ABSTRACT
When Carl Byoir, one of the towering giants who built today’s highly successful public relations business, died on February 3, 1957, the public relations agency he had founded in 1930 was at the top of heap with 25 major industrial and trade association clients. Five years earlier, The Reporter had described Byoir as “undoubtedly the most successful public relations counsel now in business.” Yet 30 years later, the firm was dead, killed by its longtime archrival, Hill & Knowlton, Inc. H&K had purchased the Byoir firm from Foote, Cone, and Belding, a major advertising agency. Foote, Cone, and Belding, successor firm to pioneer Albert Lasker’s Lord & Thomas, had bought the Byoir agency from Chairman George Hammond, President Robert Wood, and other shareholders in 1978 but had been unsuccessful in managing this public relations agency.
