---
alias:
- Coral Gables
category: City
created: 2026-09-21
location: Florida, United States
summary: City adjoining Miami that was the headquarters of the Wackenhut Corporation
  and the site of an ITT public relations office about which the Watergate special
  prosecutor questioned the CIA in 1973.
tags:
- Place
- CoralGables
- Florida
- Wackenhut
- ITT
- MullenCompany
updated: 2026-09-21
---

Coral Gables is a city in Dade County, Florida, adjoining [Miami](/places/miami/).

The [Wackenhut Corporation](/organizations/wackenhut-corporation/), founded in 1954 by [George R. Wackenhut](/people/george-r-wackenhut/) and three other former agents of the [FBI](/organizations/federal-bureau-of-investigation/), had its headquarters there until it moved to Palm Beach Gardens. The [CIA](/organizations/central-intelligence-agency/) used the company from 1961 to 1967 to give cover to officers of its Western Hemisphere Division stationed in the Miami area. On May 3, 1967, George Walker of the Coral Gables office handed the FBI a letter from a Miami man who said that before the assassination of President [John F. Kennedy](/people/john-f-kennedy/) a Cuban in his boarding house had remarked that to kill Kennedy one had only to excite a Cuban with a high-powered rifle.[^1][^2]

On July 26, 1973, the office of the Watergate special prosecutor asked the CIA whether it had any working relationship with "the ITT Public Relations Office located at 495 Biltmore Way, Coral Gables, [Florida](/places/florida/)," and whether [Howard Hunt](/people/howard-hunt/) or G. Gordon Liddy had done undercover work for [ITT](/organizations/itt-corporation/). The agency's Cover and Commercial Staff answered on August 7 that it had no relationship with or information on the Coral Gables office and had never discussed ITT with the [Robert R. Mullen Company](/organizations/robert-r-mullen-company/). ITT's public relations man for Latin America, [Hal Hendrix](/people/hal-hendrix/), a former Miami journalist, pleaded guilty in 1976 to withholding information from a Senate subcommittee about his CIA contacts.[^3]

[^1]: Central Intelligence Agency, "Wackenhut Corporation, SF# 493 364," memorandum for the record, July 28, 1975, JFK record 104-10130-10454; The Wackenhut Corporation, annual reports and Forms 10-K, Securities and Exchange Commission.
[^2]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Miami, memorandum of May 10, 1967, headquarters file 62-109060, section 129, p. 166.
[^3]: Ruth, Henry S., Jr., Watergate Special Prosecution Force, letter to John S. Warner, July 26, 1973, with the reply of August 7, 1973, CIA Reading Room document C01367838; House Committee on Armed Services, Special Subcommittee on Intelligence, *Inquiry into the Alleged Involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency in the Watergate and Ellsberg Matters,* 1973.