I’ve been called many things since the foiled break-in of Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex, including a criminal mastermind, a bungling burglar, and even a bad spy novelist. I don’t know which accusation hurts most. Two are outrageous overstatements and one is a matter of opinion. Need I explain which is which? Whatever the case, none of them describes the whole man, and all disregard over two decades of service to the United States, first as a sailor in World War II, then as an OSS (Office of Strategic Services) operative, segueing into many years as a CIA agent.
While I occasionally consent to do the odd interview about the Watergate era, the early 1970s is not a time that I like to remember. I have barely entered my study, written a word, or looked at any mementos in years. But recent blockbuster headlines shouting that former FBI deputy director Howard Felt was Bob Woodward’s secret source—known worldwide by the shameful title of Deep Throat, which I believe he deserves—have stirred a wasps’ nest of negative memories for me that I have otherwise learned to suppress from day to day.
The revelations prompted me to delve through some old files, where I found my prison diary covering thirty-three months in prison. The contents are terse and abbreviated, the handwriting as small as I could scribble in order to conserve precious ink and paper, which was in short supply. In it, I describe the many trials (literally) and tribulations that were my reward for trying to protect my president.
If I had known that the president and his staff were deriding me as a bungler, I might have behaved differently and not tried to take the blame for my superiors, ending up with a thirty-five-year provisional sentence by perjuring myself in front of the grand jury. I wouldn’t find out about the insults heaped upon me by the rats in the president’s sinking ship until the White House tapes were seized and made public under the power of subpoena.
In addition to these slurs, Nixon had some other interesting asides. In one famous conversation, he opines that my involvement in Watergate will open up “the whole Bay of Pigs thing,” which will be “very bad for Hunt and bad for the CIA.” What did he mean by this? Why did he complain that “this fellow Hunt knows too damned much”? These are questions that roiled around in my brain for a while but whose urgency has diminished over the years. It is time to explore them now.
It isn’t going to be easy to relive my life by writing this book. As a result of Watergate, my wife was killed in a plane crash, during a flight she would never have been on if the failed Watergate operation had been aborted as I had requested several times. My children were left almost as orphans for three years while I was on my “government-sponsored vacation,” doing hard labor along with murderers. My two oldest daughters blamed me for the catastrophes in their lives, while my two older sons had difficulties before straightening out their lives in recent years.
Ultimately, some good things happened, too. While in prison, I met Laura, who has become my second wife and second life. After I was released from prison, we lived in Guadalajara, Mexico, for several years, where I resumed writing some of my better works, before we moved back to Miami. We have two children, Hollis and Austin, who live with us and are supportive of this effort to explain and analyze the past.
As I reflect on my life and career at age eighty-eight, it is hard to believe that I have crammed so many dramatic and historical events into one lifetime. I have learned many—too many—lessons about service, honor, loyalty, and betrayal, and the meaning of love and family. At times, I did things that I am not proud of. But I did them believing that what I was doing was in the best interests of my country. I have no regrets.
But I do have a story to tell.