state, which will be news to the royal house.
More than one Romanian government official has told me, and at least one Romanian newspaper has published, that Petrescu was an intelligence officer in Ceausescu's secret police, the Securitate. A lot of those guys found themselves in positions in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs then, and have remained there since.
more
http://slate.msn.com/id/3727/

Your Majesty, Your Balkans Await You

By Charles Fenyvesi and Edward von Kloberg, Washington Post, Sunday, July 29, 2001

They were washed out politically for more than 50 years, outcasts from the countries their dynasties once ruled. But now, unexpectedly, they're back. And some of the deposed monarchs of formerly communist Eastern Europe are poised to provide a new twist to an old adage: In the Balkans, it seems, you can't keep a good king down.

Last month, Simeon Saxe-Coburgotski, the former Czar Simeon II of Bulgaria, stunned political observers when his fledgling political party won a landslide victory in the Bulgarian parliamentary elections. Since then, Simeon has formed a coalition government and become prime minister. And speculation persists that in time he will move to promote a new constitution that would restore him to the throne he lost when the communists forced him into exile as a 9-year-old in 1946. The once and possibly future king's amazing political rebirth at the age of 64 is a harbinger of what could be a royal revival across the Balkans, where stagnant economies have bred disenchantment with the politicians in charge, and the possibility of reconnecting with a pre-communist past holds great appeal for peoples long denied a historical memory. In addition to Simeon, Crown Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia and King Michael of Romania -- also descendants ofBritain's Queen Victoria -- have suggested that they could become active in the political lives of the lands that ousted them and their families after World War II.
more
http://www.online.bg/onlinebgcom/analys41.html

That there is a lobby out there for Evil Dictators?!?!?!? :scared:

And I don't just mean the NRA and the Pharmaceutical lobbies either. :silly: