E. HOWARD HUNT: HEROICS TO REDEEM BLUNDERS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200710009-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 15, 2004
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: November 24, 1974
• Content Type: NSPR

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Hunt relates all this with a straight
that it was her husband-not she--
who was the Russian agent.)
We are told that Hunt-in his
in danger-
t
ed hi
ry
s coun
eyes--serv
ous circumstances, and served it well, break-in but that "the fate and wed
took
hild
l
ren
ess c
picking up lessons along the way fare of my mother
reluctance
y
that were to last him a lifetime.
For example: "With. regard to the
discipline I learned at the Naval,
Academy, I remember very clearly
the three possible answers accorded a
midshipman or a junior naval officer:
Yes, sir; No, sir; or No Excuse, sir.
These replies formed part of the in-
doctrination that led to unquestion-
ing obedience to orders, otherwise, no
naval unit could function effectively
in combat. - My indoctrination was
thorough and lasting."
If Hunt means to imply that his.
Naval Academy training caused him
to snap to attention for G. Gordon
Lidciy some 30, year later, one has to .the: Attorney General. These mawri-
he now admits, never existed.
wonder if he went from World War als
,
, II t-) the Cold War without having -And he cries in outrage that Daniel
he^arl about Nuremberg. ' Ellsberg went free while he said oth-
Liddy and Hunt are presented as ers were convicted for breaking into
n]en of action; men who knew how to the office of his psychiatrist, protest-
,;6t, things done. What he refuses to ing that "the team that sought his
admit is the reality that they were, in personal secrets was authorized to do
the end, bunglers-men who at- ! so by high. and competent govern-
tempted a break-in of the Democratic meat officials, including the Presi
National Committee with less -plan-_ dent's chief domestic-affairs adviser,
ding than a junkie would give to l reacting to the largest raid on na-
.shoplif Ling at Macy's. tional security in ... [U.S.) history."
Hunt's book makes clear that he al- That's what he says in his book.
lowed the Cuban Watergate burglars But he knows what it really was, and
to leave enough incriminating evi- when it came time for him to go to
Bence back in their hotel rooms-ad- jail and he was trying to gee money
dross beaks numbered bills,-false ID and promises of clemency from the
cards and the like----to -lead police Nixon White House, be reminded
N:::on's men what it was: "seamy,"
ld
ri~*ht back to himself and to c
y. he said, and "clearly iilegll."
ith no clear idea- hunt's editors at Putnam knew
honest !
di
l
ffi
e
'
s
w
O Brim
c
y a
s o
S is not on
But 111 - book, and a poorly written one at apparently--of which phones they that the book contained lies, but do
that. it al. o is a somewhat pathetic were suppO3ecl to tap. He sent them. cicled to go ahead and publish it any-
one, prepared by a man who is trying c,ff with no cover story anti no plans way, touting it as the "ea'erly
to csa a c the ridicule of the present for a standby attorney to push bail awaited . . . exclusive life story of
al,, for heA; -dWdr:IsFO`f''Rel le+ iltf61ft122at] ecret
- E9 $$ '1~350ROtn~ ~'0 - 16
thin,, Went wron' 'I he in; t ~]ges, of photos
:t::t. thus seer]s very ]ntipo.rtant to n, t t.rn le a e e p
l::m tliat the nation, and hi.s children, tried an entry it had to be scrapped; are very much like the. memoir itself;
- t",,t },:, n?i;?:? Firr'?; atJtt]PAE'. ir,in nnrl r.nn of the men got them- they show Hunt in heroic poses,
"UNDERCOVER: Memoirs .
of 'an American Secret
.-Agent," by E. Howard Hunt
(Berkley Publishing Corp./
G: P. Putnam's Sons, 329 pp.,
illustrated, 53.95) ..
Reviewed by Anthony Marro 'I
soldiers from along the Yellow River,-" fa managing to place the blame
slept with a Russian woman in Shang- ' for the oversights and stupidities on
hai in 1945, was one of the nation's others, e_ pecially,,James W. McCord
staunchest Cold Warriors, and shook Jr. And he tells'the story in a-prose'
hands with Ike' in Mcntevidr'o. (The that resembles silent-movie titles;
Russian woman, whose photograph ? heavy with melodrama and suspense.
ho has thoughtfully provided, is de- Thus he tells us that while the police
scribed in the photo caption as "The were arresting the men inside Watnr-
beautiful Soviet agent Marusha Cher- '_g . ate, he drove his car "within two -
nikov, with whom OSS operative blocks- of the site-"within pistol
Hunt had a brief affair ..." Hunt ` range of the police cars, I reflected."
was so proud' of this that he allowed He-,tells us that, the next day, when a
the publisher to tout it on the dust i"eporter phoned to ask hire if he
h I
jacket. But the two paragraphs that -, knew' Barker, he felt as thoug
he devotes to it in the nianuscript say were in the center of a vise whose
E. Howard Hunt was standing in
the waiting room. Outside. Charles
Colson's office, chatting with the sec-
retaries and ..waiting to -be- ushered
into - the pr,osence of the then-White.
House aide. Nixon's Irish* setter,
King Ti.mahoe, bounded into . the
room, sniffed at Hunt and promptly
lifted a leg. The former OSS opera-.
tive, CIA agent and White House
"plumber" jumped back, just manag-;
i n g t o avoid-as he delicately..
phrased it-a stain on his trousers. '
Besides reaffirming the opinion of
those who considered King Timahoe
- o ne; one of the cla_s ir.r figures in the
Nixon White Hou_,e, the incident.
forces us to stop and consider: If Col- t
son and the others had held Hunt in
like regard, they probably would
have saved themselves a great deal of
embarrassment, not to mention grief.
In,steacl; they chose to take him seri-
ously, w'njch is what Hunt is now ask-
lag us to do in this book.
For two years, Hunt has been por-
trayed in the press as something of a
national joke-a man who in one life-
time managed to help engineer two
national disasters, Watergate and the
Bay of Pigs. But now he tells us that
"because I have been depicted as at
best a fumbler and at worst a pathol-
ogical criminal, I am writing my per-
sonal record of events as I 'saw them
develop, and so illuminate the truth
of these events whic}, for all time
?
must bear the scrutiny of history.
Since writing those lines, Hunt has
arl;nit.tecl under oath (in the Water-
gate covcrup trial) that this book,
like his earlier grand jury testimony,
is ho` through with lies. So much for
jaws were beginning slowly but inex-
orably to close." And he tells us that
for mercy after pleading guilty to the
.
..
precedence over m
Tlv re is'a great deal of self-pity in
this book. '.Hunt manages -to make
four days in a disciplinary cell'at the
District of : Columbia jail sound like
Pa,pillon's,-penal-colony stint. He re-
fers to the Senate Watergate Com-
mittee and the press as "harassers."
But the real problem with . this
book - is - that it is dishonest.. Three
times in the final chapters Hunt pro-
tests that N_ ixon's men had destroyed
no rebooks that.. contained his de-. -
fense-materials that would have
shown that he. was. working' on a pro-
ject he believed, to be authorized by .I