COUNT CORPORATE AMERICA AMONG NATO'S STAUNCHEST ALLIES
By Tim Smart
For many Washingtonians, the NATO military alliance's upcoming 50th-anniversary bash may end up being notable only for nightmare traffic tie-ups. For a few companies, though, the summit could be the ultimate marketing opportunity.
A handful of top-drawer U.S. companies -- including heavyweights such as Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. as well as upstarts such as Nextel Communications Inc., a McLean-based wireless communications firm -- will be the gathering's hosts and as such will get to showcase their wares and schmooze with top military and political leaders from 44 nations at events taking place throughout the District.
A dozen companies have paid $250,000 apiece in cash or "in-kind" contributions for the privilege of having their chief executives serve as directors of the NATO summit's host committee. The group is a private-sector support system raising $8 million to finance the April 23- 25 event.
While company representatives express disdain at the notion they will be lobbying NATO officials for business, many of the firms on the host committee sell precisely the kinds of products most in demand by the emerging economies of Eastern and Central Europe -- which include NATO's newest members and some prospective additions. Ameritech, for instance, is interested in running international phone networks. United Technologies Corp. views emerging or developing countries as a big potential market for its Otis elevators and Carrier air- conditioning and heating units. Both Ford and GM have auto plants throughout Europe. Their target audience? Heads of state and key cabinet ministers from the 19 NATO members, accompanied by leaders from 25 nations that make up the Partnership for Peace, countries with aspirations to join the alliance. The guests will be accessible for the kind of low-key lobbying and wining and dining customary at such international gatherings. About 1,700 dignitaries are expected to attend -- along with a media contingent of 3,000.
"The business community was in it from Day One," said Alan John Blinken, a former U.S. ambassador to Belgium and investment banker who is heading the host committee. "In a lot of these cases, they came to us -- we didn't solicit them."
A second tier of firms, including Washington powerhouse law and lobbying firms Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, and Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand, are members of the committee. Other companies, such as Eastman Kodak Co. and missile manufacturer Raytheon Co., are participating but taking a less public role. And more are still being courted. "They're actually wooing our CEO right now," said Gerald Robbins of 3Com Corp.'s Washington office. The communications networking company has a contract with NATO to supply equipment for the military alliance's AWACS surveillance and control planes that are being flown over Kosovo. "NATO is a big customer," Robbins said.
Some host committee members, including Nextel, also hope to attract the attention of top U.S. government officials at the summit. The company is providing almost 2,000 of Motorola Inc.'s I-1000 combination cell phone and two-way radios to visiting foreign dignitaries and members of the State Department's summit staff. Four hundred of the $299 phones will be embossed with a special anniversary emblem.
Hungary, one of NATO's three newest members, held a reception last week at its embassy here, where Nextel's general manager, Nick Sample, proudly displayed one of the phones. Beaming, he told of how the product had recently been added to the General Services Administration's list of approved merchandise, allowing government purchasing officers to order the wireless communications gear. Having Nextel phones widely available to high-level bureaucrats as well as foreign heads of state is the kind of marketing that can only be labeled as priceless.
For the guests, it's free, as Nextel is providing the phones gratis. "We've had quite a few inquiries already from the FBI, the State Department and the CIA," Sample said.
Corporate support for the NATO summit is an outgrowth of the active role many U.S. companies, particularly defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin Corp. of Bethesda, have played in the move to enlarge NATO beyond its traditional U.S.-Western Europe axis. U.S. defense companies lobbied hard in Congress in recent years to admit the former Soviet satellites Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic.
"Companies like Lockheed Martin, for example, and all of them were active with me overseas," said former congressman Gerald B.H. Solomon, who headed a House task force appointed by former House speaker Newt Gingrich to push the membership issue.
Solomon, now a private lobbyist, said he traveled throughout Eastern and Central Europe spreading the message that if the United States was going to be NATO's principal military power, supplying most of its high-tech weaponry, then U.S. defense firms should receive contracts to rearm the former Soviet states.
"We wanted them to buy American," Solomon said.
Corporate representatives say private-sector underwriting of an international meeting for sovereign nations is standard business practice these days, though the NATO event is a far bigger draw than other international get-togethers.
"This is a very unique beast," said Sally Painter, a lobbyist for Tenneco Inc. on leave from the auto parts and packaging conglomerate while serving as chief operating officer of the host committee. Painter, previously a top aide to then-commerce secretary Ronald H. Brown, was involved in international business development for Tenneco. "These are global corporations that understand the role stability plays with investment. There's no quid pro quo at all."
Jim Christy, vice president of government relations for TRW Inc., said it makes sense for companies, rather than the member nations, to foot the bill for such events.
"Whether it's the [Group of Seven] summit in Denver or the Summit of the Americas in Miami, there are not government funds available," Christy said, noting that TRW Chairman Joseph Gorman was personally approached by Blinken on behalf of the host committee.
"My chairman is public-spirited and agreed to do so," Christy said.
TRW, though it has no contracts to provide products to NATO, is one of a handful of companies providing critical communications and defense supplies to the U.S. military. Along with donating $250,000 in cash to the summit, TRW is developing its World Wide Web site.
"We were hit up for the Summit of the Americas" Christy said, adding that TRW did not contribute money for the meeting but built the summit's Web site for free.
Blinken said that the expansion of NATO and the pro-Western tilt of countries formerly tied to the Soviet Union have created "major new trading partners" for the United States but that today the interest in new markets comes not only from arms merchants but also from a variety of technology firms, including Ameritech Corp., Lucent Technologies Inc. and Nextel.
"Most of the companies are not companies you would have expected in the old day, companies selling bombs and missiles, what have you," Blinken said. "You've got communications companies."
Yet a good number of the firms on the host committee sell weaponry. Although the economic crisis that spread throughout Asia and other parts of the world last summer has somewhat cooled their enthusiasm, new NATO members such as Poland and other countries such as Turkey are viewed as prime candidates for U.S. weapons. Poland has been considering new fighter jets from either Lockheed or Boeing Co.
TRW's Christy said the summit was low on the radar of most companies just a couple of months ago, when the events committee made its first solicitations. But the fighting in Yugoslavia has focused attention on the gathering.
"All of a sudden," he said, "now this is beginning to burnish a little into the consciousness."
NATO Access
Here are the 12 companies that have paid $250,000 to have an executive (in parentheses) serve as one of the directors on the NATO summit's host committee:
Ameritech (Richard Notebaert)
DaimlerChrysler (Robert Liberatore)
Boeing (Christopher W. Hansen)
Ford Motor (Jacques A. Nasser)
General Motors (George A. Peapples)
Honeywell (Michael R. Bonsignore)
Lucent Technologies (Richard A. McGinn)
Motorola (Arnold Brenner)
Nextel Communications (Daniel F. Akerson)
SBC Communications (Edward E. Whitacre Jr.)
TRW (Joseph Gorman)
United Technologies (George David)
SOURCE: NATO Anniversary Summit Host Committee