Howard Hunt, R.I.P.(on the right)(rest in peace)(Biography)

NEW YORK, JANUARY 26

My name has been linked to that of Howard Hunt, who died on January 23, and I readily acknowledge that we were associates and close friends during the period (1951-52) when I worked for the CIA in Mexico. Howard Hunt was my boss, and our friendship was such that soon after I quit the agency and returned to Connecticut, he and his wife advised me that they were joining the Catholic Church and asked if I would serve as godfather to their two daughters, which assignment I gladly accepted, continuing in close touch with them.

Not so with their father. Howard Hunt had a sensational career, including 33 months in federal prison on charges of conspiracy, wiretapping, and burglary. After leaving prison, he asked me to recommend presidential clemency, which would have had the effect of clearing his name. I told him I was reluctant to do this because in fact he had been involved in conspiracy, wiretapping, and burglary, but I was careful to say that the reason he committed these crimes was that he thought himself engaging in public service by protecting the interests of President Nixon.

He was terribly mistaken there, and in fact he was more responsible than any single other human being for bringing about Nixon's resignation. Because it was Hunt who organized the Watergate break-in, seeking to advance the partisan cause of Nixon in 1972. He had at the time already committed a crime by breaking into the offices of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist, on a mission probably authorized by Nixon's attorney general, John Mitchell.

Hunt came to see me, with one of my goddaughters, shortly after his devoted wife was killed in a plane crash. He recounted the story of Watergate, giving me information not known to the press or even to the prosecution. Notwithstanding his plight, he wore a jaunty sports coat and, pipe in hand, reported that, soon after his arrest, "I said to myself, 'Where's the fix? Why didn't they fix me up?'"

It was a genuinely appealing professional query. Hunt had lived outside the law in the service first of his country, subsequently of President Nixon. The way things had worked for him, in Mexico, in Uruguay, in Japan, was the way he expected them to work now. You break the law in pursuit of your country's interest as prescribed by your superior or by your ...