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ANALYSIS:
Cities tell better stories to keep military bases open
Written by Hamilton
Nolan
Published on September 05 2005
When the government announces plans to
close a military base, local politicians rush out in
opposition. And each time, their comms grow more intricate.
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Since the end of the Cold War, most
people have agreed that America has too many military bases.
Some were inconveniently located; some were outdated; some
were staffed for threats that were no longer existent. It has
been conventional wisdom for decades, therefore, that some of
them should be closed. The entire political spectrum, from
peace-loving liberals to far-right conservatives, all accept
that premise.
But no politician has ever embraced the
proposition that a military base in his own district should be
closed. It would wipe out thousands of jobs; it would be a
grievous setback to national security; it would devastate a
longstanding local economy.
The tension between these
two standpoints - on the one hand, fiscal and military
imperative; on the other hand, political NIMBYism - means that
every round of proposed base closings sets off a nationwide
scramble by various localities to make their case to the
independent Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC).
The latest round of BRAC hearings, which wrapped up
late last month, showcased the extent to which communications
professionals and specialized lobbying firms can make or break
the future of some of the nation's most high-profile military
establishments.
The base closure process has two main
parts: First, the Pentagon draws up a list of hundreds of
facilities that it believes can be shuttered or whose
operations should be consolidated elsewhere. Then, the BRAC
Commission holds extensive hearings and issues a set of
recommendations drawn from that list, which is sent to the
President for approval.
This year, the Naval Submarine
Base New London, located in Groton, CT, was on the Pentagon's
list for closure. The state of Connecticut enlisted The
Washington Group (TWG), a Ketchum-affiliated lobbying firm,
along with Ketchum's public affairs practice, to help plead
the base's case before the commission. Their role was
emergency assistance. "By the time we came in, there were many
people in Connecticut who had been working on this for a long
time, including departments of the state government," says Jim
Noone, an SVP at TWG.
The Groton base was the
Pentagon's largest and most sought-after closure target, with
nearly 8,500 jobs. The stakes were high for both sides. TWG's
main role was to coordinate the efforts of teams in both
Connecticut and DC, and prepare them for the BRAC hearings.
But the battle was not fought only in private rooms with the
commission's staff; TWG and Ketchum used the media to their
advantage, as well.
"Media played a tremendous role in
this," says Noone. "It's clear that they were seeing media
reports. Their staff was preparing for the commission a daily
summary of stories from around the country on
BRAC."
The Connecticut team even enlisted former
President Jimmy Carter, a Georgia native, to write a letter on
the base's behalf, a gesture the commission noted in its
hearings. In the end, the base was spared, dealing a blow to
the Pentagon, but counting as a coup for the state and its
team of consultants. It also served notice that base closures
might be becoming harder for the government.
"It has
evolved in the sense that there's a lot more sophisticated
representation" than in past decades, says Noone. "PR firms,
lobbying firms, law firms were much in evidence this time. ...
Many communities have had representation for years, trying to
advance their cause."
The rise of
PR
Indeed, the BRAC process becomes markedly more
advanced with each round. Gene Grabowski, now a VP at Levick
Strategic Communications, was an AP reporter covering the
proposed closure of a Philadelphia shipyard in 1980. At that
time, he recalls, outside specialists were rare. "All of the
communications that I got came from the senator's office or
the members of Congress," he says. "Today, of course, the
first group that you'd hear from would be a group created by a
PR firm."
By the end of the 1980s, Grabowski says,
lobbyists had gone from chatting strictly off the record to
telling him how to spell their names. The value of PR in the
base-closure process had been thoroughly established, even
then. "Now PR is the overarching strategy, and lobbying is a
component," he says.
Of course, many lobbyists would
object to that assertion. But the base-closure process has
been going on long enough now that some specialty firms have
evolved to encompass a blend of PR, lobbying, and military
technical expertise.
One such firm is Madison
Government Affairs (MGA), whose president, Paul Hirsch, was
director of review and analysis for the 1991 BRAC Commission.
Hirsch recommends that clients get a head start on the BRAC
process and allow their firms to do an in-depth analysis of
the strengths and weaknesses of the base from a military and
budgetary perspective. Ideally, the base can fix its
vulnerabilities in time to avoid being placed on the
Pentagon's list.
If that doesn't work, MGA's next step
is to apply its expertise to the Pentagon's analysis and
"shoot holes in it." The firm also helps bases prepare for
on-site visits by the commission, which have "some potential
for influence," says Hirsch.
The commission and its
staff are saddled with an inordinate amount of work, which can
open the door for expert consultants to find the chinks in
government arguments. "You have to show where the military
value is not enhanced [by a closure]," says Hirsch. "There's
no silver bullet. There are multiple bullets."
Paul
Sweet, an SVP with Fleishman-Hillard Government Relations,
worked (successfully) on behalf of Scott Air Force Base in
Illinois during this year's BRAC process. "The commission
[this year] had been swayed by their visits to the
installations," Sweet says, explaining that carefully planned
meetings can make a point stick in the commissioners' minds.
"All these issues were brought to their attention by the PR
effort at the local level."
The Spectrum Group,
another consulting firm with BRAC expertise that boasts a
roster of retired military experts, places its emphasis more
on technical expertise than on creative media relations
programs.
Skip Hall, a retired Air Force lieutenant
general who leads Spectrum's BRAC practice, says, "If you are
going to turn a negative decision around, the fundamental
thing you need to do is find some flaw or some error" in the
Pentagon's analysis. He credits the commission with being
"extremely open to dialogue," and acknowledges that PR has at
least a secondary place in that dialogue. "Does that have an
impact on the staff? It may have, on a subliminal level," he
says. "You can't ignore it."
Refining the
message
Sometimes, though, politicians will revert
to their natural media-friendly tendencies to drum up interest
in a proposed base closure. Sen. John Warner (R-VA), chairman
of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, has taken to
calling the BRAC process "rigged" in order to rally support
for bases he wants to keep open.
Eric Lundberg, an MD
at Qorvis Communications, has had an inside look at the issue
in his role as chairman of the Fairfax County, VA, Republican
Party. "My guess is [Warner is] laying groundwork for a legal
challenge," Lundberg says. "He's not arguing merits; he's
arguing, 'Wait a minute, this whole process is rigged,' which
is a fairly different message."
The outcome of that
particular battle has yet to be determined. But those who have
participated in BRAC contests in the past agree that the
entire process is only becoming more refined each time around.
Tom Hoog, a former Hill & Knowlton CEO who worked
to preserve bases in Cleveland and Charleston, SC, with
H&K in the mid-1990s, has seen the evolution firsthand.
"The job is to tell the story in as persuasive a
manner as possible," he says. "Any elected official who
chooses to take no action, or cannot avail himself or herself
of media attention, is sort of signing [his or her] death
warrant."
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