Report Says Mosbacher Traveled Free on Bren’s Private Plane

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Robert Mosbacher, whose department helps shape federal policy toward business, traveled through Europe and to a Caribbean resort on a free plane provided by Irvine Co. President Donald L. Bren, according to a published report.

Newsday, a Long Island, N.Y., newspaper, quoted the commerce secretary’s aides saying that Mosbacher and Bren are “longstanding personal friends.” The flights on Bren’s private plane--provided to the secretary at no charge--were among dozens of trips in which Mosbacher was ferried by corporate aircraft since he took office in January, 1989, the newspaper said.

In a financial disclosure statement he filed last year with the federal Office of Government Ethics, Mosbacher reported that Bren gave him $637 worth of travel in France and Italy in August, 1989, and $1,740 in travel to and from St. Maarten, a Caribbean resort, on Nov. 9-13, 1989, the newspaper reported.

Aides to Mosbacher, a Texas millionaire and close friend of President Bush, also told Newsday that the secretary complied fully with federal ethics rules in taking a score of domestic and foreign flights on corporate jets supplied by such companies as Philip Morris, Pepsico and GTE.

Free trips on corporation jets are allowed under “longstanding department policy, going back 25 years at least,” said Mosbacher’s spokesman, Gary Foster.