[1][better source needed] The firm was founded in 1952 by Robert R. Mullen, who was a campaign press secretary for Dwight D. Eisenhower and information director for the Marshall Plan.
In 1972 the company received public attention in relation to the Watergate scandal when staff writer E. Howard Hunt, a former CIA intelligence case officer and Mullen employee, was revealed to have been running a group of Nixon Administration "plumbers" responsible for the break-in.
[4][5] A report by Howard Baker, the Republican vice-chairman for the Watergate committee:[3] The Mullen Company has maintained a relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency since its incorporation in 1959.
...As well as for former then recently retired Agency case officer E. Howard Hunt, responsible for the break-in that touched off the Nixon Administration-toppling Watergate Scandal.
Bennett's principal client at the time of the Watergate was the CIA-aligned Summa Corporation, the holding company of billionaire Howard Hughes.