3

THAT NIGHT, ROSEN AND I WENT TO HARVEY’S RESTAURANT. IF GOING OUT to dinner together after the Thursdays was now a habit, it came from no growing affection. I had arrived, however, at the glum conclusion that Rosen was at least as smart as myself, and knew a lot more of what was going on in the Company. He had not only managed to strike up an acquaintance with a variety of experts and many a desk, but had kept up a correspondence with everyone he knew in the field. One of Rosen’s heroes, paradoxically, was Ernest Hemingway (paradoxically, I say, since what kind of welcome would Arnie have gotten if Hemingway did not even cotton to Robert Cohn?). No matter, Rosen knew Papa’s sayings, and believed that an intelligence officer, like a novelist, should have a friend in every occupation: research scientist, bartender, football coach, accountant, farmer, waiter, doctor, so forth. Ergo, Rosen worked his tables in the Company cafeteria, and never seemed to worry about the size of the greeting. Half of what I knew about Agency secrets, hushed-up fiascoes, or internal power struggles among our leaders came from him, and I noticed that Hugh Montague was not above inviting Arnie to dinner once a month. “It’s like examining the contents of a vacuum cleaner,” Harlot once complained. “There’s an abundance of lint, but you can’t ignore the chance that you’ll find a cuff link.”

A cruel estimate, but for me, Rosen’s tidbits were undeniably interesting. He could, for example, fill me in on Berlin. Dix Butler had been writing back to him, and I heard a lot about Bill Harvey, who apparently did not even get three hours of sleep these days. That was the word from Dix. Contemplating the red flock wallpaper in Harvey’s Restaurant, I was taken with the serendipity of the occasion. One was dining in an establishment founded a century ago by a man with the same last name; now, at the other end of the restaurant I saw that J. Edgar Hoover was in the act of being seated with Clyde Tolson. I had even been able to observe that the Director of the Bureau proceeded to his table with the heavy grace of an ocean liner. Having heard from C.G.’s lips of the simple inhumanity of Mr. Hoover, I could contrast his massive sense of self-importance with the kindly, limping, gout-ridden gait of Allen Dulles.

Rosen whispered to me, “Did you know that Hoover and Tolson are lovers?”

I misunderstood him. “You mean they have a roving eye for women?”

“No! They are lovers. With each other.”

I was shocked. After Berlin, this was upsetting stuff. “That’s a little too horrendous to contemplate,” I told him.

Whereupon Rosen went back to Harvey. Did I want to hear more? I did.

“One joke making the rounds,” said Rosen, “is that Wild Bill keeps getting teased about his adopted daughter. His friends tell him she ought to be given a medical examination. The KGB could have planted a subcutaneous sneaky before they deposited the baby on the doorstep. Harvey becomes tight as a tick. The possibility eats at him. It’s implausible, but Harvey’s under a lot of strain these days.”

“You heard this from Dix?”

“How not?”

“Is he faring well?”

“Says to tell you Berlin is glum now that the tunnel is gone.”

At the next High Thursday, Harlot would also speak of CATHETER. His guests that day were the most impressive single gathering we were to have at any of the seminars. In addition to Mr. Dulles, Frank Wisner was there, and Desmond FitzGerald, Tracy Barnes, Lawrence Houston, Richard Bissell, Dick Helms, Miles Copeland, and there were four or five unfamiliar faces who I could see were Agency moguls. The set of their shoulders, so quietly supporting one or another unholy weight, spoke of elevated rank. Rosen whispered that this lofty gang would all be moving off afterward to a dinner Allen Dulles was giving at his home for Harlot.

This was one time when I knew as much as he did. In the morning, there had been an unexpected visitor at the Argentina-Uruguay Desk. The future Chief of Station for Montevideo stopped by for a chat. Transferred from Tokyo in July, he had come into the office one morning when I was out on an errand, had introduced himself around, and promptly disappeared.

“You won’t see him again till Christmas,” said Crosby, my section chief. As with other long-emplaced deskmen, nine-tenths of his knowledge was on the dark side. So I heard a good deal about my new COS before I met him. His name was Hunt, E. Howard Hunt, and he was putting in his Washington time paying calls on Director Dulles, General Cabell, Frank Wisner, Tracy Barnes.

“Maybe he has to,” I said, “as new Chief of Station.”

“That’s right,” said Crosby. “Chief of Station, and he hasn’t even hit forty. Probably wants to be DCI some day.”

I liked Hunt when I met him. Of medium height, with a good trim build and well-groomed presence, he looked semimilitary. His long pointed nose had an indentation just above the tip that suggested a good deal of purpose in his trigger finger. He certainly came right to the point.

“I’m glad to meet you, Hubbard,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of house to keep in the upcoming tour. In fact, I’m on the wicket right now trying to talk a few of our Company tycoons into letting us beef up the Station. They all cry, ‘Hide the wampum. Howard Hunt is raiding us again!’ But it’s the truth, Hubbard. In Intelligence, the secret way to spell effective is M-O-N-E-Y.”

“Yessir.”

He looked at his watch with a gesture that had as many fine moves as a well-timed salute. “Now, fellow,” he said, “we’re going to get to know each other well, but for the nonce, I’m asking for a boon.”

“Yours.”

“Good. Get me an invitation to Hugh Montague’s thing this afternoon.”

“Yessir.” I wasn’t sure I could fulfill his request. When he saw the hesitation in my response, he added, “If you come up short, I can always go over the top. It’s no stretch to say that Director Dulles and Dickie Helms are friends of mine, and I know they’ll be there.”

“Well, that is the sure way to do it,” I confessed.

“Yes,” he said, “but I’d rather owe this favor to you than to Mr. Dulles.”

“I understand,” I said.

“Get me into the dinner as well,” he added.

When he was gone, I called Harlot’s secretary, Margaret Pugh.

“I don’t know if we want to invite Mr. Hunt,” she said. “He’s trying to breed up.”

“Could you see it as a favor to me?”

“I know.” She sighed. The sound told me much. She was sixty years old and professionally stingy. I had, however, whenever we spoke to one another, done my best to improve her day, and she did keep accounts.

“I’m in the mood to hear a good joke,” she said. “Tell me one.”

Crosby had furnished a two-liner that morning, but I wasn’t certain it could qualify as good. “Why won’t Baptists,” I asked her, “make love standing up?”

“Why won’t they?”

“Because people might think they were dancing.”

“Oh, you are wicked,” she said. “Oh, dear, oh, dear.” But she sounded merry. “I’m going to do it,” she decided. “I am going to enable Howard Hunt to mingle with his betters. When Hugh looks at the guest list—which he pretends not to—I will tell him that it was all my fault, and that I did it to start you nicely in South America. Harry, don’t confess that it originated with you. Not under any circumstances. Hugh does not believe I can be suborned. I’m serious,” she said, as if she could perceive me smiling—which I was—“you have to hold the line.”

“I swear.”

“He has no humor about his friends getting through to me.”

“I swear.”

“Oh, you don’t know,” she said, “how much I’d like to charge you for this.”