Jack Valenti, 1921-2007, A Friend of the Fight

Jack Valenti, the White House insider who became a legendary lobbyist for the movie industry, died yesterday - and some of the obituaries have missed an important contribution Jack made in his later years. For the past three years, Valenti was President of the Friends of the Global Fight, a Washington-based organization that works to build awareness about public policies to support the fight against AIDS, TB and malaria. (Friends of the Global Fight was founded by Ed Scott, who also co-founded CGD. Ed is Chairman of the Board of both organizations.)

In his role as President of Friends, Valenti applied his finely honed skills of persuasion - very well described by the Washington Post's Paul Farhi - to convincing legislators on Capitol Hill to pay attention to crucial health challenges in the developing world. Development policy rarely gets this brand of glamour and charisma; he was able to open doors that had slammed shut on others. Very recently, it was the work of Valenti (among others) that led to the increase in US contributions to the Global Fund and PEPFAR. As for why an 85-year-old would choose the daily grind of meetings and briefing papers over the lure of leisure, here's what Valenti had to say: "Retirement to me is a synonym for decay. The idea of just knocking about, playing golf or whatever, is so unattractive to me that I would rather be nibbled to death by ducks. So long as I am doing what I choose to do and love to do, work is not work but total fun."