Bob Berg, who was famous in Detroit media circles as Coleman Young’s longtime spokesman, died yesterday. He was a good and decent man, soft-spoken, self-effacing and highly intelligent. Today’s Detroit newspapers have stories about him, which will be read mainly by those who already knew Bob.
I was one of those; he was a good friend. I admired him greatly. After Mayor Young retired in 1994, Bob helped start Berg-Muirhead, a fully integrated public relations firm that specialized in Detroit and Detroit-related issues.
He helped many of my former students start their careers, and one of those, Peter VanDyke, is today a co-owner of the firm, now called VanDyke Horn. They do very good work for many clients and civic causes.
What many people don’t know, however, is that Bob quietly helped more people than I ever knew about, with everything from sage advice to helping them make connections. He was certainly unfailingly kind to me.
He also was the main spokesman for two very different men who were both giants in Michigan politics. First, William G. Milliken, the soft-spoken, somewhat aristocratic Republican governor of Michigan, who came from Traverse City, went to Yale, and served longer than any governor in our history. When he retired, Berg took on the same role for Coleman A. Young, the tough-talking, street-fighting pugnacious black mayor of Detroit.
Oddly enough, as different as they were, both men liked each other, which made Berg’s job a bit easier. But it wasn’t easy. While Milliken had been generally liked and respected, Coleman was intensely hated by many, and disliked by many of the reporters who covered him.
Bob Berg was caught between the hammer and the anvil, but he did his job superbly well. He never lied and tried never to show anger. He told me once it took the mayor a few years to fully trust him, but he eventually did.
And Berg remained loyal, even functioning as press secretary pro bono for Mayor Young until he died, nearly four years after he left office. Berg, a white guy from a small town in Illinois, learned about urban issues from Coleman Young, respected him immensely, and defended him always.
I’ve heard some of the reporters who are praising Berg now sneer at him years ago as an apologist for Young, saying he’d “drunk the Kool-Aid.”
Personally, I admired the man Berg always called “the mayor” more than most did. But when I did criticize him, Berg would be there to try to get me to see it another way, and I admired that too.
For he stayed loyal to both Bill Milliken and Coleman Young as long as he lived. We now live in an era when Presidential aides leave the White House to become TV news commentators even while their bosses are still in office.
Sometimes, they even turn on them. Bob Berg would never have done that, though he knew where a lot of skeletons are buried, more than most of us can imagine. I do have one beef with Bob. For years, I told him he needed to write a book about Coleman Young, a book only he could write.
He always agreed, but was just too busy. Finally, he was just gearing up to start, when his time ran out. I wish we had that book, but I’ll miss Bob more.
But if there is an afterlife, it’s probably time he joined the mayor. I have a hunch that Young’s old nemesis, L. Brooks Patterson, may be joining them soon.
