Hunt - American Spy : My Secret History in the CIA, Watergate, and Beyond

American Spy

My Secret History in the CIA,
Watergate, and Beyond

E. Howard Hunt

with Greg Aunapu

Foreword by William F. Buckley Jr.

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Copyright 2007 by E. Howard Hunt. All rights reserved

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada

Photo on page 172, courtesy of Hollis Hunt
Wiley Bicentennial Logo: Richard J. Pacifico

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Hunt, E. Howard (Everette Howard), date.

American spy : my secret history in the CIA, Watergate, and beyond / E. Howard

Hunt; with Greg Aunapu and Eric Hamburg.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-0-471-78982-6 (cloth)

1. Hunt, E. Howard (Everette Howard), date. 2. PresidentsUnited StatesStaffBiography, 3. Nixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous), 19131994Friends and associates. 4. Watergate Affair, 19721974. 5. SpiesUnited StatesBiography. 6. United States. Central Intelligence AgencyBiography. 7. United StatesPolitics and government, 19451989. I. Aunapu, Greg. II. Hamburg, Eric. III. Title.

E840.8.H86A3 2007

973.924092dc22

[B] 2006023009

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

With deep love, this book is dedicated to
my extraordinary wife, Laura; my children;
and my fallen comrades

I met Howard Hunt soon after arriving in Mexico City in 1951. I was a deep cover agent for the CIAdeep cover describing, I was given to understand, a category members of which were told to take extreme care not to permit anyone grounds for suspicion that one was in service to the CIA.

The rule was (perhaps it is different now) that on arriving at ones targeted post, one was informed which single human being in the city knew that you were in the CIA. That person would tell you what to do for the duration of your service in that city; he would answer such questions as you wished to put to him; and would concern himself with all aspects of your duty life.

The man I was told to report to (by someone whose real name I did not know) was Howard Hunt. Howard was ostensibly working for the State Department in the Mexican embassy as a cultural affairs adviser, if I remember correctly. In any event, I met him in his office and found him greatly agreeable but also sternly concerned with duty. He would here and there give me special minor assignments, but I soon learned that my principal job was to translate from the Spanish the huge and important book by defector Eudocio Ravines.

Ravines had been an important Communist in the Peruvian party, and he defected in the forties. He had brought forth a book called The Road from Yenan, an autobiographical account of his exciting life in the service of the Communist revolution and an extended account of the reasons for his defection.

It was a lazy assignment, in that we were not given a deadline, so that the work slogged on during and after visits, averaging one every week, by Eudocio Ravines to the house I and my wife had occupied in the region that used to be called San Angel Innpostrevolution, Villa Obregon. (We lived and worked at Calero #91.) It is a part of Mexico City on the southern slopes, leading now to the university (which back then was in central Mexico City).

It was only a couple of weeks after our meeting that Howard introduced me to Mrs. Hunt. Dorothy was a striking presence, witty and sharp, devoted to her husband and to their firstborn child, Lisa. The Hunts became frequent visitors to our house, and we went to theirs from time to time.

I learned that Howard had graduated from Brown University, and he was exercised by left-wing activity there, by the faculty, the administration, and the students. His own interest in alumni affairs made him especially interested in what I had to say about my own alma mater. My book God and Man at Yale was published in mid-October 1951, and I shook free for one weeks leave to travel to New York to figure in the promotion that attended the books publication.

My book attracted a great deal of publicity, and two publications offered me jobs. One was The Freeman, the highbrow fortnightly edited by Henry Hazlitt, Forrest Davis, and John Chamberlain. The accent there was heavily on economic issues. The American Mercury was owned and edited by William Bradford Huie, a veteran journalist and novelist, and he also asked me to join his staff.

But I went back to Mexico and to my project with Ravines, and persevered in my friendship with the Hunt family. In the early spring of the next year, 1952, I yielded to the temptation to go into journalism. The project with Ravines was pretty well completed when I called on Howard to tell him I had decided to quit the agency.

Our friendship was firm, and Howard came several times to Stamford, Connecticut, where my wife and I were camped down. I never knewand he was very discreet aboutwhat he was up to, but I assumed, correctly, that he was continuing his work for the Central Intelligence Agency. I was greatly moved by Dorothys message to me that summerthat she and Howard were joining the Catholic communion, and wanted me to serve as godfather for their two children (daughter Kevan was now born). Later, the invitation extended to serve for their son, St. John, though by now the family had moved to the Far East, and years passed without my seeing Howard.