CIA AND ROBERT R. MULLEN COMPANY

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 00495977
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 13
• Document Creation Date: March 9, 2023
• Document Release Date: August 14, 2020
• Case Number: F-2016-01299
• Publication Date: December 12, 1973

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12 December 1973
(b)(1)
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SUBJECT:
CIA and Robert R. Mullen Company
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(b)(3)
History of Cover Use of Robert R. Mullen Company:
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1.
CIA first used the Robert
R. Mullen
Company as a
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cover vehicle when Mr. Mullen in
agreed to open
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(b)(3)
an office in
When this officer
year no successor
and staff it with a CIA officer.
was withdrawn at the end of the following
(b)(1)
(b)(3)
was placed by CIA. Since business oppor-(b)(1)
tunities did not justify Mr. Mullen's maintaining this (b)(3)
office on his own account, it was closed.
2.
Mr. Mullen agreed
to open an office in
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(b)(3)
and
who
(b)(1)
(b)(3)
staff it with CIA officers
remained there until
respective-
(b)(1)
ly. This office was closed upon the return of
the
(b)(3)
officer in thE
3. In
agreed
to open an office
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(b)(3)
Mr. Mullen
staff it with
the officer who had returned
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in
and
(b)(3)
from the
assignment
in the fall of
When
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this officer was
reassigned to Headquarters
duty in the
(b)(3)
summer of
he Mullen office in
was closed.
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RET
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4. In the summer
of the other officer who had
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served
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until the spring of and who had
worked in
Washington office for two years was
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(b)(3)
Mr. Mullen's
sent to
where he opened an office for
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the Mullen Company.
When it became clear in early
(b)(3)
that the operational requirements in
tinuation of the Mullen office in
value, CIA began to discuss with Mr.
of closing that office. He began to
prior openings and closings of
made the con-
of marginal
Mullen the possibility
remonstrate that the
other overseas offices
was eroding his reputation and standing in his professional
field. As on prior occasions he was more than cooperative
and willing to subordinate his interests to CIA's requests,
however, CIA recognized the justice of his comment and
decided to continue the
closed until the summer of
5. In
office, which was not
Mr. Mullen agreed to re-open a
office and to staff it with a CIA officer who had had no
previous connection with the Mullen firm. In agreeing to
the re-opening of the
office, Mr. Mullen was
more outspoken than before in his insistance that he could
not allow this office to close after the end of a two year
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tour. After Mr. Hunt became an employee of the Mullen
Company, Hunt reiterated this point with the then DDP
who instructed the operating division to maintain a Mullen
office in
as an operational cover facility for
The Situation at the Time of the Watergate Break-in:
6. At the time of the Watergate break-in CIA had
officer each under Mullen cover in
The officer in
cover since
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who had been under Mullen
experienced no difficulties in carrying
out his cover work for Mr. Mullen and his operational assign- awl)
ments
for
CIA. He was slated for
home leave in the summer
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of
r---lto
return for at least a year
to with a
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possible
reassignment to
another station
after one year.
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Although the officer in
had gotten off to a
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reasonably good start in
establishing
the Mullen office
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there, this favorable development received a serious set-
back when a long forgotten incident
from his graduate days
identified a potentially serious
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operational security problem.
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7. While a graduate student at the University of
this officer had applied for CIA employment
at the end of his academic studies. His next door dormitory
neighbor was a student from
A letter showing
CIA as the sender was misplaced under the door of the
student who expressed some surprise about the addressee's
involvement whith the spy organization when he personally
delivered the letter. This
his security investigation,
when his assignment under
ed. After having been in
incident did
nor after his
for a
not surface during
employment,
nor
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was being discuss-
few months our
officer rounded a street corner one morning to find himself
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face-to-face with his former college dormitory neighbor, who (b)(3)
greeted him with "Mr. CIA - What are you doing here?" Despite
appropriate protestations on the part of our officer that he
was a representative of a legitimate American firm, our
officer was convinced that his former college colleague could
not be shaken in his belief that our officer was indeed a
CIA spy.
8. In reporting this incident our officer drew atten-
tion to a second potential operational security liability.
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While a teaching assistant at the
year prior to his assignment to
cover, he had been directed to explore
gaining employment by the
platform for an operational assignment
a
under Mullen
the possibility of
as a cover
there. In the course
of his explorations, he saw a senior professor in the
who showed an acute suspicion of our
officer's true motivation and purpose. By the time that
our officer was assigned under Mullen cover tc
the former professor had become a member of the
government and was responsible, among other areas, for
the police and internal security.
9. After considerable debate among appropriate CIA
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Headquarters components, we concluded that the above security (b)(1)
factors were not compelling reasons to terminate the (b)(3)
officer's assignment in face of our
to Mr. Mullen. However, by spring
commitment
our officer had not
been able to develop sufficient legitimate business to make
(b)(1)
him feel comfortable in the role of the Mullen representative (b3)
in
With this as the peg, we persuaded Mr. Mullen
to take a trip to
to meet with the Chief of Station
and with our officer to assist in laying the ground work for
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sufficient cover activities which would enhance the legitimacy(b)(3)
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of our officer. We did not wish to alarm Mr. Mullen at
that time about our officer's operational security problems,
hoping that the cover activities following Mr. Mullen's
visit to would provide our officer with good
enough backstopping to overcome the security flaws and con-
tinue his assignment. Mr. Mullen, traveling on his own
business, left Houston on
Los Angeles and Honolulu visited
and after stops in
from
The Watergate break-in occurred while Mr.
Mullen was on his trip to
Shortly thereafter,
Mr. E. Howard Hunt became implicated and his employment
by the Robert R. Mullen Company became a subject of front-
page publicity.
10. Almost simultaneously with the Watergate break-
in, CIA learned that a former CIA staff officer was on the
verge of publishing a book which would claim to expose the
hand-and-glove activities of large American corporations
and CIA in South America. The book was expected to iden-
tify firms which had accepted CIA officers under cover, as
well as CIA officers under both official and nonofficial
cover in South America. The writer had been the responsible
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(Trgra-T
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desk officer when the Mullen office in
in
was opened
and was fully aware of the identity of the officer
who had staffed that office in
File research also
showed that he had also been in the same career trainee
class as the officer under Mullen cover
11. The publicity on the Mullen Company because of
Hunt's employment and the possible revelations by the
former staff officer, required a complete re-assessment of
the Mullen
cover and its viability.
a. We viewed the case of our officer in
in the following light:
(1) In the mind of his former
school colleague, he was
connected with CIA. The
graduate
clearly viewed as being
publicity on the Mullen
Company regarding its employment of the former
CIA officer Howard Hunt and the latter's involve-
ment in the Watergate break-in under the leader-
ship of another former CIA officer and in the
company of four other people previously connected
with CIA, could only lead to further confirmation
by the former student from
that our
officer had a current connection with CIA.
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(2) Any denunciation of our officer as a
CIA employee or representative by the former
student from
would undoubtedly have
come to the attention of the Minister in charge
of the Police and Internal Security Service who
had been suspicious of our officer when he sought
a position on the faculty of
(3) The staff officer's identification of
the Mullen Company as a previous cover vehicle
for CIA in another area would have been tantamount
to authoritative confirmation that the Mullen
office in ;/as also serving CIA purposes.
This represented a more direct threat to the
cover placement than Mr. Hunt's employment by
Mr. Mullen and Mr. Hunt's activities in the
United States.
(4)
was the
same man who had previously exposed a CIA opera-
*
tionisalp obtained written apology from the
Secretary of State and personal assurance from
Mr. Helms that CIA would not engage in unilateral
activities in
Clearly, the Station
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required the removal of our officer from
and his separation from Mullen cover. This
factor, too, was of more immediate concern and
overshadowed the Hunt aspect.
(5) Since we had decided not to alarm Mr.
Mullen nor Mr. Bennett by enlarging upon security
flaws that to-date were only potentially damaging,
we were handicapped in soliciting theiz agreement
to withdraw the
officer. In regard to
the Watergate publicity, Messrs. Mullen and
Bennett felt quite innocent since after Hunt's
employment by the White House he was paid by the
Mullen Company only when actually working for
the Company. They felt that the confidentiality
of their cooperation with CIA overseas was not
impaired unless for reasons of his own Hunt would
consider this fact as helpful to his defense
and might therefore disclose it. Any attempt on
our part to justify an immediate removal of our
officer fron by the Watergate publicity
would have been completely unconvincing to Messrs.
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Mullen and Bennett. Even more so after Mr.
Bennett had obtained Mr. Silbert's agreement not
to delve into the Mullen firm's overseas activities
and Mr. Silbert so restricted Mr. Bennett's in-
terrogation before the Grand Jury.
(6) Because of operational consideration in
trying to limit any damage to CIA and individuals
and firms cooperating with CIA from revelations
of the former staff officer, it was decided that
this threat would be handled on a severely re-
stricted basis within CIA and that it would not
be discussed with CIA collaborators on the out-
side. The rationale for this approach was simply
that CIA's chances for continued reading of his
and
activities and intentions,/ CIA's efforts to re-
strict the fall-out from his revelations would
be in jeopardy if any more than the absolutely
necessary number of inside staff officers were
informed of the situation. For this reason and
because the Mullen Company was the focus of poten-
tial compromise, we purposely avoided unnecessary
contacts with the firm.
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(7) We withdrew our officer from
only after considerable objection from Mr. Mullen
and Mr. Bennett, who were not fully persuaded
by the disclosure of previous security incidentsmor
Our estimate that serious potential harm might
come to our officer and the Company from contin-
uing publicity concerning Hunt's employment by
the firm. (b)(1)
ODA
b. CIA faced a different situation in regard to
our officer in
By the summer of
had been an "employee" of the Mullen firm for eight
years, stationed in
and
His operational activities had not given rise
to any suspicion and to the outside world he appeared
as what he proported to be, an employee of an
public relations firm, He was on home leave, had visit-
ed the Mullen office in Washington repeatedly and had
become convinced that he and the Mullen firm would
have no problem in weathering the Watergate publicity.
Because he was vulnerable to disclosure by the former
staff officer, he was told of the impending book but
warned not to discuss the matter with Messrs. Mullen
nor Bennett, under pain of disciplinary action. He
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was allowed to return to
as previously
scheduled, but alerted he would be swiftly with-
drawn if his assignment became compromised by
disclosuresof either the former staff officer or of
Mr. Hunt. This decision was reached because CIA
felt that the business reputation of the Mullen firm
could not withstand the simultaneous disclosing of
both of its overseas office06 and because we could
not overcome Messrs. Mullen and Bennett's objection
without surfacing the threat from the former staff
officer's book; a disclosure that might hamper oper-
ations to contain damage from its publication. The
long-shot risk that the publication of the former
staff officer's revelations would occur at a later
date than originally anticipated.turned out to be
correct and allowed the continuation of the Mullen
cover in
It was terminated when the
existince of this cover arrangement had to be reveal-
ed to Judge Byrne as part of other classified infor-
mation relevant to the Ellsberg case and the real
possibility developed that this information would have
to be surfaced in open court.
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12. CIA's actions vis-a-via Messrs. Mullen and Bennett
in regard to the cover officets in Lnd
have been consistent with CIA's basic policy for using legit-
imate American firms for cover officee6: its prime objective
Nwe
is to further the CIA overseas mission with due consideration
for the interests and well-being of the legitimate firms that
extend their cooperation. The extension of cover for CIA
officers by American firms is considered a partnership in
which both parties have obligations to each other. The CIA
obligation is greater where unbusinesslike actions may
jeopardize the standing of a small firm among colleagues
and competitors. In discharging its obligation, CIA must
clearly balance this requirement against operational security
needs.
13. In this case, especially during
the Directorate of Operations was more directly concerned by
considerations that seemed to overshadow the then growing
Watergate developments - fair treatment of Mr. Mullen, who
was being disadvantaged as a consequence of long cooperation
with us; potential trouble from the
who might create an international incident
and security threats from hostile services arising
from disclosures by a former staff officer.
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