ADVANCE PRAISE
“Sassy and brassy. True to form.”
— Barbara Mikulski, U.S. Senator
“Kevin Cowherd has captured the remarkable and unedited Ed Hale story. From East Baltimore to the world of espionage, his personal life and many legacies bring to life as to how one person could have accomplished so much for our community. This book is a must read for political junkies. Thank you Ed Hale for being willing to share your adventures. I hope this book will inspire other visionaries to follow their dreams.”
— Ben Cardin, U.S. Senator
“The story of Ed Hale would fit neatly into one of the rags to riches books by Horatio Alger. He is an example of the can do attitude that quickly propelled America to the pinnacle of the economic world. He is a personal friend who has benefitted Baltimore greatly.”
— Benjamin S. Carson Sr., MD
Emeritus Professor of Neurosurgery, Oncology, Plastic Surgery and Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins Medicine
President and CEO American Business Collaborative, LLC
“I’ve known Ed for years as a friend, neighbor, businessman and advisor—at least I thought I did. Even longtime associates will see Ed anew after reading this candid and insightful biography of a real Baltimore legend. Ed is a brilliant visionary willing to take on projects no one else believes possible, most often with great success. But at the heart of Ed’s often wild and outrageous stories is a man who feels truly compelled to leave his community better than he found it. This book confirmed for me what I have always known about Ed Hale: expect the unexpected.”
— Dutch Ruppersberger, U.S. Representative
Hale Storm
The Incredible Saga
of Baltimore’s Ed Hale,
Including a Secret Life with the CIA
Hale Storm
The Incredible Saga
of Baltimore’s Ed Hale,
Including a Secret Life with the CIA
Kevin Cowherd
Copyright © 2014 by Kevin Cowherd
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission from the publisher (except by reviewers who may quote brief passages).
First Edition
Printed in the United States of America
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-62720-035-6
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-62720-036-3
Design by Apprentice House
Cover photo by Karen Jackson
Published by Apprentice House
Apprentice House Press
Loyola University Maryland
4501 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21210
410.617.5265 • 410.617.2198 (fax)
www.ApprenticeHouse.com [email protected]
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
— Theodore Roosevelt
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As legions of journalists can attest, interviewing Ed Hale is an experience like no other.
His cell phone rings incessantly. Or it beeps with a fresh text or email from business connections, attorneys, friends or family members. If you’re talking to him in his Rosedale office, his long-time secretary, Cindy Smith, might buzz to tell him about a call waiting on his land-line or a package that recently arrived. Or she’ll whisk silently into the room with budget figures for him to examine or papers to sign.
All of it commands his immediate attention, because Hale would rather drive a nail through his eyeball than miss a timely message that could lead to his next business deal or the next great adventure in his life.
Nevertheless, he was unfailingly gracious during these interruptions and extremely generous with his time throughout this project.
All told, we talked for nearly 75 hours about his life. We talked about everything from his modest upbringing in eastern Baltimore County, the ups and downs of his incredible business career and his hitherto-unrevealed service with the Central Intelligence Agency to the rocky periods of his two marriages, his relationships with his three children and the bevy of beautiful women he’d dated over the years.
We talked in restaurants, fast-food joints, bars and coffee shops. We talked at his home in Miller’s Island, with its spectacular views of the Back River, Middle River and Chesapeake Bay. We talked in a rain-soaked duck blind as he hunted with friends on his 186-acre farm in Talbot County.
(As a biographer, you haven’t lived until you’ve conducted an interview with shotguns blasting around you, hunters whooping deliriously, the smell of spent shells wafting through the air and waterfowl dropping from the skies like doomed warplanes in battle.)
We talked on a crowded MARC train returning to Baltimore from Washington D.C., where we had met with his former CIA handler, David Miller, and Steve Kappes, the former Deputy Director of the agency, to go over what we could include in the book about Ed’s years of service there.
We talked in his luxury automobiles as we zipped along the streets of Highlandtown, where he was born, and Sparrow’s Point and Edgemere, where he grew up. We talked outside Pot Spring House, the historic Timonium mansion in which he once lived, and on walking tours of Canton, where his vision helped transform a bleak landscape of toxic waste sites, coal ash and rotting piers into a vibrant slice of Baltimore waterfront.
We talked on several occasions in the Baltimore Blast locker room, once after a disheartening loss and right before coach Danny Kelly delivered a brilliantly profane and hilarious (well, if you weren’t a player) dressing-down of his team that threatened to peel paint off the walls and leave little old ladies in the hallway in shock.
This does not include the hundreds and hundreds of texts we exchanged from April of 2013 until the fall of 2014.
(A personal favorite: on a morning when I was whining about some family obligation I was dreading, Ed texted to let me know his day wasn’t shaping up so great, either: “Fucking beautiful! I’m goin’ to my tax accountant and then to get my prostate checked. Yeah, baby!!!”
(Thus confirming that for a biographer, there is no such thing as too much information.)
For all the candor Ed showed, all the cooperation he provided, all the access he gave to family members and friends, and all the contact information he provided about those who played a significant role in his life, both good and bad, I am deeply grateful.
Others who cheerfully offered their assistance and gave of their time in the making of this book include:
Bill Atkinson, Kevin Atticks, Marty Bass, Karen Bokram, Barry Bondroff, John Buren, Edie Brown,