James Rubin

James Rubin (b. 1960, New York) has held a variety of US government positions, e.g., spokesman, aide to senior officials, and currently is a PR lobbyist in London.

James P. Rubin served under President Clinton as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs from 1997 to May 2000. The Secretary of State also appointed him to be the Department's Chief Spokesman.

Prior to his Presidential appointment, Mr. Rubin was Director of Foreign Policy and Spokesman for the Clinton/Gore '96 Campaign. From May 1993 until 1996, Mr. Rubin served as Senior Adviser and Spokesman for U.S. Representative to the United Nations, Madeleine K. Albright.

From 1989-1993, he was a Professional Staff Member on the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and Senior Foreign Policy Adviser to Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (D-DE). From 1985 to 1989, Mr. Rubin was the Research Director for the non-profit Arms Control Association in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Rubin is a Visiting Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics. He is a regular commentator for the Financial Times, the BBC, CNN, and the American television networks. He lives in London with his wife, Christiane Amanpour, and their son, Darius John Rubin.[1]

In 2001, Alan Parker, the CEO of the Brunswick Group, recruited Bill Clinton's former aide, James Rubin, to its political affairs unit. Rubin left the Brunswick group in 2004 to become the foreign policy adviser for Senator John Kerry during his presidential campaign. [2]

On December 22, 2004, James Rubin hosted the BBC World program Hard Talk where he interviewed the anti-war playwright Harold Pinter [3]. During the interview Rubin even stated that he was "defending" the American position. This is an inappropriate assignment of a current lobbyist, a former US State Department senior official, and someone associated with AIPAC-affiliated organizations. Several BBC journalists are outraged that this political appointment of a lobbyist has taken over as moderator of a major BBC current affairs/news program. Other programs in this series interviewed Saeb Erekat [4], and Shimon Peres [5].

On 12 September, 2005, the British-based news channel, Sky News, announced that Rubin would join the network as anchor of its new international show – World News Tonight. [6]. It appears that the motivation of Sky News was to select an individual with an international profile. What remains of concern is if Rubin would act as a lobbyist for certain issues whilst attempting to act as an 'impartial' anchor.

Quotes pertaining Spin

Mr. James Rubin, Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, lectured on "Conflict in the Media: A Spokesman Looks at the Middle East Crisis." Speaking before a standing-room audience, Mr. Rubin noted that, to be effective, a spokesperson must be able to put out a 'mixed message' to the media, one that covers all aspects of policy. There is no magic to 'spin' he said, rather 'spin' was about substance. In this day and age of instantaneous mass communications it is impossible to get different messages out to different countries at the same time. A mixed message that catered to all was the key to success. Had President Clinton's message after the failure of the Camp David talks been less unequivocally critical of Yasser Arafat, he said, things today might be different.

— abstract of talk at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies June 17, 2001[7]

Other positions

During the 2004 presidential election, Rubin was a foreign affairs spokesman for John Kerry. Before the elections, Rubin was the spokesman who stated that Kerry would also have invaded Iraq in 2003 and would urge and increase in troop levels. Rubin's statements were not contradicted, and effectively undermined Kerry's campaign, showing that there was virtually no difference between the Democrats and Republicans. [Alexander Cockburn, http://www.will.uiuc.edu/am/mediamatters/default.htm, Aug 29 04]

Affiliations

• Brunswick Group
• American Friends of Atlantic Partnership — President
• Arms Control Association