The Spy Who Came In From The Cold

In 1973, thousands of people watched the seemingly endless testimony of Watergate figures - McCloud, Halderman, Strachan, Chapin, Magruder, and others - on television.  But the actual hearings were attended by only a few hundred people.  On Monday, September 24, I attended both the morning and afternoon sessions when the hearings resumed after a brief late summer recess.

After long hours of waiting, I and several other spectators solemnly filed past the blue uniformed guards who carefully checked each one for weapons, up the long, winding gray marble stairs, and into the spacious Senate Caucus Room, still 15 minutes before the Senate Select Watergate Committee resumed its hearings, taking seats in the last row or leaning against the back wall and large pillars.

Convicted Watergate conspirator, E. Howard Hunt Jr., 54, an ex-CIA agent, looking pale, thin and physically weak, was present to testify as to how he had become involved in the bugging and break-in of Democratic National Committee's Watergate Headquarters.  Hunt spoke for the first time publically about "the events which have befallen me."  

Hunt and his lawyer faced the solemn Senate Select Watergate Committee: Senator Lowell Wicker (R-CT), Senator Edward J. Gurney (R-FL), Senator Howard H. Baker, Jr. (R-TN), Senator Sam J. Erwin, Jr., chairman, Sam Dash, Chief Council, Senator Herman Talmadge (D-GA), Senator Daniel Inoyue (D-HI), and Senator Joseph M. Montoya (D-NM).

I heard recently that as a young lawyer Hillary Rodham (later Clinton) helped investigate Watergate.  She likely attended the hearing that day but I would not have known who she was.

To Hunt's left, a row of television cameras, lights powerful, glaring; photographers bobbing in and out, flashbulbs flashing until Hunt strongly protested; to his right sitting at long tables or leaning against the walls and pillars were reporters, news analysts - Sam Donaldson, Sally Quinn, Carl Stern, Daniel Shore, and others members of the press. 

Hunt read aloud a brief opening statement, his voice dry and lifeless, making it clear that he felt betrayed by his government.  He testified about his part in Watergate.  After the hearing was over for the day, Hunt rose slowly, warmly embraced his grown children, and was led away to spend the night at a Federal Bureau of Prisons "safe house".  Hunt would serve 33 months in prison for the crime and emerge a broken man.

Leaving the Senate Caucus Room, I paused briefly in the crowded rotunda for a last look back, turned and walked slowly down the winding gray marble stairs.  Behind me was almost a year of Watergate - "a third-rate burglary" as the White House once described it; the Senate Watergate Hearings - a "three ring circus" as its detractors referred to it; and E. Howard Hunt, Jr., - the spy who came in from the cold and did not like it.