Paul G. Dietrich

Paul George Dietrich was a tobacco industry lobbyist.

He was an attorney with the law firm of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue in Washington D.C. and also served as President of the Catholic University of America's Institute for International Health and Development- He was Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of one of the Saturday Review from 1984 to 1987. He was a former television producer for both CBS television and Public Broadcasting. He served for four years as a State Representative (Republican representing St . Louis) in the Missouri General Assembly. He was a frequent contributor to the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal and be has written extensively on the subject of international economic development. He was also the Publisher of the quarterly journal, International Health And Development, and the Editor of the a book titled "A Guide to American Foreign Policy And National Defense." He served on the Board of Directors of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta-Federal Association and be is a member of the Board of Trustees of The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He was on the National Advisory Board of Harvard University's, Harvard AIDS Institute.

He is married to Laura Jordan Dietrich, former assistant to John Bolton, of the U.S. State Department, then Reagan's U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Human Right.

Dietrich's main role with the tobacco industry was to attack the World Health Organization (WHO) politically, to try to pressure it to abandon anti-smoking programs and focus on other disease conditions. He was also used as a political ambassador to open doors to Ministers of Health in various nations, to influence their anti-smoking programs.

Tobacco-funded activities
Over the years Dietrich operated in many ways.


 * He was an attorney with the tobacco industry law firm of Surrey & Morse which was absorbed by Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue based in Washington, D.C.
 * He ran a pseudo-policy organization National Center for Legislative Research which was funded by the Tobacco Institute ($30,000 pa) to publish pro-tobacco articles. He was editor of the NCLR journal 'Legislative Policy' (a free-distribution magazine to federal and state legislatures - funded by major corporations)
 * With Morse and his wife Laura Jordan Dietrich, he ran the Institute for International Health & Development based at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. This was a front-organization entirely funded by Philip Morris to publish and distribute their fake scientific conference proceedings without revealing the source. The IIHD also published a quarterly anti-WHO magazine and engage in general anti-WHO activities. etc.
 * He was actively involved with both Morse and Andrew Whist in the tobacco-front operations of the American European Community Association, the New York Society for International Affairs and Libertad (all controlled by Philip Morris)
 * He served as publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the Saturday Review, a popular American cultural magazine which was briefly owned and controlled by Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds, and the Tobacco Institute.
 * He became editor and publisher of the Philip Morris Magazine (free distribution, wide circulation)
 * He wrote anti-WHO editorial material for the Wall Street Journal and International Herald Tribune as a paid consultant for both Philip Morris and British American Tobacco, and regularly lectured to journalists during tobacco industry junkets to various exotic locations.
 * He became a member of the Development Committee of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) while working actively as a tobacco lobbyist against WHO and PAHO anti-smoking programs.

Non-tobacco activities
Dietrich has always operated in the shadowy area between right-wing politics, State Department (and CIA) operations, tobacco and other corporate promotions. He had impeccable Republican-political and bureaucratic connections.

Before becoming a tobacco lobbyist:
 * He was president of the Missouri Council for Economic Development
 * He spent four years as a state legislator, serving as a House Representative from the city of St. Louis in Missouri's General Assembly.
 * For a few years he headed the Fund for a Conservative Majority (FCM) which raised nearly $6 million for various Reagan primary and presidential campaigns
 * He was briefly a television producer for CBS and Public Broadcasting.
 * He worked briefly (possibly as a conventional lawyer) for the firm Squire, Sanders & Dempsey

Miscellaneous:
 * He is listed as chairman of the International Hospital Committee of the Order of Malta-Federal Association, in Washington.
 * He provides services to the Knights of Malta.
 * He is also still a member of the board of trustees of Catholic University of America.
 * He was editor of both the Reuters Emerging Market Guides and the Reuters Asian Stock Sourcebook.
 * He now operates in business the manager of Foxhall Capital Investment funds and a couple of other similar capital and investment funds with operations in the USA and in various tax shelters. He promotes himself as an international financial investment expert.
 * He is a member of the National Advisory Board of Harvard University School of Public Health's Aids Institute.
 * He a member of the Advisory Group of International Health Systems Assessment of the New York Academy of Sciences.
 * He claims to be a member of the Board of Directors of the U.S. Congressional Human Rights Foundation
 * He is also and active member of the Federalist Society
 * He was on the Board, and has been working on television programs through the Templeton Foundation. His term expired in December, 2008.

General Information
A December, 1991 issue of the tobacco industry newsletter "Infotopics" contains an article describing a meeting in Bariloche, Argentina of the Association of Tobacco Manufacturers and Importers of Latin America. Dietrich appeared as a speaker at this conference along with two tobacco industry consultants: Dr. Philip Witorsch, director of the Department of Environmental Medicine and Toxicology of George Washington University in the U.S. Professor Jean Boddewyn of the marketing department of the City University of New York, and British American Tobacco scientific adviser Dr. [[Sharon Boyse, from London. According to the newsletter, at the meeting, Dietrich "criticized the World Health Organization's heavy bureaucracy as well as its campaigns about smoking, wearing seat belts and the environment. He also claimed that the Japanese, who smoke more than many other national groups, also live longer."

Tobacco industry documents indicate Dietrich played a part in carrying out a strategy developed by Philip Morris in its Boca Raton Action Plan, specifically that of re-directing the attention of the World Health Organization away from tobacco. According to an analysis of tobacco industry documents describing how the industry worked to thwart the WHO's tobacco control initiatives, "Paul Dietrich was used by the tobacco companies as a seemingly independent journalist and international affairs specialist to advance anti-WHO views through speeches and publications.' The report continues, saying 'Dietrich had long relationships with tobacco companies, but did not disclose this publicly, identifying himself instead as President of the Institute for International Health & Development, or as a member of the Development Committee of the Pan  American Health Organization (PAHO), an organization that also serves as WHO's Regional Office for the Americas.'"

In an October 11, 1994 editorial printed in the Times, Dietrich excoriated the WHO for supposedly misdirecting its priorities and neglecting diseases like tuberculosis malaria, and writing, "With modern vaccines and medicines now available to prevent many killer diseases, the misallocation of resources is often the only obstacle to saving lives. Yet the WHO devotes less than 1 per cent of its regular budget to malaria, despite describing the disease as the "most serious health problem in the poorest areas of the world."