IN PRINT: Talking to …

John H. Richardson

Scott Dickensheets

Journalist John H. Richardson recently published My Father the Spy: An Investigative Memoir. It's his attempt to get at the truth about his father, a CIA official who was good at keeping secrets. In contrast to the scandal over the fabrications in James Frey's memoir, A Million Little Pieces, Richardson's story is one of establish a solid truth, to uncover evidence that will build a more complete portrait of a man he knew only partially.



Spies and journalists would seem opposites in a lot of ways. Is there any overlap?


Spies and journalists do pretty much the same job, for the most part. There's very little breaking into offices and photographing with tiny cameras. Mostly they are all about developing sources and analyzing intelligence. The main difference are the stakes and the client. But that's enough to make these two very similar processes radically different from an emotional point of view. You can imagine it yourself. One struggles to open up, the other to stay closed. I think the spies pay the heavier burden.



You tried several times to write the magazine article on which this book is based. What made it so difficult?


I couldn't really write the story while my father was alive. I'm not sure why. I think there's truth to what [Esquire editor] David Granger said to me, about "using your reporting to avoid judging your father." And I suppose I didn't see the story as finished. I still don't feel like the story is finished in any shape or form. It just ended. I suppose that's why the book ends so abruptly. But I do like that abrupt ending—like a window slamming shut.



Thoughts on the James Frey memoir flap?


I have a lot of reactions to James Frey's shameful behavior, but here's the important one: The great idea of Alcoholics Anonymous is that you can overcome your addictions through a "searching and fearless moral inventory of yourself" and by sharing that difficult truth with others. This has been a big inspiration in my life. In fact, I almost put the AA slogan "You're Only as Sick as Your Secrets" on my tribute page. I believe that honesty is not just good for the soul but good for society, binding us together in our common travails. So I'm dismayed at that level, which goes to the essential truth of his book. As a writer of journalism, I can't help feeling that every time a nonfiction writer betrays his craft and his discipline and his audience and justifies it with some horseshit about true lies, it becomes easier for politicians and Hollywood hustlers and intellectual poseurs and religious fanatics to shovel shit in our faces and call it flowers.



You got arrested while covering an environmentalist who tried to disrupt an Arizona mountain-lion hunt. What's the status of that?


Oh geez, Scott. Didya have to bring that up? I'm still facing a federal charge of interfering with a Forest Service officer, even though I was never anywhere near any actual Forest Service officer. But the feds are relentless. The judge dismissed all the charges against me and they just rewrote them and brought them back again. It's like a horror movie, and a real education in the justice system. Keep an eye on Esquire for the whole sick story.

  • Get More Stories from Thu, Jan 19, 2006
Top of Story