Gerald Rafshoon

Gerald Monroe Rafshoon (born January 11, 1934) is an American television producer and political operative. He is one of the four founding members of Unity08, and was the White House Communications Director under the presidency of Jimmy Carter. In doing so, Rafshoon became the first professional advertising executive to join the White House staff.[citation needed ]

Born in New York, Rafhsoon is a graduate of University of Texas. He served in the United States Navy for three years.

Rafshoon started his own advertising agency in Atlanta in 1963, after working at 20th Century Fox in Atlanta and New York.

In 1966, Rafshoon decided to join Carter's 1966 campaign for governor of Georgia, after hearing a bad campaign jingle on the radio while driving. In 1976, Rafshoon was the architect of the advertising and public relations campaign that helped Carter, then a mostly unknown Southern governor and peanut farmer, become President of the United States.

Following his White House years, Rafshoon began producing motion pictures and television programs. He is a specialist in international co-productions working closely with the leading television networks and production companies in Europe and filming in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

In January 2008, Rafshoon and fellow Unity08 co-founder Doug Bailey left that organization to launch a national effort to draft New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to run for President of the United States as an independent candidate.

He has produced 52 hours of television and cable entertainment for U.S. and international networks. Among them are two Emmy Award-winning programs and three Emmy nominees. They include:

He also produced an Emmy-winning documentary series Decisions That Shook the World about important controversial decisions made by American presidents that defined their character and affected the course of history.

According to Namebase, Gerald Rafshoon is mentioned in the following books: