James Jesus Angleton
The CIA's longtime chief of counterintelligence; Mailer first meant to make him the center of Harlot's Ghost before inventing the fictional Hugh 'Harlot' Montague instead.
James Jesus Angleton, the CIA’s chief of counterintelligence from 1954 to 1975 — a figure of legendary paranoia and erudition — was Mailer’s original subject for Harlot’s Ghost. Mailer told the Washington Post that “initially, I was going to write about [James Jesus] Angleton,” with “a huge feud” between him and his counterpart, but decided against using a real person: to do so, “you must know him so well that you won’t misrepresent him” (91.12). Angleton’s spirit survives in the novel’s fictional spymaster Hugh “Harlot” Montague.
Stub created during the 1991 ingest.
Related pages
- Harlot’s Ghost (91.26) | 1991