Reporter: A Memoir by Hersh Seymour M

Author:Hersh, Seymour M. [Hersh, Seymour M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Journalism, Politics, Journalists, Memoir, Biography, Autobiography, History, Non-Fiction
ISBN: 9780525521587
Goodreads: 57119508
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2018-06-05T07:00:00+00:00

· THIRTEEN ·

Watergate, and Much More

I had one thing going for me as I slunk into the Watergate scandal. It came off a tip I had received a month or two earlier but had ignored. A friend from the New York publishing world told me that a freelance writer named Andrew St. George, who had ties to the anti-Castro Cuban community in Miami, was circulating a book outline about the experience of Frank A. Sturgis, one of the five men who had been caught burglarizing the Democratic National Committee offices in Washington.

My initial response had been, more or less, “What does this have to do with the war in Vietnam?” Now, given my new assignment, I began calling around to get a copy of the outline. One of St. George’s most explosive claims, based on what he said were a series of interviews with Sturgis, was that Sturgis had done political surveillance of Democrats in Washington as well as being part of a team that was investigating drug trafficking in Central America. I wondered whether investigating meant smuggling. All of this allegedly was done at the direction of Howard Hunt, a former CIA officer who was linked to the Watergate break-in team. St. George’s reputation in the New York publishing world was spotty, but he had won prizes in the late 1950s for his photographs of the Cuban revolution and apparently had gotten a contract, for minimal money, for a book based on interviews with Sturgis. I called him and we had a meeting at which it became clear that the likable St. George was extremely eager for me to write a story about his book project. I told him that would never happen unless he could produce Sturgis for me and prove that the two had the relationship he claimed. A few days later St. George, who died in 2001, told me that a meeting with Sturgis was on; the three of us, if I was still serious, were to have dinner in a few nights with Sturgis at Joe’s Stone Crab, a famous high-end seafood joint in Miami Beach.

We met, had a drink, and St. George told a sullen Sturgis that I was a hotshot who was interested in writing a story about the book they were doing. Sturgis, craggy-faced and deeply tanned, did not seem very interested in anything St. George said. I had done some homework and knew Sturgis had fought with Fidel Castro in the late 1950s to overthrow the dictatorship of the U.S.-supported Batista regime but had turned against Castro when, as Cuba’s leader, Castro embraced communism. By 1972, Sturgis had been involved in anti-Castro activities for more than a decade, with or without the help of the CIA. After a drink or two, St. George got up to go to the bathroom. Sturgis gave me a look and asked if I had a rental car. I said yes. He said, “Let’s go,” and began to slide out of our booth. It was a very brief moment of truth for me.

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