A little PR from the Pentagon?
Re “A story arc worthy of Hollywood,” July 30
Adm. Michael Mullen’s father, former top Hollywood press agent Jack Mullen, would have beamed at seeing his son’s story in Tuesday’s Times. It would be the kind of publicity Jack would have created and wallowed in.
I knew Jack, as a junior public relations account executive, in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. He would hold a weekly meeting to create PR stories such as the “Navy man’s” piece. Jack was the reflection of a kind of P.T. Barnum personality in publicity and public relations that no longer exists.
Hopefully, Adm. Mullen has inherited his father’s flair for “good” publicity. Should he succeed in his nomination as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, let’s pray he will use some of his father’s talents at “positive spinning” and help the Bush administration dig out of what Jack Mullen would have called a “press agent’s nightmare.”
Michael L. Grace
Palm Springs
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