MEXICO HIRES FIRM TO CHANGE ITS NEGATIVE IMAGE IN U.S.

Goal Is To Support Guest Worker Proposal

WASHINGTON - Fed up with the drumbeat of news stories about drug
wars, police corruption, border mayhem and illegal immigration, the
government of Mexico has followed a time-honored course for anyone
seeking an image makeover: It's hired a PR firm.

Rob Allyn, a prominent Dallas public-relations craftsman who helped
shape Mexican President Vicente Fox's stunning election victory in
2000, now shoulders the burden of pushing aside a largely negative
U.S. perception of Mexico as a land of drug lords and economic hardship.

Allyn's objective -- and that of his client -- is to display Mexico
as a nation on the move, with a flourishing democracy and
growth-oriented economy, indelibly linked to its neighbor to the
north. In Allyn's words, to focus on "the good things that are
happening in Mexico" and "correct some of the myths and
misperceptions that are out there."

It's a daunting assignment.

Troubled borders

The presence of nearly 11 million illegal immigrants in the United
States -- more than half from Mexico -- has left many U.S. residents
with the impression that Mexico is an impoverished, economically
troubled land that can't hold on to its own people.

Turf battles between vicious drug cartels have turned a portion of
the Texas-Mexico border into a war zone, prompting the U.S.
government to warn against travel to the Mexican border town of Nuevo
Laredo, center stage for the violence.

Last week, the sheriff of Hudspeth County in Texas reported that men
dressed in Mexican army uniforms crossed the border to protect a drug
shipment, and U.S. customs officials displayed a sophisticated tunnel
dug under the border near San Diego and packed with tons of marijuana.

Carlos Garcia de Alba, Mexico's consul general in Dallas, said Mexico
turned to Allyn, who will receive $720,000 for the one-year contract,
to tell a more uplifting story. "We want to be recognized as a
reliable good neighbor, partner and friend," he said. "And when you
focus on just very specific facts . . . you're missing a lot. You're
not looking at the whole picture."

The PR offensive will remind U.S. residents that Mexico is the United
States' second largest trading partner after Canada, buying $111
billion of U.S. exports every year. Mexico will also stress that its
government is aggressively fighting corruption, promoting democracy
and fostering greater economic opportunities for its 105 million citizens.

The campaign's over-arching goal is to strengthen U.S.-Mexican
relations at a time when President Bush is pressuring Congress to
enact a guest worker program for foreign workers, a top priority of
the Fox administration.

The outlook for passage is uncertain, with a strong cadre of
Republican conservatives vowing to resist any immigration overhaul
that includes a guest worker program.

Damaging incidents

The incident in Hudspeth County -- in far West Texas -- also created
an uproar in Washington, prompting calls for an international
investigation and inflaming suspicions that rogue members of the
Mexican military are escorting drug shipments into the United States,
an assertion the Mexican government emphatically denies.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, chairman of the Senate subcommittee on
immigration, called the incident "a thumb in the eye to the United
States" that hurts prospects for enactment of a guest worker plan.
Repairing Mexico's image from a steady "drip, drip, drip of bad
news," he said, "is going to take more than hiring a public relations
consultant."

Nevertheless, Allyn's admirers in both the United States and Mexico
believe that the Dallas executive is up to the challenge, pointing to
scores of earlier successes, often against formidable odds.

Allyn, 46, is often described as a Republican strategist but he has
increasingly displayed an international reach by helping candidates,
political parties and corporations in other countries. Perhaps his
most celebrated triumph was Fox's upset victory in 2000 over the
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which had held the
presidency for 71 years.

After meeting Fox on a trip to Mexico, Allyn, whose 23-year-old Allyn
& Co. merged into the Fleishman-Hillard public relations group in
2002, became a central figure in the campaign but kept his role
secret to avoid the appearance of U.S. meddling. He taught himself
Spanish and traveled in and out of the country for three years, using
three different pseudonyms.

Allyn has made no attempt to hide his current role, but he prefers to
keep the focus on his client rather than himself. That strategy
hasn't always been successful. A small group of protesters aligned
with anti-immigrant groups protested outside his office last week,
complaining that his alliance with the Mexican government constituted
an affront to "national sovereignty."

Allyn also drew limited criticism from U.S. Latinos, who felt that
Mexico should have recruited a Latino firm to trumpet its message in
the United States. "They should give Latinos a good shot at filling
those positions," said Brent Wilkes, executive director of League of
United Latin American Citizens (LULAC).