"The Pit Bull Of Public Relations"

When Greenpeace USA found itself the subject of an Internal Revenue Service audit last year, the environmental group thought it knew whom to blame: Public Interest Watch, a Washington nonprofit heavily funded by Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM ) PIW had filed an IRS complaint against Greenpeace in 2003, accusing it of abusing its tax-exempt status. Greenpeace assumed ExxonMobil had used PIW to harass a persistent critic.

But the story, first reported last month by The Wall Street Journal, was even more complicated. PIW, it turns out, has close ties to Dezenhall Resources, a communications firm known for stealthy assaults on its clients' foes. Founder and CEO Eric Dezenhall, who is also a TV pundit and writer of mystery novels, explained his perspective in a 1999 nonfiction book, Nail 'Em! Confronting High-Profile Attacks on Celebrities & Businesses. "Damage control used to be about soft, fuzzy concepts like image," he wrote. "Now it's about survival, and this has made the battle bloodier."