E. Howard Hunt (Dean)

When the Watergate "caper," as it was then called, was unfolding, I had just entered my 'teens. I did not then have either a probing intellect or an insightful intuition about politics.  Nothing has changed over the years in this respect, so when I read yesterday evening that E. Howard Hunt had died, Norman Mailer, of all things, came to mind.  This is because I loved reading his Harlot's Ghost about fifteen years ago, in which Hunt was portrayed as an odd character on a few of the tome's 1300 pages.

To get a sense of how Mailer depicted Hunt, this excerpt from a review of the book by Wilfrid Sheed, published in the New York Review of Books, v.38, no.20, p.41 (Dec. 5, 1991), should do the trick:

Howard Hunt is the author's second "real" character of any consequence, and once more Mailer has probably tailored him to his own specifications, leaving only the name and a persona that doesn't jar too grossly with the facts. At any rate, Mailer's version is a very model of Yankee bella figura, the kind of dude who likes nothing better than to conduct his dirty business while hosing down his polo pony or exchanging gorgeously insincere after-dinner speeches with his hosts about the undying love between our great countries. Hunt's normal agenda is as busy and vacuous as a day in the life of a Jane Austen heroine, and the high point of his bureau's activities during Hubbard's stay is the taping of an adultery in the Russian embassy, the publication of which will, it is hoped, cause one of the Russians to defect in a rage, though with what object nobody bothers to ask any more. It will simply give us someone else to debrief, re-brief and worry about and a temporary psychological edge—in Uruguay! Still it must be done. An agency can't just sit there.

The first "real" character implied here by Sheed is William Harvey, the CIA's station chief in Berlin, whom Mailer depicts, marvelously to me, as a superhuman gin guzzler. Sheed explains,

Whatever the real William Harvey may have been like, Mailer's recreation is a true likeness of someone, and whoever it is is made to order for that spy novelist's gold mine, postwar Berlin. A James Bond who is built like a pear and has to throw up periodically, Harvey comes across as at once grandiose and seedy, a dandy who can fart at will and an all-round bilious interloper at the CIA branch of the Yale drama school. If the game is to acquire information that you don't need as sensationally as possible, he will by God go all the way and build a tunnel right under the enemy's ass to get it—just the kind of caper to make one a legend in the agency, which is all, one suspects, that most of these people really want.

Okay, Sheed's review is long, and my copied excerpts test the limits of fair use, but Mailer's book is monumental and I don't have it at hand, so you get the nutshell version. My point is to suggest the kind of perverse pleasure I enjoyed while reading the book—Sheed's own critical swagger fairly emulates Mailer's literary muscle-flexing—and to explain, approximately, why this news of Hunt's demise makes me want to reread the book.

The obituary sounds a few notes from days gone by that harmonize eerily with today's news.  As a CIA agent Hunt engaged in "political warfare," "a terror campaign", "dirty tricks, sabotage and propaganda." "He recognized no lawful limit on presidential power, convinced that 'when the president does it,' as Nixon once said, 'that means it is not illegal.'" And there is this quote from a protagonist in one of Hunt's many mystery novels: "We become lawless in a struggle for the rule of law — semi-outlaws who risk their lives to put down the savagery of others...."

Different times, different tyrannies, but hopelessly common human frailties. Mailer's book makes it fun, he helps us to sublimate the misdeeds that don't "jar too grossly with the facts." Perhaps I'll wait for Hunt's posthumous autobiography, noted in the obit, before I revisit Mailer's bulky caricature. Perhaps I won't be able to tell the difference between the two.

Comments

[Ruchira Paul]

Dean,
After you drew my attention to Hunt whose death I only noted in passing during the evening news, I read the NYT obituary with some interest. Two hitherto unknown facts that jumped out at me were:

1. William F. Buckley Jr., the erudite conservative with the perpetually raised eyebrow, was a CIA man and a dear friend of Hunt!
2. How thoroughly ruthless and inept most CIA operations are. (Actually, about this one I had a few ideas.)

Recently, when the movie, The Good Shepherd was released, there were many stories about the CIA and how its biggest recruiting ground used to be Yale University. I can quite imagine the hubris of these elite recruits who considered the world their oyster to recklessly tinker with. It is quite hilarious at some level that they were in reality a bunch of bumbling, bungling, amoral pointy heads. But if one is the citizen of a country which the "spooks" target for their "dirty tricks, sabotage and propaganda," one must feel unadulterated terror and revulsion. And the fact that the KGB too was operating pretty much the same way during the forty odd years of the cold war and the world of espionage was more Spy vs Spy of Mad Magazine than John le Carré, it is a wonder that we weren't blown to bits.

Thanks for sharing this very interesting story. I haven't read Mailer's book about Hunt. May be now I will. ( although having tackled two hefty tomes recently and currently in the midst of a third, I will be reading slim volumes for a while) But Hunt's posthumous autobiography will be surely worth checking out.

As I said to you before, are you sure he's dead?

[Dean C. Rowan]

Make no mistake: Mailer's book isn't about Hunt. It's about a fictional young agent and his assorted (and sordid) intrigues. It's also about the CIA, particularly the CIA you imagine in your middle paragraph above. Hunt is one of a handful of "real" characters--including Harvey, Kennedy, Giancanna, etc.--who contribute verisimilitude to Mailer's allegory. They also serve to create an effect on the reader similar that experienced by the protagonist, namely, a creeping uncertainty as to who is genuine and who is made up. Fascinating fun.

[Ruchira Paul]

Okay, you've convinced me. Even if I don't put Harlot's Ghost on my ever lengthening Amazon list, I will find it in the library.

Don't you wish writers like Mailer and Gore Vidal were sounder of body (in Mailer's case, also of mind) right now? Although Mailer's latest book, The Castle In The Forest gets 5 stars on Amazon, the premise appeared rather bizarre to me in the review I read. I don't think I will read it. Mailer and Vidal and even John le Carré in their prime, would have had a ball with the Bush-Cheney administration. Le Carré I think has written something after the Iraqi invasion.

[Dean C. Rowan]

I've been checking bookstores for the latest Mailer, but I haven't seen it, so I figured it hadn't been published yet. (Never thought to check Amazon, go figure.) I did read a recent interview with him, and he wasn't as curmudgeonly and "out there" as I expected. Maybe he's mellowing a bit.

I haven't read much of either Mailer or Vidal, but I couldn't bring myself to discard my copy of the latter's United States, a collection of essays from some time ago, when I was weeding my collection.

Le Carré, along with Paul Theroux, is one of those authors whose works I never seem to find the time to read, even though I have the inclination. Maybe I'll look for the Mailer and the Le Carré...and the Hunt...during a visit to the public library.

[Ruchira Paul]

I started reading Le Carre in my twenties and stopped sometime in the late 1990s. His George Smiley books, particularly The Honourable Schoolboy and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy are quite fantastic. I stopped reading him after The Tailor From Panama. I don't know how much of a thrill it would be to read the same books now when the cold war is over and the USSR is dismantled. He has written a lot since then and I often think of checking out one of his newer books.

As for Paul Theroux, if you have time to read just one of his books, pick Sir Vidia's Shadow: A Friendship Across Five Continents - the bitchiest, most left handed compliment, dished out as sincere tribute to his "friend," Naipaul. Most of his other books are travelogues. I read The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia which was okay but quite lurid. I wasn't impressed. If you want to read travelogues through the same geographical area, I recommend William Dalrymple's In Xanadu about Asia in general and City of Djinns about Delhi in particular. Dalrymple's knowledge of history is much deeper and his voice much sweeter. Theroux is rough, a bit dismissive and rather snotty.

[Sujatha]

While In Xanadu was interesting, I found it amusing how the author seemed obsessed with detailing the perils of plumbing in the areas he visited trying to recreate Marco Polo's monumental voyage. Typical slightly snobby attitude for a neophyte travel writer (at that time), I guess.
Managed to read White Mughals recently, a very detailed account with tons of sources and newly discovered original documentation, casting light on the early days of British interaction with Indian culture. The emphasis of course, was on those called 'White Mughals' who adopted native ways, even religion (though that may have been merely to get married acceptably to noblewomen of their choice), with the major focus being on the love story between the British Resident in Hyderabad, James Kirkpatrick, and his eventual wife, Khair-un-nissa Begum. Quite enjoyable and very different from In Xanadu, though the level of detail can leave the reader quite exhausted with the author's eagerness to extract every last shred of meaning from the dusty old papers he must have gone through by the ton.

[m]

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