Bill Crider can correct me if I am wrong as he has the Nevins
interview with James Atlee Phillips handy but my memory of it
is that James and his brother David avoided contact for
years. This is logical as James was writing the Joe Gall
series about semi-rogue contract agent who disliked the
agency and David was a top CIA official. It had to be awkward
for David. Whether there was any conflict over the Bay of
Pigs or anything else, I have no idea. James did say in the
interview that he actually traveled to each of the countries
featured in the series.
All this ex-spook discussion, reminded me that I met Richard
Helms, former CIA head, after he retired. One time I ran into
him at a TV production studio in Washington and went over and
shook his hand. He was a little surprised but not unpleased
at being recognized. At that time I was still wearing a
Montagnard tribesman bracelet given to me in Vietnam. In the
twenty years I wore that bracelet, Helms was one of only six
or eight people to recognize it's origin. He asked me when I
served in Vietnam. I asked him how he had guessed that and he
just pointed to my bracelet. At that moment I remembered that
when he was in Vietnam he had been in charge of the Phoenix
program that orchestrated the "elimination" of scores of
VC-leaning village and province leaders.
He was so friendly I ventured to ask what he thought of E.
Howard Hunt. Helms twitched a shoulder, scowled and said
dismissively, "He was a romantic."
Richard Moore
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