PUBLICATION CLEARANCE - HUNT, EVERETTE HOWARD, JR.
Agency: CIA
Originator: CIA
From: WITHHELD
To: CHIEF, SECURITY CONTROL STAFF
Document date: 4/1/53
Document type: PAPER-TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

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1 April 1953

MEMORANDUM FOR: Chief, Security Control Staff

SUBJECT:

Publication Clearance - HUNT, Everette Howard, Jr.

1. Mr.Hunt is Deputy Chief of a Field Station of the Western

Hemisphere Division and he has been operating under a State Department

cover.

2. Mr. Hunt has been granted security clearances for several

novels during his employment with this Agency. In 1949, just prior

to employment with CIA, he published Day of the Serpent, a fictional

work on OSS in China.

He has achieved considerable national prom

inence as an author of World War II stories.

3o His full name is Everette Howard Hunt, JI.

The manuscript

just submitted carries the name Howard Hunt on the title page. His

PHS includes the nickname "Howie" with the explanation that this is

his nom de plume. On the last page of his PHS he stated that an

estimated one million pocket edition copies of two of his books are

in circulation.

His present publisher, Faucett publications, Inc.,

New York, publishes the 25 and 35 cent books which are sold in

drugstores, newstands, hotels, stations, ete., throughout the United

States. It seems quite probable that Mr. Hunt would be known as a

writer by persons in the Latin American country where he is now

• stationed and that his work will be read by some Latin Americans even

though it is in inglish. It is not known whether or not the pocket

book publishing companies have exported their publications in

Spanish editions to Latin America:

objectionable aspects in the novel when it-is considered in com

bination with the fact. that the author is ostensibly a State Department

employee stationed in Latin America.

- 5. For instance, the theme of the book seems to be that the

nythical country which is the locale of the story is representative

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Protect.oo

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INSTRUCTION NOT FELLOWED.

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of latin America.

It is the impression of the undersigned, as a

reader, that the author speaking through his characters regards the

Latin Americans as ignorant, corrupt, homicidal savages. Some

passages which tend to support this inference appear below.

p. 16 I and also p. 125 f, The American Consul - Any

particular reason for a revolution now? ros Does there have to

be a particular reason in South America? xxx"

p. 41 1, Sr. Pedro Icaza - "ox In terms of your North

American armies,

latin armies are laughable. yo that is the

rule in this part of the world, xxx An army has no patriotic

loyalty that holds it to the side of the government. xo?

p. 58 f, Sr. Beltran - "Los Indios too they provide a

stolid background before which the live percent struggles

and fails or wins. ox We have mestizos roor the mixed blood

gives an unbelievable shrewdness, a barbaric ruthlessness to

its possessors."

It would seem that the author's fixation in regard to the superiority

of the Nordic to the Latin and Indian races, which permeates the

entire novel, would be most offensive to Latin Americans.

The Latin

Americans might well argue that Mr. Hunt, like Erskine Caldwell,

has taken a sample of the 1lliterate, amoral minority in Latin

America and used it to depict a whole culture.

6. In a soliloquy on p. 149, Mr. Hunt's North American hero,

Selden, describes Latin American males as though they are suffering

from a racial or southern continental satyriasis. His play upon

the expressions "muchos huevos" and "cajones" conveys the impression

that the author suffers from a fixation that the Latin American

males as a whole are a race of bravos.

The description of this

characteristic, which he appears to attribute to them, is belabored

through the mouth of Fedder, a Nazi refugee on p. 100. "It is the

curse of this continent. Always the men must wear pistols.

They

must wear spurs and carry small whips around their wrists and have

half a dozen mistresses of whom they boastso that no man can

question their machismo so Again, on p. 105 I, Carlitos, who 15

a character of sutficient importance to be intended as a local type",

is made to say, "In this country of mine complete vengeance is held

to be the killing of an enemy and the savage rape of his wife or

daughter. When one has achieved such vengeance, one realizes that

life can offer no greater triumph. It is then that death becomes

mimportant ox. It is the nature of our blood." This sort of

writing might be said by Latin Americans to indicate that the authoris

thinking is rooted in the discredited theories of Racism. If, as

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effect to a Commmist novel depicting America as a gangster. culture:

7. The women of Latin America are not ignored. Aside from

brutal passages of stark, sexual realism and sadism involving a

prostitute (p. 140, 155) and & papoint study of the confused semi-

superstitious religious attitude of the pregnant nistress of the

President who betrays him (p. 297) - the description of the latter

incident might offend persons of the dominant religion in South

America - Mr. Hunt has Seldon, his North American hewo, observe on

I have seen of your women, there should be many such."

8. Mr. Hunt also indulges through his characters in some

sophisticated, political philosophizing, which it attributed to a

State Department or lA employee might be argued to be a deterministic

philosophy of Defeatism, The following passages seem to support this

maference:

p. 18, the American Consul - "I'" not trying to sell the

thing we call Democracy down here. I tried it for 6 months -

five years ago - and haven't bothered since. They thought I

was crazy."

p. 82, Seldon, the American hero, - xxxthe world has been

deceived by propagandists into believing that peace is mankind' s

goal, when the contrary has been displayed in the nature of

p. 84-86, Selden comments cynically on the change of

propaganda once the Germans and Japanese were defeated; and on

our need to put our own house in order before exporting

"international wisdom or devotion to principles."

9. At present, there is a committee of Congress investigating

pocket book publications sold on newstands and in drugstores which

include pornographic or sadistic passages. Congressional objection

is not to this school of literature but to the fact that Fawcett

Fublishing Company and others profit from its sale to adolescents

in 25 cent editions. Artistically, Mr. Hunt wight be said to be a

stark realist. Some passages which might be criticized as salacious

or vulgar are indicated belows

p. 54, (in the middle of the page) - The rejoinder of

Ines when she is rejected.

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the priso

•Po 60, → Ihe desariptioniol a lottery with a virgin as

prostito, moro Cotalled denaripton of the torture at the

ar the 15o De velourity as the dialoguo on tibe top hers

po 2uh, - The nilger dialogas on the loner ball or the

pIg.

P. 250, tho philosophiring an minis urge to reproduction.

It alght be emberrassing to both the state Department and CIA

10. On Do Lal I thare 1e i description os un Argentine movie

a tread he be or are on to lonel doretor and me 1e

Hi. Hunt's cover aight result In

enerrasmt 11 thin pisanto on to the attention of Argentine

offician.

L1. In tele, ther poir to be moverml faotore which indicate

that the best interents of cal"mond not be servo, 1 security

clearance In erinted fer this novel here Mr. Hunt 18 employed by

chia Agnay and

apoetally, while he 10 under State Department

cover. It ident bo that the une of a proudonyn combined with a

agreement nith his publinher not to dimelone bia Identity or delayed

03

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