Robert R. Mullen Company

Robert R. Mullen and Company was a public relations firm in Washington whose founder, Robert R. Mullen, placed officers of the CIA in its overseas offices. E. Howard Hunt was on its payroll when he organized the break-in at the Watergate. The agency's cryptonym for the arrangement was QKENCHANT.¹²

Cover

The agency's Central Cover Staff recorded that "the utilization of Robert R. Mullen and Company dates back to June 1963 and grew out of the recommendation of" a long-time cooperative asset, whose name is deleted. The first placement was proposed by a representative of another firm already giving cover to agency employees. Five placements followed between October 1963 and August 1972, in offices in Singapore, Stockholm, Mexico City, and a fourth city that remains deleted. Before that Mullen "was instrumental in the formation of the Cuban Freedom Committee at the request of Mr. Richard Bissell," and was the original owner of the Intercontinental Research Company, which the agency's covert action staff used as cover for its youth and student activities. One of the firm's clients, General Foods of White Plains, New York, separately gave cover to agency officers. "General Foods Corporation is not aware of our cover use of the Mullen Company nor is Mullen aware of our use of General Foods."¹³

Hunt

Hunt retired from the agency on April 30, 1970. An officer of its retirement branch had asked Mullen for advice on placing him, and Mullen first referred him to a friend at General Foods and then hired him. Director Richard Helms wrote a letter of recommendation. Mullen recalled that at a function at the Kennedy Center "Mr. Helms had winked and given a hand signal," which he took as approval. He and Hunt had both worked for the Marshall Plan in Paris from 1948 to 1950, when Dorothy Hunt was employed by Averell Harriman. An agency memorandum of 1975 states that the retirement officer had not known of the Paris connection. Mullen told Hunt of the cover arrangement "without authorization," and on June 3, 1970, the Central Cover Staff asked the Office of Security to clear him as witting, addressing the request to the case officer, Martin Lukoskie. In July 1971 Hunt informed the staff that he had been assigned to the White House.²⁴

Bennett, Hughes, and ITT

Robert Foster Bennett left the Department of Transportation on January 1, 1971, to join the firm, was briefed on the cover arrangement on April 30, and had assumed ownership by about June 1972. He brought in the account of the Howard Hughes interests, formerly handled by Robert Maheu. After the arrests Bennett passed the agency information on the Watergate affair, on Hunt, on the Hughes account, and on "allegations concerning dishonesty of Robert A. Maheu." A contact report of July 10, 1972, records his appearance before the grand jury. Lukoskie's handwritten memorandum, as cited to Senator Howard Baker on December 11, 1973, stated that Bennett had used a "back-door entry" to the law firm of Edward Bennett Williams to "kill off any revelation by Ed Williams of Agency association with the Mullen firm."³⁵

In March 1972, while employed by the firm, Hunt went to Denver in a wig and with false identification to interview the ITT lobbyist Dita Beard in her hospital room about the memorandum at the center of the ITT affair, which he had suggested might be a forgery. Charles Colson sent him. The House subcommittee under Lucien Nedzi gives his alias as Edward Warren, and Newsweek gave it as Edward Hamilton. On July 26, 1973, the Watergate special prosecutor's office asked the agency whether it knew of "any type of arrangements between ITT and the Mullen Company," of the ITT public relations office at 495 Biltmore Way, Coral Gables, or of undercover work by Hunt or G. Gordon Liddy for ITT, and whether Hal Hendrix and five other named men had worked for it. The Cover and Commercial Staff answered two of the five questions on August 7. It "has never had occasion to discuss with Robert R. Mullen and Company whether it has had any association or arrangements with ITT," its file held two of the firm's brochures, "and neither lists ITT among its clients," and it had no relationship with or information on the Coral Gables office. No answer to the questions about Hendrix, about ITT and Chile, or about Hunt and Liddy has been released.⁶⁷

Director William Colby reported to Henry Kissinger on the use of the firm for cover on February 9, 1974. Mullen was released from his secrecy agreement for a single interview with the Senate Watergate committee on February 5, 1974.⁵