Memos Show Executives Tried to ‘Plant’ Letters

At least once, in 1985, Irvine Co. officials sought to place editorials and company-written letters to the editor--signed by community residents--in the company-owned Irvine World News, documents obtained by The Times indicate.

A company employee drafted five letters to the editor supporting the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor; a second company official recruited Irvine residents to sign them, according to the documents. Three of these letters, nearly identical to drafts approved by company officials, appeared in the Feb. 7, 1985, edition of the Irvine World News.

An editorial supporting the corridor, which was vital to the company’s interests, appeared Jan. 31 that year.

The newspaper’s editors and Irvine Co. officials, while acknowledging their close organizational relationship, have denied that the paper has ever been a public relations vehicle for the company.

The letter-writing campaign came at a crucial time for the Irvine Co. Serious grass-roots opposition from Irvine residents was developing toward plans to involve the city in collecting funds for the corridor. While a majority of the City Council supported the financing plan, some citizens were collecting signatures for a ballot measure banning the city’s assistance in the financing.

The corridor was critical to the Irvine Co.’s development plans for a large chunk of Orange County coastline. Without freeway access, there was little possibility that the company’s plans for an upscale housing development and resort could go forward.

The crisis provoked a series of high-level meetings of company staff and officials and a flurry of memos and action plans to mold public opinion in favor of the corridor. In one such document, dated Jan. 23, 1985, an official wrote:

“Irvine is the . . . most politically vulnerable, most easily organized, and any official opposition from Irvine could seriously cripple the program. . . . We will attempt to neutralize or isolate political opposition groups or leaders, as they develop.”

The strategy that emerged partly focused on the Irvine World News. The Irvine Co. saw the newspaper as part of a coordinated effort to win support for the San Joaquin Hills project, according to interviews with past and present company executives and employees and an examination of numerous company documents.

A company document dated Feb. 5, written by Tom Wilck, at that time the Irvine Co.’s vice president for corporate communications, under a section headed “Communications Resources,” stated: “The following communications vehicles are at our disposal, subject to strategy considerations about how and whether they should be used.” Listed first in order of priority was the Irvine World News, followed by the Orange County Register, The Times, the Daily Pilot and local television outlets.

Target Issues

The Irvine World News issues covering the Jan. 29, Feb. 5 and Feb. 12 City Council meetings--crucial sessions in which the freeway was considered--were particular targets of the company working group, the documents show, although Brien Manning, publisher of the newspaper since 1982, and Jeanne Keevil, its longtime editor, insist that the company did not directly attempt to influence news or editorial coverage on the subject.

Several times, on several versions of the company’s action plans, is the sentence: “We should seek IWN editorial, Jan. 31,” followed by the initials “TW,” which Wilck, who now runs his own public relations firm, identified as his own in a recent interview.

In one version, this line is followed by the handwritten notation, “TW talk w/Brien.” An editorial supporting the corridor appeared in the Jan. 31 issue, but Manning said he could not recall speaking on the subject with Wilck, whom he describes as a friend.

“There was no discussion about any content of any editorial” with Irvine Co. officials, Manning said. “There was no discussion at any time as to content of anything we do. I can say that without any fear of contradiction.”

Asked if he went to Manning about a pro-corridor editorial, Wilck at first said he had not, but added: “I might suggest something to him, but the decisions were up to him. Again, there were different opinions on this, but some of us felt very strongly that the minute the newspaper lost its credibility it would have no value to the community or the company.”

In a Feb. 1 memo to Wilck, in which a company staff member provided a status report on the campaign, there appears under the heading “Actions and Objectives” the line, “Irvine World News coverage, Jan. 31 (completed).”

Finding Letter-Writers

The same memo refines earlier proposals to “develop five individual letters to the editor” of the Irvine World News, each making a separate point outlined in the memo, and to “secure five individuals within the community who could write a letter to the editor to include one of the above-mentioned themes.”

Within days of the memo, the same staff member, identified in the memo as Suzanne Rothlisberger, drafted seven such letters, some of which were edited, typed and then sent by messenger to the Irvine World News. The paper then, as now, had a policy of printing most of the letters it received, Manning said. Three of the letters, with nearly identical wording to drafts written and edited by company staff, appeared in the Feb. 7 issue of the Irvine World News.

Some of the same letters, readdressed to the Daily Pilot and the Los Angeles Times, were then sent to those publications by the Irvine Co., according to a former Irvine Co. employee. Two of the letters appeared in the Pilot, and one appeared in The Times.

The signers of the three letters that appeared in the Irvine World News were Diane I. Kent, Harry Bozigian and Denis Quigley.

Kent said in an interview that she got a call from Mike Manahan, a personal friend who was then director of community relations, who asked if she realized that the corridor had become an important issue. She said Manahan suggested she write a letter, which she did. She said she recalled sending the letter to the Irvine World News and the Daily Pilot, but not to The Times.

Doesn’t Remember

“I don’t know how it got to the L.A. Times,” she said in a recent interview. “I do not recall sending it the L.A. Times.”

“I don’t recall who gave me the letter, if in fact someone did,” said Bozigian, past president of the Irvine Chamber of Commerce and operator of Dewey’s Refuse Service. “It could just have been someone who suggested that I make some kind of statement in the newspaper.

“I don’t honestly remember. It was three years ago.”

But Bozigian, who has hauling contracts with the Irvine Co. and several large firms in Southern California, said he has been in favor of both the San Joaquin Hills corridor and the proposed Foothill freeway for a long time.

“As a citizen, I think we’ve needed the freeways,” he said.

Bozigian said that Tom Wilck is a friend but that he could not remember if Wilck was the one who gave him the letter. He said he could have been contacted through the Chamber of Commerce.

Denis Quigley could not be located.

An Irvine Co. spokeswoman said the whereabouts of Manahan and Rothlisberger, who have left the company, is unknown. Both Manning and editor Keevil deny knowing that the letters to the editor had been drafted by the company.

‘It Offends Me’

“When people say the company is yanking on my cord, it offends me,” Manning said in a recent interview. “It offends the professionals working in my editorial department, as well as my entire organization, and I think it offends the people in our community because it is saying they don’t know they are being manipulated. We are dealing with a tremendously sophisticated community out there.”

The letter-writing campaign was part of a strategy to build support for the corridor and to defuse the initiative signature-gathering efforts by Irvine residents, according to the documents.

One of the company’s internal action plans stated: “It is very tough to oppose gathering of signatures. We can most successfully defuse the initiative prior to signature-gathering by showing major community support for the corridors.”

Among the actions listed were the packing of the Jan. 29, 1985, Irvine City Council meeting with supporters of the highway proposal--which Wilck later referred to as a Putsch (a sudden political uprising or rebellion) in a subsequent memo--and “resolutions of support from credible organizations,” including the Irvine Chamber of Commerce. The chamber did endorse the company’s plan at its Jan. 22 meeting, an event that was covered in the Jan. 24 issue of the Irvine World News.

Another memo dated Feb. 4 discussed actions to take place for the Feb. 12 council meeting, including writing letters to the editor, arranging for “local organizations to make presentations” on the corridor and “TIC employees who could make the presentations,” and “notification of civic leaders, residents, business persons to attend City Council meeting.”

Irvine Co. No Different

Speaking for the Irvine Co., Larry Thomas, vice president for corporate communications, said in a recent interview that, as a general rule, the Irvine Co. is no different from other companies, labor unions or environmental organizations that try to mobilize public opinion.

“It is something that is done,” Thomas said, adding that he was not commenting on any specific company documents or memos that The Times may have obtained. “I really don’t know what those documents have to do with the Irvine World News,” he said.

The initiative effort was successful, but the proposal is still mired in litigation, now before the state Supreme Court. The Irvine Co. and other supporters of the corridor managed in 1987 to persuade the Legislature to permit plans for the freeway to proceed as the state’s first toll road.

NEWSPAPER STRATEGY

Two of the Irvine Co.’s action plans to build support for the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor included efforts to pack the Jan. 29, 1985, Irvine City Council meeting where the matter was on the agenda, as well as plans to arrange supporting editorial and news coverage in the Irvine Co. vice president for corporate communications, the pencil notation “TW talk w/Brien” refers to himself and Brien Manning, publisher of the newspaper. In a subsequent memo, Wilck approvingly referred to the turnout at the City Council meeting as a Putsch .

IRVINE COMPANY LETTER CAMPAIGN

In 1985, officials at the Irvine Co. developed a plan to help mold public opinion in favor of the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor by writing a series of letters to the editor that appeared in newspapers signed by residents. The letters below, written by the Irvine Co., later appeared in the Irvine World News and the Daily Pilot. Another version written by a company official appeared in the Los Angeles Times Orange County Edition.