AUTHOR TAKES WITNESS STAND IN HUNT TRIAL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000200760012-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 23, 2010
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: February 1, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/23: CIA-RDP
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
1 February 1985
AUTHOR TAKES .WITNESS STAND IN HUNT TRIAL
BY JEFF HARDY
MIAMI
The author of an article involved in a libel suit by Watergate conspirator
and forcer CIA agent E. Howard Hunt said Friday he has never been sued for
the story by any other person or organization.
Victor Marchetti, also a former CIA agent, said he has written several
articles, appeared on television and spoke at about 300 colleges and
universities about American intelligence.
He said the CIA once sued him for a book he co-authored, "The CIA
and the Cult of Intelligence." As a result, the book was printed with about 160
" blank spaces. "
Hunt is suing The Spotlight for a 1978 article it printed, claiming he was in
Dallas when President John F. Kennedy was killed and linking him to the
assassination, Hunt was awarded 1650,000 when the case first went to a jury, but
that verdict was overturned an appeal and a new trial was ordered because a
jud qe's instructions to the jury were flawed.
Marchetti wrote the article for The Spotlight, operated by the right-wing,
Washington-based Liberty t_obby.
He was one of the first witnesses to testify for the defense in the week-old
trial. Hunt's lawyers rested their case earlier in the day and Liberty Lobby
then moved fora directed verdict in its favor, claiming Hunt had failed to
prove his case,
Defense lawyer Mark Lane had argued that Hunt's lawyers failed to show the
article written by Marchetti linking Hunt to the assassination of Kennedy was
written with malice or ill will -- the ingredients of libel.
He said mast of the case presented in Hunt's behalf attempted to prove that
Hun t was not in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1483, when Kennedy was shot to death.
"The plaintiff has spent a lot of time trying to prve.he was not in Dalla s
Nov. 2T, 14b3, but that`s not the issue, " Lane said. "And there is a total
absence of hostility, ill sill or malice involved in the publication of this
story,"
U.S. District Judge James 41. Kehoe refused to grant the directed verdict and
the defense began its case.
STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/23: CIA-RDP91-005878000200760012-6