Laura Jordan Dietrich

This article is part of the Tobacco portal on Sourcewatch funded from 2006 - 2009 by the American Legacy Foundation.

Laura Jordan Dietrich, also known as Laura Dietrich, rose to become the highest ranking woman in the U.S. State Department during the Reagan Administration, when President Reagan appointed her as his UN Human Rights Commissioner.

She was also a partner and constant supporter of her husband, Paul George Dietrich, a prominent Washington DC lawyer who was one of the tobacco industry's most notorious lobbyists. He was also, for a short time, the editor-in-chief of the expiring Saturday Review magazine (owned briefly by the tobacco industry), which gave him some public recognition which he traded upon for many years after; he was contracted to run media briefings around the world with junketing journalists.

In Washington and international diplomatic circles his editorial title provided Paul with some status in his own right, rather than just being "the husband of...".

In 1982-83 Laura was the deputy director external relations for the Agency for International Development (USAID) -- working under Secretary of State, John Bolton in Washington Meanwhile her husband run a Washington think-tank, the National Center for Legislative Research (NCLR) with 6 professionals and 4 support staff. This was a 'pay-to-publish' operation set up and run by Dietrich and Samuel Landfather which published three different mailed-free-to-politican journals used to distribute corporate propaganda to gullible politicans. The Tobacco Institute paid them $30,000 in 1983.

Laura Jordan Dietrich says that during this same period )1982-85) she was a director of Foundation Management Inc., Washington. FMI is an Oklahoma based company serving private foundations, charitable organizations and nonprofit communities across the United States. Paul was also Editor of the award winning book, A GUIDE TO AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY (1982). (according to various biographies)

Laura became the special assistant to secretary (John Bolton), Department Interior, Washington, in 1983 and then rose the following year to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, the following year. (during the period to 1987)

In this same period Paul's NCLR began publishing "International Policy" which promoted the opinions Jack Kemp, Jeane Kirkpatrick ect. Robert Kasten, Newt Gingrich, Charlton Heston (who was speaking against the nuclear freeze.) It played a major role in heating up the Cold War.

Tobacco links

The Dietrichs and David A. Morse (ex-ILO, and another tobacco lobbyist) also operated a tobacco-funded pseudo-think-tank with the unlikely name of the Institute for International Health & Development -- funded to the tune of about $250,000 each year by Philip Morris. Laura was closely involved with many of these scams, supposedly as the IIHD's "Director of Research".

The pseudo-organisation had offices both in the Catholic University in Washington DC and in Geneva ... and it managed to get away with claiming that it was affiliated with the Catholic University of Washington DC. The same group also appears to have run the Knights of Malta organisations, which selected the US citizens who would be awarded papal knighthood. Laura Jordan got one, as did Reagan's CIA director Bill Casey, and a number of associates of the clique.

They managed to get their think-tank officially accredited as a NGO (non-Government Organisation) to the World Health Organization and its Pan-American offshoot, PAHO. This effectively gave the tobacco industry a seat at the table when anti-smoking measures and budget-allocations were being discussed.

The IIHD supplemented the industry's other links with the top level of WHO administration through Warren W. Furth, the Associate Secretary-General for Administration of the WHO organisation, who was secretly employed through Morse's law firm.[1] Francis Blanchard who had been David Morse's deputy (taking over the ILO after Morse left) also became a tobacco lobbyist on his retirement from Geneva, working through Morse's Washington lawfirm, Surrey & Morse.[2]

Geoff Bible and Bill Murray were the two Australians who headed the international Philip Morris conglomerate after the Scottish aristocrat Hamish Maxwell (This triumvirate effectively ran the tobacco industry scams for 30 years). They were successive CEOs and Chairmen during the period when Philip Morris led the underhand activities including the development of scientific disinformation. Paul Dietrich was one of their main international lobbyists.

Early in their careers Biblem Murray and Maxwell had been part of a clique of ex-pat squash players in Switzerland during the 1970s, along with Furth, Morse and Blanchard who were all working for UN agencies. (Be aware) There was also another Paul Dietrich who was also part of this group, who was an expert in concocting chemical flavors for cigarette tobacco -- but he was not the Paul Dietrich that Laura Jordan married (maybe father).

The IIHD also had close affiliations with Vatican-based Catholic hospital missions in Africa. Paul Dietrich and David Morse also ran the Knights of Malta organisation in the USA for a while, which gave them (and all those knighted) a Vatican passport which was recognised at national borders around the world. It was effectively a form of diplomatic status and immunity.

The Dietriches and David Morse managed to integrate Catholic conservativism, Vatican evangelism and tobacco lobbying -- and make a lot of money for themselves in the process. See Paul Dietrich, David A. Morse and the Institute for International Health & Development

They both now reside in Middleburg Virginia, where Laura devotes most of her time to the (fox) hunting club. Paul is CEO of Fairfax Global Markets and has an Enterprise Radio spot.