TMCnet News
PR legend looks back at a storied career in politics [Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas](Fort Worth Star-Telegram (TX) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) March 18--AUSTIN -- Public relations mastermind Julian Read has spent more than 60 years thinking up ways to get positive news coverage for his clients. But sometimes the headlines just seem to fall in his lap. In the 1980s, he was representing Siegfried and Roy when clueless thieves stole a parked truck in downtown New York City, evidently unaware that the vehicle contained the entertainers' two Siberian tigers. The truck disappeared when the driver went for a cup of coffee just before the tigers' scheduled appearance on the CBS Morning Show. The animals were found unharmed in the abandoned truck after a five-hour search that threw midtown Manhattan into a tizzy and created far more publicity than Read had been expecting from the brief TV shoot. "There'll never be another day like that," lamented the Fort Worth-born PR executive, recalling the tiger heist over a recent breakfast at Cisco's Restaurant Bakery and Bar, a popular gathering point for politicos. At 84, Read is embarking on his seventh decade as one of Texas' pre-eminent public affairs strategists. And he shows no signs of slowing down. "He ought to write a book, but he probably never will," says Austin consultant Terry Young, who has been with Read since 1968. "He is always too busy working." Widely regarded as the dean of Texas PR consultants, the 1943 Paschal High graduate has attained almost legendary stature among many of his peers with a massive list of high-profile clients and an instinct for media showmanship. When Republicans held their national convention in Dallas in 1984, for instance, Read arranged a 21-elephant salute for President Ronald Reagan at the Dallas Convention Center. He was still in his 20s when he helped future House Speaker Jim Wright of Fort Worth win his first congressional race in 1954. He then became a top strategist for Gov. John Connally, who was living in Fort Worth when he ran for governor in 1962. Read was the public relations architect for the San Antonio world's fair in 1968 (known as the HemisFair), the 1973 opening of Dallas/Fort Worth Airport and the launch of Southwest Airlines in the early 1970s. His company has also represented a host of blue-ribbon corporate clients, including Exxon Mobil, Bell Helicopter Textron and Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Along the way, the 6-foot-5 Read has trekked through more history than most of the state's better-known political figures, from the fateful motorcade of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas in 1963 through the political transformation that converted Texas into a Republican red state after years of Democratic domination. Read is spending much of his time these days going through the treasures of that journey. Over the years, he filled three storage units with boxes of memorabilia, including documents, political buttons, old speeches, handwritten notes, photos, news releases and even a bag of peanuts from the Southwest launch. He has cleared two of the sites, transferring much of the material to his home, and is now concentrating on the third, an air-conditioned unit that is still crammed with five levels of cardboard boxes, many of them marked "JBC," for John Bowden Connally. As much as anything, Read wants to see what all is there. He says he may consider writing a book but he's not sure. But regardless of what he ultimately does with the material, the undertaking has uncorked a flood of memories and a fresh retelling of stories from the front lines of Texas politics. From news to politics The postwar PR world was still in its infancy when Read left his job as a sportswriter at the now-defunct Fort Worth Press in 1951 and set up in shop in a one-room office-apartment on the edge of downtown. He did "a little of this and a little of that" and soon began taking on political underdogs. Client No. 1 was Don Kennard, a standout high school athlete who was then a senior business major at the University of Texas. After Read helped his client win a state House race in 1952 to begin a 20-year career in the Texas Legislature, Kennard referred the publicist to Jim Wright, then the mayor of Weatherford, who wanted to run for Congress. Read and his candidate were facing long odds. The incumbent was Wingate Hezekiah Lucas, who was backed by the most powerful man in Fort Worth -- Star-Telegram Publisher Amon Carter. The turning point came in the final days of the campaign after the Star-Telegram ran a front-page editorial opposing Wright. The challenger responded by paying the Star-Telegram $974.40 to run an ad the day before the election to angrily rebut the editorial. Wright banged out the ad -- presented as an "Open Letter to Mr. Amon G. Carter" -- on a typewriter in Read's office. The strategy worked, boosting Wright to victory and launching a 34-year political career capped by Wright's election as speaker of the House. "That was the big win for us," Read said of his still-young firm. "That kind of put us on the map." Wright, who returned to Fort Worth after leaving Congress in a 1989 ethics controversy, called Read a "perceptive" adviser who helped him learn how to get optimum coverage in the days when newspapers still dominated the media landscape. "I learned more from Julian about newspapers and how best to submit a statement to them than I learned from anyone else," Wright said in a recent telephone interview. Wright to Connally Fueled by Wright's David-versus-Goliath victory over Lucas, Read began to attract growing attention as an adept behind-the-scenes strategist. His next major client was Connally, who had lived in Fort Worth nearly a decade working as general counsel for oilman Sid Richardson. After a stint as Navy secretary in the Kennedy administration, Connally was looking hard at running for governor in 1962 and summoned Read to a meeting at the Texas Hotel coffee shop. Connally, who years later would become a Republican, was clearly an underdog in a Democratic primary race dominated by better-known candidates, including Gov. Price Daniel Sr. One poll showed Connally with 4 percent, a showing that his campaign later mocked by forming "the 4 percent club." Tapping into the growing power of television, Read bought strategically placed ads and created televised "Coffee with Connally" segments that broadened the candidate's reach to the voters. Other key elements in the strategy included a whistle-stop train trip that stretched from Texarkana to El Paso and a whirlwind 48-hour aerial campaign called "around the state in 48." Read worked from 6 a.m. until midnight each day and shed 45 pounds. But Connally prevailed in the Democratic primary and runoff and went on to beat Republican Jack Cox in the general election. In addition to the victories, Read endured his share of defeats, disappointments and tragedy. He was in charge of the White House press bus during Kennedy's ill-fated trip to Dallas and kept a round-the-clock vigil at Parkland Memorial Hospital after Connally was wounded in the burst of gunfire that killed the president. Read remained one of Connally's closest advisers throughout his political career and participated in his unsuccessful run for the Republican nomination in the 1980 presidential race that ultimately propelled Reagan into the White House. After his successful start in Fort Worth, Read moved his headquarters to Austin in 1966 to be closer to Connally and the heart of Texas political power. Founded as Read Poland Associates, the company also established offices in Washington, Houston, San Antonio, Dallas and Fort Worth. The company has also represented a number of coalitions on contentious issues in the Legislature. Read Poland merged with GCI Global in 2001 and underwent further change later in the decade when GCI merged with Cohn & Wolfe. Read retired as chairman of Cohn & Wolfe Read-Poland in 2009, but no one expected him to remain on the sidelines. He has since formed a company called Julian Read Associates to advise senior-level executives on government affairs and media relations. 'An elegant gentleman' Read's decades-old image as a PR executive obscures the fact that he was part of a fabled sports staff on the Fort Worth Press, a gritty afternoon paper that served as the launching pad for renowned Texas writers Blackie Sherrod, Dan Jenkins and Bud Shrake. Sherrod was Read's editor, and Jenkins joined the staff a month before he finished Paschal High School on the strength of a piece he had written for the school paper. Read, who covered golfing great Ben Hogan during his sportswriting days, organized a reunion with Sherrod, Jenkins, Shrake and other Press alumni in 2009. He worked for the paper from 1945 to 1951 and met his "lifetime sweetheart," the future Anice Barber Read, a 1950 Arlington Heights graduate, while covering high school athletics. They were married 48 years until her death in 1999. Colleagues as well as competitors praise Read for both his PR savvy and genial demeanor. He has his own table at Cisco's, a gift from the company that commemorated his "first 50 years" with Read Poland in 2001. "He's an elegant gentleman," says Austin consultant Bill Miller. "He's old school in all the right ways." Read still does his "creative" work on a beige Remington typewriter in his office on Congress Avenue and believes that handwritten notes sent in a stamped envelope are the most sincere form of communication. But he has also fully embraced the digital advances of the 21st century and offers observations on politics and government in a in a blog called Texas Off The Record. "I've been very blessed," he said. "The journey I've had, I could never have dreamed of. And I can't wait until tomorrow." Dave Montgomery, 512-476-4294 Twitter: @daveymontgomery ___ (c)2012 the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Visit the Fort Worth Star-Telegram at www.star-telegram.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |