MEDIA IN THE THIRD WORLD

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP77-00432R000100390002-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 46
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 22, 2001
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: August 27, 1976
• Content Type: NSPR

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CONFIDENTIAL
INTERNAL USE ONLY
This publication contains clippings from the
domestic and foreign press for YOUR
BACKGROUND INFORMATION. Further use
of selected items would rarely be advisable.
NO. 16
GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS
GENERAL
EASTERN EUROPE
WEST EUROPE
NEAR EAST
AFRICA
EAST ASIA
LATIN AMERICA
3 SEPTEMBER .1976
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34
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DESTROY AFTER BACKGROUNDER HAS
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THE WASHINGTON POST
August 2:.19; 6
John larks
~ 4Eedia
in
A recent Washington Post editorial at-
tacked Third World countries in
UNESCO for trying to turn the news
"into a national commodity which it is
any government's right to exclusively
control." The Post stated in no uncer-
tain terms, "Government sponsorship of
the gathering or distributing of news,
inside a country or from outside, prom-
otes propaganda and deforms the whole
idea of a free press."
In essence, The Post was saying that
the American First Amendment should
be a planetary standard; that no govern-
ment anywhere should take action
abridging freedom of the press.
That is a commendable position, but it
ignores a reality that no American-
and especially, The Washington Post-
can honestly ignore. The fact is that the
US. government, through the CIA, has
long been doing on a massive scale to
other countries exactly what The Post
accuses UNESCO of wanting to do: spon-
soring the news in foreign places, with
the avowed-if secret-purpose of
promoting propaganda.
This American wrong in no way
makes right foreign interference with
the press, but it does explain to some ex-
tent why Third World countries are con-
cerned about protecting their media
against Western penetration. '
Until the last few years, only a hand-
ful of government and press insiders
knew how actively the CIA worked to
manipulate the foreign press. Now after
a series of exposes and congressional in-
vestigations, the scone: if not all the par-
ticulars, of the CIA's media operations is
a matter of public record.
The House committee chaired by Otis
Pike found that at least 29 per cent of
the CIA's covert actions over the years
"were for media and propaganda pro-
jects." This figure translates into secret
CIA expenditures in the billions of dol-
lars aimed at making other countries
toe the covert American propaganda
line.
The Senate's Church committee laid
out in specific terms how as recently as
1.973 the CIA ran a shrill media cam-
paign in Chile as part of its efforts of
"advocating and encouraging the over-
throw of a democratically elected gov-
ernment."
The agency's press operations includ-
ed:
e Pouring millions into El Mercurio,
Chile's most well-known newspaper
and most strident foe of the late Presi-
dent Salvador Allende. A CIA internal
memorandum found that El Mercurio
and other agency-supported media out-
lets played an important part in setting
the stage for the coup against Allende.
a Orchestrating the issuance of a pro-
test statement attacking Allende by the
Inter-American Pr;ess Association, a
prestigious groupifig of U.S. and Latin
American newspapers, including The
Wsshitrgton Post.
o Brlnl ing to Chile scores of foreign
Third Woltvid
reporters, mostly controlled CIA "as-
sets" to report the agency's line to the
folks back home. This campaign was os-
tensibly not aimed at American public ?
opinion, but an internal CIA memo
quoted by the Church committee boasts
that "replay of Chile theme materials"
appeared in The New York Times and
Washington Post.
The Post editorial stated that the
paper was "not insensitive to the feeling
in some Third World places that they
are swamped by the Western media"
and suggested "their proper response is
to strengthen their own. media, as many
(with Western aid) have done."
This Post approach seems to be as-
suming that even with significantly
fewer resources available, Third World
media can bolster themselves to- meet..
Western competition. Even if such a
self-help solution were possible, it would
still offer these countries no protection
from the subversion of foreign intelli-
Mr. Marks is an associate of the.
Center for National Security Studies.
in Washington and co-editor of "The
CIA File."
gence agencies. Notions of fair playa=
.which ran through The Post editorial;:
simply do not apply when the spooks.,
are trying to buy up a newspaper or su-,
born an editor, and the secret services.
of the Third World apparently are not
nearly so cleaver in guarding against.
this sort of thing as the big powers' spy
agencies are at doing it.
The Post complained about restric
?tions placed on Western correspon-:
-dents. It made no mention that the CIA,
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
30 August 1976
PORTRAITOF A COLD WARRIOR.
Joseph Burkholder Smith. Putnam,
$11.95 IS13N 0-399-11788-I
In 1951 Smith resigned as assistant pro-
fessor of history at Dickinson College
and became it member of the CIA. His
lust overseas assignment was to Singa-
pore in 1954 with the clandestine serv-
ices. He learned the intricacies of
Southeast Asian politics and tried to
determine which of the feuding factions
should he given U.S. support. In Sin,,a-
pore, Djakarta and Manila lie had plen-
ty of intelligence-gatherino to (to, but
the bosses wanted him to concentrate
on propagandizing, actively supporting
the friendlies, and playing dirty tricks
keeps some of these correspondents se..
cretly oil its payroll. As long as the
agency refuses to give up the use of
journalists, all reporters-including the
innocent majority-will be suspect:.
Even if Western reporters do not haves
the cultural biases that some in the.
Third World accuse them of having, the
existence of reporter-spies still givers:
them the excuse to question the object
tivity of the Western press. ' .. -`?
The Post urged that the Third World'
accept and purchase the product oC
Western news services, such as The-
Post's. Yet, some of these same services
have been used by the CIA to spread-
propaganda. An example was a London-
based feature outlet called Forum'
World Features. Forum was an outright.
CIA front, and its board chairman front
1966 to 1973 was John Hay Whitney,
publisher of the International Herald
Tribune, of which The 'ost is part own-
er. There is no evidence that either The
Post or the Herald Tribune was used by
the CIA, beyond apparent unknowing:
"replay" of propaganda themes. Never-
theless, one might not have been terri-
bly surprised if after Forum's CIA.
connection was revealed last year, Third
World subscribers had drawn-negative
:conclusions about all the news outlets
with which Whitney was associated.
The United States is not the only
country that covertly tries to manipu-
late foreign media. Our allies, including
Britain, France and Israel, all do it. Sol
do the Soviets in a major way.
But we are Americans, and we are
supposed to be different. We proclai.ai
to the world, as The Post editorial did;:
that foreigners would be better off it,
they accepted our idea of a free press.
It is totally inconsistent, in any e ;1 review' ,cction.
an laterview. f"izi.Ies and gltiz/es? a
cash contest, and it cohnnn h~- a former
( .1,_~~Itlthlrrns nnalysl Cuverine fled'
;developtnetlt. in the real uorl;l of
\{de,. deleeti.)n :;rd criminiri ?` '
'1 he ;ttintt:al ,uf\\ rirtign ;.r:c i>. S10
(S12 fot'eucn). .\ si; gle copy ousts $i.
;11):ctc'r~ .:Ir;rrtl;ll i; (list rihlllet] natiorl-
ali}? in Inds pendent i %w, ".Lunt,crhts.
Review copies of hooks. and all Other-
corre\ponclence, shottl;l he "(.Ili
t,t.llr.c-
1Pr1? V0 11t/rly, 119 W. 57th St., \c cv
York. N.Y. 10019.
Agency Sessions to Public
By The Assodated Press I
WASHINGTON, Sept. 1 - bill." However, he added:
Some 50 Federal boards would "There may be some meetings
be required to'conduct most of held by agencies or depart-
their business in public under ments in the Federal Govern-
a "sunshine" bill that Congress ment where there would have
has, sent to President Ford. Mr. to be confidentiality main-
1Ford has said that basically, tamed."
the agrees with the philosophy The boards would be required
of such legislation. to announce meetings at least
The measure received final a week in advance. They would
Congressional approval. yester-I be allowed to close their meet-
day when both houses,. which ings only under specified cir-
previously approved differing cumstances, when certain types
versions, passed a combined of information were under dis-
measure. The House vote was cussion.
384 to 0, while the Senate ap. These would include defense
proved the measure by voice, and foreign policy matters, in
vote. I Iternal personnel affairs, private
The bill, entitled Government, commercial data, criminal and
in the Sunshine, also requires other law-enforcement matters
Federal boards to avoid off-the- and information that might in-
record communications about vade an individual's privacy.
cases put before them. Transcripts or minutes of
It covers about 50 hoards and closed meetings would have to
commissions, including the Se- be kept. Courts could review
curil.ies am-1 Exchange Cotnntis- decisions to close the sessions
lion, the Federal Communica- and, if they found cause, could
tions Commission, the Federal order information released.
Reserve Board and tha Federal The bill would prohibit "ex.
Po'ver Commission. parts" communications intend
Last Fobruary, President Ford led to influence decisions-thnt
said, "B asically f ar rt e with idle is, unofficial contacts outside
(philosophy of the Sunshfnaj the regular proceedings and
records between agency deci-I
sion-makers and outsiders with
an interest in the outcome.
Representative Bella S.
Abzug, Democrat of Manhat-
tan, head of a subcommittee
that handled the bill, said the
"sunshine" law would "assure
that decisions affecting millions.
of Americans which have tool
often been made at it-formal
sessions, will no longer be per-
mitted to be made in meetings
closed to the press and public."
---- _ _. __.-_- 1
2 ._
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NEW YORK
16 AUGUST 1976
THERE ARE. NO ANSWERS. THERE ARE ONLY QUESTIONS.
st` k3. HART-or Hien AND Low WAS
:the English title given to Splendeurs el miscres des cour-
tisaires, one of Balzac's best novels. The book was con-
cerned as much with secret police as with the prosti-
tutes who passed through its pages, but then whores and
political agents made a fair association for Balzae. The
harlot, after all, inhabited the world of as if. You paid
your money and the harlot acted for a little while-when
she was a good harlot--as if she loved you, and that was
a more mysterious proposition than one would think, for
it is always mysterious to play a role. It is equal in a
sense to living under cover. At her best, the harlot was a
different embodiment of it fantasy for each client, and at
those moments of existence most intense for herself, the
role she assumed became more real than the reality of her
profession.
A harlot high and low. The pores of society breathe a
new metaphor-the enigma of intelligence itself. For
we do not know if the people who make our history are
more intelligent than we think, or whether stupidity
rules the process of thought at its highest Is America
governed by accident more than we are ready to suppose,
or by design? And if by design. is the design sinister?
Are the actors playing roles more intricate than we ex-
pect? Trying to understand whether our real history is
public or secret, exposed or--at the highest level-undcr-
ground, is equal to exploring the opposite theaters of our
cynicism and our paranoia.
For instance, we may be getting ready to decide that
the CIA was the real producer of Watergate (that avant-
garde show!). but where is the proof? 1\'e: have come to
a circular place. The CIA occupies that region in the
modern mind where every truth is oblit;cd to live in its
denial; facts are wiped out by artifacts; proof enters the
logic of counterproof and we are in the. dream; matter
breathes next to antimatter.
'fherc are Al!lericztns whose careers are composed of
fact. One dots not begin to comprehend certain men
Without their collections of fact. It would probably be
crucial to knov.' if I tarry S. 'hrutnan had !,ecn happy or
:angry on givcn day since that Would cuter the event
of the day, He lives on an elementary level of biography.
There ire personalities, however, like Marilyn Monroe,
for whom there are no emotional facts. It does not matter
on any particular occasion if she was pleased or annoyed,
timid or bold, even successful or unsuccessful. Her mood
did not matter on a given day since she would as easily be
feeling the opposite five minutes later. Moreover, she was
an actress. She was able to simulate the opposite of what
she felt. Since she was surrounded by people in show
business who felt no need to be accurate if that interfered
with it good story, one could not begin to discover the
facts about such a woman, only the paradoxes. It may be
that the diificultics in coming, to know Marilyn Monroe
offer a modest .for our penetration of Central
Intelligence.
Questions of social class and snobbery h."'(, cz!teaus
beet, very important in the CI:l. With its roots it., the
wartime Office of Strategic Se, ric?es (the letters 0 Ss
were said, only hall-jokin ly. to sla;td for "Oh Su
Social"), the agency has long beet: known fur it.\
concentration of Eastern Establishinettt, Ivy League
types. Allen Dulles, a Dormer American dip.'at,tc.?t
and Nall Street lawyer with impeccable coni;ccliotts
and credentials, set the tone for tit; agency full of
Roosevelts, lhmdys. Clcrclam' -tmory's brother ltol:-
ert, and other scions of America's leading familic!7.
There !rare been exceptions. to be sttre, but most of
the C'IA's top leaders have been white, Anglo-Saxon,
Protestant, and graduates of the right Eastern schools.
While changing limes and ideaz hare diffused tli in-
flluence of the Eastern elite if,ro:cghout time govern-
ment as a whole, the CIA reran:s perhaps the last
bastion in official Washington of UVAS ' power, or at
least the slou'es_I to adopt the prit:cip!c of equal
opportunity.
-Victor Marchetti and John U. .clerks,
The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence
llrl~_ -N
HAT A BABY! KNOWN AFFEC-
tionately as the Company, it was delivered to America
by the Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1911c), and grew
from 5,000 employees in 1950 to 15,000 by 1955. Because
1?'- ~. //~-,'c:314' ~:
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The CIA is currently tlr owner of one of the bir;-
gest--if not the biggest--fleas of "commercial" oir-
planes in the world. Agency proprietaries it:clue;e
Air America, Air Asia, Civil Air Transport. Inter-
nrourrtctiu Ai?iation, Southern Air Transport, and
several other air charter coinpcnrics around the tt mild
.. [but] CIA headquarters ... has never been able to
compute exactly the number of p'urres flown by the
airlines it owns. and personnel figures for the pro-
prietaries are similarly iniprecrse. An agency holding
company, the Pacific Corporation, including Air
America and Air Asia, alone accow:ts for almost
20,000 people, more than the entire work force of the
parent CIA. For years this rast cctiuity was donri-
rmted and controlled by one contract a ctrl, George
I)oole, who later was elevated to the rank of a career
officer. Even then his operation was supervised, part
time, by only a single senior officer who lamented
that !re did riot krrorr' "what the hell ti:as gain:,: otr."
-The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence
the old OSS was not nearly large enough to make up its
cadres, the CIA raided the FBI to obtain some of its first
agents (thereby commencing an immense feud with J.
Edgar Hoover) and also did its 'best to strip the army,
the navy, the air force, the State Department, and virtu-
ally every other government bureau of good personnel.
There was, after all, a vision. The potential functions of
the CIA were calculated to beconie immense. They be-
came immense. All intelligence was the purview. There
was no reason, for instance, why the best long-term
weather forecasts in America should not derive from
CIA weather experts-knowledge of the weather helped
.crops; large crops were an instrument of foreign policy.
No vein, therefore, of American business or culture was
independent of Intelligence-not finance, media, eco-
nomic production, labor-management relations, cinema,
statistical theory, fringe groups, Olympic teams. There
was no natural end to topics the CIA could legitimately
interest itself in.
Since we live in ?,n -ale of general systems, where all
knowledge is assumed to live ultimately in the same
field as other knowledge, so, from its inception, the CIA
looked to draw its experts from every field: bankers,
journalists, lobbyists, colonels, professors, commodores,
soil-erosion specialists, diplomats; business consultants,
students, lawyers, doctors, poison specialists, art experts,
public-relations men, magazine editors, movie technicians.
Out of every occupation in American life, men and
womep were drawn to make up t h,_- first cadres of the
CIA, and they were often the best in their field.
Because the CIA, like other goveri meat bureaus, had a
table of organization which limited the rank and salary of
its employees, the Company had from the beginning an
army of officers serving as privates. Ther_- was not room
for the amount of ambition in its ranks. People moved
out of the CIA almost as quickly as they went in and re-
turned to universities, businesses, other government de-
partments, and major foundatiorts. or back to their pre-
vious occupations in American life. Of course, a banker
who had been a CIA man and was now in finance again
was hardly the same banker. Nor had he necessarily left
the CIA. If it had been the most exciting experience of
his life and/or the most patriotic, lie had sentimental
loyalties to tha Company. He was out of the CIA but still
an effective member of it. Sometimes he might even be on
call for special jobs or be asked for privileged information
on the movements of his financial community.
Like th;, breaking out of it virus from the host cell, tha
metastasis of a cancer colony, or the leavening of yeast in
bread-dependin; on one's point of view-the CIA of-
fered a suffusion into the joints and pores of American
life so complete that no rnrr,ter list of its active and re-
serve members (not to speak of its devotcu svrnt,athizers)
was ever available. One CIA man could never know for
certain wheih:er a CIA ;Twirl 'a ho had left tire CIA did not
still belong to it, and if he dirt, there were often excellent
reasons no record should exist, particularly if he belonged
to the Company as to a club, and took no salary. Some
agents who left the CIA but were stili in it. or of it, might
have given reports ever. week of their !ifs. Others may
never have reported once. Like is the CIA
word-they waited underground t:hrou h the scar ns
working at their private career in order to be of eventt:al
use. Some old rt ents inight Si!) th reliable, some might
not-some might report only to orC old friend in the
agency. No one Would be certairh funnily who belonged
and who did not. In pia es like the State Department.
one could begin to guess, but never know. whether tlh--
first allegiance of many a foreign-service officer vas to
the State desk or to the Compatlv's cover. Since the lead-
ers of the.CIA came from a social, financi:d, and corpo-
rate elite, it could be: said that the agency was the militant
arm of the Establishment, an order of potential martyrs to
Henry Luce's American Century.
NE CANNOT FOLLOW ? iii- CIA's USE
of funds: Nobody is rnear:t to know where all the Cotn-
pary's sources Of phone. originate nor how they begin
to end. At the core of many a CIA operation is the need
for secrecy in the use of money. Some foreign official has
to be bought, or expensive military equipment must be left
as a gift in another country. If spies are to be paid, and
foreign companies infiltrated, if Central American troops
are to be trained for invasion forces, and drug traffics
infiltrated for the information they will supply on Indo-
chinese troop movements, if a hundred semilegal or near-
to-criminal patriotic activities need to be lubricated with-
out congressional grit in the hearings, then money has to
pass down to active operative levels in the middle regions
of the Company without scrupulous bookkeeping. It was
better for the director of the CIA not to know what his
agents were up to, not if he had to testify on oath before
congressional committees. \\'hat one did not know, one
could not tell. It was therefore the essence of policy for
no one to be in command of more information than he
needed---a cellular society lea-; to have waterproof conh-
partnlerits, enclave:.. Money, thereforc. did not always
have to be accounted for; ar&:ed, it often was put into
an activity on no more than. the word of the good charac-
ter (and/or good family)) of the agent who requisitioned
it. No word needed to conic hack on what had been don;:
with the bread. who was bought, who was killed, who
made a profit)
Since inside information on foreign currencies, or the
domestic commodities market and gold market, or ad-
Vance warning of a devaluation in the dollar, was as
available on occasion as phoney, it is unthinkable that
sonic of the Wall Street men in the CIA did not make
secret investments for the agency (that is, for their en-
clave in the agency) which soon brought hack huge
profits by virtue of the secret information which had first
encouraged the investment. That kind of surplus could
now be used for ulumasccret operations or for even more
resplendent financial investments. I" is nove'istically inloxi-
cating to contemplate the pyramiding of wealth which
must have gone. on in some enclaves of the CIA. \Viiat
a congeries of friendly and coatpetitive financial empires
may have begun to exist within the agency! For alt we
'The Pike; eo,nnai(e'c' in C'orrr:r,,a had it iritlrlrrlr! report
(prtblisher/ in the \'illay;c Voice, hchrrrary Jo, 19761 which
decided that the nerd inte!?'ige-nc,' brrdpef is fruit S3 l,I,r. (he
Cs!irrrafe given to Corri:rc.s, 11:11 is "closer to SIt) billion," thr
missing S7 bi!!lair being bur.ed in the approfrriuriorrs of ot!wr
departments. Tern billion dullars is rorq;lrly equal to the rrnntrul
budget of New York City.
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know, and we will not soon know, half-the Swiss banks
are now controlled by aggents, facets, wings, arses, commit-
tees, councils, operators, and officers of the CIA. Con-
templating the mix of real names and false names, actual
companies and fronts, declared and secret investment,
legal and illegal accounting, fair and flawed computers,
it is doubtful that we will e~cr be able to measure the
wealth manipulated by the CIA. Add to this the inevitable
intimacies and financial inter relations of such prime
possibilities as I-fughes, Vcsco, and J. Paul Getty, plus the
covert investments of the agency in any number of multi-
national corporations (with the Mafia and without)--lo,
it is not so difficult to think that the economic history of
the Arab nations may yet be seen to shine by the secret
light of the Company's resources. One cannot, of course,
know. It is just that it is easier to believe in such a
scenario than to assume that all those 'proud, powerful
Company patriots with their comprehensive information
and financial skills never used CIA money to.nhake money
that did not have to be accounted for.
Besides, it would be interesting to guess the magnitude
of the CIA's secret funds. Out of the real S10-billion
Intelligence budget would come the seed money for con-
cealed investments; if the process has been going on for
25 years with continuous reinvestrncr,t, thou these secret
investments could total by now anywhere from S25-
billion to SI00 billion, not an it :possible suns for the 25
years it has been burgeoning if we compare it to the
income of the CIA's senior partner, the Mafia-but we
anticipate.
I have worked on projects with. nuary CIA teen
so unaware of the entire operation teal they had no
realization and awareness of the rides of other CIA
teen working on the seine project. I would know of
this because inevitably scetieuthere clam; the line
both groups would come to the Department of De-
fense for support. I actually designed a special office
in the Pentagon with but one door off the corridor.
Inside, it had a single room with one secretary. How-
ever, off her orrice there was one more door that led
to two snore offices with a t!rir'd doorway leading to
yet another of ice, which no' hidden, by the door
from the secretary's room. I had to do this because
at lanes we had CIA groups with us who were not
allowed to meet each other. and who most certainly
would not have been there had they known thi:t the
others were there. (For the record, the office was
iD1000-it may have beer, changed by nosy; but it
stayed that way for many years,)
-- L. Pletcher Prozity, The Secret Team
It is inevitable that there should be a loss to CIA agents
of a clear boundary to their identity. A mean may work in
the CIA for twenty years and never perfcuin the role his
title suggests he is performing. Two men may work side
by side in the same office for ten years and never learn
the other's real work, or to the contrary may know the
work intimately but not have a clue on what it is designed
to cover. A man's wife may only guess at his real activi-
ties. Old nioles who have been , as-
suining it was }lughes \.ho jut died and :rte one of his
---more than one-legendary duubl a) . He is Pt once the
principle of total invisibility in, pi-j1);:: iii:' and at gargJwie
out of The Day of the Loctt_'.:Ve think fondly of voting
}/ugh s, his racing planes. heed his movies: Scarf ace. The
Front I'ctge, and Hell's Atl,:els; his stars: George Raft,
Jean Marlow, 13oh Mitchum. Jun- Russell; and then we
read of the old pink- who abhors b ct_ria as Draculs fears
the cross.
llugfres kept his last tr.?ife. movie actress fears
Peters, on a yo-yo string. lie would disappear for
long stretches and send her end s:r,-ir g but false mes-
sages..
In 1965, he promised to Jce: fh_Jrksgii in,; dinner
with her. But because of his =ear of germs. he told
her to sit hens the room jrein Frith. She walked o:a
in ct huff. -
The followit year, 1w c>fa.a::i d her to join hint
in Boston where lie promised :,trey would setae dot-.n.
But ai!abi. he kept her at e:rvss-the-room c!istance.
She gilt tip with it for !/tree :?,?s.
-Jack A'!d.:rs_n, May 23. 1974
Since secrecy was his antiseptic, the media are often
tempted to portray his venture, ;:: ah_urd. The story of
the 5350-million CIA con:ract t,_r the Glomar Explorer
came out in time press as a- and peculiar sum. for
the CIA to pay Hughes to dcsi,n a boat that could
"retrieve military codes and nuclear warheads from a
Soviet submarine sunk three miles deep in the Pacific .. .
[especially] since the codes were outdated and the value
of the other information was negligible."3
Of course, the Soviet submarine ?night only have been
the cover. Maybe, it was wiser to assume the CIA had
grown concerned with finding a new source of minerals
to compete with Third World cartels. They could have
"awarded l lughes the $350 million to develop an advanced
technology for underwater mininc thereby giving
Hughes a he d start toward a bonanza with more potential
than oil. ..."1
The Gloinar bonanza could leave 1-lughes, by some
counts already the wealthiest moan in the world, an order
of magnitude wealthier. But then for two decades 11ughes
must have been ~utfcring something like the psychosis of
a heavyweight din llpion. ( I?very heavyweight champion
has to be a fraction insane since he cannot know if he is
the greatest fif*-hte r alive or if some unseen mmniac of the
martial arts is see:tiny, ready t,) destroy him in an alley.)
So ilughes had to tsonckr whether he was making history
or was only a servant of the history the CIA might be
3/!ou'ard Kohn. ".(ranee hrdfcllnn_s-77rt' flu, hrs-Nixon-
l artsky C'o:nre'ctiorr." Rolling Stone'.
4"Su'onge lfc?d f, /lots s. '
making through hint. Ifc could not know, and no one
looking on from the outside could know, how much of the
CIA was part of his operation or how much of his oper-
ation was directed by the CIA- Indeed, was there even
a live man named Hughes at the center of it all, or was
there a Special Committee'?` Sutlice it that whatever entity
was comprised by his namnc, Hughes had properties. Since
we don't know v.-hat we are dealing With, let us designate
it HUGHES.
HUGHI:s's corporations earned more than half a billion
dollars a year from government contracts alone and
32 such contracts were with the CIA. That was the
largest number held by any corporate entity with the
Company. Time fortified such figures: "During the past
ten years Hughes Aircraft. which relies a1ni st exclusively
on Government work. has wen nearly S6 billion in Gov-
ernment contracts.. . . Then: was also about 6 billion
dollars more in secret contracts v,-ith the CIA over ibis
period. . . . Asserts one former Pentagon official, 'Their
interests are completely m rged.' ' 6 So, FtUGrn-s, whoever
HUGHES was, might begin to look like the pope of Avi-
gnon to any director of the CIA. If an enclave needed
funds for a special caper, who was better than IiUGI Es
to fund it? tlt;GifEES was Daddy % arbueks to the CIA.
HUGHES owned half of Las \regas. HUGHES. by tray of
various intermediaries, had absorbed it from Meyer Lan-
sky. Since the CIA already had as ociatious with Lansky.
easily as old as their mutual attempts to assassinate Castro.
the Company could now, by way of IVUGrtES and Las
Vegas, enter into another majestic interface with the
IMtafia, that is, x,. ith half the labor unions of America, and
nearly all of the entertainment industries, the construction
industries. the hil,hway, travel, and tourist industries, not
to speak of the more celebrated nonlegal industries like
prostitution, porno, narcotics. and-the finest operation
yet discovered for launder ina huge sums of money and
evading the IRS- ambling. (if the Mafia had detested the
very mood and atmosphere of gambling casinos, it would
still have been c'hiil*ed to gel into the business for the
legerdemain it offered to heavy sums) In turn, the high-
potential money in the CIA would want to discharge
into the great sea of Syndicate wealth. There the take-
voices fill in awe-came to S50 billion a )-car, and that
,was twice General Motors' if only half the size of the
defense budget.
CIA officials asked ,Hallett to enlist Syndicate melt
for the Castro murderer . . . and authorized hint to
pay 5150,000 for the hit. .1laheu tohl the Church
committee lie hesitated initially because he feared the
project niiglit interfere with his work, for Howard
Iluglres, who also had retained Aftiheu's: sert-ices.
But ,tk:liere said he agreed to the assigiimetlt after
informing Hughes of the murder plat-and, according
to one source, gaining the billionaire's approval. For
the project Milieu called ors John Koselli, Sain Gienr-
catia and Santo 7 rafjicanIte.7
c7'I:e holy &'J. Ihc? lJii ! es it /to died in April of this year
hod its fit:tterlrri::ts thecke'd "against rellu ue? /lug!trs prints
of file with the Fit1 in II'a~!,i::!;tort. It 'l'ime stns clu?er-
fully (April 19. 19:6), "llughes, all rill/it." Of course tlnit as-
sumes no one in :hills of identification has l'ee'r been able
to sit':tch a set of prints.
6i'imc also say,: "Not until 1971 slid t11ts IltS sub it-c: the
Might's hohlitrl;s :u an octrull audit; the rrsstlts of !lent audit
have ht'eti kept .'c?rref."
T'Strange Re?d/e?llo, s." Ili excerpt, out of respe'c't for the
sc,:trcc?s ptrrtrtutrriatt, Ilttghes 11411 appear in !on?ercuse.
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an es-FBI agent on special retainer to the CIA since 1954,
as a man of variety and dimension, a veritable fixer, but
such words do not elucidate the physics implicit in his
personal forces. Rather, Maheu is known in Intelligence
as a "pivotal" figure-the roads go through his -tollbooth.
We will learn for instance from the Pike committee that
pornographic movies were sometimes made with CIA
funds to blackmail people and "one of these was titled
'happy Days' with Mr. Robert Maheu as casting director,
make-up man. cameraman and director." The detail is
cited not to offer us the opportunity to rise in moral height
above Maheu so much as to loosen our imagination. He
was also for a time the most visible ttuGitr-.s representa-
tive in public life. "You are me to the outside world,"
reads one memo to Mrtaheu.8 "Go see Nixon as my special
confidential emissary," says another in the spring of '68.
"A Republican victory this year . . could be realized
under our sponsorship and supervision every inch of the
way.-9 ttuct-ins even had a S600.000 French colonial
mansion built for Maheu on the Desert Inn grounds.
The first time lie entertained for lunch the casino
managers ... Alalreu tapped his water glass for atten-
tion. Then, to the astonislinrent of his Las Vegas col-
leagues, Robert Alalrett said grace.i?
"O'Brien and A?laheu are longtime friends from the
Boston area.... During the Kennedy administration
there apparently eras continuous liaison betn'een
O'Brien and Maheu." ?
-]Memo from John Dean to 11. R. Haldeman,
January 26, 1971.11
There was, of course, the delicate ratter that
Hughes warded to hire ine but didn't grant to meet
inc face to face. 1%fcrheu raised the issue-he said
that was simply Ilughes's style of operation, direr lie,
ltlalretc, had worked for the man for years, and was
his chief executive officer, but had never met him.
-Larry O'Brien, No Final Victories
After Hubert Humphrey's defeat in 196S, Larry O'Brien
was relatively at liberty. The new administration might be
Republican, but O'Brien had not worked as postmaster
general and chairman of the Democratic National Com-
mittee nor managed the presidential campaigns of Ken-
nedy, Johnson, and Humphrey for too little. Nobody
had more contacts in Washington than Larry O'Brien.
From early in 1968 on, even as Maheu was being confiden-
tial emissary to Nixon. so was he also being instructed to
hire O'Brien as HUGHES'S Washington representative; but
it was only in October, 1969, after a stretch for O'Brien
on Wall Street, that the consulting firm O'Brien Asso-
ciates was formed and given a HUGHES contract at
$15,000 a month. The arrangement, however, soon faced
complications. By late 1970, HUGH-iES had decided to re-
place Maheu with Intertel.
Although this is not widely known, an increasing
number of big corporations in recent years have
either established private intelligence units or hired
intelligence consultants from the CIA, the F131, the
DIA, the /ntcrial Security Division of the Justice
Department, the Treasury, the Secret Service, or the
Internal Revenue Service. The purpose is, basically,
to protect a corporation's own secrets or acquire other
corporations' secrets in the ever-competitive business
world. A whole underworld of corporate intelligence
has thus developed.
Several organizations in the United States openly
offer corporate intelligence services. The most impor-
tant is Intertel... .
-Tad Szulc, Compulsive Spy
It could be said that inter.,_l had better CIA conned-
Lions than Maheu. In fact, they were socially superior.
RDavid 7'inniu, lust About Everybody vs. I te,ward I lughes_
"Ibid.
ivlbidl.
tt/ Anthony Lukas, Nightmare-Thu Underside of the
Nixon Years.
Intertel's owner was James Crosby, good friend and host
of Rebozo and Nixon. Crosby was also the chairman of
Resorts International, an immense gambling--and-tourist
complex in the Bahamas which (with many a camou-
flage) had been taken over from Meyer Lansky by the
CIA. (Brave men grow bold in the Caribbean and gentle-
men turn into pirates.) Resorts International came
right out.of the Crosby Miller Corporation, in which a
controlling iii Brest had been acquired in 1955 by Mary
Carter Paint, a corporation originally gotten up by Allen
.Dulles and Thomas E. Dewey.
If the CIA hierarchy had icons analogous to the May-
flower. They were Allen Dulles, Thomas E. Dewey, and
_ By such cachet James
the Mary Carter I'aint Company
Crosby of Intertel was to iMaheu's CIA pornies and as-
sassination capers as Louisburg Square to Scollay Square.
In addition, Intertel may also have been in position to
offer iiUGt3ES the Glomar Explorer contract if he would
take them on. That meant letting M di-tu go. Since Maheu
knew a lot about ttuGttES, it was a big payment for a real
peril.
The changcover,in 1970 was accomelished with the max-
imum of mystery. The man, Hughes, six feet four inches,
reported to weigh 97 pounds and. by a Las Vegas doctor's
report, next to death, gave over his authority to Alaheu's
most determined enemies with a proxy which enabled.
these enemies to bring Intertel's security force into the
casinos and drive out Mlaheu's-'iroops, a dramatic night
for Las Vegas, whose citizens v: ere learning about this
time that a tall thin man, claimed by his proxy-holders to
be Upward Hughes, had beet smuggled Out of Lis sa
teary-in the penthouse of the Desert Inn and b_en flown to
the Bahamas (even thou h `le was next to death and
swore he would never fly again). 1'hcrc were some, Mai.eu
among them, who offered the mordant suspicion that
HUGHES was now a karmic transplant, but then there
were others who had been suppo;ing the same sin.:c 1953,
when the man. Hughes. stopped seeing :: iyone eat :: few
Hughes Too! Company executive,. andjor his rotating
male nurse-secretaries (five) , who recces:;-dl all n assagc 3
for him. Maybe. by the time of the move to time Itahanas,.
taunt-IES was going into his seco:id karmic trauup m ;
maybe i-iumwS was now a comp u!Er not unrelated :o
OCTOPUS at Le {ley.
But such speculations take its too fast down the streem_
Let us keep to what we may suppose we kno:i_ It seems
clear that t.iuGH-HEs, now divested of Maheu. W0110 not
necessarily want to keep Maheu's friend in his ernploy_
Of course, dropping O'Brien would hardly be fail-safe_
It was not corn Fort able to estinvmte how much O'Brien
had learned about the CIA from \l:iheu (if for that raat-
ter O'Brien had had a great deal to learn about the CIA).
1i? f~o let
t s y
r5r
S"
;ya
Ttl 1't:~\Sti....
'"?Cl\l-fill
were made. Sometime after ln:ertel to,'* seer fry:lr
Maheu. nuct?tts replaced O'i;ri?.n .4"ich tk>a l cnn_... The
son of Senator \t'alface lietlil ?t (R). from Utah. )tot- n-
nett was a churchgoing Mrmoii: in fact, he wm par_ of
the three-man bishopric of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Lauder-Dad Saina in Arlin :non. \-irg;inia. a detail of humus interest until it is fortilicd '.. itil the. Li wfd-c!`e that a
large: number of ticGtitis aides, itssistants. and top Cteeu--
lives were \lor'rno:ls: indl2ecl, \lahcu's most devoted enemies
in HUGHES were Mormons. \\?e night wonder hew: such
religious fellows would comport i11.-msz1vcs in V ~!:ts,
but there is always it tenden,:v to uncleriate t`te sects W.z
know least. It seems, constlting the lincyclopoeelia 13ri-
7
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tcrrrnica, that a secret Nlormon soei ty called the Dc
n;tez
was organized for Joseph Smith in October, I,Y-ii. ~'hec
had "the avowed purpost: of su t. o
pl. orn~ Smith at ,it tiaz-
ards, of upholding the authority of is revelation and c1;:
crees as superior to the la -iv of the land,.and of 1leipin,r
him to get possession, first of the scats, then of the Urti d
States, and ultita:uely of the: w(,r!:!. ~i e.
It would be an inve;tiuator', pleasure to now r:;?,?e>I
that there is a modern-day D:-lice enclave in t!t; CIA
reaching out to the Danite in itt.?GmIFS, brit we shall h:!
to content oai..fries with the oral: \Iorrron we hav`_.
Bob Bennett---tld his relations to Chuck Colson an
Howard Hunt.
Bennett had been a director Of congressional rclatL-a;
at the Department of Ti-ansp )rtaUOn to wit,
a I?u.ti:~-re-
lations man and lobbvtst. Needless to s:r), both ari' did positions for a mole. in addition, any work liens ett
could find concerning highway construction ini !tt bring
hiii , if he chce,e. close to the Mafia; he vas thereby twi,e-
connected to voyage out from his one third of a i:i:hop:ie.
Since he had also been friends With Chuck Coon sine;:
1965, and lately of quiet service as the White 1lotise
contact (that is, informer) in the Department of Trans-
portation. Bennett was on his way to being his own
pivotal figure. Consequently, he was in a position to try
to do a favor for -iecttta. The good deed (seeking to
divert the dumping of nerve ,as from the Bahamas ocean
floor-'a way of protecting future HUGHES investments in
the Bahamas) could not be accomplished, but Bennett left
at good impression and was hired by his fellow Mormons.
Then "Colson called Bennett to say that Robert Mullen
wanted to sell his company. Colson urged Bennett to buy
the company and said he ;'could help hint find clients."12
Bennett bought into Mullen & Company, and in one
month rose from executive vice-president to president;
after nine months he concpletcd the purchase. !:artier than
this, sometime "durin,; his first months with the company
... Robert Mullen told hi-nn about the company's relation
with the CIA. "13
This small accoant of a purchase is invaluable for What
it teaches of how to detect a cover story b}? the incriminat-
ing anemia of its narrative. for it asks us to tolerate the
idea that a useful CIA front was sold to a non-CIA man
who was then kindly informed of the CIA's relation to
the company he bought: in return for such courtesy, he
proceeded without ado to labor for the agency. Since Ben-
nett will labor Ion,, hour::, it is comfortable to suspect
he has been with tiee CIA before we have met him.
It is it., the political agent's interest to betray all the
parties u'Jtu use hint and to work for theist all at the
same litre, so tlrw he time ,,covc freely and penetrate
ererv'n'herc. -Gal tier-lloissiercl4
Mullen & Compattt? since May. 1970, a little better
than six months. b:fore l:ennett has arrived, and accord-
ing to his account, he is furious With Mullen because
Bennett carte as a surprise. "Tile switch was as unex-
pected as it sync unwelc:,::te."15 hunt had seen himself
as eventually taking over Mullen F: Company. Accord-
ingly we ;Ire e r.t:ourast el h~ hi-5 account to believe hoot
moved over to the White llenr-ee cwt of disgust With his
situation at Mullen & Conii,,uty rather than as part of
12\'itthtm:ne'.
1'lbid.
tali. !tun etrd l tt:nl, 'file it. rlin t r. !inn; (c'pi,!ruphl.
I l:. Howard hunt. t,!ndercOVer.
a more or less erchestrated plan to bring Bennett and
Hunt nearer to the adrnini-tration. It was, in any case,
not a shift that way difficult to make, for Hunt was also
a friend of Cohon's. 'Il;ey had met at the Brown Univer-
sity Club of \V;nltingtun in 1966. Later, Colson became
president ::f the club and l itna, vice-president. They
met frequently for lunch all through 1969 and 1970, and
at one time Colon even thought enough of I-lout to try
to make him director of a conservative think-tank, the
institute for Informed America, which would provide
intellectual opposition to the Brookings Institution. The
scheme lapsed (since hunt frightened off Jeb Magruder
by a proposal to use the think-tank for covert action).
but now that Hunt was working for Colson in the
Plumbers and Colson was also friends with Bennett,
maybe Colson could be forgiven for thinking the pros-
pects seemed fair for a happy family. As early as the
beginning of 1971, he even sent a confidential memo to
all aide of Agnew's:
"Bub is a trusted loyalist and a good fl?ieml. We in-
tend to use him on a variety of outside projects. One
of !Bob's (new) clients is Howard hHulghes. I art sure I
need not explain the political implications of having
Hughes' affairs handled here in IVuohington by a
close friend.... Bob Bennett tells the that he has
never inet the Vice President, and that it would en-
hance his position greatly if eve could find all ap-
propriate occasion for him to conic in and spend a
little lime talking with the Vice !'resident. The
important thing from our standpoint is to entrance
Bennett's position with Hughes because Bennett gives
its real access to a sort of power that can be valuable,
and it's,ii: our interest. to build him tip."
--Compulsive Spy
It is enough to remind its of Tolstoy's opening sentence
,in Anna Karenina: "Happy families are all alike; every
unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Colson's
gang, we know in advance, will be unique. -
But we can get a look into how closely Hunt is work-
ing with Bennett. A couple of years later, it was found out
by way of the minority staff of the Ervin committee that
Bennett "suggested to Hunt that Jiank Greenspan,
publisher of the Las Vegas Sun. had material in his safe
that Would he of interest to both Hughes and the Com-
mittee for the Re-election of the President," and l3ennett
also arranged "a Hunt interview with Clifton D.motte
(about] the episode: at Ch appaquiddick.... Purthcrrnore
... Bennett learned of [Dita Beard's] whereabouts from a
,hiughes Tool Company executive ... jandi acted as an
intermediary between Howard Ifont and Gordon Liddy
..."tr,
after the Watergate break-in.
This encourages the minority stall to the following
conclusions:
(I) While Hunt ryas at the White Horr.,e on Charles
Colson's payroll, 1.telnreit was, at leas, suggesting
and coordinating many of hunt's activities; (2) Ben-
nett obviously enjoyed a close and ccrt/iderttiul rela-
tionship with some of lloivard Ilugl:e.s' top people at
a time when they were fturrnisltinr; cover for the CIA;
and (3) Bennett was acting as a go-between between
Hunt and Liddy immediately after the IValergate
break-in, and during all of these activities lie was
ttuloubledly reporting periodically to the CIA case
officer. --At That Point in Time
We are even offered a bona fide side-bar. Ali inquiry
canoe in from tiust-EES. The Mormons (we may as well
assume it is specifically the Mormons) v.'anted to know
"the cost of bugging the home cif Clifford Irving at the
time he was writing the spurious Iloward I1ue,hes biog-
raphy. hunt gut an estimate front James McCord and
reported back to Bennett." '1?lte project proved to be too
expensive, but itucitrs, whether the man or the karmic
transplant, announced by way of a telephone interview
with seven reporters that he had suspicions about they
origins of the hoax. "To assume that it's all an accident
certainly takes a lot of assuming." It scents Ituatlta had
decided the genius behind Cliliord Irviiig was Maltcu.
Dare we say that every unhappy family is happy in its
own way?
I'lred l). 'l iinitp=ore,At fiat Point in 'Finie.The urttliar
iru.c Thiel rnitrvity c?uunsel for the l:rein c(iti till if lee.
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111
Jan
In an ironic twist, the White House's high priest
of snoopery, Charles Colson, was himself bugged
recently as he tittered some of the Watergate scan-
dal's most indiscreet confessions.
Colson, when he was the top White 1-louse hatchet
man, was fond of flipping a switch and tape-record-
ing friends and enemies alike. A Jew days before he
went to prison for obstructing justice, however, he
was secretly recorded as he bared his soul to Wash-
ington businessman and sometime private eye Rich-
ard Bast....
Beside Bast's swimming pool, whose fountain made
background water music over a "mike" secreted
among poolside flowers, the two men discussed how
Nixon could rid himself of CIA and military spying
on the White [louse.
-Jack Anderson, July 15, 1974
selves until now with the illusion that we are pursuing
a narrative, or hovering over a picture that will soon
come to focus, we may as well recognize that we can
count, at best, on no more than a glimpse of a narrative-
enough perhaps to give us hope this is a narrative which
exists and not a chaos. But it is a curious endeavor. The
best details often lead nowhere. Nixon, for example, re-
ceived campaign contributions in 1972 which were as
Large as $2 million from W. Clement Stone and $1 million
from Richard Mellon Scaife of Pittsburgh. Nonetheless,
the Nixon administration reacted with excessive anxiety
to the disclosure of a gift of $100,000 in 1970 from
HUGHES byway of Richard Danner to Bebe Rebozo; in
fact Nixon fired Archibald Cox only two days after he
had indicated to Elliot Richardson how displeased he
was about Cox's zealous investigation of Rebozo. The
break-in at Watergate was even explained in some scenar-
ios as the measure of Nixon's need to know how much
-O'Brien knew about rtuGHrs's gift.'? It made no sense.
Rebozo had an explanation which was legally impeccable.
Ile told investigators that he was worried about the "ap-
pearance" of the gift and so (lid not give it to the presi-
dent but put it in his own safe-deposit box, and later, in
June, 1973, sent it back to tit;cites. One did not have to
believe the story, but in the absence of evidence that the
cash had been passed, why did Nixon react so powerfully?
"They intist certainly knon' somiething very beat's
on Nixon," commented !fast. .. .
Colson . . . replied, "They must."
"I mean, if he knows this stuff is going on and lees
not doing anything about it . , ." began Bast.
"You know ,:'hat I shrink?" irrlerrupted Colson.
")'oit want to knoit, t:'hc! I 'really think? . .. Pin
loyal to the lot; (Nixon) 'cis:r,c he's lit; friend .. .
I think Pelt(, used 1/,a! (5I0'?G`h~) for Innrself and
for the !'resident, for Ike Jrruai!v, and the girls. I tliirtk
that the 1'r-e.:iekn! figures--!Isis is my worst :;ttspic?io--
-that if he really blows !iris. llirg/ins cur; blow the
)Thistle on him." .. .
.. Bust eket! n?lretlrer the only thing the CIA had
/tw-gimg or'i-r A'ixott's lurid the S10?.(i00.
Replied Culson miur((-ly:
"Who knows that that's the only $IU01,00)?"
-Jack Anderson, July 15, 1974
It is a fascinating detail. It is just that nothing comes
of it. We still duri.t know if it is ukc only S100.01010 or no
more than the tail of the engine left in the trap. Since
much that we examine will appear, then to nt-I to dis-
appear, it is nice to think there is something iridescent
about a view seen for an instant in the fog.
Perhaps it is the effect of such glimpses to leave its
with an afterimage. On rz-ffection, Nixon's reaction to the
S100,000 does not have to be political. Even a political
man is entitled to it private emotion. Fighting the attack
on Rebor_o. Nixon could be expressing the outrage lie iAr
at attacks against himself. Or, maybe the gift just gave
him an uneasy feeling from the moment it \,ias proposed.
Of course, the hard chancre of an inflamed in-hou+e scan-
dal could also have been sitting beneath the money. We
simply do not know to which corner the mouse has gone.
wi: ' -.? tiE NATURE OF Trla il!FFICULTi-
begins to disclose ):self. We cannot house an explanation
because we do not know , hich of our facts are br ic';
and which are pirp!er-macfle paned to look hiss; once;.
We can only watch the way the bricks are hsndled.
It is painful, nonetheless, to relinquish one's hope for
a narrative, to admit that study of the CIA may not lead
to the exposure of facts so niedi as to the epistemology
of facts. We will not get the goods so quickly as we will
learn how to construct a meld.! i?. hich v. ill t-c11 t*.s t? h
we cannot get the goods. Of course. that Neil' never be
enough-willy-nilly. the habit 's iC' persist to look for a-
new narrative (and damn the [)ziper-macho i)rtcks).
In the meantime, however.:; short course: -
Epistemological Model 1:
If half the pieces in a ji sa'.F puzzle ore , ssiae, the
likelihood is that something can still he 1-it to-c:her.
Despite its gaps. the picture n:a be more or less visible.
Even if most of the pieces are v one, a loose mos:iic call
be arranged of isolated elenl nts. The po.sihility of the
real picture being glimpsed under such circumstances is
small but not :ilto,tether lost." It is just that one would
like to know if the few pieces left belong to the same set."
Epistemological :Model I I :
Maybe it is the splinters of it mirror rather than the
scattered pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that provide a su-
perior ground for the metaphor. We are dealing not with
reality, after all, but that image of reality which reaches
the surface through the cracked looking glass of the media.
Epistemological Model III:
What is most crucial is that we do not forget that we
are interpreting curious actions. Men who seem to be
;honest are offering cover. We are obliged to remind our-
selves that a life lived under cover produces a chronic
state of mind in the actor which is not unlike those
peculiar moments when staring in the mirror too long
we come to recognize that the face looking back at us
must-inescapably-be our own. Yet it is not. Our vicis-
situdes (but not our souls) stand revealed in the mirror;
or, given another day, and another )mirror, there we are,
feeling wretched, looking splendid.
Epistemological Model IV:
Doubtless time difficulty is analogous to writing. a poem
with nothing but names, numbers, facts, conjecture.
gossip, trial balloons, leaks, and other assorted pieces of
17Tlrct would ussturie it was u?Orth $250,000 to CI'f.lil' to I9f this it-fiat Robert Ionise'!:e'irh,'rg is tip lo?
find out it little inure al nut $100,01X)
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prose.
For example:
When the interviewed him in my office on Decem-
ber 10, 1973, he struck all of its as a highly intelligent,
highly motivated person. . .. Finally 1 asked him,
"Mr. Martinez, if in fact you were a CIA plant on the
Watergate team and were reporting back to the
Agency, would you tell us?" He broke into a broad
smile, looked around the room, and laughed. He
never answered the question; no answer was neces-
sary.
-Al That Point in Time
Let us go back to the facts, to the false facts, distorted
facts, concealed facts, empty facts, secretly rich facts, and
unverifiable speculations of our narrative.
In this connection, nothing we have read about Gordon
Liddy explains his long silence in jail so well as the
supposition that he is an agent of real caliber. Of his
biography we know he was in the FBI in the early sixties.
an assistant district attorney in Dutchess County, ran for
Congress on-the Conservative party ticket, and got a jolt
with the Treasury Department high up in a Customs
Bureau drug campaign called Operation Intercept. It was
not a position to leave him alien to such intimacies of the
CIA, the Mafia, and the flow of profits in the drug trade.
Liddy came to the White House to work for Egil Krogh.
who was trying to organize the' Nixon administration's
war on drugs with a projected team of CIA men, FBI
men, narcs, and private detectives, an undertaking some
would see darkly as a most ambitious cover for Nixon's
real intent, which was to commence his own Intelligence
on a competitive level with the CIA and the FBI--in
other words, his unspoken follow-up to the Huston Plan.
It is worth mentioning that during this period, Liddy
wrote a memo for Nixon in criticism of the FBI, which
Nixon described to Krogh as "the most brilliant memo-
randum" to come his way "in a long time."20 It is with
this background shpt Liddy comes to CREEP. There is
nothing in ihese details to suggest he could not be a
career agent.
we read of how he burns his hand in a flame to impress
a girl and threatens to kill Magruder if Jeb touches him
on the shoulder again. John Dean describes to us how
Liddy offers to commit suicide if that will protect the
administration. Liddy offers a lecture on how to kill a
man with a finely sharpened pencil. There is nothing in
these details to sugest lie could not be a career agent.
"The master who instructed n:e in the deadliest of
the Oriental martial arts taught tyre that the outcome
of a battle is decided in the minds of the opponents
before the first blow is struck." ----C. Gordon Liddy''-t
,,i"' i%c4t g 1IAVK TI1E I(A1IIT TO LOOK
on the Watergate burglars as ignorant Cubans led by
clowns. Being scorned as ridiculous is, of course, a cover
in itself; !lie CIA c?r:n count on such a disguise heinupro-
vided by the wire scrvic-es, Sit:Iple declarative: sentences
make curious actions appear rii.ttonraticalhi ab~:urd.
Under exainination. tie burglars look better. Gonzales
had been a body u:ud for and fought in the fitly.
of Pigs. Martinet had been .: CIA moat ctpt:tin and grade
354 illegal runs to Cuba:. t; tr:.er w.a member c.rf Itati~i:r's
2077nse details arc givers in a forthcoinirrg book impressively
researched by Edward Jay Epstein, An American Coup D'Etat
(1'utncnn's).
?'As gtioteil iii T\'i; htrnarc.
secret police, and an FBI contact in Cuba. then an in-
former against Castro. By Hunt's own descriptio+t, Barker
became his "principal a;sist.utt" during the Ray of Pips.
and Hunt was chief of holit:cal action.
The fourth Cuban happens to be Ialian-Frank Sturgis,
an cx-niarine born Frank Angelo Fiorini. lie served with
Castro in the Sierra i%,laestra-and would later claim he
was already an agent for the Company. In any case, he
was good enough to be working as Fidel's personal super-
visor in the Havana casinos until the day gambling was
.eliminated. Then Sturgis decided to defect. To the Mafia
and to the CIA. (Or is it simpler to say the-Mafia wing
of the CIA?) It is a no! inconsiderable defection.
Before the flay of Pigs, Sturgis would act a~ contact for
Santo Traflicante, who with its son Santo Jr. "controlled
much of Havana's tourist industry." and was alleged to
have received "bulk shipments of heroin from Europe
and forward them through Florida to New i'ork.'
During this period. ': turg~s joined a CIA unit called Oper-
ation Forty, which laid beer, set up to kill Castro and a
number of important Fidelistas. Involved in this training
were Traflicante arid v_ How: rd I runt 23 Frank Sturgis,24
and Robert Maheu. Maheu and Sturgis must have been
reasonably well inet, since Sturgis is still pivotal enough.
eleven years later to be chatting with lack Anderson in
the lobby of Washington National Airport on the morn-
ing he arrives from iviiami with Barker, Martinez, and
Gonzales for the last break-in at Watergate, but then it
would be difficult to name an investigative reporter in
America more pivotal than Anderson.
"I don't know if I told you before," Sturgis wrote
to his wife [while in jail), "but Wiliiam F. Buckley
tised to work for CIA and I don't know if he still
does. When he found out that Howard (Hunt) was
going to work in the White House, lie told Howard
it was good that lie could be so close to the President
but Howard told hirer that he was there to take orders
and not to influence anyone. That was a good an-
swer!" .
.. Buckley frankly admitted he was a "deep cover
agent" for the CIA from July, 1951, to March, 1952,
but said he had not worked for them since.
-Jack Anderson, September 18, 1973
It was apparent from the documents that in Novem-
ber 1971, a month after he took part in the Fielding
break-in, Martinez mentioned his association with
Hunt to his case officer who, in turn, took Martinez
to the CIA's chief of station in Miami.
We immediately requested that the chief of station
be brought from Florida for an interview. The chief,
a heavyset man who appeared rather nervous, told us
that in March 1972, Martinez had asked him if lie
"really knew all about the Agency activities in the
Miami area." Martinez had dropped hints about
Hunt's activities; the chief said, which had concerned
him so much that he wrote a letter to CIA head-
quarters inquiring about Hunt's status. The answer,
the were told, was that the chief should "coot it"
and not concern himself with Hunt's affairs.
-At That Point in Time
One does better not to rely on that comfortable picture
we have of J. Howard Hunt to an unhinged undercover
man in-a wild red wig impotently badgering Dita Beard
on her hospital bed-the wig may have been chosen to
make hire startling to a fearful woman.
By the rank of the posts he occupied in his career, it is
obvious that Hunt, for a long, time at least, was well
regarded in the agency. For that matter, he has so many
credentials we can wonder how close he came in his own
22Alfr?ed It'. McCoy, et a!.,The. Politics of 11croin in South-
east Asia.
23"Strarrgee Rcel/eltuua."
2aIn lin.r Group in the fall of
1971. Such it probability hardly diminishes the hypothesis
that Liddy is an agent of stature. (in fact, the November
Group will even be given a cii!tion daaxrs by CREEP
before the famous April 7 deadline for campaign contri-
butions. \'Vhik the m,i:,rity of this is ostensibly- for the
November Group 's sta:ed purp:ice, which . is advertising.
not espionage, the figure is no:ieth ess interesting It is
equal to the sure Liddy tried to get for Gemstone.)
At any rate, we are left with the following additions:
(1) The Democrats were well aware of the November
Group and the possibility that their- oaices would soon
be bugged.
(2) British and Canadian lntellige;ice can now be
added to the soup. Let fps think of them as herbs.
(3) Maybe the Demcwrats were putting in the garlic.
Haddad "sent his entire file to Jack- Anderson in April
1972" and now "could not remember what was in it. In
fact, Haddad said, he sent material to_ Anderson twice-,
but ,hart kept no copies." Jack Anderson "had acknowl-
edged receipt 'of the material from Haddad concerning
plans for the break-in, but he. said he had since lost
the Fill, and the FBI had unknown men working for it
in the CIA. We whist assume both had agents in the
Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, the IRS,
the National Security Council. the 40 Committee, the
Atomic Energy Commission, the Special Operations
Division, Naval Intelligence, Air Force Intelligence, the
Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security
Agency; the Council on Foreign Relations, trucltrs, plus
a number of private intelligence companies whose work
extended from military-industrial security to private
detectives' offices. In turn. these companies, bureaus,
groups, and agencies had to the best of their ability infil-
trated the CIA and the 1'131. Since the CIA, the FBI,
and other major intelligence also had had their authority
infiltrated by their own unknown enclaves, it is, in certain
circumstances, meaningless to speak of the CIA as a way
of differentiating; it from the AIA, the Dl,\, the NSC.
Hutit-tee, or the SOD--let us use the initials CIA there-
fore like a mathematical symbol which will, depending on
the context its which it is employed, usually oiler specific
reference to it CIA Iocate.i physically in Langley, Virginia,
with near to 15.000 crnhloyees, understan:ling that under
other circumstances CI:\ may be nil snore than it general
29At That point in Time.
locus signifying an unknown factor whose function is
intelligence and whose field is the invisible government.
Students of Einstein's work on tensor calculus may find
it comfortable to deal with these Varieties of unknowns.
In the world of social theory, however, we are at the point
where a special and general theory of relative identity in
social relations would be of inestimable use since the only
situation for which there can he no cover is anguish, and
the operation of the twentieth ccinturv may be to alienate
us from that emotion in preparation for the ultimate de-
struction of the human soul as opposed to the oncoming
hegemony of the technological, person.
(
i M-r;W' 1`'; ENEt ALLY, HIS ENEMIES AND
friends agreed that Nixon was a foot not to destroy the
tapes. They may not have understood the depth of the
pot in which he was boiling. There was reason to be-
lieve there were copies of the tapes. If Butterfield would
reveal their existence, he could be an agent ? if one agent
was near those tapes, then more than one; what reason
to assume duplicates of the damaging tapes were not being
systematically prepared all the while he was being set up?
Impeachment was certain if he burned the evidence and
a copy appeared..
"You do not understand. This man stood at the thresh-
old of his own idea of greatness. He was going to write
the peace with Communism. Ile was going to be inh-
mortal. Now, as he loses respect, it is slipping away from
him inch by inch." Kissinger smiles sadly over his salad.
Across the city, the Ervin committee is holding a hear-
ing in the hot summer afternoon. "People criticize
Nixon for being irresolute about Watergate. \Vhy does
he not confess what is wrong and end it? they ask.
They do not understand that he cannot make a move be-
cause he is not in possession of all the facts. He does not
know what is going to happen next. He does not know
what is going to break upon him next." Kissinger sighs.
"Nobody will ever know how close that man was to get-
ting the foreign situation he wanted."
Nixon is not only it Shakespearean protagonist in the
hour of his downfall, but Macbeth believing that Birnam
Wood will never come to Dunsinane. Of course, he is as
appealing in his travail as Ronald Reagan might be play-
ing Lear, but the echo nonetheless of a vast anguish
comes back-who else has known such anguish and man-
aged to live in the American world? Birnam Wood will
come back to Dunsinane as the tapes one by one get to be
taken.
Epistemological Model V:
"Sometimes," said the wise observer, "I think of that
story of Howard Hughes being so fearful of bacteria that
he kept Jean Peters across the room from hire, and then
I think, what if the fear of bacteria is the cover, and the
double dare not get too close to Jcan Peters?"
Epistemological Model VI:
There is hardly an episode in Watergate which was not
presented to us in a way that snakes it seem more stupid
than it ought to have been. Or, is it closer to say that what
we hope to perceive is more brilliant than the level at
which we have been encouraged to perceive it?
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facts and the report I was given.
--No Final' Victories
\"L7.
;
TAPES, FOR EXAMPLE,. IF A TAPE
can be made, a copy can be made. Until we brood upon
the matter, it is natural to assume the copy is equal to the
original. We do not stop to think that the poor tapes we
.thought were the originals could in fact have been infe-
rior copies. The remarkably bad quality of the tapes might
have been produced by design. There are advantages to a
tape which can hardly be heard: The affair is downgraded,
and seems less sinister. No cover is more comfortable to a
clandestine operation than the appearance of ineffectu-
ality. Let us remind ourselves of how inept the Secret
Service seemed in its taping operation. Possessing all
that White House power, all those funds'. all that avail-
able electronic equipment-yet the product sounds like it
was recorded in the glove compartment of a moving car.
Admittedly, there were technical difficulties to the taping,
but the product still seems inadequate. Nixon must have
suffered another turn of the screw. Since he cannot know
if the tapes he hears are the unique, original, and only
tapes, or a debased copy prepared by his enemies, he can-
not even be certain r?.hether it is a trap to encourage him
to take advantage of the garbled sound and rephrase the
transcripts in his favor. He takes the plunge. But his
emendations are discovered later by the House Judiciary
Committee. A corrected transcript is presented to America.
How can Nixon not wonder whether somebody sub-
stituted a subtly clearer version of the tapes to John
boar's staff?
All the while, Nixon has to confront another question.
If he evades every snare, pit, impressment, and delusion,
if he even manages to work his \ti?ay through the Senate
to the edge of being declared not guilty in the impeach-
ment, ]low can he be certain that in the last minute after
the very last of all these abominably unexpected breaches
in his cover-up, the missing eighteen minutes will still not
appear? Then he can envision how America will spank
the horse, and he will twist forever in the wind.
cr SIB In crin 1ng y
I received a telephone call front L. Patrick Gray, t h;'
Acting Director of the FBI-a mart I had never ntct.
Gray told inc he was disturbed by reports suggesting
the Fljl was not conducting a thor ouglr investigation.
"That is simply not true," Gray told me. "! assure
you this ratifier will be purstted wherever it leads.
regardless of icy position in the Administration. Let
the r/lips fall where they may." I told Gray I appre-
ciated his call, and lie concluded our tall: ivit/r an
unexpected continent: ".Mr. O'Brien, we Irish Cath-
olics must stick together."
On fitly 7, fulloiviii Gray's e?cif!, I was visited by
two Secret Scr1?ice agents.... They told inc they had
beets instruclc?il to report to me t/tat the FBI's ex-
Itatistive e.vaiiiination of the National Committee of-
fices had m:c?o:`ered no telephone bugs or outer elcc-
tronic devices;--that "tlie ptacc was found to be
cleat:." I accep!ed their report wit/rout question. I
keen' the Flt] het.-.l lore the place apart--removing
ceiling panels. dismanlling radiators, amid the like-
and if they said there were no bugs. then I assumed
there were no bags. Later cride,rce, of course, re-
vealed that bugs had bran placed on my phone and
that of Spencer Oliver, Executive Director of the
Association of State Dcntocratic Chairmen.. To this
day I cannot explain flit discrepancy between those
/1 ~, `/_
r7
.~
L
HEN HUNT'S TEAM WAS
caught, McCord had already removed a few panels from
the ceiling of O'Brien's office. It is not so very well known
that an excellent acid advanced kind of eavesdropping can
be achieved by driving a nail into the flooring of the office
you wish to monitor from the ceiling of the office below.
A listening device is then attached to the nail. The sophis-
tication of this method is that it is not possible to detect
the bug from the office being taped, since the listening
device attracts no more attention than any nail in the floor.
The first question to ask of many a break-in is not there-
fore which office was entered, but who is working in the
office above. By this logic, a real interest in O'Brien's
conversations could best have been satisfied by a break-in
on the fifth-floor-ill order to tap the sixth. Since we are
already on the sixth, who inhabits the seventh?
. That part of the seventh floor of the Watergate Office
Building, which rested unmistakably over Larry O'Brien's
quarters, was occupied at the time by no less than the
office of the secretary of the Federal Reserve Board. Can
matters he this simple?.It is not seemly that great financial
secrets should be discussed in an of ice of a building which
looks to have been designed by an architect with a degree
in Mafia Modern, but interest augments when we ]earn
that one of the computers of the Federal Reserve Board is
located in the basement of the same \Vatergate Office
Building. If, on a given dw.. the Federal Reserve Board had
sealed itself in to discuss a change in the discount rate, is
it wholly inconceivable that a CIA mar, (a veritable
Grand Mole of a banker) installed for years on the Fed-
eral Reserve Board night hav phoned in to the computer
in the Watergate Office Building basement an apparently
routine question that would vet manage to tell his under-
cover assistant in the basetncnt `.gnat the shpt would be in
file discount rate? Assuming that this assistant has been
sequestered with the cornphnter to maintain his discretion
during these important deliberations of tire board, the
question is whether the basement assistant could not man-
age to make an innocent phone call to somebody on the
seventh floor. Since we are assurning the man or, the
seventh floor is not part of the team to which the man in
the basement belongs. the conversation would have to go
something like this:
Basement: I hear Vida Blue is pitching today.
Seventh floor: Impossible! I f;: pitched two days ago.
Basement: (Indignantly) Wi;o did?
Seventh floor: (Triumphantly) Vida Blue!
That was wlia t the basement wanted to hear said on
the seventh floor and said loud enough for tile. nail in the
ceiling of the sixth floor to pick it up-the names of bast:-
hall pitchers having been geared to inc rise and fall in the
discount rate. Now, whoever monitored that conversation
could pass the inform:.::inn :,font. Since more than one
team would prc:SCtma!?:;' be \`: i.`rritil? to gel advance in-
formation on the chart,;.; i: ire rate, let us :ts:;,nut' our
team got the \`:ord out ?,wt a pa:-ssihle lead of three hears
over all the others.
"How munch would Mich n.{Vrtlr;ttiOn be \+Ort}t?' a
banker was asked.
"Conservatl\clv,'" Inc rrthlicd, ill the rich and p; tlpous
voice which is pr; .\Y to large. suns, "billions...
"For just it few hours' lead?
"That is time enough."
The possibility is now open that the CI:\ was thing ;he.
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break-in to the. Democratic National Committee as is
elegant cover to the real operation. which way to tap
privileged Federal Reserve Board information. Elegance
offers its exquisite use of resources, so one would not
claim the CIA had no interest in O'Brien nor in U:i:-er.
O'Brien and Oliver had had their propinquity with the
CIA, after all. While we know they cannot he- in Intelii
gence-since how ruay we concave of a good liberal D:rn-
ocrat who is?-nonetheless. they might attract an enclave
in the CIA (if, of course. it is enclave performing the
break-in under the auspices of C. EEP and n,)-, just a
burglary by red-hot arttateurs exec itted at the third rate
of CREEP stupidity). Yes, so::., enclave might l ' ii;c-Lately
have be-err curious to know no;:: about what O-loll n and
C):^ier knew of Chappacq+.;iddick. or Eagleton's secret ined-
ic f file, or t=tt.c ms in rel:rtion to i'?iahcu. Lansky. Rehozo,
and Nixon on one side. or itic;IiEs, Bcrinett. Ilunt, and
Name on the other. Dante the teams: ttt;ctt_ s is on all of
them. Recognize that with the Democratic Com miuee
break-in as cover. the operation has power over CREEP-
which is to say ultimately over Nixon-even if its bur-
glars are caught. That is elegance. Obtaining neither their
first objective--the Federal Reserve tap-nor the second
-lines on O'Brien and Oliver--the entrepreneurs still end
with more power over the presidency than before. Once
everybody made certain the election was won in spite of
Watergate, there would be even more power.
Of course, a risk wits taken. If Watergate had broken
too early, McGovern might have been able to get his
campaign turned around (although. the thought does not
ring loud in the lost ether) but
? then. Watergate never burst
until the election was safe and the operators could begin
to apply that wrenching pressure on the bones of the
Nixon administration.
It must, however, be immediately visible that while this
last scenario violates no facts, it is only a I tcrary fancy-
not an iota of proof. Just another model. Perhaps we can
modernize William of Oekham's razor by saying: The
simplest model which satisfies all the facts is likely to lead
us to inexplicable facts.
Four of the five Wren arrested in the bugging at-
tempt at the Dernorratic National Committee head-
quarters Saturday morning were registered as guests
at the Ilratergate Hotel on April 28, the same night
that two other firms in the Watergate building were
broken into... .
The firm of Freed. Frank, Harris, Shriner and
Kampelrnan..locatecl on the 10th floor of the Water-
gate Building, 2600 Virginia Ave. Nbtr, was broken
into on May IS, but officials of the firm (lid not report
the incident to police until yesterday... .
A spokesman for the Freed law firm said yester-
day that the burglary was not immediately reported
to police because nothing appeared to be missing, and
employees did not associate the incident with political
espionage until disclosure of Saturday's break-in... .
On April 28. the night four of the five bugging
suspects were registered at the Watergate Hotel, ac-
cording to police. the 11th-floor offices of the Sterling
institute, a nunur;,emcn! consulting firm, were broken
into and $1,100 worth of typewriters and calculating
machines was stolen....
The s.'nne )light, police records show, the far, firm
of Boykin and t)eFrancis. located on the eighth floor
of the Watergate. was forcibly entered and 5525
worth of office equipment was stolen.
-The \Vashington Post, lone 21, 1972
Maybe if our scenarios have had a purpose. it has been
to flavor our reading with the temperament of an agent,
a way of saying that we have become sufficiently paranoid
to see connections where others see lists. So lot us look
at a list of the offices in July. 11-173. on the seventh and
eighth floors of the Watergate Iuilding, and take the
pleasure of wondering how many of those names and
corporations have no relation to Intelligence.
701 Defense & Aerospace
805 Division of federal
Center of Sterling
Reserve Bank
Institute, inc.
Operations
If. F. Dean
808 Foreign Banking
Human Factors Re-
Authorities
search Associates.
Oaicc of Defense
Inc.
Planning
Inst. for Psychiatry &
Securities
Foreign Affairs
Stat Methodology 4e
704 Harris Interlope Corp.
Procedures Section
Harris Shi;c. Con-
ductor
Radiation, file.
It. F. Communications.
inc.
811 'Interstate General
Corp.
L. E. Steele
812 Armistead I. Selden, )
Boykin & Dc Francis
707
EDP Technology
Systenied Corp.
815 Perkin F.Ivcr Corp.
Joseph Dixon,
711
Federal Reserve hoard
Office of Scc'y
Manager
When we add the three robberies in the last news
story and include the possibility of break-ins to other
offices we know nothing about by burglary teams who
were removing taps that others had been putting in, there
is now posed to our brand-new agent-type brain a further
question: What part of the Watergate Office Building was
not being tapped?
Our procedure has conducted us to the point where we
have to recognize that we have used up our last scenario
in order to bring us to a place where we have no scenario
to replace it. Now, we know less than before of what
might possibly be going on.
V
A Tension in Teleology
Said the CIA:
Authority imprinted upon entpliness
is rr101ley,
honey.
Bang bang Howard.
We don't need you.
We need
The space inhere you were.
t
-.Anonymo L.'Rivera
IN CI R IN 1'11L CLOCKWORK
IKE A MA
is Nixon's anstuish. As we hear the tick, we dwell in the
fascination of the inexorable.
Next to Nixon, Hunt is an idler g oar. His anguish is
!all of his existence, but it moves us less. The main gear
goes until the tact of the tension in the spring nuts down,
but the idler gear never runs down--it is i -:rely attached
to the alarm. So its end is not inexorable 1. . catastrophic
--as when the clock is dropped and the idler gear is
broken.
J lust was broken. The style of Undercover has that
numbness of affect which conies from -a fall. He writes
without feeling more for one period in his life than an-
other as though he is saying it is cu5tly enough to locate
the episodes. He is like a semicon cious victim who senses
that coming awake will be equal to crawling up a slope
of hi-act, glass. 'fhe horrors to come will be greater than
the ones he has known already.
Yet, as with Nixon, there is no danger of getting to
like 1-hint too much. We can decide that Nixon was set up
by Watergate and feel no great pity because we can also
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remember the war in Vietnam he kept going for four years
in order to assure his reelection. One can always recall
the voice Nixon used when he ,pc.!.-.c of the North Viet-
namese as "my enemy," on the clay he ordered the Christ-
mas bombing. He had always wanted to be an actor and
he ended by playing the classic role of the criminal who is
convicted for the wrong crime. So one does not have to
feel an overcharge of compassion for Nixon--just enough
to water our imagination. Your enemies succeed after all
when they dry up your imagination.
By the same token, there is a built-in limit to how much
compassion we can feel for Hunt. We have only to read
his account of his own methods on a caper in the early
fifties:
The Mexican Cottrnrunist leader was then visiting
Peking. On the (lay of his departure Bob North air-
ntailed are a copy of a Chinese newspaper announc-
ing his departure, sending a duplicate copy to CIA
headquarters. To replace the departure announcement
I fabricated a story in which the Mexican Communist
was quoted as deprecating fellow Mexicans and say-
ing, among other things, that Mexican peasants could
never hope to achieve the cultural level of the su-
perior Chinese. I cabled the fabrication to headquar-
ters, where a special type font had been Horde by
reproducing samples from the local paper. My fabri-
cated story was set in this duplicate type and the
entire front page of the local paper re-created by
final family home. On its ample acreage were paddocks,
a stable, outbuildings and woods." He is the perfect
reader for the magazine edited by the godfather of his
children.
Now, he had been caught on an operation which had
for one of its tasks the tapping of Oliver's phone. Hunt
could mention Oliver casually in his book and make no
connection between the Spencer Oliver with -whom he had
dinner and the R. Spencer Oliver whose phone was
tapped. He does not ask if they are not most certainly
the same man. Such calm, however, is for his book. From
Hunt's point of view, Oliver might have little or a great
deal to do with Watergate. In the ongoing crisis of try-
ing to solve the mystery of his life with all the working
experience of his career. how is Hunt to measure the rele-
vant importance of that detail, or of McCord and Fenster-
wald? McCord, for instance, has taken Bernard Fenster-
weld for his lawyer to go before the Ervin committee,
Fensterwald who is chairman of the Committee to Investi-
gate Assassinations. The unspoken shock to the media
would not be small. It is a way of saying \Vatergate is
related to Dallas. \Vhat enclave now wanted the media to
think that way? Dallas and \Vatergate. That would be
the scoop of the century. The people behind McCord
might be serving some kind of notice.
turned to Mexico.
The fabricated newspapers were tirade available to
local journalists who published facsimilies 'of the
offensive interview together with a translation into
Spanish. The target's protestations of innocence
gained no credence whatever, for technical tests con-
ducted on the duplicated Chinese paper affirmed that
the type in which the story was printed perfectly
matched other type samples in the same newspaper
and so had to be authentic.30
-Undercover
A footnote says, "It was this sort of technical assistance
from CIA that I lacked when I undertook to fabricate
two State Department cables in 1971."
No, we do not have to like him too much. Self-pity
is Hunt's companion, and bitterness is his fuel. He writes
with the tightly compressed bile of a disappointed man;
the reader is to be reminded that his early prospects were
happier than his later ones. Photographs taken of him on
the beach at Acapulco a few mont13 out of OSS show the
would-be screenwriter looking well built in bathing
trunks. He bears a bit of resemblance to I-Iemingway.
and is at pains in Undercover to show pictures of himself
skiing and hunting. For that matter, he is also adept at
fishing, squash, golf, tennis, rtdir?.g, boxing, and screwing
1--so the autobiography suggests.
It would be a bet Hemingway is his hero, and that
Hunt in the late 1940s was torn between a life as a great
novelist and a social life as a spy. We can guess )low he
chooses. He is, with everything else, a social climber and
drops on the reader every big name he knows from Eisen-
hower and -Nixon clown, making a show of his good
WASP family origins (Hunt's Point in the Bronx is
named after a relative who goes back to the Revolution-
ary \Var, and l..cigh Hunt is on the family tree) as well as
his wife's sterling ancestry ("In addition to being descend-
ed from the Presidential Adams and Harrison families,
my wife was one-eighth Oglala Sioux... " ). Before Hunt,
she has been married to the Marquis de Gotttiirre. No
matter that her maiden name is Wetzel and Hunt is from
Brown, not Princeton (a full demerit in the early CIA),
he will still look to climb high into the good life of Oh So
Social. "The service plate, were Revere gadroon, the crys-
tal was an opaline ..." is a line ftorn one of his novels.
and he will stake a point of asking Bill Ruckley to be god-
father to his childreni.. At the end, when tragedy shrikes,
he and his family are 'living in it house called Witches
Island in Potonnac, 1\I;tryl:ancf. in "what was to be our
.
301'/his story is a he?r/ect example of how a fact can be rvipe'd plane had crashed on lariding; at Midway and she was one
out by ate artifact. 16 of ?15 people who were killed. We do not know how much
technical means. A dozen copies were pouched to me
F ARE -1 .YINC To LIVE IN THE
measure of Hunt's anguish, but it is inipossible to specu-
late here. We do not know, after all, v.hether lie had any-
thing to do with Dallas. The photograph of the two bums
arrested by the police in Dealcy Plaza shortly after the
murder does show a resemblance: to Hunt and Sturgis but
there is an indigestible discrepancy in the height. On the
other hand, Hunt was chief of covert action in the Di-
vision of Domestic Affairs at the time; that is a perfect
desk from which to have a hand in such an assassination
(especially if it has been brought off by some variant of
a Mafia and anti-Castro Cuban tean-I). At the bast, we
have to assume that Hunt would have been in position
to pick up enough to embarrass the CIA profoundly. But
then it is staggering to contemplate how much Hunt may
have found out about matters he had not necessarily been
active in himself. If no one in the CIA could locate to a
certainty the details of other operations, still a tremendous
amount might be learned through gossip. or by recon-
naissance through those more or less secret files which
would be more or less available on long, dull office after-
noons. And he was a writer of su,p.:~nse novels, no less.
What material ini,,,ht be at hand!! To the degree the CIA
is bureaucratic and not romantic there would be formal
procedures in getting to the files which could be winked
at, breached, circum ended, or directly betrayed. To the
degree the CIA was a culture, then hunt was a living,
piece of inquiring matter-, and in the years from 1966 to
1970 as his career in the CIA was ostensibly winding
down, he had time to db a?little research on some of those
hundred and more murders in Dallas supposedly connected
to witnesses of the assassination. tires to tact a line on
who might be doing the job. For the CIA, whether im-
plicated or not, could hardly he without interest in a mop-
up operation of such magnitude. Over a hundred murders
to keep the seepage of information under control!
So Hunt may have known a great deal about Dallas. We
have to hold this in our attention when we begin to think
of the nightmare within Ilunt's nightmare-the death of
his wife in the crash of United Air 1..inesHight 5`i3 from
Washington to Chicago on Uuexnther 8 1972
The
Approved For Release 2001/08/08 : CIA-RDP77-00432R000100390002-3
 Approved For Release 2001/08/08 CIA-RDP77-00432R000100390002-3
Hunt knew nor how much he had told his wife. We know
that she was making payment, to the Cubans with White
}louse money, but that is hardly a piece bf information
worth silencing by the risk and carnage of sabotaging an
airplane. An investigator, Sherman Skolnick. in Chicago,
would lay the claim that twelve people in one way or
another connected with Watergate were on the plane, and
he would remind us that White llou:ie aide Egil Krogh,
Gordon Liddy's old White l louse boss, was appointed
under secretary of transportation the next day and would
supervise the National Transportation Safety Board and
the Federal Aviation Administration in their investi-
gations of the crash. That is not an antomatieally insignifi-
cant detail. On December 19, Alexander Butterfield would
be appointed the new head of the F.A.A 31
a great deal about Dallas and were threatening to tell the
world, then Hunt would not have-to brood over such de-
tails. Ile could assume his wife's plane had been encour-
aged to crash. Of course. we would no longer be talking
about anguish, but masterplots and last-reel peril. The like-
lihood is that Hunt and Dorothy Hunt were trapped in a
smaller game, and the crash was. a mixture-of inefficiency,
cynical maintenance, and who knnws?-some overload
of psychic intensity among the passengers. (Why else do
great athletes live in such fear of traveling by air but that
psychic intensity is also a species of physical charge and
can even distort the workings of an electronic system?)
No, it is more likely Hunt was living with the subtle
horror that attends every inexplicable crash-is there a
psychology to machines? Had there been an intervention
of moral forces, a play of the dice from the derniurge?
At the least. Dorothy Hunt's death was evidence of the
raised law of coincidence in dramatic and dreadful events.
Great or livid events could indeed be peculiar in their
properties, and maybe no perfect conspiracy ever worked,
since people were so imperfect-only imperfect conspir-
acies succeeded and then only when a coincidence drove
the denouement hone. Was it possible that Hunt was
finally obliged to look over the lip of tragedy itself-a
view which leaves us, the Greeks were certain, babbling
and broken? Did he come to think that a psychic vortex
pulls in a higher incidence of coincidence itself?
"A than may defend himself again:st all enemies save
those who are resolved that such a matt as he should
not exist." -Tacitus. epigraph to Undercover
anti-Communist with nothing; but the righteous moral
equivalent of tunnel vision. I t : has also had . life. It is
almost an appealing life. He has had dyslexia as a boy
and played trumpet ire a high-school dance band. \Vhiat
is most irritating about Hunt is that he is her*rl I~trge
?Igor that imtttrr, I)i!:igltt Chapiii,appointments secretary
to Nixon, martd over tn'o trinntlis later to an cxect:tive,
position at ilttited.
enough to be a protagonist in a good and solid novel, and
yet-hatred has certainly dried his imagination-he is
never large enough. No moment of wit will ever separate
his soul from his disasters.
All the heavier must those disasters sit on hits. Thos
disasters pose insoluble questions. Their lack of an
answer promises insanity. -
What, for instance, car. he make of that list of offices
on the seventh and eighth floors. of the Watrsrg ate OTcce
Building'? Or of those extra break-ins he may now be
hearing about for the first time? With his sotthist:Callon
in the infiltration of one group of Intelligence by gnat: er
--be has after all been chief of covert action in the
Domestic Operations Division-h_nv could I-lunr r.ot en-
tertain the hypothesis that a specie:. of trench v. arf are in
bugging and CountCrb ii;~!a had been going on in the
Watergate Ofii e Building long before his c'per