STATEMENT OF MY PROFESSIONAL CONTACT WITH MR. E. HOWARD HUNT

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 01482030
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 28, 2022
• Document Release Date: August 7, 2017
• Case Number: F-2007-00094
• Publication Date: April 29, 1974

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29 April 1974
MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD
SUBJECT: Statement of My Professional
Contact with Mr. E. Howard Hunt
1. The first time I became aware of Mr. Hunt was proba-
bly in 1965, when I was Chief of Operations in the old WE
Division and was the Division Covert Action
Officer, told me one day that Mr. Hunt had come
in to see him to talk about Hunt's prospective assignment to
This was the first that
either of us had heard that Mr. Hunt
said that Mr. Hunt had made it very clear to him
e was not going to work very hard during his assignment
but that he planned to spend a good deal of time
on the golf course and in other recreational pursuits. Although
we were obviously chagrined at this prospect, it was clear this
was an assignment being made from outside the Division, and
there was nothing we could do about it.
that
2. It subsequently transpired that the then
objected to the assignment of
to the Station, and consequently his nomination to
that position was not pursued. Instead, we were informed in
WE that Mr. Hunt would be
and that the assignment would be handled from the
DDP's office and WE Division need have no further concern
in the matter. From that point on, except for being aware
that Mr. Hunt WE Division had no knowledge of
his activities or contact with him. Whatever communication
was maintained with him was handled (so we understood) by the
then DDP, Mr. s. To this day *I do not know what
Mr. Hunt did
Mr. Hunt
3- During a visit I had paid
prior to the time of Hunt's arriva
had brought up Mr. Hunt's name, and had talked.
to me at some length about what he said had been his own unhappy
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experience with Mr. Hunt, who had been his subordinate during
the Bay of Pigs operation. I forget the details of the dis-
agreement which occurred between them at this time, except
that in essence it involved--so --Mr. Hunt's
completelyAisobeying his orders because of Hunt's support
of a Cuban refugee leader who did not otherwise enjoy CIA
confidence.
5. The first time I had any immediate professional con--
tact With Mr.. Hunt was when he returned and was
assigned to what was then the European Division This must
have been sometime in 1967, or perhaps early 1968. Again,
this was a case of a directed assignment, and Mr. Hunt became
the Covert Action Officer for the Division. This was not a
particularly demanding job, and involved a good deal of paper
shuffling and coordination with the CA Staff in behalf of the
various Division branches- -but these duties could be performed
with a modest application of effort. - This is the manner in -
which Mr. Hunt chose to perform his duties. Sometime during �
this period Mr. Hunt's two daughters were involved in a serious
automobile accident, one of them sustaining a broken leg and
the other a serious head injury. In the case of the almer,
after a routine period of convalescence, she was once again
in normal health. The other daughter, however, had Sustained
some brain injury, which developed in an increasingly complex
manner. The upshot of this was that Mr. Hunt had to give an
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increasing amount of time to problems arising out of the
one daughter's serious and continuing illness and the legal
and medical developments which this gave rise to. We natur-
ally encouraged him to take whatever time might be required
to deal with these problems, so that a good deal of his thought
and effort understandably was focused on these matters.
6. Very rarely Mr. Hunt took the initiative in suggesting
some kind of psychological action for one of our Stations.
More often than not, however, these suggestions had a super-
ficial glibness but very little substance, and it my best
recollection that few, if any, of them were put into effect.
In summary, my recollection of Mr. Hunt in this role is of
an individual who was content to put in his time from 8:30
to 5:00, attracting as little attention as possible to him-
self, and very much preoccupied with problems and interests
outside of the office. He was still in this assignment when
I left the Division to go overseas in the spring of 1969.
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