A Letter from USS Liberty Veterans Association

Our association is quite pleased with the press coverage obtained by Peter Wirth of GW Associates for the 30th anniversary reunion events of the U.S.S. Liberty Veterans Association in Washington D.C., and I would highly recommend his services. Mr. Wirth was quite successful in obtaining media coverage, particularly that which is syndicated, by the following entities, in approximate order of significance:

1. Associated Press story by AP's Washington D.C. bureau reporter Gene Kramer. The PR exposure generated by an AP story speaks for itself; I have learned that the AP piece was picked up by the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Times. (And as a result of the AP piece picked up by the LA Times, the Riverside CA (pop. 264,000) Press Enterprise interviewed our members for two separate articles. In turn, these articles generated at least two favorable letters- to-the-editor.

Op-Ed distributed by Scripps Howard, written by columnist Eric Larsen. Scripps Howard is syndicated to about 400 papers nationwide. It's impossible to know exactly what papers picked this piece up, but I know that the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Sacramento Bee ran it,

3. Christian Science Monitor news item of about 50 words, picked up from the AP story. While this piece was short, the Monitor has a significant nationwide circulation.

4. CBS Radio segment, (2-1/2 min.) broadcast throughout the day, 6/6/97, which included taped interviews of our organization's members ,

5. (Christian Science) Monitor Radio segment, 6/6/97, which included taped interviews of our organization's members.

6. Eric Rosenberg news story, by the Hearst Newspapers syndicate. Hearst items travel via the New York Times News Service, which is sent to over 500 newspapers. I know of two papers that ran this piece, and no doubt numerous other papers picked it up.

7. American Legion Magazine story, July, 1997, of several thousand words, including seven photos.

8. Navy Times article, 6/30/97. available on AOL's "Military City Online."

This news item was also

9. UAE (United Arab Emirates) TV, which broadcasts in Egypt also, and therefore has an audience of many millions, although not in the U.S.

I'd say Mr. Wirth's efforts were quite successful -- more than our organization would have even hoped for. One of our members, John Hrankowski of Rochester, NY, described the results Pete achieved as "a super fantastic job," and many other members were similarly pleased. Mr. Wirth traveled to Washington D.C. and demonstrated for us how to handle reporters that showed up at our events, and his advice and instructions were quite helpful. He made well over 100 long-distance phone calls and fares on our behalf. Pete also dealt with time constraints quite well, and worked hard and late into the night quite frequently. It is safe for me to say that because of Peter Wirth's efforts, we achieved media exposure to millions of people.

Again, I highly recommend Mr. Wirth's services.