Geneen's Visible Persuaders

ITT has long sought to carve out a distinctive reputation as an enlightened, superbly coordinated international giant. To burnish its image, make friends and influence people, the company has put together a team of about 60 seasoned, high-priced specialists in public and Government relations and given them unusual scope to practice their craft. They are professional persuaders who try to woo the press, politicians, businessmen and anybody else who might be useful to the company. Except that it is somewhat larger and has more of a reputation for aggressiveness than most, ITT's public relations department is fairly typical of those of many big corporations.

ITT's public relations men lavish Christmas gifts and expense-account lunches on journalists and politicians. Important Government contacts are provided with a private plane for business and pleasure junkets to sports events or weekend hideaways. Favored Government officials are sometimes surprised to be called on in foreign cities by ITT personnel, who will rustle up company-paid hotel accommodations and find a good restaurant. Though business is often unmentioned in all the fun and games, anyone taking advantage of them naturally becomes indebted, in various degrees, to ITT.

A crucial part of public relations at ITT is anticipating press and television stories about the conglomerate and trying to get the company's view included. It helps that many of ITT's publicists are former newsmen. Company flacks often go to press clubs, attend the weekly lunches of U.S. correspondents' associations abroad and put in appearances at meetings of journalistic societies like Sigma Delta Chi. Says ITT's Washington News Director John Homer: "It's good for us, and frequently it's good for them."

Sometimes ITT's operatives are too smooth for their own good. Recently Yale Brozen, a University of Chicago economist, assailed the Federal Trade Commission in a speech, likening the agency's crackdown on deceptive or puff advertising claims to "star-chamber proceedings" and "Salem witch hunts." The speech got wide publicity. One fact not mentioned in the stories was that Brozen is a paid consultant to Harshe-Rotman & Druck, a public relations firm, which arranged for him to speak in various luncheon clubs. The firm is employed by ITT Continental Baking Co., which has been warned by the FTC to tone down its advertising claims of unique nutritional value in Wonder Bread.

ITT people can play rough when the company's interests are threatened. Eileen Shanahan, a New York Times economics reporter in Washington, charges that she was repeatedly badgered by company public relations men when she was covering ITT's unsuccessful efforts to acquire the American Broadcasting Co. in 1967. She says that ITT publicists, including Edward J. ("Ned") Gerrity Jr., the public relations chief, complained to her that her reporting was biased, threatened to call her editors and questioned her former employers about her sex life. Gerrity denies knowledge of any threats against Mrs. Shanahan or of investigations into her background.

ITT Senior Vice President Gerrity, 48, a onetime columnist for the Scranton Times, joined the company in 1958. For a publicist, the generally affable Gerrity wields unusual clout. He is in charge of all ITT's advertising and public and Government relations and is a member of the 12-man management policy committee, headed by Geneen. He confers every day with Geneen, travels with him and acts as a sort of privy counselor. Geneen will say to Gerrity: "Here's what we've been thinking of doing. How will it sound? What can we say?" Last year the conglomerate spent $93 million in advertising, public relations, trade shows and education programs.

In Washington, public and Government relations staffers--including Dita Beard--gather news and help make it. For example, a former foreign service officer combs the State Department for information, and several former members of congressional staff committees scout out newsy morsels on legislation. Says News Director Horner, who spent 30 years in journalism, much of it with the Washington Star: "We provide an early warning system for anything that the corporation or its subsidiaries might be interested in." Vice President William R. Merriam, member of an old, socially prominent Washington family, gives ITT what all its money could not buy--an entree into the city's inner circle. He can open doors to exclusive places like the F Street Club, which his aunt helped found.

In Europe and Latin America, where much of ITT's business consists of selling communications equipment to state-owned telephone systems, the emphasis is on cultivating government officials. Latin American public relations are headed by Harold ("Hal") Hendrix, a onetime Scripps-Howard newsman who won a Pulitzer Prize for his disclosure of the Soviet missile buildup in Cuba, and has close ties with the Central Intelligence Agency. Columnist Jack Anderson's revelations of ITT's involvement in Chile's politics are based on memos written largely by Hendrix and Robert Berrellez, a former Associated Press reporter who is ITT's p.r. chief in Buenos Aires.

By any measure, ITT's public relations operation is big, experienced, industrious. The most remarkable thing is that it could not foresee or prevent the worst public relations crisis in the company's history.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.